Category: Shows

Crazy Horse Saloon Theater

     The Crazy Horse is show saloon, complete with a small stage for western singing and can-can dancing, as well as a bar. In keeping with the park’s family friendly atmosphere, park promotional materials make it very clear that “although it is a saloon, only soft-drinks are sold there.”

    The theater is rather small, with room for a small stage, a piano, and several tables for the guests. Four or five performers in saloon costumes sang period songs, danced on the stage and mingled with the guests.

     In keeping with the park’s historical emphasis, the entire back bar is an actual antique bar from an 1890 vintage saloon. Carpenters crafted a new front bar to conform to the original. Antique tables and chairs were acquired from a saloon in Little Rock, Arkansas.

     While there are shows and performers in all of the sections of the park, the Crazy Horse is unique in that is the park’s first indoor show. It continued as the park’s only indoor show for the first seven years of operation, until the much larger Southern Palace replaced the amphitheater in 1968. It is also the longest running theater in the park, operating continuously since the first season. Inside, the singing and dancing showgirls still entertain visitors.

    Being the only indoor theater, the Crazy Horse also served as an employee auditorium, being used for orientation sessions, training, and other meetings

    The Crazy Horse Saloon opened with the Park in 1961 and is the oldest theater in the park.

Section: Texas

Year installed: 1961

The Gunfighter Shows have been held in the Texas section since the park opened in 1961. The shows recreate the good-guy/bad-guy shoot-outs of the wild west. They are designed to be entertaining more than historically accurate. Typically they take place on the street in front of the Courthouse in the Texas Section.  Over the years, however, shows have been held in various locations around the park. In some shows, outlaws rob the Train while it is running, leading to a shoot-out in front of the Texas train station.  Shoot-outs have also been held in front of the Jersey Lilly, around the corner from the Courthouse.  

Starting in 1994, the Texas section hosted the Texas Backlot Stunt Show, an outdoor action-comedy stunt-show featured in the Texas section. Additional sets were built next to the Jersey Lilly for this show. The first show, the O.K Corral Shootout Backlot show,was tied to the release of the Warner Brother’s movie Wyatt Earp. The stunt shows continued through the 1990s.

At this time, the Gunfights continue in front of the Courthouse.