Skates Alive!; Souvenir Program

The format is approximately 8.5 inches by 13.00 inches. Unpaginated (28 pages plus covers). Decorative cover. Profusely illustrated in color. Ink notation at the bottom of the program Order of Appearance. . Rare surviving copy. An ice show is an entertainment production which is primarily performed by ice skaters. The major ice shows were founded between 1936 and 1943, when professional figure skaters began to appear in shows and "at any place a sheet of ice could be set up . They were produced and toured North America, Europe, and throughout the world for many years in the years following World War II. According to figure skating historian James R. Hines, ice shows "took spectacular skating to large audiences, contributing to the development of the sport's first major fan base". Such shows may primarily be skating exhibitions, or may be musical and/or dramatic in nature, using skating as a medium in order to accompany a musical work or to present a story. The Smurfs were featured multiple times in the Ice Capades as the act for younger audiences, the program as a whole, officially titled as Skates Alive!, was usually referred to as Smurfs Alive! or Smurfs 'N' Ice Capades. The stories presented were based on the Smurfs cartoon show and featured audio of the voice actors speaking and singing as their respective characters. The first Smurfs production number was introduced in 1982, titled The Smurfcapades Winter Talent Show. This and the 1983 show, It's Fun To Be A Smurf, were featured acts for a few years. The Ice Capades were traveling entertainment shows featuring theatrical ice skating performances. Shows often featured former Olympic and US National Champion figure skaters who had retired from formal competition. Started in 1940, the Ice Capades grew rapidly and prospered for 50 years. A decline in popularity ensued in the 1980s, and the show went out of business around 1995. There have been several attempts to revive the show and its name. Ice Capades was founded in February 1940 in Hershey, Pennsylvania, by nine men who called themselves the Arena Managers Association. They met to discuss forming an ice show to play in their arenas during the 1940-1941 entertainment season. In 1936, Harris had hired the legendary skater Sonja Henie to perform between periods of ice hockey games. She created a sensation among Pittsburghers, confirming his faith in ice skating's potential as a spectator amusement. The other arena managers agreed with this assessment, chose the name "Ice Capades", and formed a group of skaters. Ice Capades program from 1945, showing the many production numbers, and the large size of the cast. Single-themed shows had not yet been developed. The group's first performance was four months after its founding, on June 16, 1940, at New Orleans Municipal Auditorium. The show closed there on June 29 and moved to Atlantic City Convention Hall, where it played nightly from July 19 through September 2. Famous skaters in the large cast included Belita, Vera Hruba, and Robin Lee. The group's first touring season under the Ice Capades name covered 24 cities between November 1940 and May 1941. The show's success spawned two films from Republic Pictures, Ice-Capades (1941), and Ice-Capades Revue (1942). The films featured actors and entertainers such as James Ellison, Ellen Drew, Jerry Colonna, and Phil Silvers, as well as the Ice Capades skaters. They were not considered to be films of quality, and the first one was panned by The New York Times. In 1942, the show featured world champion skater Megan Taylor, new talent Donna Atwood, and an acrobatic team from Boston called the Hub Trio featuring Leonard Mullen, Kenneth Mullen and Eddie Raiche. They were the first in the world to perform a back flip without the use of hands. From 1941 through 1981, the Ice Capades show was a summertime fixture at what was then known as Atlantic City Convention Hall. Starting in 1949, Ice Capades started adding Disney's character segment to th.…