Just Kidding

... about that last posting. I'm going to stick around and blog for a little more. So, strap in kids.

I haven't performed any April Fool's pranks in ages, so the post on Friday felt strange to write.

Full disclosure: got a little verklempt typing that I was ending the blog.

What I feel more comfortable writing about are the numerous pranks that ice show skaters pulled ... usually, but not always, on the Closing Night performance.

So I present in no particular time frame ... some of my favorite ice show pranks.

(The costumes and production numbers have been changed to protect the guilty, thank you very much):

* One closing night show, all of the girls decided to skip the ugly white granny panties, we had to wear and just go with our g-strings for the ballet/peasant number that had a long, heavy skirt down to our shins. Most of the number, no one could tell, but there was a series of chaine turns towards the end, where all of our skirts flaired out just above our (bare) asses.

* Another prank in Japan was when the skaters decided to wear flu masks during the number - at least the white masks matched their white costume - which we often saw in Japan whenever someone was sick.

* Still cracks me up thinking about the time our drummer tried out his duck call at the exact point of silence between the two segments of music in the Swan Lake production.

* During a break in rehearsals, a skater was able to get a ladder, climb ten feet and change the time of the only clock in the rink ahead one hour and trick the choreographers into letting the skaters go early. (Kids, for those of you wanting to try this at home, i.e., your own local ice rink, it helps when rehearsals take place at night and everyone it pretty out of it to begin with. It also helps that the skater who changed the time was an Olympic competitor, so really, you going to argue with him?)

* I'm using the real name on this one ... I'll never forget Brian Wright's amazing solo during our Indian production number. Of course, now we say "Native American" Indians. Think teepees (the showgirls wore them) and Little Bighorn-type headresses. Brian couldn't wear the giant headress through the whole number (not very aerodynamic when attempting a double flip or lutz) so one night he took it off as usual, but kept the specially-made "arrow through the head, a la Steve Martin" on for the whole solo.

* Again, real name here ... Robin Cousins was notorious for pulling pranks and the one I saw was when he asked to take turns at being a background "tree" in a production number. The skater should have known that the Cousins tree would not stay in the background and would not stay still.

* Of course, Disney On Ice can't get away with this, but in our little amusement park show in the middle of nowhere, southern Japan, our version of Snow White had some feisty dwarfs, I tell you. One day instead of carrying the "sleeping" beauty to the special case, they dragged her. Nice!

I'll save the rest for another day or another book!