Home Photo Galleries   • 2000-2009   • 1990-1999   • 1980-1989   • 1970-1979   • 1969   • 1968   • 1967   • 1966   • 1965   • 1964   • 1963   • 1962   • 1961   • 1960   • 1950-1959   • 1949   • 1948   1962 The Great Fall Festival Heist The Fifteenth Year: April 6 and 7, 1962 Producer: Carl Johnston Director: Jim Gates Script: Walt Cash Musical Director: Bob Adolphe Choral Director: Elton Ricketts Choreographer: Pat Parlour Scenic Design: Frances DeFano Poster Program Art: Marge Hudson By Jill Benone: This is the official title of the eighteen-scene script later reworked as "Snoopy". The program indicates the show starts "High Above Verdugo Woodlands” in an air-watch helicopter. The helicopter, still in use, was built for this show. The scene moves to the "Outskirts of the Fall Festival”, where there is a plethora of characters and sideshow attractions resembling the Days of the Verdugos Carnival. The program lists various singing and dancing PTA ladies, fathers, kids, Principal Don Fiske and his secretary, a pickpocket, uniformed policemen, and detectives. The Fall Festival proceeds (several million dollars!) are stolen from a safe in Principal Fiske’s office, where his secretary, the only witness to the crime, is tied up throughout the show. Fiske is hit on the head and taken to the hospital where he suffers the tender mercies of Dr. Hackenchop. The police suspect Fiske is the villain. The PTA ladies, kids, and various detectives chase around town to find the culprit. Along the way, they encounter beatniks who hang out at The Peppermint Pussycat, a café frequented by dancers performing the Twist (remember, it’s 1962 – and I wish I’d seen that scene!). You’ll be relieved to know they succeed, and goodness and righteousness prevails. The show continues with what was obviously a black-light number in a graveyard inhabited by ghosts and skeletons. Oh, yes, Fiske recovers and the secretary, who is finally untied, identifies the real thief as the pickpocket. The script for the 1968 version, in which the air-watch helicopter pilot is Snoopy, is available. It is a very well-written and popular script, reused several times, which could be updated.