From pin-ups to Ewoks: Studies in Crap charts the tragic decline of America’s touring ice spectaculars

Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.

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Souvenir programs from assorted ice shows

Date: 1952-1985

Discovered at: Antique malls in Kansas City and Northampton, Massachusetts

The Cover Promises: Tragedy struck today when a young beauty was discovered lying dead in a uriney ice rink, dressed in two Hostess Sno-Balls and Shakespeare’s neck-ruffle.

Once, long before threadbare touring companies and kiddie horrors like Disney on Ice, traveling ice shows aspired to grandeur. In the 1950s, Holiday on Ice trucks hauled around dozens of skaters, hundreds of costumes, thousands of spangles, and even its own ice-rinks, which at one point made sound financial sense.

People so loved the spectacle that the lavish souvenir programs turn up in almost every antique shop your Crap Archivist raids.

These days, the Disney ice show is such an afterthought that nobody even proofreads the Web site: “It one colossal party on ice!” the site boasts, just before smashing the tanks General Ross has sent after it.

Here’s highlights from the glory days, culled from three vintage programs. We start with 1952’s Holidays on Ice show, probably best know as the year of the south-of-the-border tribute to the nipple.

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Your Crap Archivist’s solemn promise: Deep in today’s entry is the single greatest image in Studies in Crap history.