“And how about a big hand for Mickey on his 60th birthday,” Poindexter said, skillfully working in the park’s latest advertising campaign. Is that new? Ya know, I used to own one just like it when I was in the Dolls!” (Really risky territory here-no transvestism in Disneyland, remember.) (No references to sex at Disneyland, remember.)Īnd then he threw a few barbs at the First Family of the Happiest Place on Earth-Mickey and Minnie Mouse, who arrived on stage outfitted in colorful calypso fashions to help close the set with Buster’s Latin-flavored hit “Hot, Hot, Hot.” (There’s no way to be sure, of course, that the cup actually contained a soft drink.)īut then, he told a couple of mildly risque jokes, one of which prompted a few shocked parents to storm out of the show with kids in tow.
(No alcohol at Disneyland, remember-”even if,” as Johansen said, “it’s a faux cocktail.”) In its place was a paper Disneyland soft drink cup. Still, Buster had to check his characteristic martini glass at the gate. But it turned out that little kids also love the show-they look at Poindexter like a cartoonish character in a tuxedo. Those people are there as the core audience. “When I first started,” Johansen said, “the roots of Poindexter was to do something to entertain my peers. Whatever the excuse, Poindexter ended up on the Videopolis stage in front of whole families ! It wasn’t the first time Buster has played to a mixed audience. It has all the makings of a carefully orchestrated plot, what with publicity materials that refer only to the Buster Poindexter character, never to Johansen or his sordid past.Īpparently nobody who works at Disneyland used to frequent the Cuckoo’s Nest in Costa Mesa, which became Orange County’s punk rock headquarters in the late ‘70s after owner Jerry Roach booked Johansen and saw the potential of the new punk market. Perhaps Buster planned all along to infiltrate the park with his insurrection-inspiring rumba. Anyway, the keepers of all things good and right at Disneyland should have realized that what makes Poindexter’s act so rowdy isn’t his music, a delirious revival of ‘40s ballroom swing, jumpy Caribbean rhythms and lounge pop that was blown from the Videopolis stage by a ragin’ full-force big band and a couple of streetwise-looking female backup singers.ĭisney’s watchdogs ought to have paid more attention to the act’s subtext-a former social outcast who is having the last laugh on respectable society-that was so beautifully crystallized right in their own litter-free empire.
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