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What’s Juicy?

The origin of the term “white elephant” seems to come from the White Elephants of Burma. They are very prestigious animals to own, but very expensive to feed and keep. Since they are considered sacred, it would be inappropriate to get rid of the animal.

P.T. Barnum’s elephant, Jumbo, was extremely popular in his circus but the account of Young Taloung is accurate. It was a financial disaster and provided plenty of bad publicity. The description of Toung is accurate as are the pictures. Competing circuses bought animals and painted them to capitalize on Barnum’s defeat. In the end, the animal did die in a barn fire which seemed to be common with Barnum.

Somehow it seems that the term White Elephant became synonymous with extravegance throughout the country. There was a White Elephant in New York and several other cities across the country. Bill Ward said that a syndicate in New York City owned the White Elephant’s in Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Dennison in the article about his retirement.

The first location had a sneak preview on February 29th which invited women to attend. The saloon was outside the Hell’s Half Acre and was intended to be an upscale establishment. The restaurant menus included raw oysters which is incredible to think about in 1884 Fort Worth. It seems like allowing gambling was a way to make up for some of the losses.

Gambling in the Wild West was a bit embarrassing. Three Card Monty, Faro, and Keno were popular games. I am not sure if Luke Short learned Keno at the Oriental Saloon but the fact it had Chinese origins seemed too good to let pass. Jim Courtright was an ex-Marshall who seemed to be extorting gambling businesses for protection. He did it all under the guise of a private detective agency.

The account of the gunfight was from Luke Short’s account in the newspaper. I read three or four other versions and was trying to map them all out, but they didn’t make sense. My opinion is that it was a duel to put an end to the extortion form Courtright and Jim lost. This seems to be what the White Elephant is best known for. All of the stuff about Jim being buried in a borrowed grave is true. I think it was common back then.

Bill Ward did start the Fort Worth Panthers in the White Elephant. However, when they met in San Antonio, I could not find out anything about where they met. I like to think that they met at the White Elephant there. The building looks neat. The filming location was at the abandoned LaGrave Field where the Panthers played starting in 1926.

The story about the Athletics and the white elephant is true. Although, what started out as a joke, started to irritate the players after a while and they put it to death for a while. It was revived years later as a way to remember the history. The elephant is sometimes gray or green but it has been there as long as an elephant can remember.

The Moneyball story seemed to be the perfect reversal of the White Elephant team of 1902. I decided to add it at the last minute. The movie embellished things a bit, but it was a terrific season with a 20 game win streak. I was amused that Brad Pitt’s name was as big as the title of the movie and above the title, that I decided to ignore it and give credit to Phillip Seymore Hoffman.

The old White Elephant did burn down after Ward moved to the new location. Authorities were cracking down on gambling in Fort Worth. While the “Hatchet Granny” Carry Nation did come to Fort Worth, I don’t know if she ever visited Bill Ward.

The White Elephant Saloon in the Stockyards is no where near the original location, but it it nice to see that the tradition of the name is still being preserved. Ironically, it has been opened longer than both of the other saloons combined. I have never seen the gunfight reenactment, but I intend to sometime. It will be interesting to see which version of the story they use.

What’s Juicy?

The Pizza Place in Stephenville, Texas is the birthplace of Mr. Gatti’s Pizza. The company website has the story, but the date is wrong… at least that is what The Pizza Place’s Facebook says. Jim Eure (pronounced your) sold this restaurant pretty quickly and moved to Austin. I made up the line about teaching the T-sippers a thing to two about pizza. The story about using his wife’s family recipes is true. I actually used Ancestry to see if her father’s last name is Gatti (it is). I got the explanation of the pizza ingredients from an article in the Tarleton Campus Newspaper. The unique features are also real. They were listed in the sale ad for his restaurant in Stephenville.

When Eure started in Austin, his business grew quickly, and he named them all The Pizza Place. The story about the confusion this cause is detailed in his advertisement explaining why he changed the name.

Godfather’s Pizza did come out with a “pizza you can’t refuse”, If you want some entertainment, check out old Godfather’s ads on Youtube. They did have pizza buffets, but I do not know what Colonel Eure thought about them. From what I’ve read about Eure, he took a lot of pride in his pizza craft and did not take short cuts. Eure did sell his business to a couple of guys that did well in Kentucky Fried Chicken. I don’t think his motives were influenced by Colonel Sanders’s honorary ranking.

Atari co-founder, Nolan Bushnell, did start Chuck E. Cheese. Most of the information, including the quote, was taken from an Atlantic article. I DO NOT think Bushnell was intentionally trying to lead children to a life of gambling, but this quote from the same article shows that he was using them a bit.

“The reason for doing the animals, believe it or not, was not for the kids. It was meant to be a head fake for the parents. Kids are really smart at knowing how to play their parents. and the kids knew that if they said, ‘I want to go to Chuck E. Cheese and play the games’ the parents would just see themselves spending money. But if they said, ‘I want to go see Chuck E. Cheese entertainment — and it’s free,’ they’d be good to go,” 

Bushnell was planning on naming it Coyote Pizza and then found out his costume was a rat. Rick Rat’s Pizza was also an idea and was pretty bad. Unfortunately, there was not an Italian uncle named Carlo Edoardo Formaggio. The real story is that someone else came up with it. The motivation for the animatronic show was Disneyland’s “Country Bear Jamboree”. I said Jubilee in the video. It is kind of confusing since Showbiz Pizza Place ended up creating “Country Bear Jubilee”. I wish I had understood that before I recorded the video. The rinky tink piano was probably not stolen from The Pizza Place.

Bushnell and Brock started out as partners but split before Showbiz opened. Brock had better animatronics. Like I said above, the “Country Bear” flavor was pretty intentional. There is probably no connection to the logo designs but it is a pretty neat coincidence.

I’m not sure who came up with the idea for video game tokens but they did become a standard in the industry. I made up the idea that Mr. Gatti’s business focus was on quality pizza. I’m really not sure what it was. The video game crash of 1983 is real and led to the fabled mountain of video game cartridges in a New Mexico landfill. It is a fascinating story.

Showbiz bought Chuck E. Cheese’s and did phase out the Showbiz restaurants by the 90’s. Then they shortened the nose on the rat to make him into a mouse. All of the talk about gambling addiction is fictitious as far as I know. There were some lawsuits against them for promoting gambling in children. I don’t know what became of them. I do not know the motivation for switching to game cards, but it did happen. I made up the sinister side of it but a part of me believes it really is true.

The Pizza Place in Weatherford is the last of the old buildings left. The Stephenville location was purchased by Beans and Franks in Stephenville and they started selling the pizza inside their store. It is actually amazing to see that the menus are so similar, including the Sampler and Vegetarian Sampler. I’m not sure of another pizza place that uses provolone cheese.

The lightning crash was fake.

Keep it Juicy!