There is something for everyone in this show: if the hookers don’t do it for you, there’s a locker room scene with a Texas football team preparing to visit the Chicken Ranch as their reward for winning a big game. Unfortunately these two fascinating characters are virtually dropped once the bigger plot about the circus-like anti-prostitution crusade kicks in. Sheana Toby is a shy country girl with a painful secret who is taking her first job as a sex worker. It’s heart-wrenching to hear her phone her young son. Sydney Genco plays a brassy, seasoned streetwalker looking for relief from an abusive pimp. Two new girls arrive at the Chicken Ranch in the opening scene. Toni Lynice Fountain, playing Jewel, the ranch housekeeper, is a powerhouse singer who does a sultry solo, “24-Hours of Lovin’.”
BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS SCRIPT TV
This holier-than-thou “Watch Dog” TV personality who gets the town in an uproar is based on a real Houston newsman.
BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS SCRIPT FULL
The sheriff keeps a watchful guard over Miss Mona’s brothel, the town’s worst-kept secret, yet he fails to pay full attention to the building Moral Majority protest being led by a crusading buffoon in a white pompadour, Melvin P. He’s got a short temper, a salty vocabulary, and a soft spot in his heart for Miss Mona. Noah Sullivan plays easy-going but conflicted Sheriff Ed Earl. Hoffman is especially good singing the plaintive ballad “The Bus From Amarillo.”Ĭarol Hall’s country-flavored score is strong, although several numbers seem rather extraneous. She is also on good terms with the local look-the-other-way sheriff who has managed to keep the Chicken Ranch out of trouble in exchange for a favor or two. Her girls in turn honor Mona with great respect. Miss Mona’s full of humor, compassion, and sensitivity toward her staff, providing them with relative stability and safety, and giving them self-esteem and confidence. She’s a mother figure who runs her establishment with firm affection, tolerating no nonsense.
The business was closed down in the 1970s following a week-long expose by a publicity hungry Houston television personality.Īnita Hoffman is wonderfully engaging as the red-haired mistress of the house, Miss Mona. The establishment became known as the Chicken Ranch because during the Depression the girls accepted poultry as payment for services rendered. The customers, for instance, are never called “johns” or “tricks” but “guests.” For generations the ranch served politicians, athletes, and VIP’s of all sorts. Names have been changed to protect the guilty but the script sticks close to the facts, even including many of the actual bordello’s house rules. The mostly true story is about a brothel called the Chicken Ranch that flourished just outside LaGrange, Texas from 1844 to 1973. These reports soon became famous for Zindler's enthusiastic reports of "slime in the ice machine!", which quickly became a catchphrase.This 1978 Broadway musical was inspired by a factual article in Playboy magazine. Zindler was also famed in Houston for his self-described Rat and Roach Report, where he read details from his controversial City of Houston Food Inspection Program restaurant reports on the air. It also served as the basis of the song "La Grange" by ZZ Top. The Chicken Ranch story was featured in a 1973 edition of Texas Monthly magazine, two 1974 issues of Playboy magazine, was the basis for the Broadway and film musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, in which the character of Melvin P. Zindler made local and national headlines when he and fellow journalist Larry Conners reported on a long-lived brothel known as the Chicken Ranch in Fayette County, Texas, near La Grange, which led to its closure in 1973. His investigative journalism, through which he mostly represented the city's elderly and working class, made him one of the city's most influential and well-known media personalities. Marvin Harold Zindler (Aug– July 29, 2007) was a news reporter for television station KTRK-TV in Houston, Texas, United States.