The quack attack uproots ‘MJ’ and ‘Rat Pack,’ but they’ll be back

By John Katsilometes

Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2014 | 6:15 p.m.

The Kats Report Bureau at this writing is not the Rio, which is suddenly a cauldron of activity thanks to the Robertson family and the quack attack that is “The Duck Commander Family Musical.”

For some feathery fallout, read on …

• The two productions at Crown Theater fronted by Dick Feeney were cruising along with little percolation until this week, when word spilled out that “MJ Live” and “The Rat Pack is Back” are closing. "Rat Pack" is done Dec. 30, and the announced final date for "MJ Live" is Jan. 18. Contributing to that timing out of the contract is that the Family Robinson musical is planning to move into that theater in February. There has been no contract finalized, but be confident that show is going to be produced and performed in Las Vegas, at the Rio, next year.

This is a full-scale, authorized, licensed and big-budget musical in which the Robertsons are to be played by actors who can sing and dance. The show is to be based on the book “Happy, Happy, Happy,” that Phil Robertson and his wife, Korie, wrote about the family. One of the show’s producers is Tommy Mottola, the Sony music exec and former husband of Mariah Carey. So this is a show that has some serious financial backing along with the show’s millions of TV followers.

Questions remain as to how that round-ish venue, which is fine for the existing shows and was used to great effect for Prince’s residency a few years ago, might be redesigned for a proper musical. But as they say in the swamps, and also in the city, “Duck Commander” is crazy enough to work.

• What is to happen to “MJ Live” and “Rat Pack” is now open to speculation, so let’s do that now: What about those shows moving into the Versailles Room at the Riv?

That room has been under renovation for several months, having been locked up after the Russian skating spectacular “Ice” was put on … ice, back in November 2009. Versailles was a weather-beaten locale at the end of the ice storm, but its bones are fine. It’s still a classic showroom, well-suited to both shows and lacking any announced tenant entering 2015. Feeney has a history at the hotel, dating to his days as co-producer of “Evening at La Cage” and “Crazy Girls.”

The Riv is embarking on something of a renaissance, or at least a change of tack, with Dirk Arthur moving his magic and big-cat show into Starlite Theater — that happened, for real, on Wednesday as Arthur loaded in his staging and equipment the day after magician Jan Rouven performed his final show in that theater.

Added activity will be a boon to the property, of course. “Rat Pack,” in particular, has a rich history as the Terminator of Las Vegas productions, having survived a volley of lawsuits that started almost when the show opened at Desert Inn in 1998. Somehow the city would seem incomplete without some form of tribute to that era, and the Riv awaits.

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.