Comedians recount Tampa's 1958 'Snow Show' disaster next week

Gandy, George Skip IV, “Hilton and Gray, Snow Show, A” (1958). Credit: Gandy Photographs – General, Culture, Politics. Image 6705.

Just as Ben Wyatt’s failed “Ice Town” haunted him in “Parks and Recreation,” Tampa has its own history of frozen failure.

In 1958, an attempted “Snow Show” became melty mayhem in downtown. The eight-day event included covering Franklin Street in icy “snow,” a five-story ski slope, ice skating, the nation’s tallest Christmas tree and a Snow Queen contest. And it literally all went wrong.

For the Tampa Bay History Center’s “History as a Joke” series, comedians Johnny B, John J. Murray and Matt Fernandez of “3 Ugly Mugs” join the History Center’s Rodney Kite-Powell to look back and laugh at one of the worst/greatest moments in city history.

Tickets are $10 for “History as a Joke: Snow Show,” happening Tuesday, Dec. 16. in Tampa.