Old-timey photograph from the 1930s of Broadhurst Avenue in Drumbridge, Michigan, featuring the busy sidewalk just outside the lobby of Fenneman Hall, at the time one of the last surviving squirrelesque variety houses - actually a “split house,” as it had to share the space with a bawdy burlesque operation.
When somebody asks me which came first, burlesque or squirrlesque, I tell them that there was a time when burlesque was described as “squirrelesque without the squirrels.”
Though Baby Gruenwald thoroughly enjoyed the comical rodents of squirrelesque, he never really understood the double entendres of burlesque, and only appeared in the more family friendly milieu of vaudeville.
ADDENDUM: For those confused about the sign in the foreground advertising “RED HOTS,” “HAMBURGERS,” and “VAPES,” you have to take into account this was northern Michigan, where red hots were a type of hot dog in meat sauce, hamburgers were a battered, deep-fried pork sausage patty, and vapes were the region’s famous crustless pizzas.
