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'Holiday on lee' Retnrns Mules Put Kick in Spectrum Show m^Mmmk vmxuw?║ y^w*%MPTmBw m*m 49 Charles Petzold By NELS NELSON The silver anniversary edition of "Holiday on Ice" skidded into the Spectrum last night for a one-week, nine-show trip around the rink. It traveled a fairly conventional route until it was kicked in the butt by a couple of mules. Kossmayer's Mules occupy the penultimate spot on the bill, and they might well have been moved up in the program. It isn't fashionable to approach a mule from the rear, you know, unless that's how you get your kicks. In time-tested circus fashion, the audience is invited to come down and try to ride the mules. Last night, Kossmayer's stubborn minions sorely humiliated about a dozen stouthearted men who wished they'd listened to their wives. The rest of the crowd shrieked itself hoarse. Significantly, the mules are the only members of the cast?╟÷ which includes a trio of ice-wise chimps?╟÷not equipped with runners. THE PACKAGED ice show, like the circus, is a known quantity. You pay your entertainment dollar and you are guaranteed X number of fresh young skaters, all curved in the right places; two men in an animal suit; a bevy of acrobats; a couple of clowns; a handful of superior ice artists, and at least one 14-karat star?╟÷in this case, the redoubtable Ronnie Robertson. Wrap it all up. in sequins, spangles and colored lights, and you have a surefire spectacle. It's a formula that almost never comes a clinker. THE 25TH "Holiday on Ice" fits the standard mold and will not disappoint the hardcore ice show addict in any important particular. The kis will tell you it's perfect. One set of eyes got special kicks out of Tommy Allen and his pert missus, Juanita Percelly ?╟÷a stunning acrobatic twosome; the Cook Family (the family that splays together stays together); Ray Balmer, a thorough professional; and, of course, the show-stopping mules. We cannot, in truth, say this show is the zippiest, the best choreographed or the most visually titillating skatravaganza we have ever seen. But it will do very nicely until the next one comes along. ron Curtain Care Leaves Skater Cold ONE WAY TO GAIN a finer appreciation of the1 American way of life is to live, work and travel behind the Iron Curtain, claims skater Ray Balmer, a graduate of Lower Merion High. "Last Christmas Eve in Czechoslovakia I fell in my hotel room," said Balmer, who spent two years in the European company of "Holiday on Ice.-" "I hit my head and suffered a concussion and ended up in the hospital. They kept me there for days and never brought me anything to eat except salami and tea. "One day they decided to take me for an examination and put me in a wheelchair. All I had on was a thin nightgown when they wheeled me out of the hospital to another building. It was winter, and it was so bitter cold my hands stuck to the chair. They wheeled me about a city block. The doctor hardly looked at me and then they wheeled me back again. They just didn't seem to have any feeling for their patients. It reached a point where I just had to get out of that hospital. The doctors wouldn't let me go and finally my friends had to sneak me out." In Poland, Balmer broke his hand. "And that was another experience you won't believe. I had to sit on a chair in a truck when they took me to the hospital. It was unbelievably primitive. And they treated their patients like animals. There doesn't seem to be any incentive to work. A specialist makes about $75 a month. Do you think he cares about his patients? Heck no." Balmer said he also had great difficulty with currency in Iron Curtain countries. "You're only allowed to take a very small amount of the money you earn out of the country. You can't spend it because if you want to buy something good they insist on western money. There's hardly anything else worth buying. I spent most of my time making telephone calls to friends in America just to spend the money. When I left Poland I had about $1000 in Polish money. All I could get for it on the black market was $113. And I would have really been in trouble if I had been caught." Ray is currently skating in the U. S. company of "Holiday on Ice," now at the Spectrum. "And I'm glad to be back." WHAT'S GOING ON: Local songstress Patti White, injured in an auto accident, recuperating at Cherry Hill Hospital. Mary Elizabeth is subbing for her at Irv Morrow's Hideaway in Jersey . . . Dave Stanley, ex-director of the.Jerry Blavat radio-TV school, joins WRCP as assistant program director and air personality . . . Jim Grazione, former QB for Villanova and the Eagles, added to the instructional staff at Dan Bucceroni's boxing school. Jim also is being considered for a sports commentator post at WFIL-TV . . . Bobby Rydell sings "Target for Tonight" and "Talk to Me Softly" in his recently completed film, "That Lady From Peking" . . . Frank- ford soprano Karen Saillant, now teamed with tenor Valero Maccioni every Thursday at Marco's, will teach voice at Mercliantville (N. J.) Conservatory of Music . . . Dick Clark set as emcee of CBS-TV's "Miss Teenage RAY BALMER . salami and tea le x i- 'SJHldSAOflNllNIM iiAusimoNsivis liUawnvns isvi.,- Aya isvi llSl iqlMaM""Xl MOUUOINOl siuvis*