Wishing on a Star

Everyone's always wondering whom the public would like to see play the Strip. We wondered who performers already playing here would pick. (The only restriction: Their fantasy headliners must be living.) The responses were interesting, some for being so unexpected.

Mirage headliner Terry Fator chose a performer who has never worked with a dummy (unless you count Carl Reiner's Alan Brady character): Dick Van Dyke.

"He's an all-around perfect entertainer," said Fator, who studied "The Dick Van Dyke Show" sitcom as a child. "His ability to do physical comedy and his timing was so impeccable and so beautiful, I kind of patterned myself after his delivery."

Fator would pay to see Van Dyke dance, sing songs from "Mary Poppins" and perform some classic comedy routines. But most of all, he said, "it'd be really cool to listen to him tell stories about his career and his influences."

"I would love to just sit and watch and listen to him for hours," the ventriloquist said.

Excalibur's "Defending the Caveman" star Kevin Burke's answer has eight legs, wears makeup and spits fire.

"Kiss has a great stage show as it is, but it's a show that tours," Burke said. "Imagine what a Kiss show would be combined with Cirque-type stuff or whatever crazy stuff Gene Simmons would come up with for a permanent venue."

Burke joined the Kiss Army when he was 14 and apparently still belongs.

"I've seen all of the makeup tours -- starting in '74 or '75 when they were touring 1,000-seat hockey arenas with plywood on the ice for people to stand on," he said. (Burke clarifies that he was "not a big fan" of the nonmakeup years.)

"Kiss would be perfect for Vegas," he said.

Vinnie Favorito has an insult for everyone but his own favorito.

"I would love to see Jerry Lewis as a headliner again in Las Vegas," the Flamingo headliner said. "The guy's just funny onstage and I think he could pull it off easily, even now."

Favorito spent a childhood of Saturdays memorizing Lewis movies.

"To this day, if there's anything Jerry Lewis on, I watch it and it's like I'm watching it for the first time," he said.

Years ago, Favorito got to spend two hours in his idol's office before appearing on a Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon. Favorito said he did not disappoint.

"He was hysterical," Favorito recalled. "Everything he does just cracks me up."

Harrah's magician Mac King fantasizes seeing George Clinton and the surviving members of Parliament-Funkadelic's late-'70s incarnation.

Since this is his fantasy, King calls for the return of the spaceship, the inflatable car and the giant skull that at various times transported Clinton to the stage when, according to King, Clinton was "rolling in the dough and put it all back in the show."

King is partial to the giant skull, which he first beheld as a student at Minnesota's McAllister College. Before its jaw dropped to become a set of stairs for Clinton to descend, King recalled, its eyes glowed and a voice asked, "What is that funky smell?" and "Who has an extra one?"

Immediately, he said, 200 joints landed onstage.

"It was a genius move," King said, recalling that band members stooped down with their lighters throughout the performance.

According to Frank Marino, ain't no venue big enough for a Diana Ross residency. The Imperial Palace headliner said that Ross -- a Caesars Palace regular in the '80s -- would be a "huge" draw since her hits span four decades.

"From the age of 16, I've been a huge fan," Marino said, "which is 10 years, since I'm 26 now."

Of course, Marino gets to introduce a faux Diana Ross every night onstage at "Divas Las Vegas."

"But it's not the same," he said. "The real one wouldn't ask me for a raise all the time."

Flamingo magician Nathan Burton pulled probably our survey's strangest answer out of his hat.

"David Hasselhoff would be perfect for Vegas," said Burton, who envisions the former "Knight Rider" and "Baywatch" star hosting an "old-timey Vegas variety show" in which he sings and dances and then brings out his favorite acts.

"I'm not saying headline by himself," Burton added. "But he would be the pilot of the airplane."

Perhaps Burton is returning a favor. On season four of "America's Got Talent," judge Hasselhoff raved about his magic tricks.

"No, no," Burton said. "It would be great, come on. Who didn't grow up on 'Knight Rider'? You can't see a Kitt billboard with the red light going back and forth at night?"

As his finale, perhaps Hasselhoff could crawl around the stage floor with a cheeseburger, reprising his role in that famous YouTube video.

"That's just wrong, dude," Burton replied. "You don't hassle the Hoff."

Contact reporter Corey Levitan at clevitan@review journal.com or 702-383-0456.