Ha ha! Good one. Rather than a blast, we'd call the Jolly Trolley a little pop from the past.
It was located at 2440 Las Vegas Blvd. S., at the northwest corner of the Strip and Sahara, next door to the Bonanza Gift Shop. It remained open for only a few years, on and off between 1977 and 1981. A couple other casinos, such as Honest John's and Friendly Fergie's, also made a go of it in that shopping center around the same time.
The Trolley took over the site from a butcher shop; one of the butcher's coolers was incorporated into the casino design, used to advertise the joint's famous steak meal deal: a filet mignon not only cooked to order, but cut to order (you specified how many ounces you wanted).
It was a grind joint to end all grind joints, but its claim to fame during its short lifespan was that it was the only Las Vegas casino in history, as far as we know, to have a bona fide strip club inside. That was the general extent of the entertainment: a succession of strippers on the stage at the edge of the pit, dancing to raunchy music. The crap and blackjack players occasionally gave a glance. A number of fairly well-known strippers and porn stars from those days played the Jolly Trolley, including Dusty Summers; Marilyn Chambers did a "one-woman show" there. Other acts included the Fantasy Follies and the Loose Caboose Comedy Players.
In Of Rats and Men, author John L. Smith reported that Oscar Goodman, a mob attorney at that time, represented an Arizona restaurateur who was convicted in 1981 of assisting a New Jersey organized-crime ring in its efforts to infiltrate the Jolly Trolley; Goodman's fee was paid in points in the casino in lieu of cash.
The casino closed shortly thereafter and it's perhaps a close call, but we'll go out on a little limb and predict that the Jolly Trolley won't be resurrected anytime soon.
