TOURISM : Traveling Show

Wild Bill’s Wild West Dinner Extravaganza, the Buena Park dinner theater attraction, has found a way to use “moving billboards”--those trucks that drive around with a billboard on their beds--without environmental guilt about the pollution they spew.

The attraction opted to paint two tour buses with huge murals depicting scenes from the show. Sure, the buses still pollute. But they drive around picking up and dropping off tourists just as they would anyway, rather than driving aimlessly just to tote a billboard, show officials reason.

Nine artists worked for several weeks to create the murals, which stretch 33 feet long and 11 feet high, on the sides of the buses. The buses are owned by Airport Cruiser of Buena Park, which created the “Bus Vision” advertising.

“We are getting a large number of reservations from people who have seen the buses,” said Wild Bill’s General Manager Marilyn Hannes. “The only misconception is that people think we own the buses and we can come pick them up.”

She said the attraction plans to stick with just the two buses now, through the end of 1994. She would not disclose the cost, but said they were cheaper than billboards.

The buses travel a circuit among area hotels, so they will be seen by many potential patrons for the dinner theater show.

Wild Bill’s, just down Beach Boulevard from Knott’s Berry Farm, draws much of its attendance from tourists looking for fun things to do in the evenings after the theme parks have closed.

She said business has been booming lately, with plenty of sellouts this week. “Normally, the period between Christmas and New Year’s is great,” Hannes said.