Putting labels on the varied career of Charles David “Bub” Thomas takes a little while. The baker, bartender, boxer, sports cartoonist, ventriloquist, professional barbershop quartet singer, stand-up comic, night club owner and caricaturist spent a couple of decades entertaining the South Bay during the 1950s and 1960s.
Thomas was born in Lewiston, Montana on July 1, 1911, but the family moved to Long Beach, California, while Bub was still a preschooler.
His father started a bakery in Long Beach where Thomas worked while going to school at Long Beach Poly.
One day, an old-time vaudeville dancer came in, taught Bub a few steps, and convinced him to learn tap dancing and join him on the vaudeville circuit on the side. Bub loved it, but since vaudeville had already begun dying out by 1929, this part of his show business career was brief.
While working for his dad, he did learn enough about the bakery trade to get a job with a bigger firm, Weber’s, where he eventually put his artist skills to use designing packaging and advertising for the company’s loaves of bread.
He also tried his hand at boxing, losing only one of his 17 amateur fights. He loved the sport, and also loved using his drawing talent to sketch portraits of his favorite fighters. He also specialized in caricatures, quick, while-you-wait sketches of people, a skill that he would later use in his professional career.
His bakery career ended with the advent of World War II. Not drafted because he was married with two children, Thomas went to work for the war effort painting ships at the Consolidated Shipyards in Wilmington.
One of his paint crew members was Dave Rightsell, who introduced Thomas to barbershop quartet singing. Thomas caught the bug in a big way, hooking up with a variety of quartets, including the 4 Barons of Harmony and The Four Dandies, groups that would tour bars and small clubs in the area.
After the war ended, Thomas decided to go out as a solo act doing stand-up comedy and ventriloquism. He played at joints such as the Bomb Shelter in Long Beach and The Colony in Gardena. The drummer in the band at The Colony was Sonny Anderson, who would go on to be a talent scout for Walt Disney, and play a key role in Thomas’ later career.
Stand-up comedy led to bartending, and Thomas found a niche combining the two at area watering holes. The wisecracking bartender eventually entered the club-owning business in 1954.
Together with partner Frankie Lieberman, Thomas opened The Band Box Cafe at 1528 Cravens Avenue in downtown Torrance on March 26, 1954.
The club was described as “Torrance’s newest palace of fun,” and offered music and comedy along with its food and drink.
After a few years at the Band Box, Thomas convinced his partner to help him start a more ambitious venture in 1957.
The Roaring 20s nightclub, located at 166th Street and Crenshaw Boulevard in North Torrance, 16612 Crenshaw to be exact, offered full shows nightly. These included musical numbers as well as Thomas’ comedy routines.
The club, also sometimes known as The Original Roaring 20s, was a hit in its early years.
Thomas even released albums on his own record label featuring his comedy routines, which were considered risque in the day and marketed as adults-only fare, though they sound somewhat tame in hindsight.
“Smoker Stories,” by “Mr. Entertainment” Bub Thomas, was recorded live at the Roaring 20s in Torrance in 1960, and released on Thomas’ own Roaring 20s label for sale at the club.Thomas ended up having a fairly prolific comedy recording career. Following “Smoker Stories, Vol. 2” on his own label, he went on to record several adult comedy albums for the Laff label during the 1970s. Laff specialized in raunchy comedy and racy album covers, featuring releases by Redd Foxx and an early album by Richard Pryor.
But we’re getting ahead of the story.
While he was running the Roaring 20s club, Thomas became very active in the Torrance community. He played a key role in the first presentation of the Torrance Lions Club production, “The Lions Roar,” a family-oriented old-time vaudeville revue featuring singers, dancers, jugglers and magician Dell O’Dell, with Thomas serving as emcee. “The Lions Roar” debuted at the Torrance High School Auditorium on April 14, 1960.
He also never lost his love for barbershop singing, performing locally with groups such as the Terpsichords at area community events and barbershop quartet shows.
Business at The Roaring 20s dropped off when entertainment tastes changed in the mid-1960s, and Thomas sold off his interest in the club.
He joined the USO, performing in 1968 with a troupe in hot spots in Vietnam that the more famous entertainers doing shows for the troops found too dangerous.
When he returned home, his old friend, drummer Sonny Anderson, now with Disney, contacted him about putting together a new version of the Dapper Dans, the barbershop quartet that had been entertaining at Disneyland since 1959. Thomas put together a group that included Torrance city engineer Buddy Seeberg, and they worked at Disneyland during the summer of 1969.
When that job ended after one summer season, Disney expressed an interest in hiring the Dapper Dans for their new park, Disney World in Orlando, Florida, when it opened on Oct. 1, 1971.
Thomas moved to Florida to take the new job, ending his tenure in the South Bay.
A three-month contract with Disney in Florida turned into a longtime gig with the Dapper Dans, just over 25 years to be exact. He became a fixture at the Florida park’s Main Street USA, and spent much time corresponding with people he’d met there, sending them letters and humorous sketches he’d drawn.
In his later years, Thomas returned occasionally to the South Bay for barbershop singing events, appearing at the annual show held by the South Bay Coastliners Chapter of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America in 1989, 1991 and 1992.
Sadly, Bub Thomas was killed in an automobile accident in Orlando on Jan. 28, 1997, at the age of 85.
This brief snippet shows The Dapper Dans in action at Disney World in Florida in 1988. From left to right: Charles “Bub” Thomas, Joe Judkins, Neel Tyree and Steve Culpepper:
