Celebra te!

Expense isn't the key at children's birthday parties.

SUSAN R. POLLACK SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

DE TR O IT J EWIS H N E WS

L

on Wachler invited some un-
usual guests to her son's sixth
birthday party in their Hunting-
ton Woods home.
They included Oscar the ferret; a four-
foot-long iguana dubbed Darby, and a
large albino king snake named, appropri-
ately, King.
While the family babysitter shuddered
and fled, Jordan and his friends chattered
excitedly and gazed in wide-eyed wonder
at the slithering snake and other critters.
"How do snakes go to the bathroom?"
one child asked the animals' handler,
Daniel Briere, who ferries his menagerie
around town in an insulated minivan and
is known as "Dan, the Reptile Man."
And Jordan, the birthday boy, was so
enthralled, his mom says, "that he want-
ed Dan to become his father so he could
live here with all the animals."
Bingo! Lori Wachler had scored a big
hit on that all-important kid-party meter,
and she didn't have to spend a fortune to
do so.
Mt Mere, a former Royal Oak pet
store manager, charges $85 for an hour-
long birthday show that features 10 ani-
mals, generally including whistling
parrots, a tarantula or scorpion and an al-
ligator.
His fee is about average for entertainers
on the local kiddie birthday party circuit,
whose ranks include clowns, magicians,

balloon sculptors, puppeteers, fitness/cre-
ative movement specialists, cake artists
and crafters.
Each promises to impart lasting birth-
day memories while boosting moms and
dads onto that pedestal reserved for spe-
cial parents.
Here's a rundown of some of metro
Detroit's hottest performers of the mo-
ment, passed on by moms-in-the-know in
Huntington Woods, Southfield and West
Bloomfield:
Seeing a grown-up burst into tears be-
cause she thinks Wild Bill actually flat-
tened a real bunny in his crank-style
washing machine tells you this magician
must be doing something right.
Whether demonstrating his disappear-
ing rabbit trick or sponge ball routine, Bill
Schulte, a retired Chrysler Corp. fire mar-
shal from Shelby Township, aims to
"make the child a magician" by inviting
the birthday celebrant and other willing
volunteers (ages 3 to 8) onto the stage
during his magic act.
Performing either as a clown or a magi-
cian, he often entertains in tandem with
his wife, Sue, who, as an artist and clown
named Pink-a-ling, specializes in face-
painting. While she's deco-
"Wild Bill"
gets help
rating little cheeks with
Witt a maic
g
rainbows, palm trees or
wit trick fro m
birthHdaayngairhl
sports team logos, Wild Bill
wows them (for an extra
Berman.