Mr. Bizarro’s Best of Sacramento

The minute we ran down to the depot and saw Mr. Bizarro step off the Superchief, we knew this wasn’t going to be just another walk through Old Sacramento.

Mr. Bizarro (a creation of animated puppet artist Chris Sickels of Red Nose Studios in Burbank) came here to pose for this week’s SN&R cover and play guide for this, our annual Best of Sacramento issue.

You know about that. It’s the big, juicy, sassy super-guide issue in which we report our readers’ and writers’ choices of all the best people, places, bars, bistros, theaters, shops, sights, hikes, most other things, great and small, to take in, and do around town.

One look at Mr. Bizarro, however, should tell you that this isn’t going to be just another hometown magazine’s happy-faced “Best of the Best” issue either. Fasten your seat belts. It’s something new—bumpy and a bit more real:

Welcome to SN&R’s “Best and Bizarre of Sacramento” issue.

We needed this. Sacramento, after all, isn’t just a state capital you memorize in third grade. Neither is it just the quaint, Sutter’s Mill, Big Valley town with the cute, “Big Tomato,” nickname anymore, either.

It’s a real city, heaven help us. And cities have mean streets, too.

We want to show this all to you, or as much as can fit, and, we hope, fascinate you.

So, turn the page and follow Mr. Bizarro through all that’s naughty and nice, and, yes, rubberneck at some examples of the truly wicked. In these dark days, it’s a reminder that life does go on, resurgent—including the liveliness that surges through the streets and arteries of our own River City.

Here, then, is Mr. Bizarro’s magical mystery trip through what’s fun and fantastic, and perhaps disturbing—all of Sacramento from the sublime to the surreal.

Mr. Bizarro’s tour winds through six categories, with stops at: People and Places, Goods and Services, Arts and Entertainment, Sports and Recreation, Food and Drink, and Sex and Love.

There’s plenty to see and do. The “Bests” include all the results of our reader’s poll and raves about rare and wondrous finds by our picky, roaming writers. At each stop, you’ll also find tales of oddities selected by Mr. Bizarro himself.

The strong of heart (and stomach) may also go to the illustrated map for Mr. Bizarro’s Sactoland tour de macabre. No hanging your arms out the bus windows, kids. But it’s OK to bring your ghoulfriends.