Jeff Kutash, started as a Golden Gloves boxer, then a dancer and eventually a choreographer. Kutash headed a dance troop called Dancin Machine. The group where well known in the Disco circuit and on TV shows around the late 70's. His eight-man troupe then cracked the casino circuit introducing street dancing to showroom audiences.

With a taste for producing casino entertainment Kutash hit pay dirt when he created the MTV-styled "Splash" at the Riviera in 1985.

The show was at the time one of the premier productions in Las Vegas, featuring a giant water tank with synchronized-swimming mermaids and frequent eponymous splashing. Long before Cirque de Soleil O at Bellagio.

There was an ice rink ( infamously Kutash introduced a skating Phantom of the Opera segment shortly after the Lloyd Webber musical hit it big ) Topless girls where everywhere, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Madonna, and Cher tribute artists set the tone for high-energy dance numbers. Variety specialty acts, included Gaucho act "Los Latin Cowboys," as they combine comedy, the rhythmic drumming of bombos, swinging of boleadoras, and traditional Argentinean dancing. The bolo-swinging gauchos, where a great act that was picked up and copied all over town in other shows.

The real show stopper was the motorcycle death globe cage act wherein first two, then three, then four motor cycle nuts got into a big steel hamster ball and zoomed around, climbing up the inside circumference and doing interior loop-de-loops, all quite fast and perilously close together.

Kutash sold his stake in "Splash" to former Riviera owner Meshulam Riklis, after a gimmicky "Splash II" failed to create a stir in 1995. Kutash came back to Splash in 2005 to revive the show but Splash eventually dripped it's last drip and closed in 2006 after a twenty year run.

Headlights and Tailpipes, was a failed attempt by Kutash at a Las Vegas comeback. Opening in 2004 at the Stardust. This Car / Girl themed show was the Last production show to play at the Stardust before its implosion and was an interesting concept that perhaps would have hit it big in the late 1980's The musical portions of the show where very contemporary and well produced but the format of the show with dance routines punctuated by variety acts was painfully dated.

Perhaps the biggest hit of Headlights and Tailpipes where the innovative sets by British designer Andy Walmsley who garnered the few rave reviews for the show.

It's easy today to mock Splash but truth is it was a ground breaking production and it offered a younger crowd a genuine alternative to Jubilee, Lido and Follies. Jeff Kutash was a modern day Donn Arden playing in the shoulder pad excess of 1980's Las Vegas.

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