 A significant influence also came from "Dutch" (i.e., German or faux-German) minstrels and comedians.Medicine shows traveled the countryside offering programs of comedy, music, jugglers, and other novelties along with displays of tonics, salves, and miracle elixirs, while "Wild West" shows provided romantic vistas of the disappearing frontier, complete with trick riding, music and drama.Vaudeville incorporated these various itinerant amusements into a stable, institutionalized form centered in America's growing urban hubs.