So it should come as no surprise that Midler's new production, "The Showgirl Must Go On" playing at Caesars Palace through at least 2009, is not only one of the best Bette shows ever but one of the best bets in Las Vegas.

It certainly is one of the biggest. There's a 13-piece band with a full horn section, 20 dancers, massive sets, a giant LED screen with eye-popping visuals, half a dozen costume changes, and enough feathers, sequins, and rhinestones to fill a warehouse.

But the biggest part of the show is Midler herself. She makes a lot of jokes about how big the stage is, hoping she won't have a stroke as she crosses from one side to the other and enters into a new zip code in the process, but she needn't worry. She fills the space with her outsize talent in ways that eclipse any amount of production value they could throw up there.

Midler takes the stage atop a giant pile of luggage, in the midst of a virtual tornado tearing through Las Vegas that blows road construction workers and Elvis impersonators around with silly glee. She tears through the production's new title song, a jazzy, big-band style number and then continues the mood with, appropriately enough, a raucous version of "In the Mood." Both numbers showcase her back-up singers, "The Staggering Harlettes" who she says came from a prison work-release program, and her back-up dancers, "The Caesars Salad Girls." The best thing about the latter, as Midler says, is that "not one of them is a French Canadian circus performer."

The humor and the hits keep on coming. In between Bette classics like "The Rose," "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," and "Do You Wanna Dance?" are more of her bawdy jokes, most of which are laugh-out-loud funny but not appropriate to be reprinted here. Let's just say there are no sacred cows, with everything from Las Vegas to Paris Hilton to herself being skewered in equal measure.

Her classic characters are also along for the ride. The fame-hungry mermaid Delores DeLago is back, lured to Las Vegas to perform her fishy routine in a tacky roadside motel. But after a visit from her fairy godfather Elvis, she triumphs at Caesars Palace in a chorus line of fish tails. And of course "Soph" - her take on vaudeville legend "Sophie Tucker" - is present and accounted for, in this incarnation as the oldest living showgirl. Soph's "I'll never forget it you know…" jokes are a thing of beauty and just as dirty as ever. But as Midler says, she has a daughter in college so it isn't her, "it's the tuition talking."

But for all the pageantry and playfulness, it is the simple moments of the show that really shine, when it is just Bette Midler, a microphone, and that emotion packed voice. The peace lament "From a Distance" has never felt more applicable than it does in 2008 and as she skips barefoot through a simple forest-like setting you can practically feel her joy. "Hello in There" is an aching testimonial to what it's like to get older, and her heartbreak almost soaks through the stark black and white photos of New York City that surround her. And the standing ovation at the end of the emotionally power-packed "When a Man Loves a Woman" was more than deserved, it was earned.

"The Showgirl Must Go On" is a perfect fit for this city. It's a throwback to the classic Vegas entertainment of yore, when performers like The Rat Pack and Elvis not only knew how to put on a "show" but knew that in this particular business you can't take things too seriously.

Las Vegas has gotten a bit too serious lately. Thank God for somebody like Bette Midler to put it back in its place.