Monday, November 07, 2005

"Movin' On" #1


I believe it was 1975 when this TV Producer called Irvin Feld in search of an elephant. His series was called "Movin' On" and was about the adventures of two truck drivers. They were in Charlotte filming an episode in which they were to haul an elephant but the one they hired couldn't do the job.
Mr. Feld explained that his two circuses were on the road but that he had some people at his Park in Florida with an elephant named "Anna May" that could easily do what they needed. A few days later a driver brings a truck up from Venice, we loaded her up and Gary Jacobson traveled with her. Barbara and Ben followed but I had to remain behind to run the shop.
This picture is of Ben practicing with Keenan Wynn who was the star of this particular film.

Posted by Buckles at 11/07/2005 07:39:00 AM

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is this available on video? I would find one of my TV sets to play it. Where can we buy this treasure?

07 November, 2005 10:22
Buckles said...

Jimmy Cole tells me that he gets copies of old TV Shows from a guy in Australia.
In fact he has already received a lot of "Circus Boy" tapes and they are in excellent condition.
He's going to eMail him today and see if he has this series in stock.
I think this episode was called "The elephant story".

07 November, 2005 10:33
Anonymous said...

Eric said:

Didn't Bobby Gibbs later own the elephant that appeared in the Circus Boy series?

07 November, 2005 11:52
Buckles said...

Good Morning Eric,
I wasn't aware Bobby ever owned an elephant. He leased an act from D.R. for many years and later worked Donnie Johnson's elephants.
I think they used three elephants on the Circus Boy series. The old one was "Emma" a former Ringling elephant and the one Mickey Dolenz rode was a young male "Tusko" (called "Bimbo") that was meaner than $300 as Rex Williams used to say. They both came from Jungleland. Finally after they became weary of Tusko the Studio bought a small elephant as a replacement which they also called Bimbo.
I believe all these elephants were gone before Gibbs got in the elephant business.

07 November, 2005 12:14
Anonymous said...

From what Jungleland files I have at hand, Big Emma and Baby Tusko got a lot of publicity in the early '50s. Big Emma is pictured in the 1952 Jungleland Program Booklet, with our Angel, Gloria Grahame, in the scene where Emma, as Minyak, just pulled the cage bars off Brad, and Angel is tearfully thanking her. With the real Minyak back on RBBB, Emma doubled her on the train wreck set down here at Paramount. Arky Scott worked Baby Tusko, re-named Bimbo, as noted above, on CIRCUS BOY. I will have to look further to see which elephant Arky had on FRONTIER CIRCUS. We educational theatre students at Texas Tech were randomly chosen to welcome and escort visiting stars, and while FRONTIER CIRCUS was on, I drew the duty for the Lubbock appearance of a very funny, throughly drunked-up Chill Wills, who was sledge-hammered on Jack Daniels. What a night.

07 November, 2005 16:52
Buckles said...

Dear Evelyn,
Nice to hear from you. I don't have any pictures of your mother's act but plenty of pictures of Mr. Beatty and your grandmother Harriett.
I will send some out on the morning Blog and if you see anything you like I can have copies made and mailed to you as a gift to your mother.
Buckles

07 November, 2005 17:55
GaryHill said...

Hello Roger, I'm Gary Hill and my home town is Lubbock, Tx. I'm one of Buckles old elephant guys.

07 November, 2005 18:02
Anonymous said...

Hello, Gary: I have great memories of Lubbock, and college pals of mine remain there to this day. Among those memories are getting our 21-year-olds to buy us booze at Pinkey's, on the strip, for our cast parties. I loved Texas Tech, but I used it as a drama school, when Tech insisted I use it as a college. I got their theatre education, and Tech kept the rest.

08 November, 2005 19:43
Anonymous said...

Is there a list that lists all the elephants that appeared in television shows since the 1950's?
I always wonder what elephant im seeing,except a lot of the time the elephant doesnt get any credit
in the credits!
A couple of weeks ago,I was watching a old re-run of Sanford&Son from 1975,in which the keeper(obiously a actor) gave Fred Sanford a elephant to watch while he went out of town.Fred Sanford started a circus show at his residence in yard.

09 November, 2005 14:49
Anonymous said...

Wasnt Bimbo later executed at the zoo?
Also you ever heard of another elephant named"Tusko",at the Oklahoma zoo.that scientists did LSD experiments on in the early 1960's?I believe it was a experiment to do with musth.The elephant died as a result of the experiment.

09 November, 2005 14:52

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