Thursday, March 23, 2006

Ringling-Barnum Circus 1949/ Pay-off elephants

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

As this was well before my time, What is a "pay off elephant"?

Buckles said...

In those days the last thing is spec was the largest float pulled by a string of elephants, all of which had the same theme and color scheme and for some reason was called the "pay off".
By the time we got on the show the big floats had been eliminated due to lack of floor space but Pay-off remained but rather than a float the last elephant wore a howdah or some such.
Our Spec in 1978 (Sodomy on the High Seas) the pay-off elephants were adorned with a large angel fish on each side and the final thing was "Anna May" with Barbara and Ben.

Buckles said...

Unlike today, we had a lot of elephant blankets to put on and take off and to simplify matters they were referred to as Spec Blankets, Opening Blankets, Pay Off Blankets. Etc.
Come to think of it I once knew an elephant guy called "9 Blankets".

Buckles said...

Ken & Nicole has simplified all this, Jack Ryan now writes it all down and the Announcer explains it to the audience.

Anonymous said...

If you have to explain IT, IT is not beautiful

Anonymous said...

Yes, explaining it has to do with clowns too! Harry Rawls once told a clown, "If a five year old kid doesn't laught at it, it isn't funny". Wish some of the adult humor clowns would figure that out!

Carl

Anonymous said...

It's mudshow season y'all. Three of the four Hugo circuses are open under cxanvas as of today -- the fourth has been out since February. Still chilly up north, but it's starting again. See ya on the lots.

Anonymous said...

Would the long mount that Kelly Miller used to do be their PAY-OFF at the end of the show.? It used to scare me half to death as some people were leaving the tent as the elephants came running around the track. Your dad would ask the people to remain seated, but some people did not listen.