Monday, November 06, 2006

To Richard Reynolds


You are right, we did have a "Gorilla Pit Show" with Kelly-Miller in the early 1950's. It was owned and operated by Joe Lewis, seen here, who next to Joe Colby (Odie Dodie), was the greatest pitch man I ever heard.
He spun a yarn that a fictitious Mrs. Carter came into possession of a baby "ape" that she raised in her home the same as a child. It ate at the table, had it's own bed room, played with the neighborhood kids, etc.
Despite growing to a tremendous size, everthing was going well until Mrs. Carter drew the attention of a suitor and the ape crushed her in a fit of rage. The beast was given a trial and was acquitted after the jury decided it was only a case of jealousy.

Smokey and I would go out front just to hear his pitch. He would sometimes offer the mike to people who were descending the stairs and say "What did you think?" Once a guy said "It's nothing but a God Damn chimpanzee!" Joe would then turn the mike back on and say, "Thats what they all say, the greatest attraction to ever visit our city!".

You will notice the word "Gorilla" appears nowhere.

Posted by Buckles at 11/06/2006 03:41:00 PM

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great story Buckles. We have people like that today only they're called politicians.

06 November, 2006 17:59
Buckles said...

Joe had a large blow-up picture in front of the pit show, of the crowd outside the Church at Al Jolson's funeral, claiming it was for Mrs. Carter.

06 November, 2006 20:08
Anonymous said...

Richard Reynolds adds - - -

Even the great Phineas T. did the same. He imported a large baboon from England around 1867 that he had in his NY museum, the second one that he ran in connection with Hyatt Frost’s van Amburgh menagerie. It arrived in great secrecy amid a ton of press that only Phineas could arrange. All went well and folks crammed inside to see the first “genuine gorilla” brought to America. Then, from Boston came the famed naturalist Louis Agassiz, founder of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Anatomy. Like everyone he paid his two bits but when he took a look at the “gorilla,” he noted that it had a tail and pronounced - -not a gorilla at all but a common baboon. Barnum feigned outrage averring that his agents in England had deceived him. However, he had known all along that it was a faux gorilla. Frost even warned him about someone discovering the truth. This is a story that was repeated over and over in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as showmen vied to get the first gorilla. One finally landed here in 1897 (Boston) but it lived only few days. Two more were obtained by the Bronx zoo, one in 1911 and another in 1914. Neither lived long. Then came John Daniel the first ever circus gorilla - - to RBBB in 1921. He did not survive the Garden date.

06 November, 2006 23:17
Anonymous said...

I seem to remember that the French Priest, Naturalist, and Paleo-geologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote in the 1930's bemoaning the failure of gorillas to thrive in captivity. And I think it was the 1950's before there was a live birth in a zoo. Gorillas are certainly charasmatic, very popular when displayed in zoos and circuses; but part of the difficulty in gorilla conservation is that they aren't easy keepers. Like elephants, even if you're running a successful reproductive conservation program at some point you have to consider what you're going to do with all the bachelor males. The mountain gorillas cling to survival by a thread in population terms, and I can't think of a single mountain gorilla in captivity, let alone a viable genetically sustainable breeding group.

07 November, 2006 09:33
Anonymous said...

Ben's correct about no Mountian gorillas in captivity. There were a few Eastern Lowland gorillas displayed and incorrectly called Mt. gorillas. I believe the two males collected by Martin and Osa Johnson and displayed at the San Diego Zoo fit this category.

The big problem in gorilla conservation is that they are hunted for "bushmeat". Their meat is sold in markets in West and Central Africa and in underground markets in Europe and the U.S. It's a very profitable commodity in very poor countries. Breeding gorillas in zoos is common, the big problem is contraception to avoid having too many animals and maintaining a good genetic base. Sending animals back to Africa, with current poaching and loss of habitat, wouldn't be effective now.

Triva: The first gorilla born in captivity is Colo, a female still living at the Columbus, OH Zoo. She was born on 22 Dec 56.

07 November, 2006 12:22
Anonymous said...

Maintaining diversity within the genetic base of captive lowland gorillas has been pretty successful through the efforts of the AZA SSP. But changes in Gorilla taxonomy -- redefining Gorillas into two groups, Eastern and Western, and placing what were called called Eastern Lowland Gorillas into Gorilla beringei with the Mountain Gorillas ups the stakes even more. There may be as few as 100 Cross River Gorillas left in the wild in Nigeria. the Western Lowland is well represented in captivity, and certainly has the widest distribution in the wild, but on top of bushmeat, the Ebola virus has impacted Congo populations. I remember as a kid reading Carl Akeley's descriptions of his gorilla encounters collecting for the Field Museum, and the American Museum. When I think of Akeley's great African collections, the elephants always come to mind first, but I think the gorillas were what haunted him, dragging him back to Africa.

07 November, 2006 18:42

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