Thursday, October 30, 2008

Beatty-Cole late 1960's #13


CBCB-18, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Posted by Buckles at 10/30/2008 05:58:00 AM

12 comments:

Wade G. Burck said...

Buckles,
These look exactly like the old Ringling cages. I have never seen a door handle or cable roller system like that except for the Ringling cages. Does anybody know if these were bought from Ringling,or who had them first, or who copied who?
Wade Burck

30 October, 2008 13:43
Anonymous said...

These came to the Beatty show with

Dave Hoover but I don't know where

he got them from

Are any of Dave's crew still around

Chic

31 October, 2008 10:10
Anonymous said...

Yes, some of the Hoover gang is still heard from. Ned and Cindy Potter, and yours truly, to name three of us. Others I hope to jackpot with again are Big John Richards, Froggy, and Eddie Firlein, not to forget the great help provided for a time in '81 by Larry Allen Dean.

I am uncertain of the exact origin of Dave's cages, but they were either off the Ringling show, or copied that ill-conceived system. Guillotine (up-and-down) doors invite specific disasters. First, these doors were heavy. To raise one, you had to haul back with great effort and hold the door vertically until the animal passed underneath. The primary temptation for the tunnel man was to drop the door a time or two on the animal's back to hustle him through. This of course led to the cat not wanting to traverse the cages, leading to hesitation and further frustration to the guys along the tunnel.

Then, these cables could break at the worst moments, sometimes during routine shifting for cleaning, but often enough during the act. This dropped the door in a guillotine threat to anything underneath. Ned Potter would draw back on a cable to raise a door, have it break, sending the door slamming down and Ned tumbling backward with the handle. He had to run for the new cable, the nicropress, and cable sleeves for emergency repairs.

During the winter of '81-'82, I trained one of the younger tigresses for a hind-leg walk for Hoover, only to have Four-eyed Tommy, a cagehand, drop a door on her back foot, causing a bad limp for two months, and confirming my disgust with Ringling show designs. Another questionable design I worked with involved up-and-down doors requiring men standing on top of the cages, raising and lowering each by hand. Before anyone claims it was good enough for so-and-so, remember that good enough begins with what's right for the animals, extending to what's right for your tunnel men. Bill Johnston and I agreed that the best system has men standing beside connected tunnel cages, sliding doors in and out horizontally, for optimum control and a welcome reduction in excited consternation.

31 October, 2008 15:22
Anonymous said...

I believe Froggy passed away long

ago after a lengthy hospital stay

My favorite memories of him (bless

his heart and may he rest in peace)

were of him sound asleep with his

head resting on the breakers of the

light board

He was dear and a very hard worker

Chic

31 October, 2008 17:14
Wade G. Burck said...

Roger,
Whoa up. There was a reason for the Ringling cages to be designed the way they were, and it wasn't incompetence. They didn't line the cages up end to end, but side to side with the guillotine doors or lift out doors, as we see on these cages, on the side to pass through. Unless you were using them for the purpose they were designed there would be no reason on Gods earth to have them. Sliding doors open one direction, which is difficult in a doubled up scenario without turning the tongue, which makes a fast removal difficult. Also traditionally the cat's were kept in the elephant tent along one side. Sliding doors would have given the elephants something to play with in the evening. Unless of course you know a night watchman who actually stays awake and watches. LOL
Hawthorn had the same guillotine door system until 1992 and I never knew of a cable to just break, either there or on Ringling. Until the advent of stainless airplane cable, a strand would split and fray, and it would be immediately replaced. Sliding door have the disadvantage of not being able to be opened wide enough in narrow hallways where the animals are stabled(much like in Ringling elephant tent). The ends are no longer just a small door to pass the animals through. Never cages have the whole 8 ft. end removable so that the animals can be given a bigger cage with no restriction to their movement. I have never heard of a door being dropped on an animal to make it move. That practice should have been forbidden("remember that good enough begins with what's right for the animals"). I also suggest if the animals have to be forced something wasn't done right in their early training. "Guy's along the tunnel????" Two is a treat today if you are lucky. Usually you are not, unless you are "cute and charming." You are happy to have one just to shift and open the cage door.
Sliding doors can be shut on an animals tail. Guillotine doors can have a block under them to prevent this, as this picture and picture #15 illustrate.
The handles on the Ringling cage were poorly designed and nobody has ever copied them, which is why I noticed these handles. Opening was fine, although it took two hands to hook it, but they could not be closed fast enough. The cable had to be pulled with one hand to relieve the pressure to release the handle. Both situations are tough to do when you have a shift stick in one hand and pulling the cable with your other hand, and attaching or detaching the handle with your "third" hand.
The cables, inside the cage, are the only thing that make this type of cage bad. The cable gives some animals something to play with and chew on. Why not put the cable on the outside, some may ask? Because then the pulley gets damaged when the cages are bashed together.
Ringling's situation dictated those cage's, as did Hawthorn's not poor engineering. As stated, when Hawthorn started using sliding door cages which were purchased from a European show, it open up other situations as I have described. Due respect to you and Bill, that's fine in a same day same situation scenario like on a European or American tent show. If you are going to be playing many different venue's in order to make a living, you have to have adaptable equipment that will function properly for about 75% of those situations. The other 25% is a life of living hell.
Regards,
Wade Burck

31 October, 2008 18:41
Casey McCoy Cainan said...

I concur about the sliding doors vs. guillotine doors. I own a few guillotine cages with stops at home that my wife (I only get one person for shifting, and she is a softy, I really need them to just run rite in) can't pull the door up and hook it while holding a stick. The side slide doors on the cages I use now require extra thought not to catch a tail as the cat gets in (thats another reason for the wife being door guy) and the side doors have caused me many problems in small buildings and narrow hall ways as you need three extra feet for the handles to stick out. I also have a hard time believing a cable just "broke" they tend to look like they need replaced for several weeks before the final "snap". If my "cageboy" were 50lbs heavier and a little stronger, I would switch to the guillotines, but then she wouldn't look as good in her eskimoe costume for the dog act,,,lol

01 November, 2008 00:37
Casey McCoy Cainan said...

Mr. Smith,
I didn't realize Mr. Hoover had hind leg tigers, would you have any photos of them?

01 November, 2008 00:39
Anonymous said...

I don't recall Dave ever having

a hind leg walk in performance

but I remember him trying to get

my dear Salome to stand upright

Chic

01 November, 2008 09:31
Wade G. Burck said...

Casey,
If they run right in, then a stick shouldn't be necessary, and two hand would be easier.
Wade Buck

01 November, 2008 10:13
Casey McCoy Cainan said...

We only shoot a 70% on running rite in now, there are still days when stick is needed. I am thinking next year I will just hire a groom, and save money on marriage counseling, needed by making my wife work the door,,lol

01 November, 2008 10:26
Anonymous said...

If I would have seen anybody drop a door on a Animals back while walking through the cage it would have been the last time he touched a door handle. If maintenance was kept up the cages where allwright except for the fairly big gap underneath the walk through doors. The tail of the Animal in the adjoining cage could slide underneath and would be bitten of or shredded by the claws. We would slide a plywood sheet between some cages where we knew that this could happen.

01 November, 2008 16:37
Anonymous said...

Another major problem with Hoover's guillotine doors was the lots we showed on were not always asphalt, and after the disastrous building route of the Winter of 1980, they never were again flat concrete floors. On bad lots, the cageline was uneven, meaning one guillotine door could go up, but with the cages connected, the next door could only rise four to six inches, jammming against the other one. This made us to try to level the wheels with shims of anything available so all doors could function. If narrow corridors impede horizontal doors, this is another time we cussed up-and-down doors.

On Castle, I twice played Souix City. The building accommodated one ring and a piece of a ring, and the cages had to line up in front of a concession stand, turn a corner, and continue along a narrow ramp used by patrons. We had people literally scraping their clothing against the cage screens on the way to their seats. The horizontal doors only opened enough for the cats to force themselves through. So, of course, any kind of cage wagons will eventually bring you grief. And we showed this damn building 6days in those years.

To Casey: You're right--Hoover never had the hind-leg walk. I correct the winter to that of 1980-'81, after we picked up Pat Anthony's cats. Pat had envisioned a hind-leg walk for a young tigress, pointed her out to me, and gave me the skinny on her. Dave tentatively named her Bonnie, but somehow she became known as Angel. With Dave's permission, I broke her for the walk, and she did well before the injury. After the limp subsided, we were on the road, and Hoover was rather indifferent about my restoring the trick. Even without extra pay, I would have enjoyed adding this for Dave, but it was his act, and the decisions were his alone. In regard to photos, some fans came around who took snapshots of Winterquarters and of Hoover's set-up there. I never saw anything they took, so I can't be sure what was shot. This is not so unusual--photos taken of my work on Castle and Suesz, I did not see or have in hand for over two decades afterward.

03 November, 2008 18:59

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)