Monday, January 19, 2009

Big Otto


Big Otto, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Posted by Buckles at 1/19/2009 06:07:00 AM

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Big Otto was not a male as that name would suggest. No, the animal was a female.

Born in the Cincinnati zoo she was purchased by Zack Terrell in 1943 or 1944. That gave the show its own hippo allowing Terrell to return female Chester to RBBB.

Chester had been loaned by John Ringling North to Cole in 1940 after the Rochester WQ fire killed its pygmy. So, Chester was with Cole in 1940-41-42-43.

She was first called War Baby because she was acquired by the show as a baby early in World
War II. She was with Cole in its last year (1950) and wound up at the Paul Kelly farm in Peru.

Kelly put her with other shows. Those included Kelly Morris in 1952and 1953 and the Gem City shows in 1954.

She was sold to Bob Snowden who had her on the Royal American Carnival in 1957. Toward the end of that season he put her with the Clyde Beatty circus where she was a pit attraction.

Snowden sold her to the Beatty show and she went out with it in 1958. Floyd King renamed her “Big Otto.” In March 1958 she got loose from Deland WQ and was at large for a time. This made the press everywhere. I always figured old Floyd staged the “escape.”

Big Otto was with the Beatty show in 1958 and then Beatty-Cole from 1959 until her death around 1975 or 1976.

She died as a result of injuries sustained when her semi rolled off the highway during a rain storm in northern Alabama near Muscle Shoals - - - late in the season. I have not determined in just which year that occurred.

I have been told that Beatty-Cole finished the year with Big Otto in the hippo semi as though she were still alive. Disposal of the remains did not take place until the show was back in DeLand quarters.

She had a longevity of some 34 years. While that is good it is nowhere near the record for a common hippo which is over 60.

19 January, 2009 14:14
henry edgar said...

richard -- strangely, i also always thought mr king might have played a role in otto's flight to freedom. it was oddly similar to the escape from clyde beatty's jungle zoo of augie, the hippo in the 40s, which i have been told became a big media event as the park's hippo expedition, led by beatty himself, daily searched for augie before finally capturing him. beatty writes about it in his book, jungle performers.

19 January, 2009 16:01
Anonymous said...

Richard
Did they keep the carcass on ice or what? This is a very unlikely story, waiting for the end of the season to bury the hippo. Dion

19 January, 2009 21:19
Anonymous said...

Dion - -I know that the “dead hippo in the truck” sounds improbable but more than one Beatty-Cole person mentioned it to me sort of under his breath.

20 January, 2009 12:05
Anonymous said...

In '64, Big Otto's keeper was Captain George, who delivered solemn lectures on the operation of the show to any townie who would listen, and many did.

Roger Smith

20 January, 2009 16:32

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