Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Royal Hanneford #1 (From Paul Gutheil)


IMG_2923, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Hi Buckles,
For the past 3 1/2 days Diane and I have been commuting to White Plains, NY to visit with Struppi
and the cast of this year's show. Struppi & Billy Martin put together another great show. Crowds were
anywhere from good to sold out. I went outside only twice before a performance to check for animal
rights activists. The first time, before the 6:00 show (cold & windy) there was no one to be seen except
Circus goers. The second time, the next day, I went out before the 2:00 show and there was one lone
woman whose handouts were ignored by everyone I saw. I liked the one poster she had up showing a
photo of and anti circus quote by Richard Pryor. Yeah, I want to listen to a guy who did heavy drugs
and almost incinerated himself.

Posted by Buckles at 2/17/2010 06:02:00 AM

3 comments:

Jimmy Cole said...

In my younger days, I worked on the prop crew at that White Plains date, then produced by Don Francisco. I remember that the cats, horses & elephants were kept under the seats.

I recall one year (might have been 1973), one of Al Vidbel's elephants went after the building night watchman after he tried to feed the elephants.

As always, great pictures Paul!

17 February, 2010 06:45
Mike Naughton said...

Some White Plains trivia:

The inhouse promoter was Ed Ciccolini, "Chick Productions" who brought in many different types of entertainment and consumer shows (weddings, stamps, home).

It was a Don Francisco date (Frank Mijares, Sr.) for many years, Tommy did the date first in 1975 and brought in the famous Hanneford production flash.

Chick offered the 1976 contract to Tommy, who declined because he had the Detriot Shrine date contract, so Don Francisco did the date in 76.

Since 1977, Hanneford has been the circus.

They tried to duplicate their luck with a weekend date in the fall, but it fell flat.

Originally IBM would buyout the Saturday morning show as an employee perk, general showtimes were then 1pm and 4pm. I do not recall if President Day Mondays were part of the deal back then.

Yes, Jimmy, the animals were indeed housed under the seats.

17 February, 2010 12:10
Anonymous said...

We only started making White Plains in the early '80's; so since then as you go in the back door and walk down the hall, the cats are to the left,under the seats. In a large "room" to the right the bulls and hoof stock are kept.

Jim: Thanks for the Vidbel comment and kind words. Wish I had known that as Jenny brought Joyce down to see a performance.

Mike: You and Jim and others should sit down and write all you can think of, in your spare time (lol).

Thanks to Buckles an enormous amount of collective info/history has already been recorded. Perhaps the new space being added to the Tibbals Bldg should house a
Woodcock Room!

Paul

17 February, 2010 13:39

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