Saturday, May 01, 2010

From Chic Silber


RB99TH69, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.


Hi there Brigadier

The attached shows that I guessed correctly about copyright infringement

Hope all is well up there

Noticed in the news that it was some idiot from Riverview that caused

some flight to be diverted yesterday due to some bomb threat

Chic

11 comments:

JIM ELLIOTT said...

I live in Riverview, but I was not the guilty one.

Chic Silber said...

Do I recall correctly that this

was our "turnaround year"

And wasn't this the last of the

single edition TGSOE

Jack Ryan said...

Chic,

Actually this was the first year or two Ringling units. The 1968 (98th Edition) was the last time only one unit was on tour.

Jack

Chic Silber said...

Thanks Jack

Was the 99th The 1st Red and the

100th the 1st Blue (as such)

And I thought I was only losing

most recent memory

Jack Ryan said...

Chic,

We used the terms Red and Blue for the first time in 1969.

The Red, starring the newly-imported Gunther, was pretty much a brand-new show. It went on the usual tour.

The Blue, with Charly Baumann, Hugho Schmitt's elephants, Elvin Bale etc. was largely a rehash of the 98th Edition -- production numbers etc. It spent several months that summer at Judge Hofheinz's Astrohall, adjacent to the Astrodome, in Houston.

It also played a number of smaller cities that came to be known as "the rodeo circuit" at the time.

Jack

Buckles said...

I visited the show in 1968 in Denver.
Rumors were rampant but plausible.
The one I liked best was that the new show would travel to the west coast and remain there wintering in LA and would then become Ringling Bros.
The other would stay east using the Barnum & Bailey title.

Chic Silber said...

Thanks again Jack

All of those details I do recall

It's the edition numbers that I'd

like you to fill in for me

Chic Silber said...

Sounds like some of the really

silly rumors that have been

"flying" around for several days

pertaining to the CO & UA merger

This morning's announcement has

cleared up many of them but has

spawned a host of new ones

Maybe they should have called

one unit Ring and the other Ling

Chic Silber said...

Didn't Elvin start out on Red

before some exciting developments

helped decide his move to Blue

Chic Silber said...

Some of us at the time quietly

joked about the 2nd GSOE

Jack Ryan said...

Chic,

In 1969, both units were the 99th Edition. In 1970, the shows were "The 100th Anniversary Edition" (Blue) and "The 1970 Edition" (Red).

The program book I did in 1969 was a combo, using photos of both shows. There was a middle-of-the-book signature that changed for each shows' Program of Displays.

All the writing in the '69 book (other than Program of Displays) had to be generic so as to fit both shows.

Buckles, I too heard the rumor about one unit to be called "Ringling Bros." and the other "Barnum & Bailey." Not sure the powers that be ever seriously considered it. But, yes, an intriguing idea for sure.

Jack