Buckles Blog: #4 Blue Show

Monday, July 17, 2017

#4 Blue Show

10 comments:

Patricia said...: In the winter of 1988 I took the Carson and Barnes cat act to Disneyland for a ten week date arranged by Kenneth Feld for a production called "Circus Fantasy". It was set up in an amphitheater behind 'It's a Small World'. Because I only had a cage wagon w/ tunnel which could not be parked by the show area, RBBB loaned me some of these single wide cages for the date.
They were absolutely awful. Small, difficult to maneuver, difficult to clean, difficult to feed- I hated them. My cats were glad to get back into their more roomy regular cage wagon when the date was over too.
Other than that, it was a pretty fun date.; 17 July, 2017 08:54
Chic Silber said...: Those were likely to have been

older cat cages Patricia as these

are Ursula's (Uschi's) bear cages

Was that the Anaheim park; 17 July, 2017 12:39
Chic Silber said...: Cat & Bear urine was so acidic

it would eat through the zinc

galvanizing each season & the

cages were taken to Valmont in

Tampa to be stripped & redipped

Valmont is still there in case

anyone needs galvanizing; 17 July, 2017 12:55
Patricia said...: Well, they looked just like these, same exact style.
Yes, it was the park in Anaheim. Thinking back it may have been Jan.& Feb. of '89. Not sure. I took MacDermott with me of course (I had a custom Featherlite trailer, Dermott lived in the back, my son and I lived in the front with a tack room in between). Roy was there with some Hawthorn elephants, Pam and Roger Zoppe were there with their chimp act.
Bill Rivers was also there, he had animals in the street parade but not in the show.

It makes me smile to know I am the only woman on the planet to have taken her moose to Disneyland.

Were I to tell that to anyone outside this blog, I'm sure I'd be called a liar or someone would call the men in the white coats to take me away..!
ha ha*** fun to know it's true; 17 July, 2017 15:35
Patricia said...: p.s. looks to me like a lion sneaked into one of Ursula's bear wagons; 17 July, 2017 15:39
Chic Silber said...: I'll have to blow it up &

have another look Patricia

The 1st 2 looked larger for

some reason which doesn't

make sense to me & that's

why I assumed hastily; 17 July, 2017 16:05
Chic Silber said...: A lion & a BIG bear might

make an interesting brawl

I'm a gambling man but I

don't know if I'd bet on

that outcome except for a

helluva bloody mess; 17 July, 2017 16:07
Chic Silber said...: I wouldn't be too worried

about being called a liar

but crazy like the rest of

us goes with the territory

(don't everybody keep a few

moose around for laughs); 17 July, 2017 16:10
Roger Smith said...: These were the most ill-designed road cages I've seen. No wild animal trainer conceived of them, far less approved them. The top, both sides, and both ends were open to the elements. Anything from above could descend through the barred tops onto the animals--hot sun, cold rain, wind, anything. Yes, I've seen the folded cover tarps, but we don't see them here. The animals are fully exposed. Recall in the GSOE winterquarters scene when Brad yelled, "Keep those cats covered when you move 'em!" There's a reason for that.

The narrow slots at the bottoms are insufficient for working a cage rake. The designer knew nothing of the size and consistency of cat manure, and trying to clean it out through these scant openings shows no animal person built these cages. Next, how does anyone fork big cuts of meat into the animals? There are no sizeable footboards for feeding, nor for boning out. One guy told me, "So what? They only get the soft mush of the zoo diet."

The doors are the type we call guillotine doors. Moving up and down in a channel, they are hoisted by a cable from the bottom of the door, through 2 pulleys. I've seen the Ringling guys along the tunnel bounce these doors off the heads, spines, and butts of the animals to move them along, actions which too easily lead to injuries. Pointing this out, I got another "So what? We're moving them, aren't we?" Correct road cage doors slide in and out horizontally with latching devices on the frame. Carefully operated, they eliminate the risk factor of vertical doors.

The zinc application left a coarse finish that became soiled from day one, when the animals paced and their natural oils rubbed off on these coated bars. The stains accumulated with no effective means of being cleaned, and the annual re-dipping done at Valmont lasted until the first big cat began to pace.; 17 July, 2017 20:12
Chic Silber said...: This shows an unusual assortment

of cages that makes me think it

was during a maintenance rotation

I can't tell when this was from

or when these newer Clarks were

purchased to help with a date

Maybe these were props from an

illusionist that turned bears

into lions (pretty slick trick)

The 1st 2 aren't cat cages; 17 July, 2017 22:58

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