Saturday, February 18, 2006

Sells-Floto Circus/ Fire house

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Buckles,
Do you have a year on this picture?
Great clown photo's today...thanks

-Greg

Buckles said...

On the back all my Dad wrote was: Sells-Floto Circus, Clown Fire House, Built by Chas. Luckey 20.
I don't know what the 20 would stand for. The Floto Show closed in 1932 and I don't think this picture would date back as far as 1920.
I well remember Charlie and Katie Luckey on the Cole Show. He was still building things and she and Mrs. MacFarland ran the wardrobe Dept.

Anonymous said...

We tried our best to duplicate the Fire House Gag at CW from Disney’s movie Dumbo, but the funniest part of the gag was when the fat lady threw out her cat and it missed the net and a stage hand came running through the spotlight and scooped up the cat with a shovel as the clowns all put their fire hats over their hearts.

Anonymous said...

A great photo ! The props and the Clowns look exceptional for this production . I'll bet that was a sight to see !

Where does one click or is it a double click to put these photos in action / play mode ? ? ?

Anonymous said...

A few years ago, Jack Cook recreated the fire house gag on Sterling& Reid and the back drop and little fire engine took all winter to make,and because I think Jack Cook is a funny clown, it was good. Too bad it had to be on Dick's show!

Pat Cashin said...

Another GREAT picture!

I really like laying the building out this way (as apposed to forcing all the clowns into a tiny house) but you could only do it this way on end track or against the door, hard to stage it in the round this way.

Hey tavanaluvas, tell us more! How did Jack Cook pull off a Fire House what with being the only clown on the show? That's a LOT of running around!

~P

Pat Cashin said...

Hey l.j.,

Did the C.W. firehouse ever get beyond the rehearsal stage? Bill Balentine's book describes the amount of hard work put in and that the props were great but gives the impression that it got cut before the audiences ever got to see it.

Anonymous said...

Anyone have any insight or remember the Danny Chapman/Mel Miller version of the Firehouse staged for a brief time in late 1969 on Ringling?

-Greg

Anonymous said...

The Firehouse gag ran for at least a summer at Circus World in Florida in the mid eighties. The Alley took off and did great things mainly because of the foul mouth and hilarious Boss Clown, the late Bill Hamilton. Manny talented clown collage Ringling hopefuls stayed behind after Ringling distant itself from us, and during that time I’d say the alley was the best around. We did many big gags, Fire House, Carpenter, Boxing, Pie Gag, the best damn balloon case in the whole wide world. And we also could bring the house down with the subtle standard C.W. gags. I stole Gail LaJoy’s chair gag and ran with it for eight years. Unfortunately attendance trickled down to a halt, and among the people that didn’t come to the park was Bill Balentine. Props were not a problem because of many talented folks, Irv in particular. Building Props and rehearsal were on our own time, of course.

Buckles said...

I again maintain that my favorite clown gag was the Atomic Hair Grower.