Monday, July 31, 2006

Althoff Riding Tiger 1970 #2


I first saw this act in 1968 and as I recall, it worked in Charly Baumann's arena immediately following his act. In fact Charley would remain to assist Miss Althoff.
I'm sure you circus music buffs are familiar with the excellent music that came with this act and later taped during several of Merle Evans concerts.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

From Eric:

Most of the Althoffs' special music that Merle Evans performed during his Mid-West band clinic concerts was changed out by 1970. By then, the music consisted largely of the PETER GUNN TV show theme. The Althoffs' special closing fanfare was still used, however.

Anonymous said...

Richard Reynolds said - - -

I saw this act in Washington, DC in 1967 when presented by Adolph Althoff and in Macon, GA the next year, 1968, when Evy Althoff presented it.

The late Charles "Monkey Chuck" Meltzer, former San Diego zoo keeper and later curator of a primate colony at the Univ. of Penn, Philadelphia (a research endeavor), told me (in litt, 9 Feb 1999) that while he was at the Univ., this huge tiger was brought there for some work on "corns" on its foot pads (the circus must have been in the city). The animal was anesthetized and Chuck was there for the procedure. It was weighed by the vet. Chuck saw it on the scales and it came in at a whopping 638 lbs! He said its head was so huge he could hardly encircle it with his arms! Chuck, who was a discerning critic of animal acts, considered the Althoff routine the best cat act he ever saw.