Tuesday, November 28, 2006

More from my secret source.



A hidden camera reveals Bello-bortion in rehearsal. Posted by Picasa

12 comments:

GaryHill said...

At least there are still cages and rings?

Anonymous said...

Take a close look at it. I love the humor!

Anonymous said...

I'm just catching up on the last few days. Johnny did not sell the Cole Show! Have at it.

Anonymous said...

I note there are two cage acts. Is it possible that the "Dutchess" is coming out of retirement with a new JC cage act for the Feld's. Just asking.

Bob Cline said...

Three Alfred Court cage acts at one time! WoW! It is interesting to note that the center ring arena is considerably smaller than the others. Was that a sign of things to come from 60 years ago?
Bob

Anonymous said...

If you visit ringling.com and click on "explore the shows" and then click on the new red unit they have a short video about the new show: highlighted on the video are: 12 tigers, bello, a high wire act, elephants, and a double cannon.

Anonymous said...

For those who haven't picked up on the joke yet, this photo was taken in 1940 in NYC. It was in the Apl. May 1940 White Tops. Note that center cage is not only smaller, but the only one with a net.

24-HOUR-MAN said...

Has anyone noticed, ringling.com's home page has three rings, ironic isn't it!!!!

Anonymous said...

Looks like the Potentate and Divan standing on stage between the rings. Has it come to that?

Anonymous said...

Richard Reynolds adds - -

That (1940) was the first year of the A. Court acts. The center one was for the leopards, thus the net over it lest those agile rascals get out. However, there was a leopard or two in the one or the other of end ring acts as well - -also a spotted jaguar.

The center leopard act also had black jaguars. As far as I know, they were the only ones ever to perform in the ring in America other than M. Stark's 1923 animal on RBBB. It got killed in the Bridgeport WQ fire in early 1924.

Note how the transfer cages are lined up againt the wall. They used those small cages in the two gardens and put the animals in cage wagons when they went under canvas. The shifting cages/boxes rode out on the flats. At least they did in 1939. That is shown in a series of Bob Good pics taken when the show arrived in Long Island City from Boston. Jacobs lions are in them.

1940 was the last time the spec opened the show and you see it on the hippodrome track. It was called "The Return of Marco Polo."

Anonymous said...

As Richard Reynolds commented, the centre ring contained the mixed panther act. The arena was built smaller because the animals were still working slowly, as they had done on their previous season at the Blackpool Tower Circus UK. This is often the case with the smaller cats. Leopards tend to be sulky for their initial seasons before they become acclimatized. By making the arena smaller the travel time between the side seats and the pyramid props is shorter and therefore easier to manoeuvre the animals. Incidentally I trained a black jaguar to work in our panther act. He was a particularly large specimen who liked people better than his own kind. Because of this we had to omit him later on. I also trained two more, but always had a problem mixing them with other animals. In ring one, Fritz Schultz presented 8 lions, 2 or 4 tigers, 2 leopards, 1 jaguar, 3 polar bears and 2 Himalayan black bears. In ring 3 Harry and May Kovar presented another mixed group of a similar composition, but it also included 2 Great Dane dogs as well. Of course, the animal content varied from show to show, as they had spares for each act.

Anonymous said...

Can y'all tell some more act of the new Red show and is Ty McFarlan is still the ringmaster because they suppose to fing a new ringmaster for the show?