Thursday, December 28, 2006

RBBB 1955 "Smokey" #7



A string of punks being watered between shows with the menagerie in the background. Here in Chicago they built a "pit show" type vehicle and took two of these punks "Cass" and "Adele" ahead of the show for advertisment purposes, schools, etc. I forget which elephant man took them but Ed Healy was the driver.
So the herd from this point on was reduced to 50 elephants. Posted by Picasa

Posted by Buckles at 12/28/2006 05:58:00 AM

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know I am not the only person to see this picture first thing in the morning and think its a beautiful sight. Now I can pour that first cup of coffee. My day has started off right.

28 December, 2006 06:54
Anonymous said...

Most of these punks were the adults with the herd when I was there in the late 70's. A sight not to be seen again.

28 December, 2006 22:07
Anonymous said...

Richard Reynolds says - -

The two punks that went ahead of the show for promotional purposes were doing so when it came to Atlanta in November 1955. The Thursday night (Nov. 10th) before the show arrived here the two were in a local TV studio to appear on the 11PM nightly news. I saw that "live." The next day (Friday, 11th) the show arrived. The trains were very late, forcing them to blow the matinee.

I was on the lot as the menagerie was being set up. I got a press pass from Ted Sato giving me access.

I was in there as the men were lining up the elephant herd along the siddwall. I made a careful count and have preserved my notes to this day, 51 years later.

There were an even 50 bulls in the line. Two were Africans, the forest elephant Abele (Emily) and the young male bush elephant Diamond. He had been delivered earlier at Detroit.

So 52 elephants came to Atlanta, 2 in advance and 50 with the show.

That was the largest number ever carried by a circus. However, in 1941 the show had 47 when it came here but they were all big elephants so the herd looked larger than in 1955

29 December, 2006 12:07
Anonymous said...

Boy, there is NOTHING as cute as elephant butts!
-Cindy Potter

02 January, 2007 11:54

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)