Monday, August 27, 2007

Ringling-Barnum 1949 #1 (Photos by George Piercy)


Scan000010072, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Gone were the days of the beautifully scrolled cages. Here we see they have been replaced by WW2 surplus ammunition carriers.

Posted by Buckles at 8/27/2007 06:42:00 AM

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sure saved a lot of room in the menagerie at the end of the 5 pole bigtop.

27 August, 2007 20:04
Anonymous said...

Did I miss the part where this was called a circus??

27 August, 2007 20:07
Anonymous said...

Frankly, excepting for nostalgia, I think that the menagerie interior of the 1949 RBBB show was the best ever. The jungle theme including the palm falsettos on the quarter poles created an atmosphere conducive to feeling the part of an explorer - particularly to a young kid. Although some of this was tried before, this is the first time the entire menagerie appeared this way.

29 August, 2007 09:51
Anonymous said...

Richard Reynolds says - -

I vote for the 1941 and pre-fire 1942 menageries as the best. It was designed by the celebrated industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes. It had the dramatic giraffe island (there in ’41 – not sure about ’42) and for the ’41 opener the monkey island. For a time the elephants were shown in double rows on each side of the tent with the public passing down the middle. The cages were arranged in circles at the respective far ends. To get from one circle of cages to the other you passed between the elephants. For effect the elephants were illuminated by overhead blue lighting. When you exited the menagerie you went into the pole-less gorilla tent and then to the big top.

The menagerie cages were masked in art deco panels that connected one cage to the next and dropped down to the ground so you could not see their wheels. Other panels lifted upwards and on them were large white block illuminated letters with the names of each critter - -sort of like a movie marquee. The cages were illuminated inside by fluorescent lighting and in some their roofs were raised up so you could not see overhead bars. Around three sides inside each cage the walls were painted with individual murals depicting the natural habitat of the animal - -i.e., water and lilies for the hippos, open veldt for the lions, ice flows for the polar bears etc.

I saw both the 1941-42 menageries as well as those of 1949-50 and the latter was nowhere nearly as dramatic as the former, at least to me. Frankly the latter ones came across as a cheap imitation. Also the 1941-42 menageries used 6 center poles whereas that of 1949 had only 4 – so less room to work with.

29 August, 2007 13:20

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