Monday, August 27, 2007

Ringling-Barnum 1949 #6


Scan000010078, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Hugo Schmitt crapping out the herd in the back yard prior to the acts.
Elephants directly in front of him are "Kernaudi", "Minyak", "Mudu", "Sabu" and "Icky". Originally from the Hagenbeck Zoo but taken by Mr. Schmitt to Sweden during WW2 where they were promptly confiscated by the Swedish Government and sold to John Ringling North in 1947. Hugo and all.
You may notice the different ways his name is spelled. When I knew him, he often wore a western belt and on the back was stamped "Schmitt".

Posted by Buckles at 8/27/2007 06:12:00 AM

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Was "Icky" still at Circus World when you were there?
Can you tell us about any of the ancient elephants you worked with?

Don Bloomer

27 August, 2007 08:37
Buckles said...

"Marcella" and "Icky" the last two elephants remaining from the '49 herd both died at the Ringling Park.
"Marcella" was delivered to me 2/3/77 from the Blue Show and she died of old age 7/12/77. She was originally purchased in 1922 when the Ringling Show still wintered in Bridgeport.
The next year I took my herd on the Blue Show and "Icky" was included in Axel's herd that replaced us. She died at the park in 1979.

27 August, 2007 09:49
Anonymous said...

If my facts are straight, Icky was the donor of the first trunk disection, done Dr. Jeheskel Shoshani. Aside from the trunk stuff, was she a pretty special elephant when she was alive? At the Ringling farm I handled Icky II. Not many elephants have a 2nd, usually just a repeated name. The only other I can currently think of is Cardin's Bimbo Jr.

27 August, 2007 19:14
Anonymous said...

I once asked Geary Byrd why they didn't have the elephants on C&B
do hind leg stands before they performed so the rings and track would be shit free and he said that someone used to do it, but didn't know why they stopped. Would have saved the guys with the wheelbarrows a lot of shit on their shoes.

27 August, 2007 19:54
Anonymous said...

Icky died at the cw park in 1980. She was my lead elephant for half the season. Replaced her with Carmen in Philly in June 1980. Sent to CW and died a few months later. She was the hindleg walker in the Greatest Show on Earth movie during manage. Yes this is the elephant that was sent for research as well. Imported from Ceylon to Hagenbeck in Germany in 1933. She would have been around fifty a death.

28 August, 2007 01:08
Anonymous said...

Some elephants are trained to do a tub sit up, ground sit up, but are neglected in training to do a hind leg stand. How then would you crap them out in that conventual manner. I would bet that there are very few Africans that can do a hind leg stand, even tho they perform in the ring. Gunther could never crap out his herd because the largest percentage were not trained to do just that, whereby every Hugo Schmidt elephant did a hind leg stand. Food for thou8ght.

28 August, 2007 15:56
Anonymous said...

I have worked with a couple of elephants that were taught to empty before a presentation even though they never had done a hind leg stand in their lives.
Don Bloomer

29 August, 2007 07:41
justlarry said...

On the Ringling 131st Larry Cardin would always "crap" out his elephants before the went in.
He always boasted saying my elephants never poop in the ring.
So during a photo shoot, I am on stilts and Larry gets Bo to do a hind leg stand next to me (the camera was taking the picture from above us) the rest of the cast was circled around us.
with in a second of Bo going UP he lets out the Loudest, hugest Gas/Poop/Anything-left blowout combo! It not only cleared the area, but they stopped the shoot.
Proud Larry never got to live that down.

Lary Clark
RBBB Red Clown 99-01
and tons of other circus' before and after.

29 August, 2007 14:00
Anonymous said...

Bert Pettus had an interesting manner of crapping out. He had no hind leg stands. His herd, at least on Castle, did a sort of combined squatting and leaning pose, with one hind leg extended backward. It worked, but I've never seen anyone else work it like that.

29 August, 2007 14:44
Anonymous said...

We crapped our elephants out with hind leg stands and lie downs. We started adding the command "empty" to the routine and pretty soon they would start trying as soon as you said it. Lately they go as soon as bring in line for the pre-show bath. Maybe they are so anxious to get to the performance they can't hold it in!

29 August, 2007 15:08

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