Ringling-Barnum 1968 #1 (From Jerry Digney)

Ringling_Hugo1, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. 1968 was John North's last year as producer and the Felds first year as owners--everyone in Fla. was busy scrambling to build a second unit (Blue) of the circus which was to open in March 1969 and play the summer at the Houston Astro Hall, which Judge Hofheinz, the Felds' partner had built; Hugo, Jack Joyce, Harold Ronk, Charly Baumann and other RBBB mainstays went to the Blue while Bob Dover (who kinda went missing later on in the 70s) stayed with the Red unit (the original single unit show) as performance director, assisted by Dean Murray, I believe-- Here are shots of the '68 elephant number, "Carnaby Street," which featured 16 bulls in three rings. London, flower power, Twiggy and all the rest were in full bloom, thus the theme--notice the elephants all had flowers painted on them--wonder whose job that was every day?! This was a terrific number--Hugo's acts always worked fast and did all the expected tricks and then some--looks like he had a punk in his act for '68. When Gunther arrived in '68 for the Red show, the RBBB herd suddenly doubled (it tripled to 35(???) when we opened Circus World in Haines City and Buckles took possession of the recently defunct Billy Smarts circus herd which Feld bought in '73) and while both Hugo and Gunther were German their styles were quite different; Hugo was no fan of publicity--Gunther loved it, even early on when his English wasn't so good. Jerry Digney Solters & Digney Public Relations & Internet Marketing 1680 N. Vine Street Suite 1105 Hollywood, CA 90028