Monday, September 22, 2008

Elephant Appreciation Day! #2


scan0127, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Another picture from Anonymous showing Harry Freid and "Boo" on Gopher's show about 1980.
On the Ringling Show Ted Svertesky often received collect calls from "Head Down Harry", when I asked him about it he said that the calls were actually from Gary Thomas on Tarzan's show, using a code word to indicate he had arrived OK in the next town.
Once Charly Baumann came out to the elephant tent with a message for Ted and asked, "Who the Hell is this Low Down Harry that keeps calling?"

Buckles

Posted by Buckles at 9/22/2008 12:40:00 PM

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

During the winter of 1965 I worked on the Ken Griffin magic show while waiting for the calliopes of Hugo to start tooting. Ken played some dates for a guy who called himself Kara Kum. Kara Kum had given Ken this list of code names and numbers and Ken was to call in the gross every night by calling collect from a combination of names on the list.

Unfortunately Kara Kum had only used first names in making the list so Ken might call collect from say "Tom Joe Bob" one night and from "Sam Tom Bill" the next night. To make matters worse Kara Kum had several units out so he got these calls several times every night.

In those days there were real operators and you actually called through them rather than direct dial. One night the operator said to Ken, "What the hell is this all about? Every night this guy gets all these calls from these odd names like "Joe Henry Sam"- no last names just first names?" Ken got so tickled he couldn't reply, he just stood there shaking. Finally he just hung up and the poor girl never got her explanation.

24 September, 2008 01:57
Anonymous said...

Whitey, send me an email I'd love to speak with you about working with Ken & Roberta, my email is adamchristophermagic@gmail.com
Thanks,

Adam

24 September, 2008 18:29

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