Saturday, January 22, 2011

1926 RBBB Program #10


Scan00000010204, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Posted by Buckles at 1/22/2011 05:21:00 AM

14 comments:

Bob Cline said...

Is this the same Cinderella float that ended up at Paul kelly's before going to the Circus World Museum?
Bob

22 January, 2011 09:52
Chic Silber said...

I guess that "Grand Introductory

Pageant" became "Grand Entry" and

now it's just "Opening"

Can anybody help with the origins

of "Manege" "Spec" & "Finale"

22 January, 2011 09:58
Anonymous said...

Spec is short for spectacular.
Finale means the end!
Bob Kitto

22 January, 2011 13:13
Chic Silber said...

YES DEAR that goes without saying

I was asking about the origins

22 January, 2011 14:02
Bob Cline said...

Chic,
I'm sure there are many sources of origins given ones writings. The Tom Ogden book, 200 Years of the American Circus, signifies the spectacle was generally at the beginning of the show and involved a huge production of a play or giant pageant. Scenery, props, a storyline and lots of people and animals were used. The "Cleopatra" spectacle on Barnum & Bailey dates back to 1895. So magnificient in its grandeur, it required 1250 participants with 300 spec girls, 500 mounted Roman Soldiers, 200 foot soldiers, actors and others and the entre Barnum & Bailey Menagerie. Some "specs" were so grand as to take up almost the first half of a show.

While I have a fairly extensive collection of circus books, Manege' and Finale are not discussed in any of them enough to make the Index in the back.

According to website dictionaries, Manege is described as being from the Italian word maneggio, training of a horse and the first known use of the word dates back to 1644.

The word Finale comes from the Latin word finis or Late Latin language says finalis. The word then became associated with the grand end of something, especially a show or piece of music.

It sounds like the circus simply adapted the term.

I don't know if this helps or hinders.

Bob

22 January, 2011 16:40
Anonymous said...

Chic: Sometimes, at the end of a really bad show it's referred to as Finally.

Paul Gutheil

22 January, 2011 16:53
Chic Silber said...

Thanks Bob & that's sadly funny

but true Paul as we've all known

The worst is when your friends in

the show ask you what you thought

& you try to be diplomatic

22 January, 2011 21:17
Chic Silber said...

Paul I remember that was also the

feeling at the end of some never

ending rehearsals in Venice

22 January, 2011 22:19
Anonymous said...

This is not the Cinderella carriage that is now at CWM.

The one in this photo was used on RBBB in the 1910s. It never appeared on the Combined Shows.

The one at CWM started out on RBBB in the early 1920s, went to Terrell Jacob, appeared a day on the so-called V&H outfit, went back to Peru and remained there until purchased by CWM.

I would also doubt that the 1910s Ringling vehicle was rebuilt into the 1920s-1930s RBBB carriage.

23 January, 2011 14:37
Anonymous said...

Spec is short for spectacle. The rough origins go back to themed acts, such as the Courier of St. Petersburg, and hippodrama, on the stage and in the ring. In the 19th century circus there were titled acts and processional presentations, in a ring/rings or around a hippodrome track, including nearly the entire performing troupe. Some of these would be considered "production numbers" in latter day terminology. The processional style spectacles culminated with Forepaugh's Lalla Rookh in the early 1880s. Bailey brought on the era of the great spectacles with a stage and backdrop, a version of grand opera, when he hired Kiralfy to produce Nero for Barnum & Bailey. The era lasted into the late 1910s. Thereafter shows produced processional specs and production numbers, and later themed shows and acts.

23 January, 2011 14:44
Dick Flint said...

Since this carriage, distinguishable for sporting more decoration than the later one now in Baraboo, was only on Ringling before the combination, it is interesting to see a photo by H.A. Atwell as I am wondering how much before 1919 he began taking photographs. What survives of his negatives at CWM dates from the late 1920s-1930s. Perhaps his earlier work was on nitrate-based film and just disintegrated, never making it to CWM when one of the Milwaukee newspapers donated the collection at the time the museum first opened.

Miss Jenny Rooney was, of course, Mrs. Ed Rooney and they were on the Ringling World’s Greatest and stayed on the combined shows for more than another two decades. In some ways, they created the long-standard aerial ballet number. I had the pleasure of a long visit with them and remember their relating how they met on the 1911 Forepaugh-Sells show owned by the Ringlings. They were smitten with each other but there were strict fraternizing rules for young singles that kept them apart. However, both rode in the same mounted section for the daily street procession and so arranged to switch positions with other young friends so they could be paired in parade. That was the only way they could court during the entire season; later they were able to celebrate more than 60 years of marriage. After Jenny was too old for aerial work in the double trap act they did, a young show girl took her place. She was absolutely dedicated to them and lived and cared for them into their old age. Sadly and unfortunately, she predeceased them. Ed, I believe, lived near to or beyond 100. They had a son, a dentist, who had no circus associations.

Ed Rooney and Joe Hodgini (who many will remember from RBBB in the early 1970s) were probably the last survivors from the old Ringling World’s Greatest Shows. Both vividly remembered the old Baraboo winterquarters when it was active.

Dick Flint
Baltimore

23 January, 2011 18:21
Anonymous said...

Any horse riding High School horses performing routines together in all rings and or on the track with a themed presentation is always known as "menage". A French term< I guess, Meaning a group of trained horses. Ringling always had a traditional "Menage" number over the tears as did most circuses. Until with Ringling after 1956 when it was no more one of the "Produvtion numbers in the show",so hence the Elephant production number was referred to from then on as "Menage"> Historians would recal "Saratoga Racing Ball" as one of many Menage numbers. It is seen in movie "GSOE" or one similar. I produced the last one on Mills bROS. WITH SOME TEN HORSES and riders and the in a small scale on Hoxie Bros. With myself, wife and four daughters all riding. I got a personal thrill knowing that this was a "menage" No. only on a small scale, but we did it. Lay own and general routine. We jut faze away. John Herriott. Years ago all circuses had a Menage number. I grew up with that.

24 January, 2011 07:26
Anonymous said...

It was a circus tradition to open with a "Spec" or Grand Entry. No more. Great music scores were written for the "grand entry"johnny.

24 January, 2011 07:30
Anonymous said...

Atwell's first Ringling job was to print some pre-existing negatives, made by other photographers, thereby his name became associated with prints pre-dating his own and later RBBB lens work.

Manege, not menage.

The grand entree/entry was a means by which the entire performing troupe was brought before the audience, to get them excited about the wonders that would unfold in the ring.

"Spectacle" came along later, and when the big stage and backdrop presentations were discontinued the term crossed over to describe the "tournament" type presentation that opened the show.

24 January, 2011 10:10

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