"Big Otto" was a hippo that travelled tens of thousands of miles with both the Clyde Beatty and Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros Circus. By the 1960s small town America had become more familiar with exotic animals through television than their ancestors - still it wasn't often that a hippo could be seen in towns that didn't have a zoo. Press Agent Roland Butler created artwork for a number of Beatty and Beatty-Cole posters and this attraction was promoted in a variety of forms and poster sizes for many years. This is the original design, used on the Clyde Beatty Circus of 1958 and revised several times in the ensuing years. |
Monday, March 12, 2012
From Chris Berry #1
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15 comments:
As I recall "she" (yes Otto was
a female) was quite gentle & had
several caretakers over the years
in the 60s & the only problem I
ever heard of was her reluctance
to get out of the water tank so
they could drain it
I remember that in the early 60s
the Cristiani show had a hippo
that did a full walk of the track
as a simple single display
Frank McClosky's brother Walter
ran a print shop in Winter Park
for many years that supplied all
the Acme shows with paper
Leave us not forget the more recent Zusha, Queen of the Nile.
Paul Gutheil
I saw the Beatty-Cole show in 1959, the first year of the title, and not only were the posters using the "Greatest Circus on Earth" globe but many of the trucks carried it.
I didn't join the Beatty-Cole advance until June of 1960 and by that time the show had agreed not to use this design. We were given two sizes of "World's Largest Circus" circles to paste over or "crossline" the original globes: one about 3" in diameter for window lithos and the other maybe 8" in diameter for the larger posting sizes. As time went by we gradually used up all the paper with the offending design and our posters came from the printer with the new wording in the circle.
I was surprised to see the 3-sheet Otto shown here with the globe covered by plain paper, rather than with the crossline.
Chic: When McClosky and company took over the Beatty show, they had been getting almost all their posters from Majestic in Los Angeles. Gradually they bought more and more paper from Enquirer in Cincinnati and finally all paper came from there. In 1965 they started buying their pictorials from Acme which started in Hugo but had moved to somewhere in Texas. I don't recall any posters being printed by McClosky's brother; maybe you are referring to UPC's or Under-Privilege Children's tickets, in other words those sold by the phonemen.
The Winter Park print shop did small stuff including the 2-3 weeks worth of dates on the already pre-printed color title design route cards.
Dick Flint
Baltimore
I saw fair sized color paper in
the shop but perhaps they just
handled distribution although
there were some larger offset
presses in use at the time
Maybe her name was Lotus
I remember when we were on vacation in Florida in the 1970's and me being a circus fan we went by the Winter Park Office.
Joe McMahon was not there but was in New York as the show had a blow down.
The person at the office gladly gave us a tour of it.
We saw the Heildberg four color press in the printing room and we went into the storage office to the right and the racks were full of posters.
He gave me some posters for my collection.
The outside door had the name of all three shows on it.
For a young fan at the time it was a thrill for me to see it.
Harry in Texas
Thanks Harry for your support
Dick the shop printed the color
logo headings on the route cards
& the weekly dates were often
done on the road (I'll double
check with Kenny Dodd)
Chic and Harry: I try to learn something every day. I never knew until today that Beatty-Cole ever had any posters printed in Winter Park.
Harry- send Buckles a pic or two or at least describe one or two of the posters.
The posters were not printed in the winter park shop as was stated before they just did small stuff like route card blanks and letterheads and envelopes etc.
That Heildberg press in it's day could turn out some beautiful color stuff.
The posters on the racks came from Enquirer and was just stored in the warehouse.
I have in my collection the complete box that Bobby johnson the head biller back then gave me with all the date sheets, window cards and date tails for a date. It was shipped air express and very heavy that came from Enquirer.
It had the wrong lot location on it.
I helped the guys bill Beaumont, Texas back then and enjoyed every minute of it.
In the storage area was a calliope in there as well.
Harry in Texas
Thanks, Chic. Makes sense as the typeface and layout of the weekly route varied from card to card, suggesting different printers. My earlier comment was based on what I was told by a senior Beatty-Cole official when we discussed generally the printing facility at Winter Park. I wonder, in fact, if the print shop tended to grow over the years to do more and more.
Dick Flint
Baltimore
To Dick. From Johnny. I returned your phone message back to your number and waited for you to return the call and that we could get together but never got a reply. Maybe you did not get the message. Too bad as I was looking forward to a visit jackpot session. Don't know what happened. regards, johnny
I have some of the posters with the globe covered by plain paper.
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