Buckles Blog: More Beatty-Cole #6

Friday, August 14, 2015

More Beatty-Cole #6

9 comments:

Bob Karczewski said...: This Hippo was billed as "Big Otto, The Blood Sweating Hippo From The Upper River Nile". I remember the endless tape that played that spiel in 1958 when the Clyde Beatty Circus played Traverse City, Michigan. I earned my first free pass helping set up the big top.; 14 August, 2015 11:14
Chic Silber said...: Otto was actually a female but

I don't recall her real name

Might have been Petunia

She loved cabbage; 14 August, 2015 12:54
JIM ELLIOTT said...: Otto, had his own private pen(with water tank)
In the North end of the Elephant Barn in Deland.; 14 August, 2015 13:42
Bob Karczewski said...: Roy Zinser told me what her name was, but I have forgotten what her name was.; 14 August, 2015 20:07
Bob Cline said...: She was bought from Paul and Dorothy Kelly. The hippo pool there was in the one corner of the cat barn.

Bob; 14 August, 2015 23:42
Richard Reynolds said...: Big Otto was indeed a female hip. She had a long history. Born in the Cincinnati zoo, she was acquired by Zack Terrell for his version of the Cole show in 1943. Because the war was on she got the name “War Baby.”

In the terrible Rochester WQ fire of early 1940 Cole had lost its hippo, a pygmy that had come from National Zoo. To help out, John North loaned Terrell the RBBB Nile hippo Chester who toured with Cole that year and also in 1941 - 1942. When Cole got its own hippo from Cincinnati Chester was shipped to Peru and in 1944 was shipped back to Sarasota.

The “new” Cole hippo was with the show until it closed in 1950. She then went to Paul Kelly who put her with other shows, including Kelly Morris in 1952 and 1953 and the Gem City shows in 1954. She was sold to Bob Snowden who had her on the Royal American Carnival in 1957. Toward the end of that season he put her with the Clyde Beatty show where she was a pit attraction. Snowden sold her to the Beatty show and she went out with it in 1958. Floyd King renamed her “Big Otto.” In March 1958 she got loose from Deland WQ and was at large for a time. This made the press everywhere. I always figured old Floyd staged the “escape.”

Big Otto was with the Beatty show in 1958 and then Beatty-Cole from 1959 until her death around 1975 or 1976. She died as a result of injuries sustained when her semi rolled off the highway in northern Alabama near Muscle Shoals; 15 August, 2015 19:32
Chic Silber said...: Thanks Richard for this history

I know she wasn't called War Baby

during the 60s & 70s but the name

of some flower & maybe Petunia

Several men cared for her including

Charlie Gore & Doniker Mike

She seemed pretty good natured; 16 August, 2015 08:50
Roger Smith said...: Charlie Gore told me of the many times along the road he was pulled over, when Big Otto was slamming her water tank around in the trailer. Highway Patrolmen thought they had a drunk driver, and truthfully they probably did. But when Charlie opened the back end, and explained the hipp's antics, the cops bought it and always let him go. Another of Otto's faithful caregivers was Captain George, who loved to catch the blow-off and divest himself of lectures on the operation of the World's Largest Circus.; 16 August, 2015 13:12
Chic Silber said...: Richard do know anything about

the Hippo on Cristiani Wallace

in the early 60s that walked

the track as a time filler; 17 August, 2015 01:08

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Powered by Blogger. DownRight Blogger Theme v1.4 created by (© 2007) Thur Broeders