Buckles Blog: APES #4

Sunday, March 03, 2019

APES #4

8 comments:

Chic Silber said...: Not much turnaround time

Perhaps a very short show; 03 March, 2019 09:23
Chic Silber said...: The gorilla image was glommed

from an older Ringling flat

that was shown in another set

of apes a few months ago; 03 March, 2019 12:54
Charles Hanson said...: Chic: Is it true that maybe this was just a bad Chimp as opposed to a gorilla?; 03 March, 2019 13:36
Charles Hanson said...: Maybe I am thinking about Toby Tyler Circus and their chimp....; 03 March, 2019 13:38
Chic Silber said...: I only visited the Hoxie Show

a few times while my cousin

Mike Bourbon was clowning on it

I don't recall this attraction

(Never saw Toby Tyler); 03 March, 2019 16:58
Chic Silber said...: I'm told that welding company

is still there with a new name; 03 March, 2019 16:59
Jim Alexander said...: There was a male gorilla that was toured with a circus about this time. Somebody's out there that would know if it was from Berosini (not Bobby, he had a young male gorilla who died early of heart problems), perhaps a Noel gorilla.; 03 March, 2019 17:13
Richard Reynolds said...: Hoxie Tucker actually had two genuine gorillas. I saw one of them on his Hoxie show in suburban Atlanta.

Mickey was RBBB's last gorialla. For 1976 Mickey was leased by Ringling to circus owner L. B. “Hoxie” Tucker. Chappie Fox said the arrangement prevented Tucker from using either the “Phineas T.” or “Gargantua III” names for Mickey.

Hoxie Tucker put two truck shows on the road in 1976, his namesake Hoxie Bros. Circus and the Great American Circus. Both carried gorillas. Tucker gave Mickey the stage name “Kongo” and placed him on Great American using the 1965 stainless steel semi-trailer cage to haul him around and exhibit him. The other gorilla was named Gori and was owned by Noell. Gori had once belonged to Maria K. Berosini. Tucker gave him the showbiz name “Mongo.” He went on the Hoxie Bros. circus riding in the old 1938 Ringling gorilla cage. It kept its original 98 number

Late in 1976 Tucker bought gorilla King from Berosini. That meant he no longer had to lease Kongo (nee Mickey) from Ringling. So at the end of the 1976 season, Hoxie sent him back to Mae Noel who was boarding him..

For 1977 Tucker used his new King in Mickey’s place on Great American, putting the Kongo moniker on him as well. King was with the Hoxie Bros circus in 1979 after which he was sold to Monkey Jungle in Miami. Founded there in 1933, it is privately owned and operated by the DuMond family.

As time wore on a disagreement arose between Mae Noell and Ringling over boarding fees for maintaining Mickey. The upshot seems to have been that Noell got title to Mickey and the two cages semis.

According to the International Gorilla Studbook, in November 1983 Mickey was sent from Noell to the Jombolair Ranch near Ocala. It was owned by the eccentric multi-millionaire Arthur Jones, developer of the Nautilus exercise machines. He and his ranch gained world wide fame in July 1984 when he flew a Boeing 747 from Zimbabwe to Jumbolair with a planeload of 63 young African elephants. His ranch had an 8,000 foot runway that could land the 747. He also had white rhinos and the largest crocodile in captivity.

Jones built a special enclosure for Mickey who lived at Jombolair until his death on September 15, 1988. At that time he weighed 495 pounds.; 03 March, 2019 19:32

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