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7 comments:
JRN's Gargantua, along with Barnum's Jumbo, were the two most successfully promoted animal stars. The public still recognizes anything called Jumbo to be the big size, and anything massive and powerful to be Gargantuan. When his animal stars become part of the lexicon, the showman has outdone himself. I'm grateful to this day that I saw Gargantua just weeks before he died.
Gargantua, The Garden, menagerie, Sideshow Priceless memories. A shame they could not bottle the smells.
I'm afraid those bottles would
be considered toxic substances
& HazMat teams would respond
I believe Gargy's taxidermied
remains reside in Ellenton
He used to stand in the Feld
entry lobby on 18th Street NW
when Stephanie Karpovich was
the lovely receptionist
Years later they put a taxidermied
"Michu" in the glass case with him
I was sorry to learn it wasn't real
I'm proud to say I saw him in Atlanta in 1938, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 47, 48, and 49, the last just weeks before he died.
In '38 he was a feature in the program as his new air conditioned cage wagon was pulled around the big top to the music of Ravel's Bolero. Unforgettable! This was actually on Al G. Barnes-Sells Floto with features from RBBB. I saw it here in Atlanta on Tuesday Nov. 8, 1938. Usually, the cage was pulled by a team of horses. But, the day I saw it, a crawler tractor did the job.
As the years wore on, Gargy seemed more sullen and listless. However, in say '39 and '40 he was full of life. I saw him throw his tire with much force from one end of the cage to the other. In '39 I was thrilled to see his keeper give him a hard boiled egg. That took place in the compartment at the back end of his cage.
Next to Jumbo, he was the biggest circus animal attraction ever. Remember, only a few zoos had gorillas in the late 1930s and most of them were in large northern cities. RBBB brought Gargantua to smaller places where the public had never seen a gorilla
Like RICHARD reminds us, folks in the hinterlands only saw exotic wonders when circuses brought in their big menageries. An old, very ancient, gag has the farmer standing before the giraffe, declaring, "They ain't no such animal!"
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