Tuesday, October 17, 2006

CBCB Alley: Football Gag

Photo courtesy of Donald Stambaugh



The classic Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Clown Alley with a Football Gag.

The ref looks like Buck Nolan.

The cheerleaders are Dennis Stevens and Jimmy James.

The front line looks like Lou Nagy, possibly Dody Daniels and Shorty Hinkle.

Behind them possibly Lou Crespo, Bernie Kallman and an unidentified feller.

Leaning in with one hand on the person who might be Dody Daniels and the other on the rope is Kenny "Tweety" Dodd.



Bernie, if you're out there, what happened in the gag?

6 comments:

  1. Hey Pat,

    It's Bernardo Crespo not Lou. And the other fellow is Chris Minot, who hailed from the Boston area I recall.

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  2. My mistake, I went to high school with a guy named Lou Crespo.

    Did Chris Minot go to Clown College? He looks like the guy that Lou Jacobs was putting a whiteface on in one of the photos in the Life magazine article.

    The photo was later used as source material for a drawing of the Clown College makeup class that Bill Ballantine included in his book CLOWN ALLEY.

    ~P

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  3. Chris did not go to Clown College to the best of my knowledge. This photo is from the late 70's, maybe 77 or 78.
    The gag's blowoff was 36-24-36 HIKE and the opposing lines approached and passed each other and then grabbed a hold of a piece of fabric in a belt form on the back of the player's pants and then it was an entire team's strip pants

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  4. Hey Pat, Those are my measurments on the football gag. I thought a lady would show up in the comment on the gag. Who chose those numbers?

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  5. Thank you Mike and Mike, you have great memories. The one thing about this gag I recall is, it was as funny as a lead balloon. The wardrobe was all to nice and not at all funny. The cheer leader were the only "dressing" in the gag. Sorry "Tweety Bird" but my opinion.....

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  6. My criticism here like with Jimmy Douglas is, dressing all the clowns alike,(takes away their individuality, although there are some who have none), and too neat & proper,(a clown must be a caracature, of the character he is portraying) after all let's face it, the clown is the mis-fit, the screw-up, so to speak, like in an Army Gag.

    People aren't stupid, most of the time you need only a hint of what you are trying to mimic for them to catch on.
    In the Baseball Game, or Football Game, they don't want to see players, they want to see clowns, pretending to be players, & doing a bad job of it. Some in full uniforms some in partial, & of course most mis-fitting, all different. Leave the "fashion show" for the ballet.

    ReplyDelete