Saturday, February 17, 2007

Tom Piccard







From former road clown and Circus World producing clown Tom Piccard...

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I guess always was a clown..at age 12 ...I worked in a small one ring open air circus...After the army I was playing drums and tour with different bands.

At one point I was off the road for awhile I started putting together my first clown character. It made it as a regular on a morning Kiddie TV show called THE OLD REBEL SHOW.

While on that show one morning a clown who was doing the advance for the Blue unit of RBBB was on the show to promote the coming Circus, I think his name was Troy Straight and he invited me to the show and introduced me to Mark Anthony...It would a few years later that I would run into Mark in Orlando doing a magic convention and selling his foam carvings.
He had been fired from the show over a $5.00 pay dispute with Irvin Feld..And was living at Marty and Wayne Scott's home in Howie in the Hills..he invited me to come out for a visit .

The visit turned into a one month stay and a complete training course into foam prop making...Later I toured with Mark on the Gatty Circus ..Aside from that I clowned at Circus Hall of fame..and later worked at Circus World..I left the main stream end of the circus Biz and went independent in 1982.After the untimely death of my Older Brother, BUT Continued to Clown at Race tracks and other large events...and in 1986 took my clown rag's and props to Italy...Touring for 3 months with Cellini the magician and Birdie McClain the Juggler..I continue to clown with out the nose and make-up now as I can be just as funny without it..the BIG RED NOSE IS GONE ,but the clown in me will never die until I do...

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To visit Mr. Piccard's myspace page please click the title of this post.



CLOWN ALLEY A&E's Under the Big Top Part One



From the A&E special UNDER THE BIG TOP, a look at some of contemporary American circus clowning's leading lights being interviewed about their craft.

We have Jason T. Stewart (Whiteface) as well as 2007 Felix B. Adler Award winners Barry Lubin (Auguste) and Tom Dougherty (Character) with a brief cameo by fellow 2007 winner Greg DeSanto and appearances by Mitch Freddes, Alan Ware and Bryan Fulton.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Sylvester the Jester



Dan "Sylvester the Jester" Battagline, A Real Live Cartoon, with more great clown gags per second than 100 circuses.

For more on Sylvester the Jester please click on the title of this post.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Glen "Kinko" Sunberry on the Grotto Circus 1950s



Kinko Sunberry performing his comedy contortion act at the Grotto Circus in Toledo, OH "back in the day".

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Earl Shipley



A publicity photo of Earl Shipley. I don't recognize the woman but the photo looks to have been taken towards the end of Earl's long career, when he was doing advance work for Ringling in the 50s.


Monday, February 12, 2007

CLOWN ALLEY Shrine Circus CT 1940s



Left to right Al Florenze, Billy Price, Slivers Johnson, Guby Deko, Jimmy Davidson, Gil Corbin, Rube Simmons, Herb Taylor.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

CLOWN ALLEY Ringling 1965




Ed Wynn performs a teeterboard gag with members of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Clown Alley.

Look for Michael "Coco" Poliakovs, "Prince Paul" Alpert, Duane "Uncle Soapy" Thorpe, Gene Lewis and Albert "Flo" White (in his final Ringling season) as the nurse.