Thursday, July 03, 2008

CLOWN ALLEY: Al Ackerman and Gene Randow, undated

Photo courtesy of Bill Strong


What are these two, "The Ku Klux Klowns".

Ugh!

4 comments:

  1. This was Al Ackerman's walk-around on the Polack Show!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I recall Felix Adler doing a similar walkaround; Felix had a pair of false legs/feet protruding from the top of the basket. I only saw a photo.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Our discomfort with blackface shouldn't let us avoid the fact that this racist amusement been a huge part of American comedy. In the 19th century, minstrelsy rivaled circus for popularity. In the 20th century, at least into the 1920s, how-to guides for church and youth groups included blackface. Many of our heroes, the vaudeville comics who became movie & TV stars, did blackface. The Marx Bros. movies usually included a "happy darky" number, and the 1954 movie White Christmas included a blackface-style routine.

    ReplyDelete