BIRTHDAY PRESENTS: From Chris Shelton

Photos courtesy of Chris Shelton

Fellow Red Show and China Clown (as well as fellow Virgo) Chris Shelton was kind enough to send along these two shots of his walkarounds from back in his days on the Ringling Red Unit...

LOU JACOBS AND FELIX ADLER: From Shane

My present from Shane: a framed print of one of my all-time very favorite clown photos.

CHARLIE RIVEL: From Bill Strong

My present from Bill Strong: 4 photos of Charlie Rivel from the year that I was born... 1967. Here's 41 year old pix of Charlie from the 1967 Circus Schumann program...

Thank you Bill!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

I spent the day doing the things that I love, playing with Shane, taking calls from other clowns, planning shows, editing video and having dinner with Terry, family and friends. I checked my email before bed and had dozens of extremely thoughtful messages from friends around the world.

Thank you all very, very much.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANDREW SCHARFF!

Happy Birthday wishes go out today to my good friend, and the best comedy partner a guy could ask for, the hardest working man in show-business... Mr. Andrew Scharff.

MORE GARAGE SALE ITEMS!

The latest clownalley.net "Garage Sale" item on eBay is a Jackie LeClaire/Billy McCabe-style one piece jumpsuit. To take a look, please click here.

MY NEW FAVORITE THING

Other than the obvious fact that this is a Japanese comedy-magician, made up for a Japanese hidden camera television show, I know nothing about this other than I love it like a fat kid loves cake.

ELMO GIBB REMEMBERS: The Dentist Gag

After an email discussion about reviving the Dentist Gag for the upcoming Clown College reunion, Dean "Elmo Gibb" Chambers sent the following...

I always thought that the dentist gag was pretty stinky. If you don't have a good big-ass nurse it just dies. 

Buck Nolan, first-of-May "Omar Gosh" (Michael Ridenour) and I did it on Hoxie-Great American in 1983. Billy Martin would kibbitz on the microphone and Charly Moyer would pipe in from the bandstand whenever the mood hit him. Omar came in as a skinny nurse and Charly piped up, "What a face...what a figure...two more legs and she'd look like Trigger!" 

The gag became a masterpiece of verbal one-upmanship, once actually going on just over 20 minutes in Henderson, TN. At the end of the tour Jim Parker came and guest clowned with us. Lou came to visit the show that night; even Hoxie Tucker himself (hat brim up) came in to watch the gag. Parker was wearing one of Flo White's nurse drags. I'd call for the anaesthesia and he'd hand me the hammer. I'd call for the pliers and he's hand me the needle, and so on. I yelled, "Those aren't the pliers!" Parker responded, "Picky, picky, picky!" Buck fell out of the chair laughing, Billy Martin and Charly were about wetting themselves, and Lou was laughing his head off. 

There was no way to top Parker on that one. 

We couldn't lift Buck back into the chair, so we got a lot of business out of that for a while. We eventually got to the standard, unsatisfying blow-off. Lou came up at intermission and said to me, "Sometimes it's a lot better to be a big fish in a small pond," referring to the intimate size of the Hoxie show. That's the last time I ever saw Lou.

I was going to produce one hell of a dentist gag for Beatty-Cole one year. I made a revolving/tilting dentist chair that was strong enough for the dentist to stand on the arms while working on the patient. The patient had a coat on that had a celastic shoulders gimmick that would raise up over the patient's head, and a fake head put in place by the dental assistant. The dentist sticks a stick of dynamite in the patient's mouth, which blows the head off. Of course, it is quickly restored by hiding the fake head and dropping the shoulders back into place. I stored the stuff at Jimmy Douglas' place, went out doing advance for Beatty-Cole, Jimmy died and the estate people cleared the place out. 

What really ticked me off is that my miniature antique covered wagon from the Romig riding act was gone, too. I never could find out where the stuff went off to. 

Jimmy produced the alley for many years for the Shrine in Rochester, NY. Kodak would send a team of photographers every year to the show. Jimmy had an incredible store of big blow-up clown portraits stored under the bed in the guest room. Those disappeared too. 

What really, REALLY ticked me off was Jimmy's notebook disappeared as well. He promised it would pass on to me. In it was every version of every clown gag he ever saw. Lou Nagy had a similar notebook, too. His instruction to his sister was to burn it upon his death.

THE DENTIST GAG

Props needed:

Dentist chair

Sign for the dentist: DR.I. PULLEM, DDS, DOA, DDT

Doctor's satchel containing:

Stethoscope (I know a dentist doesn't use one, but you can get some pretty good business out of one)

Giant tongue depresser and flashlight

Giant syringe

Stinky shoe (for anaesthesia)

Big drill

Crowbar

Hammer & Chisel

Corn for patient to spit out

Big pliers

Mirror for patient

Cloth to wrap around patient's head to hide fake tooth

Giant foam tooth

I'd make the dentist as demonic and sadistic as possible. Watch the WC Fields short to see some brilliant business on the chair. At the reunion, pull the tooth, turn to the patient and ask how he's doing, turn to the audience and say, "Everybody?" 

They will all say in unison, "Hey, Doc, you pulled the wrong tooth!"

Nurse Nummies: Elmo Gibb





Nurse Bella Bedpan: Sandy Kozik





Nurse Ditz: Chuck Meltzer (real good friend of Chuck Sateja and the best friend I ever had. Occasionally worked for Jimmy Douglas)





Nurse Jennifer Coldhands: Mike Snider





Nurse Sandy: Sandy Kozik again. He spent a week in the hospital recuperating from pneumonia and studied the nurses while there

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRIS SHELTON!

For those of you who are unsure, the birthday boy is the one on the left holding Pee-Wee.

THE GARAGE SALE HAS BEGUN ON EBAY!

The first of the clownalley.net "Garage Sale" items have finally been listed on eBay. One is a Wayne Sidley agent suit from his days with The Greatest Show on Earth, the other is a tiny clown top hat that I don't remember how or where I got.

Look for them here and here.

Look for more later tonight or early tomorrow...

Thanks,
~P

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE KEEVER!

Thank you Joel Heidtman for reminding me that Happy Birthday wishes are in order for my friend and a truly wonderful guy,  Cowboy Mike Keever!

MATHIEU

ERNIE WISWELL?

I'm not sure but I believe this is Ernie Wiswell and his Funny Ford.

FELIX ADLER: Felix, Modoc and Estelle Clark, undated

Felix Adler and Modoc pose with Estelle Clark on the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Clowns, elephants and pretty girls...

ERIC BOO: Tennis From Different Countries

SHANE CASHIN: Stilt Walker!

Shane didn't learn to walk stilts at Michael Rosman's Circus Camp this past week but was greatly  inspired by what he saw. He got up on his Stiltz stilts this morning and made his way back and forth across the driveway a few times (with some assistance) and even let go long enough for Daddy to take a picture.

SUNDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES: Laurel & Hardy in HOLLYWOOD PARTY, 1934

Not the entire film, just Laurel & Hardy's scene's from the star-studded film Hollywood Party.

MICHAEL ROSMAN'S CIRCUS CAMP

Michael Rosman, Mark Lohr and I just finished our final 2008 circus camp yesterday afternoon at Camp Milldale in Reisterstown, MD. We taught 30 children juggling, balance, plate spinning, diablo, devil sticks, tightwire, rola-bola, stilts, rolling globe, chari-vari and clowning.

It always a pleasure to teach with Mike and Mark and we have a great support staff in Noelle Burk, the "V Family" and Michael's wife Heddie.

This year we had a tremendous number of students returning for a second, third and in some cases a fourth year! With the countless number of options as to how to spend your summertime available to kids today we are all deeply appreciative that so many of the same kids choose to keep coming back year after year, session after session to hone the skills that they've already acquired and are eager to learn more.

Another nice feature is that it's a family affair: Michael brings his two children, Mark brings his seven or eight of his fourteen kids with him and Shane even spent a few days this summer, becoming new best friends with Michael's son Ethan. That's particularly nice because Ethan's dad Michael was staying at our house five and a half years ago the day that Shane was born.

On the long ride home yesterday Shane watched the second volume of the brand new clownalley.net DVD compilation and got to see Lou Jacobs perform the Hunting Gag for the first time... and absolutely loved it... and watched it over and over and over again.

And made his father very, very proud ; )



Lou Jacobs Hunting Gag photo courtesy of Mike Naughton

MARK ANTHONY?

An unidentified clown who looks to me to be a young Mark Anthony.

What say the experts out there?

SLAPUS: Synchronized Swimming

RACHEL SAGE: Vertigo

The Joshua Katcher directed video for Rachel Sage's song "Vertigo" from her new album Chandelier.

As for the chump in Slivers Oakley's makeup, "Who hired her"?

CLOWN ALLEY: Ringling Blue Unit, 1993

Photos and comments courtesy of Steve Copeland

Hey Patrick,

Not sure if you've found these yet, but here are some possible photos for
clownalley.net


1. 1993 Blue Unit Alley members at some PR (maybe in DC?). I see Ceslee
Conkling, Sean Conklin, "Frenchie" Villanueva, Brian Searle, Jon Bogle,
Bob Greenspun, and Joey Kohler



2. Ceslee performing the sunblock umbrella walkaround at the PR.



A series from the Red Unit taken in Greensboro, NC in 1993

3. James Halliday (?) and Dave DeDera performing the stilt boxing gag
from Come In



4. Michael Frum from a safe cracking magic illusion track gag (?)


5. Michael Frum and Karen Bell from an artist track gag. The statue looks
like the one from the painter soap gag DeSanto did on Blue in the 80's.




6. Rik Gern in possibly the same artist track gag



7. Huel Speight doing the 3 Square Meals walkaround

KELLY-MILLER CIRCUS: Congratulations!!!

Congratulations go out today to my friend, Kelly-Miller "show kid" Georgia Grace Cainan (daughter of Casey McCoy and Natalie Cainan and the grand-daughter of ringmaster and magician Phil Chandler) who graduated kindergarten yesterday!

Let's give the little lady a hand!

THE SORELETTIS: Headshots

Perhaps Raffaele de Ritis could coax my friend Frank Bogino into giving us all some more information on the Sorelettis.

Some background on Frank, from Frank...

Hi Pat

My name is Frank Bogino - my family whent to the US on the Ringling show in 1947 and I was born in Boston that year. We were one of the best risley acts in the country and the first acrobatic circus act to be engaged in a Las Vegas Revue - The Dunes in 1950.

I grew up in New Orleans and also went to music school. In the summer I was learning to be a circus artist and became a very good acrobatic tumbler and risley top man but when I started traveling with the family I was called in to the US Army.

When the Vietnam war was over I went to Europe with my family and worked in the top circuses. In my 30s I set up a very nice comedy act similar to George Carl and with this act I performed in the top theatres and circuses in Europe. At the age of 43 I retired and today I manufacture Amusement Rides.

BILL BRICKLE

BLACKPOOL TOWER CIRCUS: Program Cover, 1979

CLOWN COLLEGE REUNION: Lou Jacobs

Photo courtesy of Steve Copeland

Video tributes to Lou Jacobs a well as a slideshow of photos taken directly from Otto Griebling's personal scrapbook, the Barry Lubin roast (no Euro-trash balloon "artistes" allowed) and the awarding of the Lou Jacobs Lifetime Achievement Award to Mike Coco... all at the Clown College 40th Anniversary Reunion at the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, WI September 18-21.

If you haven't already, please click the link to your right for more information.

POODLES HANNEFORD: By Billy De Beck

A sketch of Poodles Hanneford by Billy De Beck, the creator of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith comic strips. Outside the ring notice Barney Google and his horse Spark Plug, the inspiration for Jack Le Clair's famous bendover gag.

Under De Beck's signature it says that the sketch was done at the Ambassador Hotel which means that it was probably done in Los Angeles during Poodles stint in silent comedy shorts.

THE CHICKYS: Bruno, undated

CIRCUS KRONE: Charlie Rivel Statue

The statue of Charlie Rivel that stands outside Circus Krone, one of several staues erected to Rivel around Europe.

I'm sure that there will be Lou Jacobs and Otto Griebling statues erected outside the new Madison Square Garden, right?

I hear that they are almost finished with the Barry Lubin statue in Damrosch Park.

CLOWN COLLEGE REUNION: CBS Television, 1988

A CBS television commercial for the Clown College 20th Anniversary special.

The 40th anniversary will be held in less than a month in Baraboo, WI at the Circus World Museum. CBS won't be there, but it's going to be pretty special nonetheless. Click the link to the right to see the latest, updated schedule of events and if Greg and Karen don't already have your checks... GET THEM OUT NOW! Time's a wastin'!

DAVID LARIBLE: Conductor, Roncalli

"LITTLE BILLY" MERCHANT

Little Billy on the cover of the 1960 Bertram Mills program.

Although there is a Coco in this picture, this is NOT Billy Levishion; )

MARK ANTHONY

REMINO CAVEAGNA & IVES MILETTI Boxing Gag

FREDI CODRELLI

I drove myself crazy yesterday afternoon trying to find out the name of a clown in a piece of video. Dominique Jando, Greg DeSanto and Raffaele de Ritis were kind enough to confirm the performer in question as Fredi Codrelli.

From Raffaele...

The clown doing the scarf magic with Zippo-Paul is Fredi Codrelli. He was an Austrian clown, that Bernhard Paul booked in the early Roncalli tours (1980-84). They did togheter several entrée (talking a lot). Codrelli is largely responsable as teacher and developer of Zippo's character.

JACKO FOSSETT AND "LITLE BILLY" MERCHANT: 1978

From the Telegraph in the UK...

(I wouldn't take this career timeline to be the gospel truth as it omits the years that Billy spent working with Mike Coco, Lou Jacobs and Otto Griebling on the Ringling show in the early 60s)

"LITTLE BILLY" MERCHANT

November 22, 2001

"LITTLE BILLY" MERCHANT, who has died aged 81, was a much admired midget circus entertainer.

William Merchant was born on July 31 1919 and, having been abandoned by his parents at an early age, grew up in an orphanage in Bristol. As a youngster he was fascinated by the local variety theatre, which he would visit at every opportunity, and in 1937 a chance encounter at the Bristol Empire with John Lester's celebrated troupe of midgets brought him his first job.

After working in Lester's act, he joined Joe Boganny's band of acrobatic dwarves, another renowned music hall act of the era. During his time with Boganny, Merchant appeared at all the leading variety venues with such well-known stars of the day as "Wee" Georgie Wood and Elsie and Doris Waters.

When war came, he worked as an aircraft fitter for the Bristol Aeroplane Company. He then spent the summer of 1944 at Chessington Zoo Circus in Surrey, playing alongside the clown Fiery Jack (Fred Zetina).

Merchant next teamed up with the Austin brothers, Len and Alby, and in 1945 they were featured at Blackpool with other clowns such as Coco. Merchant returned to Blackpool two years later with Charlie Cairoli, whose simple style of make-up he afterwards imitated.

He and the Austins next worked with Chipperfield's Circus for two years before parting company. Merchant then appeared as a reprise clown with Bertram Mills, playing Olympia in London each winter until 1964, and touring with the show's travelling circus until it closed the same year.

He was often teamed with the Mills circus's other principal midget clown of the post-war years, Nikki, and the two were regularly billed as "Britain's funniest 'little fellows' ", as dwarves were known in circus parlance. On one occasion they appeared with the ringmaster Frank Foster in a skit in which Foster, dressed in drag, played Brunhilde, while Nikki wore Robin Hood garb and Little Billy was a diminutive Norseman.

Although Merchant was offered a place with the Moscow State Circus, in 1965 he retired from show business and went to live with friends in Reading. This interlude did not last long, however, as his former colleague at Mills, Jacko Fossett, found himself in need of another partner.

Fossett had joined Cirkus Schumann in Copenhagen after Mills had folded, and when Schumann's long-serving dwarf clown Kiki retired in 1968, Merchant was persuaded to team up with Fossett and Antonio (Schumann's other in-house midget clown).

After Schumann's was also forced to close, the trio went to Cirkus Benneweis in Denmark. In the years that followed, Little Billy and Jacko Fossett enjoyed great success together on the continent with Cirkus Krone in Munich and at the Stadthalle in Vienna, as well as in Puerto Rico.

They regularly returned to Britain for television shows featuring Chipperfield's and Billy Smart's circuses, and often played winter seasons at the Belle Vue Circus, Manchester. They also spent six summers working at the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome.

In 1978, Merchant and Fossett won an award at the annual Clown Festival held at Blankenberge, Belgium. Merchant retired again to Reading after the end of that year's winter season at Belle Vue.

In the 1980s, he moved to Skegness, where he and Fossett eventually lived in the same nursing home. On occasions they also found themselves in neighbouring beds when ill health necessitated hospital treatment for both, though in all their years together they never exchanged a cross word. Fossett called him "the best partner I have ever had, and the one with whom I never had an argument."

Merchant was the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the Circus Friends' Association of Great Britain last year.

JIGALOV & KONTI: Hunting Gag, 2003

VALERIE FRATELLINI: 2008

Photo courtesy of Raffaele de Ritis



Ms. Valérie Fratellini (Annie's daughter) in the spring of 2008, photographed by Cristoph Raynaud De Lage.

ANDRIY FRANKO