Vidbel Circus: Boxing Gag

Video courtesy of the ICHOF archives.

Scott O'Donnell, Mike Snider, John Kennedy Kane, aka Eggroll, and ringmaster Billy Martin performing the boxing gag on Vidbel's Olde Tyme Circus in the 1990s.

Scott started his clowning career in Canada and later was in charge of Vidbel during the 1990s and into the early 2000s.

He worked on Ringling as boss clown and then as a talent scout alongside Tim Holst. He also worked in a managerial position on Big Apple Circus. Currently he is the Executive Director of Circus World Museum in Baraboo, WI.

Mike Snider graduated from Ringling Clown College in 1978, and after a short time on Ringling's blue unit, he went to Clyde Beatty Cole Bros' Clown Alley where he spent many seasons. He worked on many other shows, notably the Cole All Star Circus and Vidbel. He was a frequent partner of Billy Vaughn. Mike currently works in the medical field in Arkansas.

John "Eggroll" Kane began his career as a fire eater on Clyde Beatty Cole Bros Circus in 1979, and the next year became a member of Clown Alley. Eggroll performed as a clown and ringmaster on many shows, and just a few years ago he was ringmaster of the Big Apple Circus for several seasons.

Now he occasionally performs his one man show, My Life In The Basement, around the Buffalo, NY area.

Lou Jacobs

 

Need I say more?

Cirque Du Soliel: Les Maclomas

The French clown trio, Les Maclomas, perform in the Cirque Du Soliel show, Quidam, in the 1990s.

I've always enjoyed their work, but have never been able to find much information about them. This morning I found a documentary about them entitled Le Double Et Son Clowns about their experience with Cirque, and featuring them training three clowns to replace them in the show.

I'm guessing one of the new clowns might be Eric "Royo" Sanchez, whom I worked with on Ringling in 2007. I know he replaced the red clown on the Quidam tour.

I know what I'll be watching tonight!

Le Double Et Son Clown

Annie Fratellini & Les Bario

Annie Fratellini and Les Bario perform with French actor/singer/songwriter Franck Fernadel on his television special Tel Is Franck in 1967.

Ringling: Gold Unit Clown Alley 1988

 

Photo credit: Nicole Portwood

The 1988 Clown Alley from the Gold Unit of Ringling in Japan. 

From the top, left to right: 

Nicole Marsh Portwood, Jeff Wolff, Thom MacNamara, Rich Potter

Jeff Taveggia, Willie Yeomans, Christopher Hudert, David Magidson, John Pfeifer, Eark Dakan

Robb Zeiser, Wayne Sidley, Chuck Sidlow, Robert Zraick, Michael Frum, "Mr. Bill" Machtel, Sam Rivera, Karen Bell

Arturo Figueroa, Stephen Smithwick, Randy Brake, Steve Marshall, Susan Doctoroff Landay, James Wade and "Bucky" Dussell. 

Jimmy Douglass

 

Jimmy Douglass, long time producing clown for many mud shows and Shrine dates. 

I would love to hear more about Jimmy's gags. Elmo Gibb told me about the Jimmy Douglas produced firehouse, which sounded pretty funny. The firemen would be looking for the hose, and they would finally take an axe to the stomach of a fat fireman and pull the hose out like it was his intestines.

Big time comedy! 

Cirque D'Hiver Bouglione: Haunted House Entrée

Fumagalli, Darius, and Alberto Caroli performing the Haunted House entrée in Phénoménal, the 2013/2014 season of Cirque D'Hiver Bouglione in Paris, France.

Clown College Students 1969

 

Four members of the Ringling Clown College class of 1969: Jim Harmon, Frank Carbone, Manuel Marcos "Zapata" Barragan, Joe Sullivan, and Conrad Hartz.

All but Jim Harmon toured with Ringling. Carbone and Hartz with the Blue Unit, and "Zapata" and Sullivan on Red.

Conrad Hartz currently lives in South Carolina and makes beautiful marionettes that he performs shows with. "Zapata" and his fellow class of 1969 alum, Johnny Peers, teamed up after several years on Ringling and became one of the most popular clowning teams of the 1970s. Unfortunately he passed away in 1980 at the height of the team's success.

Circus Vargas: Guest Clowns

Dale Longmire, Billy McCabe, Bruce Warner, and George Clyatt help two news reporters become clowns with Circus Vargas sometime in the early to mid 1980s.

Sirkus Finlandia: Michelle Musser

 

Michelle Musser began her clowning career on Ringling in 2006. From there she teamed up with Nathan Holguin and they performed as Punchy and Judy at Circus World Museum and Culpepper Merriweather Circus.

After going solo, Michelle spent three seasons with Sirkus Finlandia in Finland. These photos, taken by Kari Nieminen, were taken during the 2018 season.

Ringling: Robot Soda Jerk Gag

Greg Mooney, "Enof" Killebrew, and Dana Nelson perform the Robot Soda Jerk track gag during the 115th Edition of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey in 1985.

Daredevil Chicken: Anne Goldmann and Jonathan Taylor

Ryan and I had the pleasure of seeing Anne and Jonathan live when we were taking over for them on the Mr. Swindle tour earlier this year.

We were lucky enough to watch them twice, and both times we were laughing hysterically.

Daredevil Chicken wowed audiences on the Gong Show in 2017, and they have performed in top cabaret and variety shows around the world.

Learn more about them here.

Pierre Étaix and Jerry Lewis

Two great clowns of the silver screen photographed together at the Cirque D'Hiver Bouglione in Paris, France during the filming of The Day The Clown Cried.

 

Hippodrome: The Three Ghezzis

The French comedy acrobats, The Three Ghezzis, performing their body breaking slapstick on the British variety program, Hippodrome.

Unfortunately the ladder portion of their act has been edited out, but does exist in other videos. Besides this act I have seen footage of them performing a construction routine.

I welcome any additional information about these gentlemen!

Ringling: Dentist Gag

 

Richard Fick, Tammy Parish, Kevin McGowan, and "Frosty" Little presenting a version of the Dentist Gag for gag night during Ringling Winter Quarters in 1983.

Every year during Winter Quarters, the Ringling clowns would perform all of their new gags for the Felds in the hopes they would be chosen to be included in the show. From the records we have of the Blue Unit 114th Edition, this gag did not make the cut.

Nicolai "Coco" Poliakoff

From Wikipedia: Nicolai Poliakoff OBE (2 October 1900 – 25 September 1974; Latvian: Nikolajs Poļakovs; Russian: Nikolai Petrovich Polyakov) was the creator of Coco the Clown, arguably the most famous clown in the UK during the middle decades of the 20th century. 

Nicolai Poliakoff was born in 1900 to a Jewish family in Dvinsk (today Daugavpils), Latvia which was then part of the Russian Empire. His family were poor and worked at the local theatre to supplement the money his father earned as a cobbler. When his father was conscripted to the army in the Russo-Japanese War the five year-old Nicolai started singing for food to avoid starvation.^[1]

• 1908—Nicolai “ran away and joined the circus,” as the saying goes. He travelled 300 miles by train to Vitebsk, in Belorussia (today Belarus), where he persuaded a circus owner to give him a job, telling him that he was an orphan with no one to look after him. The director bought his story and placed him under the charge of Vitaly  Lazarenko, a clown and acrobat who would become a major circus star in the Soviet Union after the Communist revolution.
• Nicolai eventually persuaded his father to allow him to follow a circus career, and he was apprenticed for four years to Rudolfo Truzzi (1860-1936)—son of Massimiliano Truzzi, the founder of the great Russian circus dynasty of Italian descent. With Truzzi, Nicholai studied the fundamentals of acrobatics, trapeze, horse riding, and an array of circus disciplines. Russians are particularly fond of nicknames, and Nicolai was called Kokishka by Truzzi, a diminutive of “koshka” (cat in Russian), which in time became abbreviated to Koko—and rendered as Coco when Nicolai arrived in the UK.
• In 1915 Nicolai Polakovs was enlisted in the Imperial Army. During the ensuing Civil War, he was conscripted by the Red Army, escaped—only to be conscripted again by the White Army and escape again, disguised as a girl in a troupe of Mongolian travelling entertainers. Finally, when the political situation began to settle down, he returned to work in the circus.
• 1919— Nicolai was performing in Riga, when he met Valentina Novikova (1901–1983), whom he married in June of that year, and with whom he would have six children: Helen, Michael (1923–2009), Nadia, Sascha, Olga, and Tamara.
• 1920— He worked for the newly created (in 1919) Soviet state circus organisation, and travelled in the Soviet Union from one circus building to another.
• 1926— He had his own circus collective, a small but lively troupe of twenty based in Lithuania.
• 1929— Nicolai performed at Circus Busch (Before World War II, Soviet performers were still allowed to work in Western Europe.) in Berlin (and took the time to do a cameo in Karl Grune’s film version of Carl Zuckmayer’s play, Katharina Knie). He served with the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps of the British Army in World War II. He appeared with the Bertram Mills Circus for many years. His clown persona had two distinctive visual features that endeared him to television audiences: his boots, described as being size 58, and his trick hair with hinges in the centre parting, which allowed it to lift when he was surprised. He is a member of the Clown Hall of Fame.
• 21 December 1929 to 18 January 1930—Nicolai first appeared for Bertram Mills in Manchester.
• 1933–34—Coco’s contract with Mills was extended, and following the Olympia Christmas season.
• During the Second World War, Nicolai entertained troops as a member of ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association).
• In 1942 Coco and Michael were engaged at the Blackpool Tower Circus, for the Easter and summer programmes .
• 1946— Bertram Mills Circus reopened and Coco returned. He appeared on tour for every summer season until the closure of the touring show in October 1964.
• 1947–48 & 1966–67—He performed with Mills at the Olympia in London(Christmas show)
• 21 October 1949—Nicolai and Valentina eventually became naturalised British citizens.
• April 1957— During a performance at Chelmsford, Nicolai was knocked over and injured by a vehicle driven by Kam, "the only motoring elephant in the world"—one of Mills’s four elephants trained by Joan and Gösta Kruse.
• 1959— He was involved in a serious road accident prompting him to devote himself to the promotion of road safety awareness in children.^[2] However, at the same time he continued to work in the circus in the mid-1960s, seated ringside while selling programmes dressed in his full auguste's costume.
• 1962— he was the subject of This Is Your Life when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at Olympia (London).

• 1973—He returned briefly to the circus world, when he toured with the Roberts Brothers Circus.
• 25 September 1974—Poliakoff died in Peterborough Hospital after a short illness, and was buried in the churchyard of St Mary's^[3]Woodnewton, in Northamptonshire, England.^[4]

Poliakoff was appointed an honorary member of the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women^[5]. In 1963 he was appointed an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) for this work by Queen Elizabeth II, one of the few foreigners ever to receive this honour. 

His eldest son, Michael, a longtime circus "Producing Clown", creator of a much imitated "soap gag" entree, and the Clown who designed the post 1960's Ronald McDonald^[6], was by then already using the "Coco" moniker. Michael had made his debut in the ring at 17, as "Coconut" and his sister Helen as "Cocotina" ('cocos' being the Spanish word for grinning face and applied to the coconut because of the three marks on its shell).^[7] Michael's Coco the Clown was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in 1991.

As well as Michael, Poliakoff had five other children with wife Valentina: Helen, Nadia, Sascha, Olga, and Tamara. Tamara was the founder, along with her husband Ali Hassani, of the first circus in the UK not to use performing animals.

Clyde Beatty Clowns 1994

The Clyde Beatty Cole Bros. Clown Alley from 1994 performing the firehouse gag and balloon chase on the video Kids Love The Circus.

Just try and ignore the awful song and voiceovers.....

I see DuRay McManus, Rob and Andrew Torres, and Brian and Laurie Dwyer. Anyone know who the yellow wigged Auguste is?

Tweedy, Alexis, and Little Nick

Alan "Tweedy" Digweed, Kevin "Alexis" Twomey, and "Little Nick" on a circus in the UK in 1998. 

More info provided by John Cooper: the circus is Zippo’s Circus, and it is “Little Nick” Reid. Thanks, John!

Dead And Alive: Billy Vaughn and Mike Snider

Billy Vaughn, Mike Snider, and ringmaster Dan McCallum (a former Ringling clown) performing the classic American clowning standard Dead and Alive on a Vidbel Shrine date in Altoona, PA.

Ringling Clowns Early 1950s

 

Chest development? Must be all the hormones in milk...

Too well developed to pass as a girl acrobat? Must not have been chest development.