Presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey literally throwing Harold Ronk's ringmaster hat into the ring in, I believe, 1968. On the left is Otto with a small microphone wearing a baseball cap and the ear phones he had on when Harold was "interviewing" him in one of the earlier photos Robin shared from the Ronk collection.
5 comments:
This is an absolutely cool blog!
I'm pretty sure this photo was taken sometime in the beginning of 1972, shortly after Hubert Humphrey announced his intention to run for Presidency in January of that year. What immediately gave the date away was the afro on Kenneth's (Feld) head, I don't recall his hair being that long in "68." Interestingly and sad to note though if I'm correct on the year, this would also make this one of Otto's last major PR events.
~John Darragh
John Darragh may be on to something here. If we assume that the earlier Otto/audience photo of Otto, Irvin and Judge Roy Hofheinz was from 1968 than this photo WOULD have to be from Humphrey's 1972 presidential bid based on the size and shape of the lapels and ties that the men are wearing.
As well as the size of Kenneth Feld's 'fro.
Fashions changed quite a bit in 4 short years.
~P
I'm pretty sure you placed the correct date as "68" on the Otto, Irvin & the Judge photo in the Garden (I'm pretty sure it's the Garden.The bars running through the seating area and marked Loge-40 A gave it away). Otto played the fourth Garden, 4 times- 68, 70, 71(the Blue Unit "Centennial Prod." returned to the Garden after the Red show closed it's run, being billed as "Back by Popular Demand."Publicity was further enhanced for the Blue's return by a national rail strike, which left the Blue show train stranded in Kearny N.J. forcing the elephant's to hoof it through the Lincoln Tunnel.Now those were the days when a Feld knew how to generate exciting PR) & sadly Otto's very last engagement in "72," but then again thankfully for Otto it wasn't Des Moines, Iowa. It could possibly have been taken opening night in "70" (fashion check), but obviously not "71" or afterwards. Once the show was sold to Mattel in "71" the Judge was quite literally and figuratively out of the picture.
Cheers Patrick to continued success with "The Greatest Clown Blog on the Web."
Your photo's, video's and stories are a Great Tribute to one of the Greatest art forms.
Sincerely, ~J. Darragh
yes, i was there--remember it well; we had a pre show reception and then walked over to the rustic national guard armory for the show--humphrey wore a ringmaster oiutfit and threw his hat in the ring;
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