PROF. PAUL WENZEL: Skeleton Chase Patent (Feb. 17, 1925)

Photos and research 

courtesy of Beth Grimes

Yup, that photo that we've all seen? That's a young Paul Wenzel and he filed the paperwork for his creation with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on December 4, 1923.

Paul Wenzel should be officially recognized as the creator of the Skeleton Chase.

QUOTE

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
 

THE VINTAGE SYNCOPATORS: Wheel Tappers And Shunters Social Club (April 5, 1975)

CHARLIE "ONIONS" BOAS

THE TIMES SQUARE TWO

WORLD CIRCUS DAY: Charlie Rivel in Portrait of a Clown

BETRAM MILLS CIRCUS: Winter Quarters (British Pathe, 1963)

RINGLING BROS. AND BARNUM & BAILEY: Bellevue Hospital (British Pathe, 1935)

RINGLING BROS. AND BARNUM & BAILEY: Bellevue Hospital (British Pathe, 1931)

RINGLING BROS. AND BARNUM & BAILEY: Bellevue Hospital (British Pathe, 1932)

RUDI LLATA CLOWNS: Boxing Entree on Circus Schumann (International Showtime, 1961)

Courtesy of Raffaele de Ritis




From Raffaele...

"Circus Schumann, Copenhagen, from "International Showtime" NBC TV prime-time show, hosted by Don Ameche. 

Nolo and Pepi Diaz with José Llata were the core of "Rudi Llata", the greatest European clown team between 30s and 70s. 

The "boxe" entrée is considered their masterpiece."

WALTER GALETTI: Circus Land

ERNIE "BLINKO" BURCH: Backstage On a Shrine Date (Circa 1960s)

JACKO FOSSETT at Bell Vue

LOU JACOBS and Pee-Wee (circa 1980s)

BUSTER KEATON: Performance Footage from the Cirque Medrano (1947)

THE INTERNATIONAL CLOWN HALL OF FAME

CLOWNS AT BELLEVUE

Felix Adler, 1944

Ernie Burch and Albert White, 1960

Jimmy Armstrong, 1955

Emmett Kelly, 1954

CLOWNS AT BELLEVUE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SHEMP HOWARD!

ERNIE "BLINKO" BURCH: Continental World's Fair Circus (1964)

Photo courtesy of Bill Cotter

CLOWN ALLEY: Medina Shrine Circus

Back in the days before "Shrine Clowns" performed at Shrine Circuses, professional circus clowns appeared in the show and did hospital appearances such as these on behalf of the Medinah Shrine Circus in Chicago...

Unidentified 

Joe "Ko-Ko" Cyle and Peluza

Dick Lewis

Chester Sherman

Ed Raymond (l) and Harry Dann (r)

Joe Sherman and Lucky

Dennis Stevens in the background

Joe Sherman, Chester Sherman and Harry Dann

Rudy Dockey, Prof. Charlie Cheer, Joe Sherman and Chester Sherman

ACHILLES ZAVATTA (1970)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOU COSTELLO!

REÍR LLORANDO: By Juan de Dios Peza (Circa 1880s)

Translation courtesy of Marga Lacabe

I believe this poem, by the Mexican poet Juan de Dios Peza, to be the source of the story that is attributed to every major clown of the late 19th/early 20th century.

The story goes that a man is depressed. He goes to the doctor and is told by the doctor to see the great clown Grimaldi/Grock/Chaplin... whoever. The man then informs the doctor that HE IS that clown.

"Who is there to make ME laugh?"

It's a tired trope and turns up repeatedly in 20th century clown and circus history. Let's put it to rest.

It is not fact, it is taken from a poem, a poem about an English actor named Garrick, portraying him as a depressed comedian. Apart from being strictly a comedian, the poem's character is a nobleman, unlike the historic David Garrick.

To Laugh While Crying

Watching Garrik – an actor from England -

the people would say applauding:

“You are the funniest one on earth

and the happiest one…”

And the comedian would laugh.

Victims of melancholy, the highest lords,

during their darkest and heaviest nights

would go see the king of actors

and change their melancholy into roars of laughter.

Once, before a famous doctor,

came a man with eyes so somber:

“I suffer – he said -, an illness so horrible

as this paleness of my face”

“Nothing holds any enchantment or attractiveness;

I don’t care about my name or my fate

I die living an eternal melancholy

and my only hope is that of death”.

- Travel and distract yourself

- I’ve traveled so much!

- Search for readings

- I’ve read so much!

- Have a woman love you

- But I am loved

- Get a title

- I was born a noble

- Might you be poor?

- I have richnesses

- Do you like compliments?

- I hear so many!

- What do you have as a family?

- My sadness

- Do you go to the cemeteries?

- Often, very often.

- Of your current life, do you have witnesses?

- Yes, but I don’t let them impose their burdens;

I call the dead my friends;

I call the living my executioners.

- It leaves me – added the doctor – perplexed

your illness and I must not scare you;

Take today this advise as a prescription

only watching Garrik you can be cured.

-Garrik?

-Yes, Garrik… The most indolent

and austere society anxiously seeks him;

everyone who sees him, dies of laughter;

he has an amazing artistic grace.

- And me? Will he make me laugh?

-Ah, yes, I swear it;

he and no one but him; but… what disturbs you?

-So  – said the patient – I won’t be cured;

I am Garrik! Change my prescription.

How many are there who, tired of life,

ill with pain, dead with tedium,

make others laugh as the suicidal actor,

without finding a remedy for their illness!

Ay! How often we laugh when we cry!

Nobody trust the merriment of laughter,

because in those beings devoured by pain,

the soul groans when the face laughs!

If faith dies, if calm flees,

if our feet only step on thistles,

the tempest of the soul hurls to the face,

a sad lighting: a smile.

The carnival of the world is such a trickster,

that life is but a short masquerade;

here we learn to laugh with tears

and also to cry with laughter.

ALBERT FRATELLINI

Links courtesy of Beth Grimes


Albert Fratellini performing in 1958. If you don't understand French just skip ahead to the 2:05 mark...



Albert making up and performing the same routine with another partner in January 1957...

ERNIE WISWELL Undated Photo

Photo courtesy of the Saunders family

LOU JACOBS: 70th Birthday Party (1973)

FELIX ADLER: Weegee (1958)

More of Weegee's experimental photos of some of the iconic clowns of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus taken at Madison Square Garden can be found HERE.

GREAT ADVENTURE: Television Commercials (1975)

Look in these commercials for Michael "Coco" Polakovs, his son David as "Coconut", his other sons Bruce and Byron and former Boss Clown Levoi Hipps (then fresh from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Blue Unit) piloting the hot air balloon in this commercial for Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ prior to its purchase by Six Flags...

BOB WILLIAMS & LOUIE: Hollywood Palace

ANNIE FRATELLINI & PIERRE ETIAX: Chair Entree (January 28, 1970)

First aired 44 years ago today...

GRACIE ALLEN: "The Magic Act" (4/30/56)

SERGE DROUARD: The White Clown (February 25, 1970)

TOTO BROTHERS (1918)

CLOWN ALLEY: MDA Party (1954)

Look for TV's Magic Clown as well as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey clowns Albert White and Frankie Saluto, meaning this must be from the spring of 1954 when Ringling was in New York to play Madison Square Garden.

MICHAEL & SACHA COCO: Billy Smart's Circus Hospital Show (1955)

HOSPITAL CIRCUS

Many thanks to Hazel and Michelle Polakovs for confirmation!

KARANDASH: Idols (2011)

CESLEE CONKLING (December 6, 1965 - January 13, 1994)

Who are we, if not measured by our impact on others? That’s who we are! We’re not who we say we are, we’re not who we want to be — we are the sum of the influence and impact that we have, in our lives, on others.

 - Neil deGrasse Tyson on Carl Sagan

KARANDASH: Statue Entree

YURI NIKULIN: Idols (2005)

ARIANE MNOUCHKINE: "Clowns" (1970)

Courtesy of John Towsen and Drew Richardson

ACHILLE ZAVATTA: Christmas Eve (November 12, 1966)

JAMES THIEREE: Television News (May 26, 2005)

THE BARIOS: Car Entree (January 2, 1966)

FOOTIT & CHOCOLAT: Il Etait Une Fois Le Cirque (1983)

GROCK: Il Etait Une Fois Le Cirque (1983)

A SIMPLE TRUISM

Hearing "I hate clowns" invariably tells me more about the speaker than it says about the art form being denigrated.

THE FRATELLINIS: Il Etait Une Fois Le Cirque (1983)

THE SALVADORIS: Hollywood Palace (January 4, 1964)

Courtesy of Raffaele de Ritis

First aired fifty years ago today on the very first episode of Hollywood Palace...

JERRY LEWIS: The Day the Clown Cried (Behind the Scenes Footage & Interviews)

IT'S HARD WORK TO MAKE YOU LAUGH: By Cy La Tour (The Rotarian Magazine, August 1949)

DEL IVAN JANIK: The American Circus Clown 1785-Present

EARL SHIPLEY: Sees Decline of Clowning Art; Few Newcomers Fill Ranks (Billboard November 29, 1952)

CONCERNING CLOWNS: By Wyndham Martyn, Pearson's Magazine (July 1916)

AL MIACO: "The Greatest Living Clown (1880s)

Al Miaco on Ringling in 1915

Al Miaco billed as "The Greatest Living Clown" by Tony Denier in his production "Humpty Dumpty". Miaco followed Denier and George H. Adams in the title role as clown in one of the most popular, successful and critically acclaimed touring productions of "Humpty Dumpty" of the time.

CLOWN ALLEY: Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus (Circa late 1950s/early 60s)

Frankie Saluto, Jimmy Armstrong and Shorty Hinkle

CLOWN ALLEY: Chuck Burnes and Gene Lewis; Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey (Circa late 50s/early 60s)

HAPPY BOXING DAY: Fumagalli and Daris

CLOWNALLEY.NET VIDEO CHRISTMAS CARD 2013

BARRY LUBIN, GREG DESANTO & TODD ROBBINS: Big Apple Circus (1996-97)

CHARLIE RIVEL

CHARLIE CAIROLI: Le festival International du Cirque de Monte Carlo (1978)

SANDY POWELL: Magic Act

TED DURANTE & HILDA

THE SPIKE JONES SHOW: Guest, Harpo Marx (Jan 9, 1954)

IN MEMORIAM: "Cowboy" Mike Keever (August 24, 1955 - December 10, 2013)

Sad news coming to us today about the passing of our friend, Cowboy Mike.

ACHILLE ZAVATTA: Interval, Eurovision Song Contest (1962)

DAVID KAPLAN: "The Great Kaplan"

THE RED SKELTON HOUR: With Special Guest, Harpo Marx (Sept 25, 1962)

DEAD AND ALIVE

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

JEFF SMITHSON: One, Two, Three : Play (TEDx Talk)

IN MEMORIAM: Charles "Spuggy" Wardell (April 10 1931, died May 13 2013)

From The Telegraph...


His real name was Charles Wardell. Born in Leeds on April 10 1931, he was adopted as a baby by a travelling showman known as Newcastle Jack Taylor, a prize fighter who lugged his own boxing booth round traditional fairs in the north of England.

Young Charles left school as soon as he could to enlist in the Army and, from 1948 to 1953, served as a sergeant in the Green Howards in Suez, Malaya and Austria.

Returning to Britain, he began his career as a comedy act at working men’s clubs and as a children’s entertainer at Warner’s holiday camps, before a chance meeting with Ronnie Smart, son of the circus tycoon, led to his joining Billy Smart’s New World Circus as a clown in 1962. He took his circus name Spuggy from the nickname — “Spuggy-legs” (“spuggy” is Yorkshire slang for “sparrow”) — that had been bestowed on him by his mates in the Army.

He quickly became one of the circus’ most popular attractions, doubling as a hard-riding scout in Smart’s Wild West Spectacular, which closed every show.

After five years he left Smart’s and travelled to South Africa, where he joined the Doyle Brothers’ Olympic Circus. His departure from Britain took place amid some acrimony when, at the dockside, he was accosted by members of Billy Smart’s Circus management who prevented him from leaving with a valuable circus chimp he had adopted and nursed back to good health. Spuggy claimed that Billy Smart himself had given him the animal, and newspapers reported the “Tears of a Clown” as the police intervened to take the chimp off his hands.

In South Africa, Spuggy appeared in partnership with a dwarf clown called Tickey, but his success there was short lived: when one of the Doyle brothers died, the season was aborted after four months. He went on to tour the continent with a travelling exhibition featuring a huge 79ft preserved whale, and later with a performing dolphin show, before finding more sedentary employment as a hotel manager.

He eventually returned to England, and to Smart’s, where the chimp incident had been forgiven and forgotten, continuing to perform with the circus until 1971.

He then took himself off to Germany where, over the next 10 years, he appeared with some of the country’s best-known circuses, including the Althoff family circus. In 1978 he was chosen by the American Circus Ringling Brothers to appear at the International Circus Festival of Monaco, where he was presented with a gold medal by Prince Rainier.

Though he made his home in Germany, when his health declined Spuggy returned to England, finally retiring to Leeds, where he gave occasional performances in aid of children’s charities. Spuggy the Clown’s first marriage was dissolved. He is survived by his second wife, Deborah, and by Gillian, the daughter of his first marriage who married one of Germany’s leading animal trainers.

12th December 1964 Spuggy, the clown at Billy Smarts Christmas Circus, being treated by Knoble the chimp, assisted by Daphne Murgatroyd,an assistant at Leeds General Infirmary.

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: Abbott & Costello Meet Key & Peele

Begin with the diner scene at the 9:00 mark.


Now take this routine that Abbott & Costello did on the Colgate Comedy Hour in 1952...







And compare it with this Key & Peele sketch from 2013...

SCISHOW: Why Do We Laugh?

ANTON LAVEY: Big Top Medley

Happy Halloween!

ZIPPY THE PINHEAD: "Clowntervention" by Bill Griffith

ZIPPY THE PINHEAD: "Laugh Lines" by Bill Griffith

ZIPPY THE PINHEAD: "Honk If You're Corny" by Bill Griffith

ZIPPY THE PINHEAD: "Grotesquely Dressed" by Bill Griffith

ZIPPY THE PINHEAD: "Costume Party" by Bill Griffith

Ernie Burch?

ZIPPY THE PINHEAD: "Circus Animus" by Bill Griffith