11 ANIMAL SHOWS

SOME EXHIBITS FEATURE ANIMALS. ALTHOUGH the premier animal acts are reserved for presentation under the circus big top, midways and carnivals often have animal shows. Like other sideshow features, animal exhibits have a long history.

Menageries

Collections of living animals, wild and exotic, are as ancient as recorded history. In the early twelfth century B.C., a Chinese emperor, Wen, established a “garden of intelligence” wherein animals from the different provinces of the empire were exhibited. Similarly, the ancient Egyptian pharaohs kept menageries as part of their temple complexes, and in the eighteenth dynasty, Egypt's Empress Hatasu sent a fleet of ships to Punt (an ancient land on the African coast of the Red Sea) to bring back leopards, monkeys, and giraffes for her “garden of acclimation.” This is history's first recorded expedition to obtain live animals. The ancient Greeks and Romans also established collections of birds and mammals. Although the prevalence of animal collections declined during the early Christian era, in the Middle Ages, menageries and zoos again returned to importance, sometimes as public collections (in Florence, for instance), but more typically as private collections of the nobility (Encyclopaedia Britannica 1960, s.v. “Zoological Gardens”).

With the increasing popularity of fairs in the seventeenth century and later, animal exhibits became common in Europe. At the Bartholomew Fair in 1784, for instance, there were individual freak animals and menageries (Stencell 2002, 4). In America, menageries also began to thrive (figure 11.1). Previously, exotic animals had been exhibited on occasion, but only as single curiosities. American showmen had to overcome puritanical resistance to entertainment. However, according to Howard Loxton in his Golden Age of the Circus (1997, 21): “Menageries, which could be considered educational rather than entertaining, were more acceptable than circuses, though by the 1820s they had also begun to feature elephants and monkeys performing tricks. They seem to have travelled farther than the circuses, although large and dangerous animals were not easy to transport in their cages. Menageries began to make use of canvas walls to screen their exhibits from those who had not paid admission, and they used large tents before they were taken up by circuses.”

FIGURE 11.1. Traveling menageries, exhibited in tops (tents), began to flourish in the first part of the nineteenth century. (From an old wood engraving)

Some menageries began to offer a dramatic feature, following the lead of showman Isaac Van Amburgh (1805–1865), “who became the first man to enter a cage full of wild animals.” According to Linda Granfield's Circus (2000, 66):

His early work with a menagerie developed into a circus routine, and he is credited with creating the first modern trained wild animal act.

What a show it was! Dressed like a Roman gladiator, complete with sandals, Van Amburgh tackled the lion before it could attack him, and used brute force to prove himself the master of the situation. He became famous for putting his head inside a lion's mouth, a trick that was sure to silence the noisiest audience. It's no wonder Van Amburgh was called “The Lion King.”

The act caught on and in 1850, for instance, the Hemmings, Cooper, and Whitby Circus made a standard feature of having their lion keeper enter a cage as part of every show.

 

In 1888 a German trainer named William Hagenbeck invented a circular exhibition cage that was portable yet large enough to permit the animals to run, jump, and form high pyramids on pedestals—another Hagenbeck development. He also pioneered the gentling technique of wild animal training (Loxton 1997, 31; Stencell 2002, 49–50). From such menagerie men, modern circus lion taming was born.

In the meantime, menageries and circuses drew closer together. Loxton points out that sometimes a site would have a circus during the afternoon, followed by a menagerie that evening. In 1817 New York's Theatre of Natural Curiosity combined its menagerie, which included camels and a variety of other animals, with entertainment provided by a group of rope dancers and gymnasts. The first circus and menagerie to be combined in a tour seems to have been the circus of A. J. Purdy in 1832. It also may have been the first traveling circus to use a tent. Following the lead of the Theatre of Natural Curiosity, the Zoological Institute converted its menagerie into a circus with a central ring, naming it the Bowery Amphitheater. The institute also sent out a touring menagerie with a circus ring (Loxton 1997, 22).

In his memoir The Ways of the Circus, lion tamer George Conklin (1921, 10–19) describes life with a traveling menagerie in the late 1860s. Teamed with the John O’Brien Circus, the show traveled by two wagon trains—one carrying the tents and equipment, the other hauling the menagerie, the performers, and the band. The first train traveled much faster so that it could arrive at the next stand and have the tents set up by the time the second caravan got there. Then they formed a parade to promote the show. Each of the five tents was lit at night by a wooden “chandelier” affixed with some 300 candles and hung from the center pole. Sleep was especially difficult for the menagerie crew, “for it was open to the public nearly all day, and as long as there were visitors we had to watch to see that none of them poked the animals with an umbrella, gave them things to eat, or tried to pat the lion just to see if he was really ugly.”

In contrast to circuses like O’Brien's, Barnum's traveling outdoor show of 1851–1853 did not have any ring acts and was, therefore, essentially a collection of sideshows. Styled “P. T. Barnum's Great Asiatic Caravan, Museum and Menagerie,” it featured the famous midget General Tom Thumb, several Indian elephants, and museum items by the thousands (McKennon 1972, 1:21). In New York, Barnum's American Museum included—along with its mounted specimens—a zoo, and by the mid-1950s the showman had acquired two giraffes and a unique single-horned rhinoceros (billed as a “Unicorn”), as well as a grizzly bear, Bengal tiger, llama, leopard, and “a den of lions” (Kunhardt et al. 1995, 110). Nor were fish and other aquatic animals neglected. In the Fourth Saloon of the museum was Barnum's “Aquarial Department.” There, special tanks exhibited various reptiles, numerous fish, and seals, including the celebrated “Learned Seal,” which played musical instruments. In an especially large tank was the “Great Living Whale,” obtained from the Labrador coast (Kunhardt et al. 1995, 40, 159).

As mentioned in chapter 1, an 1872 newspaper ad for “The Greatest Show on Earth! Barnum's Magic City” featured a “Menagerie” among its “Separate Colossal Tents.” Because these led up to the hippodrome—the big top itself—Barnum's big menagerie tent was clearly a sideshow, as were his museum, fine arts, and other tops, including his living curiosities (a collection of human oddities) (Kunhardt et al. 1995, 224). (For an ad showing some of Barnum's menagerie, see figure 1.3.)

Animal exhibits continued to coexist with animal acts. When Frank Bostock arrived in the United States from England in 1893, he brought such an admixture, as did the Ferrari brothers, Joseph and Francis, the following year. They soon teamed up, reported Billboard magazine (February 10, 1934). The menagerie owners arrived at Coney Island with “a queer mess of show stuff.” They had “a small but gaudy animal show known as Noah's Ark in which a boxing Kangaroo, Jolly the elephant, Wallace the untamable lion, a tattooed yak, some performing lions and ‘whatnots’ were exhibited.”

By 1901 Bostock had the touring Bostock Carnival Company and the Bostock-Ferrari Midway Carnival Company, although he traveled with neither. Instead, he spent the entire season with his huge animal show, performing on the Pan American Exposition midway in Buffalo, New York. He thrived and profited, despite a fire that claimed a Bostock menagerie in Baltimore. Relates McKennon (1972, 1:59):

In this late January fire, he lost seventy-four lions and over ninety other animals. He almost lost one of his trainers, Mme. Gertrude Planka in this same fire. This brave young lady went into the blazing arena building and tried to coax the six lions composing her act into shifting dens so they could be rolled out to safety. Crouching in fear, they wouldn't move for their trainer. As burning debris fell into the ring, she tried vainly to lift her huge charges and bodily carry them from the building. The head trainer, seeing that the big cats were doomed, tried to get his fellow worker out of the arena. She refused to leave her pets, and clung to one of her biggest lions as he trembled in fear. Two cage hands finally forcibly pulled her away from the big cat and carried her sobbing from the building as the roof crashed in behind them, stilling the cries and screams of the dying animals.

In time, the old menageries faded from the circuses and carnivals due to a number of factors, including their cost and maintenance, the proliferation of zoos, and the need to protect endangered species. However, vestiges of them remained in the form of other animal exhibitions.

Single-Animal Acts and Exotics

Animal acts were in existence as early as 2400 B.C., and they took numerous forms. During the medieval era, traveling shows of jugglers and other entertainers often included dancing bears or trained dogs.

A popular animal act was the “talking” or “psychic” or “educated” creature. In seventeenth-century France, for example, a famous talking horse named Morocco seemed to possess such remarkable powers—including the ability to perform mathematical calculations—that he was charged with “consorting with the Devil.” However, he saved his own and his master's life when he knelt, seemingly repentant, before church authorities. Later in the century, a “Learned Pig” and a “Wonderful Intelligent Goose” appeared in London. The porker spelled names, solved arithmetic problems, and even appeared to read thoughts by selecting, from flashcards, words thought of by audience members. The goose, advertised as the “greatest Curiosity ever witnessed,” performed such feats as divining a selected playing card, discovering secretly chosen numbers, and telling time “to a Minute” by a spectator's own watch. Other prodigies were Munito the celebrated dog, Toby the Sapient Pig, and a “scientific” Spanish pony who shared billing with “Two Curious Birds” (Christopher 1962, 8–37; Jay 1987, 7–27).

Investigations of such animals, including two horses—Clever Hans in Germany, and Lady Wonder in the United States—revealed that the acts were accomplished by trainers subtly cueing their performers (Nickell 2002). For example, as a “psychic horse” moved past alphabet cards or blocks, the trainer gave a slight movement of his or her training rod to cause the equine marvel to stop and nudge the indicated letter. Or the animal could be presented as performing mathematical feats by training it to paw the ground continuously—as if to indicate one, two, three, and so on—and teaching it to stop when the trainer gave the signal (figure 11.2).

One showman who exhibited a learned pig even published his methodology in 1805. First, a young pig was to be domesticated by making him a house pet, then taught to hold a card in his mouth, using a reward of a piece of apple or a reprimand of a loud shout. Then the pig was to be placed in a circle of alphabet cards and led around by a string until he learned to stop at a given signal and pick up the indicated card (Jay 1987, 16).

Many other animal acts were presented as individual shows. For example, a trained monkey was exhibited in the United States in 1751, and birds, performing dogs, and trained bears were also commonly shown (Loxton 1997, 18–19; McKennon 1972, 1:19).

FIGURE 11.2. Serrano the Psychic Horse was one of a long line of equine marvels. (Author's collection)

In London in 1847, there was even a rivalry between two singing mice. Mr. Palmer, a hairdresser, advertised that his singing rodent was superior to its competitor, in that “it warbles its notes sufficiently loud to be heard across a room for several hours in succession, by day or by night, and continues to do so until weary from exertion.” This was attested to by the Family Herald, which added, “The notes of this little wonder resemble those of a bird in spring before it breaks into full song, or those of a canary singing himself to sleep” (Jay 1987, 23).

When Frank Bostock and the Ferrari brothers introduced their menagerie shows to Americans in the 1890s, they offered a number of individual animal acts. The Ferraris, for example, booked Fatima the Hoochie-Coochie Bear, as well as their boxing kangaroo, onto dime museum and vaudeville circuits during the off-season. And Bostock had a chimp named Consul that he dressed in a three-piece suit and taught to walk erect. Consul also smoked a cigar, sipped wine, rode a bicycle, and “displayed better manners than many humans” (Stencell 2002, 53).

Many and varied acts followed. In his youth, showman Bobby Reynolds even exhibited a dancing rooster:

I would put Scotch tape on its feet and I would tap dance with this chicken. You put Scotch tape on a chicken's foot and it'll wave its foot one way and then it will wave his foot the other, trying to get the Scotch tape off, and here I am tap dancing along with the chicken. It would walk off stage with me and come back and do the Conga or whatever I was doing. That was my act. No one could remember my name. They would always say, “Where's the crazy kid with the dancing chicken?” I used to go to hotels and I’d have the chicken with me and he'd start crowing. I’d get thrown out of a lot of hotels because of it. I’d put a burlap tobacco bag, a Bull Durham bag, over his head and I’d put black velvet over it and I’d put this over his head and he wouldn't see light and he wouldn't crow. That's why I broke in hens to do this act, so they wouldn't crow. I went around the country like that for a while. (quoted in Taylor and Kotcher 2002, 227)

Often, in contrast to such performances, exotic animals were merely exhibited. (The same is true of animal freaks, which are discussed in the next section.) At its simplest, the exhibition could be a bally show with a snake charmer or talker posing with a large boa or python. This was being done in Europe as early as the 1830s.

In the United States, a “Lyon” was exhibited along the East Coast for a few years beginning in 1719, being shown in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. (It is the only lion to be mentioned in the newspapers until 1791.) One or another camel was seen in the same cities in the 1720s and 1730s, and a polar bear was in Boston in 1733. The first elephant was exhibited in 1796 (Loxton 1997, 18–19).

P. T. Barnum's American Museum exhibited a number of exotic animals, among them “A splendid specimen of a living Ourang Outang from Borneo,” “Black Swans,” “The Great Living Whale,” “Australian Opossum & Young,” “The Living Hippopotamus,” “An African Vulture,” “Gold & Silver Pheasants,” and many more (Kunhardt et al. 1995, i, 159). Among Barnum's exotics was a genuine white elephant from the East. Barnum had long attempted to obtain one of the sacred elephants from Siam but had been rebuffed repeatedly. Eventually, he offered enough money to persuade a Siamese nobleman to get him one, but the elephant, Barnum said, “was poisoned on the eve of its departure by its attendant priests.” He finally turned to impoverished Burma and secured one of the rare animals. Alas, when Barnum saw it in March 1884, he was supremely disappointed. Far from being white, the animal merely had a few “pale spots on its body,” along with one “pinkish” ear.

Enter Barnum's chief rival, circus man Adam Forepaugh—or “4-Paws,” as Barnum called him. He decided to out-Barnum Barnum by having an ordinary elephant whitewashed. He dubbed it the “Light of Asia.” In retaliation, Barnum had one of his elephants whitened and billed it as “an exact copy of the other whitewashed elephant.” The war of words continued for the season, whereupon Forepaugh's elephant died. “It was dyed already,” Barnum quipped. Eventually, the men called a truce and temporarily combined their circuses in 1886 and 1887 (Kunhardt et al. 1995, 295).

Today, exotic animals are still being displayed on the midway. With the decline of the ten-in-one in the 1980s, due to the high overhead, individual animal and illusion exhibits became the mainstay. Such single-O attractions “can work successfully for the Grind Show operator who does not wish to be burdened with the care and upkeep of so much livestock,” observes Fred Olen Ray (1993, 25) in his book Grind Show: Weirdness as Entertainment.

One such single-O is the “Giant Rat” show. The one I witnessed at the Kentucky State Fair was operated by Lee and Becky Kolozsy (figure 11.3). Similar shows can still be seen on midways. In these exhibits, the giant creature is actually either a capybara or a nutria, both of which are South American semiaquatic rodents. According to showman Bobby Reynolds, who speaks from experience: “I use capybaras; nutrias look better, but they're very vicious. They're very bad, nutrias. You get two of them in there and you could have a blood bath. And they will attack you.” He adds: “Capybaras are kind of mellow. You scratch them under the chin once they get used to you.” Still, there can be problems. Various regulatory agencies and special-interest groups (Bobby calls their agents “humaniacs”) often interfere. “They say, ‘You treat this animal bad.’ I make a living with them; it would be kind of ludicrous for me to treat them badly.” He insists: “The veterinarian sees them every month. They see more doctors than I do. My giant rat has a complete history and they look at him and they check him out. I have to do that for the state, and then I have the USDA on my ass, the federal one, and then I have the ASPCA. I’m dealing with three people. What do they want?” Bobby continues: “If there's cobwebs they want them down, they want the water changed and they want to know what I feed him. When I tell them Purina Rat Chow, they tell me there's no such thing. There is: It's called ‘Laboratory Rat Chow’ and it has everything that a rat could use. And then you give them sweet potatoes and lettuce and supplement them with a little sweet feed and you have a little salt and then you throw hay there. It likes hay every once in awhile” (Taylor 1997, 19–20, 93).

FIGURE 11.3. The “Giant Rat” is a single-O feature on many carnival midways. Note the word “Alive.” (Photo by author)

Malcolm Garey had similar trouble over feeding live mice to his Giant Flesh-Eating Frogs. (There are several types of these, including the cane toad.) Garey argued that the frogs naturally ate live mice, but the officials were unmoved. He then inquired if he could feed dead mice to the frogs, and when they answered yes, “Malcolm then grabbed a mouse by the tail, swung it around quickly and smacked its head on the edge of the table and proceeded to throw it in with the frogs. The wildlife officials then proceeded to throw Malcolm in jail!” (Ray 1993, 26).

Other exotics displayed in recent years are the coatimundi (a tropical American mammal), sometimes exhibited as the “Crazy Mixed-Up Mystery Animal” and turkey buzzards, presented grandiosely as “Graveyard Scavengers.” States Ray (1993, 25), “Something as simple as an Armadillo (cost $25) will often be displayed as Midnight Flesh-Eating Grave Robbers, but,” he cautions, “don't try this down South where they are as common as raccoons!”

Freak Animal Exhibits

Because animals are born with deformities more frequently than humans are, and because they are more economical to keep, they have long been exhibited. An animal with a simple deformity such as an extra leg may otherwise be healthy and have a normal life span. However, extremely deformed animals, such as those with two heads, may have other problems and are usually shortlived. Therefore, “Anyone fortunate enough to acquire a healthy two-headed calf can be assured a good steady income for his show” (Ray 1993, 24).

Animal “freaks” include something billed as a “Turkey Horse,” standing little more than two feet high, which was exhibited in a box at the Bartholomew Fair of 1631. More than half a century later, in 1692, visitors to the Tower of London saw not only lions on exhibit but also a two-legged dog. Spectators at the 1734 Bartholomew Fair were able to view “enormous pigs” and “double-bodied cows,” and in 1790 a six-legged ram was among the attractions (Stencell 2002, 4, 7).

P. T. Barnum exhibited numerous freak animals, both at his American Museum and in show tops with his traveling menageries and circuses. Among them was a “Living Three-Horned Bull,” a six-legged cow, and Jumbo the elephant, the largest creature then in captivity (Kunhardt et al. 1995, 278, 327).

Like Barnum's giant elephant, many other animal freaks paralleled human oddities. For example, reminiscent of the Seven Sutherland Sisters (discussed in chapter 6), whose hair totaled thirty-seven feet, was a horse exhibited at Glasgow, Scotland, in the 1890s. It was shown at Fell's Waxworks, although it was quite real and even alive. It sported a blond mane that was nine feet nine inches long, and its tail measured twelve feet eight inches. William G. FitzGerald (1897), writing in London's Strand, reported: “There are an extraordinary number of animal monstrosities scattered among the side shows of the world—the double-mouthed calf, the elephant-skinned horse, the three-legged cow, and such like. There is, however, something more or less repellent about these, and so they have not found a place in these articles. But the long-maned and tailed horse…is in no way disagreeable.”

Showmen Dufour and Rogers introduced a large show of animal freaks at the 1939 world's fair in New York (along with their “Fakertorium” and other shows). The animal show was presented by legendary talker T. W. “Slim” Kelley, whom Dufour (1977, 119–20) notes “was simply adored by the newspaper and magazine writers.” Dufour illustrates how Slim would “dish it out to reporters” by quoting from one of his spiels:

Adonis is the only bull in the world that has skin like a human's. He has no hair anywhere on his body, and he gets his milk bath every single day, and a cold cream massage every other day. I have him insured with Lloyd's of London for $15,000 and this is no bull…. Now, look at this chicken with a human face. She eats hamburger and she's very fond of tuna fish. Her owner sold her because she was afraid of her. And here's my pet, Fanny the radio-movie goose, the only talking goose in the world with a double chin. Fanny won't talk to just anyone, but listen to her talk to me.

Dufour concludes, “Slim knew how to dramatize a freak.” The showmen made Slim a partner and framed the show with an elaborate front sixty feet tall.

The Dufour and Rogers—and Kelley—show was called “Nature's Mistakes” and included a two-headed cow, a bull with “elephant feet,” a bulldog-faced cow, a “hog without hams,” an eight-footed horse, and a six-legged Holstein. In all, reports Dufour (1977, 119–20), “There were seventy freak animals presented in a pit area thirty feet wide, eighty feet long, and four feet deep.”

Smaller than “Nature's Mistakes,” but nevertheless a huge show of the genre, was that of Al Moody, which toured in the 1970s with Dell & Travers Carnival. It sported “one of the largest banner lines available” (Davies 1996, 65). Indeed, the front consisted of a dozen five-by-seven-foot banners on each side of the entrance, over which was a quadruple-size marquee banner headed “Freak Animals”—with bullets proclaiming “All Alive.” They were the work of Fred Johnson, the legendary banner painter. Moody's was a “Continuous Show,” according to signs on the flanking ticket booths. Among the features were “Daisy Mae the 2 Headed Cow,” which received extra billing. The banners depicted “Sheep with 4 Horns,” “Cow with 5 Legs,” “Midget Bull,” “2 Bodied Cow,” and many more (Johnson et al. 1996, 146).

In 1972, at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, I visited an all-animal ten-in-one that included a three-legged sheep, touted as “Nature's Living Tripod,” and various alleged hybrids (zebra-donkey, turkey-chicken, dog-raccoon). These hybrids did not match their banner portraits, which showed the front half of one attached to the rear of the other; instead, they merely resembled a blend of features. However, the “¹/2 Monkey, ¹/2 Squirrel” was nowhere to be seen (I wonder if anyone else noticed?). There was also a ram with four horns, a sheep and a cow with five legs each, and other oddities. The veracity of the “World's Smallest Cow” claim might be doubted, but it was certainly a very small bovine. In addition, the show featured a “Giant Rat,” surely a nutria or capybara, demonstrating that the distinction between an exotic and a freak animal is often blurred. In the final analysis, it came down to the manner of presentation. Not all the animals were touted as being “Alive”; as billed, the “World's Smallest Horse” was a “preserved exhibit” (a fetus pickled in a jar), and the “World's Largest Horse” was indeed (as small print had stated) in “photographic form” (Nickell 1972; 1999).

More recently, at the Great Allentown (Pennsylvania) Fair of 2001, Ben Radford and I were able to visit with midway showman Richard Cales and his wife, who were operating a “Freaks of Nature and Pet Zoo” sideshow (figure 11.4). On display was a “4 Wing Goose,” a “Giant Chicken,” a “3 Legged Duck,” and a “Four Horn Sheep,” among other “Barnyard Oddities”—all advertised by a colorful front with an array of banners, signs, and flags, plus a ticket booth topped with a hot-pink parasol and operated by Mrs. Cales.

Richard generously waived his posted “No Cameras” policy; he even helped out by giving his “Calf with 5 Legs & 6 Feet” a pitchfork of fresh hay so that it would get up to be petted and photographed (see figure 11.5). I enjoyed petting the freak animals—that is, the ones that were billed on the banner line as “Alive.” There were also a number of preserved exhibits, including fetuses of a “Dog with 2 Bodies,” a “6 Leg Dog,” and other “Freaks of Nature” (figure 11.6). The Caleses also had at least one exotic presented as a freak, their “Goat without Ears.” The animal, which was certainly freakish looking, was actually a La Mancha, a breed of goat that lacks external ears.

FIGURE 11.4. Freaks of Nature and Pet Zoo sports a colorful front with large banners. (Photo by author)

We were able to cut up jackpots with Richard, who told us one of those priceless little stories that can only be heard in such a fashion. He explained that although there is a true half zebra–half donkey, termed a “zonkey” (the two species being compatible), he once gaffed such a hybrid by simply painting stripes on a donkey. Unfortunately, he laughingly confessed, when people petted it, the stripes came off on their hands.

In his Grind Show, Ray (1993, 24) points out that freak menageries are sometimes filled out with exotics (like the Caleses’ earless goat), which he terms “odd-looking but natural creatures”. One example he cites is the “Hairless Dog”: “Hairless dogs sometimes generate heat because people naturally assume it is an ordinary dog with some kind of disease and therefore inhumane to display it for profit. They are, in fact, a natural breed of dog, the Chinese Crested, that just happens to be hairless, but try explaining that to an irate animal rights activist!”

FIGURE 11.5. Five-legged cow munches hay in an animal sideshow operated by Richard Cales. (Photo by author)

FIGURE 11.6. Preserved exhibits are often included in freak animal sideshows. (Photo by author)

FIGURE 11.7. Among the single-O shows in this nighttime photograph are “World's Largest Pig,” “Giant Alligator,” and “The Smallest Horse.” (Photo by author)

Of course, miniature and giant animals are frequent midway attractions, including “‘Porky,’ World's Largest Pig,” “‘Hercules’ the Giant Horse,” “White Mountain Giant Steer,” “Smallest Horse,” and “Giant Alligator”—just to mention a few I have personally met (figure 11.7). Ray (1993, 26) found one giant alligator show “impressive” but noted that such a large gator was likely to be lethargic. At the back of the reptile's pen was a sign reading, “This Alligator Is ALIVE—For $10 We Will Make Him Move!”

Flea Circuses

Among the various animal acts, few are more intriguing and humorous than the antics—both real and imagined—of those tiny members of the animal kingdom, the order Siphonaptera, or fleas. Of more than 2,500 species, most trained fleas are Pulex irritans, the human flea (Wiseman 2002; Gertsacov 2003).

“Although the flea circus has become part of American culture,” observes Ricky Jay (2001, 35), “it inspires skepticism in a wide segment of the populace, for whom the mere notion of a trained, costumed insect-actor is incomprehensible.” In fact, I was among those skeptics, and with good reason. As Jay continues, “Their disbelief has been encouraged by specific deceptions: showmen have been known to exhibit preserved fleas cleverly affixed to apparatus or, indeed, to present shows with no fleas at all.”

As early as 1578, a London blacksmith, Mark Scaliot, exhibited a tiny coach drawn by a flea secured with a fine gold chain and lock. Other craftsmen followed suit, and a 1656 museum catalog referred to “flea chains of silver and gold,” each consisting of 300 links. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, English, German, and Swiss craftsmen—often clock makers—exhibited flea-drawn coaches and chariots.

In time, exhibitors began to focus less on their craftsmanship and more on the fleas’ performance. Military themes were popular. For instance, in 1825 one showman staged sword fights with thirty fleas armed with tiny splinters; he reportedly used a hot coal to animate his performers. A similar exhibition was staged in 1834 by an Italian named Cucciani, who put regiments of uniformed fleas into combat (Wiseman 2002; Jay 2001, 35–37).

The great figure who came to tower over these miniature arenas was the Italian showman L. Bertolotto. His book The History of the Flea;…Containing a Programme of the Extraordinary Exhibition of the Educated Fleas Witnessed by the Crowned Heads of Europe (circa 1833) promoted flea circuses in several editions over the next few decades. Bertolotto exhibited a number of flea spectacles, including “A first rate man of war, of one hundred and twenty guns, with rigging, sails, anchor and everything requisite in a three-decker, not omitting a numerous crew which, placed on a car of gold, with four wheels, is drawn by a single flea.” There were “two fleas, deciding an affair of honor sword in Hand.” Bertolotto's show also included four card-playing fleas, a flea orchestra (allegedly playing audibly), and a reenactment of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. According to an eyewitness: “Among the most amusing features in the exhibition, we ought to mention the representation of the Emperor of Java, seated under a splendid palanquin, borne by an elephant, and attended by slaves, who fan him as he proceeds…. How M. Bertolotto contrives to get his fleas harnessed, and attaches them to the various weapons they wield, is more than our philosophy can comprehend” (Wiseman 2002; Gertsacov 2003).

Bertolotto was imitated by other showmen, not all of whom left a favorable impression. A spectator complained of one, “Never was there such an imposition.” The fleas, he reported, “instead of being harnessed…were tied by the hindlegs, and the combatants, poor wretches! were pinched by the tail in tweezers and of course moved their legs in their agony” (Wiseman 2002). According to one source, even with Bertolotto, “Unfortunately, many of the fleas he used were cruelly glued to their props and died by suffocation” (Gertsacov 2003).

Nevertheless, the genre flourished in the latter nineteenth and twentieth centuries. An 1885 playbill, for example, advertised flea master S. Jacobs's “Original Cirque des Puces” (Original Flea Circus). It featured “Un carrousel tourné par 1 puce” (a carousel turned by one flea) and two dozen other feats (Jay 2001, 39).

In the United States, “Professor” Roy Heckler became the most celebrated flea circus ringmaster, following his father William, who wrote a book on the subject. For some three decades, beginning in the 1930s, Heckler presented his show several times daily at Hubert's Museum in New York, of which he had become sole proprietor. Jay (2001, 41) recalls the spiel of the outside talker (who was sometimes T. A. Waters, sometimes Bobby Reynolds, and sometimes Jack Elkins):

Ladies and Gentlemen, downstairs you'll meet Professor Roy Heckler's world-famous trained flea circus. Sixteen fleas, six principals and ten understudies, and they will perform six different acts. As act number one a flea will juggle a ball while lying on its back. As act number two, a flea will rotate a tiny miniature merry-go-round. As act number three, three fleas will be placed on chariots and the flea that hops the fastest will, of course, win the race. But the act, ladies and gentlemen, that most people talk about, the one they pay to see, three tiny fleas will be put in costumes and placed upon the ballroom floor and when the music is turned on those fleas will dance. I know that sounds hard to believe, but may I remind you that seeing is believing, and you'll see it all on the inside in Professor Roy Heckler's trained-flea circus.

Bobby Reynolds (2001) told me about the flea-training methods of Professor Heckler, whom he knew well: “He had a box with a screen and he'd put his legs in there and they'd feed off him. And then he would, you know, rub alcohol on [the bites]. Now, how you train a flea is, you got to get the flea and you put him in a tube, like a test tube. And they keep bouncing, and they jump and hit their head. And once they won't hit their head anymore, or they'll just lay still or dormant or crawl, then they're ready to be tied up.” This is a delicate operation using tweezers and a single strand of very fine copper wire. Bobby continued: “You make a loop. Then you put that over the front two legs and behind the neck. Then you take your tweezers and you squeeze that to hold it, then wrap it around the chariots. And then, you know, you kind of tickle ‘em. Or they could tickle you more than you could tickle them. And then they'll run across.” Since the life span of the flea is only a few weeks, such “training” is time-intensive.

Ricky Jay (2001, 36), who was often at Hubert's Museum as a youngster, points out, “The various acts performed by the insects were imaginatively devised extensions of their natural actions.” For instance, “dueling fleas” were in fact frantically attempting to dislodge the splinters fastened to their legs. And the flea “playing soccer” was just kicking away a cotton pellet soaked in a repulsive chemical, giving the illusion of athletic prowess.

Once, when I was cutting up jackpots with Ward Hall (2001) in his trailer just off the midway behind the Hall & Christ Show's ten-in-one, the topic turned to the care and feeding of the miniature performers. Hall interjected:

 

I’ve got to tell you a great story about flea circuses….There was a wonderful lady, a good friend, her name was Mimi Garneau. And Mimi was in the sideshow business forever. And she was a lady sword swallower, doing a beautiful act. And I’m going to say this would have been probably mid-sixties. Mimi had, she must have been around eighty at the time, and she had got to the point she didn't want to swallow swords anymore, didn't think she should. And so she built a flea circus, and had a jeweler in Tampa build all the little props, and she got fleas, and did it. Okay? Now, she was booked with Sam Alexander's Sideshow in Belmont Park in Montreal, Canada. They opened early in May. So she went to Canada with her flea circus. It was cold, and immediately before she ever got it opened, before she ever got to working, the fleas were dead.

So she gave the kids that would hang around the park 50 to bring their dogs, and…she would take the fleas off of them. But kids were bringin’ in the dogs that ran around loose [outside], or their pets which had been treated. There were no—it had been a cold winter—there were no fleas. So now she remembered that her next-door neighbor on 120th Street in Tampa had a big shaggy dog that was just lousy with fleas. And so she called her neighbor. If she paid for it, [she asked] would they have a crate built and fly the dog to Montreal, let her take the fleas off the dog, and [she] would fly it right back? And so she spent whatever money it cost her to do this—overlooking one thing: that when it came through Customs coming into Canada, they dipped it [in an insecticide]. And that was just too much discouragement.

Not surprisingly, the real “trained” flea circuses have been almost completely supplanted by the humorously gaffed ones. They seem to have begun as parodies, such as the one by Robert Ganthony (1895) described in his Bunkum Entertainment. He offered a skit featuring a card on which a few dots had been drawn:

On this card you will perceive some ten or a dozen students. These I obtained from the orchestra of an east-end music hall [shows card] which I have by dint of enormous patience and assiduity taught a variety of musical instruments; they will now perform the Intermezzo from the opera Cavalleria Rusticana, and I must ask for absolute silence, as it is such a strain on the insects’ lungs to play while conversation or other fashionable accompaniment is in progress…. The fleas cannot get up and bow as they are fastened to their seats, but they would have appreciated your applause had you given them any.

The first mock flea circus of this type that I recall witnessing “live” took place in Toronto in 1974 and was exhibited by Detroit magician-clown Daren Dundee. He was visiting an informal magic club that convened on Saturday afternoons in a corner of the King Edward Hotel cafeteria, and I was a regular. The show was an elaborate put-on. For example, Daren would place an imaginary flea on a tiny trapeze, which began to swing; then, on command, the “artiste” would “jump,” starting a second trapeze swinging. One invisible performer named Goliath was dropped into a cigarette pack and, again on command, began to slowly push a cigarette out of the pack. The pack was then placed on the back of the same flea, who transported it some ten inches across the table. Such effects were accomplished by trick mechanisms, legerdemain, and invisible thread. Daren had two real (but not alive) dressed fleas that he claimed to have obtained years ago in Niagara Falls. The pair—one in a tux, the other a gown—was mounted in a tiny box inside a magnifying cube. He also exhibited miniature living quarters for the fleas, including tiny beds, TV, beer mug, playing cards, and commode; a teeny apple core had been placed so that Daren could comment that one of the girl fleas liked to eat in bed (Nickell 1974).

Nearly three decades later, Ben Radford tipped me to a similar but public exhibition in Toronto, and we drove from Buffalo to see it. Billed as “The Most Minuscule Show on Earth!” it appeared at the Artword Theatre as the “Acme Miniature Flea Circus, Being a Presentation of Trained Fleas…Performing Spectacular Circus Stunts as Seen Before (and on Top of) the Crowned Heads of Europe!” (figure 11.8). A miniature (about four-by-five-inch) poster invited:

 

THRILL to the Exciting Flea
Chariot Race!
ENJOY the Marvelous Tightwire
Act!
BE AMUSED by the Previously
Unknown True History
of Fleas!
BE AMAZED at the Remarkable
DEATH DEFYING FINALE!!

 

A similarly small handbill cautioned, “Positively No Dogs Will be Admitted” (figure 11.9). The show promised to put “the Bug Back into Humbug” and quoted from a Village Voice review: “Mite-y Feats of Daring-do.”

FIGURE 11.8. The buildup to the Acme Miniature Circus—a flea-bitten operation—includes the sale of T-shirts. (Photo by author)

FIGURE 11.9. The Acme Miniature Circus posts tongue-in-cheek warning signs. (Photo by author)

Presiding over the miniature arena was “the Internationally Acclaimed and World Renowned Authority, Professor A. G. Gertsacov, Psycho-Entomologist & Flea Trainer Extraordinaire” (figure 11.10). The good “professor”—actually professional actor and clown Adam G. Gertsacov, who is a graduate of Ringling Brothers Clown College, among other accomplishments—began the show by humorously hawking a number of pitch items: a miniature program, a little magnifying glass to read it with, small “Save the Fleas!” bumper stickers, and other souvenirs. Our top-hatted ringmaster called this “the Flea Market Before the Flea Circus.”

The stars of the show were “Trained Fleas of the Species Pulex irritans”—or, as we skeptics thought, Pulex invisiblis. Their names were Midge and Madge. Magnifying glass in hand, Gertsacov removed them with tweezers from their miniature trailer and put them through their paces: the chariot race no doubt depended on a hidden magnet to propel the thumb-sized vehicles; for the tightwire act, the tiny chair and balancing pole were clipped to the wire, which moved on a continuous loop; the “Death Defying Finale” was a flea supposedly shot from a little cannon through a “flaming hoop of death.”

FIGURE 11.10. “Professor” A. G. Gertsacov wields a magnifying glass—ostensibly viewing his tiny charges—during the “Most Minuscule Show on Earth.” (Photo by author)

Gertsacov kept up a running line of patter. For example, during the tightwire walk he announced: “She's blindfolded herself!” “She's walking backward!” “An astonishing triple split!” Once, one of the imaginary performers escaped, and Gertsacov searched the front row with his magnifier, soon retrieving Midge—or was it Madge?—from the hair of a giggling little girl. The showman entertained his audience well, proving that it is indeed possible to make something out of nothing.

Unfortunately, CTV’s Canada AM had missed the point. According to the Toronto weekly Now (January 23–29, 2003), the producer had considered inviting Professor Gertsacov on the show, “but when told the fleas couldn't leave their hotel room and studio lights would be too hot, the producer bailed, saying a flea circus without fleas is like a magician without tricks.” Commented Now, “Sheesh.”