Circuses

Circuses have been around for thousands of years but they have changed drastically over time. Here is a rundown on what was and what we have today. Everything from performers to oddities.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Are you Are you coming to the true well? They're
hung up a man who will say she murdered true Stronge.
Things have happened back now stronger, Mamma holling truth.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Christ James. There's
nothing funny about a bad cup of coffee other than
the taste. I've had some coffee that was so bad
it nearly made me swear off coffee. Now that's bad.

(00:55):
I imagine there are a few folks out there who's
one and only cup of Joe was a bad one
and they never tried it again. If they had tried
organic Man Coffee Trike coffee, they would probably be drinking
it all the time. The best coffee in the universe

(01:18):
can be yours by going to four or five as
zero one McPherson and seeing what coffee should taste like.
If it's too far you can't get there. From there,
go to Organicman Coffee, Trike Dot Shop. Coffee gets things done,

(01:40):
and good coffee gets good things done. Roddy Fry has
sent me an email asking if I'd ever looked into
circuses as being somewhat strange. This is a subject I
can get behind some of the folks who work at

(02:01):
circuses are kind of strange, as well as some of
the people that go there to watch. Sometimes the audience
is more interesting than the performance. Let's see what I
could find. In ancient Rome, the word circus had a

(02:22):
different meaning than it does today. It meant circle. The
Circus Maximus was the largest public space in Rome, and
when it reached its maximus, or its maximum dimensions during
the first century, it could allow two hundred and fifty

(02:43):
thousand people to sit in its stands. It was a
race track for chariot racing, and it was common to
see people getting killed in these performances. Sometimes, in order
to to be sure that the person driving the chariot

(03:05):
wasn't working for the other guy, the owners would do
all the driving and steering of the chariots, which meant
if there was a bad accident, well, it was going
to put that chariot business out of business. After a while,
they began having gladiator events at the Circus Maximus. Joey,

(03:31):
do you like movies about gladiators? Some of you might
remember that from airplane. The circus also held military processions
for the Roman Games every September for fifteen days there
were wild animal hunts, which isn't much of a hunt

(03:53):
seeing as the animals were inside a huge walled arena.
There were public execute us, always a crowd pleaser. A
lot of people think it's an awful thing to see.
These are the same folks who watch movies with lots
of sex and violence. Yes, actually watching somebody, or rather

(04:16):
a bunch of people dying is over the top. Now,
this was how things were back then live action. During
one circus event, a small army of gladiators were sent

(04:37):
in to fight twenty elephants at the same time, and
there's no report on who won. The concept of freak
shows dates back to the fifteen hundreds, where people with
unusual physical traits were showcased at fairs and carnivals. These

(04:57):
included humanodities, folks with congenital disabilities or unique physical traits
such as the bearded lady or the skeleton man, and
conjoined twins. There were exotic performers. Many were, or at
least pretended to be, from distant lands, often portrayed with

(05:21):
a sense of mystique and otherness. This category included people
with unusual body modifications or those from isolated tribes. The
living wonders were people with extraordinary abilities or medical conditions,
such as sword swallowers, fire eaters, and contortionists. I watched

(05:48):
contortionists and it makes my back hurt. They also had
fabricated freaks. Performers would use makeup, costumes or props to
create an illusion of being a freak, such as the
Ecuadorian Headshrinker or the Wolfman. The freak shows would sometimes

(06:10):
link up with traveling carnivals, and this led to the
name side show becoming popular. Vick her Manson did a
show about freaks on Trailer Trash Terrors number ninety six.
The anomalies of our minds are always with us, even

(06:31):
when the carnival gates are closed. That's the name of
the show. It's quite a long name. The anomalies of
our minds are always with us, even when the carnival
gates are closed. If you've got to type that whole
thing in to find it on YouTube, well good luck.

(06:55):
It's all about what the world has called freaks. The
Freak shows, their history and how their impact on society
simply cannot be dismissed. Vic says, to be honest, I
think it's one of the best shows I've ever done. No,
I do not sound like vic. Also, it's the return

(07:19):
of Beelza Bubba. I hate, I hate the need to
use asterixes, he says, but that's how they had to
do the conversation. On his platform, he said it was
one of his absolute best shows, and I agree with him.
It was a fantastic show. You should check it out.

(07:41):
I'm not gonna mention the name again. Just look for
trailer trash Terrors number ninety six. Philip Astley is known
as the father of the modern circus. He was born
in seventeen forty two in Newcastle, Underline, England. That sounds

(08:03):
like a dish that they would serve at some fancy restaurant.
For a young man of Astley's background, he had few
choices on what he was going to do. He could
follow in his father's trade as a cabinet maker, or
he could join the military. Astley chose the military. He

(08:24):
enlisted in the fifteenth Light Dragoons Cavalry Regiment at the
age of seventeen. Astley was tall for his time, standing
six feet he was quite a bit taller than just
about everybody else in the military. Most men in England

(08:44):
were five foot six at the time, Astley was a
gifted horseman, and he could handle a sword. This was
what the army was looking for. During the Seven Years'
War between Britain and Friends, he captured an enemy standard
in one battle, and he rescued the Duke of York

(09:06):
from behind enemy lines. His true genius lay in his
ability to train and communicate with horses, using a system
of repetition and reward to train them to perform tricks
and maneuvers. After leaving the army in seventeen sixty six

(09:28):
with the rank of Sergeant Major, Askedly settled in London
and opened a riding school near the Westminster Bridge. In
the mornings, he taught horsemanship to wealthy aristocrats. In the afternoon,
he began putting on exhibitions of trick riding, vaulting in

(09:48):
other feats of equestrian skill to entertain the public. As
more people saw what could be done on a horse,
more young folks with wealth the parents wanted to join
his school. Form of advertising, Astley began hiring acrobats and

(10:11):
jugglers and other performers to fill out the show. These
kinds of acts had existed for centuries at fairgrounds and marketplaces,
but Astley is credited with bringing them together in one location.
The evening shows became so popular they began to eclipse

(10:33):
the training. One of Astley's signature acts was known as
the Tailor of Bentford. Now. This was a slapstick comedy
routine that showcased his skill as both a rider and
in physical comedy. The name slapstick originates from the Italian

(10:56):
bodachio or batacchio a slap stick. It was a club
like object that was composed of two wooden slats that
produced a loud, smacking noise when you hit somebody with it.
Very little force was needed, and you would smack somebody

(11:17):
somewhere about the body and it sounded like you were
really punishing them. It delivered very little pain and no
damage to the recipient. That's why it's called slap stick.
Playing the hapless Tailor, Astley would attempt to mount a

(11:37):
horse and ride to an election, only to be thrown
off again and again. The sight of Astley being out
foxed by his own steed never failed to bring down
the house. In seventeen seventy, in order to accommodate his
growing audience, Astley opened a permanent Amphitheater near why Westminster Bridge.

(12:02):
The building's design was a circular ring surrounded by tiered seating.
It had an open roof to allow for year round performances.
The size and the shape were ideal for equestrian displays,
being forty two feet in diameter, this allowed riders to

(12:22):
circle the ring while maintaining a constant speed. This layout
would become the standard for circuses around the world. As
word of Astley's show spread, he began to take his
circus on tour, the establishing. He was establishing amphitheaters in

(12:42):
cities across Britain and Europe. By the time of his
death in eighteen fourteen, he had nineteen permanent locations, from Dublin,
Paris to Belgrade. Astley's circuit was a circus was an
international phenomenon, appealing to audiences across all classes. The rich

(13:05):
and the poor would show up to watch. You didn't
have to speak the language because it was all visual.
Young and old. People from all walks of life wanted
to see his circus, his circle. What said Ashley's circus

(13:26):
apart from earlier performers of popular entertainment was it focused
on the feats of humans. And animal skills. In Astley's ring,
the emphasis was always on the partnership between horse and rider,
the grace and power of the human body in motion.
He didn't have exotic animals or clowns. The slapstick performances

(13:51):
were done as a part of the show, without being separate.
What looked like a writing performance might turn into a
laughs spectacle, Asdley knew how to give the audiences what
they wanted. During the Napoleonic Wars, Astley stage elaborate reenactments

(14:11):
of British military victories, complete with cannon fire and hundreds
of extras in uniform. I'll bet that was a hit
in France, asked. Lee. Believed in the power of the
circus to bring people together and uplift their spirits. He
was known for his generosity and charity work, often giving

(14:35):
away free tickets to orphans and the poor. He was
a master at marketing his shows and wholes some family
entertainment with something delight and amaze everyone. I don't much
care for clowns. Coolophobia is the irrational fear of clowns,

(14:59):
which can cause panic and nausea. It's a rare phobia,
but many people find clowns to be creepy or downright scary.
Some associate clowns with ideas such as laughing on the
outside while crying on the inside. To me, clowns seem

(15:21):
to represent fakes, like politicians who show one side of
themselves while hiding behind a mask of decency and being
involved in all manners of evil. Clowns have appeared in
most cultures throughout history. The earliest documented clowns go back

(15:42):
to ancient Egypt sometime around twenty five hundred to twenty
four hundred BC. Clowns were also around in ancient Greek
and Roman societies. They had the traditional They had traditional
served as a socio religious, and psychological role, and traditionally

(16:06):
the roles of priests and clowns were held by the
same people. You could literally say your priest is a clown,
and that would be a compliment. The term clown has
been extended to gestures and fools characteristics in non Western culture.

(16:32):
A society in which clowns have an important position are
termed clown societies, and a clown character involved in a
religious or ritual capacity is known as a ritual clown.
The clown character developed out of a rustic fool character,

(16:54):
or the early modern Comedia del arte, which were themselves
directly based on rustic fool characters of ancient Greece and
Rome theater. Rustic buffoon characters in classic Greek theater were
known as the sclero pipe days or to play like

(17:16):
a child. In Roman theater, a term for clown was
a faussore, literally a digger or a laborer, the lower classes,
if you will. During the Middle Ages in Europe, the
clown figure evolved into the court jesture, a role that

(17:39):
allowed for a surprising amount of influence and power, as
jesters could express truth and critique without fear of retribution.
Thanks to their position as entertainers, they were the only
ones that could tell the king that he had an
ugly daughter and nothing would happen it. The jesters were

(18:03):
Their iconic attire and freedom to mock led much of
the groundwork for modern clowns, weaving political commentary and social
satire into their performances. The English word clown was first
recorded in fifteen sixty as clone or cloin, with the

(18:26):
generic meaning rustic, bore or peasant. The origin of the
word may come from Scandinavian word for clumsy. The word
clown is used as the name of fool characters in
Shakespeare's Othello and The Winter's Tale. The sense of clown

(18:47):
as referring to the professional or the habitual fool or
jester developed the sometime around sixteen hundred, based on Elizabethan
Ristik Russ stick fool characters keep making up words that
don't exist. The harlequin developed in England in the seventeenth century,

(19:14):
and it was inspired by Lachino and the Comedia del Arte.
Once again, a clown came into use as the given
name of the stock character. The clown was opposite of
the harlequins slyness and skillful nature. The harlequin was not

(19:35):
a clown, and the clown was not a harlequin. There
were opposites of each other. Clown was a buffoon or
a bumpkin, who resembled less a jester than a comedic idiot.
He was a lower class character dressed in tattered servant's garb.

(19:57):
Poor folks were clowns, while the aristic crats or the
clever harlequins the new classical features knew how about the
now The now classical features of the clown character were
developed in the early eighteen hundreds by Joseph Grimaldi, who

(20:20):
played the clown in Charles Dibbens' eighteen hundred pantomime Peter
Wilkins or Harlequin in the Flying World at Sadler's Wells Theater.
Why do they have to use such darn long names?
Grimaldy built the character up into this central figure of

(20:42):
the play. In the early twentieth century, with the disappearance
of the rustic simpleton or the village idiot, all of
our village idiots seemed to have gotten into politics. North
American circus developed characters such as the tramp or the hobo.

(21:05):
Marcellini Orbis performed at the Hippodrome Theater, the Charles Chaplin,
who portrayed the tramp. Emma Kelly's Werry Willie, based on
Hoboes of the Depression era. Another influential tramp character was
played by Otto Ribbling during the nineteen thirties to fifties.

(21:28):
Even Red Skeleton played the clown in a movie called
The Clown, depicting the circus clown as a tragic comediic
stock character, a funny man with a drinking problem. Many
Native tribes have a history of clowning, such as the

(21:51):
Pueblo clown of the Kachina culture. A hyaka is an
individual in Lakota and Dakota culture who lives outside the
constraints of normal cultural roles, a playing the role of
a backwards clown by doing everything in reverse. If you

(22:14):
saw the movie Little Big Man with Dustin Hoffman, they
had one of these characters in the movie. He would
take a bath and then throw dirt on himself. Canadian
First Nations feature jesterrelike ritual performers. The exact nature of
their role is kept secret from non members of the tribe.

(22:39):
My big question when dealing with clowns is always what
are they hiding behind all that makeup that false smile
that could be hiding a killer the I can't think
of the name of the song right now, but the
song by the Moody Blues now not going to bruise

(23:03):
my brain trying to remember it. John Wayne Gacy lived
from March seventeenth, nineteen forty two, until May tenth, nineteen
ninety four, when he was the guest of honor at
an execution. He was an American serial killer and sex
offender who raped, tortured, and murdered at least thirty three

(23:28):
young men and boys in Norwood Park Township, Illinois, which
is a suburb of Chicago. He became known as the
Killer Clown due to his public performances as a clown
prior to his discovery. May twenty sixth, nineteen ninety in Wellington, Florida,

(23:51):
at ten forty five am on a Saturday, Marlene Warner
answered her front door to find somebody dressed as a clown.
The person was wearing an orange wig, a red bulb nose,
white face paint, and a clown outfit, holding a handful
of balloons and flowers. The clown handed her these items,

(24:18):
then pulled a thirty eight revolver and shot Worn point
blank in the face as her son and his friends
watched on in horror. Warren collapsed in the doorway of
her Wellington home, blood's spewing from her head wound. You'd
never seen a gunshot to a head wound. They're mess.

(24:41):
One of the balloons in the bouquet read You're the greatest.
The clown calmly walked back to a white Chrysler le
baron and drove away. It wasn't until twenty seventeen that
police managed to arrest Sheila Keene Warren, who had married

(25:01):
Marlene's widower Michael Warren. DNA evidence from her fibers from
hair fibers found in the getaway car, and a witness
testimony said that Sheila had purchased a clown costume days
before the murder. Sheila had worked for Michael's car rental agency,

(25:24):
and she was having an affair with him while he
was still married to Marlene. In Cabo San Lucas, Mexico,
October eighteenth, twenty thirteen, Francisco Rafael Ariano Felix, the former
leader of the Tijuana Clartel, was celebrating with family members

(25:47):
at a luxury beach resort. Several entertainers performed during the
children's portion of the event, including a clown known professionally
as Kikin. As Ariano Felix watched the performance, kikik Chikin
approached him without breaking character or removing his clown makeup.

(26:13):
Kikin pulled out a pistol and fired two shots into
Ariano Felix's head, killing him instantly in front of his
friends and family. The killer escaped through an emergency exit.
Mexican authorities determined the murder was orchestrated by rival gang

(26:33):
members as seeking to eliminate Ariano Felix. The killer clown
was never found. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century,
freak shows were at their heights of popularity. From eighteen
forty to nineteen forty saw the organized for profit exhibition

(26:57):
of people with the physical, mental, or behavioral rarities. Not
all abnormally. Now I'm listening to my cat over there
meowing out the door. Not all abnormalities were real, some
or just a lot of makeup or having two people,

(27:19):
usually women, harnessed together. Prosthetics were attached to make a
performer look as if he had an extra leg. The
performers had to take steps to never appear in public
or wear a disguise during their on stage life. The
attractiveness of freak shows led to the spread of the

(27:41):
shows that were commonly seen at amusement parks, circuses, dime museums,
and the vaudeville. P. T. Barnum was considered the father
of modern day advertising and one of the most famous
showmen and managers of freak show industry in the United States.

(28:03):
He was a major figure in popularizing this kind of entertainment.
It was common for Barnum's acts to be schemes and
not altogether true. The Fiji Mermaid was a monkey fish composite.
Barnum spent years collecting specimens, artifacts and displays. His main

(28:26):
passion was showmanship and entertainment rather than scientific education. Barnum
was fully aware of the improper ethics behind his business,
and he said, I don't believe in duping the public,
but I believe in first attracting and then pleasing them.

(28:50):
Most people have heard Barnum say there's a sucker born
every minute, but this is not considered to be actually
what he said. The saying probably came from David Hanman,
who was referring to one of Barnum's exhibits. Barnum's English

(29:12):
counterpart was Tom Norman, renowned Victorian showman whose traveling exhibits
featured Eliza Jenkins, the Skeleton Woman, a balloon headed baby,
and a woman who bit the heads off of live acts.

(29:33):
Now this is known as a geek show, which were
an act in traveling carnivals and circuses, and were often
a part of the larger side shows. The build performers.
Acts consisted of a single geek who stood in the
center ring and then would chase live chickens around. It

(29:56):
would end with the geek biting the heads off the
chickens and swallowing them. The geek shows were often used
as openers for the freak shows. It was a matter
of pride among circus and carnival professionals to have never
traveled with a troop that included geeks. Geeks were often

(30:20):
alcoholics or drug addicts, and paid with liquor, especially during prohibition,
or sometimes paid with narcotics. Nightmare Alley, the nineteen forty
seven movie starring Tyrone Power, A Power is a carnival
barker who wants to learn the secret code used by mentalists.

(30:45):
Zena and her husband used to do a stage act
where she would help with her husband, who would hold
up a blindfold of let me get that straight. Zena
would hold up an object out in the audience, and
her husband, wearing a blindfold, would be able to see

(31:07):
what she was holding up. It was all in the
words that she used that would allow him to figure
out what she was holding. It was all in a code.
Zena's husband was working as a geek in the circus
due to way too much alcohol in his diet. He
had what is known as a wet brain. By the

(31:31):
end of the movie, power is reduced to drinking his
way through life and eating live chickens. This has nothing
to do with what we know today as the Geek Squad,
those folks that keep all my computers working. I must
say thank God for the Geek Squad. They have bailed

(31:53):
me out so many times.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
We have an ongoing subscription with them, and they see
me way too much. Other acts in Tom Norman's side
show included fleas, Yes, those tiny biting bugs. I'll get
more about them in a bit. Norman had a prerequisite

(32:20):
fat lady, a giant dwarves, and a retired white seaman
who had been painted all black, and he would speak
an invented language, being billed as a savage as Zulu.
There was a family of midgets, which in reality was
two men and a borrowed baby. He operated a number

(32:42):
of shops in London and Nottingham and exhibited traveling shows
throughout the country. Fleas those bloodsucking bugs that I am
constantly trying to keep off of. George, Yes, those things.
In fifteen seventy a London blacksmith named Mark Shallat became

(33:05):
the first person to enslave a flea to do advertising
for his business. To show off his craftsmanship, Tom created
a tiny gold chain that he affixed to a flee
The smith gained fame from his public relations feat and

(33:26):
inspired others to take up the flea powered phenomenon. In
eighteen twenty, Lewis Bert Bortel Bortelotto, an Italian living in London,
proclaimed that his new act was an extraordinary exhibition of
industrious fleas. This led to the creation of the flea

(33:50):
circus in early nineteen hundreds. William Heckler called his fleas
skilled professionals as they juggled, raised, and boxed on a
tiny stage. He named his favorite fleas, and he said
they would respond to voice commands. In a good day

(34:13):
of performances, his little circus would bring in more than
two hundred and fifty dollars in admittance fees, which is
in today's currency about three thousand dollars. Talk about a
flea show, I keep working my way back to freaks.

(34:33):
I wonder why, Probably because they are so anomalous. Some
freaks or downright bizarre laws in the United states starting
in about eighteen sixty, banned those who were diseased, maimed, mutilated,

(34:54):
or in any way deformed from public view, making it
hard for such people to support themselves. Exhibitions were accepted
from this law. Exempted not accepted, They were exempted from
the law. Freak shows were viewed as a place for entertainment.

(35:15):
They were also a place of employment for those that
could perform in these attractions. Before social safety nets or
workers' compensation, severely disabled people found themselves.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
At a loss. The only opportunity they had to make
a living was to perform. In the nineteenth century, performing
in an organized freak show was perceived as a viable
way of earning a living, as opposed to begging. Many
freak shows performers were lucky and gifted enough to earn

(35:56):
a livelihood and have good life through exhibitions. Some became celebrities,
commanding high salaries and earning far more than acrobats, novelty performers,
and actors. The salaries of dime museum freaks usually varied
from twenty five to five hundred dollars a week, and

(36:20):
this is back in the nineteenth century. Making more money
than lecture room variety performers. At the height of freak
show popularity, they were one of the few jobs open
to dwarves. Changing attitudes about physical differences led to the

(36:41):
decline of the freak shows as a form of entertainment
towards the end of the nineteenth century. The folks who
until that time had been making a good living now
found themselves out of work. Yes, there was exploitation, but
there was also a lot of camaraderie among the performers.

(37:03):
They were stars to many, and they were celebrities. The
do gooders, who are almost always on the wrong side
of every argument, proclaimed the freak shows were taboo and
all those freaks had to find some other way of
earning a living. Not a single one of those do

(37:26):
gooders offered to hire the freaks or help them find
a new job. You can't perform in front of an audience,
but don't ask me for help. That kind of thing.
In the years following the Civil War, a new form
of human exploitation arose. Human zoos and traveling side shows

(37:51):
began to pop up everywhere. Instead of animals and cages,
they had people not necessarily in cages, but on display.
These folks didn't have any kind of physical anomaly, they
just looked different. All across Europe and the United States,
traveling performers would display folks dressed like what the owners

(38:15):
thought they should look like. There were small huts in
clothing that may or may not have been with the
people on display had used while in their native homes.
Europeans and Americans who had never traveled around the world
had heard stories of people who had unusual shaped eyes,

(38:36):
well unusual for Europeans and Americans. The people with black
skin were well known to most folks. But put a
grass skirt and some bones on a necklace around their neck,
and now you've got something to look at. The first
human zoos were opened in eighteen seventy four by an
exotic animal trainer named Carl howat Beck. Hogen Beck had

(39:03):
displayed animals from far flung regions of the world in
his traveling show as a way to introduce regular people
to exotic wildlife. People who had never seen a lion
were willing to pay to see one of these giant
cats in a very small cage. This brings to mind

(39:25):
the Samatran rat monkey. What you never heard of this
wild creature? It can be seen in the movie Dead Alive,
directed by Peter Jackson, Yes the Lord of the Rings Guy.
It was one of his earlier movies. During the height

(39:48):
of the Industrial Revolution, people were beginning to accumulate a
bit of money, and they were wailing to spend it
on something new and bizarre. There were few places of
interest a family could visit. When word got out there
was a traveling side show in town, everybody went to
see what they had. Carl Hagenbeck was taking a lot

(40:13):
of money in a few coins at a time. He thought,
if folks are willing to pay a small amount to
see a weird looking animal, what would they pay to
see weird looking people. Hagenbeck grew up at a time
in a place where racism was the norm. Nobody was

(40:34):
worried about how somebody from far off land might feel
about being put on display and gawkeed at. Africans were
just a couple of rungs above animals on the hierarchy
of humanity. A show full of humans would be like
his previous show, but even more exhilarating. Carl Hagenbeck was

(40:58):
not the first European to exploit foreign cultures and people
by putting them on display. For centuries, European explorers would
take native folks who they found in the New World
or Africa back with them to Europe to show off
to the folks there. What Carl Hagenbeck did was take

(41:19):
an old practice of kidnapping and exploitation and turn it
into a profitable industry. During the early nineteen hundreds, in Germany,
people shows attracted large gatherings and spectators. They were interested
in getting a glimpse of an exotic person without having

(41:43):
to travel. Just about every country in Europe was looking
to get in on this action. If Hagenbeck can make
a ton of money putting on a few subhumans on display,
then why can't we. As the demand for exotic humans
got going, the people supplying these display figures needed to

(42:07):
find more and interesting people. In the United States, from
Philadelphia to San Francisco to New York, human exhibits were
put on and they were very popular, not to mention profitable.
In eighteen ninety six, the Cincinnati Zoo had an exhibit

(42:29):
of Sioux Indians that made them twenty five thousand dollars
in three months. The zoo made the money, not the Indians.
They got far less than minimum wage, which there wasn't
one at the time. The largest gatherings of spectators occurred
at the World's Fair in Paris in eighteen eighty nine.

(42:54):
Twenty eight million people passed through the exhibits, one of
which was a group of four hundered indigenous people from
various parts of the world. When somebody says indigenous people,
most folks think of Indians or people who grew up

(43:14):
somewhere before the Europeans arrived, people exhibiting or existing in
land from the earliest times, or from before the arrival
of the colonists. The inclusion of indigenous people in the
World's Fair was something that would be repeated at all

(43:36):
subsequent large fairs. As late as nineteen fifty eight, the
World's Fair in Belgium, millions of people went to see
an exhibit filled with people from exotic races. Belgium was
one of the countries where human zoos flourished. During King

(43:57):
Leopold's fifty year reign from eighteen sixty five to nineteen
oh nine, thousands of people from the Congo, which was
a Belgian colony, were taken back to Belgium in propaganda
tools for the King's Empire. Building project. By exhibiting a

(44:18):
Congolese people, King Leopold hoped to spark interest in his
Belgian colony and gain more support from the public. What
most folks didn't know was the people living in the
Congo were being treated far worse than animals. Things were
being done to them that would eventually come to light.

(44:43):
The people forced to work in these human shows were
not all that happy. Maybe the ones from the Congo were,
since as long as they were on display, nobody was
chopping off any hands. The folks in these shows were
not a to go sightseeing or move around outside of

(45:03):
the fairgrounds. They had to put on their costumes and
perform for the visitors or else. The people running the
shows had total control over every aspect of their life.
Who is going to pay to see somebody from Asia
if you can run into them at the grocery store anytime.

(45:26):
Theodore Wanja Michael was a year old when his mom died.
His folks were from Cameroon, and the courts decided that
his old man wasn't capable of caring for Theodore and
his three siblings. Each of them was sent to a
traveling fair to be taken care of. Theodore was forced

(45:52):
to work in an exhibit in which he was dressed
in a raffias skirt and pretended to be a wild
African boy. The audience was expecting a wild creature, and
the owner of the side show did what he wanted
to appease them. Oddly enough, the Theodore managed to survive.

(46:13):
Growing up, he managed to survive the Nazis after being
sent to a concentration camp, and during the Cold War
he became a spy for the Allies. Human thoos were
oppressive environments. People pushed up against the barriers separating them

(46:33):
from the exhibitions. They jeered and heckled at the performers.
They didn't hesitate in showing their displeasure when they didn't
get what they wanted. In November eighteen eighty one, and
in an exhibit in Berlin, a massive mob of visitors
was denied the opportunity to see a group of indigenous

(46:56):
people who had decided to stay in their hut. Enraged
of the crowd pressed up against the enclosure and destroyed
fences and other barriers and their attempt to interact with
the subjects in the exhibition. Exhibit For the people trapped
inside the exhibit the reaction of the crowd must have

(47:18):
been somewhat terrifying. Many indigenous folks were lured to Europe
with false promises of good pay and easy conditions, only
to realize too late that they'd made a mistake and
they were now stuck performing for some profit hungry entrepreneurs.

(47:43):
A group of eight Inuit who were placed on exhibit
in Berlin found themselves constantly being scrutinized by onlookers. The
crowd would look at them as if nothing happened. Yet,
the crowd would look at them, and if nothing happened,
they would begin yelling and throwing things at them. After

(48:06):
only a few months, the Inuit began to get sick,
and slowly one by one died from smallpox. Many human
zoos closed down after World War One. This was partially
because the survivors began to integrate into society and could
no longer be forced into such miserable working conditions. World's

(48:30):
affairs and zoos continued to include humans as part of
their exhibits for decades, as recently as two thousand and five.
In Ausburg, Germany, a celebration of African culture known as
African Village was a festival held in the center of

(48:52):
the city's zoo. The events organizers saw nothing wrong with
holding the festival next to the monkey cages and the
savannah exhibit. Many others took offence. Some people were so
upset they threatened to burn the zoo down. I am

(49:14):
not into circuses. It's just not my thing, but I
have been to a few because of the people I
was with. One day, back when it was still sort
of safe to go to Mexico, we went to a
circus in Nueva Laredo. To begin with, there was no
such thing as safety inspectors. The bleachers looked as if

(49:38):
they had survived the Civil War. You had to sit
real still to avoid splinters. Right in the middle of
the show, the popcorn machine that was right next to
the main ring caught fire. There it sat blazing away
while the show continued. You know, the show must go on.

(50:03):
Most of the audience just ignored the flames. I was
thinking about the Great Circus Fire, a circus fire that
occurred July sixth, nineteen forty four, in Hartford, Connecticut, killed
at least one hundred and sixty seven people and injured

(50:23):
seven hundred more. There we were in a huge tent
covered in waterproofing that was probably flammable, and nobody seemed
worried about this bonfire going on. The exit was on
the far side of the ring, and the place was packed.

(50:43):
I guess we survived. The fire went out as soon
as it had burned up all the oil and corn.
Now the tent was filled with that mouth watering aroma
of burning popcorn. Most circuses just the one ring and
everything happens right there. In a three ring circus, there's

(51:05):
stuff going on in front of you, but also to
the left and the right. Why you may ask, You
see everything at the single ring, and then you're finished.
There's no reason to go back the next night. In
a three ring circus, you catch action, action going on
to your left, to your right, and right in front

(51:27):
of you. You begin wondering what are you missing, so
you feel the urge to go back multiple times so
you can catch the whole show. It's a tricky way
of creating repeat business. Circuses have changed over the years.
It went from the kind of a grungy thing that

(51:49):
popped up on the edge of town to the thing
it is today and by Saint Paul Quebec during nineteen eighties,
a group of performers entertained their audiences by juggling, dancing,
breathing fire, and playing music. Among those performers was a

(52:12):
man named Guy La Liberta. I hope I got that right.
As a child, a La Libertee was taken to see
the Ringling Brothers in Barnum Bailey Circus, and he fell
in love with it. Nineteen eighty two, La Liberte participated
with other performers in the holiday fair known as the

(52:35):
Buy Saint Paul Fetee fourion No. I do not speak French,
and this would be the start of his dream to
create the Cerque des Solet. They came to Laredo a
while back. It was quite a show. I paid extra

(52:57):
so we could sit in the front row and get
pelted drops of sweat flying off of the performers. Well,
actually I did pay extra to get up close to
the stage so we could see everything. And we did
get to see everything. It was nothing like the circus
in Mexico. There was no fire. It was inside in

(53:21):
the arena where it was air conditioned. Oh and the
arena just happened to be haunted, but that's another story.
A carnival is different from a circus. In a circus,
you sit and you watch the performances as they pass
in front of you. In a carnival, you move around

(53:42):
to see the action. Now there are carnivals and there
is the carnival. A carnival is a that's not how
it's pronounced. I know I don't pronounce it correctly, but
that's the way we say it here in the US.
Carnival Carnival is a festive season that occurs at the

(54:05):
close of the Christian prelent period, consisting of Shrove Sunday,
Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Marti Gras, which is
also known as Fat Tuesday. You get to act as
if sin doesn't matter because you're gonna repent soon on

(54:30):
Ash Wednesday. This sounds way outside of anything Jesus ever
told us to do, but that's also another show. Carnival
typically involves public celebration, including events such as parades, public
street parties, which sometimes lead to public street fights, and

(54:52):
other entertainment. Those beads that everybody seems to obtain while
in New Orleans, will they get those beads by showing
off a part of the anatomy that men don't usually have,
and some women have way too much of somebody y else,

(55:18):
show me your and then they throw them some beads,
Elaborate costumes and masks allow people to set aside their
everyday individuality and experience a heightened sense of social unity.
They also get to behave like a bunch of baboons
because nobody can recognize them. The more alcohol they consume,

(55:41):
the more ape like they become. It allows people to
release their inner demons and act as if judgment day
will never come. Participants often indulge in excessive consumption of alcohol,
which also leads to jail time time and hangovers, eating

(56:03):
as much meat as possible so they can make up
for the coming weeks of vegetables and other food that
will be foregone during the coming Lent. I have never
been to New Orleans during Mardi Gras. I don't like crowds,
and I don't drink anymore. Yes, that was another show. Also,

(56:26):
a lot of guys I used to work with would
pack their bags and sally forth to attend the big event.
As many as ten of them would rent one hotel
room and then try to stay out of jail. Many
would return with stories of sights, sounds, and enter encounters.

(56:48):
Others would come back with a total lack of memory,
having drunk themselves into a stupor and not sobered up
until they got back home. Now that fun would you
do in Mardi Gras? Well, I got so drunk, I
can't remember anything that happened. Wow, and that only cost
you a couple thousand bucks. Huh. Really, a few of

(57:11):
my coworkers had no memory from immediately after the plane
landed in New Orleans. Some people actually go to New
Orleans to watch the parades the floats as they rumble
by the origins of these mobile sites wasn't to have

(57:31):
people dancing, singing, and throwing beads at topless women. The
floats were used to depict scenes from the Bible. Few
people could read, so the church would have folks dress
up like a diorama. In Jesus and the Smokies, What

(57:52):
you've never been to Gatlinburg, too bad for you. There
is a museum in Gatlinburg. It is called Jesus in
the Smokies, and if you ever get a chance to
see it, it is memorable. It is something else. I
should have taken more pictures, but I think there's a
sign that said no photography allowed. But it's quite cool,

(58:14):
and the people there are very nice. The church folks
would assemble wagons and they would place actors dressed like
Bible figures, and they would pull them through small towns
all along the Gulf coast. And now it's time to
test people's offensive level. That Gulf of America. Did you

(58:40):
get mad? Think about it? This set of continents was
called the Americas long before Mexico became a country. In
August twenty fourth, eighteen twenty one, Mexico broke away from Spain.
In twenty twenty five, some folks with our president began

(59:02):
calling it the Gulf of America, and folks lost their minds.
The same folks who wanted to rename every sports club
and military base in our country said it was wrong
to rename the Gulf of Mexico. If your biggest anxiety
is the name of a body of water, you need

(59:22):
to re examine your priorities. There are bigger problems out
there that could use your attention. Venice supplanted Rome is
the main site of Italian carnival festivities by the eighteenth century.
Like many later carnival celebrations. Venice's affairs were marked by

(59:45):
a widespread use of masks, which created a temporary feeling
of equality between the ruling classes and the lower classes.
The six week festival served as a placebo against the
bad mood and tensions that were often generated within the
poor classes towards the political system. In Brazil, festival is

(01:00:10):
a huge street performance where folks dance in parades to
be judged on how well they can move while on
the move. When Rio de Janeiro brought back its carnival
in twenty twenty three after the two years of cancellations
that were brought on by the Black Plague of twenty

(01:00:31):
twenty the event made headlines around the world as to
just how big of an event. It was acclaimed as
the world's biggest carnival. The five day celebration draws two
million revelers each day. The celebrants take to the streets
and clubs known as samba schools, parade through the city

(01:00:57):
during performances. The festival's roots lie in the Portuguese colonization
of Brazil, though the Portuguese likely imported a tradition with
the same Christian and ancient roots as the Roman Carnival.
It was the indigenous cultures of Brazil, as well as

(01:01:18):
the enslaved African people brought to the colony by the Portuguese,
that made the celebration what it is today. This influence
is evident in real Carnival's samba music of feathered costumes
and dancing styles. Nineteen forty one, Orson Wells was dispatched

(01:01:42):
to Brazil to film scenes from Carnival for a movie
that he was making. Wells was under pressure from RKO
to shoot a portion of his third film that was
called It's All True in Brazil. He had been appointed

(01:02:03):
a Goodwill Ambassador to Latin America by Nelson Rockefeller, who
was a coordinator of the Inter American Affairs and a
major stockholder in RKO. If the name RKO is a
mystery to some of y'all, they used to make a
whole lot of movies back in the thirties, forties and fifties,

(01:02:26):
and they made a lot of really bad monster movies
that I watched when I was growing up. To begin with,
during one of the shots the raft being filmed flipped
over and the main character was killed. It's pretty bad
when your lead actor dies. On the set, kind of

(01:02:48):
like in Plan nine from Outer Space where Bela Lagosi
died halfway through the filming. Oops, anyway, the main character
had been killed in an accident. They had to replace
him with another main character, So now you've got two
main characters that are never seen together. When the film

(01:03:13):
footage began showing up in Hollywood, the executives were shocked
to see there were no white folks in any of
the footage. Why are there only black and brown people
dancing in the streets. They wanted Wells to find some
white folks and get them to dance in Brazil in

(01:03:35):
the nineteen forties. The actors being depicted in the movie
were just ordinary, hardworking folks. The executives in Hollywood wanted
some Hollywood types, you know, shallow film stars to have
the lead roles. Wells and Rko parted ways shortly thereafter.

(01:03:59):
There are a few state fairs where you can see
all manner of bizarre creatures and some weird exhibits as well.
I have been to a few state fairs Wisconsin, Virginia,
and Texas. Still not my thing, but the folks I'm
with want to go, so be it. You see all

(01:04:21):
kinds of things, some of which you wish you hadn't
You get to eat all kinds of things, mostly fried
and shoved on a stick. I never go on the rides.
The guys who put these together look kind of questionable
as well as their work. My wife used to like

(01:04:43):
to go to the September Festival in Nueva Laredo. One
time I ran into a couple of guys that I
had arrested. They saw me and they turned and ran. Well,
then they realized I was in their country. This led
to their becoming somewhat braver. Let's just say I did

(01:05:06):
not get beat up, and I didn't make them cry,
but they realized, well they went away. We don't go
down there anymore. It's just gotten too dangerous. The Paranormal
Circus is a unique performing arts spectacular that exists somewhere

(01:05:28):
between circus entertainment and cabaret. The show, which requires attendees
to be thirteen years or older, is the latest creation
of the Circus Italia, a company that has three tours
of Paranormal Circus running at the same time. The circus

(01:05:50):
experience combines aerial work with contortionists, acrobatics, and a horror theme.
The horror take off for the evening, with many characters
dripping with blood, a downing, scary masks, and doing what

(01:06:10):
almost looks like murder on stage. There's even a horror
maze that you have to go through in order to
get to the circus tent. Proper Paranormal Circus is that
rare circus event that comes with an age restriction and
a disclaimer, We're not responsible if you have a heart attack.

(01:06:33):
The youngsters are meant to stay at home while the
adults get to enjoy thrilling night out. Teenagers are allowed in,
but only with a guardian. Yes, it came to Laredo,
and yes I didn't go. Like I said, I'm not
into crowds and my wife refuses to go, so I

(01:06:55):
stay home and watch TV instead. Enjoy tonight's show. If
you did, spread it around, share it with people, Send
it to them on Facebook or YouTube or Rumble or whatever.
You happen to be watching that I'm on, Share the
heck out of it. Let others know they should be

(01:07:15):
watching Strange Things with Chris James. If you actually enjoyed
this show and you'd like to hear all of the
past shows, you can find them at iHeartRadio in the
podcast section, but you have to type out the whole
name because there's at least forty five other podcasts with

(01:07:39):
strange Things in the title. You can also find a
ninety nine point eight percent of my shows on YouTube
till next Saturday. This is Chris James.

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
Are you Are you coming to the tree. When they
strung up a man who they said he murdered, three
strange things have happened there. No stranger would it be
if we met at midnight in the hanging Tree