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When did the circus die and where did the clowns go? AND, WITH THESE VANISHINGS, WAS THERE AN IMPACT ON GENUINE CLEAN HUMOR?
The Greatest Show on Earth. It and its predecessor shows ran from 1871 to 2017. Known as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, the circus started in 1919 when the Barnum & Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth, a circus created by P. T. Barnum and James Anthony Bailey, was merged with the Ringling Bros. World’s Greatest Shows. The Ringling brothershad purchased Barnum & Bailey Ltd. following Bailey’s death in 1906, but ran the circuses separately until they were merged in 1919.
CHANGES
In 1968, with the craft of clowning seemingly neglected and with many of the clowns in their 50s, he established the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College.Circus Williams, a circus in Europe was purchased for $2 million just to have its star animal trainer, Gunther Gebel-Williams, for the core of his revamped circus. Soon, he split the show into two touring units, Red and Blue, which could tour the country independently.
After Walt Disney World opened near Orlando, Florida, in 1971, the circus attempted to cash in on the resulting tourism surge by opening Circus World theme park in nearby Haines City, which broke ground on April 26, 1973.
The theme park was expected to become the circus’s winter home as well as to have the Clown College located there.
In Baraboo, the clown college operated at the Sarasota Opera House in Sarasota until 1998 before the program was suspended. On February 26, 1999, the circus company started previewing Barnum’s Kaleidoscape, a one ring, intimate, upscale circus performed under the tent; designed to compete with similar upscale circuses such as Cirque du Soleil, Barnum’s Kaleidoscape was not successful, and ceased performances after the end of 2000.
Nicole Feld became the first female producer of Ringling Circus in 2004. In 2009, Nicole and Alana Feld co-produced the circus.In 2001, a group led by The Humane Society of the United States sued the circus over alleged mistreatment of elephants. The suit and a countersuit ended in 2014 with the circus winning a total of $25.2 million in settlements. On March 3, 2015, the circus announced that all elephants would be retired in 2018 to the CEC, but Ringling reversed the decision and retired the elephants in May 2016.
Eight months after it retired the elephants, it was announced on January 14, 2017, that the circus would do 30 more performances, lay off more than 462 employees between March and May 2017 and then close.
On October 21, 2021 Feld Entertainment Chairman and CEO Kenneth Feld and COO Juliette Feld Grossman announced that the circus would be relaunched in 2023, refraining animal performances. Wikipedia
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Insightful post! Clowns often get a bad rep, but they’ve been part of the happy memories of my childhood. 💗 🤡
Thank you! Transformations re happening much too fast, leaving big bites in our culture.Clowns were respected once upon a time until they were redesigned and cast into all types of horror films. Your good memories are what counts. 👌