The Pie and I

Ringling publicity maven Art Ricker was always looking for little puff pieces about the circus that he could use for press releases. The show churned out about two hundred releases each season back then. But newspapers were getting wary about using them whole, so Art came up with the idea of circus 'essays.'

"Our performers are a well educated bunch" he'd say to reporters. "They write all sorts of essays about the circus environment!"

To which reporters always replied "Oh yeah? Show us some!"

This left Art in somewhat of a bind, since circus performers were, for the most part, nearly illiterate when it came to anything except their own act. Luckily, I happened to overhear Ricker talking about his dilemma and offered to write up something for him.

"About what?" he asked, cocking his cigar at a cynical angle.

"I could write about making the goo that goes into pies" I said brightly. "I bet reporters wanna know all about that."

"Okay, pal. Give it a whirl -- if it clicks I'll see that you get a little something on the side."

And so I wrote the following, which, I must report, was never accepted by reporters anywhere as a circus 'essay' and never saw the light of day in a newspaper. So I guess this is it's World Premier. Anyway, here it is:

Throughout the history of silent film comedy there were pies everywhere, whizzing through the air like gooey bumblebees.  Their purpose was to smash into the faces of cinema clowns, such as cross-eyed Ben Turpin and walrus-mustached Chester Conklin, as well as straight men like Mack Swain and Bud Jamison, not to mention innocent beauties like Mabel Normand or the statuesque Marie Dressler.

Whether the product came from the Mack Sennett Studio, Hal Roach, or the Christie Educational Studio, hardly any slapstick film during the 1920’s was complete without someone getting a foamy pastry right in the kisser.  Audiences expected it, demanded it, and laughed uproariously when it was delivered. 

The most famous cinema pie fight of all time was undoubtedly Laurel & Hardy’s 1927 short film, Battle of the Century.  Stan and Ollie, along with an entire neighborhood of deranged people, plunder a pie truck of its contents and send them hurling about with hilarious accuracy.  No one has ever been able to count exactly how many pies were used in that film, but it could not have been less than  several hundred!

How did the movie technicians make those pies?  Were they real custard or fruit filling?

No, they were not!

As a circus clown, I know how those pies were made, and are still made today when clowns want to toss them around under the big top.  The old clowns I worked with told me that the formula has been the same for the past 110 years.

You see, if you were to throw a real pie, a pie with a thick filling of custard or fruit, into someone’s face, you’d probably break their nose!  The next time you are at the supermarket, just go ahead and lift up a fruit pie.  Heavy, isn’t it?  Should you hit someone with something that heavy, there could be some real damage.  Besides, the filling is not very photogenic – on black and white film it looks rather gray and dirty.  It can’t be wiped delicately out of the eyes with just the fingertips, the way Oliver Hardy would do it; it is too thick and pasty for that.  Custard and fruit filling does not make the spectacular spatter you see in the old slapstick movies when the pie makes contact with the victim’s face.  Besides, do you know how difficult it is to clean up after a direct hit with a generous helping of custard or fruit filling?  You can’t do too many retakes using real pies.

At this point you may be thinking, “Oh, right – it must be shaving cream!”

Well, yes and no.

It is shaving cream, but not the kind that comes out of a pressurized can.  That stuff won’t keep firm for more than five minutes, especially under the hot lights of a circus tent, or a movie studio.  It melts into a thin, runny stream of sweet smelling  bubbles.  It looks like milk.

To make the goo for a good slapstick pie, a pie that will sail across the room and land with a satisfying ‘plop’ in someone’s snoot, splattering all over the place, you first start with a dozen bars of hard shaving soap.  The kind that your grandfather put in a ceramic mug and stirred with a brush for a thick, sturdy foam to lather up his chin.  Next, use a carrot grater to grate up all twelve bars into a large galvanized trash can.  When all the hard soap is grated into the garbage can, add cold water from any water source handy until the can is a third full.  Add one full pint of glycerol.  Glycerol is what gives the goo its body and keeps it springy and foamy for up to an hour.  If you want, you can add food coloring to change the color.  Then whip the mixture with a paint mixer on an extended rod, like the old-fashioned malted milkshake mixer.  It will need to be mixed for a good fifteen minutes, after which you will have a whole garbage can full of  aromatic and creamy pie filling.  You can put it in pie tins, buckets, fill syringes with it – it’s very versatile!  This shaving cream filling stings a bit in your eyes, and is not very pleasant to swallow, but it has no permanent aftereffects and is relatively easy to clean up.

So there you have it – the next time you chuckle over some hapless silent film character getting walloped with a pie and spluttering with rage, remember it’s just good clean fun with shaving soap!