Barnaby Bumpershoot started it all, back in the 1971 Blue Unit of Ringling Brother's clown alley.
We called him Barney for short. He
had to make a seven foot tall foam rubber dragon for the walk-around that season. He wanted to show off his artsy-craftsy skills. Because he wanted to compete with our very own Michelangelo of the foam rubber, Mark Anthony. Mark was a happy tramp clown who sculpted foam rubber into amazing shapes. He created a full-sized elephant from foam rubber, and painted it to look like the real deal. It was used in a disappearing elephant act by the show for years. His most recent creation was a bedraggled vulture that sat on his shoulder, seeming to stare hungrily about for some roadkill.
Barney had gone to some kind of art school back in Nebraska, and considered himself the equal of Mark when it came to carving out wildlife from expanded rubber. So he went to work on a green dragon and had it done by the time we reached Madison Square Garden. It was a smash hit with the audience as it walked along, waving a claw and wagging its tail.
Mark, who had nary a mean bone in his body, congratulated Barney on his comic coup de foudre. Then immediately began sculpting a foam rubber anteater, using an electric carving knife -- the instrument of choice by all serious foam rubber artistes.
When completed, Mark's anteater stuck out a long thin red tongue, and could also squirt a jet of water through its elongated proboscis, thanks to the rubber syringe Mark had hidden inside it.
For close up work with the audience, it proved to be just as much a crowd pleaser as Barney's green dragon.
And then Charlie Baumann, the fearsome Performance Director, stirred things up by announcing one afternoon before the matinee at the Garden: "Okay funnymen, Mr. Feld likes der floppy animal tings you make. He vants more -- schnell, schnell! Make it schnappy!"
Old man Feld had bought the show from the last of the Ringling brothers a few years back, and was now the head honcho. His word was law. If he wanted lots of foam rubber clown props, he was going to get them!
The hum of electric carving knifes slicing through foam rubber night and day made clown alley sound like a boutique sawmill. Tigers, kangaroos, zebras, parrots, and even an aardvark, were soon carved and slapped together with a crude coat of spray paint. But in the hands of rank amateurs the props looked lumpy and grotesque, not cute and eccentric, and they fell apart like the shoddy handiwork they were. It was not unusual to see various animal parts strewn around the arena after each walk around, with Smiley, one of the roustabouts, using a push broom to gather them all up to return to clown alley.
Bear and I decided we would ask Mark to tutor us before touching a single piece of foam rubber.
"Well, what kind of an animal do you want?" he asked us.
Good question, that. We hadn't really thought it through. Bear, practical as ever, asked in return:
"Well, what kind of animal is easiest to carve and paint?"
"Chicken. It'll take you an hour to make one to walk around in."
So Mark showed us how to make a giant foam rubber chicken. He then suggested we carve out a large egg from a block of Styrofoam he just happened to have lying around, attach it to a long piece of elastic rope, attach the other end to the giant chicken's butt, and then have one of us inside the chicken walk around the track, occasionally dropping the Styrofoam egg. The other one would be dressed like a farmer, pick up the egg, hold it until the elastic rope was stretched good and tight, and then let go. The egg would then shoot back to the giant chicken's butt -- and another classic clown gag was born.
It was a brilliant sight gag, and garnered Bear and I some huge belly laughs. The only problem was that Bear thought I was made for the part of the chicken, which hid me completely from the audience.
"Why don't you get inside the darn thing, and I'll be the farmer getting the laughs?" I asked after the first few times.
"Tork, you've got such skinny legs they already look like chicken legs. Mine are way too chubby -- it wouldn't be funny anymore."
That didn't sound very convincing to me. Besides, the Styrofoam egg kept ricocheting off my legs when it snapped back, and it stung. I finally gave Bear an ultimatum; either he could get inside the chicken for a week or he could find another stooge to do it. Bear gave in, not very gracefully, and the next matinee I capered about with the Styrofoam egg like a madman before letting it snap back into the giant chicken.
I could hear Bear's muffled cries as the egg slapped into his calves. Ha! I thought to myself; now the egg is on the other foot.
That evening clown alley was tipped off that old man Feld was to watch the show to check up on a number of things, including the new foam rubber clown props. This would be my big chance to show off in front of him! Bear, needless to say, was a mite peeved that he had to be incognito inside the giant chicken. But I reminded him that a bargain was a bargain. He'd get his chance to shine some other time . . .
The band struck up Lazarus Trombones by Fillmore, which was our cue to take our clown gags around the track for the walk-around. First went Mark with his anteater, then Barney in his green dragon, then Prince Paul smoking a huge foam rubber cigar fully five feet long, then Swede Johnson riding a chariot that appeared to be pulled by ducks, and then me and Bear started around the track.
Just as we got in front of old man Feld to begin the routine the elastic rope broke.
Bear kept waiting for the egg to snap back; I just stood there with my mouth open like a dead carp. Finally I sidled up to Bear, informed him of the disaster, and we both ran off in horrid embarrassment.
After the show that night Baumann came back to clown alley to tell Bear and I that the chicken gag was out -- Mr. Feld hated it.
So Bear and I retired the giant chicken to one of the prop boxes and went with 'Bigger and Bigger'. All it took was a balloon and a long needle. Not cutting edge, but at least we no longer quarreled about who was going to crawl into the chicken anymore.
