I suspect the animal rights people were the biggest factor, although I could see declining attendance as one of the causes too. Years ago, before television and now all sorts of other electronic devices, entertainment was limited, so these shows would draw a huge audience. I went once as part of a school field trip. My parents couldn't afford to takr us kids themselves, but the school obtained tickets through donations. I remember being completely enthralled with the high wire acts. But now with so many other entertainment alternatives available, I can see younger generations never seeing a circus in their lifetimes. It's too bad. So many things from my childhood are disappearing.
When I was a small boy tickets to the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus were dirt cheap at
the old Madison Square Garden. I could be wrong, but I suspect the reason my parents took us kids
every
other year was to be absolutely sure we'd see something a little different each time we went.
If I remember right, my younger brother loved the animal acts most while I loved the high wire people
and the clowns. (One year, the clowns had a routine where the tiniest version of some big bomb of a
car would ride around the three rings shooting off all kinds of effects, then park at center ring and,
one after the other, you'd see the full-size clowns, about five or six of them, emerging from this toy
of a car. I figured out in due course how they pulled it off---talk about sleight of body!---but it was
funny as hell anyway.)
Trivia: Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus's most famous clown: Emmett Kelly, Sr. His
"Weary Willie" hobo character became a representation of a baseball team---when New York sports
cartoonist Willard Mullin, hopping a cab to Ebbets Field, heard his driver ask something like, "How
did those bums do yesterday," or some such thing, but the "bum" reference triggered Mullin. His
next cartoon depicting the story of a Dodger game featured a slightly exaggerated caricature of
Kelly's character and the Brooklyn Bum was born. Mullin used the image to depict the Dodgers for
the rest of his career, even after the team moved to Los Angeles.
