April 3, 2021 • 44 mins
Don't be confused - this one is about actual circus acts made of family members, not the controversial comic strip. Step right up to this classic episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everybody, Happy Saturday. I hope you're having a great weekend.
If you want to learn something about circus families, you're
in the right place because this is a throwback select
episode to July two. Circus families, Believe it or not,
It's a thing, great, great, rich traditions all over the
world with circus families, fathers and mothers teaching sons and daughters,
(00:21):
aunts and uncles teaching nieces and nephews how to swing
on trap pieces and climb ropes and dew flips and
ride motorcycles. Here we go, how circus families work. Welcome
to Stuff you should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
(00:45):
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Just Charles
W Chuck Bryant, and Jerry, Which makes this the Flying
s Y s Cades, Flying Stuff, stuffy In's Stuffino, Oh,
Steffini's Flying stef Man Boy. See you look at that.
It took us we seven seconds, maybe even less, to
(01:08):
come up with the best name in the history of
podcasting circus teams. Yeah, we'll go back and look at
the time stamp after this publishism we'll know for sure,
But I say less than seven seconds. The Flying Stefeni's
good job man. All right, I guess we can retire.
We've hit it big, Yeah we have. You can make
some money being a circus family, I learned. Yeah, I
have no idea about costs. So you will delight me
(01:30):
because I think everyone, well not everyone. I think some
people when they go to the circus, they're like, what's
that guy make for throwing knives? Oh? I have no
idea what they make. It's just the question I got
from this research. Gotcha, And I thought you had some
hard numbers. Uh. No, you're the statman, remember, And I know,
but people, you know, it's rude to talk about money,
(01:51):
so people don't share these things these days. That's why
I'm not saying anything. I'm just telling you the impression
I had. They're always strutting around with goblets full of
really expensive wine circus families, so you know, yeah, they
got uh. You know. Every time I think we're all circused,
out there comes another topic. Well, we have yet to
(02:11):
do how circuses themselves work. We will do that one day,
so we've done all of its component, every last one.
After that. Well, it does have interesting history, so well
we will save that then. Yeah. Well, I do want
to do how circuses working. We should also say I
don't want anybody to have the impression that by talking
about circus families we are endorsing circuses in general. I
(02:32):
have serious issues with some of them, with them for
the most part, oh, like because of their treatment of animals. Yeah,
but a lot of them don't use animals at all anymore. Well,
not a lot of them, some of them don't. I
have no problem with those circuses. Yeah, Like I remember
the Big Apple Circus. They have a dog thing. Well dogs,
I mean, we're horse thing, and I think that was it.
(02:55):
And horses love to show off, So I'm okay with
the Big Apple. Yeah, you wouldn't shoot, you know, but no, no,
they wouldn't show like an elephant, right right, Which is
funny because apparently an elephant is equal to a family
circus performer. Oh yeah, I saw that. I should say
circus family performer. Family circus is totally different. Yeah. This
(03:17):
is a little frustrating research because I kept getting lots
of circular cartoons that weren't funny. You don't think they're funny, Okay,
they're they're not funny. I think they're charming and heartwarming. Yeah, sure,
you know, Jeffy wrote on the wall, right, it's not funny,
but it's cute. Their little hair in the noses and
the they're cute. U that I have a brief segue here. Initially, Um,
(03:41):
that reminded me. Was just at max fun Con, uh,
the the weekend retreat of Jesse Thorn and his podcasting empire.
Everybody loved you that picture of you and Hodgeman and
Justin McElroy's kid. Yeah, well baby Charlie. Yeah, very cute. Yeah,
I think people love babies. Hodgeman, who doesn't even particularly
like kids, was like, give me that baby. You know, Um,
(04:02):
husband likes kids, at least he likes his own kids. Um.
So I was just there. And first of all, let
me recommend the Super Ego podcast, very funny improv podcast
featuring Matt Gorley and Paul if Tompkins and Mark McConville
and Jeremy Carter. You could have stopped at Paul if Tompkins.
Yeah right, Um, but one man improv is like, it's
(04:24):
not the best he can do it. I bet he could.
He does, I've seen it. So anyway, a long story short,
we were playing this game one night where we were
naming comic strips and the comic strip Mark Trail came up.
Oh man, you remember that. Well it wasn't even trying
to be funny. Well, no, it wasn't funny at all,
but it wasn't even like interesting. It was literally like
you know the what a beautiful sunset today? Right, that
(04:46):
was tracing the trail of a hawk in the sky
like through eight panels. Yeah. I thought it was refreshing
in a little ways, like you just make it all
like through a hilarious spasm of laugh or after like
Funky winker Bean or Hagar the Horrible and you needed
to like chill out, remember that, so you'd like read
the Mark Trail and then like you go at it
(05:09):
again and just laugh and laugh and beatle Bailey, which
is great institches and then maybe you come down a
little on Merry Worth or Department at three G Well,
back up on Wizard of It, back down with Brenda Starr.
Yeah that's the way you do it. But Mark Trail,
I don't want to knock it too much because I
believe it like taught kids about nature and conservancy and
stuff like that. But and how to follow a hawks
(05:31):
trail in this guy didn't belong in the comics section,
but I don't know. It was a comic strip. Yeah.
A lot of those comics were like they started out
or a lot of things started out as comics like
Lone Ranger comic sure, comic strip or comic book m
because some have been both. You know, well the Bolster
my point. Let's say comic strip. Okay, okay, great, and
(05:54):
it might have actually started out as a radio show.
And I think about it, Hey, that work. That worked
out well. I was thinking, how can we kill some
time here before we do circuses? That's how family circus
tangent so family circuses. Uh. When I first circus families,
when I first started researching, I was like, what a
weird thing to be in a circus family? And then
(06:17):
I thought it might be weird to be in one,
but not weird that there are circus families, because it
makes total sense that it's the family business. Well, that's
how circus is largely started out. Yeah, very familiar. It was,
you know, like you some patriarch of a family would
find out that, hey, I'm I'm kind of good at juggling.
Why don't I try doing it while I stand on
(06:39):
the back of a moving horse and they go, Holy cow,
I'm actually doing this. And uh, they'd say, well, let
me see what happens when I tossed my sons in
the air instead of juggling you know, batons juggle my sons. Yeah,
if I set their hair on fire using some sort
of safe flammable material that will burn but not burn
the sun, say yeah, like have a flame retardant cap. Sure,
(07:02):
that's then all of a sudden, you've got a circus family.
And like these people would would start out by you know,
the whole family would get involved in This is a
time when they were much larger families than there are today,
and they would form their own mini circus and travel around.
And as circuses became more and more established and entrenched
and divided among some very big names. Um, they started
(07:26):
basically freelancing for these things. Like they go on a
tour or a couple of tours would be you know,
with a large circus for a couple of years, and
then they go off and get on another tour or
something like that. But um, they would form these family
acts and that's how circuses originally got started. Yeah, and um,
apparently it's it just the more you look at it,
(07:46):
the more it makes sense. You know, they're on the
road a lot um and if you want to spend
time with your family, get your family and the family business,
because then mom and dad aren't on the road doing
their equestrian act. They're bringing the kids along and teaching them,
and all of a sudden they're the writing uh steffins,
and there's spending time together and it's uh, you know.
(08:07):
I read a few interviews with people in circus families,
and apparently if you were not from a circus family, uh,
this quote from Big Apple Circus guest director Steve Smith said,
for those us, those of us who didn't grow up
in the circus, there's always a feeling as if we're
on the outside looking in on what they call quote
(08:28):
being circus. Yeah, Like if you're born into a circus
family and you're in the circus, you have automatic prestige,
you're part of a dynasty, and that's being circus. Yeah.
It's like real police. If you're a fan of the Wire,
Sure there's cops and there's real police. Yeah, but like
if you were born into being police, which a lot
of cops are also another family tradition job. Yes, I
(08:51):
don't know if a little podcasters are going to come along.
We were not at that point yet where like there's
been a generation you know it. But yeah, maybe a
little Charlie McElroy will be a podcast maybe. Um And
then they call uh they say marrying inside the circus
also makes a lot of sense because where you're gonna
meet people, but probably fellow performers, other circus families. So
(09:14):
these are not towners if you're not like, uh, I
like you and I are towners. Yeah, a k A
slack jawed yokels. Yeah you know, sure, how are you look?
Well that thing on fire and jump through it. Yeah.
There's a there's a pretty neat article on pbs UM
called being Circus Life in the Family Business about being
(09:35):
born into a circus family. It seems like a pretty
cool life. I mean, you know, they go to school
on the road, and I think it's like one big
family because they say, you know, if you're in a
trap ees act, you can't be mad at your dad
who is catching you in the trap ez act tonight.
So I think you gotta like, yeah, well, you know,
(09:56):
you can't go into performance, a dangerous performance like the
globe of death, harboring any animosity towards your siblings. So
you gotta work this stuff out. You know, they're they're
tight en it people, right, And it seems like the
custom is that once you are done performing as a
member of a circus family, there's a non performing job
for you, ready and waiting in the circus elsewhere, like
(10:19):
an administration or something like that. I thought you were
gonna say, break a deal, face the wheel, longstanding tradition
in the circus. I know, welcome to Bartertown. Um. I
watched that not too long ago. I told you I
think I watched the whole mad Max trilogy. Yeah, the
quadrilogy now well yeah, I think it's still trilogy plus one.
(10:42):
Like Durham is our plus one on the Northeast tour. Yep,
lousy people of Durham. Get it together, Durham. Um, all right,
So you want to talk about some of these famous families,
you know, you marry into it, you're born into it,
and then before you know, and it seems like they
always have a lot of kids too, Yeah, like seven children,
because you need seven to complete a pyramids exactly? Is that? Why?
(11:06):
Probably if you think you need help um, you know,
tending to the farm. Imagine having like a circus act.
That's good point. And some circus families also kind of expand,
especially once they form a troop, they'll expand the family
act to include non family members. Where they're they're members
of the troops, they're not members of the family. But
(11:27):
for for any outsider, they're like, oh, there's like three
dads here. Yeah. But they take the traditional blood oath
I think, sure, you know, and cut themselves with an
elephant tusk that's still attached to the elephant. Yeah, that's right,
and then they do a trepeze. It's gotta hurt. Yeah.
So let's talk about the Clarks, one of the earliest
(11:48):
um British circus families. Any relation to you probably? I mean,
can't you tell you see me on the high wire?
I have? You're quite skilled. Yes, they the Clarks go
all the way back to the very first uh circuses,
because a man named Philip Astley is credited as being
(12:10):
the inventor of the modern circus in the late seventeen hundreds. Right,
and he heard about John Clark, who was a horseman,
and a lot of these people are horse people. Yeah,
it's a good way to start in the circus. Just
be good on a horse. Um he Uh. John Clark
was good on a horse. He caught the attention of UM,
Philip Astley and Uh. In the early nineteenth century they
(12:32):
started a circus act. Yeah, it was an area act
at first. And it seems like anytime you're good, then
the Ringling Brothers will come a call in at some point. Yeah,
for sure, to snap you up, because they're the greatest
show on earth. That's right. Um. The one of the
ways also to cement your family act as a dynasty,
(12:55):
in addition to having multiple generations that stay in the circus, UH,
is to create some new thrilling move that no one
else has done before, like the Clarks are credited with
um coming up with the triple back somersault in nineteen
o nine. Right, and the whole the Clark family dynasty
(13:18):
actually broke up because of World War Two. World War
two interestingly had a really direct impact on a lot
of circus families, and the Clarks were among them. Um.
So the men went off to war, I'm sure some
of them died. The ones it returned, We're like, I've
seen too much to go back into the circus and
(13:38):
it was up to Ernestine Clark, who was a great
granddaughter of John Clark I believe, to carry on the
family business single handedly and daughter of Ernest. Her name
was actually Elizabeth Laura, but she looked so much like Ernest.
People called her little Ernie and uh yeah, she eventually
(13:58):
went by Ernestine. I guess she was. I come on
as well, just make this a little more feminine. It's
like a family circus trip. And she did soldier on
um you know, after World War Two, Like you said,
it's so crazy to think about these famous people going
and joining the army. Well, Elvis did. Yeah, Elvis was
(14:19):
in the army. I know. He's also probably like more
protected than Prince Harry is sure, but he was still
in the army. And famous athletes like can you imagine,
like Justin Bieber is in the army it's a fight
in the Middle East. No, I really really came, just
doing his Duty's an American just a different time. It's
just mind boggling to think about the mindset back then.
(14:40):
You know. Do you know I got my haircut recently
by the guy who created the Bieber haircut back in
the day. Is that why you went to him. No,
I didn't find out until part way through, and I
was like, please don't give me a Bieber, Please don't
give you which what was the sweepy in your face? Wow? Yeah,
so he is Bieber stylists, yes, early on, and gave
(15:04):
him that haircut. Isn't that cool? I guess man, I
was like one degree from Justin Bieber. I think we
all are. Um, so everybody, UM, I don't know if
you found this. I thought this is pretty amazing. Um.
The Clark's performance group early on, we're called the clarkon Ians.
I thought that was pretty good. It's weird, it's so funny,
(15:25):
like for some reason, if you're a circus promoter, you're like,
that name is not nearly Italian enough at an eeny
or an owny or something on the end of it,
even if it doesn't work like clark one in yeah,
or as we'll hear about later, the hoy Genie's this
isn't that's that's senseless. It is pretty senseless. But you
can thank circus promoters for coming up with those horrible
(15:49):
hybrids of names. I think there's a rich tradition in Italy,
so they just sounded you know, fanciful um. So Ernestine
carried the torch um. She finally left the circus in
the nineteen fifties. Uh and had a husband that was
a part time circus performer, part time actor, and her
little girls who Parley, Yeah, part of whole. He was
(16:11):
the mayor and Andy Griffith. Oh no way. And if
you look up his um his credits, he was in everything.
He like made appearances in everything, like you would recognize
him immediately. Interesting. He's been in everything from Three's Company
to the Golden Girls. He was just in everything. Wow,
that's pretty awesome. Bewitched. Yeah, did I say three His Company?
(16:31):
He did? I'll say it again. Uh. So she married
the famous actor um and then her daughters became trapeze artists,
carrying on the family tradition. And Ernestine eventually became the
first daughter to follow her father into the International Circus
Hall of Fame. And I have a little clip here.
Do you ever read the old New York Times articles?
(16:53):
Sometimes the PDF ones with eighteen different headlines? Yeah, yeah,
this is his base. Clear read the headline several headlines actually,
So this is about Clark Um Ernest Clark in New
York City and Madison Square Garden and the first headline
is trapeze man noted for twist and air. Uh Ernest
(17:14):
Clark of wrinkling circus, turns at right angles and leap
for life line line, broken rib brings panic, I'm sorry
payne line and then writhing action during triple somersault starts
sweat of agony all right, And then in the article
it says, h Clark's feet is apparently in defiance of
(17:34):
all the laws of mechanics, for he turns his body
in the air and a pirouette at right angles to
its line of flight with no other leverage than that
he can exert by a thrust of his shoulders. Jo
it is. And then later when they're describing him, describing
him says Clark as a small, almost slight man, but
(17:55):
with a large, wonderfully developed chest with a great heart
beating inside. Old New York Times articles are just the best,
I would say, all old newspapers period. But there times
they knew what they were doing. Yeah, you could access
You can access that stuff today pretty easily, pretty neat.
You know. I looked up what um that line and
staying alive means about the New York Times Don't Make
(18:18):
a Man? Is that in the song Stay Alive The
New York Times Don't make a Man? Oh? I never
knew that's what they were saying. Yeah, so what does
that mean? It means basically at the time that if
like if it wasn't in the New York Times, it
doesn't matter. And this is about a man whose life
still does matter even though it's not worthy of being
reported on it in the New York Times. John Travolta
(18:38):
or the character. Yeah, I can't remember his name, Tony Manera, right,
I think as scarface, Tony Marinera. Was it Tony? It's
probably Tony, you know. So that movie was based on
an article in New York magazine and it turned out
that the guy who wrote it made the whole thing
up from beginning to end. That made it up crazy. Yeah,
(19:01):
but it's still worth reading. And especially if you know
that he made it up, you're like, how did how
did anybody buy this? This kind of like like on
the spot reporting is just done by a handful of people. Sure,
and he found this guy that they worked on a
hardware store in Brooklyn, and yeah, and then like was
there like with the it was was able to like
almost omnisciently track, like the people that came into this
(19:23):
guy's orbit. Yeah, it's funny that the editors were like, Wow,
you did a really good job here, not you're a
fraud who cares? Yeah, they should have. Just when I
hear things like that, I'm like, just say it's fiction
from the beginning. It's still interesting. It's like when the
guy the the author wrote about his drug rehab the
James Fry. Yeah, that was a great book. And I
(19:46):
remember at the time when all came out, I was like, man, man,
you should just call it fiction. It's a really good book.
But I thought I followed that story and and thought
the same thing, like like, why why would you why
would you say that every word of this is accurate? Yeah,
it doesn't make any sense. We will get back to uh.
Circus families believe it or not right after this message,
(20:24):
So Chuck sometimes them if the family Circus, the Circus
family can get in front of a show promoter, they
can have some sort of control over their own name,
the change that comes to it. And that is the
case with the Hobson's. Robert Hobson, who left England for
the US in eighteen sixty um and started a family,
(20:47):
a circus family act, acrobats family act. That's right. And
apparently he was noted for tossing his son's about like
indian rubber. I don't even know what that means. It
means he was basically throwing us ones all over the
place and they're just landing places. Well, no, I get that,
but I just I don't know what indian rubber is.
I think that they were very pliable. Okay, gotcha. Uh
(21:12):
So with the name change, they were originally Hobson, I'm sorry,
originally Nelson, but changed their name. No, it was Hobson first. Oh,
it was changed to Nelson. Man, it gets confusing. So
he called themselves professor Nelson and sons. Right, the son
So he tossed about like indian rubber. Right, But it's
not a better like Nelson's, no better than Hobson. That's
(21:34):
just strange. Uh. Yeah, he changed it, supposedly allegedly because
he wanted to pay homage to a former stage partner
that I guess it died or moved on or whatever.
I couldn't find the person's name, whoever the Nelson was,
but it was an homage. Well, maybe he wanted to
anonymity as well. Yeah, but he's probably on the run
(21:54):
from the law. So um, the Nelson's became the Great
Nelson Family because they they follow that tradition of like
needing more people, um, more quickly than they could reproduce. Uh.
So they brought in other performers who weren't family members,
and they became the Great Nelson Family and then ultimately
the Flying Nelson's, which is what they became famous as
(22:15):
the Flying Nelson's. Yeah, and here's I thought the cool
little factoid about them in the early I'm sorry, late
nineteen twenties. Um, granddaughter Hilda taught lot was hired to
teach Lon Cheney, the actor, how to walk the high
wire in a movie called Laugh, Clown Laugh, and then
all of the Nelson's, Um, we're in a movie called
(22:36):
Circus Rookies in so um they still continue, I think,
not as the Nelson's, but um, they said their ancestors,
some of which still perform. Yeah, they basically retired mostly
by nineteen thirty five. But then yeah, some carried on.
What about the Flying Wallendas. These are the ones that
(22:56):
everybody knows, everybody's heard of that it's sort of uh
that became part of the lexicon. Yeah, the flying Wellendus Um.
And then funny enough, the flying Wallendas actually got their
name from a newspaper headline that dubbed them that because
four of them fell from a high wire. Yeah, in
acron Ohio and they said, like the flying Mollendis. Yeah,
(23:18):
they said, the quote was the Wolendas Volendas. The Wallendas
fell so gracefully that it seemed as if they were flying. Uh.
But I wonder, like there were other flying flying Nelson's, Like,
was this the first one? I wonder the Wollenda's. No,
because the flying Nelson's were called that long before the
middle of the twentieth century, So I think it was
(23:40):
a natural word to apply to a circus family that
did acrobatics. They're flying, And they definitely did acrobatics. Man,
they were Um. They cemented their legacy for the seven
person chair pyramid wait for it, on a high wire
no nets, no nets, no harnesses. Very dangerous, so dangerous
(24:01):
in fact that Carl will lenda Um, who was the
patriarch at the time, died at age seventy three from
a fall on the high wire. Yeah, they had a
lot of tragedy. Um when they had the pyramid collapse
in nineteen sixty two. Two people died and Carlson Mario
was paralyzed. Carl goes on to die. They had a
sister in law who fell to her death in nineteen
(24:23):
sixty three, and then in nineteen forty four they were
the group performing when the Hartford Circus fire broke out.
Oh really, so their act was going on. Uh. These
tents were made of They were coated in paraffin wax
at the time, probably kerosene to keep it from uh,
(24:45):
to keep it waterproof. Paraffin wax is highly flammable, so
scarrocene and UM A little tent sidewall started and during
their performance, UM a band leader spotted it and apparently,
and they should tell everyone this the song Stars and
Stripes Forever as a warning signal to the circus performers.
(25:07):
He said, start playing that, and that signaled like big
trouble as ahead, and a hundred and sixty six to
sixty nine people died. It didn't only have one point
of entrance, entrance or exit. I think, I don't know.
I know that some of the exits were blocked because
they had like the ramp set up for the lions
(25:27):
and stuff to come through like portals, and so they
couldn't get out that way. So you might be right,
But yeah, that was one of the deadliest fires in
US history. And that's a that's a bad fire. Yeah,
And there were a bunch of circus fires. I read
about two or three. I would guess if you have
huge canvas tents, a lot of hay on the ground, yeah,
and um, they're coated inflammable material. Yeah, and everybody smoked. Sure, yeah,
(25:51):
and then we'll just they still don't know. There was
a guy that claimed responsibility as an arsonist, but um,
they don't think he did it. He was mentally and
although he was an arsonist, just not that time that time.
So the will Lendas have become synonymous with um circus
tragedy strangely, but they also has an overshadowed their accomplishments
(26:15):
there in the world. The Guinness Book of World records
for the world's first and only ten person pyramid on
a tight rope. Consider this, several of their family members
died doing this, and they went on and not only
redo it, but they add three more seats, three more
Wilenda's Yeah, that's crazy. So they set a world record. Um.
(26:35):
And then uh Nick will Lenda who has been on
Discovery Channel before. I believe he walked over the Grand
Canyon channel Discovery Channel. Have you heard of it? They?
I think he was the one who walked over the
Grand Canyon. He definitely walked over um uh Chicago in
between two skyscrapers over a six foot drop. Yeah. Man,
(26:57):
that stuff is just just nutty. Which is two meters crazy? Yeah,
on a on a high wire without a net. You
could put a net at the bottom. It's not gonna
do anything. How did we talked about this a little
bit recently with the movie coming out about Man on Wire,
the tyro walker between the Twin Tours. How does the
wind not just knock them off? Well, that's what that
polls for to extend their um their point of what
(27:22):
balance point center of gravity. Yeah, I mean I knew
it helped them balance, but it just seems like the
wind could be so fierce a good like, like the
wind blows me over just walking down the street. I've
seen it. I frequently have to help you up. That's
how you found most of your lucky pennies. Yeah, that's
a good point. Hoovered them all up all right, Are
we onto the the hoy Genie's Yes, we are the
(27:45):
hoy Genies. Which is it started out as the Hodges
not good enough, Let's make it more Italian and add
any to the end of Hodges. Yes, which is what
a promoter did to that lovely English surname on the
late nineteenth century. And um, they have been around for
a long time, three hundred and fifty year uh, ancestry
(28:08):
of circus performers. It's not bad, it isn't bad. I
think that's the oldest in here. The Wallendas went back
to the late eighteenth centuries, seventeen hundreds. Yeah, I think
the Hygenies might be the oldest one in here. This
one lady I saw that was interviewed. I can't remember
her name. She was a twelfth generation on one side
and seventh on her father's side. Man, that's serious being circus.
(28:33):
So with the Hygiene's chuck um they were, They were
really good with the horse ye equestrians. Yep. They had
their own um, in particular Harriet, which was one of
m Albert Hygenie's um who I well, I guess he
wasn't the founder. If it went back through hundred fifty years.
But um in early hygiene, early twentieth century hygiene or
(28:56):
late nineteenth century UM, his kid Harriet UH would somersault
and like dance on the back of a moving horse,
which is weird because I've seen that before. I've seen
like footage from the forties or fifties, So I wonder
if I was seeing her because there's probably not that
many people walking around on Earth who can do backflips
(29:16):
on a horse. That's a good point, Um. But the
really notable thing about the Hygiene's is what they did
in retirement. Yeah, I thought that was pretty cool. Tom
and Betty Hygeni uh from Indiana, Peru Indiana, not to
be confused with Peru, the country Peru Peru. Yeah. Uh.
They retired in n and businessman there said, you know what, wy,
(29:39):
don't you come and work with some kids and teach
them like your your craft. And that began we were
just like, leave us alone, seriously retired. Uh. And that
will welcome Matt now because we didn't put went out
get off a property. Uh. That began what is now
the Peru Amateur circus, in which kids perform like ten
(30:03):
performances every summer. And it just sounds like a neat
little program. Yeah, and it's not that little. Apparently tens
of thousands of people show up for it. Yeah, a little,
you know. And um, it's actually going on July eleven,
ye around. I don't know exactly when this one's gonna
come out, but it will be in time. So if
you find yourself around Peru, Indiana, go check out the
(30:25):
circus there July eleven. Chuck, we got more, don't we
up our sleeves and more ennis, um, and we will
talk about them right after this. You remember you said,
(30:52):
Chuckers that, Um, a lot of these families started out
as like a great equestrian families. Um. The Knees are
probably the premier equestrian circus family around. Yes, they began
in eighteen seventy a teenager named Leopold Knot and they
were Hungarian. Um. He he did the old like right
(31:13):
out of a story book. He said, I'm running away
and joining the circus. Yeah, that's another way to found
a circus family. Go start your own, to run off
through the circus. Yeah, and started. Yeah, start having kids
and then you won't be circus, but your kids will
be circus. Yeah, it's got to start somewhere exactly. All
starts by running off to the circus. That's right. Of
(31:35):
course he might have married into circus. He probably, Yeah,
he probably did. You could have. So not only were
they equestrians, they and of course when we say equestrian there,
it's always bareback writing tricks almost yeah, but this article
actually has. It features a member of the Konyats, Tina Konyacht,
(31:56):
who um was competing for the US in the two
thousand twelve Olympics. Yeah. Like sure, she got out of
this circus and said, let me, what's something super snobby
I can go do? Is that dressage? I don't know.
That's not snobby though, It's just it's actually beautiful and amazing. Yeah.
I don't want the equestrians there. You don't want them
(32:18):
after you. Is that a hornet's nest? Yeah, it's a
hornet's nest. Uh. They're on horses, for God's sake. You know,
they can run faster than you own a horse. So,
like most performers, John Ringling of the Barnum and Bailey
Circus caught ahold of them in nineteen o seven said
you're coming to America, and um, they performed there for
(32:39):
a little while, but then said, you know, we're gonna
go back to Europe and we're gonna start our own circus. No,
that's just a circus, an American style circus and wild
West show. Yeah, it's good on them, you know, Yeah,
I think it's hilarious. So they're like, Okay, they're gonna
go crazy for this in Europe. So the equestrian part
of the show was really big in Europe. And then
(32:59):
Lie which was the family the Clark's World War Two
put a dent in all of Europe and so they said, well,
I guess we got to go back to America now,
And then they kept performing and eventually stopped. At least
they I guess. The family legacy was to create equestrian centers. Um,
(33:21):
so they weren't circus performers anywhere anymore. But it's almost
like this equestrian family had a brush with circus notoriety
and then leverage that. Yeah, and then just continued on
as in equestrian family. It's just pretty neat. Probably make
more money in equestrian I guess, you know. And then
Arthur Koonyat, who's one of the original who's one of
(33:43):
the sons of the founder Leopold. He's in the International
Circus Hall of Fame. Nice. So there you go, so
you're not doing too bad. All right. We got a
couple of more here. Um Tina, how to pronounce this one?
T o G and I s I would say Tony
Tony's us What I was going to say, marr, Yeah,
(34:03):
that's right. They are another Italian family um in circus
dynasty and the original founder u Arris he said it
was a student and he said, you know what, I'm
done with school and I'm going to go performance circus,
open my own have eight kids so I can open
(34:24):
my own circus. Yeah. I get the impression that he
decided he was done with school. Oh yeah, yeah, so
he ran off to the circus. Um. Did you have
the impression whether his wife was a circus was circus family,
circus performer? I don't know. Well she was. After they
got married, they um had kids and set up their
own circus and it was such a success that um
(34:48):
in n the king of Italy or the king of
that part of Italy. Because I don't when was Italy
unified together in a single country? Was it under Musulini? Boy?
I don't it wasn't that long ago. UM Well, King
King Victor Emmanuel the third Um created or said that
the Circo Toni was the Circo Netsinale. Yeah, and that
(35:13):
ran for a while. Um again. A circus fire in
nineteen fifty one hit the Circo Nacional and from that
point three of the Suns split apart and formed three
different circus factions. Yeah. That fires spread them far and wide.
I guess so. But they are noteworthy because not only
(35:34):
were they a circus family, they were really smart inventive
engineer types and made a lot of advancements in the
circus uh itself, like the tent uh, like the big
top tent, the couple of Yeah, they came up with that. Yeah,
they came up with three different design the round couple
in the nineteen forties, the oblong in the seventies, and
(35:56):
the the hugely famous round pull a quarter pole free
in the nineties. And one of the other sons too,
UM invented the collapsible seating wagons and a metallic mesh
cage that I don't know if that's the globe of
death or not. No, that's the URIs as you came
up with the globe of death. All right, So the
metallic mesh cage he invented must have just been like,
(36:19):
I don't know, for animals or something. Probably. Yeah. The
point is though they were inventors and made some money
doing that stuff, yes, like designing tents and the like.
And one of the things that we haven't really kind
of hit squarely on is the fact that these if
if you're born into a circus family and you are
raised in the circus um, from what I've read, you're
(36:43):
very rarely pressured into being a part of the family.
It's more like this is your reality. So you start
doing gymnastics and acrobatics at an early age and you're
surrounded by yeah, and then eventually that you know, age six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
you end up like being a part of the family
act and then the circus as at large. Um. But
it writes a question to me, like about that ten myth,
(37:05):
like is it just from practicing this stuff at an
early age, or you know, are some is this just
the result of some you know, people who are born
acrobats coming together and producing offspring that are born acrobats themselves.
I don't know. It's a great question. This is a
good question. Um, I wonder how many time it's happened
that you're in a big circus family. You have like
(37:27):
seven kids, and six of them are in the circus,
and one of them is like, I want to be
a city planner. Probably not much. No, we got one
more we do the uriasis. Who did come up with
that globe of death in nineteen twelve? That globe, that
metal globe motorcycles in? Yeah, that was invented in nineteen twelve. Yeah,
(37:49):
I had no idea it went back. It seemed. I
was sure that this thing was probably invented in like
the nineteen sixties or seventies. I was gonna say seventies.
It seems like a seventies thing to invent totally, you know. Yeah,
but yeah, it goes all the way back to ninewelve.
That is nuts. So the the actual globe of death
was a sixteen foot diameter metal mesh orb. Yeah. And
the idea is, if you haven't seen one of these,
(38:11):
a just look up a video real quick, be uh
crawl out from under that Rocky live in right under
and then uh see it's when you put multiple motorcycle
riders that just gun it and fly around this thing
without hitting each other ideally and they they would um
(38:33):
add people who are juggling fire in the center of
the globe, riding around it, going up to sixty miles
an hour. Apparently, um and they had the urias Is
in particular, were the first to feature female motorcycle riders,
the first to feature two female motorcycle riders, because how
are you going to top the first one? But ed
(38:54):
to UM and there's one where the Jody Urias who
does the next spin you know that thing where like
you just have a harness attached to the back of
your head and you spin around until you vomit. They
had her doing that with people going around her on
their bikes and circles. Yeah, it's really impressive. I mean,
(39:16):
the precision is is ridiculous when you see I mean
I've seen I don't think it's I mean, they're still
doing this act today. I saw another family that they
don't have the market cornered on the Globe of Death,
but but they invented it. Yeah. Yeah, they just failed
the copyright or trade market, I guess. But I did
see another family that was I think they had like
eight motorcycles and this thing. It was ridiculous. And one
(39:39):
where they actually brought the globe apart, so where there
was a gap that they would be jumping or riding over,
it was suddenly filled with crocodiles. But these people crashed.
When was it every couple of weeks I looked at
There was a crash not too long ago. Oh, it
(40:00):
was in April of this year at the Washington Fairgrounds.
And there's actually a YouTube of it. It's not like remarkable.
It just at the very end of their thing. They
all just sort of run into each other. But um,
there was a fractured leg and some broken ribs. But
other than that, everyone was okay and got right back
up on the horse, iron horse, the iron horse, the
(40:21):
steel horse. You got anything else, No, So that's Circus Families,
part of our never ending quest to explain absolutely everything
there is on planet Earth and beyond. That's right, it's
one of them. If you want to know more about
Circus Families, you can type those words in the search
bar how stuff works dot Com. And I said search bar,
which means it's time for a listener. Mayo, I'm gonna
(40:50):
call this. We misspoke on something in the Bridges episode.
Oh I did, Chuck? I take full responsibility, and we
like to point these things out. Do you want to
set this up? Yeah? In the Bridges episode, I talked
about the HIGHERT Regency Skywalk collapse. Remember you made that
Lionel Richie's joke and all that stuff. Well, like hundred
(41:11):
and four I believe a hundred and fourteen people ultimately
died from this thing. And I said that it was
because they were dancing on the skywalk at the time.
Totally not true. There was a t dance going on
in the lobby below and people were standing on the
skywalks looking at it, and the skywalk apparently in the
design um there had been a change in design that
(41:35):
nobody did the numbers and crunched the math on and
this thing could barely hold up its deadweight. And then
once you had, you know, a few dozen people on it, though,
the fourth story skywalk collapsed onto the second story skywalk
and both of them collapsed onto the ground. It was
It's crazy. If you look up the Highest Regency Skywalk
(41:55):
collapse and look at some of the images, just the
destruction is amazing. Wow. All right, So I guess you
just picked out the we heard from a few people.
You picked out probably the nicest one. I would imagine
that's what we usually try to do. Hey, guys, wanted
to point out your explanation of the Kansas City High
Regency collapse side of the wrong cause. The collapse is
due to a change that was made to the initial design.
(42:17):
Two walkways we're supposed to be supported by long continuous
threaded steel rods from the ceiling design was changed to
two separate rods. UH. It should be noted that the
original design was determined to hold only of the minimum
Building Code load UH, and the way it was built
would only support half of that. Not enough, not nearly enough.
(42:37):
One bridge failure that should be mentioned is the Quebec
Bridge crossing the St. Lawrence River. UH. This bridge collapsed
twice when it was being built, and it's cited as
a reason behind the idea of registering and licensing engineers
to practice something that is a standard throughout the world. Now.
And that is from Taylor, who is a geo technical
(42:58):
engineer branches civil engineering that deals with soils, rocks, and foundations.
She said, or he I don't know which that I
make sure the ground can support the structure. Thanks a lot, Taylor.
It's a pretty neat job, I guess, and you very important. Yeah,
and thanks for the email. We appreciate that. And uh,
I went back and looked to try to figure out
where I got that info. But I swear I did
(43:20):
not make up. Don't you hate that? Yeah? I've been
called out on stuff that I've read and I couldn't
find the source and it's still wrong. But it's maddening.
It's like, I know, I didn't just create this out
of my own brain. Yeah, so we we believe. But
thanks to everybody who wrote in and said, hey, dudes, uh,
that is absolutely wrong, because we want to make sure
we get it right. So if we got something wrong
(43:42):
that you want to point out and correct us on,
let us know. You can tweet to us at s
y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send
us an email to Stuff Podcast at how Stuff Works
dot com and has always joined us at our home
on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot Com. Stuff
you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
(44:02):
For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Hi, everybody, Happy Saturday. I hope you're having a great weekend.
If you want to learn something about circus families, you're
in the right place because this is a throwback select
episode to July two. Circus families, Believe it or not,
It's a thing, great, great, rich traditions all over the
world with circus families, fathers and mothers teaching sons and daughters,
(00:21):
aunts and uncles teaching nieces and nephews how to swing
on trap pieces and climb ropes and dew flips and
ride motorcycles. Here we go, how circus families work. Welcome
to Stuff you should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
(00:45):
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Just Charles
W Chuck Bryant, and Jerry, Which makes this the Flying
s Y s Cades, Flying Stuff, stuffy In's Stuffino, Oh,
Steffini's Flying stef Man Boy. See you look at that.
It took us we seven seconds, maybe even less, to
(01:08):
come up with the best name in the history of
podcasting circus teams. Yeah, we'll go back and look at
the time stamp after this publishism we'll know for sure,
But I say less than seven seconds. The Flying Stefeni's
good job man. All right, I guess we can retire.
We've hit it big, Yeah we have. You can make
some money being a circus family, I learned. Yeah, I
have no idea about costs. So you will delight me
(01:30):
because I think everyone, well not everyone. I think some
people when they go to the circus, they're like, what's
that guy make for throwing knives? Oh? I have no
idea what they make. It's just the question I got
from this research. Gotcha, And I thought you had some
hard numbers. Uh. No, you're the statman, remember, And I know,
but people, you know, it's rude to talk about money,
(01:51):
so people don't share these things these days. That's why
I'm not saying anything. I'm just telling you the impression
I had. They're always strutting around with goblets full of
really expensive wine circus families, so you know, yeah, they
got uh. You know. Every time I think we're all circused,
out there comes another topic. Well, we have yet to
(02:11):
do how circuses themselves work. We will do that one day,
so we've done all of its component, every last one.
After that. Well, it does have interesting history, so well
we will save that then. Yeah. Well, I do want
to do how circuses working. We should also say I
don't want anybody to have the impression that by talking
about circus families we are endorsing circuses in general. I
(02:32):
have serious issues with some of them, with them for
the most part, oh, like because of their treatment of animals. Yeah,
but a lot of them don't use animals at all anymore. Well,
not a lot of them, some of them don't. I
have no problem with those circuses. Yeah, Like I remember
the Big Apple Circus. They have a dog thing. Well dogs,
I mean, we're horse thing, and I think that was it.
(02:55):
And horses love to show off, So I'm okay with
the Big Apple. Yeah, you wouldn't shoot, you know, but no, no,
they wouldn't show like an elephant, right right, Which is
funny because apparently an elephant is equal to a family
circus performer. Oh yeah, I saw that. I should say
circus family performer. Family circus is totally different. Yeah. This
(03:17):
is a little frustrating research because I kept getting lots
of circular cartoons that weren't funny. You don't think they're funny, Okay,
they're they're not funny. I think they're charming and heartwarming. Yeah, sure,
you know, Jeffy wrote on the wall, right, it's not funny,
but it's cute. Their little hair in the noses and
the they're cute. U that I have a brief segue here. Initially, Um,
(03:41):
that reminded me. Was just at max fun Con, uh,
the the weekend retreat of Jesse Thorn and his podcasting empire.
Everybody loved you that picture of you and Hodgeman and
Justin McElroy's kid. Yeah, well baby Charlie. Yeah, very cute. Yeah,
I think people love babies. Hodgeman, who doesn't even particularly
like kids, was like, give me that baby. You know, Um,
(04:02):
husband likes kids, at least he likes his own kids. Um.
So I was just there. And first of all, let
me recommend the Super Ego podcast, very funny improv podcast
featuring Matt Gorley and Paul if Tompkins and Mark McConville
and Jeremy Carter. You could have stopped at Paul if Tompkins.
Yeah right, Um, but one man improv is like, it's
(04:24):
not the best he can do it. I bet he could.
He does, I've seen it. So anyway, a long story short,
we were playing this game one night where we were
naming comic strips and the comic strip Mark Trail came up.
Oh man, you remember that. Well it wasn't even trying
to be funny. Well, no, it wasn't funny at all,
but it wasn't even like interesting. It was literally like
you know the what a beautiful sunset today? Right, that
(04:46):
was tracing the trail of a hawk in the sky
like through eight panels. Yeah. I thought it was refreshing
in a little ways, like you just make it all
like through a hilarious spasm of laugh or after like
Funky winker Bean or Hagar the Horrible and you needed
to like chill out, remember that, so you'd like read
the Mark Trail and then like you go at it
(05:09):
again and just laugh and laugh and beatle Bailey, which
is great institches and then maybe you come down a
little on Merry Worth or Department at three G Well,
back up on Wizard of It, back down with Brenda Starr.
Yeah that's the way you do it. But Mark Trail,
I don't want to knock it too much because I
believe it like taught kids about nature and conservancy and
stuff like that. But and how to follow a hawks
(05:31):
trail in this guy didn't belong in the comics section,
but I don't know. It was a comic strip. Yeah.
A lot of those comics were like they started out
or a lot of things started out as comics like
Lone Ranger comic sure, comic strip or comic book m
because some have been both. You know, well the Bolster
my point. Let's say comic strip. Okay, okay, great, and
(05:54):
it might have actually started out as a radio show.
And I think about it, Hey, that work. That worked
out well. I was thinking, how can we kill some
time here before we do circuses? That's how family circus
tangent so family circuses. Uh. When I first circus families,
when I first started researching, I was like, what a
weird thing to be in a circus family? And then
(06:17):
I thought it might be weird to be in one,
but not weird that there are circus families, because it
makes total sense that it's the family business. Well, that's
how circus is largely started out. Yeah, very familiar. It was,
you know, like you some patriarch of a family would
find out that, hey, I'm I'm kind of good at juggling.
Why don't I try doing it while I stand on
(06:39):
the back of a moving horse and they go, Holy cow,
I'm actually doing this. And uh, they'd say, well, let
me see what happens when I tossed my sons in
the air instead of juggling you know, batons juggle my sons. Yeah,
if I set their hair on fire using some sort
of safe flammable material that will burn but not burn
the sun, say yeah, like have a flame retardant cap. Sure,
(07:02):
that's then all of a sudden, you've got a circus family.
And like these people would would start out by you know,
the whole family would get involved in This is a
time when they were much larger families than there are today,
and they would form their own mini circus and travel around.
And as circuses became more and more established and entrenched
and divided among some very big names. Um, they started
(07:26):
basically freelancing for these things. Like they go on a
tour or a couple of tours would be you know,
with a large circus for a couple of years, and
then they go off and get on another tour or
something like that. But um, they would form these family
acts and that's how circuses originally got started. Yeah, and um,
apparently it's it just the more you look at it,
(07:46):
the more it makes sense. You know, they're on the
road a lot um and if you want to spend
time with your family, get your family and the family business,
because then mom and dad aren't on the road doing
their equestrian act. They're bringing the kids along and teaching them,
and all of a sudden they're the writing uh steffins,
and there's spending time together and it's uh, you know.
(08:07):
I read a few interviews with people in circus families,
and apparently if you were not from a circus family, uh,
this quote from Big Apple Circus guest director Steve Smith said,
for those us, those of us who didn't grow up
in the circus, there's always a feeling as if we're
on the outside looking in on what they call quote
(08:28):
being circus. Yeah, Like if you're born into a circus
family and you're in the circus, you have automatic prestige,
you're part of a dynasty, and that's being circus. Yeah.
It's like real police. If you're a fan of the Wire,
Sure there's cops and there's real police. Yeah, but like
if you were born into being police, which a lot
of cops are also another family tradition job. Yes, I
(08:51):
don't know if a little podcasters are going to come along.
We were not at that point yet where like there's
been a generation you know it. But yeah, maybe a
little Charlie McElroy will be a podcast maybe. Um And
then they call uh they say marrying inside the circus
also makes a lot of sense because where you're gonna
meet people, but probably fellow performers, other circus families. So
(09:14):
these are not towners if you're not like, uh, I
like you and I are towners. Yeah, a k A
slack jawed yokels. Yeah you know, sure, how are you look?
Well that thing on fire and jump through it. Yeah.
There's a there's a pretty neat article on pbs UM
called being Circus Life in the Family Business about being
(09:35):
born into a circus family. It seems like a pretty
cool life. I mean, you know, they go to school
on the road, and I think it's like one big
family because they say, you know, if you're in a
trap ees act, you can't be mad at your dad
who is catching you in the trap ez act tonight.
So I think you gotta like, yeah, well, you know,
(09:56):
you can't go into performance, a dangerous performance like the
globe of death, harboring any animosity towards your siblings. So
you gotta work this stuff out. You know, they're they're
tight en it people, right, And it seems like the
custom is that once you are done performing as a
member of a circus family, there's a non performing job
for you, ready and waiting in the circus elsewhere, like
(10:19):
an administration or something like that. I thought you were
gonna say, break a deal, face the wheel, longstanding tradition
in the circus. I know, welcome to Bartertown. Um. I
watched that not too long ago. I told you I
think I watched the whole mad Max trilogy. Yeah, the
quadrilogy now well yeah, I think it's still trilogy plus one.
(10:42):
Like Durham is our plus one on the Northeast tour. Yep,
lousy people of Durham. Get it together, Durham. Um, all right,
So you want to talk about some of these famous families,
you know, you marry into it, you're born into it,
and then before you know, and it seems like they
always have a lot of kids too, Yeah, like seven children,
because you need seven to complete a pyramids exactly? Is that? Why?
(11:06):
Probably if you think you need help um, you know,
tending to the farm. Imagine having like a circus act.
That's good point. And some circus families also kind of expand,
especially once they form a troop, they'll expand the family
act to include non family members. Where they're they're members
of the troops, they're not members of the family. But
(11:27):
for for any outsider, they're like, oh, there's like three
dads here. Yeah. But they take the traditional blood oath
I think, sure, you know, and cut themselves with an
elephant tusk that's still attached to the elephant. Yeah, that's right,
and then they do a trepeze. It's gotta hurt. Yeah.
So let's talk about the Clarks, one of the earliest
(11:48):
um British circus families. Any relation to you probably? I mean,
can't you tell you see me on the high wire?
I have? You're quite skilled. Yes, they the Clarks go
all the way back to the very first uh circuses,
because a man named Philip Astley is credited as being
(12:10):
the inventor of the modern circus in the late seventeen hundreds. Right,
and he heard about John Clark, who was a horseman,
and a lot of these people are horse people. Yeah,
it's a good way to start in the circus. Just
be good on a horse. Um he Uh. John Clark
was good on a horse. He caught the attention of UM,
Philip Astley and Uh. In the early nineteenth century they
(12:32):
started a circus act. Yeah, it was an area act
at first. And it seems like anytime you're good, then
the Ringling Brothers will come a call in at some point. Yeah,
for sure, to snap you up, because they're the greatest
show on earth. That's right. Um. The one of the
ways also to cement your family act as a dynasty,
(12:55):
in addition to having multiple generations that stay in the circus, UH,
is to create some new thrilling move that no one
else has done before, like the Clarks are credited with
um coming up with the triple back somersault in nineteen
o nine. Right, and the whole the Clark family dynasty
(13:18):
actually broke up because of World War Two. World War
two interestingly had a really direct impact on a lot
of circus families, and the Clarks were among them. Um.
So the men went off to war, I'm sure some
of them died. The ones it returned, We're like, I've
seen too much to go back into the circus and
(13:38):
it was up to Ernestine Clark, who was a great
granddaughter of John Clark I believe, to carry on the
family business single handedly and daughter of Ernest. Her name
was actually Elizabeth Laura, but she looked so much like Ernest.
People called her little Ernie and uh yeah, she eventually
(13:58):
went by Ernestine. I guess she was. I come on
as well, just make this a little more feminine. It's
like a family circus trip. And she did soldier on
um you know, after World War Two, Like you said,
it's so crazy to think about these famous people going
and joining the army. Well, Elvis did. Yeah, Elvis was
(14:19):
in the army. I know. He's also probably like more
protected than Prince Harry is sure, but he was still
in the army. And famous athletes like can you imagine,
like Justin Bieber is in the army it's a fight
in the Middle East. No, I really really came, just
doing his Duty's an American just a different time. It's
just mind boggling to think about the mindset back then.
(14:40):
You know. Do you know I got my haircut recently
by the guy who created the Bieber haircut back in
the day. Is that why you went to him. No,
I didn't find out until part way through, and I
was like, please don't give me a Bieber, Please don't
give you which what was the sweepy in your face? Wow? Yeah,
so he is Bieber stylists, yes, early on, and gave
(15:04):
him that haircut. Isn't that cool? I guess man, I
was like one degree from Justin Bieber. I think we
all are. Um, so everybody, UM, I don't know if
you found this. I thought this is pretty amazing. Um.
The Clark's performance group early on, we're called the clarkon Ians.
I thought that was pretty good. It's weird, it's so funny,
(15:25):
like for some reason, if you're a circus promoter, you're like,
that name is not nearly Italian enough at an eeny
or an owny or something on the end of it,
even if it doesn't work like clark one in yeah,
or as we'll hear about later, the hoy Genie's this
isn't that's that's senseless. It is pretty senseless. But you
can thank circus promoters for coming up with those horrible
(15:49):
hybrids of names. I think there's a rich tradition in Italy,
so they just sounded you know, fanciful um. So Ernestine
carried the torch um. She finally left the circus in
the nineteen fifties. Uh and had a husband that was
a part time circus performer, part time actor, and her
little girls who Parley, Yeah, part of whole. He was
(16:11):
the mayor and Andy Griffith. Oh no way. And if
you look up his um his credits, he was in everything.
He like made appearances in everything, like you would recognize
him immediately. Interesting. He's been in everything from Three's Company
to the Golden Girls. He was just in everything. Wow,
that's pretty awesome. Bewitched. Yeah, did I say three His Company?
(16:31):
He did? I'll say it again. Uh. So she married
the famous actor um and then her daughters became trapeze artists,
carrying on the family tradition. And Ernestine eventually became the
first daughter to follow her father into the International Circus
Hall of Fame. And I have a little clip here.
Do you ever read the old New York Times articles?
(16:53):
Sometimes the PDF ones with eighteen different headlines? Yeah, yeah,
this is his base. Clear read the headline several headlines actually,
So this is about Clark Um Ernest Clark in New
York City and Madison Square Garden and the first headline
is trapeze man noted for twist and air. Uh Ernest
(17:14):
Clark of wrinkling circus, turns at right angles and leap
for life line line, broken rib brings panic, I'm sorry
payne line and then writhing action during triple somersault starts
sweat of agony all right, And then in the article
it says, h Clark's feet is apparently in defiance of
(17:34):
all the laws of mechanics, for he turns his body
in the air and a pirouette at right angles to
its line of flight with no other leverage than that
he can exert by a thrust of his shoulders. Jo
it is. And then later when they're describing him, describing
him says Clark as a small, almost slight man, but
(17:55):
with a large, wonderfully developed chest with a great heart
beating inside. Old New York Times articles are just the best,
I would say, all old newspapers period. But there times
they knew what they were doing. Yeah, you could access
You can access that stuff today pretty easily, pretty neat.
You know. I looked up what um that line and
staying alive means about the New York Times Don't Make
(18:18):
a Man? Is that in the song Stay Alive The
New York Times Don't make a Man? Oh? I never
knew that's what they were saying. Yeah, so what does
that mean? It means basically at the time that if
like if it wasn't in the New York Times, it
doesn't matter. And this is about a man whose life
still does matter even though it's not worthy of being
reported on it in the New York Times. John Travolta
(18:38):
or the character. Yeah, I can't remember his name, Tony Manera, right,
I think as scarface, Tony Marinera. Was it Tony? It's
probably Tony, you know. So that movie was based on
an article in New York magazine and it turned out
that the guy who wrote it made the whole thing
up from beginning to end. That made it up crazy. Yeah,
(19:01):
but it's still worth reading. And especially if you know
that he made it up, you're like, how did how
did anybody buy this? This kind of like like on
the spot reporting is just done by a handful of people. Sure,
and he found this guy that they worked on a
hardware store in Brooklyn, and yeah, and then like was
there like with the it was was able to like
almost omnisciently track, like the people that came into this
(19:23):
guy's orbit. Yeah, it's funny that the editors were like, Wow,
you did a really good job here, not you're a
fraud who cares? Yeah, they should have. Just when I
hear things like that, I'm like, just say it's fiction
from the beginning. It's still interesting. It's like when the
guy the the author wrote about his drug rehab the
James Fry. Yeah, that was a great book. And I
(19:46):
remember at the time when all came out, I was like, man, man,
you should just call it fiction. It's a really good book.
But I thought I followed that story and and thought
the same thing, like like, why why would you why
would you say that every word of this is accurate? Yeah,
it doesn't make any sense. We will get back to uh.
Circus families believe it or not right after this message,
(20:24):
So Chuck sometimes them if the family Circus, the Circus
family can get in front of a show promoter, they
can have some sort of control over their own name,
the change that comes to it. And that is the
case with the Hobson's. Robert Hobson, who left England for
the US in eighteen sixty um and started a family,
(20:47):
a circus family act, acrobats family act. That's right. And
apparently he was noted for tossing his son's about like
indian rubber. I don't even know what that means. It
means he was basically throwing us ones all over the
place and they're just landing places. Well, no, I get that,
but I just I don't know what indian rubber is.
I think that they were very pliable. Okay, gotcha. Uh
(21:12):
So with the name change, they were originally Hobson, I'm sorry,
originally Nelson, but changed their name. No, it was Hobson first. Oh,
it was changed to Nelson. Man, it gets confusing. So
he called themselves professor Nelson and sons. Right, the son
So he tossed about like indian rubber. Right, But it's
not a better like Nelson's, no better than Hobson. That's
(21:34):
just strange. Uh. Yeah, he changed it, supposedly allegedly because
he wanted to pay homage to a former stage partner
that I guess it died or moved on or whatever.
I couldn't find the person's name, whoever the Nelson was,
but it was an homage. Well, maybe he wanted to
anonymity as well. Yeah, but he's probably on the run
(21:54):
from the law. So um, the Nelson's became the Great
Nelson Family because they they follow that tradition of like
needing more people, um, more quickly than they could reproduce. Uh.
So they brought in other performers who weren't family members,
and they became the Great Nelson Family and then ultimately
the Flying Nelson's, which is what they became famous as
(22:15):
the Flying Nelson's. Yeah, and here's I thought the cool
little factoid about them in the early I'm sorry, late
nineteen twenties. Um, granddaughter Hilda taught lot was hired to
teach Lon Cheney, the actor, how to walk the high
wire in a movie called Laugh, Clown Laugh, and then
all of the Nelson's, Um, we're in a movie called
(22:36):
Circus Rookies in so um they still continue, I think,
not as the Nelson's, but um, they said their ancestors,
some of which still perform. Yeah, they basically retired mostly
by nineteen thirty five. But then yeah, some carried on.
What about the Flying Wallendas. These are the ones that
(22:56):
everybody knows, everybody's heard of that it's sort of uh
that became part of the lexicon. Yeah, the flying Wellendus Um.
And then funny enough, the flying Wallendas actually got their
name from a newspaper headline that dubbed them that because
four of them fell from a high wire. Yeah, in
acron Ohio and they said, like the flying Mollendis. Yeah,
(23:18):
they said, the quote was the Wolendas Volendas. The Wallendas
fell so gracefully that it seemed as if they were flying. Uh.
But I wonder, like there were other flying flying Nelson's, Like,
was this the first one? I wonder the Wollenda's. No,
because the flying Nelson's were called that long before the
middle of the twentieth century, So I think it was
(23:40):
a natural word to apply to a circus family that
did acrobatics. They're flying, And they definitely did acrobatics. Man,
they were Um. They cemented their legacy for the seven
person chair pyramid wait for it, on a high wire
no nets, no nets, no harnesses. Very dangerous, so dangerous
(24:01):
in fact that Carl will lenda Um, who was the
patriarch at the time, died at age seventy three from
a fall on the high wire. Yeah, they had a
lot of tragedy. Um when they had the pyramid collapse
in nineteen sixty two. Two people died and Carlson Mario
was paralyzed. Carl goes on to die. They had a
sister in law who fell to her death in nineteen
(24:23):
sixty three, and then in nineteen forty four they were
the group performing when the Hartford Circus fire broke out.
Oh really, so their act was going on. Uh. These
tents were made of They were coated in paraffin wax
at the time, probably kerosene to keep it from uh,
(24:45):
to keep it waterproof. Paraffin wax is highly flammable, so
scarrocene and UM A little tent sidewall started and during
their performance, UM a band leader spotted it and apparently,
and they should tell everyone this the song Stars and
Stripes Forever as a warning signal to the circus performers.
(25:07):
He said, start playing that, and that signaled like big
trouble as ahead, and a hundred and sixty six to
sixty nine people died. It didn't only have one point
of entrance, entrance or exit. I think, I don't know.
I know that some of the exits were blocked because
they had like the ramp set up for the lions
(25:27):
and stuff to come through like portals, and so they
couldn't get out that way. So you might be right,
But yeah, that was one of the deadliest fires in
US history. And that's a that's a bad fire. Yeah,
And there were a bunch of circus fires. I read
about two or three. I would guess if you have
huge canvas tents, a lot of hay on the ground, yeah,
and um, they're coated inflammable material. Yeah, and everybody smoked. Sure, yeah,
(25:51):
and then we'll just they still don't know. There was
a guy that claimed responsibility as an arsonist, but um,
they don't think he did it. He was mentally and
although he was an arsonist, just not that time that time.
So the will Lendas have become synonymous with um circus
tragedy strangely, but they also has an overshadowed their accomplishments
(26:15):
there in the world. The Guinness Book of World records
for the world's first and only ten person pyramid on
a tight rope. Consider this, several of their family members
died doing this, and they went on and not only
redo it, but they add three more seats, three more
Wilenda's Yeah, that's crazy. So they set a world record. Um.
(26:35):
And then uh Nick will Lenda who has been on
Discovery Channel before. I believe he walked over the Grand
Canyon channel Discovery Channel. Have you heard of it? They?
I think he was the one who walked over the
Grand Canyon. He definitely walked over um uh Chicago in
between two skyscrapers over a six foot drop. Yeah. Man,
(26:57):
that stuff is just just nutty. Which is two meters crazy? Yeah,
on a on a high wire without a net. You
could put a net at the bottom. It's not gonna
do anything. How did we talked about this a little
bit recently with the movie coming out about Man on Wire,
the tyro walker between the Twin Tours. How does the
wind not just knock them off? Well, that's what that
polls for to extend their um their point of what
(27:22):
balance point center of gravity. Yeah, I mean I knew
it helped them balance, but it just seems like the
wind could be so fierce a good like, like the
wind blows me over just walking down the street. I've
seen it. I frequently have to help you up. That's
how you found most of your lucky pennies. Yeah, that's
a good point. Hoovered them all up all right, Are
we onto the the hoy Genie's Yes, we are the
(27:45):
hoy Genies. Which is it started out as the Hodges
not good enough, Let's make it more Italian and add
any to the end of Hodges. Yes, which is what
a promoter did to that lovely English surname on the
late nineteenth century. And um, they have been around for
a long time, three hundred and fifty year uh, ancestry
(28:08):
of circus performers. It's not bad, it isn't bad. I
think that's the oldest in here. The Wallendas went back
to the late eighteenth centuries, seventeen hundreds. Yeah, I think
the Hygenies might be the oldest one in here. This
one lady I saw that was interviewed. I can't remember
her name. She was a twelfth generation on one side
and seventh on her father's side. Man, that's serious being circus.
(28:33):
So with the Hygiene's chuck um they were, They were
really good with the horse ye equestrians. Yep. They had
their own um, in particular Harriet, which was one of
m Albert Hygenie's um who I well, I guess he
wasn't the founder. If it went back through hundred fifty years.
But um in early hygiene, early twentieth century hygiene or
(28:56):
late nineteenth century UM, his kid Harriet UH would somersault
and like dance on the back of a moving horse,
which is weird because I've seen that before. I've seen
like footage from the forties or fifties, So I wonder
if I was seeing her because there's probably not that
many people walking around on Earth who can do backflips
(29:16):
on a horse. That's a good point, Um. But the
really notable thing about the Hygiene's is what they did
in retirement. Yeah, I thought that was pretty cool. Tom
and Betty Hygeni uh from Indiana, Peru Indiana, not to
be confused with Peru, the country Peru Peru. Yeah. Uh.
They retired in n and businessman there said, you know what, wy,
(29:39):
don't you come and work with some kids and teach
them like your your craft. And that began we were
just like, leave us alone, seriously retired. Uh. And that
will welcome Matt now because we didn't put went out
get off a property. Uh. That began what is now
the Peru Amateur circus, in which kids perform like ten
(30:03):
performances every summer. And it just sounds like a neat
little program. Yeah, and it's not that little. Apparently tens
of thousands of people show up for it. Yeah, a little,
you know. And um, it's actually going on July eleven,
ye around. I don't know exactly when this one's gonna
come out, but it will be in time. So if
you find yourself around Peru, Indiana, go check out the
(30:25):
circus there July eleven. Chuck, we got more, don't we
up our sleeves and more ennis, um, and we will
talk about them right after this. You remember you said,
(30:52):
Chuckers that, Um, a lot of these families started out
as like a great equestrian families. Um. The Knees are
probably the premier equestrian circus family around. Yes, they began
in eighteen seventy a teenager named Leopold Knot and they
were Hungarian. Um. He he did the old like right
(31:13):
out of a story book. He said, I'm running away
and joining the circus. Yeah, that's another way to found
a circus family. Go start your own, to run off
through the circus. Yeah, and started. Yeah, start having kids
and then you won't be circus, but your kids will
be circus. Yeah, it's got to start somewhere exactly. All
starts by running off to the circus. That's right. Of
(31:35):
course he might have married into circus. He probably, Yeah,
he probably did. You could have. So not only were
they equestrians, they and of course when we say equestrian there,
it's always bareback writing tricks almost yeah, but this article
actually has. It features a member of the Konyats, Tina Konyacht,
(31:56):
who um was competing for the US in the two
thousand twelve Olympics. Yeah. Like sure, she got out of
this circus and said, let me, what's something super snobby
I can go do? Is that dressage? I don't know.
That's not snobby though, It's just it's actually beautiful and amazing. Yeah.
I don't want the equestrians there. You don't want them
(32:18):
after you. Is that a hornet's nest? Yeah, it's a
hornet's nest. Uh. They're on horses, for God's sake. You know,
they can run faster than you own a horse. So,
like most performers, John Ringling of the Barnum and Bailey
Circus caught ahold of them in nineteen o seven said
you're coming to America, and um, they performed there for
(32:39):
a little while, but then said, you know, we're gonna
go back to Europe and we're gonna start our own circus. No,
that's just a circus, an American style circus and wild
West show. Yeah, it's good on them, you know, Yeah,
I think it's hilarious. So they're like, Okay, they're gonna
go crazy for this in Europe. So the equestrian part
of the show was really big in Europe. And then
(32:59):
Lie which was the family the Clark's World War Two
put a dent in all of Europe and so they said, well,
I guess we got to go back to America now,
And then they kept performing and eventually stopped. At least
they I guess. The family legacy was to create equestrian centers. Um,
(33:21):
so they weren't circus performers anywhere anymore. But it's almost
like this equestrian family had a brush with circus notoriety
and then leverage that. Yeah, and then just continued on
as in equestrian family. It's just pretty neat. Probably make
more money in equestrian I guess, you know. And then
Arthur Koonyat, who's one of the original who's one of
(33:43):
the sons of the founder Leopold. He's in the International
Circus Hall of Fame. Nice. So there you go, so
you're not doing too bad. All right. We got a
couple of more here. Um Tina, how to pronounce this one?
T o G and I s I would say Tony
Tony's us What I was going to say, marr, Yeah,
(34:03):
that's right. They are another Italian family um in circus
dynasty and the original founder u Arris he said it
was a student and he said, you know what, I'm
done with school and I'm going to go performance circus,
open my own have eight kids so I can open
(34:24):
my own circus. Yeah. I get the impression that he
decided he was done with school. Oh yeah, yeah, so
he ran off to the circus. Um. Did you have
the impression whether his wife was a circus was circus family,
circus performer? I don't know. Well she was. After they
got married, they um had kids and set up their
own circus and it was such a success that um
(34:48):
in n the king of Italy or the king of
that part of Italy. Because I don't when was Italy
unified together in a single country? Was it under Musulini? Boy?
I don't it wasn't that long ago. UM Well, King
King Victor Emmanuel the third Um created or said that
the Circo Toni was the Circo Netsinale. Yeah, and that
(35:13):
ran for a while. Um again. A circus fire in
nineteen fifty one hit the Circo Nacional and from that
point three of the Suns split apart and formed three
different circus factions. Yeah. That fires spread them far and wide.
I guess so. But they are noteworthy because not only
(35:34):
were they a circus family, they were really smart inventive
engineer types and made a lot of advancements in the
circus uh itself, like the tent uh, like the big
top tent, the couple of Yeah, they came up with that. Yeah,
they came up with three different design the round couple
in the nineteen forties, the oblong in the seventies, and
(35:56):
the the hugely famous round pull a quarter pole free
in the nineties. And one of the other sons too,
UM invented the collapsible seating wagons and a metallic mesh
cage that I don't know if that's the globe of
death or not. No, that's the URIs as you came
up with the globe of death. All right, So the
metallic mesh cage he invented must have just been like,
(36:19):
I don't know, for animals or something. Probably. Yeah. The
point is though they were inventors and made some money
doing that stuff, yes, like designing tents and the like.
And one of the things that we haven't really kind
of hit squarely on is the fact that these if
if you're born into a circus family and you are
raised in the circus um, from what I've read, you're
(36:43):
very rarely pressured into being a part of the family.
It's more like this is your reality. So you start
doing gymnastics and acrobatics at an early age and you're
surrounded by yeah, and then eventually that you know, age six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
you end up like being a part of the family
act and then the circus as at large. Um. But
it writes a question to me, like about that ten myth,
(37:05):
like is it just from practicing this stuff at an
early age, or you know, are some is this just
the result of some you know, people who are born
acrobats coming together and producing offspring that are born acrobats themselves.
I don't know. It's a great question. This is a
good question. Um, I wonder how many time it's happened
that you're in a big circus family. You have like
(37:27):
seven kids, and six of them are in the circus,
and one of them is like, I want to be
a city planner. Probably not much. No, we got one
more we do the uriasis. Who did come up with
that globe of death in nineteen twelve? That globe, that
metal globe motorcycles in? Yeah, that was invented in nineteen twelve. Yeah,
(37:49):
I had no idea it went back. It seemed. I
was sure that this thing was probably invented in like
the nineteen sixties or seventies. I was gonna say seventies.
It seems like a seventies thing to invent totally, you know. Yeah,
but yeah, it goes all the way back to ninewelve.
That is nuts. So the the actual globe of death
was a sixteen foot diameter metal mesh orb. Yeah. And
the idea is, if you haven't seen one of these,
(38:11):
a just look up a video real quick, be uh
crawl out from under that Rocky live in right under
and then uh see it's when you put multiple motorcycle
riders that just gun it and fly around this thing
without hitting each other ideally and they they would um
(38:33):
add people who are juggling fire in the center of
the globe, riding around it, going up to sixty miles
an hour. Apparently, um and they had the urias Is
in particular, were the first to feature female motorcycle riders,
the first to feature two female motorcycle riders, because how
are you going to top the first one? But ed
(38:54):
to UM and there's one where the Jody Urias who
does the next spin you know that thing where like
you just have a harness attached to the back of
your head and you spin around until you vomit. They
had her doing that with people going around her on
their bikes and circles. Yeah, it's really impressive. I mean,
(39:16):
the precision is is ridiculous when you see I mean
I've seen I don't think it's I mean, they're still
doing this act today. I saw another family that they
don't have the market cornered on the Globe of Death,
but but they invented it. Yeah. Yeah, they just failed
the copyright or trade market, I guess. But I did
see another family that was I think they had like
eight motorcycles and this thing. It was ridiculous. And one
(39:39):
where they actually brought the globe apart, so where there
was a gap that they would be jumping or riding over,
it was suddenly filled with crocodiles. But these people crashed.
When was it every couple of weeks I looked at
There was a crash not too long ago. Oh, it
(40:00):
was in April of this year at the Washington Fairgrounds.
And there's actually a YouTube of it. It's not like remarkable.
It just at the very end of their thing. They
all just sort of run into each other. But um,
there was a fractured leg and some broken ribs. But
other than that, everyone was okay and got right back
up on the horse, iron horse, the iron horse, the
(40:21):
steel horse. You got anything else, No, So that's Circus Families,
part of our never ending quest to explain absolutely everything
there is on planet Earth and beyond. That's right, it's
one of them. If you want to know more about
Circus Families, you can type those words in the search
bar how stuff works dot Com. And I said search bar,
which means it's time for a listener. Mayo, I'm gonna
(40:50):
call this. We misspoke on something in the Bridges episode.
Oh I did, Chuck? I take full responsibility, and we
like to point these things out. Do you want to
set this up? Yeah? In the Bridges episode, I talked
about the HIGHERT Regency Skywalk collapse. Remember you made that
Lionel Richie's joke and all that stuff. Well, like hundred
(41:11):
and four I believe a hundred and fourteen people ultimately
died from this thing. And I said that it was
because they were dancing on the skywalk at the time.
Totally not true. There was a t dance going on
in the lobby below and people were standing on the
skywalks looking at it, and the skywalk apparently in the
design um there had been a change in design that
(41:35):
nobody did the numbers and crunched the math on and
this thing could barely hold up its deadweight. And then
once you had, you know, a few dozen people on it, though,
the fourth story skywalk collapsed onto the second story skywalk
and both of them collapsed onto the ground. It was
It's crazy. If you look up the Highest Regency Skywalk
(41:55):
collapse and look at some of the images, just the
destruction is amazing. Wow. All right, So I guess you
just picked out the we heard from a few people.
You picked out probably the nicest one. I would imagine
that's what we usually try to do. Hey, guys, wanted
to point out your explanation of the Kansas City High
Regency collapse side of the wrong cause. The collapse is
due to a change that was made to the initial design.
(42:17):
Two walkways we're supposed to be supported by long continuous
threaded steel rods from the ceiling design was changed to
two separate rods. UH. It should be noted that the
original design was determined to hold only of the minimum
Building Code load UH, and the way it was built
would only support half of that. Not enough, not nearly enough.
(42:37):
One bridge failure that should be mentioned is the Quebec
Bridge crossing the St. Lawrence River. UH. This bridge collapsed
twice when it was being built, and it's cited as
a reason behind the idea of registering and licensing engineers
to practice something that is a standard throughout the world. Now.
And that is from Taylor, who is a geo technical
(42:58):
engineer branches civil engineering that deals with soils, rocks, and foundations.
She said, or he I don't know which that I
make sure the ground can support the structure. Thanks a lot, Taylor.
It's a pretty neat job, I guess, and you very important. Yeah,
and thanks for the email. We appreciate that. And uh,
I went back and looked to try to figure out
where I got that info. But I swear I did
(43:20):
not make up. Don't you hate that? Yeah? I've been
called out on stuff that I've read and I couldn't
find the source and it's still wrong. But it's maddening.
It's like, I know, I didn't just create this out
of my own brain. Yeah, so we we believe. But
thanks to everybody who wrote in and said, hey, dudes, uh,
that is absolutely wrong, because we want to make sure
we get it right. So if we got something wrong
(43:42):
that you want to point out and correct us on,
let us know. You can tweet to us at s
y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send
us an email to Stuff Podcast at how Stuff Works
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on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot Com. Stuff
you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
(44:02):
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40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.