Beating Yourself Up — Canine Style

[post 371]

This has had 10,000+ YouTube hits, so maybe you've seen it before but it's here because this particular dog has clearly read my earlier post, Beating Yourself Up for Fun & Profit, and is no doubt channeling his inner Donald O'Connor, Michael Richards, and Rowan Atkinson. And why not? Fighting yourself has to be one of the quintessential slapstick gags: it's physically difficult, it's mime, it's absurdist humor....  it's barf-irrific.

Guard that bone! Yes, animals do have a sense of humor.

Thanks to Ted Lawrence for the link!

Odd Couples

Harold Lloyd with great dane,
 and with John Aasen (as
Colosso) in Why Worry (1923) 

[post 237]

"Contrasto! Constrasto!" Carlo Mazzone-Clementi used to holler. Comedy teams have traditionally relied on contrasting characters, the stronger the contrast the better. Laurel is skinny, Hardy is pleasingly plump. Keaton had Joe Roberts, Chaplin had Eric Campbell. Harpo Marx is said to have stopped talking to differentiate himself from his yackety-yak brothers. The Odd Couple's Oscar Madison was a slob, Felix Unger a neat freak. Contrast gives you something to play off of, but you still have to have a good act! With great serendipity, I recently stumbled upon these three entertaining examples.

The first is a vaudeville number, an odd trio whose physical contrast lies in the vertical plane: Lowe, Hite & Stanley. (Get it?) Hite's real name was Henry Mullens, and at 7' 9" he was billed as the tallest man in the world. The trio made an appearance in New Faces of 1937, alongside such names as Milton Berle and Ann Miller. That's all I know....



We leap from Vaudeville to Vimeo with Mr. Joe & Mr. Schmidt. Frequent guest blogger Karen Gersch, who first alerted me to their top-notch work, wrote that "Joe (the shorter guy) is Canadian born, but has been living in France for years; having toured with Cirque for a decade. He was my good friend Guto's partner in Dralion. Joe and his wife have been living in Marseilles (both working in hospitals and Joe travelling to perform throughout Europe & the states)  This particular footage is from Zinzani, where Joe is most often booked here. His partner's name is Yogi. (for real, not a clown name!)"



The only way to top these five guys — you guessed it! — would be to recruit an aquatic member of the animal kingdom. True, a walrus is chubbier than a svelte animal trainer, but it's a well-known comedy principle that as a duo they're only funny if you throw them into an exercise video. Goo, goo, g'joob, indeed.

But is all this exercise paying off in a trimmer waistline? Some skeptics — and I don't want to mention their names, other than that they start with "Martie" and "Doug" (you know who you are)— have argued that, and I quote: "Really? Walrus still looks pretty flabby." Oh ye of little faith! Luckily, dear blogopedia readers, I went that extra mile and tracked down this photo of our inter-species duo five weeks into their slimnastic regimen:

The diet was a success but the laughs died.

Related Post from Jonathan Lyons:  Cartoon Comedy Duos

Gaylord Maynard: The Guy with the Drunk Horse

[post 125]  

It's not just you humans who perform physical comedy; your fellow mammals can do it too. One of the best examples is Gaylord Maynard's drunken horse act, which I still remember laughing hard at when I was lucky enough to see this cross-breed duo perform in the Hanneford Circus in White Plains, NY in 1980.

Maynard passed away in 2007, but his memory has been kept alive by his daughter Rhonda Visingard.on this web site devoted to his life and work (yeah, internet!).  Before we get to the comedy, here's a brief bio from the site:

Gaylord Maynard-Visingard was famed throughout America for his work with horses in circuses, theatrical variety and horse shows. Born in New York in 1938, he was a fourth-generation performer in show business. His great-grandfather was a circus musician in the 1800's, and his grandfather was a member of the band for the famous John Philip Souza. His father was also a musician and performed in the famous “Ziegfeld Follies”, his mother being a singer and actress.

Gaylord Maynard's parents found themselves in the circus world during the Great Depression, with his parents seeking work in this field new to them, Gaylord became a clown and acrobat in his adolescent  years.

In 1970 he was part of the new arena spectacle created by the Lashinsky family in America, “The Royal Lipizzana Stallion Show”, America's response to the Spanish Riding School of Vienna. For their “Wonderful World of Horses” touring show he became stage manager and lighting director and also performed, riding the majestic Lipizzana stallions in the “airs above the ground” maneuvers, in a comedy knockabout act with two partners, and in a parody of the stately Lipizzanas' performance, with a trio of donkeys. While the horses danced, the donkeys aped their graceful performance.

While with “The Wonderful World of Horses”, he acquired a talented spotted horse, an Appaloosa stallion with the curious name of “Chief Bear Paw”. He developed with his steed a classically-presented comedy act in which everything went wrong with the number, and the horse — as well as the trainer — appeared to become increasingly intoxicated. The act wow'd audiences for 35 years, and with five different horses always bearing the same name — a classic comedy turn in rodeos, circuses, theatrical shows, television productions, theatre stage shows and horse shows. In a performance of “The Circus of the Stars” Maynard trained the actor Martin Sheen to present the number.


[ASIDE:  In 1976 I was on a publicity tour for my book Clowns, and while in L.A. got invited to a filming of one installment of The Circus of the Stars.  The underlying message was that celebrities have super powers that enable them to perform circus acts as well as circus people who have devoted their entire lives to honing their skills.  Typically, the audience would see some tv or movie "star" leading an animal through an act, but just out of camera range was the actual trainer, controlling everything.  While some of these stars did have actual skill — David Nelson of the Ozzie & Harriet Show comes to mind — the vast majority did not.  I found it to be a dispiriting affair.  — jt]

In 1988 he appeared with his comedy act and as Show Director in the fabulous dinner show Arabian Nights in Kissimmee, Florida, which incorporates spectacular horse entertainment. From 2000 onwards, Maynard was there as a regular star and was able to perform there until shortly before his death. The owner of the Arabian Nights show, Mark Miller, said that Maynard was “the funniest guy with a horse in the world”.

I am happy to report that we do have some good video of his act.  Here's a short documentary, posted on YouTube in three segments.  

Part One
This is pre-performance as he readies a new horse to become the fourth incarnation of "Chief Bear Paw."

Part Two

They enter the ring to perform. The first couple of minutes are straight tricks, after which the fun begins.  The comic timing is impressive.  Keep in mind that this is a horse!

Part Three

The comedy continues.  Some funny bits even after his exit; worth watching straight through to the closing credits.




And here's a sweet and loving 4–minute video tribute to the man put together by his daughter.


Gaylord Maynard Memorial Tribute from CyberEyezz on Vimeo.


And click here for one more article on the man.

Thanks for the laughs!

Woody Allen & the Boxing Kangaroo

[post 060]

The hardest act I ever had to follow, bar none, was the boxing kangaroo on the Hubert Castle Circus. Here's Woody Allen battling a kangaroo when he was playing ringmaster at the Hippodrome in 1966.

I've seen feistier kangaroos, but I suspect this critter was intimidated by Allen's reputation as a take-no-prisoners pugillist.




Update: That is, if you can call a film clip from 1896 an "update." I just came across this 27-second clip of a boy boxing a kangaroo, part of a 5-minute Edison film called A 1896 Fairground Programme. You can see the whole film on Europa Film Treasures.