Yes sir, more Sideshow! Alive!

Okay, so I have a little more sideshow stuff to show and tell. Can you believe that an actual sideshow did come to town the last week of October to my town's annual fair?! I was soo sad when the original sideshow that used to come retired back in 2003 and that sadness was one of my inspirations for our Halloween Sideshow costumes. I then find out it has been resurrected in a different form and is going to be here on the last weekend when I arrive back home! Before, it was more of a badly done museum of sorts. Like having a head of a woman mannequin attached to a taxidermified snake body in an aquarium. The only live people were the outside talker, (Ward Hall) the fire eating little person, (Poobah) and Bruce the fat man. Now a set of young folks have revived the show by doing a '10 in 1' set of acts.

They give a brief history of the sideshow and demonstrate some of the old tricks and gadgets used in the past. Shown here is a device that has a crank on it and it appears to the viewer that the seated person's head is being turned all the way around.

This was my favorite optical illusion. The Headless woman..Alive but how?

All of the 3 performers each did physical feats . Here is the climbing of a ladder of knives....Barefoot!

The 'off with her head' guillotine illusion.

He he! Love it! Spidora.. Like my Spiderella! I so so wish I could have befriended these folks and got my picture taken in this!

And of coarse the beautiful banner artwork!

Here I am with the only museum piece they had on display. A replica of a 8 foot woman. (Please pay no attention to my stomach buldge! ah hem.)




The performers made alot of funny jokes during the show, it was such fun! Although, I really did miss all of the badly done museum artifacts! Here is an article about this sideshow when it first retired in 2003 : The Last Sideshow

Here are some neat audio examples of outside talker ballys: Art of the Outside Talker