If I Ran The Circus

We saw the Greatest Show On Earth last week. Well, sort of. A "compact" version of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus came to town and, despite the diminished nature of the show, I just couldn't resist the lure of the big top.

All of my childhood memories of the circus are ones of dazzling spectacle and pageantry. So this new downsized one-ring show just felt like a circus sampler. Gone was the parade of elephants, camels, and other exotic animals. Missing was the lion tamer, the human cannonball, and the motorcycle daredevil. The trapeze artists failed on two of their five stunts. The acrobats looked like Cirque du Soleil rejects. The frisbee-catching dogs were kind of lame (I can see dogs do that at the park). The single solitary elephant looked like he needed a few friends to share the spotlight.



I don't want to paint this in a completely negative light, because we actually did enjoy ourselves. It's just hard not to think of all those past circuses I've attended, with their three rings of "where do I look next" sights and sounds.

The one aspect of the show that lived up to the billing of "Greatest" was, of course, the clowns. Ringling clowns are the best in the world. On this small stage, they remained larger than life, and absolutely hilarious. We were most impressed with the bubble-blowing, toupee-popping Tom Dougherty.

Also fun to see was Jon Weiss, the one-time clown and human cannonball, who is now host of the show. If you've ever watched CBS's The Amazing Race, you'll know Jon. He worked the crowd effortlessly and was quite a hit with the ladies, even the one he almost dropped.



So it wasn't the super colossal circus of my youth. And maybe parts of it needed a bit of work (or more practice in the case of the trapeze artists). And certainly the one elephant wasn't enough to satisfy the animal parade enthusiasts.

But, despite all of that, it's still the circus. Big or small, I think it's the greatest.


Frozen clown brains, only ten bucks!