Traveling carnivals are part of our rich American history. An idea said to have originated just after the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, there were almost three hundred shows traversing the country just a half dozen years before I was born.Basically a wandering enterprise, these carnivals offering fun and entertainment to anyone in Smalltown America who had the price of admission. Moving from place to place, they sprang up almost spontaneously in fields and vacant lots in or outside towns across the country. And, after conducting their sometimes “questionable” business, they vanished as mysteriously as they had appeared.
The American public had an ambivalent relationship with these traveling spectacles. While convinced that most carnies were dishonest and eager to cheat you out of your hard earned dollar, people nevertheless were drawn to the shows and became willing marks for the creative larceny that went on there. And while most patrons were often religious and brimming with moral integrity, they still came under the allure of the carnival’s most intriguing and compelling attraction… the side show.
There were various types of carnival side shows usually housed beneath the same tent. One was the Thrill Show that featured amazing acts such as knife throwers, sword swallowers, and fire eaters. There were also muscle men who could bend steel bars, contortionists who could lie on beds of sharp nails, and a wide assortment of other characters with special physical skills not common among the normal population of most towns.
There were also side show acts that were outright frauds. Psychics were available who claimed they could read your mind, and palm readers would gladly tell your fortune for the right price. And there were actors who pretended to be bizarre characters like the “Wild Man of Borneo,” or the “Ape Man of the Himalayas.” Such worldly characterizations were impressive to those who had never traveled more than fifty miles from their homes.
And there were “Adult” Side Shows that satisfied the more prurient interests of mostly male customers, by featuring scantily clothed women who danced behind thin veils or transparent curtains. For their time, these acts were a scandalous glimpse into the forbidden world of sex and seduction, something openly condemned by mainstream society.
Finally, the most infamous type of carnival attraction was called the Freak Show. This featured “curiosities” of nature, both human and animal. Crowds flocked to view specimens such as midgets (as they were called then), or Siamese Twins, or those with gross medical anomalies and crippling deformities such as large tumors or multiple arms and legs. And there were always features like, “The World’s Fattest Man or Woman,” “The Bearded Wolf Lady,” or the token anorexic billed as “The Human Skeleton.” Anything bizarre qualified as a Freak Show attraction, including men and women with full body tattoos or multiple piercings.
True to the theme, the genetic seconds from Old McDonald’s farm were also on display in the carnival Freak Show. There were chickens with two heads, conjoined rabbits, and other barnyard oddities such as goats with extra legs. It seemed that the more controversial or grotesque the specimen was, the more anxious patrons were to pay the price of admission to see it.
As would happen, after World War II the number of traveling carnivals began to decline, and in time they no longer held a place of importance in the American entertainment scene. And while today there are County Fairs and a handful of circus corporations that still travel, the heyday of “under the tent” carnival side shows is over…… at least at the outskirts of town. In our homes, however, they live on and THRIVE !
Yes, the curious of today no longer have to jump in their jalopies and drive to the city limits to be titillated by the bizarre, the unusual, or the controversial. They only need to plop down in front of their television sets and turn on the cable channels. Everything a carnival side show offered fifty years ago, is now available in the privacy of one’s home, except that now there’s more variety and it’s in high definition.
In the Thrill Show category, here are a few of the shows which have featured individuals with amazing, even death-defying physical and mental skills and abilities:
“Daredevils and Speed Demons,” “Escape Artists,” “Super Humans,” “World’s Most… Death Defying Stunts,” “Jim Rose’s Twisted Hour,” and “It’s A Strange World.”
Cable offers a number of productions that focus on fascination with, and belief in the paranormal, as well. Just like the Scam Sideshows of old, they offer only speculation and innuendo as they attempt to contact the spirit world to explain past or present phenomena. Here are a few:
“Ghost Hunters,” “Paranormal State,” “Most Haunted,” “Ghost Lab,” Paranormal Cops,” “Psychic Roadshow,” “Beyond The Explained,” “Psychic Kids,” “Teenage Clairvoyants and Mediums.” and “Alien Autopsy: The True Story.”
The Adult Side Show category abounds with a number of cable documentaries that would not only cause those original carnival hotties to blush, but make them look like nuns by today’s sexual standards:
“Real Sex” (1 through 33), “Cathouse,” “Strippers,” “Pornucopia: Going Down In The Valley,” “Katie Morgan: Sex 101,” and “Family Business” (the life and times of porn producer, Seymore Butts.)
Finally, subject matter endemic to the early traveling carnival Freak Show, is the most prolific genre of cable television fare today. Hundreds of shows and their spin-offs fill the channels to satisfy viewer’s with even the most peculiar tastes. For example, interest in Little People has spawned this series of shows:
“Little People, Big World,” “The Little Couple,” “Our Little Life,” “Dwarf Adoption Story,” “The Littlest Groom,” “Little Parents, First Baby,” and “Pit Boss,” (a series about “Shorty” who runs a Little People talent agency and pit bull rescue center).
And if tattoos are one’s thing, the are a number of shows about that, as well:
“L.A. Ink,” “Tattoo: Under The Skin,” “Inked,” “Secret World of Tattoo Cultures,“ and “Miami Ink.”
The exploitation of people with graphic physical anomalies has also staked out its niche cable television, like in the following:
“Monsters Inside: People Invaded By Parasites,” “The Man Who Lost His Face,” “World’s Oldest Conjoined Twins,” “Growing Up Tiny: Primordial Dwarfism,” “Surviving Tumors: Massive Tumors Removed,” “The Wolfboy,“ “Scarred,“ “Extreme Surgery,“ and “Amazing Medical Stories.“
Reality shows involving obesity are also a cable staple:
“The 650 Pound Virgin,” “Heavy,” “Ton Of Love: Morbidly Obese Couples,” and “Heavily Ever After: The 606 Pound Mother.”
People with psychological issues are featured, as well:
“My Strange Addiction,” “Housebound: People With Agoraphobia,” “Strange Phobias,” “Bipolar Mysteries: Moms with Bipolar Kids,” and “Hoarders: Buried Alive.”
And, if the remains of animal freaks and other odd artifacts are your thing, there‘s one for you, too:
“Obscura Antiques and Oddities.” (Some of the items in their shop include a pickled pig, artwork made from human nails, shrunken heads, a four-legged chicken, a human skeleton, and a mummified human hand).
Finally, while I never heard of an old-time carnival side show which featured “The Worlds Most Perpetually Pregnant Woman,” cable television trumps the tent, as well, in wife Michelle Duggar from the series, “19 Kids and Counting.” A sort of exponential “Brady Bunch,” this popular show will most likely continue to propagate both kids and ratings until the Duggars either run out of viable sperm and/or eggs, or names for their children that begin with the letter “J.”
Yes, cable television is today’s traveling carnival sideshow without the smell of animal droppings, or the chatter of persuasive pitch men. And that same public thirst to be entertained by the bizarre and the shocking, is as alive and well today as it was a century ago. Other than technology, then, some things never seem to change.
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