He recounts in vivid detail his memories of the show, and wanted to share his experience with me.

What follows is his email in full:

“When I was around 14-15 I went to an event called “The Springfield Esposition” which still runs today. A man who gave us transportation to the fair told us to go over to a trailer, and that it would cost us $5.00 (which was a lot of money back in 1961-62) and see a flea circus.

He told us that we’ll never again see another one.

The owner of the trailer explained how fleas have a very short life span and that their training takes proportionately a large amount of their life. I say it like that because I don’t actually remember the actual span of time for either of those things just mentioned.

It was well worth it and quite enjoyable. The owner held a large magnifying glass from behind a half circular table allowing access for everyone to view. He had containers with fleas inside and one-by-one removed them by their harnesses in order for them to perform.

He had a race track where they raced around a small mock-up of a stock car racetrack, a football field where the fleas were placed on their backs in an attempt to kick field goals which was a tin foil ball placed onto their tiny feet. Now, I enjoy American football and they didn’t fair out quite as well as some of the field goal kickers of today’s teams, but they evidently didn’t practice a great deal either.

I was telling my work partner about seeing the flea circus and he thought I was lying to him. Seemed pretty unbelievable to him and if I hadn’t seen it I might have had difficulty believing it also. He’s 72 yrs. old and I figured that he would have been around during the days where there must have been a good number of these shows around. Not so though! Oh, well just thought I would write and tell you this stuff.”

Thank you so much, Dick, for sharing your memories with me, and if there are any other readers who remember flea circuses please get in touch.

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Flea Circus

It dates from 1939 and lists, amongst others, Jean Hugard and The Great LeVante & Co. Also listed is one Li Ching Soo: presumably yet another Chung Ling Soo impersonator.

It’s an interesting bit of magical ephemera for sale at a reasonable price.

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Auction, Vintage Magic

“Have you ever marveled at the cleverness exhibited by jugglers and other stage performers? They’re clever, true enough—but mechanical aids help them put across their mystifying tricks.

A CLEVER magician produces a girl from thin air; a skillful juggler balances precariously on the rear leg of a chair; a wonder marksman shatters a ball on top of a girl’s head. It is all very wonderful, very mysterious, seemingly impossible. The furrowed brows of a legion of spectators voice the question: “How do they do it?””

The article continues, revealing the secrets behind a “modern” mindreading act:

“Mental telepathy, for which the public has had quite a flair in the past few years, employs many artifices. One of the simplest of these acts requires the medium to be securely blindfolded, a committee from the audience seeing to this part of the program. Nevertheless, she calls out the name and describes minutely any small object which her partner may receive on his tour through the audience. The effect, of course, depends upon the assistant concealed in the wings. He is equipped with a powerful field glass or telescope with which he views, through a slit in the curtain, the various items held up by the performer. The information is then relayed to the medium by means of a headphone set, with wires running under the stage covering, and the act goes along quite merrily.”

The full article can be viewed on the ever entertaining Modern Mechanix website.

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Vintage Magic

The Salem News has an interview with local flea circus impresario and magician Jonathan Dark. They ask him the following:

How many fleas do you have?
“There are three fleas in the circus, but I also have 1,833 understudies. I have an old-fashioned cane with a screw top that has dry ice inside. I keep them in that cane in case I use the understudies.”

What kind of tricks do they do?
“The stars of the show are Barnaby and Victor. They do a mini-chariot race that’s sort of an homage to the chariot race in ‘Ben Hur.’ There’s also Madame Fifi, who does a high-wire act. I ordered her direct from Paris. She came off a poodle there. At the end of the show, the whole troupe pushes a small carousel around.”

Isn’t it hard for the audience to see?
“You can’t really get a bead on the flea itself, but when he climbs that rope ladder you can see the ladder shaking; and when he hits the diving board, the board does a bounce; and when he hits the water, there’s a splash. Fleas can’t swim, so it’s my job to get him out of there as quickly as possible.”

Read the full article here.

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Flea Circus

When you see flea circuses for sale they are often described as “Walt Noon style” or “Built using a Walt Noon design”, but where do these designs come from and how can you build your own? Well just head over to Walt’s website and order yourself a copy of his complete flea circus package. The package comes in three parts: a DVD, a CD and a manual providing you with enough information to build your own “humbug” flea circus.

The Manual, called “The Mystery In Unveiled! – Walt Noon’s How To Make A Flea Circus”, begins with an introduction explaining what you can expect to find on the CD and DVD along with a bit of history about flea circuses and the levels of research Walt undertook to learn about this lost art. It’s actually a companion to the DVD providing drawings and additional notes on the construction of each of the main “events” of the circus as well as listing several U.S. suppliers that can help you acquire the parts required to build the gimmicks.

The CD is a pretty eclectic selection of flea related information. It includes music that you can use when performing your circus, along with images and high resolution scans of backgrounds all of which can be used in construction.

The DVD though is what we’re all waiting for. It begins with some real turn of the century footage of a real flea circus, followed by the step-by-step instructions covering how to build your own, ending with some footage of flea training and a television appearance. The step-by-step instructions are extremely detailed covering such topics as: choosing a suitable suitcase, construction of the flea parade, cannon, pool, high-dive, high wire, trapeze and a few additional ideas at the end. The methods at times are quite ingenious, with some great results (my favourite being the cannon), and although a few power tools are required I would say that the skills required are not particularly high. I believe anyone with enough time and patience could construct one. As Walt points out in the commentary the intention of the guide is not to follow it religiously but to be inspired and take ideas to make your own unique circus.

Walt is an engaging presenter and his style makes you feel like a friend watching him at work in his workshop and his enthusiasm for the topic leaps of the screen. I really enjoyed this rather unusual collection and suggest you get a copy if you are in anyway interested in this lost art.

Finally the best description of the Flea Circus package comes from Walt himself from an email he sent me:

“The Flea Circus package has been a huge, consuming labor of love for me. So, you’ll find hundreds of meg of material collected and generated over the last 10 years on the CD and DVD. It’s as much a collection of everything entertaining with fleas and projects as it is a step by step to help you build a circus. I hope you enjoy it very much! Thanks! (The fleas thank you as well.)”

Walt Noon can be contacted via his website www.noonco.com

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Flea Circus, Video

Rhett reveals: “The image of the magician getting the “secrets” from these underworld demi-devils apparently started with Harry Kellar (on his 1894 poster)” and goes on to say “Leon Hermann (nephew of Alexander) who overlapped the career of Kellar seems to be the first who copied the whispering imps. Not only did the Great Hermann include them, he used more imps!”

The collection is quite exhaustive with posters ranging from Kellar to Derren Brown, Herrmann the Great to Banachek. He even includes scans from badges and sheets of music.

It’s a great resource for scholars of the magical arts, I just wish he would organise them a little better: they are presented as one great long list that takes some scrolling through. Despite this, head over and take a look at this interesting facet of magical history.

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Banachek, Derren Brown, Vintage Magic

Sven Svenson is possibly the youngest flea tamer in the World. He has been building flea circus’ with his father since 2000, and now you can buy a handmade traditional ‘humbug’ flea circus from his website.

Flea circus’ became popular in the 1600’s where ringleaders would tour them around pubs and fairgrounds. Falling out of favour this century the art of the flea circus has all but died out, and it’s great to see Sven rekindling the art.

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Flea Circus

A Simply Made But Very Lifelike Dummy for the Amateur Ventriloquist

This is a great article from the June 1938 edition of Popular Science courtesy of Modern Mechanix. It begins by stating:

POPSY is an intriguing ventriloquist’s dummy you can construct from inexpensive materials without any special skill or shop equipment. His name comes from Popular Science Monthly, for which he was specially designed. He wags his jaw realistically and, if you want to take a little extra trouble, he can be made to wink, wiggle an ear, smoke, spit, or even blush!

Teaching him to talk takes a little practice, of course, but it’s not nearly so hard as commonly believed, and once you learn the trick, you will be able to entertain and astonish your friends.

Read the full article here.

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Vintage Magic

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Posters

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Posters, Will Goldston