S1E10: The Greatest Show on Earth
Blood and Business
Cassie and Bethany
4.6 • 739 Ratings
🗓️ 10 June 2022
⏱️ 66 minutes
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Summary
The Greatest Show on Earth -- a slogan adopted in 1919 when The Ringling Brothers Circus combined with the Barnum & Bailey Circus to begin the last ever chapter of the historic American Circus. In a time before YouTube, or television the circus was a seriously big deal. And as long as we have known the circus , it’s always been a family affair. The first place the world ever saw such a show, such an idea, was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Single unit European families began putting on small road shows and traveling from town to town with their unique skills. Tightrope performers, equestrians, acrobats… They lived and worked as a family. And though the Ringling Brothers came along more than a century later, they were no different. They just scaled it up a bit. Hired a few non-blood relative assets. But in the beginning it was truly nothing but a family affair. Just 5 brothers and a crazy dream.
This is the true story of Al Ringling (originally Rüngling) and his brothers: Gus, Otto, Alf T., Charles, John, Henry, and their sister, Ida. We read their biography... here is everything you need to know, complete with all the juicy details.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Let the spirit of the Kennedys and the magic of the Disney brothers be with you always. |
| 0:05.9 | Blood and Business Legacy merch. |
| 0:08.4 | Available now. |
| 0:10.1 | Let's run faster. |
| 0:11.3 | Work harder. Burn brighter. |
| 0:13.1 | Before we're gone. |
| 0:14.3 | Order your Blood and Business legacy merch today. |
| 0:22.1 | Welcome to Blood and Business. |
| 0:24.9 | I'm Bethany and I'm Cassie. |
| 0:26.6 | Today we're taking a visit to the cemetery to remember a part of American history whose grave is still warm to the touch. |
| 0:33.6 | As children, my sisters and I went to a show, but our kids will only hear tales and myths of the |
| 0:41.0 | animals, the ringleaders, the tents. You may mourn their passing or you may disagree with the |
| 0:46.7 | ethics of the entire idea and be glad that this chapter has come to a close. This sibling set |
| 0:52.2 | founded the longest reigning circus dynasty America will ever see. |
| 0:56.8 | They are |
| 0:57.5 | The Ringling Brothers. Last episode, we left off where they were just starting to figure out what kind of show they wanted to put on. |
| 1:24.5 | They were just starting to have that like first little taste of success in America. And after that highly successful 1889 season, the Ringling Brothers had about |
| 1:35.4 | $1,000 to their name collectively. And they were still doing everything themselves. So they were |
| 1:40.7 | doing like the tent set up, tear down Louise Albert's wife was still |
| 1:45.9 | cooking for them. And everybody was like in the show. Like everyone had roles in the performances |
| 1:52.7 | and everything. So it was very much still like a family gig. They were also decorating their tents |
| 1:59.0 | with lithographs, like basically big photos of like wild animals and stuff, even though at this point they still didn't have any animals. |
... |
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