In the Center Ring (Part 20)

Hanna-Barbera’s circus parade keeps on marching. This week, we cover two more episodes of Lippy and Hardy, a stray episode of Sinbad Jr., and a quartet of longer episodes featuring that “page right out of history”, The Flintstones. Oddly, however, the H-B image of a stone-age circus never quite reaches the convincing prehistoric levels of Tony Sarg’s Stonehenge Circus in “The First Circus” (1921), discussed in chapter 1 of this article series some time ago.

Gas Again (1/7/63) – What would it really take to make Hardy Har Har into a laughing hyena? Lippy the Lion thinks he’s found the answer, as opportunity presents itself in the form of a want ad for a laughing hyena at the Bungling Brothers’ circus. Remembering something he spotted in a junkyard, Lippy retrieves and returns with an aerosol can of laughing gas. (Despite usual depictions of this stuff in containers the size of an oxygen tank, this brand must be highly concentrated, as the can never seems to run out through the entire picture.) One spritz, and Hardy is in hysterics (although still slipping in “Oh, dear”s and “Oh, my”s between chortles). Our heroes present themselves at the circus wagon of Mr. Bungling. While Lippy is still in the middle of his sales pitch of Hardy, a circus guard appears at the wagon entrance. Crusho the gorilla has just broken out of his cage. Mr. Bungling excuses himself, stating he will be very busy today, running for his very life. Exit Bungling, enter Crusho. Lippy decides to use his secret weapon, and sprays Crusho with a small dose of the gas. The ape is distracted by an involuntary laughing jag, and our heroes race past him to exit the wagon. But the gas has only temporary effect, and Crusho snaps out of it, reverting to his old savage self. Lippy and Hardy hide inside the mouth of a cannon, but are soon discovered by Crusho. “Peek-a-boo” says Lippy, extending his arm out of the cannon barrel, to give Crusho another spray in the face of the gas. Crusho becomes “laughing boy” again, but playfully ambles his way back to the rear of the cannon, pulling the firing pin as his own idea of a childish joke. Our heroes zoom into the air, smashing headfirst into the main tent pole, doubling up Crusho in laughter.

Lippy and Hardy climb the pole to a platform, then again find themselves in peril, as the gas once again wears off, and the angry Crusho begins climbing after them. “If he’s comin’ up, we’re goin’ down”, says Lippy. He and Hardy leap off the platform just as Crusho reaches it. Below waits a trampoline. However, Lippy and Hardy don’t know how to dismount, and keep bouncing straight up to a height parallel with the platform. In defense, Lippy gives Crusho another spray. The ape once again guffaws, but the effects are becoming more and more temporary, so that, each time the boys bounce back up, another spritz is needed to keep Crusho laughing. Lippy decides to administer a super-dose – enough to keep Crusho laughing all year. But when they next arrive at the platform, Crusho is gone. Worse yet, when our boys fall again, the trampoline is gone. In its place, Lippy and Hardy find themselves seated in the palms of the destructive Crusho, who is in his foulest mood. But Lippy is now within range, and sprays, sprays, sprays. Crusho not only lets go, but becomes utterly helpless, rolling on his side and pounding the ground in hysterical laughter. It is an easy matter for Lippy and Hardy to drag the pre-occupied Crusho back to his cage. The peril over, Lippy resumes his sales pitch to Mr. Bungling to get Hardy the laughing hyena job. “Are you kidding?”, says Bungling, who no longer has an opening. “Who needs a laughing hyena, when I’ve got a laughing gorilla?” Crusho continues in his non-stop fit of bellowing laughter, as the boys find themselves down and out, and back on a park bench, with Hardy complaining that once again they’re flat broke. “But at least we’re happy”, says Lippy, administering a whiff of the gas to both Hardy and himself, so that the cartoon ends with both of them having themselves a grand old time.

Hard Luck Hardy (1/14/63) – No writer credits appear on Lippy and Hardy cartoons, but one wonders if Charles Shows was possibly still kicking around the studio for this script, in light of its marked similarities to a pair of Bozo cartoons previously reviewed in this series. For one thing, a dialogue line modified directly from “Kitty Kat Spat” – “That’s the third lion tamer I’ve lost this week – and it’s only Tuesday.” Lippy and Hardy, despite being in their usual destitute financial situation, have wandered onto the circus grounds for a look-see. A poster advertises the presence of Growlo, the world’s most ferocious lion. But his tamer, as mentioned above, is carted off by ambulance. In an abrupt change of character mood that seems jarring, happy-go-lucky Lippy suddenly starts moaning about a bad tooth. Lippy opens his mouth, and Hardy sticks his head in for a closer look at the suspect molar. The ringmaster catches sight of this, and assumes he is witnessing a feat of death-defying bravery. Hardy is hired on the spot as the new lion tamer, despite his protests that he’s no such thing, and trembling fear of Growlo. But Lippy assures Hardy that he will remove Growlo from the scene, and take his place in the cage. Lippy tries, but Growlo won’t listen to friendly lion-to-lion talk. Lippy resorts to chair and pistol to show Growlo who’s boss. The chair is instead used by Growlo o bop Lippy over the head, and as Lippy raises his arm to aim the pistol at Growlo’s head, Growlo merely chomps on it, then seems to consume it and Lippy’s arm, almost up to the shoulder joint. Lippy has had it, and pulls his arm out of Growlo’s throat with a pop, heading for safer ground. Along comes Hardy in lion-tamer’s costume, presuming the switch has been made. He asks “Lippy” to growl, then criticizes Growlo on the insincerity of his acting. Hardy snaps the whip at Growlo, and gets what he thinks are more convincing results. Commenting that acting is kind of fun, Hardy pulls out the pistol, thinking it’s good for getting a few laughs from the audience. He fires a shot right into Growlo’s face, leaving the lion’s countenance charred with gunpowder. Even the resolute Hardy can’t resist a jag of laughter at how funny Lippy looks. But a familiar voice is heard, from an unfamiliar direction. Lippy is calling to Hardy – from outside the cage. The usual ending, as Hardy gets the picture, and he and Lippy scram, pursued by the lion, snapping the whip. We’ve seen it all before – just engraft a new pair of personalities onto a formula plot.

The modern stone age family, The Flintstones, excavated from pre-history four circus stories from its run. Fred’s New Job (2/15/63) includes a minimal degree of circus goings-on. Wilma is expecting Pebbles-to-be, and Fred worries about how to pay for all the things the baby will need. The only solution presenting itself is to ask Mr. Slate for a raise. However, Slate also knows Fred is expecting a baby – and anticipates the usual routine he gets from every employee who’s expecting – to be hit for a raise and have to pick up the tab. Slate determines this sort of thing has got to stop, and that Fred must be made an example of. However, Slate’s son (manager of the company) points out that declining Fred’s request for a raise would be bad for labor relations – so Slate declares they have to find a way to stop Fred from asking for one. Slate Jr. suggests “Operation Cringe”, and Slate, Junior, and Slate’s receptionist prepare for their respective roles. When Fred enters Slate’s office, the receptionist informs him to wait outside Slate’s door, as the manager is inside asking for a raise. Fred figures such a request by the boss’s son is a shoe-in for success – but witnesses a prime demonstration of overacting, as Slate ejects his son from the office, declaring him fired, and Junior pounds on the office door, groveling on his knees to come back to work at a hefty pay cut. Fred is so stunned, he can’t find words to address Slate when it is his turn, and zooms back to his dino digging machine, tugging levers and pitching boulders at breakneck speed.

Barney suggests a new tactic. Donning a rich playboy costume he once used in a lodge play, Barney poses as J.P. Rockerfeather, informing Slate he is seeking out Fred as a prospective new employee, and wishes to hire him away at a substantial raise in salary. Barney assumes Slate will match and exceed his offer to keep his trusted employee a Slate man. Instead, Slate happily allows “Rockerfeather” to hire Fred away, and even has security “gently” escort Fred off the premises, for Fred’s own good and the prosperity of his family. The scheme having blown up in the boys’ faces, Fred is left to comb over the want ads for a new position. While Fred bumbles through tryouts as short order cook, service station attendant, etc., Slate Junior informs Pop that they have a problem. Nobody but Fred knows how to operate the digger. Slate insists he can train Junior for the job, but every lever he tells Junior to pull seems to flip the dinosaur over on his tail, freeze him into rigid pose to collapse sideways, or other unexpected moves, leaving the dinosaur reacting to his driver with a disapproving shake of his head. Slate realizes that after all these years, Fred has the “machine” geared up so that ho one ese can run it – and without the digger, the company will perish. Slate and son set out to catch up with Flintstone and bring him back. Meanwhile, Fred has applied for his latest job – sweeping up after mammoths in a circus. The circus owner (a Southern-accented “Colonel”) calls to Fred, offering him a chance to be a performer. Fred is given a bright-green bird suit, and is dubbed the “Bird Man of Razzmatazz”. Fred is seated upon the tied-down end of a bent sapling inside the tent for a trial run, and told to flap his arms once launched, swooping down around the seats for a few laps around the tent. Instead of being thrust forward, the released sapling shoots Fred vertically through the tent roof, clear out of sight. “That’s the trouble with this act,” comments the Colonel, “You need a new bird-man for every performance. Good thing he was a Yankee, though. There’s too many of them anyway.” Fred’s ascent slows, and Fred resorts to the Colonel’s advice of flapping his wings. To his amazement, the suit works, and Fred finds himself soaring around the skies, under his own propulsion. Below, he is spotted by Slate and son from their car. Slate assumes this must be one of Rockerfeather’s secret projects, and again resolves to get Fred back. In possibly its only sighting since Episode I of the series, the “Flintstone Flyer” makes a reappearance as the “company helicopter” for Slate and son to pursue Fred. (If Barney’s invention actually sold, why are he and Fred worried about money, when they should be living high off the patent royalties?) In mid-air, Slate proposes that Fred’s work is too dangerous, and offers him back his old job at substantial pay increase. Fred accepts, and flies home to break the news to Wilma. He makes a three-point landing in his own backyard, and the announcement of the raise to Wilma stuns Wilma into momentary non-realization of how Fred made his entrance, as she rushes to phone the news to Betty. She tells Betty Fred just flew home and told her the news, then pauses. “Flew home?” Finally, she returns to the back yard for an explanation. Fred takes her into the house, stating in chuckling fashion, “It’s a long story – and in some spots, kinda hard to believe.”

You can watch Fred’s New Job HERE.

Fred’s Monkeyshines (10/17/63) – Fred as Mister Magoo? Well, it happened, sort of, for a single episode. Pebbles has arrived, and the music of a calliope passing the house (constructed of a quartet of shrill-screeching prehistoric birds fastened to a keyboard) signals the arrival of a circus in town. Fred promises to take Pebbles to see her first circus – in part, to avoid an appointment with an optometrist that Wilma has been trying to make him keep on multiple occasions, in view of incidents denoting Fred is developing increasing nearsightedness (for example, passing pepper instead of salt at the breakfast table). Meanwhile, there is an escape from the circus cage of “Rocco’s Marvelous Monkeys”, as a small chimp about Pebbles’ size slips through the bars, taking temporary refuge in Fred’s house. Wilma asks Fred to keep a watch on Pebbles through the window as Fred mows the lawn, but then changes her mind as Pebbles begs to be carried in Mama’s arms. The monkey slips in and takes Pebbles’ place inside her cradle. One look in from Fred, and the natural mistake is made – Fred thinks he’s seeing things, in the form of his monkey-faced daughter. Another sighting has Fred spot the monkey climbing up the palm trees supporting his hammock. As Fred climbs to save his daughter. the real Pebbles is revealed in Wilma’s arms below. Fred, utterly confused, thinks it’s about time he keep his eye-doctor appointment after all.

At the office of Dr. Boulder Dome, Fred is given an eye test. He does okay with one eye, but with the other asks, “Hey, who moved the chart away?” The doctor diagnoses a stigmatism, and prescribes the wearing of corrective lenses for a couple of weeks. (This should be called a “writer’s breakthrough” in optometry – a miracle cure that avoids having the character forever wear glasses in subsequent episodes. Couldn’t they have solved the problem more realistically by ending the story with Fred wearing contact lenses?) With the glasses, Fred’s bad eye sees nearly perfectly – but has to move closer to the chart to read the last line, stating in fine print, “Your bill is 25 dollars.” (I wonder if this gag was contributed by Michael Maltese, seeming to derive directly from the fine-print eye chart gag in Bugs Bunny’s “Forward March Hare.”) The Doctor takes the glasses to clean them at a wooly-mammoth sink, when a phone call comes in from his wife. He places Fred’s glasses on the table near the phone, then removes his own glasses as the call continues, also placing them on the same table. Of course, the prescriptions are switched, and Fred walks off with the doctor’s glasses. Fred attempts to exit, walking into the doctor’s hall closet, and tells the Doc he needs better lighting in the reception area. After Fred finally leaves, the doctor makes the same mistake while wearing Fred’s glasses, also believing he needs more lighting, until he runs nose-first into a rock column. The Doc figures out the error, and after attempting a phone call through the trunk of the mammoth sink, finally gets off a call to the Flintstone residence, not only telling Wilma not to let Fred wear the glasses, but asking that the glasses be returned, as the Doc can’t find his way out of his own office.

But Fred, after a harrowing car ride over the back of a giant dinosaur, has gotten home before the call is received. He has already placed a bouquet of flowers into the paws of Dino and kissed his cheek, while planting a large bone into the jaws of Wilma, explaining that the glasses take some getting used to. Worse yet, Fred again mistakes the escaped monkey for Pebbles, taking the monk with him to the circus. Anticipated Magoo-like mistakes ensue. Fred shows off his “baby” to a woman behind him in the ticket line, insisting she looks “just like Daddy”. The woman faints dead away. “Kid hater”, snarls Fred. Fred walks into the chest fur of a gorilla in a cage, mistaking the great ape for a lady in a fancy fur coat. He thinks he has found the ticket office, and instead walks into an alligator pit. Seeing one baby gator on the ground, Fred picks it up, thinking it is a lost bag, and returns it to the fur-coated “woman”. The puzzled gorilla comments “And to think, they put us in a cage.’ Fred seats himself in the gallery inside the tent, complaining when a kid next to him tells his Dad. “Look at the funny monkey.” “You’re no Little Lord Fauntlerock yourself”, sneers back Fred. The spotlight falls into the center ring, upon Rocco’s Marvelous Monkeys. The baby chimp in Fred’s arms knows it’s her cue to perform, and springs into the ring to join the others. Fred races after her to save her, and the audience thinks he s a performing clown. Fred falls chest-first upon a launching spring which rockets him up to the top of the tent, where he is caught and flipped several times by the trapeze performers. He demands to be let go, and falls onto a unicycle upon the high wire. Uncertain what he is doing, but observing Pebbles on the wire before him, Fred wheels out onto the wire. Below, Wilma, Betty, and Barney arrive, now aware of the doctor’s warning phone call. (A notable continuity error precedes their arrival. In a car scene where Barney’s vehicle is moving at high speed, Barney’s and Betty’s hair are noticeably wind-blown – yet Wilma’s hair stays rigidly in place as if poulticed in concrete!) Wilma fears for Fred as she spies him above, as Fred gets dizzy in the balcony at the movies. Barney blurts out to Fred that he is wearing the wrong glasses, causing Fred to take them off. One look down and Fred gets woozy, and faints. Several circus performers wait below with a hoop net. Fred lands seat-first on the net, bounces off, and makes a final landing on the arena floor, on his head. He is otherwise okay, and receives a great round of applause. But when reminded from how high up he came, Fred swoons and faints away again. Without explanation of what became of Fred’s vision problems, the film ends with calls pouring in from circuses, television, and even movie studios for Fred to sign up as a performer, having become an overnight sensation. Wilma repeatedly turns away the calls, telling Betty and Barney that Fred hasn’t let this go to his head. But Barney spots Fred outside the window, bouncing up and down past it on a trampoline in the back yard. The boastful Fred tells Wilma to hold out for the best offer, claiming he will be ready for the big time in about a week. That is, until a mistimed jump lands Fred headfirst through the granite roof of the cave. “All right, so I need a little more practice.” “Did he say a little?”. giggles Wilma, as she, Betty and Barney break into laughter, leaving Fred to grumble in his granite entrapment.

You can watch Fred’s Monkeyshines HERE.

Once Upon a Coward (12/26/63) – Unusual for the series, this episode opens with Fred and Wilma returning home from a night together of – bowling. How Wilma finally got interested in the game is unexplained, but she claims she enjoyed it. Except she states she has worn herself out, and asks Fred to carry her ball as well as his own. Fred brings up the rear as Wilma walks ahead – but Fred is suddenly stopped by the touch of a concealed gun in the back of his rib cage. A holdup man tells Fred to stick ‘em up, and Wilma to keep turned around or her husband gets it. Fred stands rigid, with a bowling ball held in each upraised hand, while the thief grabs Fred’s wallet. The crook tells Fred not to move until he counts to a thousand – “Nice and slow – that’s the way to do it”, he adds in intimidating tones. Even when the robber is gone, Fred is still afraid to stop counting, and seems to continue for half the night. Wilma makes a comment that she is glad Fred didn’t try to play the hero, as there was no telling what the robber might have done to Fred. Fred at first chimes in in agreement – but begins to misinterpret Wilma’s attitude, as an inference that he was in fact a coward. Tempers and misunderstandings escalate, and Fred becomes convinced that he has lost the respect of Wilma.

With prodding encouragement from Barney, Fred launches into a campaign to prove his mettle to Wilma, by placing himself in situations of foolhardy risk designed to catch Wilma’s eye and demonstrate he’s not afraid of anything. He tries to enter a prize fight where champion Sonny Dempstone takes on all comers. As he raises his hand to volunteer, he gets an attack of cold feet, and puts Barney’s name in nomination to box the champ instead. Barney sensibly declines, as the champ meets four other contenders at the same time, knocking them all out with one punch. Fred regroups his thoughts to attempt to volunteer again, when the police shut down the fight for not obtaining a permit. Fred never gets the chance to complete his sentence, and the girls won’t believe he really intended to face the champ.

Fred next encounters a circus tiger tamer, on the run from ringmaster Barnum N. Shalely. He is the fourth tamer to run out of Shalely this week, as no one will face the circus’s new attraction, Matilda, the world’s most savage saber-toothed tiger. Barney does the volunteering this time, offering Fred’s services. Petrified but still determined to prove he isn’t a coward, Fred accepts the position. Wilma and Betty are brought to the performance by Barney, who covers by claiming Fred will join them shortly. Before Fred has time to make an appearance, a little old lady passes in front of them, befuddled and lost, wandering into the ring. She stands too close to Matilda’s cage, and the tiger swats a paw at her, catching the lady’s hat on one claw. Matilda addresses her newfound prize by eating the hat. The old lady shows her temper at having her best hat devoured, clobbering Matilda over the head with an umbrella again and again, until Matilda whines and cowers in fright in a corner of her cage, having had enough. “Some ferocious tiger”, complain members of the crowd, calling the act a fake, and leading to a mass exodus of customers demanding their money back. Even the girls leave, refusing to wait for the entrance of “The Great Fredito” to risk life and limb with the beast. Wilma comments that the only risk of being with that tiger would be of catching his fleas. Fred finally appears in the spotlight – with no one to applaud him but Barney.

Finally, trying to dispel Fred’s sorrows with another night of bowling, the boys receive some unexpected coaching on Barney’s technique from an unknown spectator in the stands, who claims that Barney is approaching his throw too fast. “Nice and slow – that’s the way to do it”, repeats the stranger. Fred recognizes the voice as none other than the holdup man. He pursues the robber in attempt to apprehend him, but the robber is too fleet of foot, and soon has a lead of many yards. Fred stops, rearing back his arm for a throw of his bowling ball. As Fred boasts, he isn’t known as the bowling chanp of Bedrock for nothing, as he launches a roll at the bandit’s feet. The bandit rounds a corner, seemingly evading the ball’s path. But Fred’s shot has an intentional hook to it, and reverses directions, taking off after the bandit again, and tripping him up. Fred pounces on the fallen bandit’s back, and a capture and arrest are finally made. A newspaper write-up salutes Fred on his valor, and kisses from Wilma, Pebbles, and even a slurp from Dino make the opinion happily unanimous.

You can watch Once upon a Coward HERE.

Circus Business (10/15/65) – A late-season entry that feels a bit forced and contrived. A carnival/circus hits town with the hoopla of a parade, advertising 50 acts. This occurs just as Fred receives a surprise tax refund in the mail, of a whopping $37.50. Fred splurges by treating his own family and the Rubbles to a day at the carnival. Fred, however, reveals his own gullibility at the ticket taking booth, repeating a boo-boo he had been guilty of the last time he attended a carnival, by getting short-changed out of a ten-dollar bill by the circus owner. The owner is actually on the verge of bankruptcy, with no other customers in sight, and his entire staff of acts is ready to walk out for not being paid for six weeks. He would like nothing better than to unload this losing proposition upon someone else – and Fred’s behavior at the gate convinces him he has found his patsy. To make the place look attractive, he instructs all his employees to pile up outside the rides, in line like customers, to give the appearance of a thriving business. (Continuity is ignored here, since most of the employees are previously depicted as circus freaks, yet the persons standing in line appear normal.) Betty finds it uncanny that a line forms at each ride just as they decide to go on it. Barney trades jokes with Fred about the newly found “Flintstone fortune”, and Fred responds jokingly that this is the kind of business operation he’d like to buy. The owner suddenly appears by his side, stating that he treats Fred’s statement as a firm offer. “You’ve got yourself a carnival.” Fred complains he doesn’t have that kind of money, displaying his remaining $27.50. The owner grabs it as a down payment, and has Fred sign a bill of sale. “The hat’s part of the deal”, he says, placing the ringmaster hat upon Fred as the owner departs.

The owner doesn’t even use the $27.50 to part-pay his employees, and soon they are lined up at the manager’s wagon, informing Fred that with the assets, Fred also acquired the liabilities. Despite Fred’s best efforts to talk such performers as the rubber man, fortune teller, and half-man/half-woman to stay, they all walk out on the show when Fred can’t meet their salary demands. In an odd and unconvincing writer’s twist, a sheriff further threatens that unless they put on a show as advertised, he’ll arrest Fred for false misrepresentation. Fred vows that, performers or no performers, the show must go on. Pebbles, Bamm Bamm, Dino, and Hoppy form a circus band for background music. Wilma and Betty serve as ticket taker and usher, and double as short order cooks at the concession stand. Fred and Barney serve as ringmaster and performers. Barney performs a human cannonball act, hitting a target in a rock helmet, then descending to earth with a pop-out propeller from the helmet like a Beany copter-cap. Hoppy and Dino perform a boxing kangaroo bout in the center ring (Hoppy of course wins). Fred rides a motorcycle on the high wire, blindfolded and with no hands. He crashes into the pole at the end of the wire, stumbles back onto the wire, then swoons when he removes the blindfold. Barney wheels a mobile net under him, but Fred bounces back up, to be caught safely by the collar, with the assist of Bamm Bamm on the wire above. Fred finally performs a 400 foot high dive – into a tub of water, instead of the pile of rocks the old high-diver used to knock his brains out landing upon. These acts are observed by several of the old performers wandering in to see what became of Flintstone, and viewed as “improvements” upon the show – especially by the high-diver, who thinks a water landing adds a whole new light to the profession. The performers feel like heels for walking out on Flintstone, and ask for their old jobs back, believing Fred’s improvements may make the show a success after all. Fred, however, is tired, stating he’s not sure he wants to own a carnival anymore. In zooms the old owner, taking this as a firm offer to sell, and hands Fred his money back. Fred takes it, but pulls his own switcheroo while attempting to break a bill, winding up with a fast ten dollar profit of his own. The old owner grumbles at how fast these whippersnappers pick up these tricks these days. The final scenes find the Flintstones and Rubbles driving home, when they encounter a country hick with a makeshift drilling rig along the side of the road, claiming to be drilling for possible oil on his property. He complains that a doctor told him to move to a drier climate, and inquires whether Fred might be interested in buying him out. Fred asks how much, but Wilma and the Rubbles respond with a cautioning “Fred?”, reminding him of what happened on his last investment. Fred declines the offer, and the families drive on. One half-screw of the drill later, and an oil gusher erupts. Unaware that he just lost out on being a millionaire, Fred closes with the line, “I’m glad my mother didn’t raise any stupid children.”

You can watch Circus Business HERE.

To close this week’s installment, we’ll include a stray episode from H-B’s work for hire on American International’s Sinbad Jr. and His Magic Belt series, augmenting a package of films where Sam Singer left off. Circus Hi-Jinks (date unknown) finds Sinbad and parrot Salty pulling into port, when they spot a circus encampment pitched near shore. They buy tickets for the show, and seat themselves in the grandstand. Off to one side, an animal trainer is trying to show a gorilla (Goliath) who’s boss, by savagely attempting to whip the ape into submission. The ringmaster stops him, stating that the trainer knows the rules of the show, not to mistreat the animals. The trainer is fired and told to get out. Before leaving, the trainer seeks revenge, by leaving Goliath’s cage door unlocked, in hopes this will ensure that there won’t be a circus. Goliath emerges, and Sinbad decides to take action before the crowd is panicked into a stampede. Salty grabs the ringmaster’s megaphone, and tells the crowd not to worry, as his friend will “make a monkey out of that big gorilla”. Sinbad trues to gently pull the gorilla back to the cage, but the ape flips Sinbad to the ground. Soon, Goliath is swinging by his feet from a trapeze, throwing Sinbad around in the air like a rubber ball. Sinbad lands on the tight wire, but the ape stretches it, launching Sinbad up and off. As Sinbad falls, the ape, who appears to be everywhere, beats him to a position on a platform below, and as Sinbad falls past and bounces back up off a trampoline, the gorilla gives Sinbad an upper-cut on the way up, knocking Sinbad out from his magic belt. The gorilla grabs the belt, then carelessly tosses it away as he would a banana peel, the belt landing upon the end of a crossbar of one of the trapezes. Sinbad takes another blow from the gorilla, and is knocked into the mouth of a cannon, just as Salty spots the location of the magic belt. Sinbad calls out coordinates to Salty for height and range, aiming the cannon to fire Sinbad up to the trapeze, and directly into his belt again. Now, with the odds evened, Sinbad approaches Goliath on the tight wire. Goliath gives the wire several yanks, flipping Sinbad off again. Goliath then leaps from the platform, landing on Sinbad in attempt to finish him. Sinbad rises from the sawdust, holding the ape above his head. A little “helicopter spin” wrestling move, and a well-aimed toss, quickly place the gorilla back into his cage, with Sinbad slamming the door behind him. The ringmaster tries to sign Sinbad up to repeat the act for each performance, but Sinbad prefers the open sea, suggesting he sign up the gorilla instead (which doesn’t make sense, since the circus already owns the gorilla). The gorilla grunts something to Salty, who translates that Goliath will sign only if he gets top billing.

Next Week: Touche away!, and more 60’s H-B.