CIRCUS Laugh Making Requires Inventive Genius
INSTEAD of provoking laughter with comic songs, funny quips and conundrums as did the great circus clowns of the past, the modern Joeys of the big top rely on explosive microphones and slapsticks, collapsible motor cars, ingenious mechanical devices and papier-mache figures for their fun. Owing to the increased size of the modern circus, clowning has adopted the mass-production methods of our age. There are two types of chalk-face laugh- makers in the present day circus, the fill-in clown who merely imitates the others, and the producing clown, who originates and builds new acts and gags.
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Balloons Are Booming
Dream up a new inflatable toy and you’ll also inflate your bankroll.
By John Noah
“WHY do so few people have new ideas for toy balloons?” That’s the question that puzzles H. W. McConnell, president of one of America’s largest toy-balloon companies.
Balloon sales are booming and retail outlets are begging for new types to market —but the fresh ideas don’t seem to come. For want of amateur inventors, virtually every toy balloon that McConnell and many other balloon men produce must be devised by someone within the industry.
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$10,000 If You Die Laughing
Insurance against laughicide is all in the day’s business for these Mad Hatters of the comic greeting-card industry.
By Edward Dembitz
“WHY don’t you write?” the card asks tenderly. “Is your hand broken?” You lift the cover and, wham, a miniature metal bear-trap clamps down on your finger!
“Well, now it is!” jeers the caption. “Now you’ve got a real excuse for not writing.”
If this card kills you, don’t worry about it. The Barker Greeting Card Company of Cincinnati even has that one figured out— they’ve taken out an insurance policy which pays $10,000 to the heirs of anyone who laughs himself to death over one of their products.
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MECHANIZING the “DELIVERY BOY”
From a single boy on a bicycle to a nationwide service whose trucks travel more than 20,000,000 miles per year— that’s the story of United Parcel Service which delivers hundreds of thousands of packages a year in sixteen cities. The “delivery boy” organization specializes in handling deliveries for retail stores. Above, left, driver checks up on himself before starting day’s run. Right, loading parcel-filled container on tailboard of truck. Tailboards of some trucks are elevators which hoist the containers to level of truck floor.
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Can Soft Drinks Poison You?
Billions of bottles of beverages ate drunk in America each year—Analyzed by the Government Pure Food Board, harmful ingredients are kept out of them—This article tells why locally made drinks may prove injurious By GEORGE LEE DOWD, JR.
TO QUENCH the Great American Thirst, eleven billion bottles and glasses of soft drinks are consumed every year—enough to nil a giant bottle as wide at the base as a city block and twice as high as the Empire State Building, the world’s tallest structure! This means that, if you are a law-abiding citizen in good health between eight and eighty, you probably will drink an average of one glassful a day during the three hot summer months.
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Tricks of the House-Wreckers
by ALFRED ALBELL
Have you ever watched a huge factory chimney being leveled to earth with a charge of dynamite? If you have, you will have wondered how the wrecking crew was able to make sure in advance that the shattered chimney would fall to the ground in a spot where it would miss adjacent buildings. The trade of house-wrecking has its full complement of tricks which are explained in this fascinating article by Mr. Albelli.
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Bring “Ghosts” to your Home for Winter Parties
by RICHARD COKE
The author’s adventures as a “ghost detective,” ferreting out the secrets of fraudulent mediums, led him to the discovery of the ingenious methods of creating phantoms which he describes in this article. Using these simple stunts, much fun can be had at house parties, and you can easily convince your guests that you are in private communication with the supernatural.
WHEN Eddie called me up from the “Times” office, and asked me to come along to Madame Y’s “Wednesday night circle,” of course I accepted the invitation. For over fifteen years I’ve been spook hunting, but with no material success. When spooks have rattled tin cans in a cabinet in imitation of a “Model T,” I’ve always found that the spooks had bone and muscle. When nebulous images have appeared on photographic plates, I have always found the foggy patches due to exposure to X-rays, radio-active salts, or maybe to a tiny pin-hole in the bellows of the camera.
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If you liked this (minus all the games with racist titles) be sure to check out these articles:
How Carnival Racketeers Fleece the Public
Why You Can’t Ring Bell of “High Striker”
STRANGE INVENTIONS used by Crooked Gamblers
Machines that Pick Your Pocket - AND MAKE YOU LIKE IT!
How Carnival Games Cheat Customers
By SAM BROWN
Did you ever wonder why you came home from the carnival empty handed? Remember how you tried to ring the bell by hammering the catapult or how you tossed ring after ring trying to win a cane? Swindled? Well, maybe! Read how the operators “gimmick” their games so that you can’t win. It may save you money or help you win.
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Ice-Cream Bars Are Made Easily with Dipping Outfit
Less expensive than some other equipment on the market, a new ice-cream bar maker has several desirable features. One is a spreader that holds the bars, with the flat, wooden sticks inserted, in position for dipping in chocolate or similar coating mixture. After dipping, the bars are hung on a rack to dry, the spreader and dipping apparatus being arranged for this purpose.
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Modern Wonders of an Ancient Art
By H. W. MAGEE
Part I PORCELAIN enamel is older than history and yet—in its modern applications—it is as new as tomorrow. Fifteen centuries or more before the dawn of the Christian era, someone heated a batch of minerals and produced a glasslike substance which he found could be fused to metal with the aid of heat. In the next two thousand years or so man utilized this knowledge mainly to produce beautiful cloisonne vases, medallions, jewelry and other ornaments.
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SLEEPY-TIME GAL!
Been having trouble getting your shut-eye lately? Meet Martha Alden, of Pequot Mills, whose job is to find out exactly what it is that keeps you awake.
by Kip Blair
EVERY year hundreds of eye shades, thousands of ear plugs, and countless numbers of other sleep-producing gadgets—from weak tea to strong drink—are sold to insomniacs all over the country. Yet sheep are still counted over fences, dull books still are used to induce slumber, and Mrs. Jones still leans over the back hedge to tell Mrs. Smith that, so help her, she didn’t shut an eye all last night.
For sleep—a natural and normal process for babies and savages—has become a highly involved and complicated science for most of our adult civilization, so complicated, in fact.
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Exposing Houdini’s Tricks of Magic
By R. D. ADAMS
The mechanic who made Houdini’s Trick Magic Apparatus
Harry Houdini, Prince of Magicians, carried with him to the grave the secrets of his extraordinary feats of illusion. Only one man, the artisan who made his magic apparatus, knows the working secrets of Houdini’s most mystifying stunts. That man, Mr. R. D. Adams, continues here his fascinating expose of the master magician’s methods.
HOUDINI was a master at the art of obtaining free publicity. No performer ever put on as many free shows for the purpose of breaking into print, and for that matter, few if any, were ever as liberal as he in the matter of entertaining lodges and other groups without charge. Many times he risked death in his publicity seeking stunts.
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