Word: gargantuas
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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When Mrs. Lintz finally sold the gorilla to the circus, Kroener insisted on going along. Buddy became "Gargantua the Great." Together, the pair of them toured the country in the big show, Gargantua glitteringly housed in a huge, air-conditioned cage of steel bars and plate glass. Kroener lived like any circus keeper. Gargantua, the vengeful, watched with an animal's unforgetful sleepless obsession for the misstep that would bring Kroener within reach of his huge hands. Once the gorilla caught his keeper's arm, yanked it through the bars, bit it so savagely that Kroener was crippled...
...though the Ringling Bros, and Barnum & Bailey show has traded atmosphere for oomph, its exhibits are much the same as ever. There are no longer any tumbling Japs; but 600-lb., 12-year-old Gargantua is still on display in the basement. The sad, crummy-looking clowns still provoke mirth. Massimilliano Truzzi still juggles flaming torches; the Wallendas ride a bicycle tandem on the high wire; the Flying Concellos do their breathless, double-and-triple-somersault flying leaps; the lions & tigers look simultaneously ferocious and bored; the trained seals render My Country, 'Tis of Thee; and the band still...
...Toto rolled over on her pet cat, crushed it, when her cage was knocked 30 feet by a freight train during loading operations at West Palm Beach. The lady gorilla, mate of Gargantua, was unhurt...
Climax of this historical build-up was a horrible example: the dismembered body of a comfortable old-fashioned overstuffed easy chair which lay behind the bars of a big animal cage under a life-size photograph of Gorilla Gargantua. Said an accompanying placard: "Cathedra gargantua, genus americanus. Weight when fully matured, 60 pounds. Habitat, the American Home. Devours little children, pencils, small change, fountain pens, bracelets, clips, earrings, scissors, hairpins, and other small flora and fauna of the domestic jungle. Is far from extinct...
...shilling shocker" for the stage. He played it in London and all over the U.S. until he died 20 years later. Two notable film versions of the play were made: one by John Barrymore in 1920-looking like a fur cap-the other by Fredric March-looking like Gargantua-in 1931. Both cinemactors played it successfully as pure horror, without fretting over the psychological implications...