Word: midget
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Most of the 2,500 existing doodlebugs have a 75-inch wheelbase, as compared to the 105-inch average of standard racing cars, weigh from 600 to 1,000 lb. The original midget cars were crude affairs powered by motorcycle engines, later by outboard motors, cost about $400 to build. In 1934 Los Angeles' Frederick Offenhauser, longtime assistant of Harry Miller whose standard-size engines won most of the important U. S. auto races in the past decade, developed a special miniature motor. Most top-notch doodlebuggers now use Offenhauser motors, spend up to $5,000 for a racing...
...Indianapolis. Chief differences were the length of the race (150 miles instead of 500), the size of the track (½ mile instead of 2½), the size of the prizes ($5,000 instead of $20,000), the length of the cars (6 ft. instead of 12). But to the midget racers, who call their cars "doodlebugs," last week's race was the longest and most important...
Doodlebugs first appeared in the U. S. in Los Angeles in 1919 when a group of rich youngsters built midget cars to race around the Junior College Stadium, but midget racing as a recognized U. S. sport is less than five years old. In 1932 a field of eight midgets raced 20 laps around the football field of Los Angeles' Loyola High School. In 1934 Oilman Earl Gilmore built a stadium for midgets at a cost of $134,000. The Gilmore track was soon drawing crowds as large as 9,000, and shortly thereafter a onetime Hearst cameraman named...
...Iravatha. His specialty is tricks, best of which, stepping over a prostrate child, he executes in Elephant Boy. Toomai's real name is Sabu. Brought back to London to play parts in future London Films, he currently has a smart London apartment, drives about in his own midget...
...some genuinely entertaining moments. Most professional episode is a ballet called "Renaissance," ably danced by talented and personable Grace & Kurt Graff. A little chocolate drop named Baby Marie Brown steals the first act finale, Grandma's Goin' to Town, by singing and dancing disguised as a midget mammy. The ingenue role is performed by Grace Herbert, a good-looking local night club entertainer, who delivers some of Composer Phil Charig's imperative tunes, among the best of which is the production's theme song...