The Sells-Floto Circus along with the rest of the American Circus Corporation had been bought by John Ringling in 1929. Here we find a 1931 Sells-Floto poster proclaiming the hallowed Greatest Show on Earth. Was this poetic licence since John Ringling owned them all or did someone overstep their bounds?Didn't the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus try using the Greatest Show on Earth in the early 1960's only to be hit with a lawsuit?
Hi Bob,
ReplyDeleteI had thought the dust-up over the Beatty/Cole title was concerning "The Greatest Circus on Earth" inside the globe logo.
Rick Faber
When I was on the Beatty-Cole advance starting in 1960 we had paper with the "Greatest Circus on Earth" globe but we also had printed pieces showing a circle with "World's Largest Circus" wording which we pasted over the earlier design before using those posters. So the Ringling threat had apparently been settled by then. I don't think it actually went to court.
ReplyDeleteMost of the date tails of Sells-Floto that I have seen have, I think have- "Tom Mix" or "Tom Mix and Tony" and not the GSOA logo. I wonder if there was a switch with dates or the printer had a mistake. I don't recall if there is any 31' Sells-Floto paper with date tags in the Hertzberg collection from this San Antonio date. In the Joe Heiser collection there are only a couple of Sells-Floto with dates, but I think they are 1932 and have Goliath on them instead of Tom Mix and at this late date I don't remember what town he had them for. p.j.
ReplyDeleteI got to thinking about 1931 and RBBB. They went to the barn early in 1931 after they played Atlanta on sept.14th and they closed the season. Maybe Sells-Floto with Tom Mix replaced them in some of their fall dates??? Maybe that is why the RBBB date tag is on Sells-Floto paper?
ReplyDeletep.j.