The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus is coming back. You’ll remember that they shut down 4 years ago amid slumping ticket sales and constant accusations of animal abuse. They won’t have to worry about the abuse allegations anymore. They plan on doing a circus without any animals. They’d already quit using elephants in 2015, but now no more lions and tigers and bears.
Oh my.
But you have to wonder, what kind of a circus is a circus without the circus animals. That’s half the show. You can only put up with so many clowns. So, how will they entertain now? Gladiators, perhaps? They aren’t saying. Feld Entertainment which owns the circus has only said that they are in the planning stages and to expect the circus to be back in 2023.
The Ringling Brothers website doesn’t say anything about it. In fact, I kind of feel like I got taken by a crooked carney when I went there. The home page won’t let you click to follow through unless you give it your e-mail and other information. Then you click a button, and it just opens a similar looking page that says “thank you” and talks about presale alerts. The only other page you can open is to the store where you can buy a precision mint model of a semi- truck that looks like the ones they haul equipment in. And it’s only $150! Yay! I’m sure every kid has been screaming for one of these. Actually, it might be the only thing you can buy this year since everything else is running out of stock. HERE”S A LINK TO THAT TRUCK if you’re interested.
For nostalgia’s sake, here’s the last performance they did before shutting it down in 2017.