Sideshow: Alive on the Inside
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Mole People: Life in the World Below
SIDESHOW: Alive on the Inside
STEP RIGHT UP TO THE WORLD PREMIERE OF SIDESHOW
--TLC world premiere special, narrated by Emmy-Award winning actor Jason Alexander, features interviews with many famous sideshow performers –
Percilla the Monkey Girl married the Alligator Man and they became the world’s strangest married couple. Jeanie the Half Woman was born without lower limbs, but walks on her hands, cooks and even raised a family. Melvin the Human Blockhead can drive an ice pick up his nose. These are only a few of the people who have populated the eccentric world of the circus and carnival sideshow. But what are the real, often compelling and very human stories behind these people who, not too long ago, were referred to as “freaks?” How has this strange slice of American popular culture evolved over the last 100 years?
On Sunday, February 2 from 9-11 PM (ET), the Learning Channel presents the world television premiere of SIDESHOW. Narrated by Emmy-award winning actor Jason Alexander, who plays George Costanza on the hit NBC comedy “Seinfeld,” SIDESHOW turns the spotlight on some of the most colorful inhabitants of the little-known world of the circus and carnival sideshow. This bizarre and rarely-documented part of show business history was a way of life for thousands of Americans from the 150’s until quite recently. Rare archival footage and photographs from the early days of sideshows and personal albums of performers trace the evolution of sideshows as public attitudes about “freaks changed over time. The program also examines some of the last remaining authentic sideshows, as well as their more modern counterparts, and looks at what the future may hold for this extraordinary form of entertainment.
“This inside look at sideshows uncovers a strange, yet often touching world where what seems bizarre on the surface is revealed to be not so different from the rest of us on the inside,” said John Ford, senior vice president and general manager of The Learning Channel. Adds producer/director Lynn Dougherty, “Ironically, what killed the sideshow was the public’s discomfort and not the performers’, who always knew that people who looked different were really the same beneath the surface.”
Intimate portraits of many of the most celebrated sideshow stars are at the heart of SIDESHOW. The program reveals that, contrary to popular opinion, many of the performers chose their careers and often found real happiness there. Jeanie Tomaini, called the world’s only living “Half Woman”, was born without the lower half of her body. She joined the sideshow at an early age and met her husband there, fellow performer Al Tomaini, who stood eight-feet four-inches tall. Despite this unusual pairing, Jeanie saw to it that her family led a fairly typical existenc3e. Comments her daughter Judy, “I thought everybody else’s parents were strange. Mine were normal. My mother was the homeroom mother at school.”
As with many of the people associated with them, sideshows have a long and colorful history. The program traces the sideshow’s transformation from P.T. Barnum’s American Museum in New York City in 1841 through he heyday of the 1930’s and 40’s to the gradual disappearance of sideshows over the last several years. As the public’s attitudes about people with physical differences have changed, so has the sideshow.
One of the few people who keep the tradition going is Ward Hall, known as the “king of the sideshow.” Hall lives in Gibsonton, Florida, along with many retired and working sideshow performers. Each spring, Hall prepares his sideshow to go on the road for the season. The program also takes viewers to Coney Island, New York, where on of the last permanent sideshows can still be found. Here, a snake charmer, a fire-eater and an escape artist make up the modern version of the sideshow. Acts that embrace the outrageous tradition of the sideshow, minus the human deformities, such as “chainsaw football” and the fire-breathing “Human Volcano,” can occasionally be found performing in nightclubs and on college campuses.
Although the demise of the sideshow is, perhaps, inevitable, the program vividly demonstrates that it was – and still is – a colorful world that to some is grotesque, amazing, and even shocking – but at its heart, is very human.
SIDESHOW is produced by Tim Miller entertainment for The Learning Channel. Tim Miller is executive producer; Lynn Dougherty is producer and director. Sandra Gregory is executive producer for The Learning Channel.
The Learning Channel is the only cable network that consistently offers people of all ages – from pre-schoolers on – an enjoyable, entertaining way to learn and satisfy their natural curiosity. TLC now reaches nearly 54 million homes in the United States and five million homes in Canada and is a service of discovery networks, a unit of Discovery Communications, Inc., which also owns and operates Discovery channel, cable’s premiere informative entertainment network and Animal Planet, the “all animals, all the time” advertiser-supported network that launched June1, 1996.