I don't know about you but I love to listen to carnival barkers, Shamwow salesman, racetrack announcers, auctioneers, streetcorner preachers, medicine show pitchmen....anyone who can entertain with the quality of their voice alone. I just came across a forgotten file of a carnival barker's script...read it and see what you think. The setting is a sideshow on Coney Island.
Yikes! That was kinda' hard to read, wasn't it? Like it was underwater. Sorry about that...It was an old file and I must have done a bad job of scanning it. Anyway, keep reading...it's worth the effort.
The barker sets the stage by shooing away the kids in the audience...only there were no kids...then he resumes:
Haw! None of these pictures gel with the text but I thought you'd like to see them anyway. I love the jaded look on this barker's face (above) and the determined look on the woman's. It's hard to imagine nowadays, but a tattooed woman was once a shocking novelty. Anyway, back to the text....
Great, eh? Boy, it makes me wish I'd run away to the circus and been a barker!
Whoa, I can't believe you passed up a chance to point out W.C. Fields, great American humorist and genius. The film is SALLY OF THE SAWDUST (1925), directed by D.W. Griffith.
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