Tag Archives: circus

Imponderable #134: Faster, Squirrel! Kill! Kill!

30 Jun

June 30, 2017

This is the first of two editions of the Imponderable that The Editors and Staff call Wild Kingdom Animal Antics. (It gives us an excuse to come up with a new logo.) We’ve featured some bizarre animal stories in the past, but these are in a class by themselves. 

The source for this story is not a site I am familiar with but if this is true then we have a brand new super-villain on our hands. The odds of it being true are about nil to one, but hey, that’s what makes a good story. 

click to enlarge

In a nutshell, so to speak, a guy’s animal trainer ex-gf trained a pack of squirrels to attack him. And like you’d expect, the squirrels went for his nuts. But as I said above, we have the makings of a super-villain here. “She was partially hidden behind some bushes, but I could clearly see her and hear her. She was yelling orders at the squirrels and telling them to attack me.” 

This guy was just proof of concept. Having established that squirrels can be trained to attack, I’m sure the next step for her is to train them to rob banks. How long will it be until she has them hacking the U.S. Presidential election?

I admit up front (OK, at the end) that I don’t believe this for a single second. But who cares? 

Is this story more or less real than anything you see on CNN?
The question is Imponderable.

 

And thank you Jimbo for bringing this to my attention!

 

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The Cojoined (And Possibly Transgender) Mermaids of Wildwood NJ

22 Jul

July 22, 2015

Sideshows, carnivals, and traveling circuses used to feature all sorts of “amazing” oddities and displays. Bearded ladies, wolf-men, snake-people, and even mermaids could be seen and gawked at for just a few cents. But nowadays, not only has the price gone up, but the public demands more and more. Nope, plain old run-of-the-mill mermaids aren’t enough to satisfy audiences today. This amazing piece of sideshow art was on display in Wildwood New Jersey.

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These are not your average mermaids, nope. These are conjoined mermaids. And ironically, they are painted behind a pair of seats it would be impossible for them to sit in.

This being the modern era, and not knowing thing one about how mermaids would reproduce- like a fish? Like a human? -the painting is very unhelpful in that regard, the possibility came up that maybe, somehow, those conjoined mermaids are also transgender. The one on the right does look a little more masculine than the other. (Unbelievably, alcohol played no part in that conversation.)

I will wisely leave that topic alone.

However, although I am sure that isn’t vintage, it is still a great example of old sideshow art.

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