Carnival Sideshows


We met Bob Leibold when he and his first wife, Mary Ellen, showed up at the GSC science building to see our collection of Burmese pythons. It has always seemed that herpetologists bond quickly and we started a friendship that was renewed each time they arrived in Glenville as they traveled with the Gambill Carnival. Here is a business card from one of the early shows. You will note that snake sizes are often exaggerated.

Bob had an exhibit of reptiles which included the large snakes. It is amazing how much money one can make by charging just a fifty cent admission charge. Throughout the years his sideshow attractions changed. Next came the trailer that exhibited the “world’s largest” alligator. Sideshows love superlatives. The reptiles were then replaced with a haunted house that was automated and geared to scaring the “youngins”. At this time he was separated from his wife and was touring with his young son, Bobby.

It seems that Bob and his second wife (or third- not certain) were living in Florida. Well, to make a long story short, his wife ran away with a truck driver named Stony. While Bob was away doing a reptile show, his wife cleaned him out of house and reptiles. Yes, he came home to a house with no furniture and she had sold his vast reptile collection including rare albino pythons and other strange beasts.

The last time I saw Bob was when he arrived in town with a new sideshow attraction. The sign over the exhibit said: “Come and See What Cocaine Can Do To You!” This was a modification of the old geek sideshow where a hired hand would dress up as a “cocaine victim” and he would stare out in space. The trailer exhibit was a living room where the “victim” would be seated in a wheelchair. The chair was rigged so it seems the cocaine fellow had no feet. There was a wire grid between the cocaine victim and the paying customers. Every now and then the miserable cocaine victim would hit the wire grid with his cane, yell loudly, and then go back to staring blankly into space.

Bob made more money by placing a sign on the wire partition that said “See what Stony will do for a dollar!” The customers would place a dollar in a slot in the wire grid and guess what? Stony did absolutely nothing. People would be suckered easily into his scam.

Guess you have caught the name of the “cocaine victim”. It is the name of the fellow that ran away with his wife. On the front of the exhibit was a cemetery headstone that had embossed on it “R.I.P. Stony” with the date that his wife disappeared.

The last I heard from Bob was several years later. A carnival worker said that Bob was out of the sideshow business and working at a WalMart in Florida!