BOX BROTHERS’ ANIMAL SHOW
Material Required to Make an Animal Show: small boxes of all shapes and sizes, spools, and candy-box favors, a round bandbox cover to make a circus ring.
The cover of a round bandbox will make a splendid circus ring. Any small boxes and spools you may have can be the benches for your trained animals to perform upon. A really good circus may be made with Noah’s Ark animals, or with the candy-box favors that come to one at Christmas and other holiday times.
Shall I tell you how I made my circus? You can make one like it.
First of all, I collected animals. At a small candy shop, I found a polar bear, a rhinoceros, a fox, and a pig. Each came with a loose head, because the animals were supposed to be filled with candy, but I glued the heads on tight. I bought these animals because they were so cheap.
They could stand upon spools to make acts for the circus ring. I painted each spool red, and pasted over its hole a disk of colored cardboard.
From round box covers I made pyramids, and from square ones I cut benches. (To cut bench for animal show, see Diagram Six, A, page 175.) Cut a leg at each corner of the box-cover’s rim. Remove the cardboard from between cuttings.
Swartzenheimer and Mulligan were my animal trainers. Each came to me as a dinner favor. They were both little figures of toy men that stood upon a cake of sweet chocolate. You can easily see what a splendid clown Mulligan made.
The animals performed all kinds of tricks. They could stand upon each other’s backs. I had two or three tumble toys, besides. They performed splendidly.
I am sure you will have a good time making a circus. It is ever and ever so much fun, I think. You can use any animals that you happen to have among your playthings.
Benches for performing animals at Box Brothers’ Circus are made from an assortment of cardboard boxes and spools. The cover of a large round bandbox makes a circus ring.
This is Box Brothers’ Circus. It is made from the lower part of a round
white bandbox.
A view taken inside the Circus Grounds. The walls are corrugated cardboard. The cages are boxes with covers; and the booth is the lower half of a candy box.
At some toy shops, you will find celluloid animals. At Japanese shops, you will find cotton animals. In your own Noah’s Ark there will be wooden animals and your Boxville people—tumble toys, jointed dolls, Halloween figures, and favors will form the trainers and performers for the “Show.”
Wild animals and domestic animals may be bought at candy stores as favors. They also come in boxes at the shops where toys are found. These animals should be small—never over four or five inches in length.