Imagine the streets of Milwaukee filled with gold-leafed wagons, enthusiastic clowns and performers, wild animals, barkers and thousands of onlookers.
You may say ‘that sounds like a circus,’ and you would be right.
The Great Circus Parade began in 1963 as a fundraiser for the World Circus Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin, bringing restored circus vehicles and performers in historically-accurate costumes to the streets of Milwaukee. True to the vision of co-producers C.P. “Chappie” Fox and Ben Barkin, the parade aimed to be an annual, historically accurate reenactment of traveling circuses from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Milwaukee PBS’ newest documentary, Remembering the Great Circus Parade, uses archival footage and interviews to bring the parade back to life. Co-producer Dale Palecek said that the parade represented a type of large-scale communal entertainment that is hard to find today.
“I don’t think there’s anything like it anymore. It was a spectacular event coming into a town. It was an extravaganza,” he says.
The Great Circus Parade happened in Milwaukee from 1963-74 before financial issues put the annual event on pause for several years until the parade was held in Baraboo in 1980. The parade moved to Chicago in 1981 and 1982, then back to Baraboo in 1984, before returning to Milwaukee from 1985 to 2003. Funds were raised for a final reprise of the Great Circus Parade in Milwaukee in 2009.
The documentary airs on the following dates on Milwaukee PBS:
- Thursday, February 29, 7:00 p.m.
- Saturday, March 2, 10:30 p.m.
- Sunday, March 3, 5:30 p.m.
- Saturday, March 9, 7:00 a.m.
- Sunday, March 10, 10:00 a.m.
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