User Reviews

Themes from the opera I Pagliacci are in this Rawhide story. The sight and even smell of a circus lion and elephant are making the Gil Favor herd nervous so Eric Fleming sends Paul Brinegar along to get supplies and to move the circus way out ahead so the scent is gone.

Fleming sizes up certain elements of jealousy surrounding Lawrence Dobkin who runs the circus and his young wife aerialist Gloria Talbott. Dobkin is also the clown in the show. He sends Wishbone rather than one of the younger drovers to avoid trouble.

Trouble does come and if you know the opera you know the trouble.

Nice to see Paul Brinegar in center stage on a Rawhide episode.

Lawrence Dobkin is the featured guest star, and he really hams it up as Pascal, the insanely controlling clown who owns a little circus and married the young Gloria Talbot.

She is one of his aerealists but she is paired up with a young stud who tosses her up in the air and grabs her, holds her, catches her, and is all over her on the acrobatic swings. Pascal can't stand to see her in his arms, and he is full of rage, and constantly verbally abuses Gloria, and her swinging partner, Dario (Britt Lomond). He also slaps Gloria around.

Into this festering hellishness enters Gil Favor, who whines and complains to Pascal that his animals smell bad, and the beeves are scared of them, because they are muy macho. Not even the toros want to tangle with the old lions.

So for the sake of drama, Favor sends Wishbone to the circus, so he can make sure that it is all kosher. Pascal is a pretty nice guy, and so is everyone else on the circus. Pascal's best friend is Billy Barty, the famous little person who starred in dozens of Mickey Mouse short films in the 1930s. Pascal is not very nice to him. It seems like Pascal likes to hurt the ones that he loves the most.

As drama, the dynamics between all the characters is compelling. Wishbone does his best to make things better, but he just becomes part of Pascal's downward spiral. Pascal wants to control Gloria (is that love?), but he feels that he is not worthy. She loves him, but she is burned out from all the abuse.

It all comes to a head, and Pascal goes from one extreme to the other, where he ends up wanting to free her from his love and their marriage. Definitely a sad story, and not very much of it is a Western. It is nice to see Wishbone as the lead character.

At the end, Pascal gets into fights with a couple of people, and the red rubber bulb on his nose never falls off. He also never loses the sock on his head. Even as a kid, I had a hard time taking it seriously. R. I. P. Pascal...