Clicko: The Wild Dancing Bushman

by Neil Parsons, Neil Parsons

During the 1920s and ’30s, Franz Taibosh—whose stage name was Clicko—performed in front of millions as one of the stars of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Prior to his fame in the United States, Taibosh toured the world as the “Wild Dancing Bushman,” showing off his frenzied dance moves in freak shows, sideshows, and music halls from Australia to Cuba. When he died in 1940, the New York Times called him “the only African bushman ever exhibited in this country.” In Clicko , Neil Parsons unearths the untold story of Taibosh’s journey from boyhood on a small farm in South Africa to top billing as one of the travelling World’s Fair Freaks.

Through Taibosh’s tale, Parsons brings to life the bizarre golden age of entertainment as well as the role that the dubious new science of race played in it. Beginning with Taibosh’s early life, Clicko untangles the real story of his ancestry from the web of myths spun around him on his rise to international stardom. Parsons then chronicles the unhappy middle period of Taibosh’s career, when he suffered under the heel of a vicious manager. Left to freeze and nearly starve in an unheated apartment, Taibosh was rescued by Frank Cook, Barnum & Bailey’s lawyer. The Cooks adopted Taibosh as a member of their family of circus managers and performers, and his happy—if far from average—years with them make up the final chapter of this remarkable story.

Equal parts entertaining and disturbing, Clicko vividly evokes a forgotten era when vaudeville drew massive crowds and circus freaks were featured in Billboard and Variety . Parsons introduces us to colorful characters such as George Auger the giant and the original Zip the Pinhead, but above all, he gives us an unforgettable portrait of Franz Taibosh, rescued at last from the racists and the romantics and revealed here as an ordinary man with an extraordinary life.

Genres: History, Africa

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Neil Parsons, a former professor of history at the University of Botswana, Gaborone, is the author of King Khama, Emperor Joe, and the Great White Queen: Victorian Britain through African Eyes, published by the University of Chicago Press.

Reviews

[Megan Kelosiwang · Rating 3 out of 5]

A scholarly book that didn't always flow easily but it's easy to see the huge amount of research that went into piecing this story together. I really enjoyed the conclusion/ discussion in the end that rounded everything out as a reflection of past attitudes and perceptions. Remarkable portrait of a man who was famous in his time and place but also a complete unknown to most.

[Mckinley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of data and facts but not much connecting them. I never got a sense of who Franz Tailbosh was or any of the other people in the book. A lot of research went into this book; there are lots of quotes, details, side stories and tangents.