Winston the Human Water Fountain

[Guest]

LINK

[Guest]

Controlled vomiting as a source of entertainment...something from the earlier days of entertainers...see Christopher's book for old plates of people doing similar acts, occasionally spouting different colored water.

What some people won't do to be in show business.

[Richard Kaufman]

What's worse ... controlled vomiting or controlled farting?

Or bad magic?

I'd rather watch an entertaining show of puking and flatulation than bad magic any day.

[Guest]

I really wanted that to be a trick..

EWWWWW!!

:eek:

[Guest]

One of the greatest variety acts of the late 19th Century was Joseph Pujol who outdrew every other big star of the time. He was "Le Petomane" and his act was hilarious.

A film of his work was done a few years ago, one of the few films not released on video or DVD. It is watchable on YouTube in five parts.

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evwLzR57 ... re=related and understand why he was so popular.

[Richard Kaufman]

I take it back ... I'd rather watch bad magic.

[Herman Koster]

In the John Fisher special History of Magic, I believe there is a short clip of someone performing this in an old Laurel and Hardy movie. Does anyone know who this performer was. It was the first time I ever saw this human fountain being performed. Only seen it in old drawings before that.

ps. Hope we all have a great and magical 2008.

Herman Koster
The Netherlands.

[Frank Dudgeon]

I saw portions of the film screened years ago - maybe by Father Cyprian? It had the water regurgitation act and another performer, possibly Cantu. I remember that it was only in the Spanish version of a Laurel and Hardy movie. Rather than overdub they'd re-shoot many scenes in Spanish.

Anyhow, I Goggled around a bit and found a fellow's personal web page that has some phots from it. The performer's name was Hadji Ali:

http://www.geocities.com/bprice1949/hadjiali.html

I think my fading memory got most of that straight.

Frank Dudgeon