October 19, 2011
Lost and Found Films: Halftime hijinx, 1962
Reel back the years with us to the fall of 1962 to watch footage from halftime at a Huskies football game where a trampoline and a particularly daring clown take center stage — that is, field.
This 2-minute, 16 mm black-and-white clip shows members of the UW Marching Band surrounding a large trampoline and playing away while young men and women perform impressive mid-air flips and turns.
Then a clown of sorts takes a running start for a series of hair-raising stunts, ending in a double somersalt and the dangerous-looking move of landing with his head in the corner rigging of the trampoline. (Please do not put on your clown suit and try this on your home trampoline.)
This is one of hundreds of reels of film that Hannah Palin, film archives specialist with UW Libraries Special Collections, is trying to identify for archiving purposes. She has film clips from the late 1930s through the 1970s — some from research projects, some from campus events and some from commercial films or original productions.
As for these halftime hijinks, Palin wonders, who were these acrobats? Were they UW gymnastics students? What game is this, against whom, and — who is the clown? (A UW Today editor, meanwhile, wonders who the characters are scurrying around the lower-left at the 20 second mark, and along the sidelines at the 55-second mark.)
If you can answer these questions or provide any other information about the film, please write your comment below.
Oct. 13: Glenn Hughes speaks at Johns Hopkins (Palin has since learned that this speaker was not Glenn Hughes, but likely Lynn Poole, host of the Johns Hopkins Science Review, a TV show produced therd at the time.)
Oct. 6: Womens Classes, Circa 1965
Sept. 29: Coulee Cleanup, Outtakes
Aug. 18: Kazakh Reel 6
Aug. 4: UW Penthouse Circa 1956
July 27: The University District
July 21: Palo Alto Home
July 14: Aberdeen Gathering
July 6, Research at Sea
June 30: Campus Color, circa 1940-48
Tag(s): Lost and Found Films
