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Showing posts with the label Hansruedi Mauch

Frick & Frack

One of the more popular genres of touring entertainers of the 1930s were professional ice skating shows.  They still exist today, but at one time they were far more popular, and a number of professional ice skating companies would tour the United States regularly.  There were the the Ice Cycles, Holiday on Ice, the Ice Capades, and the Ice Follies, among others.  They would tour from city to city, and drew audiences as well as any other form of live entertainment of the day.  The Ice Follies were even popular enough to be featured in the Joan Crawford film The Ice Follies of 1939, produced by MGM studios as an answer to the popular ice skating films of ice skating star Sonja Henie. The Ice Follies featured large, elaborate productions, pooling the talents of numerous ice skating stars of the day.  It followed the structure of circus shows, with large, impressive numbers punctuated with smaller acts.  One of the smaller acts was a novelty skating team from Switzerland that combined th