We’ve all heard the phrase “having the world at your fingertips.” But guess what? Today it’s literally true.

Given the coverage and speed of electronic media, we know when something happens, anywhere, within seconds.

Beyond that, if we want to find out something, no matter how esoteric, it’s a mere tap of the keyboard away.

But it’s only been like that for the past few years. Within recent memory — my recent memory, that is — information was hard to come by … if it could be found at all.

If you were looking for something and you couldn’t lay your hands on it, or if you didn’t know an expert, you just had to forget it.

Entertainment was likewise hard to come by. Pre-cable TV gave us two channels on a set not a lot bigger than a laptop screen. So even if we saw great entertainers and entertainment, having them in black and white and maybe 4 inches high had less than heart-thumping impact.

So when entertainment came to town, even it it wasn’t stellar to the denizens of say, New Yawk or Chicago, it was A-1 to us. The traveling circuses and carnivals of my childhood are perfect examples.

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Thrills and chills

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Obviously, they weren’t the big-name, big-time shows that were in the major arenas, but they thrilled me. And to be fair, those small tent shows, while lacking the big names and the big aura, did not lack talent. The performers were all seasoned pros who, though overworked and underpaid, were crowd pleasers of the first order.

I was agog at it all. Acrobats, sword swallowers, knife throwers, clowns, contortionists — you name ’em, and I was enthralled by ’em.

But unbeknownst to most peeps, I had a secret Big Top connection: Since my parents came from NYC, we visited it several times a year, and on some of those times we got taken to the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus in Madison Square Garden.

It was a three-ring circus, and as I recall, at various times, acts were performing in all three rings simultaneously. I’m not sure that’s what actually happened, but with all the glitter, action, sparkle, lights and sound, it seemed like it.

I still remember some of the headliners vividly.

There were the Wallendas and their high-wire act — without a net. Like everyone else in the arena, I was transfixed by their skill and showmanship, though now I no longer want my entertainers to be risking their lives for my amusement.

Another family of circus risk-takers were the Zacchinis. In case you don’t recognize their name, you’d know their act — they were the human cannonballs. To begin, the ringmaster hyped the bejammers out of what we were about to see, before the launchee came into the arena. Then when he did, he stood out in the spotlight, in his snow-white aviator’s outfit.

He strolled and strutted to the cannon, slowly climbed up to the barrel, then slipped into its mouth. He stayed there, half in, half out, for a very long moment; then he gave a final wave and vanished from view. At that point the ringmaster gave some more hype, which was followed by a long silence … and a lot of tension as we awaited The Moment. Finally, after an adrenaline-filled countdown, the cannon boomed, and the Zacchiniball blasted out of its mouth and flew across the arena, landing in a net at the far end.

The whole thing about put me in cardiac arrest — much like watching the Wallendas. Also like the Wallendas, such high-risk entertainment is no longer on my preferred list. And if you think it’s not high risk, here’s a number for you — 30. That’s how many performers have died doing this act.

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Laughs …

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Then there were the clowns.

Clowning is a refined and difficult art, and nothing makes you realize how difficult till you see an inept one. They’re those poor sods who think a garish outfit and makeup and size 85 shoes alone make a clown. As for building and sustaining a real act that elicits emotion, they’re clueless. Instead, they cause boredom. Barnum and Bailey didn’t have to worry about that since their clowns were among the best in the world.

Their two standouts were Lou Jacobs and Emmett Kelly.

Jacobs was an Auguste clown, those guys with the most exaggerated makeup and features. If you saw a picture of him, you’d immediately recognize him since his image became the image for circus clowns. In fact, he was the first living person to have his image on a U.S. postage stamp.

But Jacobs wasn’t just another grotesque face — he was a great inventor of gags. One of his best known was his clown car. It was 2 feet by 3 feet. Imagine that driving into the center ring, stopping, and then Jacobs, at 6-foot-1-inches, getting out of it. ‘Nuff said.

Another of his gags, and my favorite, was his motorized bathtub.

“Oh, a motorized bathtub,”you sniff. “Big deal.” Darn right it was a big deal because, catch this: It had a shower in it as well — a working shower! Seeing a stripped-down clown cruising around an arena in a bathtub is one thing, but at the same time seeing the clown taking a shower and scrubbing himself with an oversized brush is the very definition of hilarity.

Even now, at least 60 years later, I can close my eyes and see Lou Jacobs and his bathtub, zooming around like a lunatic. And now, while I may not laugh hysterically at the memory, I sure do smile at it.

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… and gaffes

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Emmett Kelly was Lou Jacobs’ polar opposite. His character was Weary Willie, a tramp clown, totally unlike the Auguste clown. His act was also different from Jacobs’. While Jacobs’ bits and character seemed of the “anything for a laugh” ilk, Kelly’s stuff had a sad air to it. His character was, after all, a hobo, a not unfamiliar (or laughable) figure to people who got through the Depression. Maybe he did out-and-out funny bits, but the two I remember were anything but.

One was his trying to crack a peanut. Of course, if people want to crack a peanut, they just crunch it with their hands. Efficient? Yes. Artistic? No. And great clowns, I remind you, are consummate artists. So what did Emmett Kelly, the consummate clown, do with his peanut? He tried to crack it, all right, but with a whole lot of preparation and build-up … and with a sledgehammer. Followed, of course, by a disastrous result.

His act I most remember was his sweeping up the spotlight. He did it after all the other performers left the rings, and of course, the more he tried, the more he failed … until finally he got the hang of it, moving the broom in ever-smaller circular increments until there was almost nothing left of it. Then he swept it into a dustbin and slid it into his jacket pocket.

My description of his spotlight act does it, and him, no justice. But to see it in person was something else. The Garden held 20,000 people, and every one of them was staring, enraptured, at Kelly and his act. And keep in mind, he did it all in mime.

While both these bits probably amused most people, as a kid I was moved by their melancholia. And I still am.

A clown bringing out melancholy, especially in a kid? Is that fair? After all, aren’t clowns supposed to make kids laugh?

As I said earlier, clowns are artists, and it only follows that great clowns are great artists.

And if an genre’s artists appeal to only one type of person and elicit only one kind of emotion, that’s not art — it’s fast food.