Just A Little Help From My Friend

Stanley Berent, or Sealo the Seal Boy as he was known, was with our show all but one season. When I took the show and made a tour of the Caribbean he was on that show also. 

He had trouble walking, especially when he had to climb up and down stairs.  Because of how much trouble it was for him to climb up and down he always had his chair and table at the end of the stage right by the stairs.  He had what he called his banner line, which was a wooden rack that held about six different poses of the pitch pictures he sold. 

He would sit up there smoking his cigar and having a cup of coffee, a cookie or something.  He really didn’t like to get off the stage because it was difficult for him. 

At the same time Chris would work with the chimpanzees that he trained.  There was one chimpanzee that worked on the stage named Toby.  Chris would go up and work with the chimp and as he was leaving to go down the stairs Sealo would hand Toby a cookie. Toby just loved Sealo. 

One time when Chris was working with the chimps there were these three guys, they were about half canned.  They started harassing Sealo.  When the chimp saw what they were doing he didn’t like it at all.  One of the things that Toby did was ride a tricycle.  After he was finished he would pick it up and hand it to Chris then Chris would put them back into the line.  But this time instead of giving it to Chris Toby picked it up and held it over his head and through it at the three guys because they were messing with his buddy with the cookies.

Sealo was quite the guy when we would take him out to dinner or someplace else he wanted to go. As we would come back into the fair ground Sealo would roll down the window of the car, of course he had these little hands that grew out of his shoulders, and say to the people at the gate “it is just me with my little handzee’s“ and as we started to roll by he would give them the bird. You see generally the people the fair would hire, or about 90% of the ones that worked the gates at the fairs would save up all their animosities and take them out on the Carnies during the run of the fair.  

Sealo was a very funny guy.  He drank a little also but he never drank but one time around the show.  It was when we were over in the islands, so I sent him back home. 

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