About me:

I grew up in Clermont having moved to Florida at age 12 from Ohio in 1967 when my farther accepted the position of Episcopal Minister for Saint Matthias Church – we moved to Florida to care for Grandfather whose doctors suggested this climate.

The Seitz family has always been gifted in stature, by gifted I mean that we are all around five feet tall. We are mostly strong and hairy and resemble Chimps. As a teenager I just naturally started doing standing back flips, jumping off the roof of the house, and I traded my snare drum for a unicycle.

I never dreamed about joining the Circus, in fact I was working in the first Circus that I ever saw. (Well a Circus Theme Park.) Within the last decade I discovered that my Great Uncle Earl built a Vaudeville Theater in Sandusky Ohio. It is still there – The State Theater.

I didn’t know about my show business background because my Grandfather, The Reverend Professor Doctor Seitz, was the intellectual brother and most his male descendants have become Episcopalian Ministers.

One day in 1976, I didn't show up at work mowing grass at the Mission Inn and Country Club in "Howey-in the-Hills," instead I rode my Yamaha 90 South to Circus World. They put me in the show that very day as a stage hand. Little did I know but my Mom and Dad were at that very show and at dinner Mom was all excited and told me that I should get a job at Circus World because there were people working in the show that looked just like me.

After a few years as a stage hand, I started working as an Elephant ride goof. At about the same time as Buckles Woodcock went on the road with Ringling, most of the clowns quit because they were asked to meet and greet in the park and were not offered any more money for the extra work. So I sort of Scabbed my way into becoming a clown.

I was fortunate to have learned my craft by being influenced from some of the last of the old timers. Antonio Hoyos took me under his wing and taught me to be a humble and respectful clown. As a stagehand I watched Bill Vaughn flip his massive body around to his butt, cry, and flutter his blue nose to bring the house down. Ann Stevenson,(Frank’s wife, and Swede Johnson’s daughter,)gave me a history lesson about clowning before they started Clown College, The Stevenson’s presented the best dog act in the world at Circus World but their Irish Circus heritage had always been with horses, Frank had a Chimp act and was tying to put an act together with some of Circus Worlds horses and me, but Circus World kept selling the horses that we were using for the act.

I did levitation with Barry Lubin the august clown and not Grandma, that was a management power play and all he had for a costume was his old Clown College stuff and a hideous baseball hat. He was so funny.

I once trained with Fay Alexander at “Be a Star Circus” to fly on the trapeze, but it was a little too late in my life, and I fell better than I flew.

I clowned at Circus World from about 1978 to 1986, in the early eighties we became the holding area for Clown College hopefuls that didn't make the cut for the Red or Blue show. After we deprogrammed their swelled heads that came with the college, for many years we had the best alley ever. My wife Terri was a 1979 Clown College Graduate, and we met at Circus World.

I stole most of Gail LaJoy’s chair gag and Ron let me put it in the show to teach me a lesson. Well it took off, gave me star status, and I am still ridding its wake; I did the gag a little over year ago at the International Market World, (after losing 15 lbs. from clowning in the heat, I could again the handstands at age 52, but not the one arm lever on the back rest.) Today I've have the old weight back and then some. :o)

In 1986 when Circus World was sold, I left the Circus ant went to Disney World to work in fur. It was only temporary gig until something better came along, but I am still there. This is just a thin powdered snow level on the tip of an iceberg of my Circus Stories. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to reminisce, and thank you for your time,.