The Curious Case of the Flea Circus - Talent, Trickery, and an Itch to Entertain

On this episode of Dirt Nap City, Kelly and Alex dive into the tiny, bizarre, and surprisingly complex world of the flea circus. Before the age of digital distractions, these minuscule sideshows were a popular—and genuine—form of entertainment across Europe and the United States.

But how did it all work? We'll pull back the curtain on the showman's secrets, revealing how the "flea professors" capitalized on the flea's natural instincts, rather than "training" them. You'll learn about the careful selection process of finding fleas with a predisposition for jumping versus walking and the painstaking task of fitting them with delicate gold or copper wire harnesses. Using a flea's disproportionate strength, performers would pull tiny chariots, kick lightweight balls, and rotate miniature Ferris wheels. We'll also expose the more cunning acts, like the "flea orchestra" where a heated enclosure was used to make glued-down fleas frantically wave their legs, creating the illusion of a performance.

Finally, we'll explore why the golden age of the flea circus came to an end. The reasons aren't what you'd expect and have less to do with animal cruelty concerns than with a major societal shift. We'll reveal how the widespread use of vacuum cleaners and improved hygiene in homes led to a rapid decline in the human flea population, effectively putting the performers out of work. With their star actors scarce, most shows transitioned to using mechanical or magnetic effects, and the art form slowly faded from memory. Tune in to discover the fascinating history of this almost-forgotten miniature marvel.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Alex, Alex, Alex. It's been way too long. Good to see you. How are you, my friend? Hey Kelly, what's going on, man? Well, I want to talk to you today about something that is uh tiny, but it was kind of a big phenomenon about a hundred years ago, maybe even 200 years ago, something that people would go to entertain themselves, and it was something that people I guess thought was just the bee's knees at that time, but it wasn't really what they thought it was, right? And I want to explain it to you, but can you think of any kind of dumb things that people participated in in the you know 1700, 1800s that we don't do today?

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Well, I know you've always wanted to talk about the bicycle with the big with the big tires. True, true.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

What are those called again? Pen Penny farther.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yeah, we we haven't talked about those yet. But I'm guessing you're not you're not doing that. Nope um and I'm not sure what a Nickelodeon is, but I know that's a thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Oh yeah, this might this might kind of fall under that under that category of of kind of you might think of this along with a Nickelodeon type type thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Is it kind of technology entertainment?

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Um definitely entertainment. Um and and what this was, you would go into this dark room as it might be part of a freak show. You remember freak shows? Um, I mean, not that we ever went to freak shows, but you remember the kind of vibe. Sure. They would have these oddities and these weird things going on, and people would go and pay their nickel or penny or whatever it was, and they would go into this little room, and in this room, there weren't very many people, it was a small audience usually. There would be a master of ceremonies kind of a guy. He was almost like a circus barker, you know, somebody there that could talk loud and kind of keep the action moving. And then there would be a white table, and on this white table you might have things like little tiny horses or little trapezes or little trampolines, and then there were the most amazing circus performers, and you know what they were? Were they fleas? They were fleas.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Yes, flea. I haven't thought about a flea circus in a long time, but I don't ever really I've never thought about a flea circus until a week ago or two weeks ago. Oh, flea circus, yeah. Yeah, that was that thing. It's I think our version of the flea circus was the the sea monkeys. Um but they always oversold the sea monkeys because they didn't do like what they were doing in the picture.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

No, no, they didn't look like I mean they were brine shrimp, right? Right monkeys? Well, so I don't even know what a flea circus really is. Well, let's talk about that. This is the dead end, and this is something that used to exist, doesn't really happen anymore. But yeah, these these trained, and I use air quotes, trained fleas would perform tricks. They would pull carts, they would spin wheels, they would dance, um, all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

And fleas, just to be clear, fleas are like these almost microscopic little bugs that get on like dogs and stuff, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:19

They are blood suckers, so that's that's their main um their main source of food is sucking blood. They have to have uh a blood feed pretty often, although they can go a while without one. But yeah, they they live on animals with fur, they can live on people, they can live in carpet, they can they they're attracted to white socks because they're mostly blind and they just can see the difference between black and white. And if they um if they see your white sock, they'll jump on it. You ever you ever had fleas on a white sock? No, I've never I don't know if I've ever seen a flea. Really? No, I don't I don't have a dog. Yeah, yeah. Oh man, I grew up with fleas. I grew up with fleas. Well, the amazing things about fleas is that they're actually super strong for their size, right? They can jump, um, I think it's like 200 times their their size. But they're smaller than like a fly, right? Or like smaller than a fly. Yeah, they're they're like the size of a pin head. You know, if you imagine a pin, the little little red or green or whatever color plastic head on the end of it, they're they're about that size.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

So I'm not really clear on how you're watching them do circus acts.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Well, you would watch them, and again, they would appear to pull a cart or to spin a wheel or to go up and down on a seesaw. This was all done through trickery and illusions. Okay. So they were doing things, but they were doing things because they were tied to these objects. And they were tied or glued um using tiny uh a magnifying glass and then tiny little um tweezers, and these people would use very thin, clear silk, you know, as as thin and clear. It didn't have to be very strong because it's only holding a flea, and they would tie it around the thorax, or they might put a tiny dab of glue and and glue this thing to it, and then fleas would because they are trying to escape, they would try to jump and they would try to move. And whatever this thing had, if it had a hinge, it would react to it. These are super lightweight things. Often these little props were made out of cork or very thin metal, imagine tin foil um or paper, right? So so these were very lightweight little things. And as the flea moved, it would look like it was operating this thing. So, you know, some pretty classic um flea circus tricks. No. Oh, well, there was the flea chariot race. So they would put these uh fleas, attach them to a chariot with a little yoke, and again, this yoke had a little bit of thread that was glued onto the back of the flea, and when the flea tried to jump, it would slightly move forward because it's so strong for its size, and it would carry this um or pull this chariot, and they might line up two or three of them, and then as soon as the fleas started going, they would all pull these chariots, and one of them would go the fastest. Does that sound like good entertainment to you?

SPEAKER_00 6:23

No, no, and it it just strikes me that you know sometimes we think about people from a long time ago because they didn't have the technology that we did do today, that maybe they were reading or working or sleeping or doing things that were better for them than we but really no, is that is that is a flea circus any worse than Jerry Springer or TikTok though? I mean, it's it's there's always been lowbrow entertainment, I suppose, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Well, it's you know, there's there's some people that say fleas are living creatures and shouldn't be treated that way, right? There's there's well, but your question was, is that sound entertaining? Yeah, I guess it was a novelty for people back then who thought that someone I mean the the whole thing was the showman would do things to to kind of nudge the show. So sometimes they used magnets underneath, so these chariot races sometimes the fleas would just be attached to them and kind of jerking around, and then a magnet would actually be moving these things. It was almost like a little magic show, right? Yeah, do you think that sounds entertaining? Uh probably once. I'd probably go to see a flea circus one time, you know. Let's bring it back, man. Hey, my nickel. Let's bring it back. Let's talk about a couple of other um flea circus classics. There was the tightrope walker. So the fleas have a tendency to twist and struggle, and they would actually be instead of tied directly to the tightrope, there would be a little piece of thread tied to the tightrope that could slide along it, and then the other end was tied to the flea. So it would kind of like try to get um away, and as it jumped, it would move along the tightrope. Okay. There was the flea cannonball. You've heard of the cannonball in a regular circus. Sure. This was uh where the flea would be in a little tiny cannon barrel made of something, you know, shot from a tiny cannon barrel. And basically, basically, there would be a little puff of uh of spark or talcum powder or something to make it look like somebody had lit the fuse, and then someone would blow into a little hole that would push it out through air, and there would be a net that would catch it on the other side, like a little piece of cloth.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

I'm thinking the lighting is really important for this, for any of these. Right? You you said it was a dark room and the fleas are lit in a certain way. So you're almost watching almost a light show, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is this is before a lot of light technology. There there might have even been a maybe candles. Yeah, yeah. Because there wasn't there wasn't actually electricity in the early days of this. These were these were these were going on in candlelit rooms or maybe rooms for sunlight.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Yeah, you wouldn't want to do this in a fluorescent room. No, it would it would give away all the uh tricks. Yeah, so maybe in a way the candlelit room or really dark room with one candle. Perfect place for a flea circus.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

I could see lighting is really important for this. Lighting was a big deal. Also, a lot of times they would include magnifying glasses that people could hold over the table to look at them. And again, this maybe looks like they're giving away their trick, but a little dab of glue on the back of a flea tied to a chariot or connected to a chariot, you wouldn't, I mean, you'd see the flea and you'd see the little chariot, but you wouldn't really know how it was connected. You know, you would just see it jumping and pulling the chariot.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

So, did this all stop before video? Like, have you ever seen a video of this? Or you just have you just read descriptions of this?

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Well, I'm gonna get to the modern day times of flea circuses. Um, I and modern day I mean 20th century. Your favorite century, by the way. Um so you know, the the other couple of tricks that they would have was the strong flea that would have a dumbbell, quote unquote, that that would would lift it or pull something that looked really heavy but actually wasn't. But fleas were very strong for their size. There was the dancing fleas, these they would be tethered in place um by their legs, and so there would be a little bit of uh music that would play, and then the fleas would kind of do like this because they were trying to get away. I mean it was kind of it was kind of cruel. If you can be cruel to a bloodsucking parasite. I don't understand why it was cruel. I mean, would you want your legs glued to a table until you died? I mean they didn't these these fleas weren't like you know, they didn't put them in a uh flea bed at night and feed them and take them out for walks and brush them like they do show horses. You know, these were basically one and done. These fleas would come in, do their show, die, and then they'd be replaced. But if you had a flea on your leg, you would smack it and kill it, right? Yeah, but it started it in that case. Oh, okay. Right? It's it's bitey me. So I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna that's defense. I'm defending myself. Got it. Well, the original most famous flea showman was a guy named Lewis Bertolotto, and he was um called Professor Heckler. That was his stage name in the 1800s in London. Yeah, Professor Heckler. And he was actually credited with um the first commercial flea circus. Now there were flea circuses, amateur flea circuses before this, but it was in the Regent Street Bazaar in London, and again, he would do all these classic circus trips, tricks, and it was very popular with the Victorian audiences at that time.

unknown 11:57

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Yeah, I mean, I I um I suppose they didn't have a lot of competition for their entertainment dollar. It must have been cheap, too.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Yeah, I I imagine, you know, uh you don't become a millionaire proprietor of a flea circus, although maybe Professor Heckler did. He's enough to show up today in a search for him.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Was this like uh lower uh working class uh people that would go to the house?

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Oh no, no, I think I think it was the aristocrats as well as lower working class. You know, this was this was um this was not this was discretionary spend, right? You didn't if you couldn't afford to buy bread, you didn't go spend your money on a flea circus. Um there was a guy named William Brock, he was the professor of the flea circus, and he was um the best known flea circus operator in the U.S. during the late 1800s. And his big thing was that he educated fleas and they would perform military drills, they would dance the waltz, and they would do chariot races.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Wait, what was the heckler? Was he Professor Heckler?

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Did you say he was Professor Heckler? And then this guy was Professor Brock was the professor of the flea circus.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

I wonder why it was so important to be seen as a professor in this in this line of work. Yeah, you know, you could be a flea circus provider, right? Don't think that I'm not thinking about it. Yeah, yeah. Bring it back. Seems like there's a uh a gap in the market for this right now.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Well, in an interview during uh late later in his life, after he was retired, um William Brock said that the fleas mostly did as they pleased, but the illusion of control was what delighted the audiences. Hmm. And then do you know the most famous uh poem about fleas? No, I can't say that I do. It was by a guy named John Don, D-O-N-N-E, and he was from the late 15, early sixteen hundreds during the English Renaissance, and he wrote a poem called The Flea, and I'm gonna read a little bit for you. Mark but this flea, and mark in this how little that which thou dost deny me. It sucked me first, now it sucks thee, and this flea our two bloods mingled be. And thou knowest that this cannot be said, a sin nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead, yet this enjoy before it woo, and pampered swells with blood made from two. And this alas is more than we would do. It goes on. Did did you say that was famous? It is the most famous uh flea poem ever. But here's the thing that might be the worst poem I've ever heard. It was considered erotic at the time. It was erotic flea poetry, and it was because it's about the blending of fluids between a man and a woman, and how when a flea he's basically trying to convince this woman to go to bed because they both uh had a flea suck their blood and their fluids are already combined, and he's like, Well, that's already happened, so why not take it further? Wow.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

I I I have to say, I really can't stand Victorians. You mean people from Victoria, Texas? I mean, I just whenever I think about the Victorian age, uh, it's just ever almost everything they done uh do offends me. Um and I'm sure the feeling was mutual too.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Well, I mean, back then this was very tantalizing and like I said, kind of erotic. Might have been, you know, like a like like where you you hid this um poem on your bedsheets or something and read it at night. I don't know. And and and slept with the fleas. So let's talk a little bit about fleas and some of their amazing abilities. Um can guess how many times their body length they can jump? I might have already said it. Uh I don't know, four. No, wait, it would have been way four four hundred, probably. Two hundred times their body weight. 200, yeah. And they can pull, okay, get this. They can pull or lift more than a hundred and sixty thousand times their own body weight.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

But which is the equivalent of a human pulling several double decker buses. Um they can go for a hundred days without a blood meal. They can hold their breath for up to a week. So you put them underwater, they can pull them out a week later, and they still still survive. And the egg-laying female, guess how many eggs she lays a day? A day. I would lay fifty. I was gonna say fifty. Yeah, yeah. 2,000 eggs in her lifetime. So their lifetime's pretty short. Fourteen days is pretty average. Um, and it kind of depends on you know their environment and all that sort of thing. They are blind, as I said, but they can tell the difference between light and dark, and so that's why I I do believe that white socks, I used to wear white long socks, and we had a lot of dogs, and several of them had fleas, and I would see them on my white socks because they stood out, you know, but they would also they they reacted to the um vibrations. Now, have you ever seen a close-up of a flea, like a a zoomed-in, really detailed photo of a flea with a masculine?

SPEAKER_00 17:26

No, I'm I'm I don't even know what I'm picturing. I'm picturing like maybe a mosquito. No, no, they don't have wings.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

They kind of no, mosquitoes are more torpedo shaped. Um, a flea is more like a football, it's kind of shaped like a little football, with with or you know, if you imagine a uh like if you took a piece of um like a like a roll, like a dinner roll, and kind of bent it over halfway, they're actually pretty scary looking. Like if you look at them up close, they are fleas are very scary looking. Like if they were bigger.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Let me Google that. Yeah, see what we'll see what we're looking at here. And of course, it's gonna immediately give me a picture of uh the bass player for the redhead cherry breakfast. Right. Oh yeah. Yeah, a little almost roachy looking.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Yeah, yeah. It's got a a carapace, I think is what that's called, the the type of um skin that it has. So they you asked earlier why the flea circus ended. So give me some ideas, some thoughts on why you think the flea circus might have ended.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Competition for I mean, I think better entertainment, better technology, and I mean it doesn't sound very I don't know, it just doesn't sound very compelling. And I feel like once you once uh it like you said it. You wouldn't be a repeat, you would be a repeat uh viewer of the once you've captured everybody that would have possibly wanted to go to a flea circus, you gotta move to the next town, I guess. True, true. Why do you think it ended?

SPEAKER_01 19:03

A few a few reasons. Number one, fleas are very hard to manage, like actually keeping a supply of fleas that have a short lifespan and being able to, you know, keep them glued into their places, and then they die, and then you have to unglue it and re-redo it and all that sort of thing. But the bigger thing was people started to realize that you know it wasn't rats that caused the plague, it was the fleas on the rats. Really caused the plague. Yeah, yeah. That was that was a big thing. Was that was how it was transmitted was was the fleas would bite somebody, they'd be on a rat, they'd come into your house, they'd bite you, and then you've got the plague.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

And you're the one that wants to be all humane to these things.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

I I didn't say I wanted to be that. I've I've squished many a flea in my day. You actually can't squish a flea. If you found a flea on your sock and pulled it off and tried to use your finger and thumb and squish it, you can't squish it. You have to have some hard surface. So you could push it between two fingernails and it'll give a little nice, satisfying splat of blood in between your fingernails. Hopefully, your own blood, not somebody with a plague. Um, you can also uh take them and hold them down and use a razor blade and kind of chop them. But but just to squish them, if you take it, like most insects, you could take it and just squish it and it'd be dead. A flea is so small and its body is just kind of like um hard enough that it's like squishing a little, you know, like a little sunflower seed or something. It doesn't squish. Wow. Um, but the other thing that came along was uh mechanical replacements. So as I said before, sometimes they would use magnets instead of um the fleas to move things to make it a little more exciting. They would use hidden gears, they would use air currents. Um these were all things that they would um move the props around, and there wouldn't even be a flea, it would just be a little black dot that looked like a flea. So the novelty, but uh ultimately, yes, the novelty wore off and the charm faded. So that's why flea circuses don't exist.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

You said there were some modern ones though that they're coming back.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Well, no, no, by modern I mean uh all the way up into the early 20th century. So have you ever seen a video of a flea circus? Yeah, or have you only read about it? You can you can uh you can find them. I have seen some in this whole research. Was it uh impressive or not really? No, no, no, far far less impressive on video than it is in person, and probably not that impressive for for for 21st century people, it is pretty dumb. Pretty late. But again, people back then were in some ways smarter and in some ways stupider. Yeah, do you think you don't think we should bring it back? I'm probably not going to. I'm gonna I'm gonna save my time for other stuff. I think the flea circus was uh is truly a dead end that deserves to be dead. So there you go. Those are flea circuses, everyone. Thanks for tuning in. Uh, we will see you next time when we'll have an interesting dead person to talk about.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

I'm the star of the show in a screaming dream. My world's so small when I make folks scream.