Geek show

Geek shows were an act in traveling carnivals and circuses of early America and were often part of a larger sideshow.

The Online Etymology Dictionary give the following for "geek": "sideshow freak," 1916, U.S. carnival and circus slang, perhaps a variant of geck "a fool, dupe, simpleton" (1510s), apparently from Low German geck, from an imitative verb found in North Sea Germanic and Scandinavian meaning "to croak, cackle," and also "to mock, cheat." The modern form and the popular use with reference to circus sideshow "wild men" is from 1946, in William Lindsay Gresham's novel Nightmare Alley (made into a film in 1947 starring Tyrone Power).

The billed performer's act consisted of a single geek, who stood in center ring to chase live chickens. It ended with the performer biting the chickens' heads off and swallowing them. The geek shows were often used as openers for what are commonly known as freak shows. It was a matter of pride among circus and carnival professionals not to have traveled with a troupe that included geeks. Geeks were often alcoholics or drug addicts, and paid with liquor – especially during Prohibition – or with narcotics.

The term "geek show" is often applied to situations where an audience is drawn to a performance or show where the performance consists of a horrific act that is found distasteful but ultimately entertaining by masses. It may also be used by a single person in reference to an experience which he or she found humiliating but others found entertaining. It is used in derision.

The film noir classic Nightmare Alley (1947) features a sideshow performer (Tyrone Power) who winds up as an alcoholic geek, biting the heads off chickens.

The artist Joe Coleman bit the heads off white rats as part of his stage act as Doctor Momboozo in the 1980s. He primarily did a 'Human Bomb' show, self-detonating at the end, but also performed with the rodents for his turn as a geek.

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