Toby Tyler, Or Ten Weeks With A Circus (1960)
This movie was the way my life should have been. Toby is an orphan that has to live with his old, crappy aunt and
uncle. The uncle is one of those old coots you usually find in Disney
movies like this: really mean and emotionally abusive. That character is always
the most important one in these films, because since he's such a prick, the
little kid has to runaway or get a fantasy life or something.
Toby is just a
little kid who doesn't ask for much. He's poor, but he is super-stoked
when the circus rolls into to town. This isn't some newfangled circus that
hands out coupons at the local Hy-Vee or has their little posters hanging up in
the local Casey's. This is a full-blown, traveling circus that comes right up
Main Street, U.S.A. in all its brightly colored glory.
The movie takes place
sometime in the past when cages full of animals being pulled down the street
brought out crowds of townspeople in awe, instead of those commie whiners like
PETA that
think they know what's best for a bunch of dumb, smelly beasts.
Too poor to actually see the circus, Toby hangs around outside the tent soaking
up the atmosphere when he's befriended by the guy selling peanuts, candied
apples, and lemonade. Harry Tupper is a smooth talker and offers Toby
a job being his assistant. Toby wishes he could go, but he has an old jerk
uncle to go home to, so he declines. Harry gives him a free pass to the circus
for that evening's performance and wishes him luck.
Well, when Toby gets home,
his uncle lays into him for hanging out with the circus instead of feeding the
hogs who have since escaped and eaten the neighbors or something. He tears up
Toby's free pass and tells him that he's not his real son! 
Just so Toby doesn't miss
his point, the uncle calls Toby as "millstone" around their neck and then sends
him to bed without supper. You can practically hear Harry Tubber rubbing his
hands together in eager anticipation. You can imagine how surprised I
was when Toby turns up at the circus, prepared to run away to vend peanuts.
Never saw that coming.
Tupper soon reveals himself as a slimy dingus who tries
to cheat Toby, yells at him, and steals his mail. (Was this my college
roommate?)
Though the audience quickly has their doubts about Harry, you know
that if you were in Toby's position you'd overlook his off-putting demeanor.
You'd just be wondering how long it would be before you were riding the
elephants and the trapeze lady!
Toby meets a varied cast of characters during his time at the circus. There's
Ben, the over-sized gruff, but lovable chap in charge of the monkeys. He
spends most of his time alternately complaining about having to look after a
little runaway and protecting Toby from Tupper's unscrupulous ways. There's
Sam, the clown who dispenses wisdom about circus life (save your money, never
agree to play stinkyfinger with Tupper, etc.).
There's also two other little kids
who do trick-riding on the horses - Jeanette and Ajax. Jeanette likes Toby,
while Ajax is a self-centered brat who we all laugh at when does some showing
off on a horse and gets his leg broken off, sending him to rehab and forcing
Toby to step up and save the show by learning to be a expert trick rider in two
weeks.
And then there's Mr. Stubbs. Mr. Stubbs is the chimp that
Toby ends up palling around with though as is the case with most of these
boy-chimp relationships, things start off a little rocky. See, Mr. Stubbs is
one of those chimps that runs around in bib overalls, squawking and stealing
stuff. He steals food, he steals money, and he even steals Toby's mail back
from Tupper!
Stubbs is worth the price of this movie just by himself and
somehow he ends up with all the dramatic scenes. There's the time he eats too
much and almost croaks. There's that time that he escapes from Toby, breaks
into the county jail, steals a gun and starts shooting at everyone. This is by
far the
greatest scene in any Disney movie as young Toby has to come in and talk Mr.
Stubbs down from doing anything stupid. At one point Stubbs took his gun and
stuck it in his mouth and I was jumping off my couch shouting "Damn it Stubbs!
You're no quitter! We can fix whatever's wrong! Just don't take the easy way
out!"
Then there's the time that Stubbs goes and gets himself shot by a
hunter
who has somehow mistaken the Osh-Kosh wearing little fella for a bobcat or
something. Oh Mr Stubbs! Why? You were just realizing how valuable life
was!
As entertaining as the majority of this one was, I found the ending of the
movie to be less than genuine, chiefly because of the
sudden change that the uncle apparently underwent. Those letters that Tupper
was hiding from Toby were from his aunt and uncle (I'm assuming they knew he
was with the circus because they saw Fox News' coverage of that big monkey
shoot out in Woodvale) and it turns out that they want him to come home,
because the uncle is having problems doing all the work by himself. Well, too
bad, jackass! You should have thought of that before you went and scarred Toby
for life with your heartless blather. If I was Toby, I would have written him
and told him that I hope he falls into the hog pen.
Toby is young though and
his heart still hasn't shriveled all up from a lifetime of rejection so he
decides to runaway from the circus. What the?!? Who ever has runaway from a circus? Stubbs runs away, too (You just knew he wasn't about to miss out on
this!) and this is when he takes a bullet.
Tupper brings Toby back to the
circus, his aunt and uncle are there and his uncle is real sorry and all
reformed and crap. I would have taken him on a personal tour of the tigers'
cage, but Toby is glad to see them and now that he's a famous trick rider,
everyone is glad to have him as their son or something. 
It's a bittersweet
moment since Mr. Stubbs couldn't be there to share it, but the next thing we
know, there's Sam and he's gone and bandaged up Stubbs' ribs so that he looked
like Diamond Dallas Page during the last three years of his rassling career.
Tupper
gets what's coming to him and Toby triumphantly performs in front of the family
that up until a week ago thought he was nothing but a burden.
Okay, so I
didn't buy the happy ending with the family. I think it could have worked out
fine if Toby figured out that a family consisted of people who cared about you
(Ben and Sam) and not people who share your blood. The ending notwithstanding,
the ninety-plus minutes of this movie flew on by in a blur of circus antics,
colorful characters and solid work by performers like Kevin Corcoran (Toby).
He was just a kid
looking for someplace to belong and found it at the circus. That doesn't mean
it was all wine and roses once he joined the circus, but even when faced with
problems (like when that no-good Stubbs stole all his money) he consistently
rose to the occasion and maintained his optimism (usually after some
straight-talk from someone like Ben).
This is classic wish-fulfilment stuff
here. I defy anyone to watch Toby ride away on the circus wagon in the middle
of the night, all the problems in his life left behind him, and not think how
it was when you were a kid and your future seemed limitless, that anything was
possible as long as you were willing to take a chance. A fun diversion full
of the magic of the old-time circus and the exuberant adventure of childhood.
What Top Gun did for military recruitment, Toby Tyler does for running away with the circus.
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