18th Annual Red Skelton Festival set for June 10-11 2023!

The Festival will be a two-day event with all Saturday events back on the grounds of the Red Skelton Museum, including stage entertainment, kids games, food trucks and more! The parade will step off at 12 PM on Saturday and will begin at 2nd and Hart, continuing down 5th St. and finishing on Main Street.

Sunday events at the Museum will include a tent show lecture  followed by a  Red Skelton film fest.

Saturday, June 10, 2023

Festival Button good for two days admission to museum (Button now for sale at museum’s gift shop.)

10:00 am – 5:00 pm  Museum open. Festival button good for museum admission all day

8:00 -11:00 am – Clown-O-Rama classes

11:00 am – parade line-up at 1st and Hart

12:00 pm – Parade Steps off at 2nd and Hart

1:00-4:00 PM  –  Red Skelton Festival events at the Museum including stage entertainment, clowns, kids bounce activities, food trucks and more!

Sunday June 11, 2023

10:00 pm  5:00 pm Museum open (Skelton Closet sale). Festival button good for Museum admission all day

11:00 AM – Tent Show lecture by Vice President of The Theatre Museum of Repertoire Americana in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, Grace Swank-Davis. Red Skelton performed with the John Lawrence Tent Show at a young age.

The Theatre Museum of Repertoire Americana houses a most unique collection of memorabilia from early American popular entertainment. Priceless stage drops, quaint artifacts, a massive computer-catalogued library, scripts and music scores dating from the 1850s are arrayed for the curious visitor and the dedicated scholar. The photographs, show heralds, playbills, scrapbooks, newspapers, costumes and scenery are from touring companies that played in hundreds of American opera houses, town halls and tent theatres. The collection also includes items from Chautauqua, showboats and minstrel shows.

12:00-5:00 PM – Red Skelton Film Festival

12:00 PM  –  “Whistling in the Dark” (1941 1hr 18min)  Whistling in the Dark is a 1941 comedy film directed by Sylvan Simon. It is the first of three films starring Red Skelton as Wally “the Fox” Benton, who writes and acts in radio murder mysteries. Wally is kidnapped by a greedy cult leader (played by Conrad Veidt, who threatens to kill Wally’s girlfriend (portrayed in all three films by Ann Rutherford) and another young woman unless he concocts a perfect murder. The film was based on the Broadway play of the same name by Laurence Gross and Edward Childs Carpenter. Uncredited contributing writer Elliott Nugent wrote and directed the earlier film adaptation of the same name.

1:30 PM “Fuller Brush Man” (1948 1hr 33min) The Fuller Brush Man is a 1948 American comedy film starring Red Skelton as a door-to-door salesman for the Fuller Brush Company who becomes a murder suspect.

3:15 PM “The Clown” (1953 1hr 31min) The Clown is a 1953 American drama film starring Red Skelton with Jane Greer and Tim Considine, and directed by Robert Z. Leonard. The story is derived from The Champ (1931). Once a famous Ziegfeld star, Dodo Delwyn is reduced to playing clowns in burlesque and amusement parks as a result of his drinking. His son Little Dink idolizes him and faithfully believes in a comeback. He persuades “Uncle” Goldie, Dodo’s agent in the good old days, to find a booking for Dodo. He can’t, and Dink is sent to live with his remarried-and-wealthy mother Paula. The unhappy Dink runs back to his father. His welcome return gives Dodo the courage he needs to try a knockabout TV show offered by Goldie.