Lassie - Episode 111 - "The Elephant" - Season 4, #8 (10/27/1957)

The circus train derails on its way to Calverton, freeing the elephants, including a baby elephant that Timmy and Lassie find in the woods and bring home. TRIVIA: The traveling circus had always been a part of civilization, from pre-Roman days up to our 21st century. During the 1950's they were a mainstay in the US, especially popular in the mid-west where entertainment more often was the "do it yourself" type of event. So a circus, with exciting wild animals like elephants, tigers, lions, and zebra one rarely saw outside a zoo, aerial death-defying acts, and funny clowns, was always a huge draw for the local population. During that era most circus traveled by rail road box car, stopping at towns along the way to set up for a weekend, and then pack up back into the railroad cars for a journey to another town. This was not the first Lassie episode to feature an escaped circus animal - "The Lion" in Season 1 (#8) was a hilarious example of this situation being used to great success. NOTE: This recording has been edited to remove commercials and to add titles and descriptions. The re-broadcast has not been stretched or modified in any way from the original film which was distributed for TV viewing in classic black and white early 1950's "square TV screen" format. "Lassie" is copyrighted and owned by Classic Media. The first 4 seasons of "Lassie" were later syndicated as "Jeff's Collie". Recorded from COZI TV in 2013 via free over-the-air antenna TV.