Today in 1901, a decision in a court case that allows us to say pretty much whatever we like about a podcast, or a song, or a performance.
And it all started with some of the strangest performances of all time, put on by the Cherry Sisters.
These were real sisters, out of the eight Cherry children who grew up on a farm in Iowa in the late 19th Century.
The young ladies decided not only that they should start performing on the vaudeville circuit, they should write their own show, called Something Good, Something Sad.
The sisters had pretty rigid views on morals and values, and so their songs, plays and monologues were all about virtue and righteousness and such things.
At one point in the show they hoisted one of the sisters up onto a cross to reenact the crucifixion!
The Cherrys’ Iowa neighbors reacted politely to the sisters’ show, but the rest of the vaudeville world, not so much.
The consensus was that Something Good, Something Sad was not at all good, and that was very, very sad.
But it was never without an audience.
People loved to come to the show, mostly so they could mock the Cherry Sisters in person, or throw fruit and vegetables at them during the show.
They eventually had to perform behind a mesh curtain for safety reasons.
One down on his lucky theater owner in New York said “I’ve been putting on the best talent, and it hasn’t gone over…I’m going to try the worst.”
The crowds for the Cherry Sisters were so big it saved him and his theater from bankruptcy.
Some people have even suggested the sisters were in on the joke and performed a bad show on purpose because they made so much money.
Then again, few of us want to make a living where we get roasted everywhere they go.
And they did: the reviews of their show were brutal.
The New York Times once referred to the sisters as, “Four Freaks From Iowa.”
Reviewers started trying to outdo each other with insults.
One referred to the sisters as more terrifying than the witches from Shakespeare’s MacBeth, and it called Addie Cherry “a capering monstrosity.”
That apparently crossed a line, because the Cherry Sisters sued the Des Moines Leader, one of the papers that printed the scathing recap of their show.
The case went to court and so did the sisters, who performed for the judge before he ruled… in favor of the paper.
He said, “Any performance to which the public is invited may be freely criticized. Also any editor may publish reasonable comments on that performance.”
So they may not have been the greatest performers, but they sure left an impression.
The start of summer travel season reminded me of a guy in Italy named Edoardo Flores.
His hobby is collecting Do Not Disturb signs when he’s staying in different hotels.
And there’s quite a range of them, from the one shaped like a sleeping tiger to the one that looks like a bottle of wine and says “I am still dreaming.”
Fair Comment (American Heritage)
Cherry Bomb: The Story of the Awful Cherry Sisters (WFMU)
This guy collects Do Not Disturb signs from Hotels around the World (Messy Nessy Chic)
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Photo via Historycenter.org and Wikicommons
