Venice Beach has a reputation for being an outstanding location for people watching, but if you’d like to venture beyond the world of crazy tourists, eclectic beach vendors, Muscle Beach, and tattooed passerbys, walk through the doors of the Venice Beach Freakshow.  It’s usually hard to miss.  Todd Ray, who runs the operation with his son Phoenix, is often outside trying to lure people in with a sneak peak at one of his two-headed turtles.  Once inside, you’ll find a world of wonders.  The Venice Beach Freak Show currently houses an impressive array of two-headed and very much alive animals, over sixty strange creatures, and a continuously running live show with extraordinary acts such as sword swallowers, the Rubber Girl, fire eaters, the Electric Lady, and Larry the Wolf Boy.

As I walked in for my official behind-the-scenes tour, Todd and crew were in the process of feeding Lenny & Squiggy, a two-headed hognose snake, and one of the rarest snakes in existence.  “There has never been one like that in quoted history,” Todd explained.  Cheech & Chong, a two-headed turtle with six legs, was another intriguing oddity that I was introduced to.  Todd explained that many of the two-headed animals have two personalities.  They often compete over who gets to gobble up their food and sometimes disagree on which direction they want to move in.  I also had a chance to pet the adorably spunky 5-legged Miniature Pincher, Rocky, who Todd and his wife Danielle adopted and consider to be a part of the family.

Todd’s daughter, Asia, gave me a glimpse of her fire eating skills, contortionist maneuvers, and ability to tolerate sitting in an electric chair, which made me a bit squeamish to watch.  Next it was Brett’s turn to debut his sword swallowing skills.  He grabbed a sword, licked both sides, and shoved it down his throat as it disappeared into God knows where.  As if that wasn’t talent enough, Brett took it to the next level by bending forward, showing off another angle of his partially digested sword.

As a child, Todd had a curiosity with the circus and the strange.  It was when his stepfather took him to a carnival that he stumbled upon a performance by Otis Jordan, who carried a message that would stick with him forever.  Otis, otherwise known as the “Human Cigarette,” was a man with ossified hands and legs that used various parts of his body, like his tongue and shoulder, to open a jar of tobacco, pull out rolling paper, pour a perfect line, and light the cigarette.  Captivated by the show, Todd was given the opportunity to speak with Otis afterwards who told him, “If I can do what I can in my condition, you can do anything.”  Keeping Otis’s words in the back of his mind, Todd continued to collect circus paraphernalia, along with ‘strange things,’ while working his way towards a career centered around his other love, the music industry.  After becoming a Grammy-winning producer, Todd opted to bail out of the corporate world and decided to open up the freakshow to try his hand at his passion.

The quest to collect two-headed and other strange creatures is an ongoing hobby for Todd, who frequently visits reptile forums and speaks with hobbyists to track down his creatures from around the globe.  In addition, Todd never stops searching for the most talented individuals that he can find, snatching up anyone who has a show-stopping forte.  Todd explained to me that an 80-year old woman was rolled into his freakshow the other day in a wheel chair, attached to an oxygen tube.  He showed her one of his two-headed turtles to which she replied, “In my 80 years, I have never seen anything like it.”  “That,” explained Todd, “is why I do what I do.”
Words by Nicole Pajer, photos by Sidney Bensimon

For more information on Freakshows and the world of circus sideshows, please visit www.sideshowworld.com

The Venice Beach Freakshow
909 Ocean Front Walk
Venice, CA 90291
(310) 314-1808