Haverly's United Mastodon Minstrels walkers, and minstrels in elephant costumes. Haverly's United Mastodon Minstrels saw great success, and the impact on minstrelsy was profound. Other troupe owners rushed to compete, mimicking the Mastodons' elaborate sets and large number of players. Ultimately, many smaller companies folded or were forced to travel further from the established minstrel circuits in order to survive. Haverly's United Mastodon Minstrels Haverly's United Mastodon Minstrels was a blackface minstrel troupe created in 1877, when J. H. Haverly merged four of the companies he owned and managed. Borrowing techniques from showmen like P. T. Barnum, Haverly advertised the Mastodons in broadsides, newspapers,
Creature suit invented. As part of his circus sideshow in London in 1846, P. T. Barnum had an actor wearing a fur suit of an "ape-man", and continued to dress actors in similar costumes as attractions. They were used starting from the early days of film as practical effects, to represent animals that were too prohibitive to train or use, such as gorillas. Some films even tried to pass off costumes as real animals, which caused controversy. The first foam rubber creature suit used in film was Gill-man, from the film "Creature from the Black Lagoon", which released in 1954 and beat