Phunny Phorty Phellows
Herald the arrival of the 2011 Carnival Season
Carnival Officially begins with the ride of the Phunny Phorty Phellows on Twelfth Night.
The Phunny Phorty Phellows will board at the RTA streetcar barn, located on Willow Street, at 6:30 p.m. on Twelfth Night, Thursday, January 6th, 2011. The Phunny ride will begin at 7:00 p.m. sharp The streetcar, which, traditionally, is still bedecked in it’s yuletide dressings, will leave the station for a route that will take the partying Phellows along th eSt. Charles Streetcar line past Lee Circle and turnaround at Canal St. and then back to the barn. You can’t miss the streetcar, it’s the one with the really noisy party inside and a big sign hanging from it reading: “It’s Carnival Time!”
For the First Time in Phunny Phorty Phellow History, the Phellows will be passing out special commemorative beads from the streetcar. The beads celebrate the 30th year of their modern day ride. (SEE PIC BELOW)
In 1982 the Phunny Phorty Phellows became the official heralds of Mardi Gras with their Twelfth Night ride in a traditional New Orleans streetcar announcing that, at last, the pre-Lenten season of “phun and phrivolity” had arrived.
Humor and whimsy are still very much a part of the Phunny Phorty tradition with some members favoring costumes inspired by current events and the peculiarities of local culture. Masked revelers gather at the streetcar barn in Uptown New Orleans for the Twelfth Night ride and get into the spirit of the event by carrying signs and banners with humorous slogans and messages. There are champagne toasts and second line dancing as the sounds of the famous Storyville Stompers New Orleans Brass Band fill the air; the Phellows, after cutting a ribbon and announcing, “It’s Carnival Time!” then board a decked-out party streetcar.
While on their merry way, the Phellows and other revelers sip champagne, eat King Cake, dance and let fly with the very first beads of the Mardi Gras season. There are two King Cakes used for this phirst night phrolic, one for the female members and one for the gents. Custom dictates that whoever takes the slices containing the plastic Carnival babies are declared Queen and Boss Phellow for the year.
All this revelry is in keeping with the motto printed on a Phunny Phorty Phellows 1896 bulletin:
“A little nonsense now and then is relished by the best of men!”
About the DVD The first Mardi Gras in America was celebrated in Mobile, Alabama in 1703. In 2007, it is still racially segregated. Filmmaker Margaret Brown (Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt), herself a daughter of Mobile, escorts us into the parallel hearts of the city s two carnivals. With unprecedented access, she traces the exotic world of secret mystic societies and centuries-old traditions and pageantry; diamond-encrusted crowns, voluminous, hand-sewn gowns, surreal masks and enormous paper mache floats. Against this opulent backdrop, she uncovers a tangled web of historical violence and power dynamics, elusive forces that keep this hallowed tradition organized along enduring color lines.
