Summer of 1960 — varied appearances in the 1980s
500 Yates Garage 📍Findlay, Ohio
KEESTONE KOPS FINDLAY
FINDLAY POLICEMEN have staged wild chases in ten different communities during the past 10 months and have received only laughs for their efforts.
During off-duty hours they’ve travelled nearly 1,000 miles. One trip took them into the neighboring state of Michigan.
But nowhere have they found anyone who will take them seriously.
That does not discourage them. Their hometown of Findlay is proud of them. Their superior officers encourage their performances.
They accept the laughs and ‘ask for more. For they are Findlay’s Keestone Cops.
They made their debut last year during the merchants’ Old Fashioned Days celebration.
They promise to be around Monday and Tuesday to add their clowning to the carnival atmosphere which will pervade
Findlay’s business district during the two day “shoppers’ spree” planned by Findlay merchants.
LAST YEAR while the entire community was dreaming up ways to bring back a past era several of “Findlay’s Finest”
Decided they wanted to get in the act. With Bob Bower as the “brains” they conceived the idea of reviving the Keystone Cops of Mack Sennett silent comedy days.
They “put the finger” on a model A Ford in Fostoria, brought it to Findlay, and with the help of several Findlay merchants, re-vamped it into an old-fashioned paddy wagon which they now use to haul “criminals” off to the pokey.
REALIZING that the name Keystone Cops is copyrighted they changed the spelling to Keestone OpsC
But for those who recall the silent flicker days when slapstick, two-reel comedy had ’em rolling in the aisles. The only difference between Findlay’s Keestone Cops and Mack Sennett’s Keystone Cops is in the spelling of the name.
When Bob Bower, Dwight Rinehart, Pliny Breyman, Clarence Wagner, Dave Willier, Don Williams, and Dick Baumlein change from their natty police uniforms into their Keestone “disguise” they look strikingly like the Keystone Cops of three decades ago.
‘Because it is impossible to always arrange their engagement, so they coincide with everyone’s off duty time they have enlarged the Keestone force to include Frank Hanna, local contractor and Jack Orwick, Mel Lafferty and John Karcher as auxiliary members. Now it is possible for at least five to be always ready to travel.
EVEN THE late Mack Sennett, creator of the Keystone Cops, would be proud of Findlay’s Keestones if he could see them per forming their zany antics. He probably have to look twice to make certain they were not members of his comedy police force as they give chase in their paddy wagon, black mustaches bending to the breeze, English bobby hat covering their heads, over-sized star badges on their old-fashioned uniforms, and swinging wicker looking billy clubs.
SINCE THEIR first performance here last August they have brought laughs to crowds at the Holland, Michigan Tulip
Festival, the Halloween parade in Fostoria the Findlay College Homecoming and the local Halloween parade, the Ottawa Centennial, homecoming celebrations in McComb, Forest, Houcktown, Mt. Blanchard and Arlington, the Steam Threshers Reunion in Greenville, and the roller-skating benefit for the Hancock County Society for Crippled Children and Adults.
In Holland, Michigan they turned “criminals” themselves and “kidnapped three of the Tulip Festivals klompen dancers, then riding around the paddy wagon.
BESIDES Carnival Days here Monday and Tuesday the Keestone Cops will be performing at the Vanlue Homecoming Aug. 3, the Bluffton Centennial, Aug. 12, 15 and 17, and the Ada Home coming Aug. 1.
In performance of their “duty” at the Bluffton Centennial the Keystone Cops will “arrest” beardless men who are unable to produce a shaving permit, and escort them to the “jail” which has been constructed for that purpose.
Their slogan could be “Have Billy Club. Will travel.” They can be contacted by writing “Keestone Cops, P. O. Box 277, Findlay, O.” They are ready and waiting for any community who wants a laugh. But remember these cops have criminal tendencies.
NewspaperArchive | Findlay Republican Courier, June 29, 1961 Pg. 3, Findlay. Ohio, US
https://newspaperarchive.com/findlay-republican-courier-jun-29-1961-p-3/
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