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Fred Jenks and Wilson were a clown team in Hagenbeck & Wallace and Ringling Brothers-and- Barnum & Bailey circuses, among others. The duo supposedly originated the clown band concept, which later became a component of all circuses. Jenks and his wife, Grace Burk, began an act called Jenks and Jenks, whose big hit was imitating a chicken with its head cut off. When the Jenks retired from the circus world they operated roller skating rinks in Saginaw.
After the Jenks married, Watson teamed up with George Bickel portraying German comics. One of their gags was to pretend to play the violin while sharing a music stand. The one clown, intently playing, poked the other clown in the eyeball with his violin bow, oblivious to the discomfort he was causing a fellow musician. Watson and Bickel performed in the Ziegfeld Follies and the Palace Theater in New York. Watson also worked solo, earning $2,000 a week in the 1920s. Eventually, Watson retired to Panatong, Oregon. Bickel retired to Hollywood, but was later buried in Saginaw.
