01x02 - Spectacular Stunts

[bunniefuu]

[electricity buzzing]
[intriguing orchestral music]

- Did you know that
there was a time

when daredevils performed
hundreds of feet in the air

without a net?

[intense orchestral music]
[airplane whirring]

- No parachute, no tethers,
just running and going for it.

Talk about dangerous, sheesh!

[dramatic orchestral music]
[airplane whirring]

- Do you remember when
a night at the ball game

could become an epic rampage?

[crowd clamoring]
[dramatic orchestral music]

- He tells his
players to grab bats

and go start walloping
these drunk fans.

[intense dramatic music]
[crowd clamoring]

- Or when a wrestling
bear in America

was a popular spectator stunt?

[bear growling]

- This was on 13th
Street in Manhattan.

You could go into Manhattan
and watch a bear fight a man.

- It's such a dumb idea
that it is brilliant.

- These are the
things we used to do

for fun, for money, or
maybe out of boredom

that we'll never see again.

Were they dangerous?

Certainly.

Deadly?

Occasionally.

But, boy, wasn't it exciting?

[dramatic thud]
[pensive dramatic music]

[dramatic thud]
[intriguing dramatic music]

Remember when daredevils
like Evel Knievel

captivated the nation?

We all gathered around our
TVs and held our breath

as they risked their lives
to do the impossible.

Well, there was one
mysterious figure

who tried to outdo
every last one of them.

- In the age of TikTok,

there's all sorts of
challenges and stunts people do

to get attention and likes,

but in the '60s and '70s,

if you wanted to get noticed,

you had to do something big

and it had to be extreme.

[air whooshing]
[engine roaring]

- [Henry] And the biggest
daredevil of the day

was Evel Knievel.

- Evel Knievel was a master
of clearing extreme distances,

jumping over buses, cars,
lions, things I would never do.

- He's a superstar.

Every kid wants
Evel Knievel merch,

whether it's a toy or a T-shirt.

[intriguing orchestral music]
[engine roaring]

- [Henry] But there is someone

who's out to top Evel Knievel.

- There's this Canadian guy
in a full body suit and a mask

who shows up on the scene,

he calls himself The Human Fly.

- He literally looks like
right out of a comic book.

He even says Evel Knievel
is his archenemy.

Great marketing.

- The Human Fly was
mysterious, he was theatrical,

no one really even
knew his identity.

Right out of the gate,

he decides to out-evil
Evel with his own stunt.

He's going to ride an airplane
about 300 miles an hour

on top of the plane.

[intriguing dramatic music]

In order to pull this off,

they're going to strap
him to this metal pole

on top of the plane,

and they have to
run this by the FAA.

- The FAA hears this
harebrained scheme

and their one bit
is "Wear a helmet."


up in the air,

what's a helmet gonna do
if anything goes wrong?

- [Henry] On June 20th,


A passenger of one

on top of a Douglas DC-8
four engine jetliner

for a 300-mile-an-hour flight

over California's Mojave Desert.

[pensive dramatic music]

- This is a major media event.

Brent Musburger is there from
CBS, everybody's watching.

[pensive dramatic music]

- After 15 minutes in the air,

the plane lands and The
Human Fly waves to the crowd.

- I thought this was
the greatest stunt

I'd ever seen before.

I couldn't believe he survived.

- It seems to be a success,

but the television crew records
him going to the ambulance

for burns suffered on his legs.

- [Reporter] Fly,
tell me what happened?

What about the burns?

- [Human Fly] Well,
traveling at that speed,

it's unavoidable.

I've never hit speeds like that,

the pressure was tremendous.

- [Henry] Despite his injuries,

the successful stunt
earned him superhero status

and a Marvel comic book.

But The Human Fly has
something even bigger in store

to upstage his nemesis.

- So The Human Fly's
plan was fantastic.

He said Evel Knievel's

gonna jump 13 buses.

Anybody could just be like,

"I'll jump 14 buses,
maybe 15 buses."

[engine revving]

- The Human Fly says that
he's gonna go for 27 buses.

- You think that
somebody in his crew

would be like, "Hey, Human Fly,

like maybe, you know, you
don't have to really do that."

[engine rumbling]
[intriguing dramatic music]

- Everything seems perfect,

but there are some physical
limitations with the venue.

It's basically nowhere
near enough room

to gain the speed he needs
to pull off the stunt.

- So his motorcycle
engineer comes in with the idea

to build him a
rocket-powered motorcycle.

He replaces the
motorcycle's engine

with two 1,500-pound thrust
hydrogen peroxide rockets.

There's no laps, no
getting up to speed.

They just place the Harley
at the bottom of the ramp,

The Fly gets on,
presses the button,

holds on tight and prays.

[intense dramatic music]

- [Henry] He lands short of
the ramp, crashing near bus 19.

- He breaks Evel's record,
but he also pays the price.

He's carried off on a stretcher
with serious injuries.

Here's the crazy part, he's
never heard from ever again.

- As a kid, I didn't think
much of it when he disappeared.

I guess I just didn't realize
it until it was too late,

and I was like,

"Hey, what happened
to The Human Fly?"

- No one has ever seen The
Human Fly since that day.

That was it.

I mean, talk about going
out with a blaze of glory.

- Just like daredevils
on two wheels

define gravity with rubber
tires and roaring engines,

a century ago in
America's heartland,

a unique brand of
entertainment took off

to even greater heights.

[airplane whirring]

- In the 1920s,

there was a lot of
enthusiasm about aviation.

People are really excited

about exploring the
skies in the world.

- World w*r I had a huge
impact on aircraft technology.

They were made more
maneuverable,

they were made faster.

But when World w*r I ended,

there was a surplus
of airplanes.

So what did the government do?

They began to sell
them to civilians.

- In the true American spirit,
these new airplane owners,

they look for a way to
monetize their new hobby.

- [Henry] What they come
up with is barnstorming.

[dramatic thud]
[pensive dramatic music]

- What they would do
is land these planes

in the middle of
these huge farms,

and they would invite people
to go for rides with them.

And, of course, they're
charging a fee for this.

- Some pilots were
just raking in cash.

It was all about trying
to make your ride

better than the next person.

So it very quickly became
a game of showmanship.

Because they were
trying to up the ante,

they got the idea

of maybe we could take
someone else up there with us

and do some stunts on the plane,

but fly low enough that
people could see it.

And that's really where the
term aerialist came from.

[pensive dramatic music]
[airplane whirring]

We had wing walkers

and people that would
stand on top of the plane.

When it got really crazy is
when the wing walkers decided

"Maybe I could run from
the wing of this plane

and jump onto the wings
of another plane."

No parachute, no tethers,
just running and going for it.

I mean, talk about
dangerous, sheesh!

- [Henry] The stunts
are hair-raising,

potentially deadly,

and with no government
oversight, anything goes.

- One early barnstorming
celebrity was named Eddie Angel,

who would perform a stunt
called The Dive of Death,

which he would do at night.

He would actually freefall
from about 5,000 feet

holding two flashlights, so
you could keep track of him,

and he wouldn't
open his parachute

until he could see the ground.

- You wanna play a tennis
match a mile up in the air?

They actually set one up.

Were they watching
the tennis match,

or were they hoping for
something bad to happen?

Don't know, but it
was entertaining.

- A 10-year-old girl by
the name of Mildred Unger,

she does the Charleston
on the wings of a biplane.

Now that's crazy
enough just to say,

"Hey, she danced on the
wings of a biplane,"

but she did it
without a harness,

and she did it without a tether,

and, presumably,
without a loving parent.

- [Henry] Barnstorming
accidents are frequent.

In 1923 alone, there are


and 126 injured.

Aviation safety
becomes a top priority.

- President Coolidge passed
the Air Commerce Act in 1926,

which basically
said all the planes

had to be certified
and inspected.

- [Henry] And for
the first time,

pilots now need to be licensed.

- Today there's an FAA

and restrictive life
insurance policies

that ensure that this kind of
thing will never happen again.

[airplane whirring]
[pensive orchestral music]

- I do always
admire the stuntmen

and the people who are willing

to put their lives,
sometimes stupidly,

in danger for our entertainment.

They may lose life,
they may lose limb,

[plane crashing]

but I posit

that these people are just
as heroic as astronauts,

'cause they're putting
their bodies on the line

for our entertainment.

- After getting
grounded by regulation,

the barnstormers thrilling
chapter came to an end.

But for those who got to see it,

it was something special.

And looking up at the skies
was never the same again.

- Long before the X Games,

there was a place
called Signal Hill,

where they took a new trend

and they pushed it way
beyond its intended limit.

- Skateboarding, it starts
as just a local fad,

dominating the Southern
California culture.

By the 1970s, it grew to
become a national trend.

- [Henry] Skateboard
competitions begin

to pop up everywhere,

but those early competitions
usually involve simple tricks

or maneuvering around
orange street cones.

- The boards in those
days were primitive,

nothing like today.

There are basically wood planks

with roller skate
wheels attached.

- How fast can we go
before we burn the wheels,

you know, into molten plastic?

And the answer was Signal Hill.

- [Henry] In 1975, in the
hilltop town of Signal Hill

near Long Beach,

a promoter decides
to launch a contest

that will have competitors
racing downhill

in what he calls speed runs.

- Signal Hill is about 365 feet

above Long Beach in California.

It has this huge 30-degree
incline on Hill Street,

which is perfect

for these insane downhill
speed competitions.

- When a skater goes
down the incline,

their speed increases
with the time squared.

After one second,
you have a speed,

after two seconds, you
have four times that speed,

so your speed increases rapidly.

The higher the hill, the
bigger the speeds you gain.

- The skateboarders could
possibly reach speeds

of up to 50 miles an hour.

Now, put this into perspective,

the US government has just
put a national speed limit

on automobiles at


What could go wrong?

- [Henry] The answer? Plenty.

Only six competitors
dare to show up,

but after getting a sneak
peek of the steep downhill,

four drop out,

leaving just Guy Grundy
and Garrison Hitchcock.

- Grundy, he comes prepared in
a leather suit and a helmet,

other people, not so much.

One guy shows up in
shorts and T-shirt,

he looks at the
hill and he's like,

"Uh, no, I'm not doing that.

You guys are nuts."

- Skateboarding typically

is like a couple tricks
down the sidewalk,

maybe you hop the
curb, things like that.

There is no
competitions like this,

nobody is prepared
for the speed.

- Grundy ends up
winning the competition.

[pensive dramatic music]

He sets a downhill speed
record 50.2 miles per hour.

- Garrison Hitchcock, he
doesn't walk away so happy,

he falls, dislocates
his shoulder,

and he's whisked
away in an ambulance.

- [Henry] But that doesn't put
a damper on these speed runs,

quite the opposite, it makes
them even more popular.

[intriguing dramatic music]

- So the next event occurs,

and there's thousands
of spectators.

They are rowdy, they want
to see somebody wipe out.

[crowd cheering]
[pensive dramatic music]

- [Henry] Some competitors
modify their skateboards,

hoping for better aerodynamics.

- They come up with this
thing called the skate car,

which literally looks like
a futuristic coffin/rocket.

They have these friction
brakes for stopping,

but steering wheels
are not allowed.

- So these things are
actually more dangerous

than just a regular
old-fashioned skateboard.

So if your brakes fail,

you are gonna go
wherever it takes you.

[crowd shrieking]
[pensive dramatic music]

- I mean, that is insane.

Some people would
call that stupid.

- By 1976, word has gotten out

about the downhill speed
racing, thousands of spectators.

It's a national news event.

- And when you see
those highlights,

you're like, "How
is this allowed?"

- In 1977, one of Signal
Hill's first female competitors

is a 21 year old
named Tina Trefethen.

She tops the speed record
at over 57 miles an hour.



Here's the bad news,

she hits a pole.

She breaks both wrists,
cracks some ribs,

and she even loses a lung.

- [Henry] The chaos
of these speed runs

eventually gets the
attention of lawmakers.

- In 1980, LA County
passed a law that said,

the top speed for a skateboard
was 10 miles an hour.

So it effectively just ended

all of those speed
runs overnight,

which also means that none
of those speed records

that have been set would
ever be broken again.

- Remember the expression,
"You can lead a horse to water,

but you can't make him drink?"

Well, in the late 1800s,

the question was, "Can
you make him jump in?"

- So it's the turn
of the century,

Coney Island is still
America's playground.

One thing that has captured
America's consciousness

in their leisure activities
are diving horses.

[intriguing dramatic music]

[water splashing]

- Coney Island is like
the Disneyland of the day,

and the diving horses
are an immediate hit.

Even Thomas Edison was
at one of these shows,

filming the horse plunging

as part of his early experiment
with moving pictures.

- [Henry] Then a man named
Doc Carver enters the picture.

He's got an idea to up the ante.

- In 1906, Carver
introduces Lorena Lawrence

known as The Girl in
Red diving on horses.

She gets on the horse,

and then they dive
together 40 feet down.

[water splashing]
[intriguing dramatic music]

- Even when you hear it,
it sounds preposterous.

A horse that can high dive?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but
there's also a person on it.

Neither of those makes sense.

- A horse weighs easily
over a thousand pounds.

So a 1,000-pound horse hitting
water from four stories above,

will make contact at roughly


- [Henry] Not only is
it hard on the horses,

it is wildly dangerous
for the rider.

- In 1907, a 19 year old
named Oscar Smith

was k*lled at an
event in San Antonio,

and he was filling
in for Lorena.

- [Henry] By the 1920s,
Carver's ready to introduce

horse diving's next big star.

- This 19-year-old woman
in small town Georgia,

Sonora Webster sees an
ad in the newspaper,

and it's like, "Do
you like horses,

do you like to dive,
do you like to travel?"

And she's like,
"Yeah, that's me."

So she responds to this ad.

- Sonora and company set
up shop at the Steel Pier

in Atlantic City, New Jersey,

and the audience
response is massive.

[dramatic triumphant music]
[water splashing]

- The tanks that these
horses are jumping into

are only about 10
to 14 feet deep.

Compare that to Olympic divers,

their tanks have a depth
of 16 feet at minimum.

[water splashing]

- [Henry] Sonora is horse
diving's most renowned rider.

But in 1931, tragedy strikes.

- Usually, she closes her
eyes when she hits the water.

One day, the horse gets
off in the wrong direction.

Webster's not sure
of her landing,

and she has her eyes open.

When she hit the water,

the force detached
both of her retinas.

She would be blind
from that day forward.

- [Henry] Sonora spends
a year recuperating,

and then she starts horse
diving again, blind.

- Imagine taking that leap on
a horse into a pool of water

and not being able
to see your landing,

or know when it's gonna happen.

- Sonora continues her
horse dives in Atlantic City

for another 11 years,

and that cements her in history

as the last great
horse diving star.

[water splashing]

- It finally stops in 1978,

and it's not out of concern
for the rider's welfare,

it's actually because
of the potential

of profound injury to the horse.

[crowd cheering]

- The 1970s were a tough time

for the average American family.

There was a gas shortage,
widespread unemployment,

and the highest inflation
since the 1940s.

The whole country
was feeling the pain,

including America's
favorite pastime.

[bat clacking]
[crowd cheering]

- In 1974, it's a hard
time for baseball.

One of the top teams,
the Milwaukee Brewers,

is getting less than


- The Oakland A's,

they're the reigning
World Series champions,

they got Reggie
Jackson on their team,

and they can't sell


If the very best teams
can't fill their stadiums,

then the team that's not
even doing very well at all,

like the Cleveland Indians,

they're gonna have a
lot of leftover hotdogs

at the end of a game.

- [Henry] Hoping
to draw a crowd,

Cleveland's front
office comes up

with an innovative marketing
ploy to boost revenue.

- 10 Cent Beer Night.

- Offer people cheap beer,
get people in the stands,

and they feel like it's
gonna be a home run.

To their surprise, 25,000 fans
show up for this promotion.

- And they start drinking


[pensive dramatic music]

- The trouble is evident as
early as the second inning

when a woman jumps onto
the field, runs out,

lifts her shirt, exposing
her breasts to the crowd,

and then tries to kiss
the home plate umpire.

[crowd cheering]

Soon after that, a young man
starts peeling off his clothes

and streaks completely
across the outfield.

- [Henry] Streakers on the
field, that's bad enough,

but the home team is behind,

and in the stands, the
crowd is going wild.

- The beer vendors,
they're so overwhelmed,

they abandon their
posts altogether.

The kegs are now unattended,

so people are able to just
pour as much beer as they want.

- Can you imagine, today,

you have security guards, you
have people IDing for drinks,

back then, people were
ransacking the place.

- [Henry] At the end
of the ninth inning

with the beer flowing freely
and the score tied up,

the Indians are on the
verge of a comeback win,

and the event turns into
absolute pandemonium.

[crowd cheering]
[intriguing dramatic music]

- The crowd gets
rowdier and rowdier,

they start throwing
beer bottles,

they start throwing trash
onto the field, batteries.

- They start
throwing firecrackers

into the opposing team's
bullpen, the Texas Rangers.

And they start yelling
back up into the stands,

the fans start yelling
back down to them.

People start storming the
field by the hundreds.

People are starting
fights with the players,

everybody's out of control.

[intense dramatic music]

- [Henry] 50 stadium officers

and two off-duty
Cleveland policemen

are completely overwhelmed
by the mob of drunk fans

and have to call for assistance.

[crowd clamoring]

- It was just so unsafe.

Eventually the
players were like,

"Well, we gotta
defend ourselves."

- Billy Martin, the manager
of the Texas Rangers,

he tells his
players to grab bats

and go start walloping
these drunk fans.

[pensive dramatic music]

- When I saw 10 Cent
Beer Night on the news,

it looked more

like what I imagined the
Roman Colosseum was like,

than a placid day at the
park with the family.

- [Henry] With only one out to
go, and the score still tied,

umpire Nestor Chylak finally
has enough of the chaos,

and calls the game a forfeit.

- I just think it was
just a bunch of kids

that just couldn't
handle their liquor,

and those aren't the real good
baseball fans in Cleveland.

[dramatic thudding]

- 10 Cent Beer Night
is a perfect example

of how we're our
own worst enemy.

We took our shirts off,
we ran on the field,

we started a riot.

We can't be trusted
with 10-cent beers!

[crowd cheering]

- Today, baseball teams
constantly run promotions

to get the fans into the stands,

but they tend to be
more family friendly

than 10 Cent Beer Night.

There's Cap Day,
Bobblehead Day,

even Bring Your Dog
to the Game Day.

But back in the '70s,

there was one promotional stunt

that tried to
outdo all the rest.

[intriguing fanfare music]

- In the mid '70s,

you had discoteques popping
up all over America,

you had movies like
"Saturday Night Fever."

[air whooshing]
[intriguing fanfare music]

- [Bryant] Disco is just
dominating the airwaves.

- [Henry] Still, not
everyone loves disco,

and those who don't,

the hard rock faithful,
are passionate haters.

- So there's this DJ
in Chicago, Steve Dahl,

a diehard rock and roller,

who gets fired from
his radio station

when they switch over
to a disco format,

and he is out for revenge.

- He had the idea
to take this hatred

and channel it into an event
called Disco Demolition Night.

- They're going to start a
fire and burn disco records,

sort of an effigy of the
whole disco movement at large.

- [Henry] Dahl brings the idea

to White Sox owner Bill Veeck.

He's notorious
for staging stunts

like giving away live animals,

and having weddings
at home plate.

So, naturally, Veeck
agrees to the stunt,

and they arrange
for it to take place

between a doubleheader
on July 12th, 1979.

- It was also teen night,

and if they brought a
disco record with them,

it was only 98 cents.

So it was encouraging

this rowdier sort
of younger clientele

to come with their disco
records ready to burn.

- It's just a combination
of energy and chaos

that's bound to create, well,
something unforgettable.

- [Michele] They expected




which is even more than seats
they have in the stadium.

- Pretty soon, the crowds
are overwhelming the gate.

- [Henry] Fans are supposed
to drop their disco albums

in collection bins as they enter

to be burned later.

But as they crash through
the gates, many don't.

- A lot of people ended up

getting to their seats
with their records and they're

sitting there through
nine innings of baseball,

drinking more and more beer,

and they start throwing their
records out onto the field.

- [Commentator] Everybody's
here to have a good time,

but there's no reason to
disrupt the ball game.

- [Natalia] They're
slicing through the air,

they're hitting people.

- [Commentator] Oh,
boy, look at that,

it just missed Gaedel.

That is very dangerous.

- It only continues.

There are firecrackers
and empty beer bottles

landing next to the
players right on the field.

[firecrackers crackling]

- [Announcer] Don't spoil
the night for everybody else,

or we'll have to call off
the game and close the park!

- [Henry] The game is
paused several times

due to the hail of
foreign objects.

- People are out of their
minds at this point.

[crowd clamoring]

And what do you do when
people are out of their minds?

You start a big bonfire
in the middle of it.

That'll calm 'em down, right?

- [Henry] At 8:45 PM,

Dahl has the crate of records
wheeled out to center field,

- [Steve] Disco sucks!

- [Crowd] Disco sucks!
- [Steve] Disco sucks!

Disco sucks!
- [Crowd] Disco sucks!

- [Henry] He riles up the crowd

and then sets off
dynamite inside the crate.

- [Steve] Yeah!
[dynamite booming]

- Records are flying everywhere.

[crowd clamoring]
[expl*si*n booming]

- [Natalia] People are
climbing onto the field,

they're throwing trash.

Total chaos.

So the umpire decides

he's not going to go on
with the second game.

- [Henry] Disco Demolition
turns into a disco inferno.

- Can you imagine 7,000 fans
having free rein on the field

for 40 minutes?

Anything that
wasn't nailed down,

they were gonna
be trying to take,

because baseball fans,
they love a good souvenir.

[crowd clamoring]

It just sounds like

really once in a lifetime
experience. [laughs]

- Flying records were
the beginning of the end

for other baseball
promotions, like Bat Day,

when 50,000 fans would be
handed a bat on their way in.

- Pro wrestling has
captivated audiences,

in person and on
television, for decades.

Its characters are
larger than life,

and some had names pulled
from the animal kingdom,

like Junkyard Dog,
Gorilla Monsoon,

and George "The Animal" Steel.

But going back to the 1800s,

America had some real
animals in the ring.

[intriguing dramatic music]

- For most of human history,

if a man was wrestling a bear,

it was not by choice, it
was a matter of survival,

and then it became a
form of entertainment

in the 1800s.

[intriguing dramatic music]

The very first sanctioned

man-versus-bear wrestling
match in America

took place in 1877.

Maybe you're picturing
some backwoods venue,

maybe in the woods,
or on some farm

surrounded by hay bales.

[dramatic thud]
[intriguing dramatic music]

- This was on 13th
Street in Manhattan.

[pensive dramatic music]

You could go into Manhattan

and watch a bear fight a man.

[pensive dramatic music]

- The place is a 300-seat
auditorium in New York City

with a tavern on
the ground floor.

- And the man who ran the tavern

actually had the idea
to set up this event

as a way to sell more beer.

- [Henry] The beer selling
attraction is a success,

and some unlikely
stars are born.

- The funny thing

about the man-versus-
bear wrestling matches

is that the bears are the
ones who become famous.

Lena and Martin,
two of the bears,

go out on tour fighting
whoever will take them on.

- [Henry] Now, surprisingly,
Lena's fame would dim

when she kills an
opponent in 1878.

[air whooshing]
[crowd cheering]

Danger be damned, the
matches don't lose steam.

In fact, they gain
mainstream attention.

[pensive dramatic music]

- Gene DuBois, a Canadian
wrestler, decided to buy a bear

and take it on kind of a
sideshow type of experience

where go to venues and he
would wrestle this bear

in front of crowds.

[crowd cheering and applauding]

- His name was Terrible Ted.

Gene DuBois took
Terrible Ted around

to wrestle famous wrestlers,
including Rocky Johnson,

who most people today
would know better

as the father of Dwayne
"The Rock" Johnson.

- [Henry] While all of this
seems like the wild olden days,

man-versus-bear matches are
still happening in the 1980s.

- If I get down low on him,

I'm gonna take him.

I've got it in my blood,
I'm gonna take him.

- [Nicole] They're doing
this at local bars...

- Watch out!
[spectator shrieking]

- Even shopping malls.

Imagine you're going into the
mall just to buy some sneakers

and you see a guy
wrestling a bear.

- [Spectator] Hit
him in the head!

[crowd cheering]

- I remember when I was a kid

seeing highlights
of Chuck Wepner.

Chuck Wepner was
the Bayonne Bleeder

who fought Muhammad Ali,

he inspired the "Rocky" movie.

He ended up later in his career

just wrestling bears,
fighting bears.

- In the end, these
wrestling matches

go away for safety reasons,

but not for our safety,
for the bears' safety.

I mean, that's not
the way you thought

that was gonna go at all.

[crowd cheering]

- In-person wrestling events
have always been a draw,

but by the 1950s, the television
age was in full swing,

and soon promoters decided
that their next big spectacle

was going to take place where
no one had wrestled before.

[intriguing orchestral music]

- In 1949, an adventure
writer named Wilmon Menard

publishes an article that says,

"Octopus Wrestling Is My Hobby,"

and this gets a lot
of people's attention.

- "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"

was one of the biggest
movies of the 1950s.

And in this one scene,

there is a guy
wrestling a giant squid.

- And this kind of
adds to the aura

of this idea of
wrestling octopus.

- A lot of these sort
of rough and tumble,

rugged Pacific Northwest
outdoorsmen realize,

"Wait a minute, this guy's
wrestling an octopus?

I know where there's
loads of octopi,

Puget Sound right
here on our doorstep."

- And it kind of really ignites

the competitive
American instinct,

and starts a new type
of animal wrestling.

[dramatic thud]
[pensive dramatic music]

- [Henry] These aren't your
garden-variety octopuses,

these are giant
Pacific octopuses

that get up to 20 feet long
and weigh more than 100 pounds.

[water burbling]
[intriguing dramatic music]

- As octopus wrestling
gains popularity,

a diver named Gary
Keffler comes along.

And in 1963, he establishes

the World Octopus
Wrestling Championships.

- In April of 1963,

the first World Octopus
Wrestling Championships

are held at Titlow Beach
in Tacoma, Washington.




and at least two
television networks show up

to do this one-of-a-kind event

that's held
completely underwater.

- The way the competition works

is these divers are diving down

and scouring the seabed
looking for octopus dens.

- [Edward] So the
wrestling starts

with the diver holding
them up by the head

from the rock crevice,

then the octopus does,
in fact, fight back.

- They're in full-blown
survival mode.

They could pull your
breathing apparatus off,

they could wrap their
tentacles around you.

Once you have it loosened,
you put it into a headlock,

and you bring the octopus
up to the surface.

- The bigger the octopus,

the more points
the diver receives.

- [Henry] Competitors
get one point per pound

of octopus they bring to shore,

two points if they dive
without oxygen tanks or masks.

- So people train themselves

to hold their breath underwater,

and it's a skill.

It's really the depth that
becomes more of a problem.

The pressure that's exerted
on your body can be enormous.

- You gotta applaud these
people for having cojones.

You're wrestling these octopus,

you don't know how
big they're gonna be,

do you know how
many he can handle?

I don't know.

- [Henry] But as dramatic
as this stunt may be,

all the excitement
happens out of sight.

- So the thing is,

all of the action is literally
done under the water.

- If all you see in wrestling
is the guy pinned to the mat

and the other guy standing
above him victorious,

where's the fun in that?

- Eventually, interest in
octopus wrestling fizzles out.

In the 1970s, Washington
passes a law banning the sport,

but it wouldn't get a
federal ban until 2010.

- Deep sea wrestling turned
out to be best suited

for the silver screen,
instead of the small one.

- In the 1980s,
children had freedom

other generations never knew.

You could go where you wanted,
you could do what you wanted,

and no one was around to say,

"I wouldn't do that
if I were you."

[intriguing dramatic music]

- It's the late 80s,

most households have
two working parents,

so kids are coming home
after school bored,

no supervision,
nothing really to do.

- Latchkey kid is a term
used to describe a kid

who would have a key
around their neck

to let themselves get in when
they got home from school,

because there was no
adult to walk them home

or to be with them.

These latchkey kids were getting
into all kinds of trouble.

- [Henry] They say
the adolescent brain

is wired for adventure
and discovery.

It is not wired for
common sense and safety.

- Kids were coming
home to an empty house

and they were bored.

So a lot of these
inner city kids,

they had access to elevators
and they were just saying,

"Hey, why don't we
ride these elevators?"

- We're talking about
elevator surfing,

well, that's what
the kids call it.

- Latchkey kids of the 1980s

would circumvent
the elevator doors

a floor above the
actual elevator itself,

and then they would find
themselves on the top of it

riding up and down
the elevator shaft.

[elevator mechanism clacking]
[motor whirring]

- Kids who are elevator surfing,

they're not doing it for the
likes or the comments below,

they're doing it for
the pure thrill of it,

what kids and teens
have always done.

They don't look at elevator
surfing as any more dangerous

than any other kind of
playground activity.

- I was on the FDNY,

I've been in some of
those elevator shafts,

they are not safe.

There's a lot of points

where you could lose
fingers and hands,

or just hit the ceiling.

[elevator motor whirring]

- Riding on the
top is one thing,

but then these kids
start to decide,

"Well, how can we up
the ante on this?"

So they start coming up with
names for specialized stunts.

One of them is called
elevator action,

where they jump from
one elevator top

to the other elevator top.

They come up with this
thing called helicopter

where they're actually
underneath the elevator

and they grab a hold of this
two-inch electrical cable

that's attached to the
bottom of the elevator,

and they hold onto that
literally for their lives

as the elevator
goes up and down.

This is stuff you see in action
films that isn't even real.

[pensive dramatic music]

- [Steve] People
were falling off,

people were getting
crushed, breaking bones.

[intriguing dramatic music]

- Newspapers at the time,

they're reporting that kids
as young as six years old

are taking part in
the illicit activity.

The headline reads "Russian
Roulette, but With Elevators."

[intriguing orchestral
dramatic music]

- 200 kids are arrested
for doing it in 1989 alone,

and that same year,


- Elevator surfing is
getting out of hand.

So the New York
Housing Authority

decides to release
this 19-minute PSA

about the dangers of it.

- Man, adults love to
trot out these PSA videos

where they show kids like,
"Why you shouldn't do this,"

and "This is how
little Timmy got hurt."

[siren blaring]
[dramatic triumphant music]

No kid has ever learned
anything from a PSA.

- Eventually, people realize

just asking kids not to do
it is not gonna be enough,

they need to implement
some safety measures.

So they make it

so you're no longer able to
pry these elevator doors open.

Originally, that
was a safety measure

for people who were
stuck on the inside.

There are also these
motion sensor beams

that will just
automatically shut it down

if it senses anyone on
top of the elevators,

and they're still there today

as sort of an
anti-t*rror1st measure.

[elevator bell dings]

- Makes you kind of
miss the old days

when every elevator came
with its own operator.

- Usually when you call
something a train wreck,

it means everything
has gone wrong.

But there was a
time when it meant

everything had gone right.

[intriguing orchestral music]

- In the late 19th century,

if you're looking
for entertainment,

your options are
extremely limited.

- This is before mass media.

There's no radio,
there's no television,

so entertainment
has to be in person.

And how are you going to
attract paying customers?

You gotta have a spectacle.

[train screeching]

- [Henry] A railroad in
Ohio has a novel idea,

take a pair of old locomotives
and ram 'em together

as a form of entertainment.

[metal thudding]

- Two massive,
pressurized steam engines

full of water, coal,
fire, colliding.

[expl*si*n booming]

- Such a dumb idea
that it is brilliant.

- [Henry] The stunt
is a sensation,

which leads to imitation.

[train horn blaring]

- A passenger agent

for the Missouri-Kansas-
Texas Railroad,

it's called the Katy,
says to his bosses,

"Hey, we gotta do this too."

[intriguing dramatic music]

And his name is
William George Crush,

I am not making that up.

- [Henry] Crush's bosses
give him the go ahead.

And they begin by
building a new town,



to stage their own crash.

- It's September 15th,
the day of the event,

and William Crush is hoping

to get 20,000 or so
folks to show up.

- They were hoping
for a good crowd,

but they got a great crowd.

- Almost 40,000 people arrive.

[intriguing dramatic music]

- They arbitrarily decide

that they're gonna have the
public stand 200 yards away.

- Without any experience
with this type of event,

and no way to calculate
the safe distance,

the planners are
basically just guessing.

- They had sectioned off areas

where they didn't
want them to be,

but you couldn't hold
these people back.

[dramatic thud]

- People want a ringside seat,

the safe zone is out the window.

The crowds break the
safe zone barrier,

and they crowd around the
locale of the impending crash.

[train horn blaring]
[intriguing dramatic music]

- At this point,

two trains are hurtling down
directly at one another.

[intense dramatic music]

Two gigantic missiles are
hurtling towards one another.

[train horn blaring]
[intense dramatic music]

- As the trains
approach one another,

the Dallas Morning News says,

"It sounds like the gathering
force of a hurricane."

What happens next is
beyond comprehension.

[tracks clacking]

- Massive collision.

[intensifying ominous music]

[metal thudding]

And then the
unthinkable happens.

Both boilers explode.

[boilers booming]

- Families are running for
their lives when it happens.

You go from this
moment of elation,

"Oh my gosh, yes!,"

to "Ah!

Run!"

- [Henry] Two people are
k*lled by falling debris,

and at least six others
are seriously injured.

- There is a
spectacular photograph

that captures the instant
before the collision

taken by photographer
J.C. Deane,

who unfortunately is
blinded by flying debris.

- [Henry] When the smoke clears,

instead of fleeing the
scene of destruction,

the crowd rushes toward it.

- The crowd breaks
their cordons,

and floods to the
scene of the disaster

to collect souvenirs.

- They wanted a
token of this moment,

they wanted to take
something home with them.

Trying to get pieces off the
ground and from the trains,

some of these things are
like boiling hot metal.

- [Henry] William Crush is
blamed for the entire fiasco

and fired immediately,

but then there is no backlash.

- Were there any repercussions
for the Katy Railroad?

Not exactly.

Liability law wasn't
really as stringent then

as it is today.

The Katy Railroad settles

with the families of
those injured and k*lled

with some handsome cash payouts,

and, of course, lifetime rail
passes on the Katy Railroad.

[train horn blaring]

- You would think, obviously,
if people are getting hurt,

this would stop
this from happening,

there's not gonna be
any more of those.

Except, it's the opposite.

- These spectacles have a
hold on the American public

for decades.

[trains booming]

- Remembering the
heyday of wild stunts,

whether it was
jumping over 27 buses,

or setting off an
expl*si*n in centerfield,

or dancing on the
wings of an airplane,

it was a time when our "Go
big or go home" moments

could captivate the nation,

even if the risk wasn't
always worth the reward.

But it's hard to deny
that the insanity

is also what made our
hazardous history so thrilling.

[pensive dramatic music]