Word: stunts
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Vegas, Sept. 15. The sign outside one of the more celebrated spas on the strip proudly trumpets TODAY! GARY WELLS JUMPS CAESARS PALACE FOUNTAINS. So he does, and the result fully lives up to the name of the stunt's sponsor, ABC's thrill-pandering series That's Incredible! While gawkers gawked and cameras whirred, Wells, a professional stunt man, gunned a motorcycle up a ramp, sailed over the water fountains outside the showplace, but crashed on his descent. Result: a ruptured aorta and fractures of the pelvis, thigh and lower...
...That's Incredible!, which is considering if and when it should air its footage of Wells' jump, the stunt was just one of many heart stoppers that have helped the show pull almost a third of the viewing audience in its Monday night prime-time slot. It was also the third injury to have occurred in filming for the show. Another stunt man, attempting to jump in the air while two cars sped under him, nearly ripped off his foot when it caught in a windshield; he had to have reconstructive surgery and is still in serious condition...
...sent crews around the country to film folks engaged in such competitions as women's arm wrestling and belly bucking, in which a pair of beefy brawlers try to butt each other out of a ring. Like That's Incredible!, Games invariably winds up with a harrowing stunt designed to stir even the most hardened disaster freaks...
...Games show, a stunt driver named Spunky piloted a car off a 45-ft.-high ramp into a lake. The camera focused on the clenched face of his wife as rescue divers made their way to the sunken auto. Would Spunky survive his dive? (Answer: yes.) In another segment, Motorcyclist Rex Black well roared off a ramp and over two parked helicopters as their blades whirled at 350 r.p.m. "He barely cleared the last blade!" exulted the commentator as a slow-motion replay showed just how close Blackwell had come to being converted to steak tartare...
...recent casualties show. Still, gore springs eternal at the networks. This month, ABC plans' to air the second installment of Catastrophe! No Safe Place, a three-part disaster roundup in which Charles Bronson narrates horrors like the Hindenburg explosion; and The World's Most Spectacular Stunt Man, a special featuring four feats by a Hollywood pro. It could be, cracks PBS Producer Tony Geiss, that public TV may be forced to counter with its own entry in the reality competition: That's Intelligent. -By Martha Smilgis. Reported by Joe Pilcher/Los Angeles and Mary Cronin/New York