Human Flies and the Bizarre History of Daredevils
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- Опубликовано: 30 авг 2023
- Head over to @wayfair 's channel and check out the new episode of A Style is Born where we explore the history of Brutalism! astyleisborn.link/ASIBs2e3Kaz
In the early 1900s, a number of men became 'human flies': dudes who scaled skyscrapers with no equipment, just their bare hands. The human fly craze is part of a long history of daredevils and thrill-seekers, many of whom died seeking those thrills. Come learn with me!
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Sources
Skyscraper Cinema: Architecture and Gender in American Film By Merrill SchleierBuzz!: Inside the Minds of Thrill-Seekers, Daredevils, and Adrenaline Junkies By Kenneth CarterThe Thrill Makers: Celebrity, Masculinity, and Stunt Performance By Jacob SmithOral History Interview with John Frazier- Interview Conducted by Tanya Finchum and Juliana Nykolaiszyn for the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program“The Human Fly as Knecht Saw Him Yesterday,” Evansville Courier and Press, November 17, 1916““Human Fly’s” New Job,” Marysville Journal-Tribune, 05 Dec 1901“Human Fly Crawls Up Andrews Block,” New Britain Herald, 12 Sep 1917“Human Fly Only Fake Imitation of Summer Pest,” The Weekly Tribune, 24 Dec 1915“Will Defy Death for Beaver Oil,” The Allentown Leader, 18 Aug 1915“Coney Answers Nation’s Call,” The Brooklyn Citizen, 24 Jun 1918“The Acid Test of Nerve for a Human Fly,” by Samuel E. Wright, Chattanooga Daily Times, 23 Jun 1929“”Human Fly” To Crawl Up Front of Globe Building Saturday Afternoon at 2 O’Clock, Rain or Shine,” Fall River Globe, 29 Oct 1917“Human Fly Makes Good!” The Atchison Daily Globe, 02 Oct 1917“Human Fly Will Make Two Climbs Here Today,” The Albany-Decatur Daily, 12 Feb 1918“He Climbs the Beacon Building Saturday,” The Wichita Beacon, 17 May 1918“When ‘The Human Fly’ thrilled a downtown crowd” by Phil Egan for the Sarnia Historical Society www.sarniahistoricalsociety.c... city was popular with human 'flies'” by Tara McClellan McAndrew for the State Journal-Register www.sj-r.com/story/lifestyle/... on Hand to View Ascent,” Oakland Tribune, March 29, 1919“Fly Perches on Top of Tribune,” Oakland Tribune, March 30, 1919“'Nutty' Jack Medford,” Mail Tribune, November 17, 2019The City all abuzz over the "Human Fly." by the Beacon Historical Society www.beaconhistorical.org/shar... Legend of the Human Fly … Resolved” by Mike West, The Murfreesboro Post, September 14, 2008 rutherfordtnhistory.org/the-l... Take: Detecting a Daredevil by Kristi Finefield for Library of Congress Blogs blogs.loc.gov/picturethis/201...
The thing that's getting me isn't the crazy stunts. Daredevils be daredeviling no matter what year it is. What's crazy here is that all these old timey human flies are climbing buildings in a suit and shiny shoes.
style first.
safety second
Right?! That was my reaction too 😁
Yesss we need parkour suited & booted again! Imagine walking through a busy city centre and suddenly all the smartly dressed business types ditch their briefcases and start scaling the walls 💀😂
@@GrungeGalacticathat sounds terrifying but amazing 😂
@@GrungeGalactica shit, they really are lizard people
My great grandfather, Joseph Marshall, was a human fly! He climbed a building under construction for a beer and ended up spending the night in jail. We keep a blown up copy of the newspaper headline on the wall of our bathroom. I’ve always wondered what would motivate him to do something so dangerous, and your work has provided me with an answer. You do great research! Your video on JC Leyendecker and Charles Beach had me tearing up; thank you for the care and kindness with which you handle history. It makes us people in the present feel less alone.
What kind of beer? 🍺
Happy to see that human embodiments of chaos are a historically universal thing lol.😂
We have always been silly. Someone has always found a way to fool around. I mean folks have been drawing dick pics for thousands of years.
Humans have always been humans. We do stupid things like this and it’s funny to see that.
That quote about "an addiction to life" makes me wonder if these types of behaviors were characteristic of people who'd be diagnosed with ADHD in the modern era - some people are just naturally, biochemically, chronically understimulated in a way we now understand is due to dopamine receptors and stuff
Some of us don't have the same sense of fear that the rest of you do. Hence the reason I used to skydive, until a drunk driver broke my back. Hell, my grandfather taught himself to fly while waiting to return from WWII after serving as a Field Surgeon. Of the eight doctors he trained with & served with, he was the only one to live to return. While he was successful a dozen times another officer damaged the trainer and didn't tell anyone. A damaged propeller caused the engine to fall out of the single engine trainer and the resulting crash landing ended his fun, as that is how the US military learned that he had no flight training whatsoever...
The really interesting thing about Safety Last is that the story actually plays into some of the social factors behind human flies. The film starts with Lloyd's character leaving his small town and fiancée to go make his fortune in the city. The film then skips to several months later when Harold is struggling to make enough money working in a department store while trying to keep up the appearance of wealth for his fiancée. He and his roommate decide to climb the building as an advertising stunt designed to impress the owner of the department store into giving him a better and more stable job so he could provide for his fiancée. The film is an interesting and funny look at the concerns of young men in the 1920s with the added thrill of climbing buildings.
Wow interesting! Thanks for sharing
Yeah, it does seem that there's a bit of a labor struggle tone to some of these early Flies. Like, 'my factory job is already so dangerous, climbing a building is a piece of cake' maybe?
Mr “nutty” honestly sounds like something out of a day dream for me. “made a life doing what he always loved, then started a circus and taught his kids cool as shit tricks”
Now, I find interesting that the last Jackass movie, Jackass Forever, got it's first female member, Rachel Wolfson, and the two stunts that she did were to put her tongue on a taser and to let herself be stung by a non-lethal scorpion on the lips. Painful, of course, but far from being lethal. And the thought about, the more a found how, to me, on a sorta subconscious level, the ideia of a woman doing life threatening stunts was alien compared to it's male counterpart.
Also, it's really rare to see women getting shot in the head in movies. They usually get shot in the torso, when the shot is supposed to be lethal. So women can being depicted die horrifically, but it can't be too graphic.
That is a good point. I wonder if its a s*xualization of women in media issue?
I guess this is somehow tied to this idea in movies etc that women always have to look pretty. They can’t cry and look ugly while crying, they can’t be too badly injured, they can’t be similarly muscular or even of the same age as their male action co-stars. I mean, one of the big differences between Mad Max: Fury Road and most other action-heavy movies is that George Miller doesn’t shy away from depicting Furiosa as a stone cold badass just like Max himself.
@@Trassel242
I just thought of season two of Black Sails.
Spoiler:
When Mrs Barlow is shot in the head midsentence. I remember feeling shocked and physically weak from seeing it happen.
@@eldorados_lost_searcher huh, that’s a rare one then, typically women are depicted as somehow beautiful even when they’re dead, so it hits extra hard the rare occasion they are depicted as horribly injured.
To further prove my point, I think a very good example is the character Hester Shaw from the book series Mortal Engines. A huge part of her backstory is that she got a very bad facial injury that didn’t heal very nicely either, so now she has one functioning eye left, almost no nose, scarring around her mouth that affects the way she speaks, and wears a scarf over her face all the time just to be able to look somewhat normal. She thinks she looks like a monster, and often people have treated her as though she is a monster in turn. They made a big Hollywood movie out of the first book, and they kept Hester’s story the same but gave her a small scar that is nowhere near the level of disfigurement she’s got in the book, which just completely ruins her character and story.
I was *obsessed* with Evel Knievel when I was a kid and I'm really surprised I didn't break any bones trying to emulate him lol
Am I wrong or did she mispronounce knievel?
@@ericbuzzard2041 they also mispronounced Evel.
she did@@ericbuzzard2041
My mom went to high school with Bobby "Evel" Knievel. When I was a kid, it was awesome to tell people that Mom dated him. She told me in the last 15-20 years that it was just a kind of group date. He also stole my Grandpa's hub caps and when he found out, he offered to give Grandpa new ones (since Grandpa's were long gone). Grandpa turned him down because he knew they'd be stolen too.
I still have my Flintstones LP where Fred and Barney meet "Weevil Primeval."
My great grandfather was a stock car driver in the 1920’s. He was a car mechanic and built his own race cars. He died in a crash during a Thanksgiving charity race in 1929 leaving behind a young widow and two daughters. He was 26. My grandmother (his oldest daughter) was 4.
Back then both the racetracks and the cars were deadly. As most of the race tracks were made out of boards which would do horrible things to the drivers after they were thrown from their cars, which lacked seat belts. It was probably for the best that it was fatal if you consider that sliding across the track was like a cheese grader to human flesh...
However, the situation must have really sucked for your grandmother, her sister and mother. My stepfather's father died in the fifties and he ended up in foster care, which was essentially legalized child abuse and exploration...
Thrill seeking adrenaline junkie what have you long time listener here. I first got hooked on extreme stuff as a kid, I grew up BMX racing. Through some unfortunate life experiences I came to feel that the only way I could experience love or anyone caring about me was either by accomplishing great things or by getting hurt trying. Eventually I learned to value my life and existence outside of what I could accomplish and what other people felt about me but by that point it was my entire life and I'm so hooked on the feeling of scaring myself, flirting with the edge of control in a chaotic universe only to bring it back for that rush of adrenaline, adrenaline that wouldn't be there if it weren't possible to fail spectacularly. Engaging that primal side of the mind through triggering my fight or flight is when I feel most alive. You get to a point where you can process so much so fast that it feels like you're slowing time down for an instant. Outside of it feeling good to accomplish things you once thought impossible it's the closest one can get to feeling like a super hero in real life. TL;DR: the feminine urge to climb tall thing
I'm glad you've learned to value yourself! But I totally get what you mean. That feeling of real danger we basically never experience in everyday life anymore. Our lives have become too safe almost. I prefer extreme white water kayaking. There's nothing that makes me feel more alive than fighting against nature. Nothing that forces you to be 100% living in the present like that. How did u first get into the sport? Just on your own or did someone in your family also do bmx? Because my dad is an adrenaline j9nk.1e and that's where I got it from! So I'm interested to know what originally got you into extreme sports.
I'm glad that you explained this! There's an old episode of Scooby-Doo (Nowhere to Hyde) that has someone who is described as having had a "human fly act", and I was never completely sure what that was. It matters to the episode because the "ghost of Hyde" scales buildings using suction cups, but since human flies didn't use equipment in their climbs, the person who was a human fly wouldn't have used suction cups, just their own strength. The episode makes more sense now!
One of my favourite people from way back when is Harry Houdini, who was a badass and who was, as I’m sure most of you know, famous for his break-out stunts, where he’d be handcuffed or similar and then free himself. I remember reading about this one time where he was chained and dropped from a bridge into water, and survived it all. He spent his late career as a debunker of mediums and psychics, finding it horrible that people would basically rob grieving, desperate people out of their money, so he tried to reveal them as fakes.
When i read human flies idk why my first thought was a crappy 80s horror movie where the main character is an anthropomorphic fly and its like a rom com
Thats what I thought at first too 😂
Congratulations you've now woken the angry ghost of vincent Price.
On the plus side he's the only vengeful ghost you can distract with an art gallery so just run past one of thiose, you'll be fine!
@@voiceofraisin3778 that's good considering my entire house could be considered an art gallery
❤ Attention all sheep black and white. I will prove Jesus power. All are allowed level 1 portion of youth longevity digestion an self beauty Jesus energy wash tonight at 1109 eastren. Warning it is intense 😮here is a taste.
Kaz is pampering us. 2 long videos in a month. ❤
My favorite history RUclipsr.
And the Wayfair video
I haven't done anything nearly so dangerous, but I do go bouldering (free climbing without a harness) out in the desert. The only thing keeping you on the rock are your hands and feet, and if you fall you could be seriously injured. For me I find testing the limits of your abilities and being so present in your body very gratifying. There's also the problem solving aspect, figuring out what route you want to take up the rock, whether that be the safest, most efficient, or most challenging route.
"I haven't done anything nearly so dangerous"
*proceeds to talk about doing something really dangerous*
Until a habitual drunk driver broke my back I used to ride my motorcycle to the airfield to skydive. And yet I would never consider free climbing as I always carried a reserve parachute, which admittedly would result in a few broken bones if you used it. But you have nothing of the sort when "free climbing"...
This reminded me of Franz Reichelt, the guy who tried to make a wearable parachute and jumped to his death from the Eiffel Tower in 1912. He was so sure he was going to make it, people tried talking him out of it, but he did it anyway. The whole thing was filmed and you can find it on youtube. It’s one of the most harrowing things I’ve ever watched. As for myself, I climb rocks. Rope and harness always, security is extremely important. For me, it’s the feeling of doing something that makes you feel like you’re going to die, but you know that you won’t, and when you make it to the top it feels like you’ve won at life. I’m only climbing at amateur levels, but it’s still a dangerous (but mostly safe) sport that gives you a rush of adrenaline and it’s extremely addictive. But I also love being outside in nature and I love coming up over the edge and seeing the view!
This video reminded me of two things
Emilie Sannom who was a Danish stunt woman and who died in 1931 because she had to use someone else's parachute for a jump from a plane and it failed.
And a drunk guy who climbed a building but then couldn't get down and had to be rescued by helicopter.
Fascinating video as always Kaz! When thinking about daring feats like these, many people of my generation (and older) and where I’m from (Puerto Rico) may have negative connotations due to one particular event. In the late 70s or early 80s, famed tightrope walker Carl Walenda decided to do a performance in the town of Ponce where he would walk from one building to another. This was a big deal because their entire family did this for a living (tho he himself was in his 70s at the time) and so it was televised. Unfortunately, about halfway through his walk the winds picked up (Ponce is a costal town) and Wallenda fell to his death in front of a large live audience and an even larger tv one (my dad remembers watching it). Because we puertorricans often have a dark sense of humor, the event was later immortalized in a famous salsa song with the lines (roughly translated here) “As Wallenda once said, oh how hard the cement is in Ponce”.
Anyway, collective trauma for a whole generation 🤪✌️
Me acuerdo... no lo ví yo misma, pero me acuerdo.
As a kid I saw a female tight rope walker in Michigan. She made it half way across and then the wind picked up thanks to Lake Huron. I saw her transported by ambulance, but she was already dead...
Hey Kaz,
Here's a really obscure fun fact:
Burt Ward, who played Batman in the 1960's TV series was a human cannonball in the late 1980s.
The guy at the pub guarantees it's a fact. It might even be true.
Burt Ward played Robin, Adam West was Batman.
He played robin
Not batman
But still your point stands
I went skydiving once because it was a gift. It was an amazing experience. Horrifying, exciting. I was terrified and thrilled. Never wanna do it again, very glad I did.
Speaking as a man, you’re right, I do want be monke and climb high thing! There might be banana, or breathtaking vista, either is lovely.
My grandparents were circus performers and as a result we have many family friends who come from long lines of famous performers and daredevils dating back to the 18th century. I’ve seen a lot of them perform both in person and on tv and it always makes me so nervous even though I know they’re professionals and I see them do the same acts over and over again. It’s so much scarier when you personally know them. I’ve dabbled in a bit of arial work but I much prefer watching it than doing it myself, I’m not really into doing scary things.
I love this one! The only thing is, its pronounced Ken - evil. Growing up in the 70s and 80s this guy was everywhere. ❤
As a boy child in the '80s, I wanted to be Evel when I grew up.
So did LITERALLY EVERY BOY I KNEW (except for the ones who wanted to grow up to be Luke Skywalker... or KITT).
I didn't think Kaz mentioned him, that's probably why LOL. First person I think of when I hear "dare devil".
I think she mentioned his son, who presumably pronounces his name in the same way as his father.
It’s another way to feel old, I guess. Everyone my age who lived in the US as a kid would know how to pronounce his name…although would probably misspell it.
And then there was Super Dave Osborn. Those were the days.
Even in the 90s you would hear that name a lot.
No, that was his name, she got it right. His stage name was pronounced like "evil keh-knee-vil"
I'm with you, Kaz! I don't like roller coasters or anything that is what we normally think of as risk taking. I put myself on the line in a different way. I'm a singer. I go in front of a lot of people and take the risk that I might, just possibly, screw up. Far more regularly, the audience and I go on a wonderful journey together which brings it's own adrenaline spike. Thanks for the wonderful video! I always learn fascinating things with you!
I, myself, only last year, rode Tower of Terror (well, Guardians Breakout), for the first time.
Can I just say "Shout out to news archives!"? And incredible stuff as always Kaz! Love your explorations of gender and the victorian era.
Years ago I met a very old woman who had jumped from a significant height on horseback as her sideshow "act" when young. I think her name was Chris Sitwell. Must do some research. She was a very vibrant and expressive OLD woman 30 years ago. She died a few years after I met her. Musta been hell on horseback as a girl.
Was she one of the Coney Island horse divers?
@@maryeckel9682 Atlantic City as I recall. She had been born in England and emigrated to the USA as a teen. I wish I had kept the article a friend wrote about her for the Martha's Vineyard newspaper we both worked at back then. Chris had ended up retired in good financial shape on the Island. Perhaps from a family inheritance. It was unclear where her resources came from ( a marriage? ) but she was quite well off when she died.
Im old now, but when young I rode racehorses. I was a workrider and in Ireland I rode in races over fences- Steeplechasing. I had alot of falls, broke my neck and back, but it was wild. The thrill of raceriding surpassed everything in my experience. Im old now- and a wreck- but have no regrets
I would love to be a daredevil, I plan on skydiving at least once in my life. However, I have two horror stories.
My kindergarten love went parasailing for her birthday and due to anengine failure, she had crashed and sadly died.
The other is of this girl in my high school. She once went bungee jumping and due to the force she experience when she was pulled back after the fall by the elastic cords, some nerve in her eye got damaged - or something like that, I am not entirely sure about it, and she was lucky enough to have not lost her sight completely, but had major sight loss and had only retained 20% of her sight that was constantly deteriorating. So while it sounds fun, it can absolutely ruin lives even in a world where precausion are set in place.
Does anybody know where Kaz got that "Normalise being a jaunty little frilly boy" shirt because I'm obsessed and I need it.
Another amazing video, I love going into a video knowing nothing about a topic, and then becoming slightly obsessed with it by the end of the video.
RUclips is quality and will silently delete my comment if I say the name of the site, but it popped up on the first page of search results when I googled the text on the shirt.
I'm not an adrenaline junkie, but I do love to feel alive. When I see a high mountain, I know myself better than to want to climb it, but I will explore alone and have done so all over the world. I only learned to drive 2 years ago at age 42!! So right now, twisty downhill coastal/mountain roads are my thrills. The junkie-est thing I have probably ever done was trampolining on a snowboard...or maybe deep sea snorkeling, but I def noped out of there when the ocean floor plunged into darkness. My brother works for SpaceX and sent me selfies from the top of the launch tower before it exploded. He's part of the reason I waited so long to drive. 😅
I love learning history from you! I was actually hoping you'd mention Phillipe Petit, the guy who tightrope walked between the twin towers. I remember learning about it as a kid and it is just as scary.
When I hear human fly I immediately think of The Simpsons "Hello?! Human fly here! C'mon, I stayed up all night dyin' my underwear!"
I've done parasailing (not particularly "thrilling") and climbed some buildings (definitely illegal trespassing) or gone to abandoned places. It's all to see another side of life and the world, seeing a new angle and how I can get to that point
I haven't had the chance to watch the video yet but seeing the thumbnail made me think of an idea.
How about a video about early female pilots? In old days a female pilot was called an aviatrix.
You left Harry Houdini out , the first to fly an aeroplane in Australia 🇦🇺 1909 ha ha. Channel surfing is dangerous enough for me. Thank you once again Kaz , most enjoyable 😉
I think you've pinpointed it by describing thrillseeking as an expression of a certain type of masculinity. My own story: I drove through flashflooding a couple years back. The emergency alert came in when I was out grocery shopping, so it was less deliberate and more seizing an opportunity as it came up. My logic was that I would rather risk death by drowning in my car than die of boredom waiting for the water to go down. There was also some curiosity to be satisfied. I'd always wondered what that much water would look like in person. I wasn't particularly afraid; I am a confident driver and I knew basic flood safety tips like don't stop midway through a flooded section. I knew my station wagon was high enough to handle deeper sections that could swamp a standard sedan. And it was truly something to see familiar landscape so changed and the laws of the road become mere suggestions. It was exhilarating. The world narrowed to a small set of very simple choices-- things like "take that road or stay on this one"-- and all my energy and focus were channeled into the meditative process of operating a machine that I knew and loved as I knew and loved my own body. I got home safely, my car was fine after cleaning the mud out of the undercarriage. I have no intention of repeating it, but it was the most alive I'd felt that whole month.
kaz’s aesthetic is always on point in the best way
even when casually dressed their fashion sense is absolutely impeccable
This makes me want to rewatch the movie "The Fall" with Lee Pace in it ❤
SUCH a good movie!
@natmorse-noland9133 its brilliant! Ive seen it about 300 times over the years and it never ever gets old. Even my son, who is now 17, asks to watch it when i put it on 🥰 lee pace is magnificent
So the Assassin Creed games were accurate life simulators after all.
Now this is going to be ebic. 😎 LIVING like L A R R Y!
as a lil guy, I can fully understand the desire to climb big tower
this video was so interesting!! my personal favorite thrill is white water rafting/kayaking! I love the feeling of seeing how ruthless nature can be and still overcoming it :)) it's always so cool to see people from history who have the same tendencies/hobbies as you!
Ah yes the first new Kaz video since I’ve binged the channel. I will act completely normal about this
I saw a guy get shot out of a cannon once. it was at the CNE (canadian national exhibition). his daughter normally did it with him too, but she missed the net earlier in the day at another cannon firing and broke her arm, so it was just him when I saw him. it was very loud and over very fast. I think there was also a tight rope walker one year too.
new video for my birthday?? thank youuuuu
The closest I've ever gotten to this was rappelling down the side of a 17 story hotel when I was 19. It was part of a fundraiser for a local nonprofit in my area. It's pretty fun, but there's almost no real danger since I was in a harness and on ropes. The company i did this with always talk about how they've only had one ER visit, and that was for a bee sting. I'm doing it again this year on a different building.
I read the Great Farini's biography years ago and was waiting breathlessly for you to mention him! One of our famous and influential Canadians that doesn't get nearly enough attention or notice. He's credited with folding theatre chairs and some of the modern safety features in circuses like the great net for aerialists.
I was once gifted a skydive (in tandem with an experienced skydiver) and jumping out of the plane was so fun (I found the way down after the parachute had unfurled a bit underwhelming tbh but falling in the beginning and landing were great) Ever since I was little I loved spinning and going on the swings… nowadays I tend to drive around turns fast… I think maybe it’s a vestibular motion thing idk
The great grandfathers of daredevils and Jackass, i salute these Victorian Mad Lads 🫡🫡
I'm glad I've stumbled upon your channel. I love your vibe!
What reason would I ever have to consider antique daredevils before now? 😂 A very Kaz-coded topic, super excited to get into it ✨🙌
I like how Kaz leans in to "daredevil as gender performance".
AHH you’re back! You’re one of my absolute favorite RUclipsrs. I love your content! 💗💗
Absolutely love your videos. Been watching since victorian medicine & find your topics so interesting
My paternal great uncle was a stuntman in Texas in the 60s and 70s. He did motorcycle stunts, sometimes large stand alone stunts and sometimes smaller ones at rodeos and fairs.
i love that jackass is historically accurate, i’ve always loved those weirdos. i love rollercoasters but i’m terrified of heights so it’s a very interesting relationship. i can’t do those towers where you sit in a row and it takes you really high then drops you, the thought actually makes me sick, but i’ve been on the iron rattler multiple times at six flags fiesta texas because i love it (when it works lmaoo). i also like to speed when i drive but i hate being a passenger in a fast/speeding car. i guess my real fear is not being in control and having time to think about it, so no daredevil-ing for me.
You always dress so fancy (or at least intentionally), it's funny seeing you in a T-shirt! It's like "Oh right Kaz is from modern times and not some time traveler we don't know the origin point of"
I had the same reaction to Zelia Edgar's last video for Just Another Tin Foil Hat, she usually dresses in meticulously recreated 1920's/1930's fashion (helps that she bears a striking resemblance to a young Anaïs Nin)
My dad did some stunt driving for a couple of low budget movies in the 80s. He was originally a getaway driver for a while (weed dealing), but he never got caught doing that. He did get caught just strolling about one night in possession of a small baggie of weed. Luckily escaped prison time because the judge took sympathy on him having a pregnant girlfriend. Still got a felony charge, but he didn’t go to prison on the condition that he married the girl and stayed with her for at least 10 years.
Anyways, he had a lot of experience crashing cars and making it look like a deadly accident, to which the police wouldn’t find out it wasn’t until they got up close and saw there wasn’t anyone in the vehicle. With the felony charge he basically had no way of getting a job outside of biker shops and security for small concerts, so he took a chance at stunt driving a couple times. He said the pay was crap but he had fun.
To this day he’s the best driver I know, but he also takes risks more readily than anyone so he’s been in quite a few wrecks. Because of his skills none of them have ever been deadly or severely injurious for anyone involved, and there is absolutely no one I’d rather have in the driver’s seat in the event of a wreck. He’s gotten me and my family out of some crazy deadly situations on the road
BABE WAKE UP KAZ ROWE DROPPED YET ANOTHER GEM ON THE TL
I went bouldering for the first time earlier this week--at a gym with pads beneath everything. It was fun and exhausting but relatively safe, unlike climbing buildings would be. I've never been an adrenaline junkie--the rush tends to make me nauseous rather than excited.
My dad is one of those adrenaline junkies. I grew up on an airstrip watching him jump out of planes or riding on a boat, watching him ski behind us. They get addicted to exhilaration I think.
Great video! I especially love Buster Keaton's films, and this is very reminiscent of his stunt work (what with Harold Lloyd and the like) :D
'Steeplejack' also reminds me of that famous 70s steeplejack here in the UK, Fred Dibnah. I used to love getting up early and checking on the telly to see if there'd be any programme with him in it, it was always great fun to watch.
Lovely video, thanks :)
Broke: people these days are doing dumb stunts to get attention, the internet clout got to them
Woke: We've always been dumb little daredevils but now everyone can view them and see it worldwide
Eternal desire to become monkey
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the huge trend of Russian teens that were free climbing everything in sight tho.
Your topics are often sooo much FUN!!! Either way...I am fascinated everytime!
Kaz’s way with words is worth Westminster’s weight in wheat
I can't focus; Tutter looks like he's looking up at you with so much admiration like he's your little brother watching you give your valedictorian speech for graduation. It's too cute.
the timeless american desire to Watch Some Guys Do Some Crazy Shit
Harold Lloyd had an injured right hand & had 2 stunt doubles in the movie Safety Last
Ok, Kaz, but where did you get that t-shirt??? I know a few people who should probably have one!
20:00 I know what they meant here, but "Woman Does Brave Feat" as a headline gave me a bemused chuckle. Like they're so shocked that a woman could do something brave that they used that as part of the headline.
Loving your la pieta bookend. I saw it in person 14 years ago, so pretty.
The only "thrill-seeking" activity
I'm into is riding roller coasters. A pet peeve of mine is how roller coaster accidents get senstationized and lied about for the purpose of making the general public afraid of them. Like, you don't have to like roller coasters, but don't spread misinformation about incidents in the name of fear. Of course the news media loves doing that.
There is a great Tom Scott video on youtube called "I'm scared of rollercoasters. Can I get over my fear?". This features some of the most heartfelt screaming ever committed to video; but it ends well.
This video makes me think of the book A Girl and Five Brave Horses about a girl who dove horses into the water. Disney later made a fun but almost entirely fictional film very loosely based on the book called Wild Hearts can't be broken.
You should have included Philippe Petit .who walked s tight rope between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Cener. Edwin Armstrong, who invented FM radio, used to climb radio towers on builsings. He committed suicide by jumping out of the window of his apartment building.
Love the Butch Patrick t-shirt.🎉
I don't even do roller-coasters. A tall bridge can make me panic because of the height.
The ones that really creep me out are the free divers, or the cave divers. You couldn't pay me enough to go into a cave.
Cave divers train and prepare and follow strict rules so they can be as safe as possible. Of course things can go wrong, but they're not daredevils.
@@maryeckel9682 I mean...they are though. They push the limits of their mortality in the pursuit of dangerous stunts. The people that climb also train vigorously, and also die in spite of it, just like cavers and cave divers. It's still a crazy risk they're taking, and a very real chance they'll never come back from it.
Please someone tell me- where is the most ethical place for me to get a “jaunty little frilly boy” shirt. Do we know who the original artist is? I want one. I’ve been admiring it the whole video
Kind of surprised you didn't mention Aly Law, I think he's the closest living thing to these "human flies"
Omg yay!!!! Kaz is spoiling us with these uploads!! Every video is so consistently excellent and heartfelt. Thank you for making me so grateful to learn history! That anonymous stuntman was a true legend!
21:20 wait wait wait! The human cannon ball thing isn’t real?! Bello Nock DIDNT get shot out of a cannon when he flew over the running helicopter? I was there! I got his autograph! He was on America’s got talent
Kaz does it again! Incredible. Interesting stuff I wouldn’t think to research. Thank you.
love you and the wayfair series ! you are such a good storyteller. i watch your videos on all my breaks at work
Love this one Syd. Seeing you work within that 'art history' aesthetic for a large build would be fun to watch
Knievel was pronounced by that stunt family with a hard K, like "Ken Evil"
I had noooooo idea. Thank you once more for bridening my horizon ❤
two Kaz video's in a month! a treat!
Yay! A new Kaz video! I know what I’ll be doing for the next half hour 😊😊😊
Love your stuff, Kaz!
Great video as always, Kaz!
Annie is from my hometown! I was hoping to see her in the vid🥹
Kaz your videos are amazing! I hyperfocus on the weirdest history subjects, and you always make videos that peak my interest! Great job! ❤
Queer film Director Kenneth Anger once described his biker film "...Thanatos in Chrome...". As a motorcyclist myself, I've certainly felt that. The fact that I can feel as comfortable as the average car driver while doing something most people find frightening, is quite thrilling. My last accident was a hit and run on the part of some red sportscar. my boyfriend (at the time) picked me up at the hospital and preached to me all the dangers of doing this. My only defense was and still is "If I were to die, I would have done so doing what I love."
This video makes the joke in the Simpsons about 'Human Fly' make more sense now, thanks Kaz 😆
You're the best, Kaz. You are so consistently brilliant, eloquent, and SO entertaining just naturally with your great personality. Honestly, your channel teaches me about so many corners of history that I never would have discovered otherwise. I can't WAIT to see what other topics you find interesting and share with us!!! Blessings and thanks for your work :)
My hands were so sweaty through this whole video
Robbie "Knievel" lol
There's a lot I want to talk about in this one. Awesome Kaz!
Another BANGER vid, Jaz!
The Cramps have ruined the term "human fly" for me. Anytime you said it, their song would start playing in my head lol
...but that's a good thing