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SYSK Selects: How Human Cannonballs Work · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Hi everyone, it's Saturday and it's Chuck with a little
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Speaker 1: Saturday Select episode for you. I dug deep in the archives.
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Speaker 1: Everyone to talk about human cannonballs. That's part of our
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Speaker 1: Circus Suite Circus Arts, sweet rather and uh it's good
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Speaker 1: stuff How human Cannonballs Work from July two thousand eleven,
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Speaker 1: an only bit of goody. Welcome to Stuff you should know,
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Speaker 1: a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works Kaboom
0:33
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W.
0:37
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. What are you doing? How you doing the cheeks? Huh?
0:41
Speaker 1: Have you ever captured that? Yeah? We did it once
0:43
Speaker 1: and then people have asked occasionally like dude, the cheap
0:46
Speaker 1: thing again? And I don't want to. I want to
0:48
Speaker 1: do it like once every hundred and fifty shows. Literally
0:51
Speaker 1: that's a good that's a good pace. I don't want
0:53
Speaker 1: to overdo that. So that's that'll be the third time
0:56
Speaker 1: soon coming up, I think so. Yeah. Sure for fifty
1:00
Speaker 1: right around the corner had around a company. Um, chuckers,
1:04
Speaker 1: have you ever had kaboom cereal? No, dude, it was
1:08
Speaker 1: that was such a thing good. Um, No, it wasn't
1:11
Speaker 1: good the marshmallows were good. They it was basically like
1:14
Speaker 1: lucky Charms. I don't know who ripped off who, but
1:17
Speaker 1: it was clown themed rather than you know, irish themed.
1:21
Speaker 1: That's genius. Yeah. But there was a clown on front
1:24
Speaker 1: and he had a cannon, and that's where the name
1:26
Speaker 1: came from. Kaboom. It was a circus clown circus canon.
1:30
Speaker 1: But then they realized clowns were scary as heck most people,
1:33
Speaker 1: so it failed miserably. I wrote this blog post recently.
1:36
Speaker 1: Did you read it about it? Yeah, that's the clown
1:39
Speaker 1: giving clown therapy. People seem to like it too. Yeah,
1:42
Speaker 1: I thought it was a nice one. Um, that wasn't
1:45
Speaker 1: my intro. My intro was about Hunter te. Oh well,
1:49
Speaker 1: let's hear it. Do you remember, well, sure you're probably
1:51
Speaker 1: gonna reference his death wish. Yes, so he you know,
1:55
Speaker 1: he comes down with the cancer and um shoots himself
1:58
Speaker 1: in the head and we're ardless of how you feel
2:01
Speaker 1: about suicide. What happened next was his um As you said,
2:05
Speaker 1: I guess his death wish, which he made in life. Ironically. Yeah,
2:09
Speaker 1: there's two kinds of death wishes. There's a wish that
2:12
Speaker 1: you make upon your death that you would like for
2:15
Speaker 1: things to happen after you die. And then there's the
2:17
Speaker 1: jolly Brunson death. Wish nice good good Chuck Fron, Well,
2:22
Speaker 1: that's a Simpsons character too, but it's the Simpson's character,
2:26
Speaker 1: the mustachioed sales clerk. Yes, but he clearly references GERALDS Brunson. Yeah. Um. Anyway,
2:33
Speaker 1: what happened to Hunter T was he Um, he he
2:38
Speaker 1: was cremated and he had his remains shot out of
2:42
Speaker 1: a cannon. Have you seen it? Yeah? Thanks to Johnny
2:46
Speaker 1: Depp helped that dream come true because he has tons
2:49
Speaker 1: and tons of money to make that happen. Yes, he does.
2:51
Speaker 1: It was quite a cannon too. Um. And we've talked
2:54
Speaker 1: before about how I want my dead body shot out
2:56
Speaker 1: of a cannon. We have indeed, Um, I'm not so
3:00
Speaker 1: sure anymore. Maybe who knows? It would be after reading
3:03
Speaker 1: this article and the physical requirements. It would be kind
3:06
Speaker 1: of gruesome. It wouldn't be like unless they stiffened you
3:09
Speaker 1: up somehow, you would come out in a big like
3:12
Speaker 1: a dead body wood. That's what I've always imagined though,
3:15
Speaker 1: that's what I see flying through the air. I thought
3:17
Speaker 1: you saw yourself like shooting through a rocket towards the storm. No,
3:21
Speaker 1: like flopping like through the air and doing like half
3:24
Speaker 1: somersaults and twists where you think it's gonna be naked too.
3:29
Speaker 1: I was gonna land on the Kansas Prairie and let
3:31
Speaker 1: the vultures finish me off. All right, we'll see an idea.
3:36
Speaker 1: Bring it. I got a backyard for you. I think
3:39
Speaker 1: that's how we met coop um he he offered. He
3:42
Speaker 1: was like, hey, I I live in Kansas and I
3:45
Speaker 1: can get this done. Yeah, alright, so we'll see. But
3:47
Speaker 1: I think that that's an image that people can have
3:49
Speaker 1: in their head while we talk about how human cannonballs work, right,
3:53
Speaker 1: because like you said, there's a lot to it, but
3:55
Speaker 1: one of the things that's not to it. And I
3:57
Speaker 1: think it's funny that um people wonder how this how
4:02
Speaker 1: you can shoot somebody out of a cannon and the
4:05
Speaker 1: gunpowder doesn't blow them up. There's no gunpowder, of course,
4:08
Speaker 1: there's not. I don't understand how someone cannot understand that intuitively, Yeah,
4:13
Speaker 1: because I think people want to believe that they're being
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Speaker 1: fired out of a cannon instead of a a long
4:20
Speaker 1: uh piston enclosed in a in a tube with a
4:25
Speaker 1: fake boom in a flash, Yes, for effect. Okay, so
4:29
Speaker 1: I guess it's the fake boom in the flash. They're
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Speaker 1: they're buying it. Yeah, well that's the idea from the beginning,
4:35
Speaker 1: that was the idea. So yes, And it has long roots, indeed,
4:41
Speaker 1: back to the nineteenth century, back to the UK, which,
4:43
Speaker 1: by the way, I've noticed, did you notice from like
4:46
Speaker 1: this article in doing any supplementary research, the UK is
4:50
Speaker 1: big into human cannonballs. I think they're big on just
4:52
Speaker 1: this whole circus experience. Okay, they were the original Showman. Yeah, sure,
4:57
Speaker 1: they own the world. Yeah, it's you know, and they
5:01
Speaker 1: sold it. And when you own the world, you have
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Speaker 1: an obligation to entertain the world, and they did so
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Speaker 1: by human cannonballs. Specifically, something called the projector. Is the
5:12
Speaker 1: is the I guess grandfather of the human cannon ball cannon, right, yeah,
5:16
Speaker 1: the Farini project or eight seventy one, George Farini. Basically
5:22
Speaker 1: it was like a more like a catapult, like a
5:26
Speaker 1: spatula that would just flip people and stop and people
5:32
Speaker 1: would go flopping and flying through the air. Yeah, and
5:35
Speaker 1: they oh god, I regret this. Yeah. Uh. Specifically Lulu
5:41
Speaker 1: Um who was a man dressed as a woman, because
5:44
Speaker 1: that always adds to the comic effect. Right, put a
5:47
Speaker 1: dude in address and he was the first person in
5:50
Speaker 1: America to get flapjacked with Farini's contraption. There. Yeah, and
5:57
Speaker 1: not only did he do that, he was he sailed
6:02
Speaker 1: thirty ft into the air. And um was caught by
6:05
Speaker 1: someone on a trapeeze. So as we go through this,
6:09
Speaker 1: I don't want any just think about my dead body
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Speaker 1: being shot onto the Kansas Prairie. Um, I want you
6:18
Speaker 1: to think about how difficult it is to catch somebody
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Speaker 1: on a trapeez who's just been shot out of a cannon.
6:27
Speaker 1: While you're on a trapeeze. You're swinging it just the
6:29
Speaker 1: right point, hitting him just the right way, and then
6:32
Speaker 1: taking their for momentum and yanking him another way on
6:35
Speaker 1: the trapeeze. Yeah. Well this um, in fairness, Lulu wasn't
6:38
Speaker 1: caught by someone. She he just actually grabbed hold of
6:42
Speaker 1: the trapeeze. But there are people later on in this
6:45
Speaker 1: article who were caught by people on the trampeze. I
6:48
Speaker 1: just want to get that. So someone out there was like, no, no, Lulu.
6:51
Speaker 1: I wonder there'd be one person who knew that. UM,
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Speaker 1: So the Ferini projector was invented in eight seventy one.
6:58
Speaker 1: It was obsolete by eighteen eight. Because this is the
7:01
Speaker 1: year that a fourteen year old girl named Rosa Marie
7:04
Speaker 1: Richter whose stage name was zazzle a right, great great
7:08
Speaker 1: grandmother to Andy Richter. No, I'm just kidding, okay, um,
7:14
Speaker 1: great stage name though, right, she's fourteen. Um, and she,
7:19
Speaker 1: at the behest of one P. T. Barnum climbed into
7:23
Speaker 1: the first cannon, human cannonball cannon um that that is
7:27
Speaker 1: designed like today's modern cannons. Well yea, and she was
7:32
Speaker 1: shot out of it and um shortly after that, within
7:35
Speaker 1: a few performances, she broke her back and was the
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Speaker 1: first casualty of the human cannonball in this first the
7:43
Speaker 1: first cannon used the springs, and they employed the blast
7:47
Speaker 1: the fire in the in the boom to make people
7:50
Speaker 1: thinking back then they probably really bought it. Oh yeah,
7:53
Speaker 1: how bad. You know people are so dumb back then. Uh.
7:56
Speaker 1: And there's a very famous picture of her climbing into
7:59
Speaker 1: the cannon. It's called like beautiful girl and huge gun
8:02
Speaker 1: or something like that. I thought that our fore fathers
8:05
Speaker 1: like invented everything and like built the world and we're like,
8:10
Speaker 1: they're so dumb. What a bunch of stupid people. Yeah,
8:13
Speaker 1: well it's harder and harder to build and discover new
8:15
Speaker 1: things now because they're all that was all the easy stuff,
8:18
Speaker 1: Like you and I could have discovered all this stuff
8:21
Speaker 1: right now, it's just more and more difficult. You have
8:24
Speaker 1: to really look for subtlety, right yea, so we say,
8:27
Speaker 1: thanks to no one. Yeah, um, so the the late
8:31
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, is this the human cannonball idea just takes
8:36
Speaker 1: off right thanks to Dazzle, thanks to George Loyal. He
8:40
Speaker 1: was the one who was shot out of a cannon
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Speaker 1: and would be caught by a woman on a trap
8:45
Speaker 1: at the Yankee Robinson Circus. Right, yes, that's incredibly difficult,
8:49
Speaker 1: it is. And you think about it, like, I think
8:51
Speaker 1: I've even seen that before, like in person, at at
8:54
Speaker 1: a circus when I was a kid. Um, But now
8:58
Speaker 1: that I've researched and read the some like, I can't
9:02
Speaker 1: imagine how difficult that has to be, how everything has
9:05
Speaker 1: to be totally precise, and that these circus performers must
9:08
Speaker 1: spend like all day practicing every day just to make sure. Yeah,
9:13
Speaker 1: and not just to the timing. There's a lot of
9:16
Speaker 1: other stuff that you have to take into account. Right,
9:19
Speaker 1: It's right, it's not just get in this cannon. We're
9:21
Speaker 1: gonna push you out, no josh, because the little sled
9:25
Speaker 1: that you're basically in goes forward at a force of
9:27
Speaker 1: three thousand and six thousand pounds per square inch of pressure. Right,
9:33
Speaker 1: that we should say, compressed air is now the the
9:36
Speaker 1: preferred means of shooting that little piston forward. Right, and
9:40
Speaker 1: you're in a little capsule like imagine um Mark's egg,
9:45
Speaker 1: but with the top cut off, so you're not you're
9:48
Speaker 1: in the in the barrel in what amounts to a barrel,
9:51
Speaker 1: a bullet in the barrel, a bullet with the top
9:53
Speaker 1: cut off, and um that bullet is attached to the cannon.
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Speaker 1: So when the when the compressed air shot shots it out,
10:00
Speaker 1: the cannon stops, but you keep going, that's right. But
10:03
Speaker 1: it shoots you out at a what did you say,
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Speaker 1: like three thousand to six thousand pounds per square inch
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Speaker 1: of pressure? Yeah, yeah, that produces some some force. That's
10:11
Speaker 1: a lot. And that's why you can't just be like
10:14
Speaker 1: all limp. You know, that would crush you. You know,
10:18
Speaker 1: you have to be extremely strong and rigid and your
10:22
Speaker 1: legs have to be taught. Like. You can't just be
10:24
Speaker 1: like all right, shoot shoot it off, or like your
10:26
Speaker 1: dead body. That's why it would be so gruesome. Yeah,
10:29
Speaker 1: I wonder if I just explode in blood at the
10:31
Speaker 1: end of the cannon. I don't know. Maybe, But with
10:34
Speaker 1: with the big daddy cannons these days, you can go
10:38
Speaker 1: horizontally about two hundred feet or vertically, which they say
10:43
Speaker 1: that's where the ooze and odds come from, as high
10:45
Speaker 1: as two hundred feet uh and then speeds up to
10:49
Speaker 1: sixty to seventy right, So you're hauling, you are hauling. Um,
10:54
Speaker 1: you're also under some tremendous force, right oh yes, so yeah,
11:00
Speaker 1: you've got about nine g s during launch and twelve
11:04
Speaker 1: jeez an impact and we'll talk about that later. But
11:07
Speaker 1: chuck the dodon paw right, it's a roller coaster in Japan.
11:12
Speaker 1: It has the highest acceleration. Um, it's a two point
11:16
Speaker 1: seven geesez yeah, so imagine nine right, Yeah, this is
11:22
Speaker 1: a this is a this is you're putting this human
11:25
Speaker 1: body under a lot of stress, right then, yes, and
11:28
Speaker 1: you fly out a long way and that's why you
11:29
Speaker 1: have to take into account the things we briefly mentioned
11:32
Speaker 1: like wind speed, body weight, obstacles like the guy wires
11:36
Speaker 1: and the tent for the net and the poles for
11:38
Speaker 1: the for the tent, And we also we mentioned that
11:41
Speaker 1: in Sniper. Remember we're talking about the bullet trajectory, and
11:45
Speaker 1: they have to take into account like humidity. So do
11:48
Speaker 1: people who set up human cannonball cannons. And usually I
11:51
Speaker 1: get the impression the human cannonball is the manager in
11:55
Speaker 1: charge of this whole act. They don't just come out
11:57
Speaker 1: and they're like, all right, I'll get in it. Alreadys
11:59
Speaker 1: did it? Yeah, And some carnie like puts out a cigarette.
12:02
Speaker 1: It's like it looks good to me. Uh now that's
12:04
Speaker 1: not the case. Um. A lot of planning goes in
12:06
Speaker 1: because they make a point. It's pretty easy to get
12:09
Speaker 1: into a cannon and get shot out, although like we said,
12:12
Speaker 1: you gotta be really strong and stuff. But the landing
12:14
Speaker 1: part is the crucial part, obviously, because of fifty byt
12:19
Speaker 1: net might look pretty big when you're standing on it,
12:22
Speaker 1: but when you're two hundred feet away and two hundred
12:24
Speaker 1: feet up, it might look like a postage stamp to you.
12:28
Speaker 1: And I mean, this is a big deal, and you
12:31
Speaker 1: want to hit that net. You you want to hit
12:33
Speaker 1: it in just the right place to sure um. Yeah,
12:36
Speaker 1: so to make sure that the person hits the net,
12:39
Speaker 1: um test dummies are used. A test dummy is a
12:42
Speaker 1: human cannonball's best friend, because you can shoot a test
12:45
Speaker 1: dummy out as much as you want until you figure
12:47
Speaker 1: out whether or not you've got the barrel trajectory just right.
12:50
Speaker 1: The temperature is a problem, what have you adjustments early? Right?
12:55
Speaker 1: And so they just shoot a test dummy at the
12:58
Speaker 1: net until they have it just right, and then they
13:00
Speaker 1: they I guess they feel that they're confident they're going
13:02
Speaker 1: to try their luck at it. Yeah, And like you said,
13:04
Speaker 1: you got to hit the net at the proper place too,
13:06
Speaker 1: which is generally the real third because when you hit
13:09
Speaker 1: something going down in an angle like that, you're going
13:11
Speaker 1: to bounce backwards, not like pop straight up or go forward, right,
13:15
Speaker 1: So you don't want to hit it on the first
13:17
Speaker 1: third because then you'll bounce backwards off the net. So yeah,
13:20
Speaker 1: it's pretty specific. It is things like so, Chuck, who
13:53
Speaker 1: does this crazy circus people? Circus families. It's always families. Yeah,
14:00
Speaker 1: you know, like once you get into circus, then you've
14:03
Speaker 1: almost guaranteed that your kid is going to do that.
14:07
Speaker 1: So you want to talk about some of them, Well, yeah,
14:09
Speaker 1: the one I think I've heard of these people even
14:11
Speaker 1: before this, um, this article. But the Zucchini family Zacchini
14:18
Speaker 1: zucchini zucchinis, Zacchinis have been doing uh while They've been
14:22
Speaker 1: performing in circuses since the nineteen twenties and apparently they
14:25
Speaker 1: stopped in the nineties. They're like, seventy years is enough
14:29
Speaker 1: for us, the Zacchinis are hanging up our little fancy shoes,
14:32
Speaker 1: right uh. And in that time, um, there were seven
14:36
Speaker 1: brothers in the family. Five of them became human cannonballs.
14:41
Speaker 1: And that's just the brothers. There was also a sister
14:44
Speaker 1: to who did human cannonballing. Yeah. I'm just dying to
14:47
Speaker 1: know what those other two dudes. It's like, yeah, Eli
14:51
Speaker 1: and Peyton Manning's brother that most people go, there's another brother, right, like, well,
14:57
Speaker 1: what does he do? He he's the oldest, whdn't he
15:00
Speaker 1: and he used to like he was like a big
15:01
Speaker 1: man on campus at Old Miss. But that was it,
15:04
Speaker 1: he didn't he just parted then play football though, So
15:07
Speaker 1: he's not beloved by his father Archie. Yeah, so not true.
15:14
Speaker 1: Probably Uh, they worked with the Ringling brothers, the Zucchini's did,
15:20
Speaker 1: who obviously a big name in circuses, and uh, they
15:23
Speaker 1: sort of pushed the envelope Hugo and Victor. The brothers
15:26
Speaker 1: did a little double barrel gag that went over pretty well.
15:31
Speaker 1: And Mario, uh would get shot over Ferris wheels, like
15:35
Speaker 1: two Ferris wheels, Mario Zucchini, two fairest wheels, not on
15:40
Speaker 1: top of one another, no one after the other. It's
15:44
Speaker 1: quite quite a feat. And then um, John Weiss human bullet. Yeah,
15:51
Speaker 1: he started out as a clown apparently really he did
15:54
Speaker 1: five years as a clown and then made the very
15:57
Speaker 1: rare jump to human cannonball. From clown to cannonball this
16:01
Speaker 1: year and apparently his first first shot sent him six
16:06
Speaker 1: ft really yeah, yeah, that was his first one. Did
16:11
Speaker 1: you do it as a clown? Do you know? I
16:14
Speaker 1: think that that would have been a mockery to the
16:16
Speaker 1: human cannonball um tradition. Okay, yeah, I don't want to
16:21
Speaker 1: do that. And then there's the Smith family, also a
16:24
Speaker 1: very popular circus cannonball family. Did you talk about John Weiss, Well,
16:28
Speaker 1: he was he was one of the most prolific cannonballers yeah,
16:31
Speaker 1: did he die doing it? No? Okay, did you mention
16:34
Speaker 1: how many times he's done it? No? Five thousand. That
16:37
Speaker 1: is a lot of time to be shot out of
16:40
Speaker 1: a cannon. I did just kind of breeze over that
16:42
Speaker 1: five thousand times and he started in seven. Yeah, so
16:47
Speaker 1: he was doing it for a little while there. For years.
16:49
Speaker 1: I guess he was doing it once a day, six
16:52
Speaker 1: days a week, fifty weeks a year. Yeah, you're right,
16:55
Speaker 1: that's a lot of blasts. It is a lot. That's
16:56
Speaker 1: a lot of I mean, especially what we know about
16:59
Speaker 1: what the pressure it exerts on a body. I mean,
17:03
Speaker 1: that's that's rough work. Yeah, and it's uh, I mean
17:07
Speaker 1: we've pointed out how it is safe. But more than
17:09
Speaker 1: thirty people have died doing this over the years. Okay,
17:12
Speaker 1: so the that that that pops up in this article
17:15
Speaker 1: thirty people have died as human cannonballs. There's a British
17:20
Speaker 1: historian who died a few years back. His name is A. H. Cox.
17:24
Speaker 1: He Um says that there's been only about fifty people
17:28
Speaker 1: to ever be human cannonballs. Thirty have died. Really, Yeah,
17:34
Speaker 1: I thought that's kind of significant enough to be put
17:36
Speaker 1: into this article. Ward me off of human cannonball and
17:40
Speaker 1: so thirty out of fifty have died and that's just
17:43
Speaker 1: who died others, you know, like broker Back Zazzle broker Back. Um, yeah,
17:49
Speaker 1: we'll get into that gruesomeness soon or Zazzle Zazzle. Okay, alright,
17:57
Speaker 1: So back to the Smith family. They are the modern
18:00
Speaker 1: um cannonball family that are pretty awesome. Um, David Cannonball
18:04
Speaker 1: Smith Jr. Has spent much of his life inside of
18:07
Speaker 1: a cannon. Yes, have you been on their website? Funny
18:11
Speaker 1: he just he's described as having a dynamic personality. I
18:16
Speaker 1: like that. It's better than saying he has a dynamite
18:18
Speaker 1: personality than be pretty bad. But David the Bullet Smith Jr.
18:24
Speaker 1: Is his son, and I'm sorry he's the one with
18:25
Speaker 1: the dynamics. Okay, his dad was a real snooze. I
18:29
Speaker 1: don't know. Uh. He bested his dad's record of by
18:33
Speaker 1: flying a hundred ft Yeah, but his dad still holds
18:38
Speaker 1: the highest I think two hundred and three sixty one
18:43
Speaker 1: two and that friends outside of America. Yeah, that's one
18:46
Speaker 1: of those over two Ferris wheels. Yeah, that's crazy. Yep. Oh,
18:50
Speaker 1: should you mention the DARPA thing? I thought that was
18:52
Speaker 1: completely stupid and ridiculous. Did you think so? Yeah, I
18:56
Speaker 1: think it's kind of cool. I think if DARPA could
19:00
Speaker 1: perfect this, then it could take the human cannonball art
19:03
Speaker 1: to a whole new level. Spill it. But basically DARPA
19:06
Speaker 1: the Defense Research Project, Right, there's an a in there
19:10
Speaker 1: somewhere advanced. Yes, thank you um they were looking at.
19:16
Speaker 1: I think they file the patent for a basically human
19:20
Speaker 1: cannonball cannon that has like a sled chair right, that
19:25
Speaker 1: shoots you up. I think they said they can get
19:28
Speaker 1: a first responder, special ops, a firefighter on top of
19:33
Speaker 1: a five story building in two seconds. So basically their
19:36
Speaker 1: idea is to take the human cannonball concept and just
19:39
Speaker 1: shoot people on top of buildings to go fight fires
19:42
Speaker 1: or to go snipe people or whatever. So I get that.
19:45
Speaker 1: It's the landing thing that they say is the hardest
19:47
Speaker 1: part in real cannonballing. So what what's going on? Well,
19:49
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. I have no idea. I don't
19:51
Speaker 1: know if they were like, well we've got this part, now,
19:53
Speaker 1: let's go figure out the other part. But that's that's
19:56
Speaker 1: kind of the big um joke or a big unders
20:00
Speaker 1: or among human cannonballers. Is it's not a problem shooting
20:04
Speaker 1: somebody out of a cannon. It's the landing that's the
20:07
Speaker 1: important part. Yeah, right, Or in this case, if you're
20:09
Speaker 1: shooting someone on a building, if you're off there, then
20:13
Speaker 1: it's all of a sudden, you're a cartoon and you
20:16
Speaker 1: smack into the building and then slide very slowly down,
20:19
Speaker 1: except unlike a cartoon, you leave a trail of blood
20:22
Speaker 1: when you slide down. Yeah, and you slide down fast,
20:25
Speaker 1: and then there's more blood and body parts on the street. Yes,
20:28
Speaker 1: which has happened, I'm sure it has. There's there's been
20:55
Speaker 1: a lot of accidents, as we've said, out of fifty
20:58
Speaker 1: uh thirty, he mean cannonballs have died, right, it's a
21:02
Speaker 1: lot and um to to prevent this, you know, these
21:07
Speaker 1: people stay in tiptop shape, right. Um. You have to
21:11
Speaker 1: work out your core. You have to have a strong back,
21:13
Speaker 1: You need to be able to brace yourself like you said,
21:15
Speaker 1: and really just go totally rigid so when you're shot out,
21:19
Speaker 1: you don't just you're not crushed. You need to become
21:21
Speaker 1: a projectile, right, um, because all you're wearing a helmet,
21:24
Speaker 1: maybe a little padding, Yeah, but helmet is not gonna
21:27
Speaker 1: do much if you miss your net. No, um, and
21:30
Speaker 1: the net is very important. A lot of people use
21:33
Speaker 1: airbags as well, right, yes, um, there was a guy
21:37
Speaker 1: who's named Elvin Bale. It's the human space Shuttle. Poor
21:42
Speaker 1: Elvin Bale. He used air bags and he is a
21:45
Speaker 1: victim of circumstance if there ever has been one. Right.
21:49
Speaker 1: He was big in the seventies and eighties until I
21:51
Speaker 1: believe seven, when he went through all the the tests,
21:59
Speaker 1: shot is cry test dummy out. Um, it landed fine
22:03
Speaker 1: in these air bags where he calculated they should be.
22:07
Speaker 1: And um, what he didn't know is that his crash
22:09
Speaker 1: test dummy had gotten wet, which made it much heavier,
22:14
Speaker 1: which completely changed the dynamics of its test run. So
22:19
Speaker 1: when he shot himself out, he missed the air bags. Right,
22:24
Speaker 1: he did. He was he sailed right over him. This
22:26
Speaker 1: is in Hong Kong. And he said that he knew
22:29
Speaker 1: quote I could see where I was going and that
22:31
Speaker 1: it was too far, too fast, So he knew in
22:34
Speaker 1: mid air. He was conscious enough to be like, oh crap,
22:38
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna hit the air bag and apparently the dummy,
22:41
Speaker 1: because when I read that, I was like, well, how
22:43
Speaker 1: does this happen when that's the only safety thing you
22:45
Speaker 1: can do. How do you have a soaked dummy? Apparently
22:48
Speaker 1: it was left in the rain and they're filled with sand,
22:51
Speaker 1: and so the outside of it dried and but the
22:54
Speaker 1: sand was still wet on the inside, so it didn't
22:56
Speaker 1: like feel wet to the touch when they were testing it.
22:59
Speaker 1: And he said he remembered it feeling like it was
23:02
Speaker 1: in slow motion and that his brain actually thought he
23:06
Speaker 1: could solve this problem in mid arrow aerodynamically, like do
23:10
Speaker 1: something like I can do this and shorten the trip
23:14
Speaker 1: and land upright, which might save me. But instead he
23:16
Speaker 1: overshot it by just a few yards and slam feet
23:20
Speaker 1: first into the floor, shattered his ankles, knee, a leg,
23:24
Speaker 1: in his spine, and he's paralyzed from the moist down
23:28
Speaker 1: and that is very sad. Uh. He mentions the aerodynamics right, like,
23:34
Speaker 1: there is a specific way you want to land. Yeah,
23:37
Speaker 1: you want to do that little easy somersault and land
23:40
Speaker 1: on your back, which is that's the way to land.
23:46
Speaker 1: You also said something um that brought to mind the
23:49
Speaker 1: idea that this the g force that we talked about earlier.
23:53
Speaker 1: It's been shown to produce a loss of consciousness and people.
23:57
Speaker 1: So that's another danger that you you know, when you're sailing,
24:00
Speaker 1: you want to like stay like a projectile, and if
24:04
Speaker 1: you're blacked out, you're going to be like a dead
24:06
Speaker 1: body like you. Yes, um, and Elvin Bell is not
24:12
Speaker 1: the only person that something horrible has happened to obviously. Yeah,
24:16
Speaker 1: Matt Cranch just this year. Yeah, a few months ago
24:20
Speaker 1: in April. He and this is just a nightmare scenario.
24:24
Speaker 1: He got blasted off and right after he blasted off,
24:27
Speaker 1: the net collapsed. Yeah, so how does that happen? I
24:30
Speaker 1: don't know, that's probably what he's asking. Well, he died.
24:33
Speaker 1: He landed on his head and died. He did die,
24:37
Speaker 1: so that is not what he's asking. That is what
24:39
Speaker 1: his family is asking, probably via a lawsuit. It would
24:41
Speaker 1: be my guess. That was in Great Britain too, very sad.
24:44
Speaker 1: And remember I mentioned a Zichini's sister. Um. She the
24:49
Speaker 1: Zichinis used to do these double barrels stunts where they
24:52
Speaker 1: two would be shot out at the same time, usually
24:55
Speaker 1: next to one another and a long parallel one another. Well,
24:58
Speaker 1: she and another brother had a had an act where
25:03
Speaker 1: they'd be shot in the same direction as when I
25:05
Speaker 1: passed by and like high five. Yeah, well they collided
25:08
Speaker 1: and she broke her back. That's just a bad idea.
25:11
Speaker 1: That was a bad idea. But the sad thing is
25:13
Speaker 1: that if you if you look at modern people, like
25:16
Speaker 1: the modern cannonballers, they are safety conscious. Um they were
25:21
Speaker 1: just like a net collapsed or the dummy was was wet,
25:26
Speaker 1: which that that makes it even sadder to me. If
25:28
Speaker 1: you get shot, you know, two ft into the air
25:32
Speaker 1: at your brother sixty, I wonder how close break your
25:36
Speaker 1: back then something? Yeah, that was part of the equation.
25:39
Speaker 1: I wonder how close they intended to go to one another,
25:43
Speaker 1: because obviously the closer the better, Like if they were apart,
25:46
Speaker 1: it's it's not it's impressive. So they probably wanted to
25:50
Speaker 1: get it tight for the effect. But can you imagine
25:54
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, like when you see that coming
25:57
Speaker 1: straight at you, you probably have the same realization like, crap,
26:00
Speaker 1: that's I'm gonna die by hitting my brother, sister brother.
26:06
Speaker 1: Very sad, Yeah, anything else, that's it. Man. I did
26:10
Speaker 1: a do we ever did the thing on Daredevil's Uh No,
26:13
Speaker 1: I wrote an article on Daredevil's and maybe we should
26:16
Speaker 1: do that at some point or we've been talking about
26:18
Speaker 1: our Evil Evil kin Evil podcast. Maybe because he's a
26:21
Speaker 1: big part of that one, maybe we can just cover
26:23
Speaker 1: it all songs. Human cannonball. Yeah, we've got that one
26:27
Speaker 1: covered done. Okay, Well, if you want to learn more
26:29
Speaker 1: about human cannonballs, including how long it takes to accelerate
26:34
Speaker 1: a human cannonballer to their top speed, do you want
26:37
Speaker 1: to know one fifth of a second? Really? Yeah? You
26:40
Speaker 1: can find all that by typing human cannonball onto the
26:45
Speaker 1: search bart how stuff works dot com And from what
26:48
Speaker 1: you say, Chuck, it sounds like that will bring up
26:49
Speaker 1: more than just one article. Yeah, my daredevil sing like
26:53
Speaker 1: pop up um, I said, handy search bar at House
26:56
Speaker 1: Divorced dot com. That means it's time for listener mail.
27:02
Speaker 1: That's right, Josh, I'm gonna call this underground railroad. Uh,
27:06
Speaker 1: I'm writing in about underground railroad. I wanted to share
27:09
Speaker 1: a little bit of my childhood summers in upstate New York.
27:12
Speaker 1: My great grandfather, Louis Loveland made a home in Johnsburg,
27:17
Speaker 1: New York in the Adirondacks. What's so funny? Like you
27:22
Speaker 1: know him? Yeah, Louie. The home itself is incredibly cool
27:26
Speaker 1: and haunted. There's a very cluttered and dimly lit room
27:29
Speaker 1: hidden away behind the kitchen, which has a small organ
27:32
Speaker 1: buried beneath uh decades a stored and forgotten items. Family
27:37
Speaker 1: legend has it that the organ would mysteriously start playing
27:40
Speaker 1: it all hours of the night thanks to spirits. As
27:43
Speaker 1: if that weren't enough, there's a very large barn behind
27:45
Speaker 1: the home, which has seen its better days. My sister
27:48
Speaker 1: and I were always warned to be careful when we
27:50
Speaker 1: went near the barn. The reason because the earth beneath
27:53
Speaker 1: our feet could give away at any moment. Well, this
27:56
Speaker 1: sounds a good, terrifying summer house, but there is a
28:00
Speaker 1: hidden tunnel beneath the barn. Because there's a hidden tunnel
28:02
Speaker 1: beneath the barn, running from the back of the home,
28:04
Speaker 1: below the barn and out into the mountains, right next
28:07
Speaker 1: to a strawberry patch that my great grandfather planted a
28:10
Speaker 1: hundred years ago. The tunnel was a part of the
28:13
Speaker 1: underground railroad, and I've been told it's one of the
28:15
Speaker 1: last stops in the adder on decks that is still
28:17
Speaker 1: intact today, although it buries. The tunnel is roughly three
28:21
Speaker 1: to four ft below the ground about five ft tall,
28:23
Speaker 1: four ft wide and seventy five yards long, packed with
28:27
Speaker 1: dirt and rocks and an absolute death trap to navigate
28:31
Speaker 1: without a flashlight. The entrance from the home it's just
28:35
Speaker 1: too dangerous to use anymore. But there is a way
28:37
Speaker 1: to drop into the tunnel via a hidden door in
28:39
Speaker 1: the barn, as long as you don't mind a many
28:41
Speaker 1: landside of dirt and hay following you into the tunnel,
28:44
Speaker 1: which I would um. That's it. Once you carefully make
28:47
Speaker 1: your way through the tunnel, you emerge into sunlight and
28:50
Speaker 1: a strawberry field. Nice, nice little treat if you're somebody
28:55
Speaker 1: warm wet towel, moist towel, and that is from Alison
28:59
Speaker 1: STI wow, thanks Alice. You could do that, couldn't you?
29:03
Speaker 1: Chuck the You've gone caming before I could do that.
29:07
Speaker 1: You should handle not me. As long as it's buttressed.
29:11
Speaker 1: I wonder if it is buttressed, if Charles Bronson had
29:14
Speaker 1: anything to do what it is. Yeah. Uh. If you
29:18
Speaker 1: have a great recipe for fresh strawberries, we want to
29:21
Speaker 1: hear it. You can wrap it up in an email,
29:25
Speaker 1: spanking on the bottom, kiss it good night, and send
29:29
Speaker 1: it to Stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com
29:35
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29:37
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29:43
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