Original subtitles

- [Dan] Warning, what you are about to see could be disturbing

to some viewers. Viewer discretion is advised.

[upbeat music]

Imagine looking up at the sky one day

and spotting a guy floating above the earth

in a piece of patio furniture.

[upbeat music]

- Larry reaches 16,000 feet.

That's three miles above the earth.

- At this point, Larry's freezing and he

is rapidly losing oxygen.

Now he's kind of freaking out.

[upbeat music]

- Or watching a fireworks display that's radioactive.

- Las Vegas hotels and casinos

host these parties that end

with an atomic explosion.

- Guests basically just drink and party

and sing all night till just before dawn when bam.

[bomb exploding]

- How about heading to the racetrack to place a bet

on a primate?

- These monkeys are taking it seriously,

riding the greyhounds like their thoroughbreds.

It's insane.

[upbeat music]

- These are the spectacles so unexpected,

they are truly Unbelievable.

[intense music]

[intense music continues]

[music crescendos and ends]

Early 1920s, America is a time of prosperity and hope.

It's also the start of prohibition,

and people are looking for things to do

instead of well, getting sauced.

Eating contests are gaining popularity

and beauty pageants too,

but there's one strange spectacle that

I guess you could say rises above the rest.

[tense music]

- It's January, 1924 in Hollywood, California,

a local theater owner decides that he's gonna try

and use some sensationalism

to drum up a little more business.

He decides to hire a stunt man to climb

onto the theater's 100 foot tall flagpole

and than just sit up there to draw attention.

- [Dan] Who is brave or foolish enough

to take this job?

A man by the name of Alvin Shipwreck Kelly.

- Shipwreck claims to have survived 32 shipwrecks,

including that of the Titanic.

Probably not true,

but this is how he earns his moniker shipwreck.

And it works, people can't take their eyes off of him.

They buy movie tickets just to see if he's still up there

when they get out.

- [Reporter] After 13 hours, 13 minutes, aloft, he's down.

- It makes the papers, and now everybody

wants the guy to promote their business.

- Over the next decade,

Shipwreck tours 28 cities in the United States

to drum up business by flagpole sitting,

he earns up to $500 a day per appearance.

That's $10,000 in today's money.

- [Dan] Because he's getting paid by the day,

Shipwreck's in no hurry to come down.

That's when he starts racking up records.

[soft music]

- In 1927, he spends 22 days on top of a flagpole

at Madison Square Garden in New York City

to help promote a dance marathon,

and in 1929, he spends 49 days

on top of a 225 foot pole in Atlantic City steel pier

amidst wind, rain, and lightning.

- The logistics of this are endurable

but still very dangerous.

[upbeat music]

- [Dan] With only a 13 inch bar stool cushion, rope stirrups

and thumb-sized holes to maintain balance.

Shipwreck has to get creative

when accounting for some other challenges.

- In terms of going to the bathroom,

what he does is he discreetly places this tube

that goes all the way down the pole

to take his bodily fluids all the way

to a receptacle waiting that's on the ground,

so that when he has to go, you know,

he can do so without anybody seeing

- [Reporter] As Shipwreck Kelly fame flag pole sitter has vowed,

he'll hold his perch for as many hours as it took Lindbergh

to fly across Atlantic.

- [Dan] By the late 1920s, Shipwreck is at peak popularity

as the luckiest fool alive.

Adults are enamored and children wanna be just like him.

With that naturally comes competition.

[upbeat music]

- You got guys showing up from all corners

trying to outdo him,

all trying to break Shipwrecks record's.

- And then we have the beauty queen

of flag pole sitters Betty Fox.

She's skipping rope, she's dancing.

She does all sorts of tricks to kind of set herself apart

and she even has a telephone that connects

to the bottom of the flagpole so that her fans

can come and have a conversation with her.

- [Dan] While no flagpole sitters plummet and die

in 1929, the stock market does.

- The realities of the great Depression set in

and people don't really have the cash or patience

to watch a guy sit up on a flagpole.

People just stop paying attention.

- While the flagpole sitting era comes to an end,

Shipwreck Kelly must have the last word.

In 1934, he mounts a flagpole to the top of a biplane

and goes for one final ride.

[upbeat music]

- Say what you will about Shipwreck Kelly,

but it's undeniable, he went out on top.

[upbeat music fading]

If looking at a guy sitting on top

of a flagpole sounds unusual,

imagine a guy hanging around at 16,000 feet.

- It's 1962 and a 13-year-old boy named Larry Walters

walks into an army surplus store in Los Angeles.

Suddenly something unusual catches his attention.

These large weather balloons

that are hanging from the ceiling.

And that moment begins Larry's fixation with flying.

- As he gets older, he graduates from high school.

He heads down to the Air Force Recruitment Center,

and as they go through the process,

they get to the eye exam

and he finds that his eyesight is not up to snuff.

[soft music]

- [Dan] With his dream dashed,

Larry spends the next 15 years doing odd jobs,

eventually becoming a truck driver,

but his fixation with flying never goes away.

[soft music]

- Now the year is 1982, and a 33-year-old Larry

is pulled over to the side of the road

and he's looking up at the sky

and he starts thinking about those great big weather balloons

he saw hanging from the ceiling when he was 13.

- Right then and there, Larry hatches his plan.

He's going to get some weather balloons,

fill them with helium.

He's going to sail through the air

over the San Gabriel mountains and land safe and sound

in the Mojave Desert.

- Some people may think it's a crazy idea or a pipe dream,

but it isn't to Larry.

[tense music]

Larry shares his idea with his girlfriend Carol Van Deusen.

She sort of laughs it off like a crazy flight of fancy

and she thinks he'll never do this.

But Larry disagrees, this is now a mission.

- Larry draws up blueprints.

He decides he's going to take 42 weather balloons,

[upbeat music]

rig the balloons to an old fashioned lawn chair,

attach 30 gallon size jugs of water

to release weight if he needs to go higher.

And he also brings with him

a BB gun.

- Plan is that when he gets to about 7,000 feet,

he will then start shooting judiciously

a few of those balloons and start his descent.

- [Dan] Could this absurd plan even work?

- Yes. [distorted voice]

- [Dan] On July 2nd, 1982, Larry decides to find out.

[upbeat music]

- You can just imagine what this

must have looked like to neighbors.

They're out in the streets looking, gawking,

along with Carol is Larry's best friend Ron.

He's here to film the whole thing for posterity's sake.

- As fate would have it, just as Ron yells,

"Larry don't do this."

A gust of wind blows up, snaps the rope

and the chair flies into the air.

- [Dan] In no time, Larry reaches 500 feet and counting.

Suddenly he's at 1,500 feet,

the height of the Sears Tower and he keeps rising.

- After just one hour, Larry reaches 16,000 feet.

That's three miles above the earth.

That's higher than the maximum altitude

of a Cessna airplane.

[upbeat music]

- At this point, Larry's freezing

and he is rapidly losing oxygen.

To make matters worse,

[tense music]

he's been blown off course by the winds.

[ominous music]

And now he's encroaching on airspace

around the Los Angeles airport.

- At that point, a Delta flight launching out

of LAX almost hits him.

[plane engine roaring] [upbeat music]

- [Dan] With dangers mounting,

Larry realizes this lawn chair needs to be grounded.

[upbeat music]

- Larry pulls out his BB gun and starts his process.

He shoots down 7 of his weather balloons.

[dramatic music]

And then he drops his BB gun, it slips out of his hand.

[tense music]

- [Dan] Fortunately for Larry,

he's popped enough balloons to start his descent.

Unfortunately, he's headed straight for the power lines.

- Via CB Radio, he's able to make contact

with city power authorities who actually kill the power.

So Larry is not electrified to death when he lands.

He is brought back down to the ground surrounded

by well-wishers who are cheering him,

who are asking him to sign pieces of his weather balloons.

He's greeted like a returning hero.

- [Jane] Did it have a name, by the way?

- The craft itself? - [Jane] The craft, yes.

- Yes, it was called "The Inspiration."

- [Jane] "The Inspiration."

- [Dan] Larry receives his 15 minutes of fame

for this stunt, and even appears

on several late night talk shows,

but he's also slapped with a $1,500 fine from the FAA.

Interestingly, the actual lawn chair Larry piloted

now hangs in the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC

making this strange spectacle a part of aviation history.

- There's nothing like a day at the racetrack from the popcorn

popping to the sound of buglers kicking things off,

but this is no ordinary race.

[upbeat music]

- Greyhound racing has been a popular sport

in the United States dating all the way back to 1919.

[upbeat music]

By 1930, 67 dog tracks have opened across the United States,

most of them in Florida.

- It's a huge spectator sport, not just to watch,

[upbeat music]

but to bet on as well.

[upbeat music]

A couple from Miami named Loretta and Charles David

asked the question,

"How can we make this already popular spectacle

even more spectacular?"

- [Dan] Their plan simple,

just add monkeys.

- The idea is take a monkey, put on the back of a greyhound

and essentially make a monkey jockey.

- [Dan] Making jockeys outta monkeys

isn't as easy as it sounds,

actually that doesn't sound easy at all.

[gates clicking] [tense music]

- Greyhounds are naturally predatory.

Remember when they're running around the track,

they're actually chasing a rabbit to eat it and kill it.

The challenge is taking a small mammal like a monkey

and getting them not just to coexist, but to work together.

- [Dan] The Davids are up for the task

and move forward to bring this spectacle to the racetrack.

- Loretta and Charles import

12 baby Capuchin monkeys from Panama.

Each of these baby monkeys cost about $35,000 today,

so this is a huge investment.

- The genius part of this

is that the Davids also get 12 greyhound puppies

and they raise the monkeys and the puppies together

basically as siblings.

- After two years of bonding, becoming buddies

working together every day, training,

it's time for them to hit the track.

- The first race in Florida is held

in January of 1933 in Miami.

The bell goes off and they spring outta the gates.

[upbeat music]

These monkeys are taking it seriously,

riding the greyhounds like they're thoroughbreds.

It's insane.

- [Dan] The monkey jockeys become so popular

that the Davids take them on tour all over the country.

Gamblers and track owners are making money hand over fist.

The monkeys, however, quite literally work for peanuts.

- Despite the popularity of these races,

the Humane Society does step in

and deems the sport cruel to animals.

Because of this, Charles and Loretta

retire their monkeys at the end of the 1930s.

[dramatic music]

- Now, if monkey jockeys don't thrill you,

perhaps another much smaller spectacle might fit your fancy.

- [Host] When a flea plays soccer,

he's in fact trying to jump.

- I think when you say the word flea,

people conjure up images

of the fleas you might find on a cat or a dog,

and they're a terrible nuisance as is, but for most of history,

people share their homes with fleas that feast on human blood.

And the difference is,

they're not only larger and stronger, they're trainable.

- [Dan] We know this thanks to Leon Bertolotto

who round 1892 sees moneymaking potential

from these little guys.

- Bertolotto invents a new art form,

the flea circus.

- Audience members are astonished

to see these little pests, not sucking blood,

but pulling a little chariot or carriage or train car.

- [Host] The fact is, fleas can pull up

to 200,000 times their own body weight.

- So the big question is,

how do you train a flea to be a circus performer?

- [Adam] The trick turns out to be keep the fleas

in a glass jar.

After two weeks of bouncing around

and smacking their little heads on the lid of the jar,

the fleas become docile.

- [Dan] Once they've calmed down,

their power is ready to be harnessed.

[upbeat music]

- The proprietors of these circuses

who are called professors,

will attach a minutely thin copper wire to them

and rig the other end of the wire up to little carts

and objects, which the flea will then proceed to pull.

- [Dan] Unlike monkeys, fleas don't work for peanuts,

they demand a different kind of payment.

- The fact that fleas drink human blood

makes them extraordinarily easy to care for.

The professor will roll up his sleeves

and allows them to feast on blood before showtime.

- By the late 1950s, the bizarre spectacle starts to fade

due to a shortage of performers.

Thanks in part to one clever invention.

[vacuum whirring]

If you're determined to experience a flea circus

in all its magnificence,

you can still find one performing annually

in Munich, Germany at October Fest.

- In the 1920s, stunt flying shows become

a popular form of entertainment,

propelling daredevils to push the boundaries

of what it's possible to do while in the air.

This leads one woman to turn an accident

into a real showstopper.

[upbeat music]

[plane engine roaring]

- Gladys Ingle is a Hollywood stunt woman.

She's a daredevil.

She's also the 4th woman in America

to achieve her pilot's license

and she becomes the only female member

of a group known as, The 13 Flying Black Cats,

which is a group of stunt trick flyers

that performed shows in Southern California.

And Gladys is one of the prime performers in this show.

[tense music]

- This woman has no fear.

She'll walk on the wings of planes in the middle of the air,

she'll stand on the wing of a plane as it's doing a loop,

and she'll even shoot arrows at targets on the ground

while she's flying.

[plane engine roaring] [dramatic music]

And by the way, she's doing all of these stunts

without a parachute,

so if she falls, she dies.

[tense music]

- [Dan] One death defying feat in particular

will go down as Gladys's greatest.

[tense music]

- January of 1926, The Flying Black Cats

are putting on one of their air shows.

A pilot named Art Goebel

is flying one of these planes, doing stunts,

when suddenly one of his wheels falls off in midair.

This is the 1920s,

landing a plane with two wheels is hard enough.

Landing a plane with one wheel

without crashing is nearly impossible.

- The question becomes how do you change a tire in midair?

More importantly,

who would be bold enough to do such a thing?

[tense tone]

- Gladys Ingle volunteers,

several of her Black Cat teammates

strap a tire to her back.

[plane engine roaring]

She gets on the wing of a plane

and heads up into the air towards the distressed plane.

- As Gladys is riding this biplane,

the crowd is fixated.

[dramatic music]

This biplane, on which she's riding on the wing,

inches closer and closer to Goebel's plane.

Crowd on the ground is looking at her going,

"No, are you mad?"

[suspenseful music]

[dramatic music]

- She's jumping onto another plane with a tire no parachute.

- She tiptoes across the wing,

gets to the center of the plane, and then shimmies down

the side of the belly of the plane down to the axle.

And then with one arm takes the wheel

and miraculously attaches this wheel while it's in midair.

[intense music]

Gladys makes her way back onto the wing

and rides the plane all the way back down to the ground

where Art Goebel safely makes his landing.

It's uncanny what just happened.

The crowd is eating this up.

- [Dan] Unbeknownst to the awe-struck spectators below,

this was all part of the show.

[air whooshing] [light dramatic music]

- The stunt is actually born out of something that happens.

During one of the practices, Art Goebel,

one of the wheels fell off of his plane

and it is Gladys that goes up

and changes the tire in midair.

They realize this could actually be a pretty cool stunt

to perform in the show.

Why don't we just keep doing it?

And so they do.

In fact, Gladys will perform this stunt 300 times

and the audience eats it up every single time.

[upbeat music fading]

- While watching a tire change in midair

is clearly spectacular.

There are other dangerous ways to get a thrill

right here on land.

[upbeat music] [train horn blowing]

- It's the 1890s and there's a new sensation,

two trains smashing into each other.

They're called Train Crash Shows.

- [Dan] One of the first and most infamous train crash shows

takes place in a town just outside of Waco, Texas in 1896.

- It's billed as, "The Crash at the Crush"

and the guy behind it is a man named William Crush.

He's a passenger agent

for the Missouri, Kansas, Texas Railroad,

also known as the Katy Railroad.

- The Katy Railroad has been struggling

and Crush has been tasked with drumming up new business.

And what better way to get people to ride trains

than to get trains to crash.

[train hooting] [upbeat music]

Crush secures two retired Katy Railroad locomotives.

He paints them red and green and he has the railway engineers

create a length of track between two hillsides.

He's creating an amphitheater for this spectacle.

He even builds a temporary town,

appropriately named Crush,

to house what's going to be an influx

of more people than this county has ever seen.

[tense music]

- On a beautiful September 15th Texas Day,

people begin flooding into crush.

40,000 people have arrived.

- At 5:10 PM William Crush mounts his horse

rides out to the midpoint on the track,

and then with the wave of his hat, begins the contest.

[train hooting] [dramatic music]

- The engineers pull the throttle back,

the boilers are raging

and the steam is rushing through.

[train hooting]

- Red and green locomotives come tearing towards each other.

The engineers, they dive off.

[train engine whirring]

- The trains get up to the top speed.

- The crowd swells.

People are screaming, they are loving this

and they cannot wait to see.

[train hooting] [suspenseful music]

[trains crashing & exploding]

- [Dan] It turns out to be a bigger show

than anybody bargained for.

- The sky fills with missiles of iron and steel,

just these massive chunks of train

that are flying up into the air.

People jump from their seats, they're trying to book it

and get out of the landing area.

Some of the debris does come down onto the spectators.

Two people are crushed and killed instantly.

- [Dan] Not surprisingly Crush is fired immediately.

- But after the railroad company realized

that a lot of the people in the crowd

actually had a spectacular time,

the railroad company rehires him a day later.

[light music] [trains exploding]

- Despite the crash at the Crush disaster,

Train Crash Shows stay popular for several decades.

However, as the Great Depression takes hold,

people no longer see the sense

in destroying perfectly good train locomotives.

No matter how spectacular

a spectacle that may be.

- There's no spectacle quite like a classic blowout.

One of those epic ragers you heard about in college

that you might have been at or you wish you were at.

This is the tale of one such throwdown.

[dramatic music]

- It's 1694,

and former Captain Edward Russell has been promoted

to first Lord of the Admiralty in the British Navy.

The top job.

[tense music]

This promotion is a big honor,

but then he finds out he's being sent to C�diz, Spain

and he does not wanna go.

- He just got married.

He's 42 years old, he'd been at sea for a number of years.

He wants to stay in London.

[dramatic music]

- [Dan] Admiral Russell does not wanna go to Spain,

but he knows he can't refuse an order, so it's on to plan B,

throw the soiree of the century.

[upbeat music]

- Admiral Russell lives on King Street.

It is a posh, expensive neighborhood

and it is filled with the very members of parliament

that are sending him away.

This party isn't just his farewell to London.

It is meant to both annoy the members of Parliament

and also let them know

just how pissed off he is at having to leave.

- Admiral Russell proceeds to walk into his garden.

He heads to his fountain,

which is about 30 feet in diameter, and he pulls the plug.

[soft music]

- He fills the fountain with 250 gallons of brandy,

125 gallons of Malaga wine,

1,400 pounds of sugar, 2,500 lemons,

20 gallons of lime juice, and 5 pounds of nutmeg.

- This punch bowl is enormous.

So much so that Russell has to hire a boy

in a little tiny boat to paddle around,

mixing the cocktail.

- [Dan] Word quickly gets out

about the Admiral's defiance spectacle.

- 5,000 people show up

to drink from the admirals punch bowl.

People are drinking, they're frolicking.

Eventually all hell breaks loose.

It's a bacchanalian event.

- It goes on for a day, it goes on for a couple of days,

and then we get to the eighth day

of this massive, massive soiree.

People are just getting so belligerent.

A man takes a look at the fountain

and he sees it as a golden opportunity to go swimming.

[upbeat music]

- Pretty soon, dozens of people are in the fountain.

They're doing laps, they're swimming and they're drinking.

The madness just accelerates.

[upbeat music]

After eight days, the fountain runs dry,

thus ending the greatest party in British history

where the first Lord of the admiralty

becomes the first Lord of debauchery.

- Admiral Russell still has to go to Spain,

but not without giving his superiors a spectacle

they won't soon forget.

Looking for another way to entertain your guests?

Instead of a DJ, try booking an act

equivalent to 10 million tons of TNT.

[tense music]

- It's the 1950s and the atomic bomb

is on the minds of every American.

[upbeat music]

It's the one thing we have to defend us

from the dangers and the specter of communism.

[bomb exploding] [upbeat music]

- The government's been running atomic tests

around Yucca Lake and Nevada for over a year.

There's so much public interest

that they decide to broadcast an explosion to the public.

On April 22nd, 1952, more than 200 reporters

and camera operators gather at News Knob

only 10 miles away from the blast.

- [Dan] 35 million Americans tune in

to see this breathtaking display of destruction,

but it leaves some wanting more.

[tense music]

[bomb exploding]

- Watching it on TV isn't good enough.

They want to see it with their own eyes.

[upbeat music]

- It gives birth to a Cold War phenomenon of atomic tourism.

And it just so happens Las Vegas is only 50 miles

away from the test site.

- [Dan] Then some bold entrepreneurs

take things a step further.

- Las Vegas hotels and casinos host these parties that end

[bomb exploding]

with an atomic explosion.

- Guests basically just drink and party

and sing all night, till just before dawn when, bam!

[bomb exploding]

- People are even able to watch

from the comfort of a hotel pool.

Just think about that for a second.

You're sitting on a floaty.

[upbeat music]

You have a cocktail in your hand

watching a nuclear explosion.

[bomb exploding]

- [Dan] But concerns about nuclear fallout

soon bring an end to this radioactive spectacle.

- On October 7th, 1963, President Kennedy

and the leaders of Great Britain and the Soviet Union

signed the historic Limited Test Ban Treaty.

From now on, you can only test underground

and that puts an end to these parties.

[bomb exploding]

- As the Cold War continues,

the general public realizes

maybe atomic weapons aren't really a cause for celebration.

- Imagine trying to save infant lives

by staging a spectacle.

Well, that's just what happened at the turn of the 20th century.

[tense music]

- In the late 1800s,

infant mortality is a major crisis in France.

Premature infants generally die when they're born.

[tense music]

There's a Doctor St�phane Tarnier,

he's interested in this subject,

but really struggling to find an answer.

- One day when Dr. Tarnier is at a zoo in Paris,

he sees a chicken egg incubator and he has a eureka moment.

If warming an egg at consistent temperature

can make it hatch, could warming a preemie

the same way make it thrive?

[dramatic music]

- Dr. Tarnier acquires an incubator,

makes some adjustments,

and places a premature baby inside.

Kept at a consistent body temperature,

the preemie is able to put on enough weight to survive.

His experiment works.

- [Dan] Despite its success,

the medical community isn't ready to use equipment

meant for animals on infants,

but that doesn't stop Dr. Tarnier.

[dramatic music]

- In 1896, he spies opportunity at the Berlin World's Fair.

- He decides to set up an exhibit

where he gets six incubators

and he places six premature babies in these incubators

to put on display for people to see.

[bright tone]

And he gets a large crowd.

People are flocking to see these premature babies

in these incubators continuing to survive

and continuing to thrive.

- [Dan] Oddly, no doctors take an interest except one.

[upbeat music]

- Dr. Couney, a German American obstetrician

is visiting the World's Fair.

He sees Dr. Tarnier incubators and the premature infants

and he recognizes immediately

the scientific possibilities

and the medical importance of this.

- [Dan] When Dr. Couney returns to America,

he presents the idea to hospitals,

but they are skeptical.

- It's not cheap to save premature babies.

Each incubator itself costs about $40,000 in today's money.

- Dr. Couney is not above a little bit of showmanship,

so he takes incubators

and the premature infants on the road.

He tours around the United States

as this incubator sideshow.

The public loves it.

They turn out, they see this,

and it serves two incredible goals.

One, these premature infants are doing better.

Many of them are living,

two, it's making Dr. Couney some money.

- And eventually Dr. Couney makes enough money

to create this spectacle as a more permanent fixture.

- [Dan] No, not at a hospital.

As unlikely as it sounds,

he finds a place at an iconic seaside resort.

- If you visit Coney Island at the turn of the 20th century,

you'll come across a marquee that reads

"Life begins at the Baby Incubator."

It's a site unlike anything audiences have seen before.

- [Dan] For 20 cents or about $7 today,

people can see incredibly tiny infants,

some only two to three pounds growing in these incubators.

- To get people to keep coming back,

Dr. Couney plays up the drama.

He'll have his nurses remove their wedding bands

or engagement bands and slip the rings around the wrists

of these babies to show and emphasize

just how small these babies are.

- Just two years in, he is making so much money

that he opens another location

on the Atlantic City boardwalk.

It's crazy to think today that in the early 20th century,

this baby incubator sideshows

are the only dedicated neo-natal care facilities

in the United States.

In fact, it's not until 1939

that the first neo-natal care unit opens

at Cornell Hospital in New York.

- [Dan] With hospitals around the country catching up,

Dr. Couney closes his incubator sideshows in 1943

after having saved an estimated 7,500 premature infants.

[upbeat music]

Now, if you find it strange,

that thousands of babies could draw such a crowd.

How about a grizzled old man riding a bicycle?

[upbeat music]

- Gustaf H�kansson is a 66-year-old bus driver

from Helsingborg, Sweden.

When Gustaf is not driving a bus,

he's more often than not on his bicycle.

He loves to cycle.

He's quite good at it and he's very competitive,

and he truly believes he could beat anybody in a bicycle race.

- [Dan] Gustaf decides to put his claim

of bike racing supremacy to the test,

and signs up for a thousand mile bike race

from Haparanda to Ystad in the South.

- But there's a slight problem with Gustaf's entry.

The maximum age for this competition is 40 years old.

Gustaf feels rejected, but this isn't going to stop him.

- "You won't let me in the race?

I'm gonna show these people whose boss."

- Because Gustaf is not an official rider,

when the gun goes off, Gustaf holds back.

[gunshot firing]

Letting the official competitors get a lead on him

by about a minute and then starts pedaling after the pack.

- [Dan] What happens next?

You wouldn't believe it, even if you saw it.

- Three days into this race, and by some miracle,

this 66-year-old Gustaf is in the lead by 125 miles.

Pretty soon newspapers pick up on the story.

Gustaf fever is in full effect.

Every town, every village, every city along the route,

people are there lining up,

and as he approaches the chants, start...

- [Paul] St�lfarfar, St�lfarfar,

which translates into English, Steel Grandpa.

- [Dan] But not everyone is rooting for Steel Grandpa,

- Even though he's not an official entrant,

the race officials are miffed.

They can't stop him per se,

but they gotta do something about this.

He's winning their race and he's not even in it.

- So they make him pull over

and undergo a mandatory medical examination

hoping that they can disqualify him.

Unfortunately for them, Gustaf passes with flying colors.

So this only adds to the living legend of the Steel Grandpa.

- [Dan] At the finish line, on July 7th, 1951,

a huge crowd gathers to see their 66-year-old hero.

- As he crosses the finish line,

children from the town come out on their own bicycles

and accompany him into the winner's circle.

People erupt in cheers.

It's a spectacle to behold.

- [Dan] However, this underdog's victory

is not without controversy.

- People are saying the Steel Grandpa is a cheater.

- The race rules stipulate that riders must end the day

at a particular checkpoint and then sleep

and then resume the race the next morning.

But Gustaf does not abide by this rule.

- At the end of each night, he takes an hour of rest

and sets back off in the middle of the night,

that allows him to get way ahead of the pack.

- [Dan] Okay, maybe he cheats a little,

but it certainly doesn't affect his popularity.

The very next day, the King of Sweden himself

invites him over for tea.

- He turns into Sweden's hottest celebrity.

Every subsequent bicycle race,

Steel Grandpa is invited to as a celebrity rider.

[dramatic music]

- Steel Grandpa continues to ride bicycles

until his death in 1987 at the age of 102.

Staying at the top of your game into triple digits

is an accomplishment we all hope to see for ourselves.

Steel Grandpa, we salute you.

- On the steel pier in Atlantic City in 1928

a large crowd is looking up at a woman on top of a horse,

that happens to be standing on a platform

40 feet in the air.

The big question, is she about to jump?

And also, whose idea is this?

To answer that, we must first go back 70 years.

[tense music]

- William F. Doc Carver is an entertainer and a showman,

and in 1883 he partners with Buffalo Bill Cody

to be part of his Wild West show.

But Carver eventually

breaks with Buffalo Bill to go out on his own.

- [Dan] In the early 1900s, show business is not easy.

- Doc is looking for the next big thing.

What can he do to draw huge crowds and make a lot of money?

- [Dan] He takes inspiration

from the popular high diving acts of the day

and asks the simple question,

would it be better with a horse?

- Doc Carver takes his idea to San Antonio, Texas.

He is promoting the heck out of this show

to take place on February 17th, 1907 at Electric Park.

But there's one problem,

he needs someone to take the plunge.

- And he finds his rider, in 19-year-old Oscar Smith.

So Oscar Smith and the horse by

the name of Little Powder Face ascend this platform.

[tense music]

[water splashing]

- Oscar and the horse make a beautiful dive,

come plunging into the pool.

A huge splash erupts,

the horse surfaces,

unfortunately, Oscar does not.

He's killed by the impact.

- [Dan] Despite Oscar's death

Doc's horse diving show will go on,

and it turns out it becomes immensely popular.

- He actually sets up two different teams

that crisscross the country and they make a lot of money

because they draw huge crowds.

[water splashing]

- But Doc Carver is not one to be satisfied.

- He's always on the lookout for a rider

that will take this show to the next level.

- [Holly] Enter Sonora Webster.

- Sonora joins Doc Carver's horse diving show in 1924,

and the crowd is in love with her.

She becomes the star.

- [Dan] Sonora, even marries Doc's son,

and they set up a permanent show on the

steel pier in Atlantic City doing 100s of jumps.

Then one day there's a terrible accident.

- In 1931, Sonora is jumping off the platform

a dive she's done 100s of times before,

but she enters the water a little bit off balance

and with her eyes open.

The awkward impact causes both of her retinas to detach,

causing permanent blindness.

- [Dan] Sonora is determined to go on with the show,

even if she can't see it herself.

- She makes the spectacle even more daring

and continues to perform for the next 11 years,

completely blind.

[water splashing]

- When she stops diving in 1942, horse diving's heyday ends.

However, she's so well known for it

that there's actually a film made about her in 1991

called "Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken,"

which she doesn't love incidentally.

[tense music]

- Horses diving into a pool from 40 feet

may sound unbelievable, but what about a wrestling match

where your opponent could rip your head off?

[upbeat music]

- Professional wrestling today

is arguably one of our biggest spectacles.

[upbeat music]

A $1.3 billion a year industry.

But back in the 1950s,

it's a struggle to get fans in the seats.

- [Dan] The genius marketing idea get these giant guys

to wrestle something even more giant, a bear.

[bear roaring] [dramatic music]

- As with any absurd spectacle,

there has to be a star,

and the star here is Terrible Ted.

Now Terrible Ted, when he was a cub,

had his teeth and claws extracted,

but as a full grown bear, he's still over seven feet tall

and weighs over 600 pounds, which is pretty threatening.

[tense music]

- April 1st, 1950 Terrible Ted has his first match

in front of a sellout crowd at Asbury Park in New Jersey.

Terrible Ted takes on a fighter named Tony Galento,

who was one of the toughest

and most feared fighters of his time.

- And keep in mind, this isn't scripted,

this isn't rehearsed.

You don't run through something with a bear.

You just let the bear do its thing.

And Terrible Ted pins him down in less than a minute.

[bell ringing]

- After this win, Terrible Ted's legend begins to grow.

He gets adopted by a human professional wrestler

named Jean DuBois, who trains him.

Between 1969 and 1974,

Ted wrestles multiple big name wrestlers

including Superstar Billy Graham, Bobby Henan,

and Rocky Johnson, father of Dwayne the Rock Johnson.

- And of course, Ted wins all of these matches, why?

Because he's a giant 700 pound bear, that's why.

- [Dan] When terrible Ted retires in 1974,

another bear taps in.

- In the 1970s and 80s, Victor the Wrestling Bear

travels the country facing wrestlers

like Rowdy Roddy Piper, Gary Hart, and Gorgeous George

defeating all of them.

In fact, Victor claims a record of 15,000 and nothing,

and he gets so famous

that he even ends up on the Ed Sullivan show.

- Eventually the sport is phased out,

but the debate still rages over

who really was the greatest wrestling bear of all time?

Whether it's watching someone attempt to pin a giant bear

or fleas walking a tightrope,

or even an elderly man on a bike, besting fit 20 year olds.

These surprising spectacles entice us for one simple reason.

They are all truly Unbelievable.

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