Original subtitles

LILY: If I'm gonna do something,

I give it my all.

WOLLIN: I want to be immortal.

I want to be a legend.

It's not fireworks. It's far more spectacular than that.

CHOI: There's like a shock that goes through me.

[ Whip cracks ]

TEPPER: He's crazy,

and you never know what he's coming up to do.

♪♪

CAMPBELL: 100 years ago, Robert Ripley went on a quest

to the farthest reaches of the globe

in search of the extraordinary and unusual.

Today, the adventure continues,

searching for the world's most bizarre,

astonishing secrets...

♪♪

...on "Ripley's Believe It or Not!"

♪♪

They test their limits and risk their lives,

rewriting our definition of sanity.

I'm Bruce Campbell.

As an actor, I've seen some things, done some stuff,

but all of it was fake.

What you're about to see is 100% grade-A real.

[ Electricity buzzing ]

It's a lesson kids learn early in life --

keep your fingers out of the outlets

so you don't get electrocuted,

a rule three British lads never learned.

Now they're electrifying audience all over the world

as they hurl millions of volts of lightening.

Believe it or not.

[ Thunder booms ]

♪♪

For almost a decade,

Kino McDonald and Joshua Leighton True

have been dazzling audiences.

I like to do dangerous things.

I get a real buzz out of it.

♪♪

[ Projector clicks ]

♪♪

CAMPBELL: But it's Jeb Hawkins

who really amps up the show.

The performers like to call me "the Overlord"

'cause the one actually controlling the amount of power

going to the lightening that they're throwing.

CAMPBELL: And now they're about to crank up the dial

in a show that will push the limits of man and machine

to a dangerous new extreme.

♪♪

♪♪

Back in 2010 was the first time

I actually ever seen a Tesla coil.

I mean, it's like, how -- why -- what is this thing?

And I, at the time, was working as an electrician.

Just happened to sort of be

in the right place at the right time

and got offered the role of like,

"Oh, do you fancy taking on this crazy lightening show?"

and it really got me going.

Who was this guy who originally made these machines?

What are they?

This is some sort of black magic.

♪♪

CAMPBELL: Back in the 1890s,

inventor Nikola Tesla dreamed of a world

that could run on wireless electricity,

so he set out to prove it,

demonstrating his miraculous invention

from coast to coast.

In world still mostly lit by candle and gas light,

Tesla's marvel both thrilled and terrified his audiences,

all of which inspired the Lords pick up

where the mad scientist left off.

So, we then decided to develop a show

using the equipment that already existed

that was tried and tested,

but didn't really have a very dynamic show

or any slickness

to what the performance was.

♪♪

So, we got some performers involved,

got a creative director involved and some choreography,

and it sort of grew organically of the next sort of four years.

I started off as a ballet dancer and a break dancer

and I did a bit of all sorts of circus skills

and balance acts.

McDONALD: We were all a bunch of fire twirlers,

you know, doing fire shows, things like that,

and it was just the next level.

We're looking for those magic moments --

the big falls, the big shock.

Yeah, we're looking for the "wow" moment.

So, the unique thing that Lords of Lightening do

that other people don't

is we have performers on top of the Tesla coils

actually throwing lightening at each other.

CAMPBELL: It's a dangerous game.

The outlets in your house are wired with 120 volts.

The Lords are dealing with four million.

Every time we do a show,

we get into our chain mail suit that covers all of our body.

The suit I'm wearing is actually a shark diving suit,

but the alternative uses for these suits is high voltage.

Voltage will flow much more fluidly around a metal surface

because my body is less conductive than the metal.

So, they become an extension of the machine themselves

without being cooked by it.

It's still dangerous.

♪♪

I've had parts of my suit come apart and got shocked.

I felt like I was being strangled.

HAWKINS: It's a big responsibility

having the performers' lives in my hand.

But they trust me and I trust them.

♪♪

CAMPBELL: But now they're getting ready to perform their biggest show yet,

in front of 60,000 people

at the Glastonbury Musical Festival.

The pressure is as enormous as the voltage beneath them.

Can they pull it off?

♪♪

[ Audience cheers ]

You get up there and you're like, "Oh, no,"

and I'm starting to wobble a little bit

and I'm standing on the platform shaking.

There's something amazing about standing up there,

feeling the electricity.

We see a whole different thing.

We get this blue corona

and this plasma rolling around our body.

HAWKINS: It's not fireworks.

It's something far more spectacular than that.

[ Electricity buzzing ]

♪♪

TRUE: It's such an adrenalin buzz.

Must of had 60,000 people in the crowd.

So many people in front of you.

HAWKINS: And it's just sort of bringing together

the real fundamental of passion for a lot of people.

♪♪

[ Cheers and applause ]

Most creators dream of works that will live forever,

but there's a young woman in New England

who's at her best when everything is...

falling apart.

♪♪

My name is Lily Hevesh, I'm 20 years old,

and I'm a domino artist.

♪♪

CAMPBELL: For the last 11 years,

Lily Hevesh has been setting dominoes up

and knocking them down...

♪♪

...building an international fan base

that follows her every design.

♪♪

Lily is amazing, off the chart.

She's the top domino artist in the world,

in terms of numbers --

most subscribers, most views, and that sort of thing.

CAMPBELL: And the momentum keeps on building.

Ahhh!

Oh, my God! [ Laughs ]

I have a million subscribers now.

That's crazy.

In celebration of this milestone,

Lily is building her most ambitious solo project to date,

a 30,000-domino set up

that will stretch through

her parents' entire house and garage.

Have fun taking out the garbage. [ Laughs ]

It's bigger than anything she's ever done before,

and could take her several weeks to compete.

But can she pull it off?

♪♪

LILY: I don't like creating work that's mediocre.

If I'm gonna do something, I give it my all.

In elementary school, I wanted to a be an artist,

and when I was 9 years old, I found a set of 28 dominoes

at my grandparents' house.

WOMAN: Wow.

I'd set up about half of them on top of a table

and then one would fall off and then it a line on the floor,

and I was like, "This is amazing,"

like, I had no idea you could even do any of this

with dominoes

and it kind of became an obsession from there.

♪♪

CAMPBELL: In middle school,

Lily started posting her work on YouTube

and people took notice.

Over the years, as her creations became more and more complex,

her following exploded.

Before long, companies started hiring her

for everything from private events to TV commercials.

LILY: Dominoes has lead me all around the world.

Projects in London. I've done projects in France.

We made it up the Eiffel Tower. Check this out. Oh, my God.

I've been to Turkey, Austria, Canada, all over the U.S.

♪♪

MARK: She's very successful with commercial projects --

commercials for TV or for the web --

and so, she has a good income from it.

Can't really believe this I my profession --

you know, doing domino art full-time.

Some days, I'll build for, like, 12 hours.

I spend a lot of time building.

Once I get in the zone, I'm like --

it's, like, just me and my dominoes.

♪♪

CAMPBELL: Lily may make this process look effortless,

but in reality, it takes design, precession, and technique.

I'll have a complete floor plan

and I'll draw it out on Photoshop

so you can see exactly where each trick is

and how the connection lines go to the each trick.

♪♪

I have a couple of tools

that I use when building dominoes.

First is a LEGO template.

It kind of looks like a comb.

You just put the dominoes in each slot

and then you push it forward, move it to the side,

and it'll space it exactly.

I also rulers a lot and yard sticks

for making things straight

and just measuring out.

It's important to be precise

because if you aren't

then the trick won't follow the way that you want to.

Right before I knock it down, I'm super excited

'cause I want to see it fall down,

but I'm also super, super nervous

because I want it to topple the way that I planned

and you never really know

how it's gonna fall with dominoes.

Oh, my God. MAN: Whoa.

CAMPBELL: Do it right and it looks like magic,

but the art of dominoes is really just basic science,

with one tile transferring its energy to the next.

In fact, each domino has enough kinetic energy

to push over a domino 1 1/2 times its own size.

That means if you lined up 20 dominoes,

each 1 1/2 times bigger than the last,

you could knock over a 30-story building

in a matter of seconds.

♪♪

Simple physics,

but when you're designing a 30,000-piece set-up,

so much can go wrong along the way.

LILY: Being very aware of your body at all times

is super important,

'cause if you knock it down, like, it could be all over.

Some set-ups are super, super high pressure,

especially when I'm building giant 3D structures

because if you drop one domino into the structure,

it'll all collapse and there's no way to save it.

♪♪

CAMPBELL: But there's no great pressure

than Lily's celebration of one million YouTube followers.

She spent 15 days setting it up.

Now, with the flick of a finger,

it's the moment of truth.

LILY: Is it gonna work or is gonna fail?

♪♪

In the world of dominoes,

20-year-old Lily Hevesh is a rockstar,

and to celebrate her one millionth YouTube subscriber,

she's giving her fans the gift of her biggest set-up yet.

But in the domino business,

one misplaced tile could mean the difference

between a smashing success and a total flop.

Knock them down, Lily.

Hope you had decaf. [ Laughs ]

♪♪

After hundreds of videos

and thousands of hours committed to her passion,

Lily is almost ready to roll.

I'm actually filling in the last couple of dominoes.

Just hoping that I don't knock down the dominoes by accident.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[ Confetti gun pops ]

Whoo!

Perfect! Yes!

I can't believe this is even happening.

Thank you so much.

♪♪

The famous silent movie actor Lon Chaney

was known as "The Man of a Thousand Faces."

Well, [Laughs]

he's got nothing on this guy.

♪♪

You never know when inspiration is gonna strike you.

Could be driving,

sitting on the potty chair in the middle of the night,

just wake up with some kind of creative inspiration.

You just have to execute it.

♪♪

♪♪

CAMPBELL: Michael Gump has a really cool day job.

♪♪

[ Electricity crackles ]

I'm a prop master for a lot of crazy kids' shows.

And a big part of my professional work

is to make stuff.

I know a lot recipes for trouble.

♪♪

MAN: Ah!

CAMPBELL: Especially since he he started moonlighting

on a project of his own. [ Growls ]

GUMP: While I'm doing my regular work,

I'm often thinking, like,

"Would this be a good thing to glue to my face?"

♪♪

CAMPBELL: Each and every night,

for the past three and a half years,

Michael has become his own canvas.

♪♪

And now he's taking his project to a new extreme.

MINTON: Three, two, one.

Pour.

♪♪

GUMP: I've been making stuff

pretty much as long as I can remember.

[ Projector clicks ]

As a kid, I was really in my imagination a lot,

so I used to play with toys

and put together little model train environments

and just enjoy the fantasy

of getting into, like, a little scene or environment.

CAMPBELL: Michael was lucky enough

to turn that passion into a career.

With a wife and two kids, it seemed like he had it all,

until life took a nasty turn.

My wife separated from me.

It was an emotionally tough time.

CAMPBELL: That's when his art really became a lifeline,

and everything in his tool box and his snack drawer

became an inspiration.

♪♪

My disguise projects.

♪♪

It was a good distraction,

but it was also --

like, makes you feel empowered.

♪♪

CAMPBELL: Night after night, one disguise after another,

he posted his pictures on Instagram

under the name "bobbugs."

More than 50,000 people follow his daily transformation.

♪♪

The original idea was to try to do one a day for a year.

♪♪

In the process, somebody said to me,

"You should make a book,

and you could do a thousand faces,

and that would only take you, like, three years."

And then I was like, "You didn't just say that."

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

♪♪

So, then the goal actually was like,

can I do a thousand disguises every day --

like, I mean, in a row?

♪♪

CAMPBELL: Three and a half years later,

he's still working on his book

while creating bigger, crazier,

and more dangerous disguises every day.

GUMP: It's like exercising.

A lot of times you don't want to do it,

but then you do it and you feel better afterwards.

♪♪

I think this project has helped keep Michael's sanity.

♪♪

And at the end of the night, he can really just,

almost like meditate, focus on his art, and do what he loves.

♪♪

CAMPBELL: Now, at day 1,347,

he's trying something challenging --

a portrait in motion.

It's about catching a moment.

CAMPBELL: He'll have just one chance to get it right.

And with 20 pounds of sweet cafeteria glory ready to go,

can he keep his streak of brilliance alive?

♪♪

BIBBY: If I'm bit,

I'm either hurt or dead.

Whoa!

Unfortunately, I have made a couple of mistakes

with human assistants.

♪♪

For the last three and a half years,

Michael Gump has created a new self portrait every night.

His legion of social media followers count on it,

and trust me, they're insatiable.

GUMP: Today we're going to do a disguise

involving classic cafeteria-style fruit cocktail...

♪♪

...with the peaches and the pears

and the little half-cherries.

My buddy Brandon's got a high-speed camera,

and we'll take a bunch of pictures

and we'll pick one that you can see

all the tendrils of a fluid

or see something captured in a moment

that you don't really necessarily see.

I'm pretty used to feeling a little itchy or a little warm

or sticky --

become pretty accustomed to that.

My kids are gonna help us out

because we need somebody to pour the material.

It's fun for them to be involved.

Right here, on the front of his head.

Right in my face.

As close as you can get it. Right on my forehead.

MINTON: Here we go.

Three,

two,

one.

Pour.

♪♪

[ Camera shutter clicks]

GIRL: [ Laughs ]

GIRL 2: He's eating it.

GUMP: It is good. Try some.

Oh, wow. There's a lot of good ones

[ Camera shutter clicks]

CAMPBELL: Michael hasn't gotten that coveted book deal yet,

but with thousands of disguises under his belt,

the work seems to have taken on a life of its own.

Some performances can play out over years,

but for one world record holder,

the magic happens -- [ Snaps fingers ]

...in a split second

more than twice the speed of sound.

♪♪

[ Whip cracks ]

CHOI: My name is April Jennifer Choi

and I am a whip artist.

[ Whip cracks ]

[ Whips cracks ]

CAMPBELL: She's powerful,

she's precise,

and just a little bit dangerous.

Now she's attempting a stunt

only only eight people in the world have ever accomplished --

lighting her whip on fire

and wrapping herself in the flames.

Believe it or not.

♪♪

CHOI: The thing that drives me the most

is just my obsessive personality.

When I find something, I dive deep into it.

♪♪

CAMPBELL: By day, April is an analytical engineer

with a master's degree in fluid dynamics.

CHOI: I love engineering,

especially being able to use physics

and kind of just laws that are not defined by mankind,

that make the world happen.

[ Projector clicks ]

CAMPBELL: But in 2011,

a visit to a festival changed her life.

CHOI: There was a a whip class.

I took the whip class.

The next thing I know,

I had to learn at least the first hundred tricks.

♪♪

When I watch whips move,

I'm always amazed just how they move

and how they undulate in such fluid motions,

and seeing those motions remind me of the mathematics

that go through them consistently.

CAMPBELL: And what's happening at the very end of the whip

is really mind-blowing.

Physicists have discovered that the whip crack

is actually a sonic boom

produced when the whip crosses the sound barrier,

reaching speeds of up to 1,500 miles an hour.

That's almost as fast as a F-35 fighter jet.

[ Whip cracks ]

CHOI: Knowing that I could take my engineering knowledge

and put it into whip cracking,

that accelerated me into to the performance world.

Along the way,

she fell in love with a women named Bethany Byrnes,

who not only joined the act,

she became April's wife.

April is so amazing because she's so inspiring

to make you want to get out there and just try.

CAMPBELL: Together, they wowed audiences all over the world.

MAN: Oh!

CHOI: We do do whips of slack lines.

We do things where we're taking bottle caps off with a whip.

♪♪

BYRNES: It definitely goes through my mind

that being injured is a real possibility.

Unfortunately, I have made a couple of mistakes

with human assistants.

CAMPBELL: April admits to inflicting the occasional scratch

or whelp,

but it could get so much messier.

CAMPBELL: Particularly tricks that take things out of the mouth,

you could possibly hit them in the eye by accident.

CAMPBELL: Add fire into the mix

and the risk turns downright deadly.

But April's not backing off,

even if it means her whole life is about to go up in flames.

I'm gonna be bathing in rattlesnakes.

[ Snakes rattling ]

WOLLIN: Whatever I takes is what I'm willing to do

to get to where I want to be.

♪♪

32-year-old April Choi has a built career

cracking the whip and breaking records,

and because that's not dangerous enough

her whole life is about to go up in flames.

Flame on!

♪♪

She's using a specially designed fire whip

made with Kevlar and dosed in white gas.

One small mistake

and she could find herself trapped in a flaming noose,

struggling to breathe with her hair on fire.

Noosing yourself is when you do a crack over your head

and the whip catches on itself.

It wraps around itself,

and since it loses all of its moment,

it just drops.

♪♪

♪♪

[ Whips cracks ]

CAMPBELL: April starts with the basics...

♪♪

...keeping the flame safely away from her neck.

♪♪

Now to turn up the heat.

[ Whip cracks ]

♪♪

She's done it, and she's not even singed.

April is an excellent example

of you can do anything that you put your mind to.

♪♪

April tamed her whip without going up in flames.

There's a guy in Texas

who plays with a different kind of fire,

the kind that has a mind of its own.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

♪♪

People come from near and far.

The mix of fascination,

revulsion,

and straight-up disbelief.

Most of us will do anything to steer clear

of a feisty rattlesnake...

...but not this man.

He's made a career of tangling with vipers.

[ Snake hisses ]

And today, he's raising the stakes,

getting down and dirty right in the snake pit.

[ Snake hisses, rattles ]

♪♪

68-year-old Jackie Bibby...

♪♪

...is a legend.

[ Cheers and applause ]

They call me "The Texas Snakeman."

I'm an attention seeker.

I really like attention and I'm showman.

I really enjoy performing for people.

CAMPBELL: For nearly half a century,

Jackie's been pushing the limits

with one of nature's most finely tuned killing machines.

[ Cheers and applause ]

And now, he's attempting one of his most dangerous stunts.

He's gonna share a bathtub with 20 riled-up rattlesnakes

for 15 minutes.

If I'm bit, I'm either hurt or dead.

[ Snake rattles ]

Believe it...

Whoa!

CAMPBELL: ...or not.

♪♪

[ Projector clicks ]

BIBBY: I got involved in handling rattlesnakes

at a rattlesnake roundup.

I was 18 years old -- 1969.

I went near the rattlesnake sacking championship.

That's where you got to have two men in the pit,

one holding the sack and one picking snakes up

and putting them in the sack.

[ Cheers and applause ]

I was the only non-professional in the competition

and I won two trophies, $30, and got my name in the paper.

The rest, as they say, is history.

MAN: Give Jackie a big hand there.

Alright.

CAMPBELL: Since then, Jackie and his rattlers

have been entertaining audiences all over the globe.

BIBBY: I have over a hundred trophies now

and I hold the world record for that sport.

[ Cheers and applause ]

CAMPBELL: But Jackie has paid a steep price

to get where he is today.

BIBBY: In 49 years of handling snakes,

I've received 12 serious bites.

I only count a bite that sends me to the hospital.

You can see I have a divot in my hand

where the venom rotted my hand out.

My other thumb is stiff.

I don't have any mobility in the joint

and I have a deteriorated tissue on the end

from snakebites.

This thumb's been bitten three times.

CAMPBELL: Within seconds,

rattlesnake venom stops your blood from clotting

and starts dissolving the flesh and muscle tissue

around the bite.

♪♪

And some bites are worse than others.

Six years ago, Jackie endured an attack

that nearly ended his life.

My worse bite, a snake bit above my boot.

Big snake, almost six feet long,

had a lot of venom.

You begin to have discoloration and blood blisters

at the site of the bite.

You begin to have a coppery taste,

kind of like you stuck a penny in your mouth.

You're gonna probably start projectile vomiting.

You get really sick and it hurts really bad.

[ Sirens wailing ]

By the time they got me to the hospital,

my leg was already dead.

[ Monitor beeps ]

Three days later, they started chopping on my leg.

Ten operations and a month later,

they kicked me out.

Everybody thought, "Well, is he gonna quit?"

Nah, I just bought a leg and went back to doing it.

♪♪

CAMPBELL: Today, he'll tempt fate

and the fangs of over 20 venomous rattlesnakes.

They have their venom, they have their fangs,

they have the capacity to inflict a deadly bite.

So, we're not milking these snakes beforehand.

We're not sewing their mouths shut

or anything like that.

CAMPBELL: It'll all come down to a battle of will

versus instinct.

Those snakes have the capacity to kill you.

[ Snakes rattle ]

CAMPBELL: He's determined to spend the next fifteen minutes

in the tub with them.

But that's a long time when you're in the strike zone.

BIBBY: Whoa!

DOUGY: Don't move, don't move, don't move.

♪♪

Jackie Bibby is about to get into a bathtub

filled with western diamondback rattlesnakes,

one of the most aggressive snakes in North America.

Nobody said this was a good idea.

♪♪

BIBBY: As I'm getting in this bathtub,

I'm gonna have to tape my legs

where I won't be shaking and jittery

when I'm sitting in there for a long period of time.

And it's so very important I've gotta be real still.

Dougy will be free handling these snakes.

In other words, he'll be picking them up

with a pinner and with his hands.

He will not have their heads pinned,

so they do have the potential

to cause a deadly bite at any time.

[ Snake rattles ]

As these snakes get deeper and deeper

on me in the bathtub,

it's a little bit more nerve-wracking

'cause you don't know where they're liable to go.

CAMPBELL: What they're after is a dark, tight place,

which means they could wriggle behind Jackie,

sneak underneath him,

or try to hide under his pants or shirt.

♪♪

BIBBY: Wait, there's stuff under me.

MAN: I know.

Some of them went and got behind me,

some got under me, some were between my legs,

and there's always the danger, you know,

of being bit in the back.

CAMPBELL: Bites to the extremities are dangerous enough.

But if this errant rattlesnake strikes Jackie's torso,

the venom will reach his heart so fast

that he would likely die in minutes.

♪♪

[ Snake hisses, rattles ]

Alright, Dougy, let's go backwards.

This is the tough part.

♪♪

Dougy, you got one in the quilt.

DOUGY: Yup.

You gonna move me up?

♪♪

Whoa! Dougy!

I got him.

Don't move, don't move, don't move.

I ain't moving.

[ Snakes rattling ]

[ Cheers and applause ]

♪♪

You know, it was kind of edgy there for a few minutes,

but when I first starting handling,

I had no idea that the snakes would take me where they did.

You know, I certainly never said to myself,

"Wow. If I get good at handling snakes,

I'll get to go to Paris, France,

or London, England, or Istanbul, Turkey."

And the fun that I have and the things I get to do

are all well worth the danger

that I encounter as a result of doing what I do.

[ Snake rattles, hisses ]

Down in Florida, there's a performer

who has "badass" written all over him.

[ Rock music plays ]

[ Music plays louder ]

WOLLIN: My name is Aaron Wollin.

People call me "Short E."

or "Short E. Dangerously."

That's my stage name.

CAMPBELL: Short E. Dangerously is a natural born entertainer

who's about to push his act beyond the pain threshold,

even if it means paying a huge price.

♪♪

When he's not cruising in his Camaro...

...or rocking his skateboard...

...Short E. gets around like this.

His hands are the source of his strength

and his mobility.

[ Audience cheering ]

WOMAN: Make some noise for Short E. Dangerously!

CAMPBELL: But now he's putting them to the ultimate test --

jumping from a stool and landing in a pile of jagged glass,

hands first.

Believe it...

[ Crowd cheers ]

...or not.

♪♪

WOLLIN: I don't remember learning

how to walk on my hands.

I just -- natural adaptation, I guess.

CAMPBELL: It's never stopped him from making friends

or meeting girls.

That guy gets more girls than anybody I know.

WOLLIN: I was born with a condition called sacral agenesis.

Half my spin is missing.

CAMPBELL: Sacral agenesis is a rare condition

that affects one in 25,000 births.

All of Aaron's organs function normally,

but the lower half of his skeletal system

never properly developed.

WOLLIN: I was born with legs,

but when I was 2 1/2, they were amputated

because they were just skin and bones.

They had no muscle structure.

It's funny because

I had prosthetic legs when I was younger,

and about the time I was in fourth grade,

those gave me more limitations

than my disability ever did.

All they did was make me taller.

I always tried to do the normal things a kid does.

My mom definitely --

"No self pity. Don't feel sorry for yourself."

You know, "Nobody's gonna hand it to you," you know?

CAMPBELL: In his late 30s,

Short E. saw something that would change his life --

film of a guy named Johnny Eck,

who was born with sacral agenesis

just like Short E.

From the 1920s to the 1940s,

Johnny worked constantly in side shows and films,

becoming a household name.

WOLLIN: I saw that he did a one-armed handstand,

and I was like, "I could do that."

So, I practiced it.

CAMPBELL: Short E. found that he had inherent talent.

Now he needed a way to show it.

WOLLIN: So, six years ago, I joined a circus.

It was a traditional ten-in-one sideshow.

It was the sideshow that you would see

at the carnivals.

You want to see the girl in the contortion box,

you pay a dollar.

Or you want to see the guy put the pins through his face,

you pay a dollar.

I just fell in love with being on stage,

and I knew that's what I wanted to do.

CAMPBELL: Short E. soon became a star attraction

with a singular purpose.

♪♪

[ Glass shatters ]

♪♪

[ Glass shatters ]

WOLLIN: When it's all said and done,

I want to surpass Johnny Eck legend.

♪♪

And I want to be bigger than him.

[ Audience cheering ]

CAMPBELL: Short E. is so dedicated

to besting Eck

that he's willing to attempt something

old Johnny never even dreamed of.

Today, in front of hundreds of fans,

it's Short E.'s hands versus a pile of jagged glass.

♪♪

WOLLIN: What bigger risk to take

than my hands and my ability to walk and move?

Whatever it takes is what I'm willing to do

to get to where I want to be.

CAMPBELL: If he hits the landing perfectly,

he should walk away with just a little pain.

But if he's at all unbalanced,

his palms and fingers could be shredded.

CAIN: His hands are

the only way of transportation that he has,

and you would think that he would be so careful

to make sure that he didn't cause injury.

WOLLIN: Right before I get ready to walk onstage,

that's where I get the body tingles

and I feel, like, the buzz.

CAMPBELL: But if he doesn't control his jump

and damages his hands,

his dreams could be over forever.

WOMAN: Make some noise for Short E. Dangerously!

[ Audience cheering ]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Becoming mythical is a pretty high standard for success.

Today, Short E. Dangerously is making such an attempt,

building his persona with a jump

that puts his hands at risk.

♪♪

WOMAN: Let's hear it for Short E. Dangerously!

CAMPBELL: Short E. has crushed a half dozen wine bottles,

creating these shards of glass.

He's wearing nothing on his hands

to protect himself from injury.

♪♪

[ Audience cheers ]

♪♪

WOLLIN: I know it sounds cliché,

but I firmly believe

pain is just weakness leaving your body.

CAIN: He's just amazing.

He's got a way of captivating people

and keeping their attention, always.

He's crazy,

and you never know what he's coming up to do.

He's truly a legend.

WOLLIN: You guys having a good time?

Yeah!

In 40 years,

I want people to talk about me

like they talk about Johnny Eck.

I want to be immortal.

I want to be a legend.

[ Cheers and applause ]

It's that same drive that keeps so many performers

always pushing for more.