Original subtitles

What if the hottest show in town could cost you more

than just the price of admission?

The crowd is watching right on the edge.

They have to flee in terror if the car goes out of control.

Newspapers describe it

as a cross between sport and manslaughter.

Or that a science lecture

once turned into a radioactive sideshow.

This scientist is gobbling down uranium.

Seeing someone eat it looks absolutely insane.

How about a memorial service

that everyone would much rather forget?

Just as they squeeze his royal belly into the sarcophagus,

the unthinkable happens.

Gore and viscera flies everywhere.

These are the stories of spectacles so incredible

they can only be called unbelievable.

From ancient arenas to modern stadiums,

spectacles of man versus beast have always drawn a crowd.

But by the 1950s, promoters desperate

for the next big thrill,

go looking in the one place no one expects.

Underwater.

In 1949, "Mechanix Illustrated"

runs a sensational piece about hunters in Tahiti

taking on giant octopuses

with 25-foot tentacles using just spears and flukes.

The headline, "Octopus Wrestling is My Hobby."

Now, is the story real?

Was it fabricated just to sell magazines?

We don't really know for sure,

but what we do know is that by the 1960s,

spear fishermen are diving into the waters of Puget Sound

to take on giant octopi.

For those crazy enough to try it,

octopus wrestling quickly turns into a chaotic test

of strength, stamina, and sheer nerve.

The human wins the wrestling match.

If he can dive down and find an octopus swimming

or hiding in a rock formation, wrestle him out of his hole,

and then pull him up to the surface.

Since octopuses can be so hard to find,

most divers use scuba tanks,

but the more hardcore, free dive, just holding their breath.

Overpowering an octopus with your bare hands

is of course easier said than done,

especially when you only have two.

These giant Pacific octopuses

have really powerful tentacles

that are anywhere from 14 to 20 feet long.

They can move objects up to 700 pounds underwater.

This is quite a surreal strong man competition

because the octopi not only have eight arms,

they have razor sharp beaks.

And if they're not trying to actively kill,

strangle the diver,

they're holding onto rocks for dear life

to avoid being pulled to the surface.

Once word gets around

that men are wrestling giant octopi,

people are eager to see

this strange spectacle for themselves.

Soon these events are promoted,

and by 1963, 5,000 spectators, along with TV cameras,

swarmed Titlow Beach, Washington.

111 divers show up to compete

to be crowned world octopus wrestling champion.

But to be crowned world champion,

divers have to do more than just survive the encounter.

They have to score points.

Once the octopus is pulled to the surface,

points are scored by weight.

You get one point per pound if you're using scuba gear,

three points if you're free diving.

If you are free diving,

not only do you run the risk of being torn to shreds

by this massive sea creature,

this is a lot of exertion where you can't take a breath.

And even if you have scuba gear,

the tentacles could grab your mask, your hose,

the regulator, rip the tank off,

so the potential for drowning is massive.

If you're one of the spectators on the beach,

you're watching the chaos of more than 100 divers

furiously jumping out of the water

to get their octopus weighed as quickly as possible,

and then jumping right back in.

And just like traditional professional

wrestling, there's a bit of theater to it.

So when the divers bring the octopus to the surface,

they throw in a bit of extra dramatic thrashing for effect.

They've been training for this.

It's like their Super Bowl.

And for one team in particular,

all that preparation pays off.

Gary Keffler and his local diving club, The Mud

Sharks, dominate the 1963 Championship with a 57 pounder.

And they go on to win the next three championships in a row.

In any other sport, we would call this a dynasty.

Gary and the Mud Sharks

may be the undisputed world champions of octopus wrestling,

but they will be among the last to hold that title.

As the years go on,

scientists discover much more about octopi,

how intelligent they are, how empathetic they are.

So suddenly concerns are raised about animal cruelty.

And in the wake of that,

the passion for octopus wrestling fades away.

By 1976, capturing an octopus

without expressly using it for food

becomes illegal in Washington State.

If wrestling an octopus sounds absurd,

just wait until you see what happens

when one struggling auto salesman

has a novel idea to sell more cars.

When the automobile was first introduced

in America in the 1890s,

initially people are skeptical

of this new horseless carriage.

They're loud, they seem dangerous,

and because they're expensive,

they're seen as unreliable toys for the rich.

And beyond the cost, many people aren't ready

to give up their horses and wagons.

Horses have been a staple of human transportation

for thousands of years up to this point.

People love 'em like pets.

Looking for a way to get horse-loving holdouts

excited about a new kind of carriage,

Kansas car dealer, Ralph "Pappy" Hankinson,

comes up with a peculiar publicity stunt.

Pappy sets up a polo match,

but instead of using horses,

he uses cars and he calls it auto polo.

It's the exact same concept as equestrian polo,

except each car has two men.

There's a driver and the mallet man.

He leans off the side of the car

and attempts to hit the ball into the goal.

It sounds insane today,

but in 1912, it's even more of an unbelievable idea.

Cars are leading edge technology.

They've just come out.

So watching dozens of them zooming around is thrilling.

It's dangerous. It's terrifying.

And as far as official rules go,

there don't seem to be many.

Collisions are rampant.

These aren't just accidents.

These are drivers intentionally trying

to destroy their opponent's cars.

Nobody is paying attention to the score.

The audience is here for the carnage.

Literally no one is safe at an auto polo match.

The crowd is watching right on the edge of the polo ground.

They have to flee in terror if the car goes out of control

or an errant ball comes towards them.

These cars have pretty much no safety features.

They have a sort of makeshift roll cage,

but there's no doors for protection, no helmets or pads,

and certainly no seat belts or airbags.

There are reports of referees

getting crushed between the cars.

Newspapers describe it as "a 50-minute flirt with death,"

"hell's pastime,"

and "a cross between sport and manslaughter."

This becomes a genuine international phenomenon.

Its popularity is maybe like monster trucks today.

It's taking place in major venues

like Madison Square Garden

or the Polo Fields at Coney Island.

But all good things must come to an end.

And by the 1920s, it's not the danger

that brings auto polo to a screeching halt.

It's the price tag.

There are only a finite amount

of cars out there at this time,

and they're burning through them at a crazy rate.

An average team will go through six to eight cars per match.

You have broken axles, smashed radiators,

popped tires.

The cost of new parts

and mechanics to fix the cars is out of control.

At a certain point, you can't sell enough tickets

to cover the staggering cost of this insane sport.

In fact, auto polo was dubbed

the most expensive sport in the world at the time.

the most expensive sport in the world at the time.

It was one of the few events that could cost you

an arm and a leg in more ways than one.

In the world of daredevils, attention is everything.

And in the late '70s, one stunt man is about to chase it

with a plan so outrageous

people can't decide whether to call it brilliant

or suicidal.

For centuries, people have been

doing incredible.

and insanely dangerous stunts to entertain crowds.

High wire acts, sword swallowing,

even orchestrating car wrecks.

Putting yourself in mortal danger

is a spectacular way to grab attention.

And no matter how big or dangerous

the stunt or the jump is,

if you want people to pay attention,

you have to keep pushing the limits

and breaking new records.

No one understands this better

than Canadian stunt man Ken Carter,

who in 1979 dreams up the ultimate stunt

to become the most famous daredevil in the world.

Ken's goal is to jump a car

across the St. Lawrence River to Ogden, New York.

That's over a mile.

This is insane.

This is three times the distance

of Evil Knievel's Snake River Canyon jump back in 1974.

And remember, Knievel's jump was a failure.

He almost died during the attempt.

Despite the risk, Ken moves forward,

carefully engineering his ambitious jump

down to the very last detail.

On paper, Ken Carter's plan

looks almost cartoonishly absurd.

It starts with putting a rocket booster

on a Lincoln Continental, giving it 12,000 pounds of thrust.

Then the plan is to try and drive it off an eight

and a half story high ramp at 280 miles per hour.

This stunt takes years to plan.

The car has to be built.

The giant ramp needs to be constructed.

So he secures hundreds of thousands of dollars

with the promise that millions, if not billions of people,

will be watching this event live.

Aside from the inherent danger of jumping

a highly explosive rocket car over a very wide river,

other complications arise.

There are several cancellations due to rain,

which is nearly constant in Canada at this time of year.

I mean, the whole point is to promote and televise this,

which is impossible when the date keeps changing.

It also seems that Carter is not satisfied

with the amount of press and publicity,

so he keeps delaying.

Now the sponsors are obviously irate about this,

having already poured hundreds

of thousands of dollars into it.

To them, this show needs to get on the road immediately.

So to protect their investment,

promoters and sponsors make a ruthless call.

The sponsors convince his assistant,

Kenny Powers, to do the job.

So after years of bringing his dreams to life,

Ken Carter is iced out.

It's essentially a daredevil coup.

This is reckless even by daredevil standards.

An already near impossible stunt,

and you switch the driver last minute.

Kenny Powers has barely even been in this car at all,

which still has Ken Carter's name on it, mind you.

So he has no idea of the force that's going to hit him

when that rocket engine fires up.

But as the saying goes, the show must go on.

And for Kenny Powers, there's no turning back now.

The road is damp and bumpy,

and Powers is getting tossed around inside the car.

As he hits the runway,

he's gripping the wheel with all his might,

trying to keep it aimed at the ramp.

But the vibrations are so intense,

he can't keep the gas pedal down far enough

to get up to speed.

As you can see in the clip,

Powers' world record attempt continues to unravel.

The chute deploys almost immediately,

and the car starts plummeting towards the river

and crashes hard.

He breaks eight vertebra, cracks three ribs,

and shatters his wrist.

He's lucky to be able to walk out of there.

Once everyone knows that he's gonna be okay,

that's when the disappointment sets in.

The world has been promised a record-breaking one-mile jump.

It's not even close.

You should never rush a stunt man's performance

or a royal funeral.

Something that people learned the hard way

back in 11th century England.

On Christmas Day in 1066,

William the Conqueror is crowned

King of England in Westminster Abbey.

As his nickname, the Conqueror, suggests,

he didn't get there peacefully.

William is born in France in 1027,

the bastard son of the Duke of Normandy,

Robert the Magnificent.

Everyone throughout Normandy calls him Guillaume le Batard,

William the Bastard.

It's not a flattering nickname.

And it means that for his entire life,

William has to seize power by might and not right.

In 1066, England's King Edward,

who has no children, passes away,

and he names his successor to be Harold Godwinson.

Well, William decides that he wants England, he invades,

and his army then trounces Godwinson

at the Battle of Hastings.

Not only does William become King of England,

but he gets a much better nickname.

William the Bastard becomes William the Conqueror

and one of the most powerful English kings up to that point.

We see statues and majestic castles built by him,

including the famous Tower of London.

William wants to be remembered.

His legacy is hugely important to him.

Unfortunately, William's final days

aren't as heroic as his rise to power.

Later in life, William puts on a lot of weight.

So much so that King Philip of France compares him

to a pregnant woman about to give birth.

For someone who has fought for respect his whole life,

who's a fierce warrior, who has conquered England,

being mocked like this is just humiliating.

Imagine going from William the Conqueror

to William the Tubby.

And it gets worse from there.

In 1087, William's with his army putting down a rebellion

outside of Mantes, France.

In front of probably hundreds of his soldiers,

his horse attempts to jump over a ravine.

But his massive belly,

which hangs over the front of the saddle,

is thrust into the pummel, which ruptures his intestines.

His bulbous belly swells even larger due to the injuries,

and he's carried off in agony to Cannes.

William dies of his injuries days later

and is brought to the Church of Saint-Etienne

for a funeral worthy of a king.

The church is filled with nobility,

all dressed in their finest clothing

and all waiting there to mourn their king

who had been on the throne for 20 years.

It's a solemn and very sad event.

As they're laying William's body

to rest in the stone sarcophagus,

they realize there's a problem.

He's way too big to fit inside.

His huge belly is even larger due to the swelling

from his injuries and postmortem bloating.

With all of this family, priests, dignitaries

attending, they have to squeeze him in.

The monks are in a panic.

They want to end this horrifying spectacle

as soon as possible.

So they are pushing harder and harder.

Just as they squeeze his royal belly into the sarcophagus,

the unthinkable happens.

The king

explodes.

Gore and viscera fly everywhere.

The lords and ladies standing at the front of the church

in their finest clothing are covered in the king's blood

and every other bodily fluid you can imagine.

And not only is it a horrific sight,

but the smell is described as an intolerable stench.

Despite all this gore,

remember, this is the king's funeral.

You do not walk out of the king's funeral.

And so everyone has to keep a stiff upper lip

and bear it.

The monks are eventually able to get

everything cleaned up

and get most of the pieces of the king into the casket.

But the damage has been done.

This is everyone's last memory of William the Conqueror.

William the Conqueror certainly went out with a bang.

Just not the kind he had in mind.

Paris is a city that knows how to put on a show.

But in the mid 19th century,

curiosity draws crowds somewhere no one would expect.

It's the mid 19th century and Paris, France

is right at the heart of everything.

It's a center of culture, entertainment, fashion,

and high society.

People go to the opera.

People go to the theater.

They want to see and be seen.

And on any given day,

you will see thousands upon thousands of people

heading to Paris's most sought after tourist attraction,

the morgue.

They would actually lay bodies out

in front of massive glass windows for people

to see in a creepy display.

It seems really ghoulish,

but this morgue gallery actually serves a practical purpose.

This enables the general public to assist the authorities

in identifying the recently deceased.

This is a time without DNA testing.

So if a friend or a family member goes missing,

a trip to the morgue might actually be your first stop.

But what starts as a public service

quickly becomes a big spectacle.

By the late 1880s, at the height of its popularity,

it's estimated that around 40,000 people each day

take a walk past these morgue windows

to take a look at the recently departed.

The exhibition grows so popular,

vendors even pitch up, selling concessions.

There are jugglers, mime artists,

people selling candies.

The unbelievable thing is that they're doing this

right next to these cadavers.

And like any good show,

the morgue has its big stars.

If there's a high profile murder that's in the

papers, everybody flocks to see the dead body.

Arguably, the most popular attraction at the morgue

is a young woman, around 16 years old,

believed to have been a suicide that's known as

L'Inconnue de la Seine,

The Unknown Woman of the Seine.

Now, one of the reasons that she is so hypnotic

is because of this faint smile on her face.

One of the morgue attendants is so taken with her

that he makes a death mask from her face.

It goes on to become a very popular decoration

in homes all over France.

Even though her identity is never found,

she becomes known as the Drowned Mona Lisa,

and her image is still widely known around the world today.

In fact, the image becomes the face

of resuscitation dummies in France.

And she is finally given a name, Resusci Anne.

For decades, the morgue continues to draw throngs

of curious onlookers.

But by 1907, officials pull the curtain,

bringing the unusual attraction to an end.

Eventually, the authorities realize

that having people come to gawk at

and stare at these corpses is disrespectful

to not only the dead, but the families that are left behind.

And in 1907, the morgue is moved to a new location

for reasons of what they called moral hygiene.

The days of lining up outside a morgue may be over,

but our morbid fascination lives on.

And in the modern age,

we don't even have to leave the couch to watch it unfold.

It's a normal, boring day on October 15th,

2009, when all of a sudden television programs across the

country are interrupted by an emergency broadcast.

It's three o'clock on the East Coast

and you are looking live outside of Denver, Colorado.

A balloon that looks like a spacecraft.

The newscasters themselves

can barely comprehend what they're reporting.

First, that there's an experimental UFO-shaped balloon

flying 7,000 feet above Colorado.

And secondly,

there's a six-year-old boy named Falcon Heene

trapped inside it.

To make matters worse, he appears to be headed

towards Denver International Airport.

The police and the National Guard are called in to

help, but they're powerless.

What are you going to do? Shoot it down?

Millions of people are captivated,

glued to their TVs and computers as authorities

prepare to divert airline traffic and track this balloon,

trying to figure out how to save this kid's life.

The balloon eventually starts to collapse

and lands over an hour later, 55 miles away.

But somehow, this unimaginable incident gets even stranger.

Everyone is watching as authorities

go to recover the balloon,

hoping that this little boy Falcon is in there and safe.

But it's empty and there's this nationwide gasp.

Authorities are scouring the entire 55-mile path,

trying to see if he fell out along the way.

While search and rescue teams

brace themselves for tragedy,

police back at the boy's home make a shocking discovery.

It turns out Falcon was there the entire time

hiding in the attic.

Richard Heene is Falcon's father,

the amateur scientist who built the weather balloon

that he thought was carrying Falcon miles away.

At first there's joy, Falcon's okay.

But then that turns into suspicion.

The father seems to be a bit of a showman.

I'm really sorry I yelled at him.

You scared the heck out of us.

They start to ask, "Is this all a hoax?"

The Heene family denies that this was faked,

but when they appear on camera with Falcon,

now known as Balloon Boy,

he says something really interesting.

And everyone takes this to mean

that his parents put him up to it,

and this entire thing was faked.

They go from the whole country rooting for them

to being the most hated family on the planet.

People feel cheated.

The search and rescue, shutting down air traffic,

that costs tons of taxpayer dollars.

Ultimately, Richard Heene is found guilty

of a felony count,

attempting to influence a public servant,

while his wife is found guilty of false reporting.

They get a combined 110 days in jail

and are ordered to pay $36,000 in restitution.

To this day, the family says they legitimately

thought their boy was in that balloon and it was no hoax.

The public, however, still skeptical.

If they were trying to get famous, it sort of worked.

But does anybody really want to be famous

for staging one of the strangest hoaxes in history?

They say any press is good press,

but maybe not if it comes with a felony.

We've all seen salespeople who really lay it on thick

to introduce a new product.

In the 1980s, crowds are shocked to see

how far one man will go to sell them

on America's most feared technology.

From as far back as the late '50s,

nuclear energy has been harnessed in an effort

to generate more electricity to huge swaths of the country.

However, the moment you say the word nuclear,

people think of mushroom clouds,

devastation, death,

nuclear winter, and so on.

It immediately creates a sense of fear and dread.

And when the Three Mile Island incident happens in 1979,

when the reactor melts down,

it absolutely tarnishes nuclear power's image.

But one man is determined

to demonstrate a little radioactivity never hurt anyone.

Let's talk a little bit about radiation.

Oh goodness.

Very radioactive.

You pour it out in the hand,

and that's radioactive contamination.

In 1985, a nuclear chemist

and a plant safety manager named Galen Winsor

is touring the country.

Eating uranium in front of large crowds

to prove to the masses that there's nothing to worry about.

Now on paper, Galen looks like the ultimate expert.

He's been working in nuclear facilities since the 1950s,

including the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington State

that actually produces the plutonium

for these 60,000 missiles in America's nuclear arsenal.

To all appearances, this is a smart guy, a

scientist, and here he is gobbling down uranium.

So is it dangerous?

According to the government, very.

And they don't take this nuclear spectacle lightly.

Because I've been eating this on lecture tour

for two years, the state of Washington felt it necessary

to confiscate my uranium sample so that I would be safe.

Granted, we know more about uranium exposure now

than we did in the 1980s.

Still, it's known to cause kidney damage, sterility,

blood disease, among other things.

And furthermore, everyone knows it's a main ingredient

in making nuclear weapons.

Seeing someone eat it looks absolutely insane.

He even claims to have swam in the tanks of water

used to cool spent nuclear fuel rods

and to have even drank that same water.

Who would suspect that the manager of safety

and analytical service had a bottle of

spent fuel pool water sitting on his desk

and he drank a glass of it every day?

Now, Galen never says anything publicly

about having any symptom of radiation poisoning.

Something tells me, even if he did,

he probably wouldn't go out of his way to mention it.

Interestingly though, his actual cause of death

is not mentioned anywhere in his obituary

or the press after his passing.

I'm not sure if anyone has taken a Geiger counter

to his tombstone,

but it might be worth doing to see if it settles the debate.

Galen Winsor is not the only one

willing to go to extremes to make a point.

In Greece, when two competing churches

try to settle a rivalry, sparks fly.

In the Greek Orthodox faith,

Easter is the holiest day of the year.

And the day right before Great and Holy Saturday

is just about as holy.

Greek Orthodox believe that somewhere between

being crucified on Friday and resurrected on Sunday,

Jesus descended into Hades

where he preaches the gospel to the dead

and brings them with him into Heaven.

It's called the Harrowing of Hell.

And so Holy Saturday is a big deal

in the Greek Orthodox faith.

While most observe the occasion

with quiet reverence,

one small town prefers a little more firepower.

Precisely at 11:00 PM,

just as the Resurrection service is beginning,

two neighboring Orthodox churches

start assaulting each other with homemade fireworks.

Locals come out in huge numbers

with each church's congregants

making over 30,000 handmade rockets.

The goal is to hit each opposing church's bell tower

with rockets as many times as possible.

It's called Rouketopolemos or Rocket War,

and it's been going on for over a century.

But what exactly does it have to do with Easter?

Well, it's a little murky.

One legend points to a time

when Greece was under occupation by the Ottomans

and Christian services were restricted.

The churches would fire cannons over each other,

feigning some sort of local skirmish.

The result is the Ottoman authorities

would leave them alone and not want to get involved,

and that way the residents

could actually go to Easter service.

And it's said that when the Ottomans actually maybe get wind

of what's going on and they take the cannons away,

the locals fill in that gap.

They just start making their own explosives

so that they can continue the tradition.

It's kind of like the 4th of July in the United States.

We set off fireworks. Why?

It's in celebration of beating the British.

They set off fireworks. Why?

It's in celebration of defiance to the Ottoman Turks.

People look forward to this all year.

A whole cadre of artisan rocket makers

spend the entire year building their new rockets.

And there have been injuries, maimings,

people losing limbs and fingers, countless fires,

and even fatalities, yet it still goes on.

The police sort of just turn a blind eye to it.

And now it's even bigger than ever.

Due to online popularity,

people from around the globe come to Chios

to watch the Holy Saturday firework fight.

It's a beautiful tradition,

but it does make you appreciate the quieter side of Easter.

You know, eggs, candy,

and celebrations that don't require a fire extinguisher.

They say love is a journey.

In Finland, it's also a race.

One that tests strength, balance,

and a very specific kind of commitment.

Every summer, the Finnish town

of Sonkajarvi draws thousands of spectators

for the strangest team sport ever invented.

It looks absurd from afar.

Two bodies smooshed together into one,

barreling through this obstacle course at full speed.

This bizarre spectacle is called the Eukonkanto,

or wife-carrying competition.

Its origins are said to go back centuries

to a less romantic time when men would just find their wives

by going to a neighboring village

and carrying a woman back to theirs.

At first glance, it looks ridiculous,

but the athletes take this really seriously

and it does have a set of official rules and regulations.

For the world championship, the person being

carried, the wife must be at least 49 kilograms

or 108 pounds in weight.

And should they be lighter,

a weighted belt is added to make sure they meet the minimum.

The course is pretty treacherous.

There are moats, there are hurdles, there are sand traps,

there's slippery gravel, all spread over 250 meters.

That's a pretty long way to carry someone.

And surprisingly, despite the name,

the couples don't actually have to be married to compete.

While marriage may not be a requirement,

teamwork is non-negotiable.

Each couple has to find a carrying technique

that works for them to achieve

the maximum speed and stability.

There's the classic piggyback.

But most popular of all, albeit most uncomfortable looking,

is the Estonian carry with the wife upside down.

It puts the center of gravity higher

so the weight can be carried

on the shoulders instead of the lower back.

For the wife, holding on requires arm and leg strength,

but she must also act as a counterweight

to help the carrier maintain balance over the obstacles.

One slip of the grip and they're both going down.

With a reasonably high risk of injury,

not to mention divorce,

what may you ask is the prize

for becoming a world champion wife carrier?

Ah!

The wife's weight in beer.

Unlike boxing, there are no weight classes.

So the greater the risk, the greater the reward in beer.

If you think wife carrying is odd,

wait until you see

what some people in England compete to do.

Once a year in a field in England,

you'll come across a strange sight.

Hundreds of people acting in a very peculiar way.

They're stomping on the ground, banging pots and pans,

even chanting and singing.

At first glance, you might think

it's some weird pagan ritual,

or maybe some sort of hippie-ish communing with nature,

but it's actually something far stranger than that.

The goal?

Coax as many worms to the surface as possible

because this is the world championship of worm charming.

It starts pretty logically.

For thousands of years,

fishermen knew that they need worms for bait.

At some point, the fishermen start to notice

by watching various birds, including seagulls.

They start to do a strange dance on top of the soil.

It turns out that the vibrations

simulate the sound of raindrops,

which brings the worms to the surface.

It doesn't take long for humans to catch on

and naturally turn it into a game.

Farmers and fishermen try to outcharm each other

to get as many worms as possible.

And as time goes on, this becomes competitive,

with the world's first official championship

taking place in Cheshire, England in 1980.

Local farmer's son, Tom Shufflebottom,

manages to collect 511 worms in just 30 minutes,

making him the first world champion.

There are strict rules administered by a governing body

called the International Federation of Charming Worms

and Allied Pastimes.

IFCWAP for short.

Each competitor is assigned

a three-meter by three-meter plot

and a 30-minute time period.

You can use any kind of implements, sticks,

musical instruments, heavy shoes, tap dancing.

However, absolutely no digging is allowed,

and IFCWAP is not messing around.

Some people come in elaborate costumes,

which is kind of odd because the worms really can't see,

as most species don't have eyes.

The current world record set in 2009

is a massive 567 worms.

But the techniques of worm charming continue to evolve.

And records, however ridiculous, are meant to be broken.

They say nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd,

which is true,

even if that crowd is just staring

at a pile of worms.

In show business, there's an old saying,

"The show must go on."

But one annual event in London

has taken that idea to an extreme,

continuing for nearly a century

after its star died in 1837.

If you happen to be near the All Saints Church

in Haggerston, London, on the first Sunday in February,

you might be in for an interesting sight.

Instead of your normal praying and hymns

and somber reflection,

you'll be surrounded by hoards of clowns.

Despite what it looks like, this is no joke.

In fact, it is perhaps the most sacred event

for professional clowns all over the world.

This is the Annual Clown Service.

It's held in honor of Joseph Grimaldi,

who is known as the father of modern clowning.

Grimaldi was born in 1778

and started performing in London theaters at the age of two.

Life in England in the early 1800s is really difficult.

There are high levels of poverty.

There are high levels of infant mortality.

Disease is rampant.

People struggle on the daily.

But Grimaldi's performances

really offer this desperately needed levity.

Not only is he credited with creating the look

of modern clowns with white makeup and red accents,

but also he brings forth the techniques

of facial expressions, acrobatics,

and physical comedy that continue to this day.

Because of his impact,

Joseph Grimaldi is still celebrated long after his death

with a service that's part funeral, part circus.

At first glance, seeing a bunch of clowns in a churchyard,

some people might not love the concept,

but when you think about it,

them bringing laughter to people

is really a form of charity and service.

Those are tied very closely

to Christian values and ideology.

If a few whoopie cushions can fill a church with

laughter, imagine what happens when America's favorite pastime

gets put on four legs.

It's the 1930s in America.

We're in the middle of the Great Depression,

and times are incredibly tough.

There's widespread poverty.

People are living in shacks and tents, wearing rags,

basically just trying to cobble together an existence.

For many, spending money on entertainment

is not even an option.

So promoters look to entice smaller audiences

with something loud and exciting,

but also small scale and affordable.

One promoter in particular, Ray L. Doan,

has the brilliant idea

to combine the thrill of professional baseball

with the speed of horse racing.

The problem is racehorses are expensive,

and so we end up with donkey baseball.

It's such a strange and confusing advertisement

that people have to go see it for themselves.

There are rules.

Unless you're batting,

you have to be mounted on a donkey to do anything,

and that includes running the bases or retrieving a ball.

Now, if you're wondering,

is a donkey a solid and reliable teammate,

a good clubhouse presence?

The answer is absolutely not.

Donkeys are slow, notoriously stubborn,

and they do not care about competition.

The real draw isn't to see a real game, of course.

It's to see if they can actually pull this off.

The players are not professionals.

They're often local politicians, teachers,

policemen, or firefighters.

The real fun comes from watching your mayor or sheriff

desperately trying to drag a braying ass all over the field.

It kind of makes your own problems seem not so bad.

It's hard to predict what may grab our attention.

Whether it's death on display,

a rocket car to nowhere,

a religious feud fueled by fireworks,

or an athletic endeavor that is just asinine.

These are the spectacles that are truly unbelievable.