Bunch of stunts “of concern” to Beyer
E4‘s upcoming series Death Wish Live! involves various performance and escapologists, including a man avoiding being hanged, escaping from a buried coffin, being turned into a human firework, and being driven over by a lorry while lying on a bed of nails. But simultaneously.
Lazy Daily Record reporter, Anita Singh, concocted a “Rap for TV hang stunt” story out of it by phoning up rent-a-quote smut campaigner John Beyer of Mediawatch-UK.
There have been instances in America where people copying stunts shown on the Jackass programme came to harm.
These sort of stunts lend themselves to people trying them out for themselves.
It is very irresponsible of E4 and of concern to us that the station would show this.
To be frank, if people do copy these stunts at home, and end up killing themselves, then society will probably be better off. A few stupid people removed from the gene pool.
Agreed. To paraphrase the late, great Bill Hicks: I don’t think we’ll lose a cure for cancer.
You’re both right! No person with a brain would copy the stunts seen on TV. This sounds like a post that appeared recently on this blog, about TV violence. Everyone knows that its not real, okay!? Why don’t some people understand?
I love the way journos still describe mediawatch-uk as a viewers watchdog.
As if they represent the views of the entire British TV viewing public.
As for Beyer he’d probably have magicians banned from doing Hoodini style stunts.
It was on last night, basically the guy that does the stunt is known for being pretty mental and not very good at what he does. I’ve seen his other programmes and his stunts often go wrong ie. he had a hot iron fall onto his chest that wasn’t supposed to, had a load of items fall onto his head from a great height, he usually just does make-shift tricks in his home with his dad supervising.
Anyways….it did goe wrong, he didn’t get the handcuffs off in time and was pulled up into the air by the noose. He hung there for about 10-15 seconds, the guy who’s job it was to cut the rope didn’t even have the cutters ready! He had to go and get them. It was pretty uncomfortable viewing, they did cut to a ‘Death Wish Live Will Be Back Shortly’ screen, then it went back to him hanging then dropping into a load of boxes as he was cut down, then a load of people with MEDICS written on their jackets came to help, he looked like he’d passed out or died at this point. The presenter then had to wrap up the programme as that was the end! That was the funniest part for me, everyone was in shock that it’d gone wrong, but to be honest I did expect it. Also, I reckon this guy is just playing on the fact that his tricks go wrong and thats the most exciting part. Sick I know. But hey, his next stunt, in 1 or 2 days involves him being buried in an air tight coffin under 5 tonnes of cement.
The guy is a moron, but fairly amusing. I predict the concrete will crush the coffin as in other cases of this trick, or he will pass out and die.
Stay tuned folks!!! W
1 more comment, I don’t think it should’ve been shown.
There was a case here in the UK about a year ago when a load of kids (about 14-15 year olds??) watched Robin Hood Prince Of Theives and decided to recreate the hanging scene from it. They got a toddler, took him to the woods and hung him for a bit. Didn’t kill him, he was found wandering around with hideous rope marks around his neck. Hanging isn’t fun at all.
Am sure something may happen as a result of this. For his ‘training’ the guy who hung himself was shown with a rope around his neck, this was attached to his dads car, he then layed on a board with wheels and was dragged around the car park by his neck while his dad drove him round and round a car park.
He’s playing on the comedy element, similar dead pan style to the office, his dad is certainly a character and he does make me laugh in his stupidity, but it was very wrong. He looked panicked when he actually was hung, he was kicking his legs frantically and it was very very tense.
Still not sure what to think of it all, comments ASAP people!
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This was shown last night yet I can’t see anything in the British press about it today??? I thought a public hanging like that would be big news? Especially as it went wrong and we did get to see him suffer for a bit. His own fault and he knows it.
Safe in that knowledge, was it right of me to have enjoyed this programme? It was very tense and exciting and the guy pretty much knew he was gonna get hung. So….
Does that make it better than if he had no choice? I’m not sure I would enjoy it if he had no choice and was gonna die.
Interesting.
I started to watch this but when it cames towards the bit where the escape was going to be done I simply could not watch from this point. As the other Peter above sia dhis tricks often go wrong and that’s part of the fun, but this was damn right stupid to the ninth degree. Today I’m trying to find out whether he killed himself – obviously it all went wrong (suprise!) – if that was the case E4 should stop running this week of stunts a) out of respect (they have to take some responsilbily for God’s sake) and b) to stop any other stupid kids tryinh to re-enact this inresponsible stunt. Just wish I could find out that Jonathan Goodwin is OK!!!! If anything for his Mother and Father sake I hope he’s OK and stops doing the stunt s which obviously he is hopeless at!!!