"Don't try this at home"

[Polerius]

“Don’t try this at home” at the beginning of TV shows like Mythbusters seems useless to me.

What if I tune in to the show 2 minutes after they said “Don’t try this at home”, and I don’t know that I’m not supposed to try this at home?

Shouldn’t they be required to run a scrolling ticker on the bottom of the page, that constantly reminds viewers not to try this at home? That would be the only way to guarantee that every single viewer sees the warning.

Of course, I think the more reasonable thing to do is stop saying “Don’t try this at home” altogether in any TV show. Either change the current laws to stop people from suing when they do something obviously stupid (like trying to copy a professional stuntman’s stunt and getting hurt), or implement something like the following:
When you buy a TV, you are required to sign a contract that you, and anyone who views a show on your TV, will never try anything you see on that TV, and if you do, the TV shows are not liable if something bad happens to you.
Anyway, none of the above is likely to happen any time soon, so my GQ-ish question is: what are the legal aspects and history of the “Don’t try this at home” warning, and why is saying it only at the beginning of the show enough to get the shows off the hook?

Also, why is this restricted to TV? What if I copy what someone on the street is doing and get hurt? What if I copy what someone at the circus is doing and get hurt?

If TV shows have to say it to be protected from lawsuits, why isn’t Cirque du Soleil required to say “Don’t try this at home” before every performance?

[KneadToKnow]

@Polerius

What if I tune in to the show 2 minutes after they said “Don’t try this at home”, and I don’t know that I’m not supposed to try this at home?

A. I’ve only seen a few episodes, but I’m pretty sure they repeat this warning in some form or another several times during the show.

B. The warning isn’t there for you. It’s there so that when you do “try this at home” their lawyers have the defense of saying, “Hey, we told you not to.”

[Bill_Door]

Some of those warnings drive me crazy. Last night I saw a commercial where a twin engine turboprop, 30,000 pound cargo plane lands and drops a ramp while rolling down the tarmac, a truck backs down the ramp and using a chain attached to the plane brakes it to a stop.

The caption is “Professional driver; closed course; do not attempt.” They seriously believe there is a risk of someone trying this on the highway?

[commasense]

@Bill Door

Some of those warnings drive me crazy. Last night I saw a commercial where a twin engine turboprop, 30,000 pound cargo plane lands and drops a ramp while rolling down the tarmac, a truck backs down the ramp and using a chain attached to the plane brakes it to a stop.

The caption is “Professional driver; closed course; do not attempt.” They seriously believe there is a risk of someone trying this on the highway?

I guess I’d better take the plane and the truck back to the rental agency, then.

Damn, now I got nothing to do this weekend.

[Polerius]

@KneadToKnow

A. I’ve only seen a few episodes, but I’m pretty sure they repeat this warning in some form or another several times during the show.

They seem to repeat it after every commercial break, which still leaves the possibility that you tune in a couple of minutes after a commercial break, see something, turn the TV off, and never see the warning.

B. The warning isn’t there for you. It’s there so that when you do “try this at home” their lawyers have the defense of saying, “Hey, we told you not to.”

I understand that, but why would that defense stand, if they did not make sure I saw the warning?

[Princhester]

I’m not a US attorney and there may be case law on point so the following is speculative. However, if I were acting for the Mythbusters defending them against a lawsuit by someone who claimed

1/ to have been injured by doing something they saw on the show
2/ they didn’t see any warnings because they only watched part of the show, but
3/ they would have not done what they saw being done on the show if they’d been warned not to do it (yeah, right)

my argument would be that you can’t watch just part of something and then complain if you missed some vital information. To me, that’s like reading only steps two and three of the instructions and then complaining because you got hurt because of something that should have been done at step one.

I have no idea if this would be accepted, but that’d be my argument.

I don’t know if the Australian version of the show is edited differently, but over here they only rarely give the “don’t try this at home” message. Basically, they only say that when they’re about to do something really dangerous that you could try at home. They certainly don’t repeat the message at every ad break. This may be a reflection of the fact that our tort system is not as completely nuts as yours.

[dangermom]

They tend to run a little canned segment at ad breaks that shows the guys saying it in a humorous kind of way. I think they are simultaneously trying to do the necessary butt-covering and also make it sort of amusing.

[Man_With_a_Cat]

“Don’t try this at home, even if you are fortunate enough to have a practically unlimited budget, a warehouse full of cool props and tools, and a staff of engineers and construction experts at your disposal”

[Gary_T]

@Bill Door

Some of those warnings drive me crazy. Last night I saw a commercial where a twin engine turboprop, 30,000 pound cargo plane lands and drops a ramp while rolling down the tarmac, a truck backs down the ramp and using a chain attached to the plane brakes it to a stop.

The caption is “Professional driver; closed course; do not attempt.” They seriously believe there is a risk of someone trying this on the highway?

No, silly. The risk is that someone will try it at the airport.

[Polerius]

@Princhester

if I were acting for the Mythbusters defending them against a lawsuit by someone who claimed

1/ to have been injured by doing something they saw on the show
2/ they didn’t see any warnings because they only watched part of the show, but
3/ they would have not done what they saw being done on the show if they’d been warned not to do it (yeah, right)

my argument would be that you can’t watch just part of something and then complain if you missed some vital information.

Assume the show did not have the warning, and someone filed a lawsuit against them and claimed

1/ to have been injured by doing something they saw on the show
2/ they would have not done what they saw being done on the show if they’d been warned not to do it (yeah, right)

Why couldn’t you use the argument that you can’t watch a TV show and assume you are being given instructions on what to try at home, and then complain if you get hurt trying to copy them.

What I don’t get is

1. Why is a TV show liable if someone tries something they see on the show?
   On what grounds is this liability argued?

2. Why don’t other things have the same obligation? (e.g. circus)

3. It seems like the “don’t try this at home” warning is confined to non-fiction. For example, they don’t give this warning before they show Superman or Neo trying to fly from building to building. Why are fiction shows off the hook?

This may be a reflection of the fact that our tort system is not as completely nuts as yours.

You got that right

[Princhester]

I was only attempting to answer the “why is saying it only at the beginning of the show enough to get the shows off the hook?” bit of your OP. There would certainly be other arguments you could try to avoid liability altogether, even leaving aside the warnings.

Exactly how an injured person might frame their claim would depend on jurisdiction, but broadly it will depend upon breach of duty of care. Whether there was a breach would probably depend (broadly) upon whether there was a forseeable risk of injury which could reasonably be alleviated.

So (in the broadest terms) if the Mythbusters do something that looks safe and like heaps of fun and which could easily be done at home, but which is actually very dangerous, it might be regarded as reasonably forseeable that someone might try it and be hurt. That risk could reasonably be alleviated by giving a warning.

A circus or obvious fiction like superman doesn’t need these warnings, because it is not reasonably forseeable that someone is going to be such a doofus that they actually think they can fly, or do a trapeze act without training etc.

That’s the theory of it. Plus every jurisdiction is going to differ at least marginally on the way these things are framed.

[Hypno-Toad]

I think that as long as the producers made a *reasonable effort * to put up the disclaimer, they’d be OK. They know that people tune in at odd times, so they put it in at every commercial break and the announcer will occassionally remind the viewer not to do such a thing. Plus, in certain circumstances, such as creating homemade thermite, they deliberately leave out some ingredients. So they can show that they’re trying to a reasonable extent to prevent viewers from imitating their antics.

[Sean_Factotum]

@Polerius

What I don’t get is

1. Why is a TV show liable if someone tries something they see on the show?
   On what grounds is this liability argued?

2. Why don’t other things have the same obligation? (e.g. circus)

3. It seems like the “don’t try this at home” warning is confined to non-fiction. For example, they don’t give this warning before they show Superman or Neo trying to fly from building to building. Why are fiction shows off the hook?

I do remember lawsuit(s) being brought against the show “Jackass” when it was running. They made a big deal of running disclaimers during the show, and may even have been the first TV show to do it (at least on that scale).

[fiddlesticks]

Heck, MTV had to put disclaimers in front of Beavis & Butthead (a cartoon show!) because some stupid kid burned down his house after watching Beavis say “Fire! Fire! Fire!” or something like that. Can’t remember if the South Park disclaimers were also in response to a legal butt-covering after some kid acted out a bit of South Park inspired horseplay or if they were a tongue-in-cheek nod to B&B’s disclaimers.

[gotpasswords]

@Hypno-Toad

Plus, in certain circumstances, such as creating homemade thermite, they deliberately leave out some ingredients. So they can show that they’re trying to a reasonable extent to prevent viewers from imitating their antics.

They also leave enough mayhem in the final edit to let a reasonable viewer know that what they’re doing is dangerous. eg: How many times have Adam’s eyebrows been burnt off, and how many vehicles have they destroyed, scattering shards of metal for yards and showing the crew dodging for cover?

[Polerius]

@Princhester

So (in the broadest terms) if the Mythbusters do something that looks safe and like heaps of fun and which could easily be done at home, but which is actually very dangerous, it might be regarded as reasonably forseeable that someone might try it and be hurt. That risk could reasonably be alleviated by giving a warning

A circus or obvious fiction like superman doesn’t need these warnings,

But many times circus acrobats make stuff seem really simple and lots of fun. Maybe not doing a trapeze act, but, for example, doing a back-flip against a wall. Such stuff seems like lots of fun and they make it look very easy, so many people may want to try it at home.

If someone does and breaks their back, is the circus liable? If not, why is someone doing a back-flip on TV liable?

Or, what about other examples that don’t include “professionals”. For example, what if I live in a neighborhood where some people have learned to ride their bikes hands-free. They pass by every day, not holding their handle bar, and they make it look like a very easy and fun thing to do.

If my kid watches them every day, and one day attempts to ride his bike hands-free, and breaks his leg, should those guys going by hands-free in the neighborhood be liable? Should they be riding all the time with signs saying “Don’t try this”?

So, just because something is made to look easy and fun is no reason to have a TV show be liable, because such things occur elsewhere in life and people are not liable when doofuses copy them and get injured.

because it is not reasonably forseeable that someone is going to be such a doofus that they actually think they can fly, or do a trapeze act without training etc.

Yet some stupid kids do think they can do unreasonable (to us) stuff. Besides the Beavis & Butthead example by fiddlesticks, I seem to recall that in the past some kids did try to imitate Superman and/or the Bionic Man and got hurt.

So, it seems foreseeable that whatever you show on TV (or do in a circus, or in life in general), no matter how risky and dangerous it may seem to a reasonable person, somewhere out there, there is a doofus who will try to do it and get hurt.

Why should anyone (TV, circus, movies, anyone) be liable for these doofuses’ stupidity?

[Robot_Arm]

@Polerius

Yet some stupid kids do think they can do unreasonable (to us) stuff. Besides the Beavis & Butthead example by fiddlesticks, I seem to recall that in the past some kids did try to imitate Superman and/or the Bionic Man and got hurt.

So, it seems foreseeable that whatever you show on TV (or do in a circus, or in life in general), no matter how risky and dangerous it may seem to a reasonable person, somewhere out there, there is a doofus who will try to do it and get hurt.

Why should anyone (TV, circus, movies, anyone) be liable for these doofuses’ stupidity?

You’ve got it all wrong. The plural is ‘doofi’.

[muttrox]

Then there’s cases like the guy who ran a race with refrigerator on his back, got hurt, sued the refrigerator company and won. That’s why we have idiotic disclaimers, because of the idiots.

http://www.netshopsusa.com/shop/lawsuit.assetprotection.html

Wish I could find a better cite… I’m sure I’ve seen this before…

[CalMeacham]

You’ve got it all wrong. The plural is ‘doofi’.

No it isn’t. Like “octopus”, “doofus” in the original Latin is irregular third declension.

The plural should be “doofodes”.

(By the way, my favorite commercials with the “Professional Driver on Closed Course – don’t try this, doofodes” commercials are the ones where the car is simply driving over an ordinary, unchallenging road. I suppose their legal department must insist on the disclaimer. But they’re effectively telling you not to drive their car.)

[Duke_of_Rat]

Just like people who skip over the EULA are still bound by it. There isn’t a re-hashing of the EULA before every step of the install, just at the first. You skip it, but that doen’t mean it’s now void.