Rufian… 
But the thread is in Cafe Society, where a discussion of scripted—or at least entertainment—TV seems a better fit, so that was my first thought too.
In the documentary Evil Genius we see news footage of a bomb detonate while strapped around someone’s neck. I remember my jaw dropping and mumbling to myself “I think I just saw someone get murdered”. I was shocked that they (the producers, Netflix etc) actually showed that. I get that it happened on the news live, but I still would’ve expected it to be blurred out here.
Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, after he was killed, in order to preserve the device, they removed his head (not on camera, we’re just told about that part).
Also, looking for a video to refresh my memory, I found a subreddit that’s essentially just people getting killed or severely maimed. It’s just a whole subreddit of one jawdropping video after another.
I saw it on repeat but it was like seeing it live when the second plane hit the towers. I worked nights so I’d missed the initial news.I woke up around 7 PM and turned on the TV just in time to see a clip of the crash. Shocked the grogginess right out of me.
I saw the January 6 insurrection footage. As a kid, I saw RFK shot. I saw the Challenger explode.
We had a tornado here in '79. I had the local news on, looking for information about it. The weatherman was saying, “We can see the tornado from the Channel Six station” and then suddenly the transmission cut off and it was just static. I didn’t live very far from the broadcasting station so that was pretty unnerving.
On a lesser note, I saw Charles Rocket say “F*ck” on the air. Well, I had it on and was half paying attention. I was paying full attention after that but thought I must have heard it wrong until the next day. I saw the Ashley Simpson lip sync fiasco.
I saw one on a Canadian news broadcast in the 80s. I guess the guy was using actual notes instead of a telepromter, and got his pages mixed up, so part of the way into Story A, he started talking about Story B, got flustered, shuffled a few pages and then said out loud, “Where the fuck am I?”
There’s something kind of charming about old school bloopers on the local news.
Joe Theismann. November 18, 1985. My recollection, possibly faulty, is that from the original angle, either a) it only looked like an ordinary tackle, or b) it happened so fast it wasn’t obvious that a serious injury had occurred. In either case, the replay showed that Joe was going to be easing into a cushy commentator’s spot.
Many years ago, I was watching “Doctor Who” on WTTW in Chicago. The episode was “The Horror of Fang Rock”. Just as Leela was about to shed her wet clothing before a scandalized lighthouse keeper, the TV screen dissolved to show someone in an ill-fitting Max Headroom costume.
I sat bemused as the figure fidgeted around while babbling incoherently. The figure then bent over for a bare-assed spanking with a flyswatter, administered by someone off screen. The screen dissolved again, and Leela was back as if nothing had happened.
I later learned that Channel 11’s broadcast signal had been hijacked. The Max Headroom imposter was never caught. And as far as I know, such a thing never happened again.
I still have it on tape.
There’s a whole Wikipedia article about the Max Headroom hijacks. There were two of them. You saw the second one.
Oh, I know about the first hijacking. They showed the WGN hijacking clip on the news the next day. It only lasted a few seconds before some alert technician at WGN cut them off. The WTTW hijack went on for awhile.
I’m going to go with Johnny Carson: the Ed Ames Moment.
I watched “The Play” with my Dad (a Cal grad) live. When the tuba player got leveled, we were both busting up laughing.
Man, I forgot about that one! I also saw it live, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
Nitpick: It was a trombone player that got leveled. His name was Gary Tyrell, and he achieved fame by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The Play from the Cal vs. Stanford 1982 Big Game #GoBears (youtube.com)
Trombone, yes. I’ve got an old blooper tape (VHS, that’s how old) with him on it, and he’s not too happy to be remembered for only this.
She died on the lead. I still…heartbreaking.
Boston winning the world series 2004. I was just stunned.
My mother was 6 months pregnant with me, and on her first day of maternity leave when that happened.
Note: The company she worked for, even back in 1963, would give a year of unpaid leave for women who had babies, and guarantee her job back. She decided not to go back. Anyway, she had wanted to work until I was born (yes, they even allowed that too!) but my dad insisted that she leave the job at that point. Later on, she agreed with his decision because she didn’t know, never having been pregnant before, how uncomfortable a late-stage pregnancy is.
In '89 saw Quebec Nordique goalie Clint Malarchuk’s neck get sliced open by a skate, with blood spurting out everywhere from his carotid artery and partially slicing his jugular. Nasty pool of blood on the ice.
One of the more sublime moments I’ve ever experienced televisually.
I have seen that video, but I didn’t see it live.
I’m trying to remember whether I saw Zednik’s incident live, or shortly thereafter. I feel it was “same day” but I could be wrong.
Both gruesome, but with good outcomes at least.
I thought I dreamed it.
There is precedence: when I was young, I had to stay up to 12:30 am for Wild Wild West. I’ve “seen” some very interesting episodes that never existed, I dreamed a music video for Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds” that was IMO better than the actual, real video.
I was home with a high fever (thanks for the chickenpox, Son O’ Mine) when the shuttle exploded, and I actually thought it was a fever-dream until I was told otherwise.