I was just watching the end of Grosse Pointe Blank and I always wondered about this scene.
[spoiler]John Cusack’s character runs out of ammo and Dan Aykroyd’s character offers to “sell” him a gun, tossing it over the counter. When Aykroyd stands up to presumably shoot Cusack in the back, Cusack smashes a CRT television over his head.
After Aykroyd falls to the floor and appears to have been killed, he continues to twitch from what is indicated by the sound effects to be electricity. This would seem to imply that the major damage, besides the head trauma, is from electricity. Cusack looks to me to unplug the TV before he smashes it over Aykroyd’s head, and it is clearly not still plugged in as Aykroyd lays on the floor.[/spoiler]
So my question is, could an unplugged CRT TV smashed over someone’s head electrocute them?
First off many things seen on TV and the movies can be rather dubious. Watch the Myth Busters and you’ll see.
However old CRT TVs had some rather hefty capacitors. I remember that you were suppose to turn the TV off and unplug it for a few hours before attempting to change vacuum tubes or degaussing them. A lot of electricity could be stored up for quite a while.
By “big capacitors”, I assume posters are referring to the CRT itself, which functions as the HV filter capacitor (the inside is coated with conductive metal, as is the outside; glass is a fairly good dielectric). As for whether that is lethal, I can tell you “no” from personal experience (a pretty good shock, but in no way even incapacitating), and also based on some simple knowledge of how much energy is actually stored; the capacitance of a CRT is maybe 1000 pF max, which stores on the order of 300 mJ at 25 kV - well below the level generally considered to be dangerous (Wikipedia says that static electricity shocks can go up to 500 mJ, with 5,000 mJ being the danger level). Even the continuous HV from the flyback transformer is only a few milliamps when shorted out, assuming something doesn’t blow or shut down from that (the CRT draws only microamps from the HV supply). It is also true that vacuum tube TVs had power supply filter capacitors on the order of 400 volts, but generally a few dozen to perhaps 100 uF, nothing compared to higher power stuff like computer PSUs; modern TVs and monitors (and not just CRT, anything with a SMPS) also have larger capacitors for the primary side of the SMPS, have seen up to 680 uF at 450 volts, far larger than anything in an old tube TV.
Of course, this is all a moot point given how strong a CRT is and the effects of it hitting your head, plus electricity needs a path to ground to shock (the HV supply if touched will give a jolt even if isolated as it charges your body capacitance, like a Van de Graaff generator). Not to mention the circuitry would likely fail from the impact (broken PCBs and components), so only capacitance would remain to provide a shock.
What would be really deadly would be a microwave oven - the HV supply in those is comparable to an electric chair, around 2,000 volts at half an amp continuous and multiple amps when shorted (same problem though with actually getting part of your body to contact it without death from the blow or the metal case shorting it out first).
And if someone does not currently have the intention of seeing this film, please allow me to encourage you to see the error of your ways: it is a great film.
The latter, I imagine - if you bring a CRT monitor down glass-first on someone’s head, at more or less any speed, it’s either just going to deflect their head, or break/telescope their neck, or smash their skull. The front glass on the CRT might crack, but their head is not going to enter the tube.
Even if the glass did break, there’s a stout piece of metal mesh, fixed very firmly in place just behind it.
Cusack is a real-life kickboxer and his opponent in that fight is his friend Benny “the Jet” Urquidez, also a very famous former competitive fighter. Check him out on Youtube.
