Nobody’s mentioned Space Shuttle Challenger? How much more horribly wrong can live TV go?
There was the earthquake that hit during the opening minutes of the 1989 World Series. If you watch carefully (beginning about 4 minutes in) you’ll notice that first the video is disrupted, then the audio lasts just long enough to hear Al Michaels ad lib (obviously to the question “what’s going on?”) “I’ll tell you what, we’re having an earth—.” Then everything falls silent for a few seconds, then you can hear Michaels come back on an obviously inferior audio connection, probably a telephone, and go to a commercial.
Of course, there were incidents where there was nothing to do but stay with it: the Lee Harvey Oswald shooting, the Challenger explosion, and 9/11.
A friend of mine who worked for ABC likes to talk about the day they changed David Brinkley’s pre-taped opening, so Brinkley had to do the new opening live. He slipped up and instinctively said "oh fuck!’ - then continued with the opening as if nothing had happened.
That “tomahawk thrower” was the Ed Ames, who played “Mingo” on Daniel Boone, and was a member of the Ames Brothers singing group.
Getting back to the OP’s question about what does the crew do when someone flakes out, take a look at Kim Delaney melting down at a veteran’s award ceremony.
Nearly 2 minutes in you can hear an announcer start to read the intended lines over her and then a stage manager comes and gets her off stage. But they really let her ramble on far too long.
There was a young, blonde newscaster on NBC weekend news who also did “Newsbreak.” In October, 1983, she did a completely botched broadcast that had people questioning whether or not she was doing drugs. Her name was Jessica Savitch.
In the LA area, car chases are frequently followed by helicopters, and the programming is commandeered to show idiots driving on freeways, through residential neighborhoods, and sometimes even going the wrong way. The stuff is live. I remember a pursuit one evening, and it had gone on for quite some time. I believe it began with a child custody dispute. IIRC, the driver ended up on I-5, north of the urban area, where the gradual climb begins in the freeway. The right hand lane fills up with trucks using lower gears to make the grade. The driver in the chase was clipping along 70-80 MPH, and then veered quickly to slam into the back of one of the semis. The voiceover said something like, “Oh my God!” and the picture cut. The chase was mentioned in later newscasts, but the final outcome was always edited out.
~VOW
How about a drunk Joe Namath hitting on sideline reporter Suzy Kolber during a Monday Night Football game? She never got flustered and thanked Namath for the “compliment.” Stay classy, Joe.
Well, this thread took a bit of a morbid turn. I’m not complaining–I appreciate all these stories. For example, I had heard that Tommy Cooper had died in mid-performance, but I didn’t realize it was being broadcast at the time. Interesting.
Another, less morbid example I thought of: a once well-respected news reporter named Geraldo Rivera did a live special on the opening of a vault in a hotel used by Al Capone. Most of us know how well that worked out. Geraldo’s reaction to the disappointment apparently was to follow through on a bet–and sing a song. He admits was embarrassed, but it might have been the best thing to happen to his career. Would we have remembered him as well if there had been something more interesting in that vault?
I remember that. A Current Affair w/ Bill O’Reilly showed the footage as well.
The best part of this video is the follow-up when the reporter admitted that she wasn’t a cat person.
During the Great Papal Deathwatch of '05 I remember seeing a female CNN reporter starting to get hysterical over a report of his death (before he was actually dead). They either cut to commericial or a clip and a new reporter was there when they returned. Didn’t Fox News also prematurely announce the Pope’s death a couple times?
Oh, yeah, Bill O’Reilly did a bumper live that he thought was taped and it went…horribly wrong.
What about Serene Branson? She experienced aphasia on the air due to complex migraine.
On a 1976 episode of Saturday Night Live, John Belushi clipped host Buck Henry’s forehead with his katana during their recurring “Samurai” sketch. Henry had to wear a bandage on his head for the rest of the episode; to “disguise” this fact, everyone else in the cast also wore a bandage for the rest of the episode, as well.
Post 16.
Gah!
There’s always this classic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s0dRcdyizU
A late-night infomercial for a cheap katana goes awry when the sword breaks and stabs the demonstrator. Yes, he was seriously injured, no, I don’t believe it was fatal.
The Krist Novoselic bass toss. Not all that “horrible wrong” but definitely a gaffe and hilarious to boot. I love the part where he gets up and stumbles around the stage.
Also from SNL’s second year on air, Chevy Chase was doing his trademark “stumble & fall” bit during the cold opening, he injured himself pretty badly and had to be rushed to the hospital. The show of course had to make a few emergency recasts for some sketches. The most notable one being that Jane Curtain had to take over the SNL News Anchor desk for the first time.
On another episode, during the early 80s, the punk band “Fear” were the musical guests. There is an ongoing debate over what really happened, but during the middle of a number, the camera simply cut to a commercial.
During the early days of TV (well, perhaps during the early 60s but no later), Steve Allen was host of “the Tonight Show” (pre-Johnny Carson.) Apparently, Allen became so fed up with interference from the network that one night during a live broadcast he went on a tirade about a sham the whole TV business was and pronounced “there has to be a better way to make a living” and abruptly quit and walked off the set. The rest of the show (90 minutes back in those days) was “hosted” by that evening’s guests.
Came to post that one.