For now, at least, those "reality shows "are also really hot
Las Vegas, Sept. 15. The sign outside one of the more celebrated spas on the strip proudly trumpets TODAY! GARY WELLS JUMPS CAESARS PALACE FOUNTAINS. So he does, and the result fully lives up to the name of the stunt's sponsor, ABC's thrill-pandering series That's Incredible! While gawkers gawked and cameras whirred, Wells, a professional stunt man, gunned a motorcycle up a ramp, sailed over the water fountains outside the showplace, but crashed on his descent. Result: a ruptured aorta and fractures of the pelvis, thigh and lower leg.
For That's Incredible!, which is considering if and when it should air its footage of Wells' jump, the stunt was just one of many heart stoppers that have helped the show pull almost a third of the viewing audience in its Monday night prime-time slot. It was also the third injury to have occurred in filming for the show. Another stunt man, attempting to jump in the air while two cars sped under him, nearly ripped off his foot when it caught in a windshield; he had to have reconstructive surgery and is still in serious condition. Still another daredevil suffered severe burns and lost his hands in the course of running through a 50-yd. tunnel of fire. For this, he was paid $8,000, from which he cleared only $2,000 after expenses.
That's Incredible! is only the most sensation-mongering of half a dozen shows in a new TV genre known as reality programming. These shows offer viewers, by means of minicams, glimpses of real events and people. The cameras of That's Incredible! have dwelt on a man tied by his heels and hanging over a pool of sharks, a woman covered with bees, a miracle-working priest, a one-legged football star and a professor who pours acid over his hands. An NBC version of That's Incredible!, called Games People Play, has sent crews around the country to film folks engaged in such competitions as women's arm wrestling and belly bucking, in which a pair of beefy brawlers try to butt each other out of a ring. Like That's Incredible!, Games invariably winds up with a harrowing stunt designed to stir even the most hardened disaster freaks.
On one Games show, a stunt driver named Spunky piloted a car off a 45-ft.-high ramp into a lake. The camera focused on the clenched face of his wife as rescue divers made their way to the sunken auto. Would Spunky survive his dive? (Answer: yes.) In another segment, Motorcyclist Rex Black well roared off a ramp and over two parked helicopters as their blades whirled at 350 r.p.m. "He barely cleared the last blade!" exulted the commentator as a slow-motion replay showed just how close Blackwell had come to being converted to steak tartare.