Bizarre and unexplained moments on television

Along those lines,
Lee Harvey Oswald getting shot, 11/24/63
Howard Cosell announcing on "Monday Night Football" that John Lennon had been shot, 12/8/80
The "Cheers" cast getting fucked up on Jay Leno, 5/??/92
John Ritter's left testicle being shown on syndicated television, 1983 - 1999.

I remember an episode of "Later" with Bob Costas where he was interviewing Marilu Henner. She claimed that she could remember anything from any date. What she had for dinner, where she was at the time, etc. So Costas says, "Okay. How about, say, July 20, 1969?" His coming up with that date on the fly probably had something to do with that being the day that Neil Armstrong [allegedly] walked on the moon, but Henner covered her mouth and freaked. "How do you know about that? Who told you about that? Oh my God."

Turns out that was also the date that Henner lost her virginity.

And it keeps coming back.

Unexplained? Inexplicable!

That politician was J. Budd Dwyer of Pennsylvania.

< pedant > I thought his name was R. Budd Dwyer? < / pedant > Anyroad, it didn't actually go out live, it was taped and most TV stations broadcast it so it cut away to something else the exact second before he pulled the trigger. There were one or two stations somewhere that broadcast the whole thing, and not suprisingly there were a lot of complaints.

I live in the UK but I've seen it via the grubby magic of the Internet in a squidgy and blurry Realvideo version at college about 3 or 4 years ago. Some guy there (who was notorious for being a know-nothing) was convinced it had been faked, as he said the sound of the gun and the way his head "reacted" didn't sound/look right. I should have pointed out that his only frame of reference for that were the crappy action movies he'd watched, which are not famed for their authenticity.

There was a freeway chase ending in a guy blowing his brains out with a shotgun that went out live on LA TV. All stations but one cut away beforehand because it looked like that was what he was gonna do, but ch 11 (I think) kept the camera on. Not really unexpected though.

Then there was the guy that streaked the Oscars when David Niven was presenting.

(it definitely happened btw)

(http://offthetelly.users.btopenworld.com/factual/guerrillatv.htm)

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[...] one week an anarchist group rang up the Open Door [late night public access-style BBC show] office demanding airtime, describing themselves as Albion Free State, a major political force for anarchy. They were invited - and just imagine even the remotest scintilla of a possibility of this happening now! - to turn up at the BBC where they would indeed be put on the air live. Two of them turned up, one dressed as a gorilla, the other as a wizard. When the wizard threateningly produced a knife and the gorilla kicked him in the nuts to deprive him of it, the producers probably realised that they were in for something unusual. But - good old early '70s BBC - they still put the show on.

The transmission began with a masked individual holding a placard explaining that, as the BBC would only allow one of them on-air at any time, "the tree" would represent all of them, and, for the next 15 minutes, the camera repeatedly zoomed in and out on a tree in a pot while a tape of the Albion Free State Manifesto played. A scary, weird and, indeed, incredibly boring 15 minutes (although still preferable to yet another modern makeover show).

Beck was interviewed by Thurston Moore on 120 Minutes when "Loser" was big. He answered every question in nonsense, had a tape recorder which played nonsense, and threw his shoe to one answer. It was pretty weird and bizarre at the time, but in retrospect kind of meh.

*Melbourne "comedy" rock act... if you don't know, its not worth explaining...

Speaking of which: Yoko on Conan. We get a few minutes of them writhing in a black bag, then Conan comes out shirtless. Then he puts on Yoko's jacket. Then I flip the fuck out.

So I flipped that on every now and then because it was so weird, like the day the woman was reading & responding to letters children had sent to their show. She explained to the children writing that in Grenada, the Communists played tricks on little children; they would send soldiers into the classrooms and tell the children to put their heads down and pray to Jesus for candy. Then, the children would open their eyes and find no candy. So the soldiers would tell the children to ask the Communist state, and would sneak around and place candy on every child's desk. She explained that this is why Ronald Reagan did the right thing and invaded Grenada, to save it from the Communists.

who was that footballer who dropped a fellow player from the same team onto the floor in post match celebrations and broke his back and ruined his career ?

https://i.imgur.com/5KfHZxg.png

Scarred so bad that anytime I see a politician make this gesture, I think they're about to pull a gun out of a paper bag.