Entertainment

Tiki Culture

The pop culture movement of leisure, escapism, and fantasy that’s light on authenticity.

The word “Tiki” comes from the Maori name for the first man of creation. Tiki also became the name of human-like figures carved in wood or stone in the Polynesian Triangle, from New Zealand to Hawaii to Easter Island.

By the mid 20th century the Tiki name got borrowed, like so many other cultural ideas, and blended together in America to create Tiki culture.

people from around the Polynesian triangle — The peoples of the Polynesian Triangle have similar but different cultures. Tiki culture has borrowed from them all.

Set sail for fantasy

Tiki is escapism. It’s a South Seas fantasy of jungles, volcanos, rum drinks, palm trees, bamboo, headhunter skulls, the limbo, little umbrellas, leis, sand, surf, ukuleles, Hawaiian shirts, pineapples, parrots, blowfish, coconuts, Moai, and more. Tiki does not look to be authentic to any particular culture but creates something new borrowing from around the world.

To create this fantasy Tiki got its start, appropriately, in Hollywood. The founding father of Tiki was illegal rum bootlegger (and later WWII veteran) Ernest Raymond Gantt, aka “Donn Beach” aka “Don the Beachcomber”. In 1933 at the end of Prohibition, Beach created the world’s first Tiki bar “Don’s Beachcomber”. The bar’s decor of bamboo, rattan furniture, tiki torches, palm leaves, glass floats, Polynesian art, etc. set the template for all Tiki bars to follow.

Don Beach, the father of tiki — Donn Beach, the founding father of Tiki. Beach created the template all other Tiki bars have followed.

Over time competing Tiki bars around Los Angeles would hire local Hollywood art directors to help design increasingly more fantastic interiors – like stepping onto a movie set, a Tiki bar would whisk you away from reality. Also, working the other direction, Beach was sometimes hired by film studios to advise on movies set in the South Pacific.

Beyond the visual Beach’s other major contribution to Tiki was the drinks.

The Zombie, Three Dots & A Dash, Dr. Funk, Cobra’s Fang …

Don’s Beachcomber invented a fun illustrated menu of mixed drinks with exciting names such as the Zombie, Three Dots & A Dash, Navy Grog, and others which have become Tiki bar staples. The Mai Tai, another legendary Tiki drink, is generally credited to Trader Vic’s of Oakland, CA. A competitor of Don’s Beachcomber, Trader Vic’s was opened in 1934 by Victor Bergeron and has become an international chain of Tiki restaurants (which also inspired the theme & name of the grocery store Trader Joe’s).

Beach referred to his mixed drink creations as his “Rhum Rhapsodies”. They were based on the basic recipe concept of the Planter’s Punch which combines sour, sweet, strong alcohol, and water. Some restaurateurs would code their cocktail recipes to prevent competitors from stealing their best ideas. That said most Tiki cocktails are Cuban & Jamaican inspired, they use rum as their alcohol of choice, and their recipes eventually got out. Specialized ceramic Tiki mugs, carved like Tiki sculptures, helped set restaurants apart from one another while also becoming sought-after collectibles.

Tiki across mid-century pop culture — Tiki boomed in popularity in mid-century pop culture.

Bali Ha’i and Kon-Tiki

Despite starting in the 1930s Tiki really took off in the 1940s as WWII veterans came back from the Pacific. Tiki allowed them to idealize the good parts of their time in the Pacific and forget the bad. James Michener’s 1947 Tales of the South Pacific, and later the Broadway musical, were hugely influential in popularizing a romanticized idea of the Pacific islands. Thor Heyerdahl’s raft adventure sailing across the Pacific Ocean in 1947 (… in support of his racist ideas about Polynesians), and the subsequent bestseller novel The Kon-Tiki Expedition, gave a sense of adventure to Tiki culture.

Tiki’s popularity grew rapidly around the world. With Hawaiian statehood in 1959, and widely available commercial aviation, more tourists got to experience tropical destinations. Munich’s Oktoberfest in 1959 had a Hawaiian Village area. Trader Vic’s franchised by partnering with Hilton Hotels, operating as many as 25 locations at once. Restaurateur Stephen Crane created the Tiki chain Kon-Tiki in partnership with Sheraton Hotels.

Tiki also appeared in entertainment. Elvis had three Hawaii-based movies (and later he had the “Jungle Room” in his Graceland home). Disney created Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room attraction in 1963 and later Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort (the resort where John Lennon signed the paperwork officially ending The Beatles). Television gave us McHale’s Navy, Gilligan’s Island, Hawaii Five-0. Tiki and all things tropical were found across pop culture.

Tiki’s rum drinks, the visual spectacle, and the sense of exotic adventure created an environment of looser social mores allowing repressed Westerners an outlet to cut loose.

Modern tiki — Tiki’s second act has brought Tiki back into pop culture.

The tide goes out, and comes back

The tide changed for Tiki in the late 1960s / early 1970s. Young baby boomers saw Tiki as increasingly uncool and associated it with their parents’ generation. The grass huts and jungle themes were becoming reminiscent of the Vietnam War. The kitsch ornamentation, the spectacle, the recreational leisure wear – Tiki became embarrassing and began to die off.

The 1990s saw the tide come back for Tiki. The children of the baby boomers began to embrace what their parents had rejected. Hipsters gravitated towards Tiki culture. Early websites and message boards helped nascent Tiki fans learn more and make friends. New Tiki bars began to open as well as renewed interest in the originals who had managed to stay afloat.

Authenticity

With Tiki culture’s second act came a critical reevaluation of Tiki overall. Tiki is not an authentic depiction of any particular culture. Its an appropriation of Polynesian imagery, Caribbean inspired drinks, dressed-up Cantonese food, Congolese masks, a mythologizing of “noble savages” and the exoticism of Pacific Islander peoples. Tiki is a problematic blending of completely disparate cultures where the only unifying element is seemingly the “exotic” colonialist view Westerners had of them all.

Like the Irish pub-in-a-box Tiki bars focus on creating a fun environment not an authentic one. It’s an illusion, a fantasy, a melange of ideas that offer a break from your office cubicle and ordinary life. Perhaps it’s best if one goes in with eyes wide open knowing they aren’t about to see anything authentic to Polynesian culture.

That said some new Tiki bars are considering the history of Tiki as they design new experiences. Subgenres of Tiki exist such as “nautical” or “straw bars” that have some of the feeling of Tiki bars but without some of the appropriated Polynesian imagery.

Added info: The Tiki Room at Disneyland was the park’s first air conditioned attraction. This was for the comfort of the guests but also because the system that ran all of the animatronics ran so hot the attraction had to be cooled down.

A documentary on the history of Tiki culture.

Another documentary, in two parts, about the history of Tiki.

Whoopee Caps

The fun second life of fedoras.

The fedora hat was created sometime in the late 19th century. Its name comes from the title of the 1882 play Fédora, which starred Sarah Bernhardt. Interestingly, because of Bernhardt the hat was originally popular with women, only later becoming a staple of men’s fashion.

By the early 20th century, a time when basically all adults wore hats, the fedora was thee hat for men. Its popularity lasted up until the middle of the century when it faded out (for example President Kennedy famously broke with tradition and tended to not wear hats, unlike his predecessors). But with so many men were wearing so many fedoras, many of these hats took on second lives as hand-me-downs.

Bruised and battered fedoras found a second life as whoopee caps.

Jughead

As fathers gave their sons their beat up old fedoras, kids would modify them as an expression of their personalities. Old fedoras would be turned inside-out, the brim would be upturned and cut to create interesting patterns. Kids would further customize these creations with pins and other trinkets. These fun repurposed fedoras came to be known as whoopee caps.

By 1929, with the increasing popularity of whoopee caps, the Six Jumping Jacks released the song The Whoopee Hat Brigade. By the 1930s manufactured versions became available for sale – for those who didn’t want to go the DIY route. Whoopee caps spread to pop culture with two of the most famous whoopee cap wearers being Goober Pyle from The Andy Griffith Show, and Jughead Jones from Archie comics. Over time Jughead’s hat became so stylized it became more of a crown than a whoopee cap. Thanks to the 2017 Archie TV show Riverdale the Jughead whoopee cap has evolved again taking on more of a knit beanie style.

Added info: the name Fedora is the feminine version of the Russian name Fedor, which is the equivalent of the Greek Theodore, which means “gift of the gods”.

Victorian Haunted Houses

We think of Victorian houses as haunted and creepy because of changing cultural values as well as evolving design trends.

Following the American Civil War affluent families (especially in the North) built new homes in the style of the time. The style in the second half of the 19th century was Victorian architecture complete with deep porches, mansard roofs, ornate decorative trim, turrets, heavy drapes, wallpaper, etc. Victorian architecture tended to give each room a specific purpose with an overall closed floorpan.

By the early 20th century however this style was out of fashion. Design was turning towards Modernism and architecture was no different. Architects everywhere were embracing the simpler, cleaner, more open design approach of Modernism – Frank Lloyd Wright was becoming celebrated for his use of the modernist “Prairie style”. Design was moving into the future with forward-thinking ideas of progress (technological, industrial, social, etc.). In this environment Victorian homes looked increasingly behind the times both culturally and stylistically. Architects were outright rejecting what Victorian design looked-like and symbolized. Big Victorian houses, once seen as signs of prosperity were now seen as symbols of corruption – the rich getting richer, the wealth gap, and the prosperity that was unobtainable by the common person.

Out with the old, in with the new

As time marched on many older houses were torn down and replaced with new homes in the latest styles. Those who kept their Victorian homes did so because they either truly liked them or because they no longer had the money to do anything else. It’s this second group of people who let their homes go (sometimes abandoning them altogether), who were no longer able to handle the upkeep.

On the outside the elaborate wood trim would fade or chip exposing the wood to rot & crumble. On the inside the ornate trim would accumulate dust & spider webs. As the houses aged they would settle creating creaking floorboards and doors that might not stay shut, opening by themselves. If gas pipes broke and leaked they could release carbon monoxide, leading people to see visions and feel a sense of unexplained fear. All-in-all the world was moving on but these old, overgrown, decrepit, dusty, creaking Victorian homes sat in decay, stirring up emotions of failure, fear, & unease. Then pop culture put the final nail in the coffin.

From *The Addams Family* to *Stranger Things*, Victorian houses have become the go-to architectural style of spooky haunted houses.

In 1938 The Addams Family made their first appearance as a comic in The New Yorker. The creepy, kookie, macabre Addams family lived in an old haunted Victorian mansion (which has been revisited most recently in the 2022 spin-off Wednesday). In 1960 Alfred Hitchcock gave us Psycho in which Norman Bates lives with his mother (sort of) in a spooky Victorian house up on a hill. In 1964 we got The Munsters who, like the Addams Family, were a funny family of creepy misfits living in a Victorian mansion.

Today, regardless of whether they are well-kept or not, it’s hard not to not see Victorian houses as being slightly creepy thanks to shifting design trends and pop culture monsters.

The Mari Lwyd

The southern Welsh custom that looks creepy but is actually a fun roving party.

The Mari Lwyd (roughly pronounced “mary lewid”) is a late winter custom in southern Wales where groups of men go door-to-door singing irreverent songs for drinks & food (a ritual known as “pwnco”). It’s in the folk tradition of mumming / caroling / wassailing but it’s also a proto-rap battle. The group will sing to gain entrance to a home, and the homeowner will sing a response giving a reason to deny them entry. This exchange goes back and forth until one side wins, either sending the group away to the next house or allowing them inside where they’re given refreshments.

It’s typically performed around Christmas / New Year’s and the homeowners usually allow the Mari to enter their home as it’s thought to bring good luck for the coming year. The group eventually exits, heading back out into the night, to perform again at the next house.

The Pale Horse

What sets this tradition apart from other mumming / wassailing customs is the titular Mari Lwyd which is a ghostly hobby horse made up of a man hiding under a sheet holding up a horse skull. The skull is adorned with lights or baubles in the eye sockets, streamers hanging down, and the jaw is wired so she can snap at people. If she gains entry to your house she will cause mischief, chasing members of the house or feigning an attempt at stealing things, but in good fun.

The Mari Lwyd, while mischievous, isn't as menacing as she seems. — The Mari Lwyd, while mischievous, isn’t as menacing as she seems.

The etymology of “Mari Lwyd” is debated but it likely means “gray mare” (as “llwyd” is gray in Welsh). The custom has regional differences but the basics are the same (a horse skull, a roving singing party, etc). Far from being an ancient pagan rite, the Mari Lwyd is first mentioned around the start of the 19th century with the “boom years” being between 1850-1920. It was a way for poorer people to earn extra money & food in the cold of winter. They requested donations by offering audiences a healthy dose of fun entertainment … all under the grim menacing stare of a horse skull.

The tradition declined as the number of Welsh speakers declined (the songs & replies are in Welsh). The influence of the Methodist church, who disapproved of the sinful drinking and boisterous activity, also hurt the tradition. While the Mari Lwyd tradition isn’t as popular as it once was it’s having a resurgence and still carries on.

A short video on how the Mari Lwyd tradition is still alive and being passed on to the next generation.

MacGuffins

The thing that drives the plot but doesn’t really matter.

In storytelling, a MacGuffin is something that drives the plot but exactly what the thing is doesn’t really matter. It’s a catalyst that gives the characters something to pursue, something to destroy, something to protect, all while revealing their morality, their motivations, etc. A MacGuffin helps to generate action and suspense but ultimately doesn’t directly affect the plot. It has theoretical value to the characters but has no real value to the story. The moment a MacGuffin significantly changes the plot it ceases to be a MacGuffin.

The term was created by screenwriter Angus MacPhail, who collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock (who in turn made the concept famous by using it in several of his films). While the term is new the idea of the MacGuffin is as old as storytelling itself. For example Helen of Troy prompting the siege of Troy in The Iliad, Sleeping Beauty and other classic damsels in distress in need of saving, the Holy Grail motivating the The Knights of the Round Table, etc. are all MacGuffins driving the story but having little impact on the plot.

One of the best examples of a MacGuffin is the statue in Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon. The search for the Maltese Falcon statue drives the plot but the fact that it’s a statue of a bird is irrelevant – it just needed to be something of value/importance to the characters. Whether it was a statue, a painting, secret plans, etc. it just had to be something to motivate the characters.

From the Maltese Falcon statue to the Dude’s rug, MacGuffins help drive the story.

Let’s chase some MacGuffins

There are many examples of MacGuffins, as well as classifications of MacGuffins, but the following are a few examples found in popular media:

it’s the secret military plans in Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps
the stolen $40,000 in Psycho
the microfilm in North by Northwest
it’s basically everything Indiana Jones chases after such as the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark
the sacred Sankara Stones in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
it’s the glowing suitcase in Kiss Me Deadly, which in turn inspired …
the glowing briefcase in Pulp Fiction
George Lucas said that R2-D2 with the Death Star plans in Star Wars is a MacGuffin
it’s the Dude’s rug in The Big Lebowski
the Horcruxes in Harry Potter
“Rosebud” in Citizen Kane
Video games have lots of examples such as Pauline in Donkey Kong and Zelda in the Legend of Zelda
Grogu (aka Baby Yoda) in the first season of The Mandalorian
Matt Damon in Saving Private Ryan
etc.

Not a MacGuffin

The ring in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is frequently thought of as a MacGuffin, but this is incorrect. While the ring could be exchanged for some other object the fact that it has a direct effect on the characters who encounter it, that Bilbo and Frodo both use it numerous times for its magical power of invisibility, and in doing both of these directly changes the plot throughout the story, means it isn’t a MacGuffin.

Added info: lest you think their bar was Scottish themed, the concept of the MacGuffin is so pervasive in film that AMC Theatres named their chain of theater bars MacGuffins Bar.

Alfred Hitchcock explains what a MacGuffin is on The Dick Cavett Show.

A Trope Talk deep-dive into MacGuffins.

Christmas Ghost Stories

Stemming from ancient pagan traditions, it used to be customary to tell ghost stories at Christmas.

In the northern hemisphere Christmas comes at the darkest time of the year. Years before people gathered together for Christmas they would gather together around fires (such as the Yule log) for various pagan winter holidays on the longest nights of the year. In the cold dark they would tell stories. Similar to Halloween, it was thought that in these long nights the veil between this world and the next was thin allowing spirits to pass back and forth. As such many people told ghost stories of revenants back from the dead, spirits, and other supernatural creatures.

As people adopted Christianity, winter ghost stories went from being a pagan tradition to a Christmas tradition. By the 17th century the Lord and Protector of England Oliver Cromwell tried to eliminate Christmas ghost stories because of their pagan origins. Cromwell also outlawed a host of other Christmas traditions including caroling and feasts (and that’s not even the worst of Cromwell’s legacy). These traditions eventually came back post-Cromwell but by then some were seen as old-fashioned.

A Christmas Carol

Christmas ghost stories achieved a new kind of popularity in the 19th century Victorian Era through the Industrial Revolution. As the oral tradition moved to print, old traditional stories as well as new Christmas stories saw a surge in popularity through magazines, novellas, and book collections. Charles Dickens’s 1843 A Christmas Carol took the tradition to a new level.

A Christmas Carol is a ghost story. It’s easier to see it as a ghost story if you remove the Christmas trappings by placing it in another time of year. Unlike the traditional Christmas ghost stories Dickens reinvented the genre by including moral lessons of forgiveness, good deeds, generosity, etc. His ghosts served as a catalyst towards redemption which was very different than the ghosts of other stories which were primarily used for a good scare. Soon the redemptive, somewhat saccharine, aspects of A Christmas Carol were adopted by other authors and the scary ghost portions of Christmas stories slowly fell by the wayside.

Today we rarely associate scary ghost stories with Christmas. Similar to how Santa Claus and Krampus are a seasonal version of good cop/bad cop, we’ve mostly relegated our scary stories to Halloween while telling our hopeful happy stories at Christmas. Still, if you were to put aside the modern concept of Christmas, this dark cold time of year is the perfect time to gather around the fire and tell scary stories in the darkness.

Added info: take a trip through time and read some collections of Victorian Christmas ghost stories.

The Necronomicon

The most famous magical book of occult knowledge that sounds real, but isn’t.

Possibly the most famous book that doesn’t exist, the Necronomicon is a fictional book of dark magic invented by weird fiction / horror author H.P. Lovecraft. First mentioned in 1924’s The Hound, the Necronomicon is part of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, a dark collection of cosmic horror, ghouls, inter dimensional monsters, and unspeakable evil all set in an uncaring indifferent universe. The best interpretation of the name “necronomicon” is “book considering (or classifying) the dead”. Supposedly written in 738 CE by Abdul Alhazred (who was later eaten alive by an invisible monster in broad daylight), the Necronomicon is a dark book of forbidden knowledge and most Lovecraft characters who read it come to horrible ends.

Lovecraft felt to produce terror a story had to be “… devised with the care and verisimilitude of an actual hoax.” As such the Necronomicon is very much treated as if it were a real book. Lovecraft enjoyed making his fictional world seem believable. For example, in a list of real books he would throw in a few real-sounding fake ones (such as the Necronomicon) – blurring the line between reality and fiction. Similarly he wrote that there were copies of the Necronomicon held by 5 world institutions: the British Museum, Harvard, Bibliothèque nationale de France, University of Buenos Aires, as well as Miskatonic University … which is a fictional school set in the equally fictional city of Arkham, Massachusetts. Again, including a fictional creation in a list of real places making something fake seem real.

H.P. Lovecraft’s Necronomicon can be found in a host of movies, books, comics, and more.

Crawling Chaos

Part of the appeal of the Necronomicon (beyond the spooky name) is that, like all good suspenseful horror, Lovecraft gives the reader just enough details to understand the idea of the Necronomicon but the exact contents (or even a good physical description of the book) are left open to your imagination. This vagueness also kept the door open for future expansion of ideas. Soon other authors began to include the Necronomicon in their work, and so it spread.

Today the Necronomicon has gone beyond the works of Lovecraft & his friends and has appeared in countless other projects. It’s in books, movies, cartoons, comics, video games, music, etc, each with their own take on exactly what the Necronomicon is, but it’s always a book of dark magic. It’s in the The Evil Dead series, it’s in an episode of The Real Ghostbusters, Mr. Burns mentions it at a meeting of republicans in The Simpsons, it’s the name of a German thrash metal band, it’s the name of H.R. Giger’s first collection of artwork, Michael Crichton and Stephen King have both referenced it, etc. The book of the dead lives on, spreading its tentacles across dark fiction. Cthulhu fhtagn.

Added info: The fictional Arkham Asylum in the DC Universe, where many of Batman’s foes are frequently locked away, was named after the fictional Lovecraft town of Arkham, Massachusetts.

Mr. Burns has Bob Dole read from the Necronomicon.

In a cleverly titled episode The Collect Call of Cathulhu, the Ghostbusters discuss that the Necronomicon will be on display at the New York City Public Library.

The Butler Did It

The whodunit murder mystery trope that the butler is the culprit goes back to one book, The Door.

The first known instance of the butler being guilty of a whodunit crime is the 1893 Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual, where Brunton the butler tries to locate & steal a hidden treasure (spoiler). The next known instance was 1921’s The Strange Case of Mr Challoner by Herbert Jenkins, but being published at the dawn of the Golden Age of Mysteries the work got lost in the shuffle and nobody really took notice (of the butler or the story). It wasn’t until 1930’s The Door by Mary Roberts Rinehart that the trope really took off.

Mary Rinehart was a very successful early 20th century writer, known particularly for her murder mysteries.

Mary Roberts Rinehart was the “American Agatha Christie”. She was a best selling author in the Golden Age of Mysteries who was enormously popular. When her sons launched a new publishing company she wanted to give them a successful novel to produce so she quickly wrote The Door and had the butler be the murderer. Also, as an example of a false memory / Mandela Effect, while the butler did it nobody every says “the butler did it” in the book.

It was around this time however that critic and writer S. S. Van Dine wrote the article Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories where one of his rules was that “A servant must not be chosen by the author as the culprit.” The success of The Door, combined with the turning literary tide against making a servant the villain, quickly made “the butler did it” both a popular plot device and a cliche joke. It began to pop up in other detective stories, it was satirized, and today it lives on as a trope of early 20th century whodunit stories.

Added info: Mary Rinehart was the victim of a real-life murder attempt. Her chef, Blas Reyes, was angered over not being promoted to the position of butler, which Rinehart filled with an external hire. On June 21, 1947 Reyes couldn’t take his frustration anymore. He walked into the library where Rinehart was, pulled out a gun, and from five feet away he fired … or tried to fire. The bullets were so old they didn’t fire. Rinehart ran for the kitchen door and what followed was a chase through the house with Reyes picking up kitchen knives as he ran after her. Eventually he was subdued by other staff members of the house and turned over to the police.

Also (far less dramatic), in regards to the duties of a butler, they vary greatly by household but a butler is typically the head of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry. They are not usually an all-around assistant, but they can be depending on the employer.

Quicksand

A plot device that isn’t as dangerous as movies & TV led us to believe.

Quicksand was once a very common plot device in TV shows & movies. From Lawrence of Arabia to The Incredible Hulk, Gilligan’s Island, Batman, and even in space in Lost in Space, quicksand was all over pop culture in the 1960s. Nearly 3% (or 1 in every 35) movies made in the 1960s featured quicksand. Characters step on what looks to be solid ground but, surprise, it’s quicksand. They begin sinking like they’re going down some sort of Earth elevator with the looming possibility of being totally submerged unless a handy vine or person can save them … this is not how quicksand really works. Real quicksand is not as sudden, dramatic, or dangerous as fictional quicksand.

Quicksand has been a serious, and sometimes humorous, plot device for a long time but was especially popular in the 1960s.

Non-Newtonian Fluid

Quicksand is a mixture of water and sand/silt where the sand particles are suspended in water and spaced further apart than typical sand. It’s a non-Newtonian fluid so if you apply pressure you momentarily change the viscosity. Higher viscosity substances move more like mud, lower viscosity substances move more like water. In quicksand’s case stepping on it with your foot applies pressure and changes the viscosity to become momentarily less viscous. The sand particles get pushed out of the way making it more watery, which allows your foot to sink. This is quickly followed by the sand settling into place around your foot which is how you get stuck. The more you move, the more you agitate the mixture, the deeper you go.

The Good News

You can not totally sink into quicksand like some sort of bottomless pit. One reason is that quicksand is rarely more than a few feet deep. Further, the human body is less dense than the density of quicksand which means that, regardless of the quicksand depth, it’s not possible to sink further than your waste. That said there are dangers.

Since quicksand can form beside larger bodies of water there is the possibility of drowning due to flash flooding, tidal changes, etc. Other dangers include hypothermia, sunburn, predators, and/or the pain of having part of your body under pressure for a prolonged period of time. Most of the time though quicksand is fairly harmless as long as you stay calm to get out of it.

To get out of quicksand the first thing you should do is to not go any further in – stop moving around. If you can’t use your other foot to just step back out, and you really feel stuck, it’s time to sit/lay down extending away from the quicksand. Making yourself wider reduces the focalized pressure into the quicksand which helps free your foot. Then slowly work your leg back and forth, lowering the viscosity & making the quicksand more watery, and patiently pull your leg out.

A short video on Why Does Quicksand Make You Sink?

Bonus: The “King of Quicksand” has a whole YouTube channel devoted to intentionally getting stuck, and then escaping from, quicksand. Watching any of his videos shows that you really have to work to get yourself stuck in quicksand, which is reassuring.

You can also watch a playlist full of scenes from TV shows and movies (old and new) of characters getting stuck in quicksand.

The Human Cannonball

The most dangerous act in the circus.

William Hunt (aka “The Great Farini”) was a well known Canadian tightrope walker & daredevil. He crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope multiple times performing different tricks. He eventually became an inventor & a (manipulative) talent manager as a safer way to make a living. In 1876 he invented a spring-loaded platform that could launch a person 30ft. He further developed this idea into the first human firing “cannon”.

14-year-old Rossa Richter, aka. “Zazel”, the world’s first human cannonball.

The Cannon

The cannons used in the human cannonball act are not true cannons, there is no gunpowder used to propel the performer. Some are spring loaded but many use compressed air which pushes a small platform up the barrel firing the person out while the platform stays hidden inside. Sometimes a little explosion takes place outside the cannon to create smoke for dramatic effect, but there is no gunpowder used inside the cannon.

On April 10th, 1877 a 14-year-old Rossa Richter (aka. “Zazel”) became the first human cannonball with a performance at the Royal Aquarium in London, flying out of Hunt’s new cannon invention. She was chosen because of her size and her circus experience. The Royal Aquarium was chosen because its management was looking to increase their profits, and it worked. The human cannonball act soon became integral to circus performances as it could bring in thousands of paying spectators.

Zazel gained world-wide fame, but little money, as the human cannonball.

The Dangers of Being The Cannon Ball

The upsides of being a human cannonball are usually a fun stage name and that you only have to “work” for about 5 seconds a day. Unfortunately the dangers are obvious and quite real. Today’s cannons can apply 3,000 to 6,000 pounds of pressure on the performer as they accelerate from 0 to 70+ mph into the air. This can put enormous G-force pressure on a performer, sometimes up to 9 times normal gravity. All of this is damaging enough on the human body but the greatest danger is the landing. After reaching heights up to 75ft in the air and coming down sometimes 200ft away from where they started, human cannonballs have to land in the target area – there’s no other option. Some use nets, some use airbags, but to miss the target is as devastating as you might imagine.

Anton Barker (aka. “The Human Rocket” aka “Capt. George Wernesch”) incorporated a trick where he was inside a shell which he would break out of in mid-air. On March 29, 1937 he was set to travel 84 feet but only went 64, crashing into the ground injuring his spine. Mary Connors wanted to break a record by being shot from one side of the River Avon and land on the other. On August 24, 1974 she failed to make it to the other side and ended up in the river. To make matters worse the rescue boat then capsized so she and the rescue team had to be rescued.

On January 8, 1987 human cannonball Elvin Bale (aka. “the Human Space Shuttle”) knew something was wrong the instant he was in the air. He tried to adjust for it in mid-air but he overshot the airbag by a few feet, landing on the ground feet first. He broke his ankles, knees, and his back in two places.

The Zacchini family performed for 70 years as human cannonballs.

The multi-generational Zacchini family produced numerous human cannonballs, performing for 70 years. Mario Zacchini ended his career as a human cannonball after he flew over a Ferris wheel at the 1939–40 World’s Fair in New York, but landed wrong breaking part of his spine, shoulder, and some ribs. On February 7, 1970 Emmanuel Zacchini and his wife Linda collided after being fired from a double-barreled human cannon. He fractured his spine while she broke her neck.

The Zacchini family performing different versions of their human cannonball act.

The Most Dangerous Act

Breaking bones is bad enough but fatalities are very common. One of the most cited human cannonball statistics comes from British historian A.H. Coxe. He estimates that of the 50+ people who have been human cannonballs, 30 have died while performing their act (almost all of which missed their landing). That’s a fatality rate of around 60%, making the human cannonball the most dangerous act in the circus.

Added info: Being a human cannonball is different than being a human catching a cannonball. Frank “Cannonball” Richards was a carnival performer famous in pop culture for taking a cannonball shot directly to the stomach.

Similar to the cannons used for human cannonballs, Frank Richards used a spring-loaded cannon instead of a real one fired by gunpowder. This slowed down the speed and force of the cannonball considerably … but he still took a 104lb cannonball to the stomach twice a day for years.

Frank “Cannonball” Richards taking a cannonball shot to the stomach.

The Simpsons parody of Frank “Cannonball” Richards taking a cannonball to the stomach.