What's the strangest television moment, EVER?

[Deja Q]

Peter Davison, playing a vet in the series "All Creatures Great and Small" stuck his arm up a real cow's exit-ramp as he was playing a vet and had to look authentic.

That's got to be pretty strange.

So, what tops that?

[RandomKoolzip]

1. Crispin Glover on Letterman.

EOM

[Cooley Hurd]

28. That WAS weird, wasn't it?

He came out, rambled on about how strong he was, and then tried to kick Dave in the head. Oliver Reed attacked Dave too, didn't he?

[A HERETIC I AM]

2. The "How 'bout a hug?!" moment on morning television

that basically ended the career of the ex Miss America on the network morning show. She had on a woman who had accused a man of raping her then recanted after he had spent several years in the clink. They were sitting side by side being interviewed and the girl said she was sorry for what she did and the host (whos name escapes me) tried to get the accuser and the accused to hug and make up. It went over like a lead balloon. This girl had basically RUINED the guys life and he wanted nothing to do with her.

[koopie57]

3. the Lawrence Welk show

when Bobby picked an elderly lady out of the audience and danced her so hard and fast her wig flew off. Hey, my mom made me watch it with her!

[BlackVelvetElvis]

6. I remember that as well

What else the hell are you to do when you're in grade school and the only thing else to watch is Hee Haw. TV sucked sometimes on the weekends.

[theshadow]

9. Oh boy does that bring back memories.

Myron Floren and his accordian. Jo Ann Castle playing the piano like a maniac, grinning at the camera. Bobby Burgess dancing. Norma Zimmer. And of course the Lennon Sisters. So bad it was great.

[Red State Rebel]

13. Sounds like some people need to visit the....

Lawrence Welk Theatre in Branson, MO - JoAnn Castle STILL does the show the last I heard...

[7th_Sephiroth]

4. 2 words

Fooly Cooly

[DrWeird]

10. A yes, Furi Curi.

So weird it's good and so good it's weird.

[CoNnOc]

15. How much of Fooly Cooly did you get?

I got about 60% of it, the rest of it was inside jokes or utter nonsense.

[mlawson]

5. ANY moment on Twin Peaks, and the last episode of Newhart

(the series set in VT) when Bob gets hit on the head by the golf ball in the last episode, dies, and wakes up in Chicago with Suzanne Pleshett. That was INSPIRED.

[Brucey]

7. The absolute strangest was

on an episode of Twin Peaks, David Lynch made a tape of a midget talking backwards and had everyone in the scene move backwards, then he played the scene forwards with subtitles; it was the strangest, and the best thing I ever saw on TV. The second best was anything Ernie Kovacs did live. The third best was when Jack Paar walked off the Tonight show right in the middle of his monologue (because of a dispute with the network), then came back a couple weeks later and opened with, "As I was saying..." The fourth best was the episode of Taxi in which Jim gets a driver's license. He whispers, "What does a yellow light mean?" His friends whisper back, "Go slower." So he replies, "Wwwhhaaat doooeeesss aaaa yeeeelllloowwww liggghhhtttt mmeeeaaannn?" They say, "Go slower!" Then Jim says, "Whhhhhaaaaaaattttt ..." This went on FOUR times. I was rolling on the floor. I couldn't believe they would keep it up. Strange and very funny.

[mlawson]

8. Oh yeah, the dream sequence on TP...

I wish I had a tape of that. I could watch it over and over.

Is that not the closest representation of a dream you have ever seen?

[theshadow]

11. Right up there with the Paar incident....

was when Arthur Godfrey fired Julius LaRosa on the air. That was before I was born, but I've read about it.

[Philostopher]

12. For me, at least the most surreal was

The last episode of the worst season of Saturday Night Live. Can't recall if it was 1979 or 1980 -- thereabouts. Charlie Rocket -- and where the heck is that guy now, I ask you? -- played the 'J.R. Ewing' character in a Dallas parody sketch. At the end of the show, during the credits and 'hugs' segment, Rocket, who was sitting in a wheelchair, leaped out of the chair, grabbed the boom mic that provided ambient noise for the fadeout, and shouted into it 'all I want to know is who the fuck shot me!'

Everybody in the audience went totally silent. I hollered, sitting alone in the living room at one o'clock on a Sunday morning. Some NBC exec's testicles ascended. It was the most surreal thing I ever saw on TV.

Second strangest goes to the night David Letterman had invited state fair prizewinners on Late Night, around this same time. The prizewinners were people who'd molded things out of food -- one had molded a pig out of pork sausage; one had carved a cow out of cheese. Letterman walked along the row of prizewinners -- all of whom had a sample bowl of whatever material they'd used to shape the statues that had won them the prizes. As he asked questions, Letterman stood in front of the display table and stuffed handfuls of each food product down the front of his chinos. Pork sausage, butter, cheddar cheese. He didn't, if I recall correctly, acknowledge that he was doing this, and other than Paul Shaeffer choking on his own breath over in the corner, neither did anybody else.

[TheMightyFavog]

21. Charles rocket?

I think I saw him guest starring on an episode of Voyager (Or was that Enterprise?)

[LoZoccolo]

14. On the Andy Kaufman television special...

...the one they gave him as part of his Taxi contract, there's a skit where it's like, four people at a diner, and the waitress takes an order from each of them, and the last one is Andy and he goes "And I'll have a cup of coffee" and that's the end of the skit. It's right before the commercial, and you think maybe they'll return to it like it's some running gag and they never do.

[lazarus]

33. Kaufman

Was a genius, and responsible for some of the most surreal television ever.

[OneBlueSky]

16. Marlon Brando kissing Larry King . . . on the lips . . . n/t

.

[Susang]

17. "Pink Lady and Jeff"

Discussion over, I win. :evilgrin:

[Rhiannon12866]

18. Mother of God, I remember seeing this

It certainly stuck with me, as it did with you... Ick!!!:puke:

[Faygo Kid]

19. Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald - live, on all networks

OK, beat that one, folks. As many of you recall from threads in November, many of us recall it. Nothing else comes close.

[Susang]

20. Not even 9/11?

That was also live on TV, if I recall. I think you may be confusing dramatic, life-alternating and shocking with weird.

Now Michael Jackson dangling a baby over a balcony, that's pretty weird. :-)

[AlienGirl]

22. It was a Family Feud episode from the 70s

The question was, "Name a food that you swallow without chewing it."

And--I swear this really happened--the contestant answered: "Kreplach!"

Tucker

edited to clean up typos and add that kreplach are sort of like raviolis, with pointy corners

[Bat Boy]

23. This guy...

http://www.damonzex.com

Surfing channels one night my wife and I found him on cable access. We were going to get stoned, but after seeing him it seemed redundant...

[aQuArius]

24. Geraldo Rivera opening THE VAULT!

What the hell was he really expecting to find anyway? Didn't they have a back-up plan in case it WAS empty? Worst TV planning in history and YOU were glued to your TV like the other 30 million of us! LOL! :shrug:

[Rhiannon12866]

25. I remember that, as well

What a waste of time for all of us...:shrug:

[aQuArius]

26. LOL, like I said....

30 million of us (myself included) just HAD to watch them open a vault filled with dust and dirt.......... hillarious! And I wonder why Geraldo's career never took off. Maybe it's because he can't keep his mouth shut while he's embedded with the troops, another odd Geraldo moment.

[FDRrocks]

27. With friends like himself...

Geraldo doesn't need any enemies.

[Blade]

29. Obviously you guys...

have never seen an episode of "Jackass." Arguement over. I win. :evilgrin:

[Susang]

30. Jackass isn't strange

It's hysterical. Silly boys have been injuring themselves doing stupid stunts for as long as I can remember. The existence of video cameras is only recent a recent addition to a long standing tradition of goofiness and stupidity.

For example; back in 1983, some friends of mine (all young men around the same age the guys from Jackass are) decided that it would be fun to run a big rope from their back porch to the huge tree in their backyard, then attach an industrial pulley to the rope. The object was that people would have on to the bottom of the pulley and jump from the porch, landing by (or crashing into) the tree.

After a few parties that included "The Ride of Death", my friend Lenny decided that the bales of hay he had placed around the party's bonfire, if ignited and placed under the path of the pulley, would add a little danger and drama to "The Ride of Death". Amazingly enough, besides Lenny breaking his arm, "The Ride of Death" caused no other injuries.

To see what Lenny constructed in later years, check out this website:
http://www.speedcult.com/speedcult/home.html

[Blade]

31. It's not strange?

So you don't think 10 or so men arranged in a circle in nothing but briefs, throwing a ball at each others' crotch strange? Or how about when the guys are throwing a 6 pound dog bone at each others' testicles?

Or better yet, how about a guy running around the streets of Londin wearing nothing but a thong, humping people? Is that not strange?

[Fight_n_back]

32. Robin Williams was a guest star on "Mork and Mindy"

which he was also the star of. Mork ended up having an uncomfortable conversation with Robin.

One of the most solipsistic moments ever.

[lazarus]

34. Beck on Space Ghost

That was bizarre.

Virtually any episode of Aeon Flux or The Brak Show is truly inspired surrealism.
A lot of strangeness this year on Carnivale, too.

[VOX]

35. Final episode of "The Prisoner"

titled "Fall Out."
http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue233/screen4.html
...the viewer enters some unprecedented and decidedly strange territory chock-full of metaphoric symbolism, artistic daring, pretentiousness and/or incoherent rambling, set to the Beatles anthem "All You Need is Love"...McGoohan wrote the final episode in a marathon session just before it was filmed, with parts of it ad-libbed on the spot.

<snip>

When "Fall Out" originally aired in Britain in early February 1968, there was a flood of protests from viewers angered over what they found an incomprehensible climax. Certainly there are no easy answers, no simplistic resolutions. Whether the Prisoner, and by extension, any one individual, can ever really escape is largely left open to interpretation. Which is one hallmark of a work of art, as opposed to just another trite piece of television entertainment.