Hosts Jack Palance and Catherine Shirriff tour the world seeking the unique and bizarre. Among the opening oddities: moments captured through stroboscopic photography; buildings designed to appear unfinished or crumbling; a conductor who can't read music conducting "the world's worst orchestra" in London; corpses in Denmark perserved for more than 2000 years; death rites and rituals.
Segments include habits of the vampire bat; a dangerous Japanese log-rolling ritual; a lizard that runs across water; a French town's day-long mud fight; the world's largest carousel; the re-creation of the San Francisco finding of an heiress's will in a bottle thrown into London's Thames River 10 years earlier; a blind marathon runner.
Segments on unusual foods include a rattlesnake-eating festival in Texas; an African tribe's daily meal of crocodile; and a lavish banquet, highlighted by truffles, for a Quebec gastronome club. A feature on gorillas includes a preserve in England, and albino gorilla in Spain, and a "conversation" between gorilla and teacher through signing. Archaeological discoveries in China include an "army" of 6000 clay statues built to guard a crypt, and a perfectly preserved corpse more than 2100 years old.
The Real Robinson Crusoe, Alexander Selkirk; Tarantulas; Jumping Spiders, fishing spiders, trapdoor spiders, Dancing procession of Echternach, Luxembourg; Sufi whirling in Turkey, Sungyung Rite (Java), miracle of St. Januarius in Naples; Mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria; wedding customs in Papa New Guinea, Turkey & Korea; Olympic men's marathon of Dorando Pietri in 1908.
The tale of an English ghost who lead to the recovery of a missing human heart; Transylvania's real-life model for the evil Count Dracula.
Segments on unusual occupations include a human mannequin; a man who swallows live poisonous snakes; New Zealanders who herd deer by plane. Segments on hoaxes include an artist who had to prove his skill at forgery to clear himself of a charge of Nazi collaboration; Piltdown man, a supposed prehistoric species found in England in 1911 and exposed in 1953; writings attributed to Caesar and Cleopatra forge in French rather than Latin.
Segments on natural phenomena include the icelandic volcano Helfel; and a butterfly zoo in London. Segments on a man-made phenomena include the Maginot Line; the Edsel; a robot family built in France 200 years ago; a modern Japanese robot in the likeness of Marilyn Monroe. Also; two Spanish lovers who supposedly died of broken hearts; a trick in which a sheet of typing paper yields a hole big enough to step through.
Segments on unusual sports include medieval jousting currently staged near Canterbury, England; an ancient Chinese martial art; Italian cheese-throwing. A feature on nature's unusual survival methods includes the mating habits of the black-widow spider; praying mantis; snail, water flea and pepsis wasp. A look at time includes a history of time measurement; the city hall clock tower in Munich, Big Ben in London.
Segments on unusual death rites include the mummification of Japanese Buddhist saints; the catacombs of Paris; a drive-in mortuary in Atlanta, Ga. (USA) A look at unusual dwellings includes Ponte Vecchio in Italy; a house made of discarded materials in Simi Valley, Ca. A feature on unusual collections includes a 10-ton ball of string and an assemblage of warplanes. Also: the tallest man in modern history; the world's tallest living woman.
A feature with a metaphysical slant contrasts the mining of gold in Brazil's Serra Pelada with a Japanese Buddhist ritual in which priests undertake a marathon pilgrimage. A look at snakes includes the African mamba, grass snake and king snake. Segments on unusual adornments include punk rockers and Japanese geisha. Also: inventor Nikola Tesla.
The Real Man in the Iron Mask, Amsterdam Diamond manufacturing, Hope diamond, Munich Aviary, ancient monuments Venice, Italy, Parthenon in Greece, The Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci) in Milan, Italy, the Coliseum in Rome, Aswan Dam and Sphinx in Egypt, Caves of Lascaux, Legoland Billund Resort, dominoes.
A segment on unusual music includes giant alphorns of Switzerland; saxophonists in Venice, Italy; face slapping; music made by moistening rims of wine glasses. A look at bees includes the creation of hives; the roles of queens and workers; the production of honey. A feature on human flight includes aircraft built before that of the Wright Brothers.
A segment on New York City oddities includes a wheat field near the base of the World Trade Center. A feature on amphibians includes the ridley turtle; the silius frog's incubation of its young; the mudskipper. A look at money and greed includes the handling of currency at a Federal Reserve Bank; a Japanese ritual to assure good fortune.
A feature on sharks includes shark-hunting in New Guinea; the search for shark repellent. A segment on unusual sports includes Texas rattlesnake-sacking; boulder-throwing in Switzerland. Unusual museums include one depicting (in plaster) the Peruvian Inquisition; a carnival museum in Connecticut.
Segments on unusual military weapons, including the B-19; Christo's unconventional art (he wrapped the Australian coastline in plastic); Patton's WW2 "decoy army" (equipped with mock tanks and planes); a fiery Japanese rite of passage; and a Brazilian replica of Jerusalem.
Segments on memorials built at the sites of accidents on Yugoslavian highways; houses built for the dead in Eastern European graveyards; African wild dogs; a dog that drives a car; the V-1 and V-2 rockets of Nazi Germany, and their role in World War 2; the cricket dancers of the South Pacific, who have embraced the British game of cricket as a tribal rite.
Segments on the Marquis Chimps; a high-diving horse and rider; a wrestling bear; a flea circus; ceremonial masks, a Japanese religious ritual involving mud-throwing; a mock battle between St. George and the dragon; the discovery of Roman ruins in Bath, England; the mysterious Olmecs, whose city was found near Vera Cruz, Mexico.
Reports on cryogenics; Morocco's killer scorpions; the fastest train in the world; acupuncture as an anesthetic during surgery; the eruption of Mount St. Helens.
Reports on the man who spent a lifetime compiling the Oxford English Dictionary; a Greek fire-walking ritual honoring Christian saints; a mammal that must eat every two or three hours or die; a developing fetus filmed in the womb.
Segments on the mysterious execution of Michel Ney, one of Napolean's marshals; computerized weapons of the future, surfing in a man-made "ocean"; the wildlife of New York City; the Japanese art of creating "food for the eyes".
A feature on Hollywood includes the history of the Hollywood Sign, movie star's real names and famous lines that were never spoken. Also: pigeon racing in Belgium; blackbirds that invaded a small town in North Carolina; a man who committed suicide with a deck of cards.
The second season begins with a look at the legendary Ninja at the Iga-ryū Ninja Museum, Onagadori; Onagadori cocks, hunting practices of lions, bats, Amazon river "Big Noise" (aka pororoca); Mojave desert Creosote bush and King Clone; CMI (computer musical instrument); Laser harp; George Landry's LYRA; Blacksmiths forging contest Malibu, South African snake sit-in; tobacco spitting, Talico, Ca; freshwater salamander eating contest; Hubble telescope; Wilson and Penzias radio telescope and the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation; the sun; Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich.
Rasputin assassination; Japanese tattoos; Sudanese (Masakan); Brazil (Krohole); Indian man with the longest fingernails; Asaro Mudmen in (Papa New Guinea); Ede & Ravenscroft limited wigs; birds of prey (Philippine eagle, marbled murrelet Korm in Peru, osprey); operating rooms; surgical techs; Dragon's Breath in China; Movieland Wax Museum; Rare photos and outtakes of The Jitterbug scene in The Wizard of Oz (1939 film); the curse of the Elgin Marbles British Museum.
A segment on ritual celebrations includes the "naked festivals" of Japan; boat burning in the Shetland Islands; and the "trooping of the colors" in England. Also: reptiles, including the Komodo dragon, alligators and snakes; ancient sports; puzzle solving; water birthing.
Segments include the legend of Jesse James; a school where frogs are trained to jump; a man who teaches Italian gestures to the Swiss; hand fan and romance; insect mating rituals; the origin of the match; ritual fire dancing in Suriname; a high-rise fire that killed 179 people in Sao Paulo, Brazil; exotic foods; Chinese imperial banquet; Rum-running; Horatio Nelson's body shipped in brandy.
Segments on an ax murderer who publicly announced he wouldn't kill people while they listened to jazz; an art masterpiece hanging in a variety store in Pasadena, Texas; rituals to appease volcano gods; a man who sculpts with lava.
Segments include the longest automobile in the world; apartments that rent for 66 cents a year; an autotopsy performed on an Arctic explorer 100 years after he died; land shaping; neon art; video art; a giant-tree carving; Japanese tosa dogs; African wild dogs.
Segments include the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain; the Place of Refuge, a Hawaiian island sanctuary for criminals; a spy who operated undetected out of the British Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, during World War II; rituals to ensure a bountiful harvest; unusual horses, including the Lippizaners and bucking broncos.
Segments on the Heike crabs of Japan; which are believed to be the spirits of dead samurai; accident research at the National Bureau of Standards; an Irish monk who sailed to America 900 years before Columbus; the origin of Sid Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
Segments on Black Bart (outlaw), a desperado with a penchant for penning pathetic poetry; revolutionary crime-fighting techniques and devices; airships including the LZ 129 Hindenburg; the monasteries atop the Meteora in Northeastern Greece; insects; David Rice Atchison.
Segments on a mountain climber who uses no equipment; Japanese "onsen" spas; a grueling run across Death Valley and back. Also a feature commemorating the attack on Pearl Harbor includes Doolittle's raid, Japanese balloon bombs.
Segments include a 17-year-old who forged a Shakespearean play in the 18th century; Adolf Hitler's toy cannon; a walking robot. Also: a feature on death rites includes the Tung Wah Coffin Home in Hong Kong; a Buddhist sect that weds the soul of the dead dolls.
Segments on the octopus, garden eel, shark and sea urchin; a South Pacific ritual in which men dive toward the ground held only by a vine that breaks their fall at the last moment; modern artists who craft their works using bubbles, rocks, automobiles, and TV sets; and a Chinese ritual involving papers stained with blood from a human tongue.
Segments on the Mon Lei,[4] a Chinese junk built for a warlord; the capture of a Nazi U-boat during World War II; explorer Thor Heyerdahl's Atlantic voyage in a reed boat.
The story of the Hatfield–McCoy feud; China Camp State Park, San Rafael, CA (U.S.A.); Canterbury Shaker Village; Truganini in Tasmania; last of the Shakers; Shoichi Yokoi in Guam; Christopher Janney "Soundstair" (Musical Stairs) in Cambridge, MA (U.S.A.); Suzuki method music; Levi Celerio Filipino violinist; Kangaroo babies; Bulldog ants and larvae; Bison calves; John Milburn Davis Memorial gravesite; Dali people mourning; Chinese graves; a Manila cemetery suburb; Raymond Tse Mercedes Benz tombstone; Toraja graveyard; non-linear thinking.
Operation Valkyrie; The century cactus; South Koreans celebrate the Moses Miracle at Jindo Island; The echidna; diving bell spider; African Vadoma tribe of two-toes people; World Eskimo-Indian Olympic Games; Wushu (sport); Landfills and garbage collection; University of Arizona garbologists; Sewage treatment in San Diego using hyacinths; Lufkin, Texas, sewage treatment using worms; Los Angeles sculptor makes sculptures from garbage; Man juggles bowling balls, flaming swords, and a chainsaw with two apples; Fire-breather street performer in Mexico City; Juggler balances a person in a chair on his chin; Artist recreates Michaelangelo paintings on Paris sidewalks; Benjamin Banneker's involvement in Washington, DC.
Segments include dining in the Space Shuttle's galley; researching dinosaurs; the Spruce Goose, Howard Hughes' wooden plane; performing animals. A report on unusual foods features such delicacies as deep-dried rat, beetle sausage.
El Cid of Portugal; Inuit diet and hunting; Modern English living as the ancient English; The Washington memorial and Monument; the Treasury Department; President Monroe's house; The United States Capitol; Mount Rushmore; Hananuma Masakichi in Yokohama in Japan; Festival of Bachelors in Lisdoonvarna Ireland; Shashti Poorthi rituals in India; Meoto Iwa in Japan; Wind farm; Inventor James L. Amick's wind-powered car; a solar-powered car (Solar car); Solar 1 generator; solar-powered devices; paper loop trick.
Segments on King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Juana of Spain, who was driven mad by love; the development and use of the atomic bomb; Hiroshima; surgical implants that relieve arthritis pain; video-game therapy; early brain scanning; hypnotism with treatment. A feature on construction feats includes Washington Roebling and the origin of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Great Wall of China. Asmat people and unique totems and carvings; fingernail artist; ritual pilgrimage with head shaving in India; the Pony Express.
Segments include the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre; sleep research; facial surgery; man-made natural oddities; an artificial hand; a circular car; and a vending machine that pays out money. Also: rarebirds and the Salem witch trials.
Church of St Joan of Arc in Orléans, France; George Washington and Adolf Hitler's teeth; Pygmies human teeth sharpening; artist of teeth; daredevil museum in Niagara Falls, Ny; Japanese elimination contest; the fortress at Masada; the lost temple of Akhenaten; underwater ship graveyard in Chuuk Lagoon; insects used in Maceration (bone) for museums; Hell money rituals in Hong Kong; man grinds beef oil and predicts tornadoes; candle wicks.
Segments in the third-season opener include a horned toad that survived 31 years in a time capsule; training procedures at the Los Angeles Police Academy; advances in medical technology providing new treatments for kidney stones and tumors; recordings attached to the Voyager space vehicles; mushrooms.
- Go deep into ancient catacombs to meet some of the world's best-dressed mummies - Peel away the glitter of Las Vegas to see how hidden cameras keep an eye on the action - Take a close look at an Australian lizard that inspired a dance craze in Japan - Attend a class where future morticians learn to recreate the faces of the dead - Find out how experts make sure gamblers get a fair shot at a winning roll - Share the inspiration of a young boy who ignores the loss of his arms - Get as close as you dare to a frog that can kill with a single touch - Watch carefully as a professional dealer reveals the secrets of card cheats - Examine the remains of a Chinese holy man preserved under a thin layer of gold
- Explore new techniques that may one day permit the blind to see - Handle deadly cobras in India to honor the great god Shiva - Examine the specimens in one of the world's most unusual collections - Share one woman's devotion to the care and protection of turtles - Blast off with a jet engine to crate a new form of modern art - Share a meal with feathered friends in a unique Hong Kong restaurant - Go on a painful pilgrimage in Guatemala to honor an ancient statue - Learn how dogs guide the deaf through a silent world - Go inside a factory where original art is mass produced - Probe the mysterious processes of the human brain at work - Shatter ancient rocks to reveal masterpieces billions of years old
Judge Roy Bean; Roman food tasters, Snake fang tester and venom collector, Belgium bomb disposal squad, English Steeplejack, Fred Dibnah;, Japanese pullulan food sheets, Dabbawala in Bombaby, India, Jumiles in Taxco, Mexico, CZimmer's Game and Seafood in Lockport, Ill; potato powered clock; blue whales; curious dolphins in Monkey Mia; Killer whales; Imperial Easter Egg of 1893; Fabergé eggs; diamond jubilee March 1946; Gem mining in Columbia; oyster farming; and Imperial Crown duplicate; PT Barnum's egress sign.
- Chip away with Chinese artists to build ice palaces worthy of an emperor - Peer inside a complex bionic arm that gives amputees a new hold on life - Scoop up a small fortune in coins at a laundry that washes money - Witness the breakup of a frozen river in Alaska that's worth over $100,000 - Watch as scientists demonstrate new weapons in a war against cockroaches - Bang away with a Texan determined to cover his home with empty beer cans - Fire explosives into an Austrian mountainside to start a thundering avalanche - Push, pull, hoist, and hammer in a hectic race to build an instant house
Included: a paperclip trick; whale artist John Perry;[11] fishing with a kite; a house of jigsaw puzzles; torture tests for household appliances (UL (safety organization)); military experts setting off a large conventional explosion (Trinity (nuclear test)); hunting for spider webs; Fillmore fish hatchery; salmon struggling to reach their spawning ground; the top-secret preparations for the D-day invasion; books made of wood pulp.
Typhoid Mary; Explosives Marcelo Ramos; Controlled Demolition, Inc.; Double Dutch (jump rope) at Lincoln Center; thoroughbreds; cheetah w/ tiger stripes; Walking catfish; Dougal Dixon; Johann Ludwig Burckhardt rediscovered Petra; the Anasazi; a vacuum & cork trick.
Balloon puncture trick; U.S. Navy survival training; British Royal Tournament; baseball for blind National Beep Baseball Association; handicapped man competes in Paralympic Games; Stephen Hawking; soil samples from Mars; a volcanic eruption on a moon of Jupiter; the Moon landing; astronauts training for zero gravity; Space Flight Operations Facility; a rooftop garden in New York City; a machine that picks apples; using corn smut in Mexico; how a grammatical error cost $2 million.
Included: D.H. Lawrence's final resting place; a painless way to gather wool from sheep in Australia; Jerusalem's sacred Western Wall; milking cows by computer in Holland; how to make fertilizer; a valuable garbage dump; how to make a bulletproof window; luring rats to their deaths.
Included: how America was named; a fire that burned for eight months; a high-stakes poker game pitting a man against a computer; an artist who paints with cobwebs; how Leonardo kept his ideas secret; why $500 million is gathering dust in storage; a tower built as a home for bats; triskaidekaphobia, the fear of the number 13..
Included: the friendship of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison; the Fourth of July; how the New Year is celebrated in Japan; 10 days in history that have been lost forever; art of camouflage; how skiers keep in shape during the summer; sky divers performing at 14,000 feet.
Segments include crime-prevention techniques; reconstructing faces from skulls; how a slave won freedom with a snake bite; controlling the weather; how to make sea water drinkable; a customized Mercedes-Benz with a TV and fireplace; milk-carton boats; water that can cut through steel.
Segments include a computer that helps create speech for the disabled; a scheme to sell the Eiffel Tower for scrap iron; F-15 pilots in mock aerial combat; how America saved the French wine industry; a pumpkin that weighs some 550 pounds.
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls; armor for an elephant; a 13-year-old test pilot; James Joyce and the longest passage in English literature; solar -powered planes; endangered turtles; CPR; arthroscopic knee surgery.
Segments on sleep research; Einstein's brain; a wedding performed in a tub; how visual brain waves can assist the handicapped; a Japanese ritual battle to ensure a bountiful harvest; a mountain village where people dress up as wild bears; a fish that lives in the desert.
Pulling a dollar bill between two bottles trick; Segments on sacred sites and rituals in Jerusalem; Absalom's tomb, water baptism in the river Jordan, 7 martyrs church of Saint Saba, via dolorosa; ruins of Herod's second temple; words pronunciation; Missouri auction school; a Japanese rite dedicated to the sound of laughter; Vivian Fisher, a man who can imitate the sounds of musical instruments; devices for seeing in the dark (Infra red vision and Night vision); wildlife in darkness (Flashlight Fish, Fireflies, Foxes, and Bats); AMKUS pump; how firefighters rescue victims trapped in car wrecks; Pascal's calculator.
Water optical trick; E.E. Cummings 1922 French Poem "CHANSONS INNOCENTES"; A transcontinental humming exercise w/ Bonnie Barnett;[11] Fastest speaker Tom Adams; Sound poets Charles Stein and George Quasha; Knot's Berry Farm Haunted Shack; University of Edinburgh motion research; hypnotism w/ psychiatrist Martin Orne; Dice; Wong Tai Sin Temple (Hong Kong); Tribal Bingo in (Cherokee, NC); Corning Museum of Glass; Yuichiro Miura Skied down Mount Everest; Edwin Boring and the ambiguous drawing My Wife and My Mother-in-Law.
- Start a chain reaction involving over a quarter of a million dominoes - Join an expedition in Japan to study the habits of giant killer wasps - Descend into a human throat to see vocal cords at work - See how surgeons in China transform toes into a new hand for an accident victim - Go on a picnic in a Miami zoo with a man who put himself on public display - Play ball in Italy where rough-and-tumble action is part of the game - Find out how surgeons use precision procedures to reconstruct a human arm - Learn how an artist transforms ordinary paper bags into an extraordinary variety of unusual hats
John Sutter and the origin of Sacramento, California; Douglas DC-3 plane; The city that inspired the mythical kingdom of Shangri-La, Lhasa; the Dalai Lama's route to exile through the Himalayas; San Diego Zoo nursery and (orangutans, tigers, pygmy hippo, spotted leopard, and tapir); Vancouver Aquarium and beluga whale giving birth; Serengeti National Park; Moses Coates apple peeler; Henry Ford museum; an early computerized photo alteration program; an eye typing program; MIT artificial intelligence; Henry J. Wooldridge gravesite monuments; Hong Kong burials; Fol-Sang dong chung; (place of little heaven) Qilakitsoq, Greenland; voices in relation to air.
The Dead Sea; Bonsai trees; mangled money; professional venom collectors; Nethercutt Collection in Sylmar, Ca; car customizer Dean Jeffries; low-rider competition; junkyard artist Jim Gary; National Severe Storms Forecast Center predicts violent weather; Elis Stenman's Paper house in Rockport, Mass; Ant Lovack French Riviera house; Empress Dowager Cixi's Marble Boat; origin of the Statue of Liberty and it's French duplicate; Sea Cucumber in Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco.
Cellist Anton Fils ate spiders regularly; Protective glass, Nuclear safety canisters; crash testing; chemo luminescent glow stick; crossword puzzles and the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament; Diaper Derby; the Lake Biwa Birdman Rally hang-gliding contest; Brahma pyramid (a.k.a. Tower of Hanoi); a deep-sea dive to retrieve the HMS Edinburgh (16) Gold treasure; laser-beam technology; ice-cube, salt, and thread trick.
Marie Osmond joins as host in the 4th season opener. Segments include Famous faces adorn U.S. currency; hypnotism in dental science; Hugo Ball Dadaism poetry; sound poets The Four Horsemen (poetry) in Toronto; Marfortadowg (festival of free screaming) in Italy; NASA Space Training Center and Manned Maneuvering Unit in Denver; Kevin Clarke and the 5-year photographic journey of a red couch across America;[12] Thailand chef Klinmahon.
An Italian inventor who bilked the French government of $100 million; a Japanese game show that tests contestants courage; automobile safety equipment; scientific technology to aid the disabled; a man who collects junk mail; a woman who designed a Victorian mansion from her dreams and nightmares: The Winchester Mystery House; a windmill restorer.
Segments include the dead-letter office of the New York General Post Office; how postage stamps helped make Hitler a millionaire; unusual bronzed mementos; a London shoe store that requires an appointment for fitting; the hay-fever helmet; a boy born with no immune system ; a car shredder.
Included: a musical number that can be performed by anyone on any instrument (John Cage's 4′33″); a fatal downbeat struck by orchestra conductor Jean-Baptiste Lully; Karma Dzong, a Buddhist shrine in Boulder, Colorado; Tibet; performance art (Tehching Hsieh); sculptor Duane Hanson; the development of commercial aviation; aircraft safety; an autopsy performed on a 2500-year-old corpse.
- Go for an underwater swim with a deep-diving daredevil dog - Get inside a computerized car in France you can operate with the sound of your voice - Witness the spectacular development of aircraft carriers from early experiments to current operations - Take a tour with a New York artist who has transformed a car into a traveling art exhibit - Become a moving target for a photographer who keeps pigeons as working partners - Trigger a computerized weapon that fills the sky with a curtain of explosive steel - Share one of the world's most unusual and unsuccessful artistic statements
Segments on how a gallery owner sparked public interest in an ignored painting; mud-bog racing; motorists who pray at the Temple of Safe Driving in Japan; the Franklin alphabet; miniature artwork; British Royal Marine basic training; a mystic artist; restoration of Leonardo's "Last Supper."
A 75-year-old fake newspaper story that caused a Texas town to be torn apart; using hypnotism to control and prevent pain; a thermography machine; Arabian courtship customs; George Willig's illegal climb up the outside of the World Trade Center; rock climbing without equipment; cliff parachuting; an 18-year-old deaf woman studying to be a musician; the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Segments include the "best-kept secret" of World War II; medicines derived from plants and insects; acupressure therapy; Buddhist monks of the Mount Koya monastery in Japan; altering the body's internal biological clock; a monument to a war hero who became a turncoat; the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota; a man who dives for golf balls lost in water hazards.