Out of the many TV shows I watched as a kid, one of the ones I was most consistantly amazed by was That’s Incredible!. Hosted by Cathy Lee Crosby and John Davidson (who I hit with a balloon when I attended the taping of Hollywood Squares as a young boy), the show ran four seasons and featured oddities and amazing facts from the worlds of nature, medicine, and human achievement. For some reason, one feature that really stuck with me was a man lying on a bed of nails. Interesting fact: in 1980, That’s Incredible! was given the “Most Sadistic Show” award by Time. Jump the Shark has some good memories posted: “Three words…spontaneous human combustion. I didn’t sleep for weeks after that episode. I was terrified I was going to burst into flames. Very disturbing.”
Apparently the show was revived later in the decade with Christina Ferrare and Growing Pains‘ Tracey Gold hosting. It may have also been resurrected in 1997, according to the IMDB. -ram
Posted in Television, Movies, and Music
Bampster July 9, 2007, 6:55 pm
I can’t find any archived episodes of “That’s Incredible” anywhere!! According to TV Guide there was 165 episodes.. Has anybody found them? Will they ever be released on DVD? The most memorable video I recall was of the legendary “Mokele Mbembe” (The one who stops rivers). Footage was shot during an expedition to unexplored regions of the Congo of a prehistoric looking beast with a long neck slowly raising it’s head out of the river and then submerging again. It had a small head and very long neck and looked very much like that of a dinosaur!! Specifically the Sauropod class! I don’t recall seeing the animal’s back but the head and neck definately looked reptilian. The clip was shown in episode #26 of “That’s Incredible”. I cannot find this clip on the Internet nor the “lost” episode. I’m beginning to wonder if it was deliberately removed from the face of the earth!!
Judith Barkan November 2, 2011, 9:16 am
The man lying on a bed of nails is Bikram Choudhury, the yoga teacher in Beverly Hills. He was lying on a bed of nails and a motorcycle ran over his chest. Bikram was not injured due to yoga breathing techniques. If I remember correctly, Bikram told me it took about 8-10 hours to prepare with the breathing and another 8-10 hours to come down from the experience. Bikram’s episode was filmed in the late 1970s. His “yoga coach” Bisu Ghosh, is the son of Bishnu Ghosh (Bikram’s teacher). Bishnu Ghosh was the younger brother of Paramahansa Yogananda (Mukunda Lal Ghosh). In 1991, a man tried this and was severely injured and I believe later died.