Shocking moments on stage

[Todd]

I love haering about shocking performer stories. Wierd stuff that has happend to you or you have seen.
I saw Gazzo once at the Maryland Ren Fest get done with his cups and balls (it rocked) look at the audience and say
" you think you're shocked, last night I was going down on my Grandmother and I got this piece of string caught in my teeth. I was so shocked I nearly banged my head on the top of the coffin"
The collective gasp from the audience could be heard for miles.

[Rich Potter]

...now, how do you follow an act like that?

There *is* that Dirty Fred joke about why babies have that little soft spot at the top of their heads...

--Rich

[Butterfly Man]

no, they never hired me again.

My very first time to Nippon ... hired for 6 weeks in the late 80’s to perform in one of the many Expo’s happening over there ...I was thrilled exited and scared shitless... mostly because I didn’t speak a word of the language and had only modest skills...
How was I going to make them laugh?
I was in a panic mode from the moment I arrived in Osaka.
They had put a stage up at the base of my hotel for a practice run ... I went on and I guess I was so weird and eccentric (they loved my head) plus I made so many mistakes with the language they laughed and applauded ... it was a great success ... after that first show I went alone across from the stage to this bench and was wiping the sweat off my head when this American looking guy walks up to me and says
“Excuse me, I’m an English teacher over here I just saw your show …. Do you get heckled much in the states”

I said well, yes I do. It’s most of my act

So he says, “If you ever get a heckler in Japan I think I might have a line you can use...

Tofuno kadu ni atama o busketi shinei”

I say, “What’s that mean?”

He says well ... “it means you’re so stupid if you bumped your head on the corner of a piece of Tofu you would die”...

He says its the closest thing the Japanese have to saying something rude and while they all know the expression they would never use it

Well I memorized the line that night but for never used it ... for almost 6 weeks I never got heckled in any of my shows

...Everyone was so polite

Then
With less than 1 week left to go ...on a beautiful Sunday afternoon ... a well-dressed elderly Japanese gentleman starts yelling loudly
I’ve got no idea what he’s saying (he was quite drunk) ...
I was really enjoying him yelling
But I had to finish the act ...so I yelled out,

“Tofuno kadu ni atama o busketi shinei!!!”

...There was like this huge atomic bomb of ... silence

Then came an explosion of laughter ...and applause.... at the same time ...

Wow

Simultaneous movement in the front three rows

A huge wave of clapping and laughing

A moment every performer dreams about


For the next week ... every show ... I’d try (sometimes desperately) to find someone in the crowd to use that line on ... someone...
Anyone ...

Some old guy just tryin to find a place to sit down...

Some kid tryin to tie his shoes ...

Anyone ... I’d yell

“Tofuno kadu ni atama o busketi shinei!”

It never worked the same...

Oh, there’d be some nervous laughter and polite applause occasionally

But it never work that good again

I kept trying though

... Then I guess somebody complained to the management and they had a meeting to decide on when they were going to have a meeting to schedule a meeting with me

With only a few days to go the Japanese lady (bitch) who hired me comes up to me and says

ahh (clears throat) mmm ahh hmmm ahh Mr. Nerrson hmmm ahh we wood rike it bery much if you please not to use that mmm ahh ...rine in your show .... ...gomen gomen gomen gomengomen gomengomen gomen

I knew exactly which “rine” she was talking about

But I stare at her and say nothing

I’m thinking to myself “I have only a coupla days left on this gig anyway... it’ll be fun”

I pretend to get all agitated turn around at her.... and bellow...

TOFUNO KADU NI ATAMA O BUSKETI SHINEI

[jugglermatt1]

while starting a show in northwest spain last summer, it was an ideal evening for floating a number of large bubbles over the general area.as a few kids were getting sucked into their general habit of breaking them , falling over , trying to show off etc.i pointed to two bubbles floating off towards the theatre entrance direction .two young boys , to small to reach and break the bubbles followed them further and further , until they both tripped, simutlaneously, over a small wall , and landed in a fountain .me and a few parents legged it over and dragged them out , one was bleeding a little from a small cut on his lip , and the were both pretty shocked

[Mr.Taxi Trix]

Nice! That image of children following bubbles to their own demise rocks the house.

I was working in a bar one night, and selected a prettyish blonde to make a special appearance on my shoulders, that lovely trick that so few jugglers can manage. She was friendly, and had had a few.

I was blathering on through my series of lines when she looked down at the top of my head and made a request.

"Why don't you just shut up and turn around?"

Best laugh in the show by far.

[Lee Nelson]

ten years ago walking on stilts in a shopping centre in Perth I followed a little old lady with a blue rinse and pretended to pull a bug out of her hair.
Instead I pulled her entire wig off.
I put it back on real fast, not that straight either, while the audience who had been laughing at my antics fell strangely silent
I felt pretty small for a 10 ft dude
there wasnt many places I could hide and needless to say when i finished my gig I had to answer some questions at Centre Management
Never worked there again

[Rachel Peters]

multi-grain bagel outa my nose.

"Nice! That image of children following bubbles to their own demise rocks the house."

That line made me laugh outloud -- good and heartily.

[miquee]

last summer in italy a small kid kept wandering into the circle and picking up my equipment and just being a nuisance... i tried everything i could think of to get him to stop, asked the parents to put a leash on him etc. then i got to the fire part of the show and really didnt want him to get in the way so gave the parents an ultimatum...
hold the kid until the end of the fire number
or
i throw the kid in the fountain behind me...
the parents laughed and said the kid could do what he wanted so i said "me too" grabbed him by the ankles and stuck him head first into the fountain...
he stopped buggin me...
i had a chat with his dad after the show...

[Evan Young]

This last weekend I was performing street show style acts at a Boy Scout jamboree. Show #6 comes around and I am exausted, mentally and physicaly. I can't keep the names of my volounteers strait, am repeating lines, forgetting lines, etc... The audience is tired too, and it's my final show.
I notice two scouts watching my show from behind me in the lawn, so I tell them they will get a better view from the front. They don't move, so I say, "You like the view from back there better huh?" turn my back to them and wiggle my butt, and continue, "it's okay, it's Boy Scouts, that's what it's like"....
Then my inner censor kicked in. "Fuck!!! you can't say that!!! this is a well paid gig, not a street show; you can't make jokes about boy scouts being gay at a boy scout event!". I scan the audience for shocked looks on scoutmasters faces. There were none present (still early in the show), and the kids didn't get it. then I noticed one adult, a Den Mother (scout master for cub scouts) and she was laughing her ass off.

I can't believe I got away with that one.

[caricatureguy]

"it's okay, it's Boy Scouts, that's what it's like"....


AHHHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!!! THAT WAS GREAT!!!

Couple of years ago my friend Ron and I went on a road trip together to do caricatures all over the east coast. It was pretty much a ploy to go to Key West over fantasy fest weekend... So we get there and everybody's walking around naked, right...

We were working the bars on Duvall street. (the straight end mind you). Ron was working one side of the street and I was on the other. It was about 9pm and I had already made a full round. I went across the way to see if Ron wanted to have a drink or some dinner yet...

Earlier that day we had been to the top of the BULL and I had a girl up there paint my cock to look like the southern most point monument. I was wearing a sarong (putting money and markers in a fanny pack I had under it, just in case you were wondering)

So I find Ron in Rick's drawing a couple of girls. I said to the one girl, "have you seen the southern most point yet?" She says, "no". I lift up my sarong and she starts sucking me off while Ron is drawing her!

He can't believe it but he looks at me and then at the top of her head and goes, "Ok now, SMILE!".

I have a few stories from that trip...