Man jumps on eggs without breaking them

There are many things to like in this 1974 BBC news segment about a gentleman jumping on eggs. (via Arbroath)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Skeeper

I remember it from when it was first broadcast – mostly because me and my brother spent a few days trying to replicate it, as we did the Kung Fu ‘walking on rice paper’ thing. Quite skillful when you think about it.
ZippySpincycle

OK, sure, Linds beat me to it, but all I could think of was Tiddles the flying cat:

CompÃ¨re: That is Tiddles, I believe?
Man: Yes, this is, this is Tiddles.
CompÃ¨re: Yes, and what does she do?
Man: She flies across the studio and lands in a bucket of water.
CompÃ¨re: By herself?
Man: No, I fling her.
JJ

I believe “mind blowing” is the appropriate response.
Anonymous

@Nelson C – One teensy correction. Nationwide wasn’t a regional news programme – it came on after the regional news (hence the name). And they did in fact specialise in a mixture of investigative reporting and this sort of daftness: it was Nationwide that first brought us the skateboarding duck, after all.
Bodhipaksa

Oh gawd. I just remembered the bastard spawn of “Nationwide”, which was “That’s Life” — a show hosted by Esther Rantzen, featuring dogs saying “sausages” (you had to be there), oddly-shaped vegetables, strange “odes” (by someone called Pam), songs by Richard Stilgoe, and other miscellaneous crap. To be fair to the show it also included some serious consumer-affairs reporting. I’m assuming the shows were connected since Rantzen worked on both.
Samurai Gratz

This is marvelous!
benjiwenji

@21′Ben…the two of us are oneeeeeeeeeeeagain…’
I never lived that tune down.
Nelson.C

JC @11: Obviously a traumatic TV event for both of us. Or we absorbed the same subliminal messages….
bartash

Nationwide? Pah, all us cool northern kids were watching Granada Reports.
John Coulthart

Nelson: I’m guessing trauma, of which That’s Life was also a part as Bodhipaksa notes. The odes in question there were courtesy of the terminally smug Cyril Fletcher, not “Pam”. Unless Pam Ayers also appeared on That’s Life which wouldn’t surprise me.
John Coulthart

Ahem, northern kid here as well…we used to watch both. Yes, Granada Reports was far cooler; in place of egg-jumpers they had Joy Division in 1978, the band’s first TV appearance.
Evil Jim

New Olympic sport!
Jux

How very Monty Python! It reminds me of “The First Man To Jump The Channel”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qvk2wNWmB20
chromal

Wow. They were willing to put just about anything on the air, weren’t they? Of course, it’s not so much that he’s jumping on the eggs– that would suggest that his feet come to rest upon the eggs. Rather, he’s jumping OVER the eggs and tapping them with his feet mid-flight, which totally doesn’t count IMO…
MarkM

That’s it, is it? … The boingboing article on “jumping on the eggs”?
Jackasimov

Extremely important: DO NOT ATTEMPT UNLESS WEARING SAFETY SHORT-TROUSERS.

you have been warned.
Wareq

Actually, the Python skit for this one is Stake Your Claim.
Random_Tangent

Oh yes. it’s definitely been jumped on.
llynglas

I love the Beeb…..
franko

so, it seems pretty clear that daytime TV has ALWAYS sucked.
anukexpat

Mmmmm Sue Lawley, she was, and still is, the hawt!
BukaHobbit

This reminds me of the John Cleese quip to Kevin Klein in A Fish Called Wanda. ‘Are you totally de-ranged?’
Bodhipaksa

@Franko: I agree about daytime TV, but this was early evening broadcasting from the BBC — a show called Nationwide. I remember watching this particular segment with a keen sense of embarrassment as the guy repeatedly failed to quite make contact with the egg.
benjiwenji

Oh Gawd bless em all…I love my countrymen. You can feel safe in the knowledge that that chap REALLY did know when an egg had been stamped on. A trained pro’. Winner. Probably ex SAS. He could be my Dad…the shorts look right.
The Lizardman

This should come full circle and be used as a moment of zen by the daily show.
Nelson.C

Oh, gods, I remember this from the original broadcast. Possibly the most embarrassing moment on British TV ever.

For the record, this was an early evening programme, Nationwide, a regional news magazine programme on after the 5:45 News, IIRC. This particular segment was a bit of silliness the production staff snuck in at the end of the show as a prank on the presenter (Sue Lawley, I seem to remember).

Hmm, I think BBC’s News 24 channel could do with a bit of silliness like this.
Anonymous

The BBC used to have a segment at the end of the news where they would show something funny. Such as this egg jumping showcase. I don’t know what year though the BBC eventually scrapped this segment. I don’t think this man would of made it onto the TV if he wasn’t so funny to watch
travelina

I wish they had included the part where he jumps on human noses without breaking them, either.
John Coulthart

Ye gods, I remember this from when it was first broadcast; I was about 12 at the time and recall thinking “WTF?” then.

Nationwide wasn’t daytime TV, it was an early evening “magazine” news and current affairs show which came on after the national news. An odd mix of serious investigation, sports and inane items such as this. Animals doing silly things were always popular. They should have called it YouKTube.
John Coulthart

Ha, snap!
Lagged2Death

Wow. Python-y indeed. I never realized their wacky talk show segments were inspired by actual wacky talk shows.
benjiwenji

@12 You’re showing your age. …did tv used to be black and white…s’pose you were still saving money after the war.
SeamusAndrewMurphy

This is insane, right? I mean, right?

I guess television news has always been bad.
arkizzle

“That’s it is it? … That’s the “jumping on the eggs”?”

Says it all really.
John Coulthart

TV was full colour by then but stuff like this wasn’t archived. The only copies that exist are amateur recordings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_%28TV_series%29#Archive_status
mightymouse1584

i wonder how long he had to practice before he got it perfect.
Linds

I see your python reference and raise you this lot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCSgYTKfnzQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0gzQS4w1sc