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The amazing antics of Larry Griswold

Mark Frauenfelder at 3:26 pm Tue, Jan 11, 2011

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[Video Link] If you have never seen Larry Griswold before, you are in for a treat. He defies serious injury about 5 times a minute doing this diving board comedy routine on the Frank Sinatra Show in 1951. What a master! (Thanks, Chris!)

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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  • Kimmo

    To reinforce my first comment, I am already aware of Harold Lloyd’s awesomeness.

    This guy’s a slightly different kind of awesome.

  • olderthanyou

    What makes this truly impressive is the flimsy piece of crap diving board he’s using.

  • MadMolecule

    Fantastic! I’d never heard of Larry Griswold. Or the Frank Sinatra Show, for that matter.

  • PaulR

    Just think how many times he nearly killed himself while working on that routine!

    See what you can do even with no greenscreen, eh!

  • Kimmo

    Just… wow.

    Staggering stuff.

  • Anonymous

    Absolutely brilliant that he performed in street clothes rather than some sort of leotard. Makes it all the more alarming, as if he wandered in off the street.

    Bring back vaudeville.

  • Anonymous

    Jackie Chan channeled this guy!

  • Boondocker

    Those first couple of falls had me going, and I knew he was coming out of it okay. Great video!

  • moosehunter

    check out movies by Harold Loyd- He did his own stunts, like climbing up the Union Flat iron building (12 stories) without a net, chasing and jumping over a man on a bicycle, and leaping from wagon to wagon- all without nets, of safety equipment.

    here’s a snippet from “Safety Last”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEcTjhUN_7U

  • Tarpo

    Mark Evanier posted this, as well as a current day performer who is doing almost the same act, but not played as straight as the original on his blog a week or so ago at http://www.newsfromme.com

    Love that it made it here though. Its a fantastic piece of TV history

  • Thad E Ginataom

    Amazing. Thank you!