How Human Cannonballs Work

There's no question that human cannonballs are daredevils. They pack themselves into the confines of huge cannons, which shoot them into the air. But how does it work? Join Josh and Chuck to learn more about the bizarre performances of human cannonballs.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house toff works dot com Kaboom and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.

(00:21):
What are you doing now? You're doing the cheeks? Huh?
Have you ever captured that? Yeah? We did it once
and then people have asked occasionally liked the cheek thing again?
And I don't want to. I want to do it
like once every hundred and fifty shows. Literally that's a
good that's a good pace. I don't want to overdo that.
So that's that'll be the third time soon coming up,
I think so. Yeah, sure, four fifty right around the

(00:44):
corner head around company. Um, chuckers, have you ever had
kaboom cereal? No, dude, that was such a thing good? Um, No,
it wasn't good. The marshmallows were good. They it was
basically like Lucky Charms. I don't know who ripped off who,
but it was clown themed rather than you know, Irish themed.

(01:04):
That's genius. Yeah, But there was a clown on front
and he had a cannon and that's where the name
came from. Kaboom. It was a circus clown circus cannon.
But then they realized clowns where scary as heck most people,
so it failed miserably. I wrote this blog post recently.
Did you read it about it? Yeah, the clown giving
clown therapy. People seem to like it too. Yeah. I

(01:26):
thought it was a nice one. Um, that wasn't my intro.
My intro was about hunter te. Oh, well, let's hear it,
do you remember? Well, sure, you're probably gonna reference his
death wish. Yes, so he you know, he comes down
with the cancer and um shoots himself in the head.
And regardless of how you feel about suicide, what happened
next was his um As you said, I guess his

(01:48):
death wish, which you made in life. Ironically. Yeah, there's
two kinds of death wishes. There's a wish that you
make upon your death that you would like for things
to happen after you die, and then there's the jolly
Brunson death wish. Nice. That's good, good, Chuck bron Well,
that's a Simpsons character too, But it's the Simpsons character, right,

(02:09):
the mustachioed sales clerk yes, but he clearly references Gerald's Brunson. Um. Anyway,
what happened to Hunter T was he Um, he he
was cremated and he had his remains shot out of
a cannon. Have you seen it? Yeah? Thanks to Johnny
Depp helped that dream come true because he has tons

(02:32):
and tons of money to make that happen. Yes, he does.
It is quite a cannon too. Um. And we've talked
before about how I want my dead body shot out
of a cannon. We have indeed, Um, I'm not so
sure anymore. Maybe who knows? It would be after reading
this article and the physical requirements, it would be kind
of gruesome. It wouldn't be like unless they stiffened you

(02:52):
up somehow, you would come out in a big like
a dead body would. That's what I've always imagined though,
that's what I see flying through the air. I thought
you saw yourself like shooting through a rocket towards the storm. No,
like flopping like through the air and doing like half
somersaults and twists. Think it's gonna be naked too. I
was gonna land on the Kansas Prairie and let the

(03:15):
vultures finish me off. All right, We'll see idea, bring it.
I got a backyard for you. I think that's how
we met coop um he he offered. He was like, hey,
I I live in Kansas and I can get this done. Yeah, alright,
so we'll see. But I think that that's an image
that people can have in their head while we talk
about how human cannonballs work, right, because like you said,

(03:37):
there's a lot to it, but one of the things
that's not to it. And I think it's funny that,
um people wonder how this how you can shoot somebody
out of a cannon and the gunpowder doesn't blow them up.
There's no gunpowder, of course there's not. I don't understand
how someone cannot understand that intuitively. Yeah, because I think

(03:57):
people want to believe that they're being fired out of
a cannon instead of a a long piston enclosed in
a in a tube with a fake boom in a flash.
Yes for effect. Okay, so I guess it's the fake
boom in the flash they're they're buying it. Yeah, Well
that's the idea from the beginning. That was the idea,

(04:19):
so yes, and it has long roots back to the
nineteenth century, back to the UK which by the way
I've noticed. Did you notice from like this article in
doing any supplementary research, the UK is big into human cannonballs.
I think they're big one, just this whole circus experience.
They were the original showman. Yeah. Sure, they own the world.

(04:42):
Yeah that's true, you know, and they sold it. And
when you own the world, you have an obligation to
entertain the world, and they did so by human cannonballs. Specifically,
something called the projector is the is the I guess
grandfather of the human cannon ball cannon right, the Ferini
project Or seventy one, George Farini. Basically it was like

(05:06):
a we're like a catapult, like a spatula that would
just flip people and stop day and people would go
flopping and flying through the air. Yeah, oh god, I
regret this. Yeah. Uh. Specifically Lulu Um, who was a
man dressed as a woman, because that always adds to

(05:28):
the comic effect, right, put a dude in address and
he was the first person in America to get flapjacked
with Ferini's contraption. There. Yeah, and not only did he
do that, he was he sailed thirty ft into the
air and Um was caught by someone on a trampieze.

(05:51):
So as we go through this, I don't want any
just think about my dead body being shot onto the
Kansas Prairie. Uh. I want you to think about how
difficult it is to catch somebody on a trapeez who's
just been shot out of a cannon. While you're on
a trapeeze. You're swinging it just the right point, hitting

(06:13):
him just the right way, and then taking their for
momentum and yanking him another way on the trapeez. Yeah. Well,
this um, in fairness, Lulu wasn't caught by someone. She
he just actually grabbed hold of the trapeeze. But there
are people later on in this article who were caught
by people on the trampez. I just want to get
that so someone out there was like, no, no, Lulu.

(06:35):
I wonder there'd be one person who knew that. Um
so uh. The Farini projector was invented in eighteen seventy one.
It was obsolete by eighteen eighty because this is the
year that a fourteen year old girl named Rosa Marie
Richter whose stage name was Zazzle. All right, great great
grandmother to Andy Richter. No, I'm just kidding, um, great

(06:58):
stage name though, right Zazz. She's fourteen um and she,
at the behest of one P. T. Barnum climbed into
the first cannon human cannonball cannon um that that is
designed like today's modern cannons, and she was shot out
of it and um shortly after that, within a few performances,

(07:20):
she broke her back and was the first casualty of
the human cannonball in this first the first cannon used
the springs, and they employed the blast the fire in
the in the boom to make people thinking back then,
they probably really bought it. Oh how bad? You know,
people are so dumb back then. Uh. And there's a

(07:40):
very famous picture of her climbing into the cannon. It's
called like beautiful girl and huge gun or something like that.
I thought that our fore fathers like invented everything and
like built the world, and we're like, they're so dumb
stupid people. Yeah, well, it's harder and harder to build
and discover new things now because they're all that was

(08:00):
all the easy stuff, Like you and I could have
discovered all this stuff right now, it's just more and
more difficult. You have to really look for subtlety, right,
So we say, thanks to no one Um. So the
the late nineteenth century, is this the human cannonball idea
just takes off? Right, thanks to Dazzle, thanks to George Loyal.

(08:23):
He was the one who was shot out of a
cannon and would be caught by a woman on a
trap at the Yankee Robinson Circus. Right, Yes, that's incredibly difficult.
It is, And you think about it, like, I think
I've even seen that before, like in person, at at
a circus when I was a kid. Um. But now
that I've researched and read this, I'm like, I can't

(08:45):
imagine how difficult that has to be, how everything has
to be totally precise, and that these circus performers must
spend like all day practicing every day just to make sure. Yeah,
and not just the to the timing. There's a lot
of other stuff that you have to take into account. Right,
It's not just get in this cannon. We're gonna push
you out, no, Josh, Because the little sled that you're

(09:08):
basically in goes forward at a force of three thousand
and six thousand pounds per square inch of pressure. Right
that we should say pressed air is now the the
preferred means of shooting that little piston forward right, and
you're in a little capsule like imagine um Mark's egg,
but with the top cut off, so you're not you're

(09:31):
in the in the barrel in what amounts to a barrel,
a bullet in the barrel, a bullet with the top
cut off, and um that bullet is attached to the cannon.
So when the when the compressed air shoots it out,
the cannon stops, but you keep going, that's right, But
it shoots you out at a what did you say,
like three thousand to six thousand pounds per square inch

(09:51):
of pressure. Yeah, that produces some some force. That's a lot.
And that's why you can't just be like all limp.
You know, that would crush you. You know, you have
to be extremely strong and rigid, and your legs have
to be taught. Like. You can't just be like all right,
shoot shoot it off, or like your dead body. That's
why it would be so gruesome. I wonder if I

(10:13):
just explode in blood at the end of the can.
I don't know. Maybe, but with with the big daddy
cannons these days, you can go horizontally about two hundred
feet or vertically, which they say that's where the ooz
and ods come from as high as two hundred feet
uh and then speeds up to sixty to seventy. Right,

(10:35):
So you're hauling, you are hauling. Um, you're also under
some tremendous force, right, oh yes, so yeah, you've got
about nine ges during launch and twelve jess and impact
and we'll talk about that later. But chuck the dodoon
paw right, it's a roller coaster in Japan. It has

(10:55):
the highest acceleration. UM. It's a two point seven geezez. Yeah,
so imagine nine right, Yeah, this is a this is
a this is you're putting this human body under a
lot of stress, right then, yes, and you fly out
a long way. And that's why you have to take
into account the things we briefly mentioned like wind speed,

(11:16):
body weight, obstacles like the guy wires and the tent
for the net and the poles for the for the tent,
and we also we mentioned that in Sniper. Remember, yeah,
we're talking about the bullet trajectory, and they have to
take into account like humidity. So do people who set
up human cannonball cannons. And usually I get the impression
the human cannonball is the manager in charge of this

(11:39):
whole act. They don't just come out and they're like,
all right, I'll get in it already, did it right? Yeah,
And some carnie like puts out a cigarette's like it
looks good to me. Uh no, that's not the case. Um.
A lot of planning goes in because they make a point.
It's pretty easy to get into a cannon and get
shot out, although, like we said, you gotta be really
strong and stuff. But the landing part is the crucial part, obviously, right,

(12:00):
because of fifty byt net look pretty big when you're
standing on it, but when you're two hundred feet away
and two hundred feet up, it might look like a
postage damp to you. And I mean, this is a
big deal, and you want to hit that net. You
you want to hit it in just the right place
to sure. Um. Yeah, So to make sure that the

(12:20):
person hits the net, um, test dummies are used. The
test dummy is a human cannonball's best friend because you
can shoot a test dummy out as much as you
want until you figure out whether or not you've got
the barrel trajectory just right that the temperature is a problem.
What have you adjustments early, right, And so they just
shoot a test dummy at the net until they have

(12:41):
it just right, and then they I guess they feel
that they're confident they're going to try their luck at it. Yeah,
and like you said, you gotta hit the net at
the proper place too, which is generally the rear third,
because when you hit something going down in an angle
like that, you're gonna bounce backwards, not like pop straight
up or go forward. So you don't want to hit
it on the first third because then you'll bounce backwards

(13:02):
off the net. So yeah, it's pretty specific. It is
um So Chuck, who does this crazy circus people, circus families.
It's always families. Yeah, you know, like once you get
into circus then you've almost guaranteed that your kid is
going to do that. So you want to talk about

(13:22):
some of them, Well, yeah, the one I think I've
heard of these people even before this um this article,
But the Zucchini family Zacchini zucchini zucchini zacchinis have been
doing uh while, They've been performing in circuses since the
nineteen twenties, and apparently they stopped in the nineties They're like,

(13:42):
seventy years is enough for us. The Zipchinis are hanging
up our little fancy shoes right. Uh. And in that time, um,
there were seven brothers in the family. Five of them
became human cannonballs. And that's just the brothers. There was
also a sister to who human cannonballing. Yeah, I'm just
dying to know what those other two dudes. It's like

(14:05):
Eli and Peyton Manning's brother that most people go, there's
another brother, right, like, well, what does he do? He
he's the oldest budn't he And he's like he was
like a big man on campus at Old Miss, but
that was it. He didn't he just parted. Doesn't play
football though, so he's not beloved by his father Archie. Yeah,

(14:28):
so not true probably. Uh. They worked with the Ringling
brothers that the Zucchini's did, who obviously a big name
in circuses, and uh, they sort of pushed the envelope.
Hugo and Victor the brothers did a little double barrel
gag that went over pretty well, and Mario would get
shot over Ferris wheels, like two Ferris wheels, Mario Zucchini

(14:53):
two Ferris wheels, not on top of one another, No,
one after the other. That's quite a weird quite a beat.
And then um, John Weiss human bullet. Yeah, he started
out as a clown apparently, really, he did five years
as a clown and then made the very rare jump
to human cannonball, from clown to cannonball this year and

(15:16):
apparently his first first shot sent him six ft really, yeah, yeah,
that was his first Did you do it as a clown?
You know? I think that that would have been a
mockery to the human cannonball um tradition. Okay, yeah, I
don't want to do that. And then there's the Smith family,

(15:38):
also a very popular circus cannonball family. Did you talk
about John Weiss, Well, he was. He was one of
the most prolific cannonballers. Did he die doing it? No?
Did you mention how many times he's done it? Five thousand?
That is a lot of time to be shot out
of a cannon. I did just kind of breeze over
that five thousand times. And he started in nine teen seven. Yeah,

(16:01):
so he was doing it for a little while there.
For years, I guess he was doing it once a day,
six days a week, fifty weeks a year. Yeah, you're right,
that's a lot of blasts. There is a lot. That's
a lot of I mean, especially what we know about
what the pressure and it exerts on a body. I mean,
that's that's rough work. Yeah, and it's uh, I mean

(16:21):
we've pointed out how it is safe. But more than
thirty people have died doing this over the years. Okay,
so the that that that pops up in this article,
thirty people have died as human cannonballs. There's a British
historian who died a few years back. His name is A. H. Cox.
He Um says that there's been only about fifty people

(16:43):
to ever be human cannonballs. Thirty have died. Really, yeah,
I thought that's kind of significant enough to be put
into this article. Ward me off of human cannonballs. So
thirty out of fifty have died, and that's just who
died others, you know, like back, Zazzle broker back, Um, Yeah,

(17:03):
we'll get into that gruesomeness soon, zazz Alright, So back
to the Smith family. They are the modern um cannonball
family that are pretty awesome. Um. David Cannonball Smith Jr.
Has spent much of his life inside of a cannon. Yes,
have you been on their website? Pretty funny. He just

(17:27):
he's described as having a dynamic personality. I like that.
It's better than saying he has a dynamite personality to
be pretty bad. But David the Bullet Smith Jr. Is
a son and I'm sorry, he's the one with the dynamics. Okay,
his dad was a real snooze. I don't know. Uh,
he bested his dad's record of by flying a hundred

(17:49):
ft Yeah, but his dad still holds the highest. I
think two hundred and three two and that's friends outside
of America. That's one of those over two Ferris wheels. Yeah,
that's crazy. Yep. Oh, should you mention the DARPA thing.
I thought that was completely stupid and ridiculous. Did you
think so? Yeah? I think it's kind of cool. I

(18:13):
think if DARPA could perfect this, then it could take
the human cannonball art to a whole new level. Spill it.
But basically, DARPA the Defense Research Project, Right, there's an
a in there somewhere. Yes, thank you, Um they were
looking at I think they filed the patent for a

(18:34):
basically human cannonball cannon that has like a sled chair
right that shoots you up. I think they said they
can get a first responder special ops a firefighter on
top of a five story building in two seconds. So
basically their idea is to take the human cannonball concept

(18:54):
and just shoot people on top of buildings to go
fight fires or to go snipe people or whatever. So
I get that. It's the landing thing that they say
is the hardest part in real cannonballing. So what what's
going on there? Well, that's what I'm saying. I have
no idea. I don't know if they were like, well,
we've got this part, now, let's go figure out the
other part. But that's that's kind of the big um
joke or the big underscore among human cannonballers is it's

(19:18):
not a problem shooting somebody out of a cannon. It's
the landing that's the important part. Yeah, right, Or in
this case, if you're shooting someone on a building, if
you're off there, then it's all of a sudden, you're
a cartoon and you smack into the building and then
slide very slowly down, except unlike a cartoon, you leave
a trail of blood when you slide down. Yeah, And

(19:38):
you slide down fast and then there's more blood and
body parts on the street. Yes, which has happened. I'm
sure it has. There's there's been a lot of accidents.
As we've said, out of fifty, uh thirty human cannonballs
have died, right, it's a lot and um to to
prevent this. You know, these people stay in tiptop shape,

(20:00):
right Um. You have to work out your core. You
have to have a strong back. You need to be
able to brace yourself like you said, and really just
go totally rigid so when you're shot out, you don't
just you're not crushed. You need to become a projectile,
right um, because all you're wearing a helmet, maybe a
little padding. Yeah, but Alma's not gonna do much if
you miss your net, no, um, and the net is

(20:23):
very important. A lot of people use air bags as well,
right um. There was a guy who's named Elvin Bale
and it's the human Space Shuttle. He used air bags
and he is a victim of circumstance if there ever
has been one. Right. He was big in the seventies
and eighties until I believe seven, when he went through

(20:48):
all the the tests shot his crash test dummy out. Um,
it landed fine in these air bags where he calculated
they should be. And um, what he didn't know is
that his crash test dummy had gotten wet, which made
it much heavier, which completely changed the dynamics of its

(21:08):
test run. So when he shot himself out, he missed
the air bags right, he did, He was he sailed
right over him. This is in Hong Kong. And he
said that he knew quote, I could see where I
was going and that it was too far, too fast,
so he knew in mid air he was conscious enough
to be like, oh crap, I'm not going to hit

(21:30):
the air bag and apparently the dummy, because when I
read that, I was like, well, how does this happen
when that's the only safety thing you can do. How
do you have a soap dummy? Apparently it was left
in the rain and they're filled with sand, and so
the outside of it dried, and but the sand was
still wet on the inside, so it didn't like feel
wet to the touch when they were testing it, And

(21:51):
he said he remembered it feeling like it was in
slow motion and that his brain actually thought he could
solve this problem in mid airrow aerodynamically like do something
like I can do this and shorten the trip and
land upright, which might save me. But instead he overshot
it by just a few yards and slam feet first

(22:12):
into the floor, shattered his ankles, knee, a leg in
his spine, and he's paralyzed from the moist down and
that is very sad. Uh. He mentions the aerodynamics right, like,
there is a specific way you want to land. Yeah,
you want to do that little easy somersault and land
on your back, which is that's the way to land.

(22:36):
But you also said something, um, that brought to mind
the idea that this the g force that we talked
about earlier that's been shown to produce a loss of
consciousness and people. So that's another danger that you you know,
when you're sailing, you want to like stay like a
projectile and if you're blacked out, you're gonna be like

(22:56):
a dead body like you yes, um. And Elvin Bell
is not the only person that something horrible has happened
to obviously, Yeah, Matt Cranch just this year a month
in April. Yeah, he and this is just a nightmare scenario.
He got blasted off and right after he blasted off

(23:18):
the net collapsed. Yeah, so how does that happen? I
don't know, that's probably what he's asking. Well, he died,
He landed on his head and died. He did die,
so that is not what he's asking. That is what
his family is asking, probably via a lawsuit. It would
be my guest that was in Great Britain too very sad.
And remember I mentioned a Zichini's sister. Um, she the

(23:40):
Zichinis used to do these double barrels stunts where they
two would be shot out at the same time, usually
next to one another, right along parallel one another. Well,
she and another brother had a had an act where
they'd be shot in the same direction as when it
had passed by and like high five. Yeah, well they
collided and she broke her back. That's just a bad idea.

(24:02):
That was a bad idea. But the same thing is
that if you if you look at modern people, like
the modern cannonballers, they are safety conscious. Um they were
just like a net collapsed or the dummy was was wet,
which that that makes it even sadder to me. If
you could shot, you know, two ft into the air

(24:23):
at your brother sixty close break your back then something. Yeah,
that was part of the equation. I wonder how close
they intended to go to one another, because obviously the
closer the better, Like if they were apart, it's not
it's impressive. So they probably wanted to get it tight
for the effect. But can you imagine all of a sudden,

(24:46):
like when you see that coming straight at you probably
have the same realization, like a crap that I'm gonna
die by hitting my brother sister brother. Very sad. Yeah,
anything else, that's it? Man, I did a do we
ever did the thing on Daredevil's Uh no, I wrote
an article on Daredevil's and maybe we should do that

(25:07):
at some point. Or we've been talking about our Evil
Evil kin Evil podcasts. Maybe because he's a big part
of that one, maybe we can just cover it all songs.
Human cannonball, Yeah, we've got that one covered done. Okay, Well,
if you want to learn more about human cannonballs, including
how long it takes to accelerate a human cannonballer to
their top speed, do you want to know one bit

(25:29):
of a second? Really? Yeah? You can find all that
by typing human cannonball onto the search bart how stuff
works dot Com and from what you say, Chuck, it
sounds like that will bring up more than just one article. Yeah,
my daredevil sing like pop up Um, I said handy
search bar at house divorce dot com. That means it's
time for a listener mail. That's right, Josh, I'm gonna

(25:54):
call us underground Railroad. Uh, I'm writing in about underground Railroad.
Wanted to share a little bit of my childhood summers
in upstate New York. My great grandfather, Louis Loveland made
a home in Johnsburg, New York, in the Adirondacks. What's
so funny? Like you know him? Yeah, Louie. The home

(26:16):
itself is incredibly cool and haunted. There's a very cluttered
and dimly lit room hidden away behind the kitchen, which
has a small organ buried beneath h decade stored and
forgotten items. Family legend has it that the organ would
mysteriously start playing it all hours of the night thanks
to spirits. As if that weren't enough, there's a very
large barn behind the home, which has seen its better days.

(26:39):
My sister and I were always warned to be careful
when we went near the barn. Uh. The reason because
the earth beneath our feet could give away at any moment. Well,
this sounds a good, terrifying house. But there's a hidden
tunnel beneath the barn. Because there's a hidden tunnel beneath
the barn, running from the back of the home, below
the barn and out into the mountains, right next to
a strawberry patch that my great grandfather planned a hundred

(27:02):
years ago. The tunnel was a part of the underground railroad,
and I've been told it's one of the last stops
in the adder on decks that is still intact today,
although it varies. The tunnel is roughly three to four
ft below the ground, about five ft tall, four ft
wide and seventy five yards long, packed with dirt and rocks,
and an absolute death trap to navigate without a flashlight.

(27:25):
The entrance from the home it's just too dangerous to
use anymore. But there is a way to drop into
the tunnel vi a hidden door in the barn, as
long as you don't mind a many landslide of dirt
and hay following you into the tunnel, which I would
um that's it. Once you carefully make your way through
the tunnel, you emerge into sunlight and a strawberry field. Nice.
That's little treat if you're somebody A warm wet towel,

(27:48):
moist towel and that is from Alice in St. Louis. Wow.
Thanks Alice. You could do that, couldn't you? Chuck the
you've gone caving before. I could do that as long
as it's buttressed. I wonder if it is buttressed. If
Charles Bronson anything, do what it is? Uh. If you

(28:09):
have a great recipe for fresh strawberries, we want to
hear it. You can wrap it up in an email,
spanking on the bottom, kiss it good night, and send
it to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff

(28:31):
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