Who was the first person to throw a TV through or out of a hotel window?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

It's so often cited as a rock'n'roll cliche, but whence did it originate? Was it ever "popular"? Has it happened recently? What is the modern equivalent of what I assume to be a 1960s phenomenon? Have you ever done it? Are swimming pools always involved? ectect.

(on ILE because it has pop-cultural resonance far beyond music...)

― CharlieNo4, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:04 (nineteen years ago)

I want to know if people were throwing console radios out of hotel windows.

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:05 (nineteen years ago)

Philo T. Farnsworth

― n/a, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:07 (nineteen years ago)

the OG

― n/a, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:07 (nineteen years ago)

I was sure this would be a PEW thread.

― Rock Hardy, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:08 (nineteen years ago)

http://bnrg.eecs.berkeley.edu/~randy/Courses/CS39C.S97/gifs/farnsworth1.jpg

― n/a, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:08 (nineteen years ago)

Mozart was notorious for throwing magic lanterns out of hotel windows

― Tom D., Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:09 (nineteen years ago)

While we're at it, what was the novel/play in which the butler did it?

― underpants of the gods, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:10 (nineteen years ago)

According to Wikipedia, it was from the novel "The Door" by Mary Roberts Rinehart... but who knows really?

― Tom D., Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:13 (nineteen years ago)

The Admirable Crichton.

― Mark G, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:13 (nineteen years ago)

At what stage in the history of human weaponry did a bomb typically look like a bowling ball with a fuse?

At which newspaper was it first customary for reporters to wear trilby hats with tags with 'Press' written on them stuck in the band?

When, if ever, was the first time a plane was hijacked to Cuba?

― Fred Nerk, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:19 (nineteen years ago)

who put the dingdong in the ramalamadingdong?

― blueski, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:23 (nineteen years ago)

Grenades were invented in China around the 10th or 11th century.

― Michael White, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:27 (nineteen years ago)

November 1, 1958 A Cubana Vickers Viscount en route from Miami to Varadero to Havana is hijacked by Cuban militants. The hijackers were trying to land at Sierra Cristal in Eastern Cuba to deliver weapons to Raúl Castro's rebels. As night approached, eventually the plane ran out of fuel and tried an emergency landing at the Preston sugar mill, it did not make it and instead landed in the ocean and broke apart killing most passengers and crew, there were three or four survivors.

From Wikipedia

― Michael White, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:29 (nineteen years ago)

all important questions. and i don't know the answers to any of them!

i believe this film popularised the journalist/trilby thing:

http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/movie/coverv/56/110656.jpg

― CharlieNo4, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:32 (nineteen years ago)

why/how did 'downhill' become a negative?

― blueski, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:35 (nineteen years ago)

keef does it on camera in Cocksucker Blues

― stevie, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:37 (nineteen years ago)

ok, so that's 1972. nothing in the '60s?

― CharlieNo4, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:41 (nineteen years ago)

Charlie, it may have popularized it, but it was already a recognizable stereotype when Hecht and MacArthur's play came out in '28.

― Michael White, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 15:42 (nineteen years ago)

i *think keith moon & herman of the hermits drove a roller into a swimming pool in oz in the 60s, on the latter's birthday, but i haven't read 'dear boy' in a while, and indeed the story may be aprocyphal... not a television, but...

― stevie, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 16:00 (nineteen years ago)

fair do's.

still more interested in the telly/defenestration thing though! i know keith moon drove...something into a pool, didn't he? and didn't brian jones do some mad shit too?

what about johnny cash and the old rock'n'rollers?

haha xpost.

― CharlieNo4, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 16:01 (nineteen years ago)

Aye, but it wuz Bobby Gillespie, who threw a shadow puppet of a swan out of a wendy house at the age of 18 months!

― Mark G, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 16:02 (nineteen years ago)

I'm sure I've seen footage of John Bonham do it, but that may have been that dream I have where I'm hanging out with Zeppelin and sharing their groupies/drugs/money.

― Ned Trifle II, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 16:02 (nineteen years ago)

love this thread

― roxymuzak, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 16:03 (nineteen years ago)

Didn't Super Furry Animals once throw everything out of a hotel room window except the TV?

― onimo, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 16:12 (nineteen years ago)

oh man i hope that's true! those crazy surrealists.

― CharlieNo4, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 16:45 (nineteen years ago)

if they didn't i shall pay for them to do so

― stevie, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 16:46 (nineteen years ago)

ikeef does it on camera in Cocksucker Bluesi

Gimme Shelter too. That's the '60s.

― Bill Magill, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:33 (nineteen years ago)

More sweet html by Magill

― Bill Magill, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:34 (nineteen years ago)

i stand corrected (both films sort of merge in my brane)

― stevie, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:36 (nineteen years ago)

In a Kerrang cartoon Brick Outhouse The band smashed a TV and put a monopoly hotel in it.
Someone should do that.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:41 (nineteen years ago)

I like that there's a film called Cocksucker Bluesi and that ikeef is in it!

― Mark G, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 07:44 (nineteen years ago)

At what stage in the history of human weaponry did a bomb typically look like a bowling ball with a fuse?

Equally important, did the original versh have the word BOMB written on it, or was this a later addition?

― Grandpont Genie, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 08:32 (nineteen years ago)

Cocksucker Bluesi

one more letter and i'd burst into tears

― blueski, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 09:05 (nineteen years ago)

Why did prisoners/burglars wear black and white stripes?

― blueski, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 09:07 (nineteen years ago)

Easy to recognize an escaped prisoner?

― Tuomas, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 09:19 (nineteen years ago)

So they could hide amongst herds of zebra

― C J, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 09:43 (nineteen years ago)

Obviously to distinguish between the two groups you need to look for the swag bag / eye mask combo so popular with burglars and the telltale ball and chain that signifies a zebra.

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:42 (nineteen years ago)

Equally important, did the original versh have the word BOMB written on it, or was this a later addition?

And do ACME still sell them?

― Ned Trifle II, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:44 (nineteen years ago)

In a drunken fit of reverie, I threw a large TV out of my apartment window to shouts of, "Do it! Do it! Do it!" from the parking lot below. It was rather anticlimactic.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 13:20 (nineteen years ago)

And do ACME still sell them?

the firm that made the very first whistles to be used by football referees in the UK *really was* called ACME.

anyway, TV set -- it was The Who *and* the Small Faces, in New Zealand, it seems:

http://www.thewho.net/australia/book2.html

― Grandpont Genie, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 13:26 (nineteen years ago)

In a drunken fit of reverie, I threw a large TV out of my apartment window to shouts of, "Do it! Do it! Do it!" from the parking lot below. It was rather anticlimactic.

I once went to a rooftop party at some guy's place in Brooklyn I was hoping to room with. In the middle of the festivities he decided to chuck his TV off the roof. I decided that was probably not the houseshare for me.

― Ms Misery, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 13:37 (nineteen years ago)

I love that Mozart quip.

― moley, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 22:45 (nineteen years ago)

What is the modern equivalent of what I assume to be a 1960s phenomenon?

Er, perhaps something like this?

― JimD, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 23:59 (nineteen years ago)

If I recall correctly, ACME was the manufacturer of some piece of animation equipment perpetually stared at by the early Warner Brothers artists. The name was an early-in joke, before its constancy made it ubiquitous.

― remy bean, Thursday, 17 May 2007 00:08 (nineteen years ago)

early in-joke

― remy bean, Thursday, 17 May 2007 00:08 (nineteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.