Thread by @Iron_Spike

OH OOPS I FORGOT

One more fucked-up circus story

Are you familiar with... the Flying Wallendas?

The Wallendas- who are STILL PERFORMING to this day, by the way- are a seven-generation circus family of acrobats They're been performing since the 1780s at LEAST, and hail from Old Bohemia.

Here's is Nik Wallenda wire-walking over a FUCKING VOLCANO in March.

They used to be known as The Great Wallendas! But then, a newspaper writer gave them the name The Flying Wallendas.

Because sometimes?

They fell.

Don't get it twisted the Wallendas practiced, a LOT. They worked hard to perfect their act, and spent a significant chunk of the 20th century under notoriously hard-assed Wallenda patriarch, Karl.

And it was Karl who eventually decreed the Wallendas would always perform "without a net." No safety gear at all.

Why? Because he was convinced that the net under the wire meant to catch falling wire-walkers gave them a false sense of security. They COULD miss it entirely.

And Karl demanded perfection, because the Wallenda's signature act, "the pyramid," was risky as BALLS.

Looks dangerous, right? That's cuz it is.

Falling "pyramids" have killed and paralyzed Wallendas.

They've also been killed by falling on windy days and being blown clear of their net (the motivation behind Karl's no-nets rule), & by touching high-voltage wires with their poles.

And even in cases where no one died, the catastrophic failure of their acts, the pyramid and others, could cause serious injury.

One Wallenda has most of his teeth smashed out by a balancing pole when a pyramid collapsed at practice, on a wire just a few feet off the ground.

Not that Karl was too phased! He figured, do it right, and none of this was gonna be a problem.

And maybe he had a licensed to be such a hard-ass. He clearly knew what he was doing. For example, he skywalked across Tallulah Gorge.

This was a quarter-mile skywalk, during which he did two headstands.

A few years later, he would put on another record-breaking show, this time at the King's Island amusement park.

This kind of self-promo, along with the Wallenda's returm to performing the pyramid in 1963 after it killed two family members and paralyzed a third in 1962, likely inspired the made-for-TV movie about the family.

Good luck finding it, tho.

Anyway, ready for shit to get GRIM? Cuz it's about to.

In 1978, at age 73, just days after the release of his biopic, Karl Wallenda attempted to skywalk between the ten-story towers of a San Juan, Puerto Rico hotel.

He did not succeed.

Losing his balance, Karl wobbled, then fell, ten stories down, slamming into a car before rolling into the street. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.

His death, by the way? Broadcast on live TV.

It's on YouTube. If.. y'know, you're That Way.

But the Wallendas persevere. The new family star is the previously-mentioned great-grandson of Karl, Nik Wallenda, show here traversing Niagara Falls.

Note the safety harness.

Nik is the holder of no fewer than 11 Guinness World Records, skywalking across the Grand Canyon, across the Chicago River via the Marina City Towers (BLINDFOLDED, BTW) and the longest skywalk via bicycle, cuz Let's All Die, I guess.

He also successfully completed the skywalk in San Juan that killed Karl, with his mom as a co-performer.

Family business, y'all.

There are still multiple troupes of Wallendas, skywalking across stages, circus tents, Times Square, theme parks, skyscrapers, just all over. And on occasion, they still do the pyramid.