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Private Notes
Hosts Jack Palance and Catherine Shirriff tour the world seeking the unique and bizarre. Among the opening oddities: moments captured through stroboscopic photography; buildings designed to appear unfinished or crumbling; a conductor who can't read music conducting "the world's worst orchestra" in London; corpses in Denmark perserved for more than 2000 years; death rites and rituals.
Segments include habits of the vampire bat; a dangerous Japanese log-rolling ritual; a lizard that runs across water; a French town's day-long mud fight; the world's largest carousel; the re-creation of the San Francisco finding of an heiress's will in a bottle thrown into London's Thames River 10 years earlier; a blind marathon runner.
Segments on unusual foods include a rattlesnake-eating festival in Texas; an African tribe's daily meal of crocodile; and a lavish banquet, highlighted by truffles, for a Quebec gastronome club. A feature on gorillas includes a preserve in England, and albino gorilla in Spain, and a "conversation" between gorilla and teacher through signing. Archaeological discoveries in China include an "army" of 6000 clay statues built to guard a crypt, and a perfectly preserved corpse more than 2100 years old.
The Real Robinson Crusoe, Alexander Selkirk; Tarantulas; Jumping Spiders, fishing spiders, trapdoor spiders, Dancing procession of Echternach, Luxembourg; Sufi whirling in Turkey, Sungyung Rite (Java), miracle of St. Januarius in Naples; Mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria; wedding customs in Papa New Guinea, Turkey & Korea; Olympic men's marathon of Dorando Pietri in 1908.
The tale of an English ghost who lead to the recovery of a missing human heart; Transylvania's real-life model for the evil Count Dracula.
Segments on unusual occupations include a human mannequin; a man who swallows live poisonous snakes; New Zealanders who herd deer by plane. Segments on hoaxes include an artist who had to prove his skill at forgery to clear himself of a charge of Nazi collaboration; Piltdown man, a supposed prehistoric species found in England in 1911 and exposed in 1953; writings attributed to Caesar and Cleopatra forge in French rather than Latin.
Segments on natural phenomena include the icelandic volcano Helfel; and a butterfly zoo in London. Segments on a man-made phenomena include the Maginot Line; the Edsel; a robot family built in France 200 years ago; a modern Japanese robot in the likeness of Marilyn Monroe. Also; two Spanish lovers who supposedly died of broken hearts; a trick in which a sheet of typing paper yields a hole big enough to step through.
Segments on unusual sports include medieval jousting currently staged near Canterbury, England; an ancient Chinese martial art; Italian cheese-throwing. A feature on nature's unusual survival methods includes the mating habits of the black-widow spider; praying mantis; snail, water flea and pepsis wasp. A look at time includes a history of time measurement; the city hall clock tower in Munich, Big Ben in London.
Segments on unusual death rites include the mummification of Japanese Buddhist saints; the catacombs of Paris; a drive-in mortuary in Atlanta, Ga. (USA) A look at unusual dwellings includes Ponte Vecchio in Italy; a house made of discarded materials in Simi Valley, Ca. A feature on unusual collections includes a 10-ton ball of string and an assemblage of warplanes. Also: the tallest man in modern history; the world's tallest living woman.
A feature with a metaphysical slant contrasts the mining of gold in Brazil's Serra Pelada with a Japanese Buddhist ritual in which priests undertake a marathon pilgrimage. A look at snakes includes the African mamba, grass snake and king snake. Segments on unusual adornments include punk rockers and Japanese geisha. Also: inventor Nikola Tesla.
The Real Man in the Iron Mask, Amsterdam Diamond manufacturing, Hope diamond, Munich Aviary, ancient monuments Venice, Italy, Parthenon in Greece, The Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci) in Milan, Italy, the Coliseum in Rome, Aswan Dam and Sphinx in Egypt, Caves of Lascaux, Legoland Billund Resort, dominoes.
A segment on unusual music includes giant alphorns of Switzerland; saxophonists in Venice, Italy; face slapping; music made by moistening rims of wine glasses. A look at bees includes the creation of hives; the roles of queens and workers; the production of honey. A feature on human flight includes aircraft built before that of the Wright Brothers.
A segment on New York City oddities includes a wheat field near the base of the World Trade Center. A feature on amphibians includes the ridley turtle; the silius frog's incubation of its young; the mudskipper. A look at money and greed includes the handling of currency at a Federal Reserve Bank; a Japanese ritual to assure good fortune.
A feature on sharks includes shark-hunting in New Guinea; the search for shark repellent. A segment on unusual sports includes Texas rattlesnake-sacking; boulder-throwing in Switzerland. Unusual museums include one depicting (in plaster) the Peruvian Inquisition; a carnival museum in Connecticut.
Segments on unusual military weapons, including the B-19; Christo's unconventional art (he wrapped the Australian coastline in plastic); Patton's WW2 "decoy army" (equipped with mock tanks and planes); a fiery Japanese rite of passage; and a Brazilian replica of Jerusalem.
Segments on memorials built at the sites of accidents on Yugoslavian highways; houses built for the dead in Eastern European graveyards; African wild dogs; a dog that drives a car; the V-1 and V-2 rockets of Nazi Germany, and their role in World War 2; the cricket dancers of the South Pacific, who have embraced the British game of cricket as a tribal rite.
Segments on the Marquis Chimps; a high-diving horse and rider; a wrestling bear; a flea circus; ceremonial masks, a Japanese religious ritual involving mud-throwing; a mock battle between St. George and the dragon; the discovery of Roman ruins in Bath, England; the mysterious Olmecs, whose city was found near Vera Cruz, Mexico.
Reports on cryogenics; Morocco's killer scorpions; the fastest train in the world; acupuncture as an anesthetic during surgery; the eruption of Mount St. Helens.
Reports on the man who spent a lifetime compiling the Oxford English Dictionary; a Greek fire-walking ritual honoring Christian saints; a mammal that must eat every two or three hours or die; a developing fetus filmed in the womb.
Segments on the mysterious execution of Michel Ney, one of Napolean's marshals; computerized weapons of the future, surfing in a man-made "ocean"; the wildlife of New York City; the Japanese art of creating "food for the eyes".
A feature on Hollywood includes the history of the Hollywood Sign, movie star's real names and famous lines that were never spoken. Also: pigeon racing in Belgium; blackbirds that invaded a small town in North Carolina; a man who committed suicide with a deck of cards.
