Les Jones

Misc > Shop at Home Salesman Takes a Katana in the Chest

Shop at Home Network guy demonstrates a stainless steel katana (a Japanese sword) that he's selling on TV by whacking it on the table. It snaps and the end hits him on live TV. Transcript:

"1101-1860 is the item number on this one. And the nice thing about these practice katanas Oh! Aw, that hurt. Oh, that hurt big time. A piece of that just... The tip just got me, O'Dell. Oh, that got me good."

"You all right?"

"A piece of that tip just got me. Oh my..."

"We, uh, may need emergency surgery in the studio."

Video here. Via a High Road discussion of why stainless steel is too brittle for long blades.

I Googled for more info, and discovered that this was from something called The Knife Show on SHN featuring Tom O'Dell and Shaun Leflar (he of the katana in the ribs). They seem to have had a cult following. The knife snobs on BladeForums.com had a field day with Shaun's injury ("It doesn't get any funnier than this!!"). The mishap occured in 2001. Shawn was OK, and the show continued until 2004. Says one fan of the show's end, "Thanks for the memories, Mr. O’Dell. May you and your knife-selling buddy Shaun Leflar live to hawk one more Conan the Barbarian special."