A local group is doing something like that this weekend. Pumpkins are the ammunition of choice and there'll be several trebuchets and catapults. Saw a big one on the television a couple of years ago that they used to toss a Ford Anglia and a couple of old pianos. That was a real monster and according to the news story, there are records of even bigger ones being built.
-- John The history of things that didn't happen has never been written. . - - - Henry Kissinger
That's the one!
No, that was set in the south of France. This one had Jennifer Jason Leigh, not Michelle Pfeiffer. The characters were a motley crew of infantry and camp followers who take a castle and try to hold it against a fellow named Hawksworth, IIRC. Hawksworth was an English condottiere working for some princeling whose daughter (Leigh) was kidnapped by Hauer. Funny how I can remember the plot and characters but the title is avoiding discovery.
Bill Banaszak, MFE
No, it was a real (stuffed) cow.
Cheers, Gary B-)
We have a Winner!
Bill Banaszak, MFE
Yes, I saw that as well. In England as I recall, the video of the Ford traveling through the air was quite impressive. What was that popular series in the late nineties about an Alaskan community? They had an episode with a piano flinging trebuchet.
Okay, according to my Leonard Maltin disk, it was released as "Flesh + Blood" and is available on video as "The Rose & The Sword". God I love interactive disks!
-- John The history of things that didn't happen has never been written. . - - - Henry Kissinger
get a tape of it but I'll live. Cheers, The Keeper>>
Aye Lads, t'was indeed Northern Exposure, one of my favorite shows. Chris, the rather eccentric minister/man-of-the-world/renaissance type originally built the trebuchet as a method of sendoff to honor his friend Toulie. With a solemn ceremony, and a fly-by by O'Connell in her recently built ultralight, the coffin was sent off into the wild blue, ending in a resounding splash and geyser of water in a local lake. While being taken to task on this sendoff, he remarked, "It's not the thing, but the fling itself". I just happen to have these episodes on tape. Would make an interesting diorama for those interested in the trebuchet, and the show. Or, as others have noted, a trebuchet flinging cows, people etc as a nod toward some of the movies mentioned.
When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return. --Leonardo Da Vinci EAA # 729686 delete the word spam from email addy
I taped it off the TV about 12 years ago as "Flesh & Blood" and it's now located 'somewhere' in the collection. Along the way my taping outdistanced my recordkeeping. I've been going through my "Andromeda" tapes and was amazed to find the first episode on Tape-ANA. Considering how I assigned numbers so long after taping I wasn't sure which tape of the first 6 was really the first. Now I have to watch the whole tape to see if the first show on ANB matches up with the last on ANA. :)
Bill Banaszak, MFE
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