Punch my Guts| The Frank “Cannonball” Richard Story
As they say, the secret of life is in the guts. Let me tell you about the actual Blob of X-Men, Frank Richard.
In the early 1900s, an American man named Frank Richards was fighting in World War One, and at some point, he came to understand that he had a peculiar talent for withstanding hard belly punches.
He figured out how incredible that was and decided to join a comedy club, Vaudeville, on his return from the war and started charging people to come and try to punch him in the belle.
Vaudeville was an event where performers would all perform separate acts together.
It was a success as people turned up to hit him.
No matter who it was, Frank was completely unphased.
Maybe this audience wasn’t hitting him hard enough.
Frank invited heavyweight boxers and even World Champions Jess Willard to come to try for themselves, and still nothing.
Frank went further with started having people jump on his belly.
Like that wasn’t enough, he started getting slammed with an 18-pound sledgehammer, and when all of that still failed to hurt him, he decided to take things one step further.
“The Human Cannonball”- For over 130 years, circuses, sideshows, and carnivals have billed so-called human cannonballs as one of their main attractions.
This is phenomenal where humans don’t fire the cannonball, but the cannonball fires humans.
Illogical right?
Frank Richards had a somewhat unique performance with a cannon in the 1920s.
He received a cannon shot into his stomach instead of being fired from one.
The cannon would be prepared and loaded with a 100-pound cannonball, and Richards would stand 10 feet away wearing eye goggles and a wrap-around belly.
The cannon would fire with a giant plume of smoke, and Richards would take the hit directly to the belly.
And yeah, he was perfectly fine.
As he became known, Cannonball Richards was going to do that stunt twice a day in front of stunned audiences.
More than that was too painful.
Yes, the ball was real. It weighed 100 pounds.
Although the cannon was spring-loaded to propel the ball and release a cloud of smoke, it wasn’t being fired by gun powder.
The cannonball would receive just enough velocity to hit him in the stomach — and that it did. Any average person would be knocked over and injured doing the stunt.
This type of act had never been done before.
And believe it or not, it has never been done after.
It was so popular and extraordinary that he became known as “Cannonball Richards.”
He has featured in a few cartoons, including Freakazoid and The Simpsons, where Homer performs the stunt.
And was also referenced in Seinfeld.
The crazy thing is that he lived a pretty long life and passed away at 81.
Frank “Cannonball” Richards developed an act so original and unique that 100 years later, we still recognise his image.
But it’s important to note nonetheless — it wasn’t a real cannon.
Ab-solutely Astonishing.
Houdini could have never.
