THE BALLOON MAN

12 people who made a living eating inedible things

Remember that kid in school who would eat anything for a quarter? Maybe he wasn't just trying get attention. He was preparing for a career in show biz

 

Comic magician Tom Mullica was famous for smoking and eating full packs of cigarettes.

from: thyeweek.com

By Danny Gallagher

December 13, 2012

Thanks to the rise of vaudeville and the circus sideshow, performers throughout history and even the modern stage have been practicing the strange art of digestion and regurgitation. They take seemingly inedible objects and choke them down before your very eyes. Here's a look at some of the world's greatest "human ostriches."

1. Todd Robbins

This renowned illusionist, trickster, and sideshow aficionado has carved an interesting career out of shocking his audiences. He's perhaps best known for a trick that few people know how to do because it is very dangerous: lightbulb eating. He learned the trick from an old Coney Island sideshow performer when he was a teenager and since then he's eaten over 4,000 lightbulbs. The only major injury he suffered while performing the trick is a broken tooth that exposed a raw nerve. The trick became the centerpiece of a very successful, very bloody, and very scary off-Broadway spook show called Play Dead that he co-wrote with Teller of Penn & Teller.

read about the eleven others at:

http://theweek.com/article/index/237810/12-people-who-made-a-living-eating-inedible-things