All you have to do is keep your hand on the truck

July 24, 2023 10:18 AM

Maybe you heard the This American Life episode about it. Maybe you saw the Broadway musical about it. Well, the 1997 documentary Hands On A Hardbody [1h37m, Wikipedia] can be viewed on YouTube! Explore humanity through watching people slowly lose their minds as they stay awake for days on end trying to win a truck.

BONUS: Hands On A Hardbody Original Cast Recording [YT playlist], music and lyrics by Trey Anastasio and Amanda Green

posted by hippybear (35 comments total)

If you want to support the filmmakers, you can stream the movie here rather than watching on Youtube.
posted by cakelite at 11:54 AM on July 24, 2023 [11 favorites]

This makes me so sad bc this is an amazing podcast episode of Tig and Cheryl. But....Cheryl. She's married to RFK Jr and and gone all in. That podcast is never coming back.
posted by atomicstone at 12:14 PM on July 24, 2023 [4 favorites]

The cast recording album has me oddly compelled to want to do community theater again. A feeling I haven't had since I broke up with my first boyfriend 30 years ago.
posted by hippybear at 12:18 PM on July 24, 2023

I did a feature article on this documentary/contest a couple of years ago. Not sure if it's mention in the AL episode, but the reason they stopped doing the contest is because in 2005 a participant dropped out after 48 hours, walked across the street to a K-Mart, broke in, and shot himself with a shotgun. Watching the doc, you can easily see other participants drifting into the kind of mental state where this type of emotional/psychotic break could occur.
posted by jordantwodelta at 12:53 PM on July 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

That TAL episode is from 1997. The musical is from 2013. I don't think it's addressed in the musical.
posted by hippybear at 12:57 PM on July 24, 2023

So far I'm listening to the soundtrack and thinking, "This is A Chorus Line" ("god, I hope I get it") "for cars."
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:06 PM on July 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm listening to it and thinking "I live in a pretty redneck area even though it's a city so it has funds to support several community theaters and this piece is a total ensemble piece so every single person gets featured"

I need to find the book and do a read/listen. But I think it's quality theater.
posted by hippybear at 1:09 PM on July 24, 2023

Also, I don't think it's super dance-focussed, which widens the possibilities immensely.
posted by hippybear at 1:09 PM on July 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

Seeing the title for this post reminded me of an episode of tv I saw once where the prize for touching the car was a wedding dress. Googling is getting me nowhere. Ring a bell for anyone, or is this a paint-roller-to-the-face situation?
posted by Night_owl at 1:15 PM on July 24, 2023

I remember an interview with a white anti-apartheid activist in South Africa who was imprisoned for years and tortured in various ways by the authorities, and who said that the worst thing they did to him by far was keeping him from sleeping.

And if you want to understand what not being able to sleep does to you in the long run, and you are constitutionally relatively imperturbable, read some case histories of fatal familial insomnia

The disease has four stages:[6]

1. Characterized by worsening insomnia, resulting in panic attacks, paranoia, and phobias. This stage lasts for about four months.

2. Hallucinations and panic attacks become noticeable, continuing for about five months.

3. Complete inability to sleep is followed by rapid loss of weight. This lasts for about three months.

4. Dementia, during which the person becomes unresponsive or mute over the course of six months, is the final stage of the disease, after which death follows.

I think the people who set this up and profited from it should have faced prosecution, and should now be sued by the participants for the long term damage this ridiculous farrago probably did to them.
posted by jamjam at 1:18 PM on July 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

For someone who likes Trey as much as I do, I'm kind of surprised I've never listened to the musical. I think the only song from the show he plays with his band (his other band, not Phish) is My Problem Right There.
posted by bondcliff at 1:24 PM on July 24, 2023

This makes me so sad bc this is an amazing podcast episode of Tig and Cheryl. But....Cheryl. She's married to RFK Jr

As in Tig Notaro? Was she ever associated with someone who married that POS? The TAL description doesn't mention her.
posted by Snowishberlin at 1:28 PM on July 24, 2023

Tig Notaro and Cheryl Hines have a podcast called Tig and Cheryl: True Story, which had an episode in 2021 about the “Hands on a Hardbody” documentary.

Their 2021 podcast is not the same as the 1997 This American Life radio program linked above.
posted by mbrubeck at 1:39 PM on July 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

Also, I don't think it's super dance-focussed, which widens the possibilities immensely.

*laughs* How would *this* one, of all shows, have dance focus? I did think about that. Unless someone choreographs for people stuck in place, anyway.

I guess this proves you can write a musical about literally anything?
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:42 PM on July 24, 2023

I guess this proves you can write a musical about literally anything?

I think you just volunteered to write a musical on the topic of "anything." Good luck and break a leg! I look forward to its opening night on Broadway (I know a sound guy that is a member of IATSE Local 1. We can make this happen!).
posted by NoMich at 1:51 PM on July 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

Tig Notaro and Cheryl Hines have a podcast called Tig and Cheryl: True Story

Aha! But still, her podcast co-host married that MF?
posted by Snowishberlin at 1:52 PM on July 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm from Longview, and I remember this very well. The Jack Long Nissan dealership where this was held went under due to some kind of insurance or title fraud, if I remember correctly. Also, Rosie O'Donnell bought a school teacher who lost the contest a pickup truck when she heard about it. Also, this is so unbelievably dumb.
posted by bukharin at 1:58 PM on July 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

Hey, jamjam, that was interesting information but I think you might have got a wire crossed - in the Touch the Truck game, participants are free to leave or fall asleep any old time they want and don't get any negative consequences relative to their original state. They just don't get the positive consequence of a new truck.

According to the wiki article you linked, fatal familial insomnia is a heritable prion disease and thus probably unrelated.

Holding someone prisoner for years and keeping them awake and torturing them is not in any way comparable to saying 'hey, if you can keep yourself awake with your hands on the truck and regular short breaks, you get the truck'.

Any damage the participants suffered from joining this frankly bizarre competition was self-inflicted.
posted by ngaiotonga at 2:01 PM on July 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think you just volunteered to write a musical on the topic of "anything."

Toilet Cleaning: The Musical is about as bad as I can think of right now. Alas, I can't write music particularly so someone else would have to do that bit.

I do have an idea of turning a historical scandal into a musical (or more likely, a storytelling event*) and started writing it at one point, but the lack of ability to literally write music, and also zero way to get anything like that made, kinda shot that idea down.

* note: as a noob storyteller, you don't get more than 5-10 minutes at any event unless you're a featured teller, and this particular soap opera would take like an hour, hence why I haven't done it
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:02 PM on July 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

I remember seeing this in the theater when I was living in Seattle. Very memorable. It reminded me of Stephen King's "The Long Walk." Only they don't execute you if you take your hands off the hard body.
posted by zardoz at 2:14 PM on July 24, 2023

This was also loosely the premise of an episode of the AppleTV show Little America called “The 9th Caller.”
posted by chococat at 2:17 PM on July 24, 2023

The more I listen to this, the more the crackups are happening. I'm tempted to post "Uncontrollable Laughter" for the people who complain about how my laugh is so awful and then go, HEY, COULD BE WORSE.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:42 PM on July 24, 2023

I remember a similar competition in the summer of 1998 or 1999 around the time the new VW beetle was released.
It was held in one of the big courtyards of the Universal City Walk here in Los Angeles, hosted by some radio station I think.
The one big difference: contestants didn't have to stand outside touching the car. They had to sit in it. Last one out got the car.
It was hot days in the middle of summer, late July or even August. The car was sitting in the sun with no shade at all. IIRC, when I walked by, there was like 5 people in the back seat still and 3 in the front (I think they maybe were rotating them during breaks). This was Day 2 of the competition.
Breaks were similar as in this one so not really enough time to, say, shower. Which, apparently, some viewed as a strategy. The car had a cloth interior.
All I remember thinking was that the interior was going to end up unbelievably filthy and the winner was never gonna get that smell out.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 3:19 PM on July 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

Yes, Cheryl legit helped Tig get famous, I think? Like loved her act and got her an agent. BUT Cheryl Hines of Curb Your Enthusiasm fame is married (2nd marriage) to RFK Jr. Before he ran for Prez, he'd say crazy stuff and she'd disavow it and....ok (I don't want to blame a woman for a man's behavior, ya know?) But now she's all the way in the campaign, and, despite their hilaraious amazing chemistry, I can't see how Tig, a lady who canceled her own TV show bc she learned about the Producer's "issues" (Louis CK) could continue on the show.
posted by atomicstone at 4:11 PM on July 24, 2023

I vaguely recall hearing about something like this back in 70s, when a motorcycle dealership attempted a similar promo stunt. The contestants had to sit on the dirt-bike that they liked. Two guys ended up squatting on two bikes in their showroom for what seemed like months (?). The hapless motorcycle retailer finally made them both agree to a cash payoff of approx half the value of a new bike.

This concept is high on my list of: "what is going on in the mind of the Broadway investor when they agree to invest in it?"
posted by ovvl at 4:37 PM on July 24, 2023

I present this to my students at the beginning to the semester (next week!). (Spoiler alert)

The finalists fall into a variety of archetypes.
One who is experienced (has won before).
One who is super-prepared (buff).
One who is religious, not in great shape, but relies on faith.
One who is desperate.
One who is a stubborn cuss.

I tell my students stubbornness trumps all.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:14 PM on July 24, 2023

All of the TAL episodes I have heard in the past ten months have been about dead children. Why can't we return to when TAL episodes were about pork bung rings being disguised as calamari?
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 6:07 PM on July 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

What the heck episode had bung rings and calamari?!?!
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:32 PM on July 24, 2023

This American Life - Doppelgangers
posted by chrominance at 11:03 PM on July 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

Holy shit, THAT EPISODE. So many...pungent...quotes.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:37 AM on July 25, 2023

Okay, I started in on the documentary and I like how one judge is all, "I know who's going to win. She's got sensible shoes on, she brought sensible snacks...this guy's eating candy, this guy has on BOOTS...."
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:53 AM on July 25, 2023

What the heck episode had bung rings and calamari?!?!

Most likely not real, or at least not sold in the US. The actual evidence of pork intestines sold as calamari is as silly and circumstantial game of telephone as the 'aliens are real' Congressional hearings.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:13 AM on July 25, 2023

Upon reading the transcript, yup, that was the case. Eventually there was...taste testing... in that story.

Having listened to the soundtrack first before watching the documentary, why yes, they really did base the songs/characters exactly on people in that. Down to the laughing, the religious lady, JD, and that couple.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:23 AM on July 25, 2023

The HVAC anecdote in the 1997 documentary should be in the running for "most Texan thing ever".
posted by scasburn at 12:58 AM on July 29, 2023

Oh, hello, YouTube just fished me up a high school production of the musical.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:25 AM on August 6, 2023