[NielsPis]

@kellyhound: so I guess that concludes it's staged?

[gatagato]

Originally Posted by NielsPis ↗

@kellyhound: so I guess that concludes it's staged?

Yes. And they had thousand good reasons to stage it If you read carefully, you'll notice that 'interviewer' is written 'in inverted commas', because the 'interviewer' Mike Roy was actually the vice-president for finance of NMU at the time. The tower actually fell thanks to a hidden string that someone pulled in the moment the reporter moved in front of the tower.
Thanks to the informations provided by Kellyhound I could find this:
From Northern Michigan University website
Jenga Project
Leaning Tower of Pisa filmed coming down (Mar, 2005, original footage)
(video provided courtesy of the Lake Superior Community Partnership and filmed by MediaBox)
Someone got the video and uploaded to the internet, then by Bryant Varney uploaded a copy himself HERE.

Noteworthy: I've been receiving a number of emails from urban legend / myth websites that want to know if this was a staged event (17 Jan 06). I was asked by one of the production teams that do the VH1 countdowns if they could use this footage for their Junk Websites countdown. I said they could (17 Jan 06). David Latham, a scout for NBC's "Most Outrageous TV Moments" has requested the use of this footage for the show. I am now getting clearance from the reporter and the company that filmed it (31 Mar 06). NBC's program “Most Outrageous Moments” broadcasted this video clip on Tuesday, 09 May 06 at 8PM. NBC doled out $1000.00 for the use of the footage which went to pay for a laptop for the Lake Superior Community Partnership (13 Jun 06).

Click here: for the photo op featuring me, Mike Roy, Vice President of Finance for NMU (the clumsy reporter), Amy Clickner, CEO of L.S.C.P. and John Major from Media Box who filmed the toppling along with the check for $1000.00 given to L.S.C.P. by NBC for the use of the footage (16 Jun 06). - [note:broken link]

Mina Matsumoto from Duo Creative Communications (T.V. production company assisting for Japanese T.V. media based in San Francisco) asked me if this video clip can air on Japanese television (02 Jun 06). Lake Superior Community Partnership has granted permission and has sent a demo tape (16 Jun 06). Morgan Landau, Associate Producer for The Maury Show, has requested use of the video clip (19 Oct 06).

But you can listen to the story straight from the horse's mouth:
Tiempo Real interviewed Bryant via SKYPE and put out a video called "La 'tragedia' de la torre de Pisa"(22 Sep 09)
http://www.citytv.com.co/videos/2317...-torre-de-pisa
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So, initially, Bryant didn't admit it was staged, nor claimed it wasn't, just to keep the interest on it, and, indirectly, to the project. It worked very well.
So:
staged = yes
viral = yes, but not purposely
hoax = no

[jesusopfer]

awesome!