Four Times David Attenborough Ruined Voiceover Recording Sessions by Talking About Skee-Ball

David Attenborough is a world-renowned broadcaster. His narration is the gold standard for nature documentaries, and the work he has done as an environmentalist cannot be understated. However, what many people don’t know is that the West London-born Attenborough took a trip to Asbury Park, New Jersey in 1976 and became obsessed with the game Skee-Ball. So much so that he often ruined recording sessions because of his inability to focus on anything except for the boardwalk game. Here are four such times when Attenborough just couldn’t stop talking about Skee-Ball.

The Living Planet (1984 TV series)

While recording the second episode, entitled The Frozen World, of The Living Planet, things went off the rails when Attenborough began discussing the currency system that Skee-Ball uses. (He was supposed to read lines about how polar bears are all sell-outs because of their Coca-Cola commercials.) “So you take real money and you exchange that for tokens. Then you take those tokens and put them in the machine. Depending on how many points you score, you get tickets, and those can be redeemed for prizes, like Army men and stuff.” This lasted for several hours, and they had only rented the recording studio until 4, so the episode’s runtime is 7 minutes.

The Private Life of Plants (1995 TV series)

The sound engineer from this recording session recalls that Attenborough seemed uncharacteristically bitter from the second he stepped into the booth. He was shocked to learn what was bothering Attenborough; apparently during his 1976 Asbury Park visit, almost 20 years ago, when Attenborough brought his arm back to toss his Skee-Ball, someone bumped into him and messed up his shot. “I asked a kid who was working there for a free turn, since my shot was messed up,” he explained. “But the kid wouldn’t give it to me and said I would have to pay for another round. Why should I have had to pay full price when I didn’t get to properly toss all nine balls that I paid for?” The engineer asked if the person who bumped into Attenborough was an employee, and Attenborough said it was, “just some guy.” The engineer then said that he doesn’t think the arcade is liable in that case. This made Attenborough so angry that he flipped the engineer off for the rest of the session. It is the longest flip off of all time, clocking in a 7 hours and 24 minutes.

The Song of the Earth (2000 TV documentary)

The recording for this documentary was apparently lighthearted and fun at first, all sources say. But the mood changed when director Grant Sonnex mentioned off-handedly that he is an avid bowler. This caused Attenborough’s disposition to shift dramatically, as he began bitterly explaining why Skee-Ball is the superior game. Sonnex reacted defensively and began saying how bowling balls are heavy and you have to be strong to bowl, which was “probably why Attenborough didn’t like it.” Attenborough shot back that bowling was the sport of brutes and Skee-Ball requires “a dexterity that bowlers simply don’t have.” The two began shouting at each other and Sonnex ended up using the audio of their screaming match as the voiceover for the film because that was all they ended up recording.

Planet Earth (2006 TV series)

This beloved miniseries is adored by fans, deservedly so. Behind the scenes, however, David Attenborough developed a penchant for beginning his lines, and then inevitably trailing off to brag about the time he outsmarted the Skee-Ball machine by climbing up the ramp and placing the balls into the corner 100 point holes, rather than rolling them in. Attenborough defended his actions, that many called cheating, by saying, “It’s actually impossible to roll the ball into the 100 point holes if you aim. The only way you can get it is if you roll it really hard and it just happens to land in because of dumb luck. That is, unless you do the ol’ Attenborough method.” After the sessions, he was reportedly very nervous that someone in the room was going to steal his trick and use the knowledge to earn the highest score. In recent interviews, Attenborough has said that giving away this secret is his “life’s greatest regret.”