I don't remember hearing much about this kind of imitation when I was growing up. But that was in a VERY differnt time (I'm 58). Even if something like that happened (for example, some kid puts on a cape and tries to fly like Superman) it was not national newsworthy the way I think it would be today. From my memory banks......the most common problem were kids getting poked in the eye pretending to be the 3 Stooges.

In more recent years, as wrestling more and more resembles staged gladatorial combat, you hear now and then of somebody getting hurt/killed trying to copy some of the stunts. There are also reports of people (Darwin Award candidates) getting killed trying to replicate movie stunts. And, of course, the recent Darwin Award thread comes to mind.



>Hi all
>
>After Saddam's execution I found atleast 2 international news stories where children hung themselves, trying to demo the execution. If I remember correctly we had a high media profile hanging sometime back and we too had such deaths.
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>We had a TV series here "Shaktimaan" which had to be taken of air because children were dying left and right, due to trying to, jumping off high places or burning oneself, thinking that "Shaktimaan" will come and save them.
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>We also had Superman and Spiderman in our times, but I don't remember trying stunts, not that I never did stunts :), but not such serious ones with a hope of being saved by one of the super heroes.
>
>Maybe in India we had less exposure to super heroes during those days, but how was it in the America and Europe, did the children (now of our age) do such things?
>
>What are we as parents missing?