Sean C. Morgan
The McCubbins family has a reputation around Sweet Home for doing things just a little bit differently – transcontinental hikes, powered parachutes, exotic animals.
Now that includes an appearance on a Swedish TV show.
Shooting bowling balls out of a cannon on YouTube will do that for you.
Danny McCubbins and his son, Gabe, will appear on “99 Things to Do Before You Die,” with two of Sweden’s most popular television hosts, “Erik och Mackan.”
Erik and Mackan are traveling around the world to find the most spectacular and unusual activities the planet has to offer.
They have dived with sharks, learned to fly a helicopter and tried the world’s highest bungee jump, 764 feet.
In January, they traveled the United States coast to coast to explore everything famously American that everybody should have on their “bucket list.”
The program, 10 45-minute episodes, will appear on TV6 in Sweden in the spring. Shooting ends this month.
“My grandpa Frank has bowling ball cannons,” said Gabe McCubbins. “It shoots a bowling ball a half mile high and a quarter mile out.”
Someone posted a video of the family firing the cannon on YouTube, and the shows producers saw it.
Around Thanksgiving a producer called and said he was interested in it, but the family really didn’t know what to make of the inquiry. Frank McCubbins had gone to Arizona right after Christmas when the producer called again to set a time to film the bowling ball cannon for Jan. 23.
Frank told the producer to have Gabe do it.
They tried to get Frank to do it.
“They said, ‘We want you to shoot it,’” Gabe said. “’We’ll fly you.’ He says, ‘I’m 80 years old. No way.’”
So the producers settled for Gabe, he said. The crew brought a box of bowling pins and a request that Gabe and his family had yet to try: hit the pins.
They spent the day firing the largest cannon, using 4 ounces of black powder, eight times. They fired a smoke cannon once, and then they fired the small bowling ball cannon three times.
The smoke cannon sends up a smoke ring, Gabe said. If there is no wind, it will get as big as the McCubbins farm, which is located near the end of Ames Creek Drive.
The best part of the experience was laying the small cannon down between two ponds and setting up the bowling pins 60 feet away, Gabe said. He had never tried to shoot pins before, so it involved some trial and error.
He had to shim the cannon to keep the bowling ball from rolling out the end of the cannon, he said. “We took three shots. On the third shot, we hit the bowling pins, and they shot everywhere. It looked like a bomb went off.”
The bowling ball hit a rock and split in half after blasting through the pins. The producers and hosts signed the inside of the shattered bowling ball for Gabe.
The shoot included Gabe, his father and eight members of the show, including the hosts, producers – one from Hollywood, and crew. Gabe’s brother, Justin, helped out for part of the day.
“They all spoke pretty good English,” Gabe said. They talked to each other in Swedish, and effortlessly shifted gears to English when talking to the Americans.
The day’s events included one tree getting shredded by a shot.
The McCubbins family began firing bowling balls about 18 years ago, when Gabe was about 12, he said. Frank had taken him and other grandchildren to an area between Interstate Five and Lebanon where someone was shooting bowling balls into the hillside.
Frank soon bought his own cannon. Since then, the family has probably fired 500 bowling balls.
The family has received bowling balls from a variety of sources, including from the transfer station when Sweet Home Lanes replaced its balls. A friend who used to own a bowling center in Lakeview brings them when he visits.
“Most of them end up in the pond,” Gabe said. Sometimes they float and can be reused.
The McCubbins were joined by a man from Warrenton who had a tsunami warning horn mounted on his truck, Gabe said. Everyone had to wear ear plugs and cover his ears with his hands.
One McCubbins employee reported hearing the horn on Pleasant Valley, Gabe said. “It was intense. It was shake-your-body intense.”
The echo lasted about 40 seconds, Gabe said.
Gabe enjoyed the hosts, he said. “They were funny, kind of like a ‘Mythbusters’ kind of feeling. One told me they’re just going around America doing things they can’t do in Sweden.”
Erik and Mackan come from a long background in TV and radio in Sweden. They have hosted everything from talk shows and galas to game shows and are popular for their charming personalities and fun interviews. They are described as two likeable “average Joes” who are smart and funny.
They most recently hosted a star-studded charity event to raise awareness for breast cancer. Their TV shows are popular with TV views and critics and have garnered numerous Kristallen (Swedish version of the Emmy Award) nominations.
TV6 has a penetration of 87 percent of the total Swedish population, with top viewings as high as a 41-percent share of the present audience. The channel primarily targets male viewers between 15 and 34.
Producer J Graigory has worked on the Drew Carey Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live! in the United States.
The hosts tried All-Star Pizza, McCubbins said, and they went nuts over it. The visitors also got a big kick out of a full-body stuffed mountain lion trophy.
Even breaking the big cannon once didn’t slow anyone down much.
Danny and Justin fixed it while Gabe worked with the little cannon, Gabe said.
“We had never broken it before.”
Someone shouted, “We broke the cannon.”
“That’s why I’m standing over here,” Mackan shouted back.
Unfazed, Erik started lighting the fuse.