The Monday Fly: Two seconds of immortality

While everything you'd want to know about the Human Fly as a comic book character can be found in the 19 published issues, finding out anything reliable about the man it was based on is much harder.

Much harder.

About the only thing most people agree on is that the real-life Human Fly was a Canadian stuntman named Rick Rojatt, someone who tried to pull off increasingly spectacular stunts, was never seen without his mask, was rumored to have some sort of ties to organized crime, and — according to one anonymous commenter — was sometimes Cyndi Lauper's boyfriend.

With stories like that, I almost don't want to know the truth anymore. Either that, or there should be a movie 'cause I'm telling you, SOLID GOLD. (Of course, if anyone has any kind of leads, I'd love to hear about them — send me an e-mail, Rojatt!)

And while the Fly undoubtedly got some coverage from the media at the time (stuntmen were a hot trend thanks to Evel Knievel), there isn't much of an actual record left behind. Except for the odd reference here and there, reports either haven't made it online yet, or may just be gone for good. It's a shame really, and I'd like to think that, in some dusty archive somewhere, the exploits of the Human Fly are preserved for posterity.

But for now, all I've been able to find is a couple of first person accounts, an article in People magazine and this — two seconds of footage from a Milwaukee TV promo for "That's Incredible!" featuring the Fly riding on top of a low-flying DC-8 (one of his most famous stunts).

The brief look at the stunt begins at the six-second mark; if you even begin to blink, you'll miss it. Like the Human Fly himself, it comes and goes in a flash.