Culture

Brendan Fraser Came Clean And Apologized For A San Francisco Catastrophe He Caused 25 Years Ago

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Brendan Fraser at The Whale red carpet premiere

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - OCTOBER 11, 2022: Brendan Fraser attends the UK Premiere of 'The Whale' at the Royal Festival Hall during the 66th BFI London Film Festival in London, United Kingdom on October 11, 2022. Photo by Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images


Brendan Fraser is a national treasure. Truly. The world is a better place when we have him as an active fixture in Hollywood TV and Film projects.

His first IMDB credit was 31 years ago in a TV movie and he went on to star in some of the biggest late-90s and early-2000s projects of the era. One of those projects was Disney’s George of the Jungle which includes a famous scene in San Francisco where George, played by Brendan Fraser, is hanging from the Bay Bridge to Oakland.

At the recent red carpet premiere for Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, Brendan Fraser spoke with SFGate and apologized for that scene because it caused literal mayhem in the San Francisco Bay Area. Fraser himself wasn’t hanging from the Bay Bridge (he wrongly referred to it as the Golden Gate below) and Disney hung a dummy from the bridge. People caught sight of this and it created a traffic panic and there were new helicopters flying out there thinking a parachute was stuck in the bridge.

Brendan Fraser apologizes for causing mayhem 25 years ago

Frasher re-told his story to SFGate while apologizing. He said:

“I have almost an apology to make. When we were doing ‘George of the Jungle,’ George goes to rescue a parachutist tangled in the Golden Gate Bridge. That means Disney put a mannequin hanging by a parachute from the uprights.”

“It brought traffic to a standstill on either side of the bridge. My trailer was on the other side in a parking lot. I just remember watching the Golden Gate Bridge. There’s this dummy parachutist hanging from it. I had the TV on, and ‘Oprah’ got interrupted because there was a special news report with helicopters saying a parachute is dangling on the bridge. And I’m going — wait a minute, I’m looking at the helicopters and TV — somebody didn’t pull a permit, somebody’s going to get in trouble with the mayor’s office. So I can only apologize for that.”

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zmoDnLdbFoQ

The apology didn’t stop there. Later in the Mill Valley Film Festival he received a lifetime achievement award where he furthered the apology, saying:

“One more quick thing — I just want to make a quick apology. A couple years back I made a film called ‘George of the Jungle.'” He went on to describe the scene again, to a roar of laughter from the crowd. “So, that said — my bad, it won’t happen again.”

Here is that iconic (Oakland) Bay Bridge scene he was referring to

Now I don’t know you, the reader, at all. I can’t predict your TV tastes based on the fact that you are reading this article. But if you are into Superhero or anti-Superhero entertainment, I highly suggest checking out Doom Patrol with Brendan Fraser. You can stream it on HBO Max and Brendan plays Cliff Steele. I stumbled onto it a year or so ago and the first season was spectacular.