On April 15, 1984, Welsh comedian Tommy Cooper took the stage at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London to perform his world-famous magic act on the TV variety show Live from Her Majesty’s . Halfway through his set, with a reported 12 million people watching, Cooper fell to the floor and slumped backward into the curtain behind him. The audience laughed hysterically as a hand reached out through the curtain and appeared to drag him backstage. For nearly a minute, the laughter continued until the show cut to commercial. Videos by VICE According to the show’s host, Jimmy Tarbuck, everyone behind the scenes assumed that Cooper had simply slipped a pratfall into his act, which he’d been known to do without telling anybody . While standing in the wings, producer Dave Bell asked Cooper’s son about the supposed gag and was informed that Cooper had a bad back, making it difficult for him to pull off a stunt like that. Once they realized that he wasn’t joking around, attempts were made to get him off the stage.…