KEY POINTS:
This morning entrepreneur and noted self-publicist Marc Ellis staged an "eruption" of Rangitoto to raise awareness of his new website.
As publicity stunts go, it wasn't too bad.
Some stunts, however, have been downright crazy.
The origin of "stunt" was a Middle English word, stunnt, meaning "foolish or short-witted", from an old Norse word meaning "dwarfish".
It was only in 1878 that the word entered a dictionary as "an unusual or difficult feat requiring great skill or daring; especially: one performed or undertaken chiefly to gain attention or publicity".
An early form of the activity was going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, which many have tried - some have even lived to tell the tale.
Here's a list of some of the more famous publicity stunts:
* In 1916, magician Harry Houdini had himself strapped into a straitjacket and hung upside down off the roof of a New York City building, where 50,000 people watched him escape and return to safety.
* In 2003, magician David Blaine had himself locked into a glass box and hung for 44 days from a spot next to the Tower Bridge in London.
* Our own AJ Hackett drew the world's attention to the phenomenon that is the bungee jump, when he threw himself (illegally) off Paris' Eiffel Tower in 1993. It certainly worked for Hackett - launching a multi-million dollar business that took him all the way to being presented with the famous red book by Paul Henry last week on "This is Your Life".
* The Beatles staged their final live performance on the rooftop of the Apple building at 3 Savile Row, London, in 1969. Most of the performance was filmed and later included in the film Let It Be. While the band was playing, the local police were called because of complaints about the noise.
* Drawing inspiration from the Beatles' effort, Irish supergroup U2 debuted their hit Where the Streets have no name on the rooftop of The Million Dollar Hotel in Los Angeles in 1989, creating traffic chaos. When asked about the similarity between U2's rooftop video and what the Fab Four had done, U2 frontman Bono replied, "Well, we've ripped off the Beatles many times already ..."
* The undisputed maestro of the publicity stunt has to be daredevil motorcyclist Evil Knievel. Having jumped over multiple rows of parked buses many times, Knievel set his sights on a jump over the Snake River Canyon, in Idaho.
In 1972 Knievel hired a former NASA engineer to design and build the rocket-powered 'X-2 Skycycle'. During two test jumps, the machine failed to make it all the way across the canyon, but Knievel said he'd go ahead anyway.
On September 8, 1974, Knievel tried to achieve the impossible. Unfortunately, his parachute deployed too early and the drag caused rider and bike to plummet into the river well short of the target. Knievel survived the jump with only minor injuries.
