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KEITH MOON, GHOST OF: per Wikipedia, Keith Moon was the drummer for the Who from 1964 until his death in 1978. Regarded as one of the greatest drummers in the history of rock music, he was noted for his unique style of playing and his eccentric, often self-destructive behaviour. This included destroying hotel rooms and drum kits, blowing up toilets with cherry bombs or dynamite, and destroying television sets.
You may ask, how is Keith Moon relevant to the birth of home improvement television? Well, it turns out, he directly assisted with its birth in 1979, as we were filming the second episode of This Old House. Included in the agenda was a demolition demonstration.
Well, I sure did demo that little powder room on camera. I was suddenly so uncharacteristically intent upon smashing the tiles just to hear them shatter that I picked up the crowbar and began attacking the plaster and lath like a man possessed…
Because I was - by the newbie ghost of Keith Moon. (Please refer back to the section on ghosts for more comprehensive details re: spectral possession.)
Spectral possession is a distinctly unnatural and unsettling experience. More than 45 years on, I still don't have the words to articulate that sensation with any degree of accuracy, so I won't even try.
Of course, in my (Keith’s?) haste to smash porcelain, I had neglected the crucial step of turning off the electricity to the bathroom that I was going to town on. Fortunately, there was no incident; however, this was noticed by several eagle-eyed viewers, one of whom wrote in to express justifiable concern about my having forgotten something so crucial to my own safety. Even worse, Norm was SO DISAPPOINTED in me that I got a long-winded lecture on the importance of jobsite safety. (This, of course, made the fact that Keith would end up possessing HIM a couple of months later absolutely HILARIOUS. God, what I would’ve done to have a smart phone handy to get that on tape. If only Norm’s ‘Keith Moon possession story’ were mine to tell. Perhaps an intrepid writer could buy him a couple of drinks and get him to talk about it. Seriously, I wish someone would.)
Anyway, Keith Moon has since learned that possession of the living without their express consent is extremely bad spectral form; however, he could haunt any toilet in the world. That's why Richard Trethewey keeps a small flask of Courvoisier in his toolbox- one flush, and Moonie’s no longer trying to make your toilet explode. (Spectral M-80s aren't effective, but they're still a noisy nuisance.