5 Times A Celebrity's Kindness Made A Real-Life Impact

Initially Stern thought the man was joking about his suicidal intentions. To verify the call, Stern asked listeners on the bridge to honk their horns. He heard one in the background, so the man was either telling the truth or at least being an irresponsible pedestrian.

Now fully aware of the seriousness of the situation, Stern busted out every trick in the book to keep the man talking instead of jumping. He encouraged Bonilla to find a hobby that would get him "tuned into anything in life," reminded him that life is sometimes challenging, and, uh, told him that if he killed himself, he'd never get the chance to see Stern's movie, Private Parts.

CBS Radio
"You see, the title is a euphemism for dicks. It's going to be hilarious."

While Stern and Bonilla continued to talk, one of Stern's listeners stopped her car, approached Bonilla, and gave him a bear hug, which is possibly the most adorable thing we've ever read. While Stern and his fan were playing good cop / profane cop, another listener happened to be an actual cop, who expedited a police response.

Helen Trimble
The only other time you'll see this many Stern newspaper clippings is MTV Cribs: Robin Quivers' Basement Shrine Edition.

Bonilla was taken to the hospital, and just a few days later, he was out and visiting the studio to thank Stern, who had milked the incident for every bit of promotion it was worth. And honestly, for turning a man threatening to kill himself into a situation where he could crack jokes about the aftermath, he earned it.

Not that Stern was the first ...

The police were torn between wanting to discourage future suicidal people from demanding to see celebrities, and the fact that Muhammad Goddamn Ali wanted to help them, and the latter obviously won out. Ali popped his head out the window and said, "You're my brother. I love you and I wouldn't lie to you. You got to listen. I want you to come home with me, meet some friends of mine," which is the greatest thing Ali could say to you short of, "Hey, do you have any bullies you'd like me to beat up?"

Associated Press
"Can you send the psychologist back? I'm hallucinating that Muhammad Ali's up here."

After a half-hour conversation that included the shocked man saying "It's really you!" Ali got him inside, downstairs, and to a hospital, where he vanished into the mists of time. Ali commented that the man was depressed because he couldn't find a job and wasn't getting along with his family, so Ali promised to help him find work. Presumably this was accomplished by giving the man a resume that simply read "References: Muhammad Ali" and marching him into the nearest office.

The Grateful Dead had a long and storied career that was largely overshadowed by the fact that an ice cream flavor was named after lead singer Jerry Garcia. But the band remains beloved by potheads across America as well as, inexplicably, the people of Lithuania.

To explain, we need to go back to 1992, the Year Of The Pog. The Summer Olympics rolled around right as the credits for the Cold War were running, and while the collapse of communism was generally something you'd chalk up in the "plus" column, countries that had once found themselves behind the Iron Curtain were flat broke. Funding Olympic teams became a secondary concern to keeping power plants and hospitals running, and it looked like the newly liberated Lithuanians wouldn't be able to play Olympic basketball.

Lithuanian Basketball Federation
Those pillars might as well have been Stalin's middle finger, three times over.

This was a problem, because basketball is Lithuania's ridiculously popular national sport. This was their first chance to compete as an independent nation -- they wanted to shoot hoops for freedom, goddammit! So Lithuanian player Sarunas Marciulionis, who played for the Golden State Warriors, came up with the idea of soliciting the international community for help. Many donors answered the call, but chief among them were, for reasons that are given a tragically inadequate explanation by history books, the Grateful Dead.

Mitchell Layton/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images
"We'll give you whatever; just put on some pants."

The aging '60s stalwarts sent them both a fat check and a load of custom-designed tie-dye jerseys that featured a skeleton dunking a basketball. They were ridiculous but awesome, and they were a welcome change from the drab greys of the Soviet era. While the players weren't allowed to wear them during games because blinding your opponents is considered an unfair advantage, they wore them pretty much everywhere else, including practice and in bed.

Lionsgate / The Film Arcade
Deadheads though they were, they had absolutely no use for "Touch Of Grey."

If you were expecting Lithuania's Olympic journey to take the form of a cheesy inspirational movie, well, you'd be right. The team fought their way to a bronze medal, at one point winning a massive upset against their former Russian overlords. The freaking president of the country joined them in the locker room to sing the national anthem, after which the team doused him with champagne, forcing him to gamely leave in one of their tie-dye outfits like he was ready to take the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Try to picture Obama wearing those duds, to get a sense of just how absurd the scenario was.

Some of their uniforms were then sold to raise money for Lithuanian children's charities, and the team continued their partnership with the Dead in the 1996 Olympics. Man, that shatters so many stoner stereotypes, we don't even know where to begin.

Greg Speirs
Although it does prove a couple others.

Well, yeah, that's exactly what he did. In 2006, Ivory Coast's national soccer team qualified for their first World Cup. Drogba and his teammates then went on television and pleaded for his countrymen to put aside their differences so they could enjoy some good old-fashioned football. Within a week, a truce had been established, because cheering on your country is a lot more fun than shooting at your fellow citizens.

The Ivorian team kept up their diplomatic work when, in 2007, they played a game in a rebel stronghold. Leaders and soldiers from both sides were invited, making it the first time in five years that opposing troops had met peacefully. The Ivorians won the game in a rout, although how shitty would Madagascar had felt if they had won and restarted the war?

Austin Merrill/Vanity Fair
Drogba had to be rushed off the field by soldiers so he could go rescue a cat that was stuck in a tree.

Not long after the game, a peace treaty was signed and the war ended. Drogba was able to secure his homeland several years of peace and optimism just by asking nicely. Meanwhile, Tom Brady still hasn't solved America's gun crisis. Come on, man.

Scott E. Baird can be found rooting for team White Walkers on Twitter at ScottEBaird. When E.M. Caris isn't writing for Cracked, he's trying to write for somewhere else. He can be reached at emcaris1@gmail.com. Raoni is the Brazilian Sub-Zero, and you can challenge him to Mortal Kombat here.

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