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When we first heard about Jerry Seinfeld's big Bee Movie publicity stunt at Cannes (bee costumes, wires over the beach, mobs of gasping spectators, etc etc), the whole affair seemed incredibly reckless: had a strong gust of wind or a Pixar saboteur interfered with the delicate proceedings, the world easily could have lost its finest, semi-retired observational humorist and Porsche collector. As it turns out, our fears were at least partially unnecessary, as THR notes that a far more expendable member of the Bee Movie team volunteered for zip-line-test-dummy duty to ensure the star's safety:

At 4:30 a.m. Wednesday, DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg strapped himself into a harness, stepped off the eighth story of the Carlton Hotel and, thanks to a special rig, floated down across the Croisette to a jetty on the Carlton Beach. It was all part of the dry run for a stunt performed Thursday for the benefit of the international media, which witnessed Jerry Seinfeld, in puffy bee suit, fly across the main drag in Cannes to promote his DreamWorks animated film "Bee Movie," which Paramount Pictures will release Nov. 2 in the U.S.

As he floated gracefully from the roof of the Carlton in the dark of that very early morning, Katzenberg allowed himself a moment to imagine what it would be like if he, not Seinfeld, flew above the assembled throng of worshipful movie fans later that day, accepting their shouted, "You're the man, Jeff! No one runs an animation studio like you!" praise with an appreciative wave of his hand. His reverie, however, was cut short as he alighted on the pier and overheard one of the safety technicians mention to an associate, "Glad he's safe. Geffen said that if the line snapped we should just let his body drift away into the ocean so that it wouldn't distract from the Shrek opening, and that might have been a little annoying. We don't have another bee suit."

[Photo: Getty Images]