Heh!
Something like 15 years ago, I had a bunch of Samoan landscapers remove several yuccas from my front yard. They were part of the landscaping crew at Charlie Keating's Phoenician Resort doing a little moonlighting in the suburbs.
Scared the cr@p out of me watching them. They wrapped one end of some steel cable around the yucca, wrapped the other end around the hitch on the back of their truck, and put 'er in gear. I had visions of that cable snapping and taking out the picture window directly behind the plant. Guess they knew what they were doing though, they came right out with only some minor ruts in the grass.
Jerry