Not really unlike a spark plug lead Pete. Except the voltage is a little higher and there's a bit of capacitance to store the charge made by the CRT's inner and outer coatings and the glass. It's the discharge of that capacitance that makes the bang.

You've only got about 17kV there. Colour TVs have 25 to 30kV, makes an even bigger bang!

Yes it is,
When a car burns petrol, it never burns it all,,, so flammable gas still remains in the Exhaust pipe, The yobos ! Drill a hole in the last 6 inches of the Exhaust pipe and weld a spark plug in it!
They then run a 12 coil to the plug with a power switch in the dash board, when they turn it on! The plug ignites the Gas and the car backfires!!! Throwing flames out the Exhaust,,,,So they drive up and down the street doing this!
Ohhh such cultured lot we are!
Hahaha

Pete

I remember the time we used to roll down a street late at night, turn off the ignition and then a few seconds later turn it back on and the transmission would restart the engine, then you'd hear an almighty bang, a backfire on steroids. One night I did this in my Torana (a legend of a car it was) and blew the arse out of one of the mufflers. We stopped doing it after that.

Hmmm This can happen sometimes if the car is too Lean or the timing is not spot on.
It will backfires through the carbie though in its lean. , but mufflers get blocked in older cars too. If it backfired through the Exhaust than it would be timing.
Modern cars run a Catalytic converter that looks like a muffler and it works a bit like a filter for cleaner emissions.
Inside is a honey comb structure that is a chemical process.
Cars with Catalytic converters only get half throttle and if the Catalytic converter is taken off the car gets full throttle again and a huge power increase, Illegal of course ,but here they are not testing second hand cars at rego for emissions, they were all meant too ,but it's not followed.
Young guys use to cut them off, little do they know it's extremely toxic to cut one open .
Horrible things cars !!!! Ask any Ex mechanic 😎

Pete