Yes.
I had just landed my own aircraft, taxied in and shut down, when I saw everyone else walking out for this demo flight, so that I just fell into line. I asked one of our own Training Captains what we were going to see, when he told me about the V1 demo. I said something like, 'You must be kidding!' when he just grinned at me. I took that to mean that, yes, he was joking. Then, sat there on the numbers, Mr Right Stuff came on the PA to say something like 'Ve are now goink to attempt (!) an aborted take-off wiz simulated engine failure at V1.' So it turned out that my friend had grinned to say that no, he was not joking!
That was merely stupid, but when we came to that graunching halt and then, in the next second, the engines spooled up again, and off we went, well.... If we had had a real engine failure at V1 minus ten, say, I suppose R & N would have had a real accident to discuss. As it was, the whole kerfuffle came to a reasonably happy end, when I was about the only one bitching and whining about what went on there. Everyone else just wanted to be bezzers with Mr Right Stuff, I guess.
It might be that there's often an assumption that 'This guy is a TEST PILOT! He must be some sort of winged god!' that sometimes leads to disappointment. In the case I am writing about, well, I have never done a real V1 cut in my entire career, where Mr Right Stuff probably had done hundreds, and he almost got that one right.