The Guinness world records include incredible accomplishments, spectacular stunts, stupendous
science feats, and amazing sporting achievements.
The book that has been released yearly since 1955 itself holds a world record as the best-selling
copyrighted book of all time.
The 2017 edition marked the 62nd year of publication, published in 100 countries and 23 languages.
Records include everything from the tallest person, to the smallest dog- but what about
the wackier records that end up in the book?
That’s what we’ll be looking at today, in this episode of The Infographics Show:
The most bizarre world records.
10.
The Heavy Twins – In November 1978, two brothers, Billy Leon McCrary and Benny Loyd
McCrary were confirmed as the world's heaviest twins.
Billy tipped the scales at 743 lb. (337 kg) and brother Benny weighed in at 723 lb. (328
kg).
Being large may not be that bizarre, but to put this in to perspective, their combined
weight was the same as 7.5 average American males!
And each had a waist measuring 84 in (213 cm).
By the age of 10, they were each already a whopping 200 lb.
(90.7 kg), and by high school they had each ballooned to 600 lb. (272 kg).
In an interview with Inside Wrestling magazine in 1998, Benny explained that he and his brother
started to pile on the pounds from the age of four, after contracting German measles,
which damaged their pituitary glands, the hormone-producing gland that controls a person’s
growth rate.
9.
Wealthy Kitty - In 1988, Blackie the cat became the wealthiest cat ever recorded when its
owner, a British antiques dealer, died leaving behind an estate worth $13 million.
Blackie was the last surviving of the 15 cats he shared his mansion with.
And it wasn’t just Blackie the cat to benefit from the generous antiques dealer.
Cash was left to the gardener, the mechanic, and the plumber.
We are unsure how Blackie spent his fortune, possibly on tinned mackerel and rooms full
of kitty toys.
8.
Longest eyelash - It’s not just cats that get in the record books.
We also found a dog who made it in for having the longest eyelash at 6.69 in (17 cm).
Ranmaru is an Australian Labradoodle, living in Tokyo, Japan, and the record was officiated
on September 4, 2014.
Ranmaru's right eyelash was measured for the record and he was nearly 4 years old at the
time.
7.
The Famous Bog Snorkeler – Bog snorkeling is a bizarre sporting event that consists
of competitors diving into a water-filled trench cut through a peat bog and racing from
one end to the other.
They have to wear snorkels and flippers, but can only use flipper power to compete…so
no normal swim strokes are permitted.
In 1994, Daniel Bent set the record for fastest ever time in a bog-snorkeling triathlon.
For 2 hours, 23 minutes, and 24 seconds, he flapped about in mud to become the winner
at the World Bog Snorkeling Championships.
On his blog, Danny comments, “These bogs are deep and dark and filled with eels.”
Does NOT sound like much fun!
6.
Chocolate Shake - So the only way to prepare a milkshake is with a blender right?
Wrong, in 1999, Gary Bashaw Jr. set this record by dispensing 1.82 fluid oz. of chocolate
milk mixture from his nose.
He first mixed the milk and chocolate powder in his mouth, before squirting it into a glass
from his nostrils.
That’s one strange world record, and the shake can not have tasted that good...but
who are we kidding, I’d probably still drink it.
5.
Big Bubbles – If you’re used to chewing gum, then you probably like to blow bubbles,
and no one is better at it than American Chad Fell.
On April 24, 2004, at Double Springs High School, in Winston County, Alabama, Chad blew
a bubblegum bubble with a diameter of 20 inches (50.8 cm) without using his hands.
The secret of Chad’s success is blowing with three pieces of Dubble Bubble gum.
In 2016, NBC Sports and Guinness World Records ran a show called 'For the Record' just before
the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Hosted by Rutledge Wood, the show saw USA Olympians take on alternative competitions,
and NBC Sports announcer Bob Costas tried his hand at this bubbly record- but it looks
like he didn’t match up to Chad Fell, who still holds the record.
4.
Toilet seats smashed over the head.
– Yes, I really did just say that.
There’s a record for even this bizarre pastime, and in 2008, Kevin Shelley set the record
for the most toilet seats broken by one’s head in one minute by shattering 46.
In 2016, Kevin told online magazine New York Media that because he already held a couple
of martial-arts records for breaking things with a forehead strike, the Guinness Book
of World Records people in Germany asked him if he would come over and try to break the
toilet seat breaking record, which stood at 42 in one minute.
So they flew Kevin to Cologne, Germany, where he spent a week training before going on to
break the record.
3.
Long nails on a male – Melvin Boothe from Michigan officially won this world record
in 2010 with his freakish curly nails that measured 32.3 feet long (9.85 meters).
That’s over 3 stories!
Melvin served in the United States Army and retired after 27 years of service before focusing
on nail growth.
He died on December 21, 2009 at the age of 61 years old.
And it’s not just Melvin who took up this bizarre pastime of growing long nails.
We found a few other examples online.
Another is Shridhar Chillal who was born in 1938.
His nails reached 30 feet (9 meters and 9 centimeters), and in 2017, the 75-year-old
admitted to oddee.com, a website that publishes odd stories, that he has not cut his nails
since 1952- though he actually just cut them off in July of 2018 at last.
2.
Toothpaste collector – Dr. Val Kolpakov, a practicing dentist in Saginaw, Michigan,
known to patients as “Dr. Val,” has had an interest in collecting tubes of toothpaste
since he read about Carsten Gutzeit, a German who collected 500 tubes.
Dr Val started buying toothpastes on eBay and contemporary versions in stores.
He had everything from whiskey-flavored to curry, and one of his tubes even dates to
World War II, and was made with a radioactive compound.
His record was made official in 2012, with a collection of 2,037 toothpaste tubes.
1.
Twerking record – And to end on a jiggle, in 2013, hip-hop artist Big Freedia set a
record for most people twerking simultaneously when she ran a twerking event at New York's
Herald Square.
The Queen of Bounce managed to assemble 358 dancers, ranging in age from 8 to 80, and
had them twerk for two minutes straight.
A Guinness judge said a minimum of 250 people were needed to set the record, so Big Freedia
smashed it.
When asked about what the record would mean to her, Big Freedia told Fuse, “It would
open a lot of doors and set history for bounce music, and let the world know that we’ve
been twerking for a long time.
This is not new at all.
Now it’s time to
set the record.”
When doing our research, we found there were many bizarre records out there.
Do you know of other strange records that we didn’t mention here?
Let us know in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video called HOTTEST Recorded Temperatures On Earth
(THINGS & PLACES).
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe.
See you next time!