Some people attempt world records, and sometimes they fail epically.
Let's talk about that.
♪ (theme music) ♪
- Good Mythical Morning. - Since 1955,
Guinness breweries, that's right,
the people that make the beer have also been publishing the
Guinness Book of Records. Formally know as the
- Guinness Book of World Records. - When did that change?
Recently! They took the 'World' out
even though it still applies to the world.
Does it now include the universe? Is that what it is?
- Maybe they're opening it up to aliens. - Aliens!
- I don't know. - How do they know?
- How do you verify that? - Well you have to look in
- the record book and verify it. - It's a circle.
What began as just records of the natural world and other interesting records,
- expanded to include competition. - Like the biggest rock?
Things like that. Maybe longest river.
I don't know. Tallest tree.
- That type of stuff. - Okay.
But then it expanded to include competitions and abstract feats including:
Largest rubber band ball; 700,000 rubber bands.
Most concrete blocks broken while holding an egg; 24.
- Most snails on face; - 18.
- 43. - Woah.
- Twice as many as I would've thought. - Farthest milk squirt from eye;
- 12 meters. - Nine feet, two inches.
- A lot shorter than I would have thought. - (laughs)
But sometimes people attempt records, and they don't make it into the book.
They fail epically, and a lot of those times,
those fails are documented, and thankfully,
for all of us, we now have access to that documentation.
And we're bringing them to use. Starting with the most Smurfs
in one place. Yes ladies and gentlemen,
this was attempted in 2008. 394 Croatians attempted to
break the record of the most people dressed up in Smurf costumes
- (Link) Oh, they were dressed. - (Rhett) in one place.
- They were dressed up. - Yeah.
These weren't an actual corralling of actual Smurfs.
No, that record is just like 17.
- Actual Smurfs. - But it is in Croatia
- That's where they're from. - because the actual Smurfs are
- from Croatia. - These are just people
dressed up as Smurfs. Okay, so they thought that they needed,
oh, all we need is 291 Smurfs. That's the old record.
So they went to 394. They thought they had broken it by more
- than 100. - Okay. Yeah.
Then after they did this whole thing, they found out the next day
that previously, the year before in 2007, a group of college students had
already broken the record with 451 Smurf people.
So there's two bad ideas here. First, dressing up like a bunch of Smurfs.
That's a bad idea that you want to set that record.
- It looks fun. - And bad idea number two is
you didn't research it. You would think that if you have
an idea like, "Hey, let's dress up like Smurfs,"
that you would at least know the existing record.
- You'd think. - Yeah.
- But they-- - That's the only thing you need to know.
But they didn't. It took them 24 hours to find out,
so there was 24 hours of glory, and it made them feel that much stupider
for then realizing that they hadn't broken anything.
Well I'm sure they had a great time. When you dress up like that,
and get blue like that, and get together in a group of people,
- I mean all kinds of things happen. - Well when you realize you don't break
a world record, that's when you get blue.
- (laughs) I got one for you. - (laughs)
Let's move on and forget that comment ever happened.
- The world's largest sandwich - Oh.
was attempted to be made back in 2008 in Iran.
One thousand Iranian cooks began work on a nearly 5000 foot sandwich.
- That's a long sandwich. - Over 1500 meters.
That might be the longest sandwich in the world.
The sandwich contained 1000 kilograms, over 2200 pounds of ostrich meat.
- Oh. - Which is very popular in Iran.
- There's a lot of meat on that ostrich. - Or I-ran,
- depending on how you want to say it. - Iran.
A large crowd showed up to watch them assemble this sandwich.
(yelling) Hey! We're making an ostrich sandwich!
They got-- I mean-- I would show up
- Yeah. - if I wasn't driving to a sense
- of that thing. - Yeah. I love big sandwiches.
I want to see the world's largest sandwich happen.
- Yeah. - And everybody's excited.
It takes a while to assemble this sandwich.
And according to the pictures, they are very sanitary about it.
(Link) (laughs) Yeah they were. So they assemble the sandwich.
- Boom! Done! - Wow! Set a record! Call Guinness!
And then the crowd-- Well Guinness was there.
- Okay. - To certify it.
Then the crowd starts devouring the sandwich
before the Guinness officials could certify the length of the sandwich.
- They ate the sandwich too soon! - Well they like ostrich.
- Can you really blame them? - (giggles)
You put a big ostrich sandwich in front of me and see how long it lasts.
It's like they're measuring one end and all of a sudden they're like,
"What? What? Hol-- Crumbs? What happened here?"
That's a fail. That's a big fail,
but I don't know if it matches Snapple's 2005 attempt at
the world's largest popsicle. Yes, this was a publicity stunt to
promote a new flavor of Snapple: Kiwi strawberry.
- Okay. This is good so far. - Seems like a great idea.
The previous record-- They were going to beat the record
by more than five feet. They were gonna get this thing up to
- 25 feet tall. - Wow.
Over 20 tons. They did--
They went through all of this stuff. They got these specialists,
like ice sculpting specialists involved. They brought it out in this
completely frigid truck, totally frozen.
- (Link) Sure. - And then all you gotta do to
set the record is get the popsicle out there, and get it straight up.
- It's gotta sit on its own. - But it was so hot that day
- Oh. - in Manhattan,
- (laughs) - that it began to melt,
and before they could get the thing fully straight up,
it just started melting like crazy. I mean,
(stutters) you see the video. They open up the thing that's holding
the popsicle and it's just a river of Snapple.
- (Link) Oh no. - (Rhett) A river of Snapple flows down
the streets. The fire department has to clean this
- thing up with fire hoses. - (Link) Oh gosh.
(Rhett) And then they only got it to 25 degrees from horizontal.
That's a fail. I mean,
when you don't get the-- The popsicle fully--
- Full massed. - It's a fail.
But there was a lot of free Snapple in the gutters.
- I'm sure people enjoyed that. - The rats were just living it up for
- a few days. - "Wow this is unusual.
- Kiwi Strawberry! I like that!" - Okay.
The world's biggest popsicle makes sense to me.
I thought that you were gonna say that they ate it before
- they certified that one too. - No.
- Because it melted. - You can't put your teeth into it.
- Do it in a frigid place. - You know that.
This one's weirder. The most bras chain-linked together.
- Hm. - Attempted in--
- I've thought of this. - (laughs)
Attempted in 2011 in Worchester, UK. They wanted to create a bra chain over
100 miles long. Over 163 kilometers.
- Yeah. Who doesn't? - Using, quote,
- old, unwanted bras. - (Rhett) Yeah, you gotta get rid of them.
This was an event to raise money for women's charities.
Breast cancer research. So, I mean,
this was a great cause, and they start hooking this thing together,
by the way, there was a previous record.
- Yeah. - People had done this in the past
- in Australia. - Well it seems obvious.
They had linked 166,000 braziers together.
How do you come up with this stuff? So they start linking these things together
hour after hour, linking them together. By hour nine--
- That's a long time in. - They have taken groups of
200 linked bras out of bags, and then they're hooking those together,
and then they get exasperated and give up because they can not get the bras out of
the bags untangled. So they thought about how easy it was to
connect the bras, but what they didn't think about was
- the thing everybody knows, - Yeah.
- how difficult it is to un-connect a bra. - Yeah.
So they had a whole mangle of them in trash bags,
and they just said, "You know what? Forget it."
- Yeah. Give it up. - It's over.
- I have trouble with my bra bags too. - Nine hours in.
I used to saw 'brawl' until like four years ago.
- 'Brawl'? - Like a fight in a street?
Yeah like 'brawl' because of where I'm from.
- Brawl! - I'm from there too, Rhett.
- (Link and crew laughs) - But I've never called it a 'brawl'.
- A brawl. - A brazier.
- (inaudible) - An over the shoulder boulder holder.
Okay, this one's got an incredible video associated with it.
A guy named Thomas Alexander Demitriwix was on a show in Denmark,
and he was attempting to break open 100 coconuts with a karate chop in
under two minutes, and you can see how that went.
That's a lot of coconuts. They're all lined up on the--
I don't know what they're saying, but they're probably saying,
"Are you about to break 100 coconuts?" And he's like,
- "Yeah! I'm gonna do it with my hand. - Here he goes.
- You just tell me when to go." - (counting down in different language)
- Oh! - Nope.
- What?! - Out.
Aah! He's missing!
- He's hitting just the metal bar. - He's not even hitting the coconuts!
He's lost heart! He's lost it!
- (yells) - Look! No-- He's-- Look!
- Yep! Yep! Ugh, no. - He's back?
- Is he coming back? - Look, she's breaking in.
He doesn't have anything to say, and neither do I.
Woah, he's got a hurt hand. I'll tell you that right now.
- He didn't hit any coconuts! - Well he hit a few.
- He didn't break any. - He hit like three,
and then he started just hitting the gutter.
I think this must have been a last minute substitute.
He was like, (southern accent)
- "Where's the guy - (giggles)
that's supposed to break the coconuts? Sir, get in here!"
(normal voice) And he's like, "I-- Oh-- I'll go for it!"
- Oh! Oh! Oh! This is impossible! - If you're gonna try to break a record,
you should practice first. (stutters) I mean, at least you gotta
- be able to make contact with a coconut. - I don't know.
Maybe the coconuts were just extra hard that day.
- Okay. - (crew laughs)
- That happens. - I would have thought--
- Extra crispy. - I would've thought that was the most
extreme example until I ran across this one. Smashing watermelons with your head.
This is from a Dutch game show, so, there's some subtitles.
So let's watch this together. It's probably simultaneously the most
painful and entertaining thing I've ever watched, period.
Alright.
He bets he can do this.
Gotta break them all with his head. Two minutes. That's a long time.
- Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew! - Oh. That's--
- (giggles) - He's having a little trouble.
- Maybe the watermelons are hard that day. - (laughs)
- Just like the coconuts! - He didn't break the first one.
- It's alright. - Hold on,
- you can't get help from the host. - He just-- Look! Look!
- Look at the crowd. - Maybe his hair is slowing him down.
What? He's hitting each one like
- eight to twelve times. - And everyone is feeling bad for this guy.
- Look at that girl. - Oh. My. Gosh.
Oh goodness. Oh my gosh.
- He's loosing steam. - The producer is like,
"You need to tell this guy to stop. He's gonna kill himself with a watermelon
- Look. - on national television."
And he does stop him.
Oh my gosh. That's like self induced torture, man.
I will never look at a watermelon the same way again.
Well I'll never try to break one with my forehead.
- Oh my gosh. I'm sorry, dude. - I do have a lot of leverage though.
I think I could, yeah. I think I could do that.
(laughs) Yeah, I think the hair was slowing him down.
Oh, don't do that one! As a matter of fact,
- don't try any of these. - Well I think the moral of the story is
if you want to break a world record, you should either
attempt it on your own, ahead of time,
- Privately! - or do research about what record you're
- breaking. That's the moral. - Thanks for liking and commenting
- on this video. - You know what time it is.
- I'm Melissa from South Carolina. - And I'm Katie from New Jersey.
And we're in northern Ireland in Giant's Cosway,
and it's time to spin the Wheel of Mythicality.
You should go to our Facebook page and take part of the
12 Mythical Days of Christmas because if you win today's challenge,
you can win eight different pieces of merch.
- Do you see how this works, people? - Accumulative!
Every single day you get an extra thing. Somebody's gonna win 12.
Or just buy the merch. Rhettandlink.com/store .
Click through to Good Mythical More where we have honorable mention:
World record fails. Some of them are almost as bad as these.
Rhett brags about his new pony. (laughs)
- What? - You see what I got?
- No. - I got a little--
It's like a-- It's a pony.
- My mama got it for me. - Rhett, you got a pony?
For Christmas! Early Christmas present!
- Yeah, but-- - You're kidding me!
I've been asking about it. You see how the hair flows on the back?
Well now that I look over at it, yeah.
- Yeah, and he eats-- - I don't know how I didn't notice your
- pet pony there the whole time. - It's so majestic.
You don't have one. Where's yours?
- Mine eats oats. - I'm sure you're not--
Anything I give it-- It's got a little saddle that matches it.
You see that? And look,
it's even got little shoes. What about your pony?
You don't even have one. Mine's got a saddle,
- and I'm making a wig out of it's mane. - (crew laughs)
I'm sure your mom's gonna give me one later.
[Captioned by Hayleigh: GMM Caption Team]