If you’re the rarest, the fairest, grown the longest hair,
If you’re oldest, the boldest, got the most gold,
If you’re the newest, the fewest, largest tattoo,
Then you’re a record breaker, you’re a record maker,
You’re a record breaker.
Mark Frary, a longtime correspondent for the London Times, and author of books on everything from code breaking to astronomy, recalled the show’s popularity and influence on his generation.
I think the British really love eccentricity. As a culture, we embrace people like Eddie the Eagle [the distance-challenged Olympic ski jumper whose heartfelt attempts against a far more talented field endeared him to a nation not known for its winter sports], champions of oddity, and that was part of the show’s charms. Ross and Norris were sort of odd and odd looking themselves, and twins as well—identical twin eccentrics! And they couldn’t have chosen a better host then Roy Castle: today if you went to a network and said you wanted this juggling trumpeter as the host they would never go for it, and the whole show does not fit with today’s television, where the emphasis is on beautiful people, but it worked, and it became a British institution. In that sense, the Guinness book and the Record Breakers show are very much a part of the fabric of British Society.
Somebody would set a record for eating pies, which is also a very British thing, or jamming people in a red telephone box, and you would watch and think “wow, that guy ate a lot of pies,” and it was just the British eccentricity of it all that fascinated people, and people loved it. It was something everybody knew about and talked about and understood. I’m 38 and I remember coming home from school and eagerly watching Record Breakers. You have to remember that at that time there was very little on TV compared to today, we had a couple of BBC channels and ITV and that was it. Everybody watched it. Today there are hundreds of channels, but there weren’t in the seventies and eighties. At school, it was like the office water cooler conversations today. “Did you see what they did on Record Breakers yesterday?”
The show would go through a number of hosts and co-hosts over the years, and was often a stepping-stone to fame. Some of the crew included Cheryl Baker, who Childs described as a “pop star who had won Eurovision, sort of our American Idol before there was American Idol,” Olympic medalist Kriss Akabusi, and even Ron Reagan Jr., son of the former president. “No one in the States knows about it, but he was our U.S. correspondent for three years. He had a very dry sense of humor. Ashrita did the forward roll mile with him.”
If fifteen minutes of fame and inclusion in the book was the flickering flame that drew Guinnessport practitioners like moths, then television was a bucket of gasoline thrown on that flame. Not only did it greatly increase the attractiveness of and recognition for being a record holder, but as a format it was perfect for Guinnessport. The show was filmed in Europe’s largest television studio, BBC One, which couldn’t hold Mount Everest but did lend itself to frequent mass participation events, like the longest chorus line. Each episode included three segments: a record-breaking attempt in the studio, like lifting the most bricks; one in the field, where pulling jumbo jets on runways was a recurring favorite; and an indepth profile of a colorful record breaker. Jez Edwards, the show’s final host, found America fertile ground for these profiles. “I went to the U.S. a lot. You’ve got some interesting blokes there. I was always dumbfounded by the hobbies that became passions that then took over people’s lives. Like this guy we interviewed, he was a sales guy from California, he started the International Banana Club. He holds the record, and I don’t think anyone else is vying for this one, for having the largest collection of banana-related materials. He dresses in a banana suit, and people send him banana stuff all the time from all around the world, and then he gives them banana merit points.” Fittingly, current Guinness World Records editor Craig Glenday is a proud member of the International Banana Club.
Despite the preponderance of nonhuman records in the book, and those held permanently (first to the moon) or by the deceased (first in flight), the show was entirely about current human record breakers, many of them first-time aspirants, many attempting made-for-TV Guinnessport feats. In fueling this fire, Record Breakers was not alone, as the book spawned countless other television shows and still does today. The Guinness Book of Records got its first American airtime in April 1970, in the form of a one-hour special sponsored by AT&T and hosted by comedian Flip Wilson. Following this success and the book’s continued best-selling status in the United States, 20th Century Fox would sign respected British television host Sir David Frost to produce six primetime, record-breaking specials based on the book, as well as the Guinness Game Show, which ran on NBC for forty-eight weeks from 1979 to 1980. Back in the U.K., Sir Frost, who still hosts The Week That Was (and whose interview with Richard Nixon remains the highest-rated television interview of all time), hosted another prime-time Guinness show, this one aimed at a more adult audience. David Frost Presents the International Guinness Book of World Records ran from 1981 to 1986, followed by The Guinness Book of Records Hall of Fame from 1986 to 1988. From 1987 to 1988 he would host several television specials, all called The Spectacular World of Guinness Records. In the United States, FOX brought the book back to the airwaves in 1998 with Guinness World Records: Primetime, which ran two seasons, and in 1999 it was replicated in Britain, Germany, and Scandinavia. According to Stuart Claxton, FOX is preparing yet another series. In 2005 even the Food Network got into the act, with the Food Network Challenge, which initially included a few episodes featuring record-breaking cooking events, leading to the show’s Guinness World Record Breakers Week the following season. More recently, Australian television aired a thirteen-episode series, Australia’s Guinness World Records. Both France and Germany have ongoing Guinness World Records television series, and as of 2006 Ultimate Guinness World Records, produced by Guinness World Records Ltd. itself, was on the airwaves in some thirty-five different countries around the globe. Asia in particular has world-record fever, with several shows on the air in China, Singapore, and other Pacific Rim nations. There seems to be no end in sight: as recently as January 2008, NBC aired a two-hour special, Guinness World Records: Top 100. Smithsonian magazine reported that by 2005 Guinness-related shows were on the air in at least eighty-five different countries, while the company’s revamped website was getting 14 million hits a month–more than 150 million annually. There are also Guinness museums, which began opening in the 1970s in high-profile locations such as New York City’s Empire State Building and London’s Trocadero, eventually popping up in tourist locations around the world, from Las Vegas to Missouri, Myrtle Beach to Niagara Falls, as well as far-flung locales like Tokyo, Singapore, and India.
By 2005, fully half the records in the book were held by humans, up from just a tiny sliver in the first edition fifty years earlier. Any lingering doubts that Guinnessport and the notion of highly specialized, made-up-to-get-into Guinness feats have become the norm rather than exception can be dispelled with a quick glance at the latest edition. In 2008, coming up with wacky ideas for records seems a more impressive challenge than the feats themselves. Who would have thought that any record-sanctioning body would have gone for such categories as Fastest Time to Place Six Eggs in Egg-cups Using the Feet, Fastest Time to Paint a 10-Square Meter Wall, Most Snails on Face, Most Sheets of Glass Pierced with Needles in One Minute, or Heaviest Vehicle Pulled By Rice Bowl Suction on the Stomach? These records beg the question: just what does it take to not get accepted by Guinness? Well, they passed on my proposal to hold the croquet game with the most people playing simultaneously, which apparently is more nonsensical than the rice bowl suction thing. At least I hadn’t just gone ahead and done it without approval, a fate that has befallen many would-be record holders, like a ten-year-old Guinnessport aspirant from Texas who contacted the book for inclusion after accomplishing the feat of writing the letter A 17,841 times. He was turned down. To explain which records were sim
ply too inane for recognition, Stuart Claxton told Smithsonian magazine: “We get claims from people who have worn a pair of socks for the longest, or have had a glass of milk in their fridge for seven years.” The book apparently prefers more creative made-up events, like the Fastest Time to Walk 50 Meters on Can and String Stilts, a new record listed in the most recent book—separate from the can and string stilt mile—both records held, of course, by Ashrita Furman. He sprinted 164 feet on stilts made entirely from cans and string at the famed ruins of Tikal, in Guatemala, embracing his passion for mystical places and doing his part to keep the Guinnessport alive and well.
A cynic like Jason Daley, the record-keeping magazine editor and columnist, might call such stunts contrived at best, absurd at worst. When Daley left his post as the dispatches editor for Outside magazine, he bade farewell with an opinionated editorial titled “Broken Records.” Here he finally vented his frustration at all the glory seekers whose “triumphs” had found their way, usually by e-mail, to his editorial desk over his years of covering outdoor, exploration, and athletic records. Daley stated that “an American who logged first ascents on sixty-three Tibetan peaks that were too small for anyone else to have bothered with, then compared himself to Neil Armstrong…. So what is actually worth covering? When it comes to records…they should carry no more than two qualifiers. First woman to sail around the world? Good. First bi-curious woman to sail around the world with a glass eye? I’ll pass…. I can’t stop the freak frenzy. But I can stop feeding into it. I will no longer pimp contrived, unworthy feats. No more profiles of human slingshots. Sayanora to extreme unicycling. Adios to blindfolded through-hikers and round-the-world pogo stickers.”
Chris Sheedy, a former vice president of Guinness World Records, who managed the records research department in London and is now the company’s representative in Australia, would probably disagree. “Everyone thinks Guinness World Records gets sillier as they get older, but actually they are losing their imagination,” he told a reporter while arguing that the colorful records are no sillier than “real” sports such as butterfly swimming or dressage. “As a child everything you read in the book is deadly serious, from the most pegs attached to someone’s face to the fastest climb up Everest.” Guinnessport has become such a major piece of the book that while other media outlets and writers like Daley might eschew such efforts, one thing is perfectly clear: practitioners of arcane, implausible, and often disgusting feats, whether done forward, backward, upside down, or underwater, will always have a place in the Guinness World Records. Even the late Norris McWhirter himself rose to the defense of Guinnessport, arguing that the most respected sports landmarks—like his friend Roger Bannister’s—are simply contrived events. “What made the four-minute mile special is the appeal of round numbers. To say that somebody ran 5,280 feet in less than 1,240 seconds doesn’t sound quite the same…. Americans have such a high level of achievement. The underachievers are driven into zanier outlets. Life isn’t all frivolous, I know that. But it’s not all serious either. It’s the same with records. There’s room for all kinds.”
5
15 Minutes of Fame
His object was not suicide but money and imperishable fame.
—SCHOTT’S SPORTING GAMING & IDLING MISCELLANY
It’s not my job, but I work at it like it’s a job, because let me be frank with you: I like the attention and I don’t make any bones about it. I like people recognizing me, noticing me, asking for my autograph, that kind of thing. I have attempted to attain fame throughout my lifetime and this has been my best vehicle. I’ve been in some movies and acted in some TV shows and I’ve done a lot of different things, but that Guinness tag has been my most popular thing.
—JACKIE “THE TEXAS SNAKEMAN” BIBBY
In his moving prologue to the original edition, Rupert Guinness mentions swimming the English Channel as one of the book’s highlights. In 1875, when Matthew Webb became the first person to successfully swim the English Channel without a life jacket, he was the Neil Armstrong of his time, and became a model for thousands of adventurers and glory seekers who would follow him.
But why? Webb was a mold for the hybrid adventurer/athlete whose achievements are often lumped in with those of true explorers, but whose actual accomplishments are unnecessary, other than for the fact that no one else has done them before. He neither discovered the Channel, nor was the first to cross it, nor the fastest to do so. At least with Mount Everest, there was no way to the summit except by foot, but thousands had traversed the Channel before Webb did it. The life jacket qualification suggests he was not even the first to swim the Channel but simply the first to swim it unaided. Nonetheless, it was widely acclaimed, and in true record fashion, spawned an industry of derivative Channel “firsts,” niches that have since been carved out include first by a woman, by using various swimming strokes, by doing it in the opposite direction, and by swimming the Channel round trip. One swimmer even seized the mantle of first Channel crossing by a Chilean.
The Channel is not the longest body of water to have been swum, nor the most difficult, yet Webb became a world-famous celebrity. The fire of his fame burned so brightly that the risk of its dimming set him on a swimming course of escalating drama that would end badly. His effort to stay in the spotlight eventually brought him to the United States and an insurmountable challenge: attempting to swim the whirlpools and rapids below the thunderous Niagara Falls. He failed in his swim but succeeded in getting into the newspapers, albeit the obituary section, when he drowned. “Of Webb’s attempt, one writer opined ‘his object was not suicide but money and imperishable fame.’” He would not be the last person driven to questionable actions by these powerful forces.
Pop artist Andy Warhol famously said, “In the future everyone will be world famous for fifteen minutes,” and ever since then, this time-based term has defined our society’s obsession with a moment in the spotlight, no matter how fleeting. The media panders to this desire: everything from shock-talk shows to so-called reality television with its invented competitions to social networking sites such as FaceBook and MySpace are fueled by the seemingly limitless number of people who crave their fifteen minutes—and are willing to suffer or debase themselves to get it. But long before anyone thought of appearing on national television in exchange for admitting they were their son’s uncle or addicted to Internet pornography, long before anyone locked a bunch of twenty-somethings in a house under the watchful eyes of 24/7 cameras or shipped eager volunteers to a deserted island to starve and burn while playing summer camp–style color war games, there was the Guinness book. Even before television played a role, but especially afterward, for the vast majority of those attempting it, making the book was about getting that moment in the sun, about being, or at least feeling, important. With the advent of televised specials in the United States and the prime-time show Record Breakers on England’s BBC, this temptation was only magnified, because the potential fifteen minutes suddenly meant not only print recognition but also the siren call of being on television. “Now there are a lot of reality shows, but it’s the original reality television,” explained longtime Record Breakers producer Greg Childs. “You have to show the attempt, win or lose. It’s either a record or it’s not.” The show would give hundreds of would-be record breakers their shot at stardom, something the book’s readers increasingly craved. Even Ashrita Furman, whose litany of amazing feats is not only inspired by but literally made possible by his deep religious beliefs, admits to the satisfaction his “celebrity” brings, glowing as he recalled his first photo appearance in the book, next to Olympic star Nadia Comaneci.
Ask almost anyone why people want to get into Guinness, and the answer is…some sort of fame. Stuart Claxton, a figure often trotted out to monitor celebrity or televised record breakings, answered, “It’s an interesting question. I think it is the fifteen minutes of fame element.” He also told me that “It is the most frequently asked question. After any record is broken that I have ev
er attended, the immediate question is ‘when am I going to be in the book?’ It’s all about being in the book. It’s like getting into the Hall of Fame, because once the book is printed in any year, it is permanent and you can hold it in your hands forever.” Accordingly, on the book’s website, one of its FAQs is “Why is my record not in the book?”
The book’s current editor, Craig Glenday, told the Washington Times, “People tell us it’s a dream they’ve had since childhood,” but added the blunt caveat that “On a shallow level it’s just about seeing their name in the book.” In the same vein, he told another reporter, “For most of these people, the motivation is all about getting their name in the book.” Stewart Newport, Guinness World Records’ Keeper of the Records, described applicants as “people seeking their fifteen minutes of fame,” adding that “they want adulation for being the best in the world at whatever they do.” Even GWR creator Norris McWhirter saw the appeal of notoriety early on, remarking of record breakers, “They are desperate to be the person who did something, not just a person.”
It is not just the Guinness World Records staffers who feel this way; many record holders openly state fame as the main or even sole motivation for their attempts. Recognition-crazed Jackie “the Texas Snakeman” Bibby is far from alone in his candid admission. Bibby, whose two main areas of record-breaking expertise are lying in bathtubs filled with hundreds of poisonous snakes and holding live rattlesnakes, as many as ten at a time (and all, according to rules, at least 2.5' long), in his mouth, dangling like a bouquet from his lips—for more than ten seconds. The photo of Bibby with his head bent over a hanging clump of wriggling snakes instantly became an iconic and frequently reproduced Guinness photo, like those of Wadlow or the McCrary twins. As a result, Bibby was honored in 2005 at the book’s fiftieth anniversary gala in New York City, when he was named number six of the top ten most popular Guinness World Records of the first fifty years, an award he described to me as “about as prestigious as anything I’ve ever done.”
Getting into Guinness Page 13