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The Guinness Book of Records · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's Chuck
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Jerry's here too, and that makes this Stuff you Should Know,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: which holds the record for the longest running podcast in
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: the history of the world as far as I know.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Hey, buddy, before we get going, I wanted to mention
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: with your permission, of course, Granted, I was recently a
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: guest on a very awesome podcast. We don't guess on
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of shows much anymore, but actor Paul Giamatti
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: has a podcast with his buddy, who is a philosophy
• 0:41
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• 0:45
  Speaker 1: saw these guys live at sketch Fest and it was great,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: and I think Stuff you Should Know people will really
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: not only enjoyed my guest appearance, but really love Chin Wag.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, from what you told me, it sounds pretty awesome.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: I haven't listened quite yet, but I think I'm going
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: to make my first episode your episode.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: It's great. I appreciate that, and you should get on it.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: I told you that, I'm sure they'd love to have you.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: But Steven is super smart and mister Paul Giamatti is
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: amazingly smart and just a really well read, cool guy.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: And the title says it all. A chin Wag is
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: just sort of a free flowing chat, and that's what
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: it is. We you know, the idea was that we're
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  Speaker 1: know about yet, and we had just done a thing
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: on so I was like, what a great opportunity. But
• 1:32
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• 1:35
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• 1:41
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• 1:44
  Speaker 1: you should know. People would really dig it. So it's
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: out now at the chin Wag.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Nice Chuck, congrats. I can't wait to listen.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: All right, thanks man, And you should be on. Should
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: we get on with the show?
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: H yeah, let's.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Well, you know what we get to do now in
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: our our typical two episode percession way that is stuff
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: you should know, is we get to wash the stank
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: of Unit seven thirty one off of us talking about
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: a very fun thing, which is the Guinness Book of
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: World's Records or the Guinness World Records. I feel like
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: when I was a kid, it was called the Guinness
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Book of World Records in the United States. I imagine
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: that we are similar and that you probably had a
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: copy of this in your house. No, oh, you didn't.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: No, we weren't all Lotti dah. I had to get
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: from the school library.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: We had a copy of the Guinness Book. I think
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: it probably got it as like a Christmas skipt one
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: year and.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Lifted it from his school library. He brought it.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, he may have property of red in elementary school.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: So I remember very distinctly, though, pouring through this thing
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: as a kid, and just like it was such a
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: big book. It was so thick, and the type was
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: so small, and the pictures weren't great, but like I
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: just like I poured over every page of this thing
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: like it was my Bible or something. I was so
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: into it. I thought it was so cool. Like this
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: may have been my uncle John's bathroom reader for you.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Uh no, I yeah, okay, I got ye both. No no, no,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Uncle John's bathroom Reader definitely trumped it, for sure, But
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: at the I was still very much a fan of
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: the Guinness Book of World Records for sure.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Do you remember some of those pictures from the classic edition.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the guy with the longest fingernails also had
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: a really long beard if I remember correctly. Yeah.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: And the two guys, those two heavy twins on the motorbikes.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the McCrary brothers.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the tall guy, that big giant, tall guy tall
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: and the tall lady.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's right. I forgot about them. Yeah, that's crazy.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: We both grew up on the same pictures and they
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: helped shape us that neat.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they're just burned into my brain. I
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: don't remember some of the names. I want to say
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: that guy's name was Robert Wadlow, But that's just literally
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: digging out from my, you know, nine year old lizard brain.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: That would be pretty impressive if you just did that.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Will you pull the brothers out of your keyster?
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: I looked him up. Okay, I'm not walking around with
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: their name in my head. Unfortunately, I'm not that good anyway.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: That's what we're talking about, is this this great book
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: that is still going strong at about a million copies
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: a year, And we're going to talk about all about
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: the Guinness Book right now.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Let's but before we do, Chuck, let's give a
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: shout out to listener Mallory Stafford, who's the one who
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: suggested that we do an episode on the Guinness Book
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: of World Records. So thanks a lot, Mallory. Yeah, okay,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: So yes, let's go back, Chuck, way back to the
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: nineteen forties, technically nineteen fifty, but we'll check in in
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: nineteen forty five with a guy named Sir Hugh Beaver.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: This excuse me, Sir Hugh Beaver. Oh okay, and this
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: was before he was a knight. I believe he was knighted,
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: probably because of his work with the Guinness Book of
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: World Records. That has to be guessing here at this point,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: but I think it's pretty safe bet, although completely superfluous
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: and an unnecessary one. But he ended up going to
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: work for Guinness and Son, the beer company. So if
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: you've ever wondered if the Guinness Book of World Records
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: is actually connected to the Guinness Beer Company, my friend, yes,
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: they absolutely are. The guy who was the managing director
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: of Guinness Son and Company Limited, the Guinness Beer Company,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: was also the guy responsible for coming up with the
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Guinness Book of World Records.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: That's right, It was a Guinness product in fact, and
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: we'll get to all that. But that to me is
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: right out of the gate. You got one of the
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: facts of the podcast. If people, next time you're in
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: a bar and someone draws up a Guinness, just say, hey,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: you know the Guinness Book of World Record is started
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: out because of the Guinness beer. And if they say no,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: you just smash their face on the bar, dump that
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Guinness all over their head.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Knowing me, in my luck, I would say that and
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: they'd be like, oh really, you won't think everybody know that? Right,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: That's what I would be met with, and then I'd
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: smash their face on the bar.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Right. So there's a pretty good story here that kind
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: of is the seed of this whole idea, and it
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: goes as follows. In nineteen fifty, as you promised, Sir
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Hugh Beaver was hunting with some friends in Ireland and
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: missed a shot and boy just seemed to really get
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: at this guy. He missed a shot of a golden
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: plover or plover bird and was like, hey, did you
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: see that? How fast that thing was? Like, nobody could
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: shoot that thing. That's got to be the fastest game
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: bird in Europe. And they were like, ah, you kidding me,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: that thing's not that fast. There's no way you just
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: miss franquilizers. Yeah, you just missed the shot. My friend,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: that's not the fastest game bird. And he was like, oh,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I got to find an answer to this, and he
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: could not find it in a reference book. So I said,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: this really bothered the guy. And this is how I
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: know is that four years later he's still thinking about
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: missing that shot and he's like, oh, you know what
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: we need as a book that says stuff like this.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the origin of the Guinness Book of
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: World Records. That missed shot, that golden plover that lived.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Had it not lived, maybe this whole thing would have
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: never happened.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Seriously, had he shot that bird, we may not have
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: gotten those twins on the motorbike.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: No, and it's a good thing that that golden plover
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: lived for a couple of reasons, not the least of
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: which is that the golden plover got to live, but
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: because it stuck with Sir Hugh Beaver for so long,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: for four years that he finally was like it morphed.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: I can't imagine how many times he chewed it over
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: before it finally became the idea for a book that
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: actually has facts like what's the fastest game bird in
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: all of Europe? And so he went to the people
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: that he worked for at Guinness as the managing director
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: is like, I got this great idea. We can put
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: together a book of facts that can settle the kind
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: of like arguments and disputes that arise at a pub,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: and we'll give them as free Guinness giveaways at pubs.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: And we're even gonna make the cover waterproof so that
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: if you still beer on it, so it'll be fine.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Every pub in all of England's going to have one
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: of these things, and anytime there's an argument at a pub,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: they're going to pull this thing out. That was the
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: original idea for the Guinness Book of World Records, and
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: it's a genius.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Idea, yeah, and just fun, Like I just love the
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: whole spirit behind it. That very first version has a
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: forward that said that the hope was that it could
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: resolve arguments and turn heat into light. So you know,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: just the very idea of the pub argument is just
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: sort of fun to think about. I think, period for sure.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: And now you have an actual water proof covered book
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: that they're given out with that Guinness name on it
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: is pretty pretty brilliant.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So Hugh Beaver, though, was like, Hugh Beaver, Okay,
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: there's different ways to say it. Hugh Beaver. Sure, I
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: mean I know what you're getting at. I'm just being playful.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not getting at anything, buddy. Oh you face on
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the bar.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: So Hugh Beaver, I said. Hugh Beaver, by the way, okay,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: he was not one to go around and like make books.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: He was kind of like an idea guy rather than
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: a book making guy. So he turned to two guys
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: who were this was just right up their alley. They
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: were identical twins named Norris and Ross McWhorter, and they
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: ran an agency that essentially was a fact checking and
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: fact providing well agency for newspapers and things like that,
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: media outlets.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Like fun stuff though if.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: They yeah, but it was also I think if you
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: had a fact you wanted to confirm, you'd call them
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: and they would turn to their encyclopedias and be like,
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: h yes, off the top of my head, I know
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: that that's correct, right, That's what the mcquarters did. And
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: so it was a great idea to reach out to
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: these guys and be like, hey, what if you take
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: your entire profession and make it a book, but just
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: select the most interesting stuff and put it into a book.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: And that's what we're going to make. And they said,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: let's do it.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: That's right. They formed their own company based in London
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: called Guinness Superlatives, and they spent about four months with
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: just the sort of sourcing of what would go in
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: the book. It took about a year to get the
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: book the first to dish out, but they spent about
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: four months just sending you know, this is nineteen fifty four,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: so they're sending letters to experts. They're sending letters to
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: people all over the world saying, you know, what's the
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: biggest thing, what's the smallest, this, what's the fastest that?
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Just like thousands and thousands of juries. And they were
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: pretty serious, you know, they wanted this to be a legitimate,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: like factual book. So they were from the from the get.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: They were very fastidious in their research, and they found
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: that even experts sometimes it would either get things wrong
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: or exaggerate stuff. What Lvia found this great thing. She
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: put together a really good bass article for this one,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: and she said one of the things that they found
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: was one expert said that there was a fly that
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: broke the speed of sound that flew at eight hundred
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: and twenty miles per hour. So they were like, all right,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: we have to do more work, even though we're getting
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: in touch with experts.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was all the way back in nineteen twenty six.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: So for decades people have been walking around thinking that
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: that fly, that there was a fly that could do that.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Did these guys wind right? These guys were the kind
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: who would just come along and be like, that's not true. So,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: like the Guinness Book of World Records, Long had and
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: starting out of the gate, Long had this reputation for
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: like being just accurate and correct, Like they really did
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: their research and they really double checked, and the people
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: that they were siting and polling and going to were
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: experts in their field, and not even crackpot experts in
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: their field.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Like the fly guy, the fly Jeff Goldlum, No.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: The guy who said the expert who said that the
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: deer bot fly could fly faster than the speed of sound.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: I was kidding, you know, Oh, I thought you'd forgotten already.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, or maybe it was Jeff goldlum For
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: all we know, it could have been. So in August
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: August twenty seventh, in fact. Nineteen fifty five, the very
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: first edition came out. It was titled Guinness Book of Records,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: close to two hundred pages, one hundred and ninety eight
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: pages that had about initially four thousand just factual entries,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: and then just a collection not too many, but about
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: eighteen pages of some photographs, black and white pictures, a
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: few pen and ink drawings, and it was pretty successful.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: They were like, let's print fifty thousand of these, give
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: them out at pubs. But they realized very very quickly.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: I mean it came out August twenty seven. Then they
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: were like, we can actually sell these things. So they
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: started selling that fall, just a couple of months later,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: and by Christmas had sold one hundred and eighty seven
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: thousand of these.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Supposedly, since then it's sold about one hundred and
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: fifty million copies worldwide. Wow, which is just astronomical. That's
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: just such a crazy amount of books and just out
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: of the gate, like they clearly tapped into something that
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: people love. People love that kind of thing. They created
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: the internet and book form before anyone even thought of
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: the internet or computers.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, totally.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: So they were like, well, this is great, let's start
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: churning out more and more of these, and they started
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: putting out the first American edition that came out the
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: next year, country specific editions and the years that followed.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: And even while they were doing this, even while they
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: were cranking these things out, the mcquorters were like, we're
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: not going to sacrifice accuracy or factualness, like that is
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: like the pinnacle of what we're doing has to be accurate,
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: and yeah, it can be super interesting, but also we
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: need to kind of keep it family friendly. And there
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: was a famous quote from Norris, who was apparently like
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: the heart and soul of the book Norris was. He
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: said that ours is the kind of book maiden aunts
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: give to their nieces, basically saying like, we can't have
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: smut in there. Probably the word that Norris would have
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: used with smut.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like us, you know, with I mean they were
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: g rated. We're probably PG.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sometimes PG thirteen.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Frankly, yeah, I mean, we are the kind of guys
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: that'll sit around and make jokes about Sir Hugh Beaver.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: So while they're researching, they do finally, and this is
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: just a side note, they get to the bottom of
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: this fastest European game bird that plover was sixty two
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: miles an hour, and apparently the spur wing Goose is
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: eighty eight. But now apparently on the website there's a
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: red breasted Merganzer that can go I guess that's ninety
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: one miles hour.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: No, I think that the spur wing Goose's record of
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: eighty eight is so thoroughly debated that they can't say
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: for certain that it's the fastest European game bird, the
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: one that Yeah, that's what I've gotten from it. Okay,
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: So there's like a horrible twist to all this. Yeah,
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: suddenly that happened well twenty five years after the first
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: book came out, Like they've been churning out editions every year,
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: multiple editions a year, and so in the midst of
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: all this, Ross and Norris are just still doing their job,
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: but they've gotten kind of wealthy along the way. And
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: apparently Ross was not very happy that the IRA was
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: bombing places in Britain, in England in particular, and he
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: offered a fifty thousand pound reward. This is back in
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: nineteen seventy five. I didn't do the conversion. So let's
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: just say I could buy you a lot of Big
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Macs today a fifty thousand pound reward for any information
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: that would help convict IRA bombers. And I guess he
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: thought that this was going to be effective, and it
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: was not at all effective. It actually turned out to
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: be a terrible move for him.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Ross was a fairly controversial political activist in addition
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: to his job, and the IRA did not cot into that.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: So on November twenty seventh of nineteen seventy five, Harry
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Duggan and Hugh Doherty of the Balcom Street Gang shot
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: him point blank in the head and chest with a
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: three fifty seven outside of his house and killed him dead.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: And so Ross was what was gone, and I'm sure
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Norris was devastated, but kept on as the editor. Norris
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: did until nineteen eighty six and then for another decade
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: as an advisor to the project.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, eventually, Guinness the Beer Company was like, this has
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: been a pretty good run. We've been doing this for
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: over half a century now, and they eventually sold the
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Guinness World Records gw R is what it's usually referred
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: to to. Another company, a company called Gulane, which was
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: a production company for children's television shows including Thomas the
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: tank engine, and I guess the head of Gulaane sobered
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: up a couple of days later and was like, what
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: am I going to do with this? And ended up
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: selling it to the Jim Pattison Group, which is owned
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: by a Canadian billionaire named Jim Pattison and bears more
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: than a small resemblance to the shinehart Wig Company, and
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: that they have their hands in like everything they owned Peterbilt,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: they owned the Great Wolf Lodges, they own Associated Grossers,
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: they own everything, including the Guinness Book of World Records
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: as well as Ripley Entertainment, and so over time they've
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: kind of added to what the Guinness World Records does.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: It's the reason one of the reasons why you don't
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: say the Guinness Book of World Records is because they've
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: definitely expanded beyond the book.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, I think Ripley sort of laid the mold,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: as in having like a Ripley Museum of Curiosity is
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing. There are now Guinness Museums and
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, and it's kind of become an attraction
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: here in different cities. I don't I know, I've never
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: been to one. I'm trying to think where I've even
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: seen one. Maybe maybe Hollywood has one. I don't know
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: they've got they've got a ripley. But yeah, they've become
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: a part part tourist attraction as well, and maybe that's
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: a good place to break.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, let's do that.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we can find out where one of these is
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: and we'll go and then we'll come back.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck, that was a fantastic road trip. I've never
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: drank so much coke zero in my entire life.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Oh man, I've been drinking Guinness. Glad you were driving.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: I know I've been driving. Well anyway, getting back to
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Guinness the World Records, not all the beer you've been
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: drinking on our road trip. They are even though they're
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: owned by the Jim Pattison Group, they still are their
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: own company doing their own thing. And they're headquartered in London,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: but they also have offices in Dubai, Tokyo, New York, Beijing,
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: and there's like four hundred people that work for Guinness
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: World Records around the world.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, amazing on the book. Just you know, let's go
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: to the stats. You mentioned over one hundred and fifty
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: million total copies I believe I said, still about a
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: million a year. It's been translated into forty different languages.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: When you open up one of those books, you're going
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: to find a couple of different things. Well you'll find
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: tons of things, but kind of a couple of different categories.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: One is all that stuff we were talking about, like
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: the fastest bird, the tallest this or that, like the
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: tallest skyscraper, just sort of things that have hit a superlative.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: You're also going to find a lot of firsts, like
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the first person to do this, the first person to
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: complete this. And then you're going to find a bunch
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: of kind of goofy fun records, which is the whole
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: category where people are like, I want to get in
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: that book, and so I can either break a record
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: that's in there, or I can think of my own,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: like hula hooping or well, I'm sure that's in there,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: but you know, the longest under underwater tea party. That's
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: probably in there for all I know, but I just
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: made that up. But stuff like.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: That, Yeah, no, that's I'm sure that's in there. I
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: know there's like the most number of magic tricks performed underwater,
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: like if it's to be done underwater, and the reason
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: that there are so many records because apparently tens of
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: thousands of people every single year. I think the number
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: that I saw back in two thousand and eight on
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: a Freakonomics interview with the current editor in chief, a
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: guy named Craig Glenday, he put it at about fifty
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: thousand applicants per year, people who are like, I'm I
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: either just I think I just did break a record,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: or I'm going to attempt to break a record. So
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: let's go. Let's do this. Fifty thousand people a year.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Try to do that.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I would. I wonder how many morning pictures of a
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: toilet they get every year where someone's like, I think
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: I just broke a record.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: No gross PG, that's PG.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But you know, I bet people do it. Fifty
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: thousand entries they're. What you do is so you apply
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: again to either break a record or create a new thing,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: and you log. You get a you know, a log
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: into the system as an official applicant. When you are
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: part of that process, you can then search their own
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: private database. There is a public facing database, but the
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: real goal all the stuff is in that private database
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: where you can just look through all those records see
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: if there's anything you think you can break and then
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: look at all the guidelines and this is where apparently
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: about half the people drop out is when they see
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: like all the stuff that you have to do to
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: make it an official like legit submitted record.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because the guidelines can reach into the dozens of
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: pages sometimes, like they're so specific in detailed about what
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: constitutes a record, what specifically you have to do, a
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: lot about what you can't do. And I read an
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: interview with Craig glenday by Imaging west Nights in The Guardian.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: If she doesn't sound like a Guardian writer, I don't
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: know who does. Yeah, but she she said that she
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: tried to break the record for standing on one leg blindfolded.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Apparently it's like thirty something minutes and she got to
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: like thirty seconds I think, on her three tries. But
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: she said that it had six pages of guidelines just that. Yes. Yeah,
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: So the more detail, the more intricate the actual record is,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: the longer the guidelines are going to be. So, like
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: you said, about half the people are like nuts to this,
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: I don't care that much about this, and that really
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: kind of separates a lot of the posers out, which
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: you have left for the real deal record breaker people.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of people are like, I probably
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: just have to click a thing and upload a video.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of people think that, Yeah.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: You know, yeah, not again, wrong, wrong, wrong.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: So here's just a few things. If you want to
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: qualify for a title, a record has to be the following.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Has to be measurable easy. It has to be breakable
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: unless it's a quote significant first like first person to
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: do something. It has to be something that someone else
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: can try to do and break.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Check.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: It has to be standardizable, which is anyone all over
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: the world could try and do this thing.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: I think that's great. That's very inclusive.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I like it too. It has to be verifiable, ibby.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: Like, you can't be the person with the most ghosts
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: haunting them.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: No, right, exactly, most haunted person. Right, this one is interesting.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: It has to involve a single variable. So you could
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: be like the longest underwater tea party. But if there
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: is that record, you can't be like, well, I'm the
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: longest underwater tea party wearing it too too.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, for sure, they definitely. The guy explained in
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: that a Freakonomics interview that if you open it up
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: like that. It just it's gonna just grow exponentially in
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: it's just dumb. He's like, no underwater tea party, longest
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: underwater tea party, that's interesting. Who cares if you're wearing
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: A two two or not. Frankly, you should be wearing
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: a too two If you have an underwater tea party,
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: that should be you know, it should go without saying.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The last two things are it has to be universal,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: so like, because they sell this book all over the world,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: that has to be something that everyone can kind of
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: see and understand and enjoy. Very inclusive again, yeah, very
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: much inclusive. And then finally it has to be substantially
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: different than a current record.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which ties into that underwater tea party two two thing.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah a little bit.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: I think so about fifty thousand applications a year, like
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: we said, and I think something like every year two
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: thousand new records are added to the Guinness War Records database.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: So say twenty five thousand give it a try, two
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: thousand are successful. That's what between five and ten percent
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: I think of attempts are successful. It's actually not too bad.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: And this database just keeps growing and growing apparently, there's
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: like forty thousand records, and if you're trying to set
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: a record, you have access to all forty thousand because
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: you need to. But if you're just hanging out on
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: the website and just looking up stuff for fun, so
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: you can still see fifteen thousand different records, but only
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: four thousand records are put into the book every year,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: and a lot of those are like classics, Like I
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: think at least half are like classic ones that have
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: been in there for years and years and years that
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: people just want to see that weren't necessarily broken in
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: the past year.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I tried to find new entries in the book
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: each year, and I couldn't find that number. But I
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: mean it's not a lot, so less than five percent
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: even get that world record. So out of fifty thousand people,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: you have a very very slim chance of making it
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: in that book. If that's what you're and that's kind
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: of what everyone's goal is, you want to be in the.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Book, you do, because that's the thing. Even if you
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: set a record, you're not necessarily going to be in
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: the book. Like you said, that's actually a slim You
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: have a slim chance of being in the book. Even
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: if you break a record, the thing you can definitely
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: be guaranteed to get is a certificate saying that you
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: are the official record holder and you'll be in that
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: giant database.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Should we tell the story of our our friend
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and a guy who designed our.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Website, the webmaster.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, our buddy Brandon. I mean you should tell the
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: story because you understand more about this. I guess that
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: you knew that Brandon had briefly held againness record. Is
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: that right? And you emailed about it?
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, he and a friend. So apparently Brandon was one
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: of those people who will kind of touch on later
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: on in the show. But he's one of those people
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: who just had like a lifelong ambition. It was on
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: his life list, as he put it, to break a
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: world record, to be a world record holder. So just
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: wanted to do it. Yeah, so he said he looked
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: into all sorts of different stuff. I think one of
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: them is like fastest moonwalk in one hundred meters, longest
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: distance travel like a bouncy ball, And he finally came
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: up with fastest four hundred meter piggyback ride. Okay, and
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: he and friend trained for that for a while. From
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: what I remember, and they finally did it. They broke
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: the record, and apparently the record he chose was just
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: randomly not the record he should have chosen, because they
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: had their record broken by somebody else so quickly that
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: he wasn't even able to get a certificate, so that
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: he got an email saying, like, you, actually your record
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: was broken, but for a very brief time, you were
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: the world record holder on the four hundred meter piggyback ride.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Oh man, I know, I know, but he's got that
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: to carry around with him. He was. He achieved his
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: life goal because I mean, think about it. He could
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: have trained for years and still never broken the record,
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: but he did.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Do you know if he was the piggybacker or piggybacky.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: I believe he was the Well, which one's which one?
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: I honestly don't know.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Okay, So here's the guy carrying the piggy as far
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: as I remember.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, I think that would be the piggybacker. Oh no,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: maybe the piggybacky.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say the piggybacky is probably what that
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: would be.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Let's go to the polls, okay, all right, so we
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: talked a little bit about they what you have to
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: do to get a record or what qualifies they do
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: exclude here's here's what you can't do. You can't do
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: something that's dangerous to other people if you're a grown
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: adult and you want to try something you know reasonably dangerous,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: like a skydive or something. I think Olivia found the
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: example of a Bonzie skydive. That's when I'd never heard
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: of this. That's when you throw your parachute out of
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the plane. Then you jump out and you wait as
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: long as you can before like grabbing hold of this
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: thing and deploying it. So you can do something like
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: that if you're a grown adult and decide that you
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: want to undertake that danger. What you can't do is
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: put someone else in danger.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Right, And there's some other stuff too that that they
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: they're like, we're not doing this anymore, like anything that
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: has to do with pets that involves that they could
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: be dangerous to them like they used to do like
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: the heaviest pet thing. And then they were like, you know,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: just having a record out there constitutes a dare to
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: some people. Some things we shouldn't do, and encouraging people
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: to overfeed their pet so that they can become the
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: world record holders, as that's just one we should avoid
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: excessive eating for people as well, like humans as well.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, what else anything involving drinking funny kind
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: of forgeinness, but they're like, yeah, I mean I get
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: the spirit, but you can't try and set the record
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: for you know, funneling Jack Daniels.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Just maybe nauseated man.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Anything illegal obviously is not allowed. And and anything involving
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: kids under sixteen that they deem unsuitable. If you're between
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: sixteen and eighteen and it is suitable, you have to
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: still have to have a parent or guardian sort of
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: sign up with you.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That. Craig Glenday, the editor in chief, is like,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: you know, we actually don't trust parents to not give
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: their kids steroids to break someone's record, So we're just
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: not gonna do that at all. Some of the other ones,
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: they used to do longest kiss, but like you have
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: to keep kissing, and people would kiss for literally days
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: and it's just dangerous. Dance marathon, same thing. Yeah, and
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: then invasive surgery, Chuck. They used to have stuff for
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: invasive surgery, and now they're like people will actually go
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: get surgery just to be a record holder. So we
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: should stop stop doing that as well.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Holy boy. All right, so let's take another break and
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about how these things are judged or you know,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: kind of the oversight. I guess right after this sweat
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: shop stop. All right, so we promised talk of oversight.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Very exciting stuff. But you can't just willy nilly, send
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: in a video and say all right, I've done my job.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: They employ what's what are called adjudicators either adjudicator that's right.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: They're about ninety of them that travel all over the
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: world and in pre you know, sort of digital age.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: This is the only way to do it. You would
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: have an adjudicator come to you.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: The adjudicators apparently have to. It's sort of like mission impossible.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: You agree to you know, like hey, I got to
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: go to Singapore and then you find out what record
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: that you're agreeing to oversee, which is interesting. What else,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: what's this business about a jacket?
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Oh well, you have to wear the officially approved outerwear,
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: a jacket that has like the Guinness World Records logo
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: on it. You also there's other rules too. You can't
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: socialize with the record attempters or there are people after
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: hours to be a very professional. Yeah, no fraightnization. You
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: can't eat or drink during the whole thing. Like you're
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: just meant to be an impartial business like professional. Yeah,
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: that's what your job is. No matter how wacky or nuts,
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: what the person is trying to do is you're taking
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: it seriously. They're trying to break a record. That's your
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: job as an adjudicator. And like you said, they travel
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: the world. Apparently there's a huge emphasis on speaking to
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: the media because that's a big role for Guinness World Record.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: It's there a media company that's extraordinarily media savvy, so
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: they make sure that they're ninety adjudicators are savvy as well.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, you go through about a week
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: of training and part of that is media training and
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: just simple stuff like how to work a measuring tape
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: or how to measure whatever you need to measure. You
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: mentioned that they have to take it seriously, even if
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: it's dumb. You also have to have the very you know,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: your face with a very tough job of telling someone
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: sometimes a small child is trying to break a record
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: that they failed and that they didn't get it. So
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: you have to be able to break the news to
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: people in a in a way that I would assume
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: is has some compassion, a note of compassion, and then
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: sometimes you might be in a situation that you need
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: to get out of, like Glen Day was talking about this.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: One adjudicator was or maybe Glen Day was, I think
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: it was him.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a Moscow or attempt to an attempt to
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: break the largest concrete pouring. The engineers learned that they
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: couldn't make it possible due to weather the weather conditions,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: said they were going to try and fake it. So
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: he's there in Moscow. These guys are trying to fake
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: this thing, and the idea that they came up with
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: was which was officially sanctioned, and I guess this is
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: probably a rule, is like, hey, if you're in a
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: scary situation like that, just tell them they got the
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: record and get out of there and we'll revoke it
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: the next day.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what he did. He was worried about standing
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: on the edge of a massive hole with the kind
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: of people who would try to break a concrete pouring record. Yeah,
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: and be upset when you told them that they didn't
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: break the record. He's like, Nah, I'm just gonna go
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: ahead and say yes, congratulations, and then the next day
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: text them sorry after revoke it.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Lol. Yeah, they come with that certificate frame certificate. If
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: they fail, they shred it. I was gonna say, right
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: in front of their face.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: I was gonna say, hopefully not in front of them.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: They shred it to make sure it's not stolen from somebody.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: They shred it and then they make the attempter eat
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: the shredded paper.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: This is marinera. But these days, you know, obviously, even
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: when ninety adjudicators there are fifty thousand entries, even if
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: half of those drop out, you still can't send these
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: people all over the world that much. So now in
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: the digital age, most of this stuff is remote, but
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: there are lots of strict rules and hoops you have
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: to jump through to prove that you're not faking. Again
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: just some video that you've deep faked or something.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they take this quite seriously, like you
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: can't send a video that shows it and just that
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: like you just did it yourself. You set up a
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: camera on a tripod and you may very well have
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: broken the record, but that doesn't cut it. You have
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: to have actual live witnesses who are not family members
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: who are not even friends necessarily. There's a lot, Like
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: there's a lot, right, there's a lot you want to
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: do ahead of time to understand and make sure that
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: you're doing everything correctly, which is why they have those guidelines,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: which again is why a lot of people drop out,
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: because they think, I just need to set up a
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: phone on like one of those right tabletop mounts and
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: you know, hula hoop for eighteen days in front of
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: it and then do that.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can, though you know I mentioned the adjudicators
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: obviously can't go to that many places. It seems like
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: they're pretty much reserved these days for paid appearances. So
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: you can fast track. If you've got six thousand pounds
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: or almost seventy five hundred American US dollars, you can
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: fast track your record and get that adjudicator to come out.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of money to drop on a world record,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: but if you're into that, then you can spend that.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: My friend, you think that's a lot of money, Imagine
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: eleven thousand pounds to get an adjudicator to come out.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: And what is that, Well, that is actually like a
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: separate wing of Guinness World Records GWR. Consultancy, and it's
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: a controversial new revenue stream, as the HR would put it,
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: where if you're a company, you're a brand again, as
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: HR would put it, you can go to GWR Consultancy
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: and say like, hey, I'm not getting a lot of
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: play on Instagram these days? How can I get my
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: brand out there in a really eye popping way? And
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: GWR Consultancy says, well, let's figure out a record you
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: can break that may or may not be tied to
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: your business, but either way, we're gonna make a big
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: deal out of it, and you will get some media
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: exposure even if you don't break the record, but you're
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: gonna have to pay us some money first. And everything
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: that they're doing is above the boards. It like when
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: you when the company tries to break the record of
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: supposedly like a quarter of them don't do it. Even
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: though this is like almost tailor are made for their company,
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: they still don't necessarily succeed and none of them make
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: it in the book. It's a money making side, but
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: they're still legitimately setting or breaking records.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm trying not to like knock it too much.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: About half their revenue comes from that companies. You know,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: companies need to make money, but it almost just feels like, hey,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: if you want to pay for this official stamp, then
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: you can do.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: So, like the Better Business Bureau, like you can pay
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: to get a higher rating, yeah, which is like, well
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: what's the point of the Better Business Bureau. That doesn't
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: quite rise to that with Guinness World Records, because they're
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: still saying like, yes, they paid to get you know,
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: their thing fast tracked and getting adjudicator out there to
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: work with them about figuring it, like we worked with them,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: but they're actually doing this actual thing and they may
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: or may not succeed, so it is legitimate. It is
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: very like I said, it's controversial and a lot of
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: people like you don't like it. They're there are some
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: that have been way more controversial than others. Guinness got
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: itself in a little bit of international hot water because
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: apparently Turkmenistan's dictator Gribon Ghuli Birdie Muhemenoff he I practiced
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: that so much, Chuck, and I still didn't get it
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: quite right. I'm gonna try to again. Gribon Guli Birded Muhemedov,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: I think that's right. So I found his name from
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: John Yeah, John Oliver on last week tonight.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Oh you didn't say it with the British accent, No,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: And he's.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: Like, not to be confused with the gribon Guli Birdie
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: Muhamedov that you went to high school. This is the
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: dictator from Turkmenistan and the reason that he was apparently
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: a fan of the Guinness World Records and so we
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: started like ordering his country to start breaking records, and
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: Guinness worked with him and took a lot of heat
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: for it.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this record is so one of the
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: ones that was successful was highest density of buildings with
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: white marble cladding.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, but he didn't have that already and then called Guinness.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: He ordered that to be built in one of the
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: cities in turk Menistan so that he like that turk
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: Menistan could have this record. Yeah.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Well, because of stuff like this, some of the old
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: guard is they used to work there isn't too thrilled
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: with the direction the company's taken. There's a woman named
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Anna Nicholas who was the head of PR in the
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: eighties and nineties. In a Guardian interview that was just saying, like,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: you know, they've kind of lost their way they're more
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: sensationalists too, sensationalists now and Norris McWhorter's own son, Alistair
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: said they've lost the intellectual integrity that the twins.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: Had as well as that love and feeling.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: That's right. Should we talk about some fun records.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: Let's but real quick. I just wanted to kind of
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: put a bow on that whole thing. What we're talking
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: about is the Guinness Book of World Records not just
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: surviving but actually thriving in the Internet age. And that
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: is just amazing in and of itself that it's not
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: just like some brand that's on like its last leg
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: or something like that. It still sells a million books
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: a year. It still makes like international news. They're very
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: media savvy, like they'll tie world records to you know,
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: international news, and all of a sudden they're in the
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: international news cycle like they're still around. And one of
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: the reasons why is because they still adhere to like
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: the principles that Norris and Ross created, which is like
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: it has to be correct, it has to be accurate,
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: it has to be factual, it has to be legitimate,
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: and they try to do that as much as possible.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: I think some people are like they're playing way too
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: fast and loose for that to be to be the case. Still,
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: but there's still like they're still doing it, and I say,
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: hats off. I'm really glad that the Guinness World Records are.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Still around, totally absolutely.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: Okay, now we can talk about some funny records.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, good, We'll talk fingernails, because we mentioned that early
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: that was one of the just sort of legendary pictures
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: from those early books was that Chinese priest didn't even
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: have a name on this guy who had those curly
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: those you know, long curly fingernails twenty two and three
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: quarters inches. Today, the woman who owns that record is
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: a woman named Diana Armstrong. I believe she's from Minnesota,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: and her total fingernail length is over forty two feet
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: close to forty three forty two feet ten point four inches,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: and she this is very sad, but she hasn't cut
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: her nails since nineteen ninety seven when her sixteen year
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: old daughter died from an asthma attack in her sleep,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: and her daughter apparently loved her mom's fingernails, helped her
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: do her nails. So Diana Armstrong was like him, never
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: cutting these and if you wonder what forty two feet
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: fingernails looks like.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: It's astounding.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like she's there's there's pictures where she's holding her
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: hand about shoulder height and the fingernails reach all the
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: way down to the floor like a cane, and they
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: are just astounding looking. I don't I don't know how
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: she gets anything done.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we also we have to like give credit
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: to the previous record holder, a woman named Lee Redman
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: who held the record before Diana Armstrong. And who I
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: guess is like, Okay, we're gonna lose it to somebody else.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: Like that's a pretty good person to lose it to.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: So what about Evil Kniebel? I remember we mentioned this
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: in the Evil Knievel two parter, which I still can't
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: believe we did.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, broken bones by a human.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, four hundred and thirty three, as the story goes, Yeah, no,
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: not all at once. There's a guy named George Kaminski
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: who was serving a life sentence in Pennsylvania, and apparently
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: the prison yards in Pennsylvania were full of four leaf clovers,
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: and for a little while, Kaminski held the largest collection
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: of four leaf clovers at just under seventy three thousand
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: four leaf clovers that he collected while in prison, and
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: then they moved him to a prison with fewer four
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: leaf clovers in the prison yard, and he suddenly was
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: quickly he lost his record.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: All right, I would like to mention Ashrita Furman, because
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: if you're wondering if someone wanted to hold like the
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: record for Guinness Records, then that of course has happened.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: This is a dude in New York City. He has
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: the record for the most world records and he's been
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: doing this for forty years plus. He was a kid
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: just like us that was sort of obsessed with this book,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: and in the late nineteen seventies was like, all right,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: here's my deal. I want to get in that book
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: more than anyone else by doing stuff like jumping jacks
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: and farthest distance treked on while balancing a bike on
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: a chin, hula, hooping underwater. These are the sort of little,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: just funny, odd human feats that Ashrida has made over
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: the years. And you know how many records?
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: Is it?
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: Seven hundred plus seven hundred plus?
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean, he just said it's his life's work
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: to hold as many records as he possibly could. And
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: he holds the record for the most records, right.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: That's just amazing, man, I love that.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: He's apparently a really good guy too, Like he helps
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: other people who are like him figure out, you know,
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: what records to go after, because he's like a jack
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: of all trades. Yeah, and I've noticed. I think there's
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: an economy of scale to it. So, for example, he
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: holds the record for longest distance I guess walked or
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: whatever with a bicycle balanced on your chin. He also
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: holds the record for the most pine classes balanced on
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: your chin eighty one. That's a lot of pine classes,
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: glass pine classes.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: You gotta get it balancing things on his gin.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think that's what he'll do. He'll like
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: dedicate himself to learning something and then you can break
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: a bunch of different records by doing similar things, right,
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: like balancing stuff on your chin. But he's all over
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: the place, like most arrow's broken with your neck in
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: one minute shu, like hula hooping underwater. Like he's like
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: he's not a one trick pony, He's a multiple trick pony.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: I guess is the best way to put it.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: Hey, you gotta be if you want to set the
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: record for records exactly.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right, John. Yeah, there's so much more I
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: want to say, but it will never come up with
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: a better ending for this episode than that, So let's.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Leave it at that, agreed.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: If you want to know more about Guinness World Records
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: than friends, there are some great ones out there that
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: you can delight and amuse yourself and you're friends with.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: Just go all over the internet, or even better, go
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: buy a copy of Guinness Book of World Records. Comes
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: out every year. And since I said it comes out
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: every year, that's triggered listener mail.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm gonna call this wind power in Texas. We've
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: heard from quite a few Texans. This from Ben and Denton, Texas. Hey, guys,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: it's fun to hear you talk about the great ways
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: that we bolstered our wind and solar over the years.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: A lot of people don't realize that Texas has its
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: own grid. And another thing people don't realize is that
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: there are many municipally owned utility companies here and Denton
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: is one of the City of Denton owns and manages
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: utilities for its citizens. I was actually a member of
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: the Public Utilities Board for a couple of years, which
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: is a board made just of citizens to have oversight
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: of the city's utility operations. And I really learned a lot,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: namely that Denton has pushed to source our electricity supply
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: exclusively from renewable resources for many years now. Denton also
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: has a huge push for other renewable energy efficient options
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: for its citizens, from discounts on solar panels and smart
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: thermostats to free trees for your property.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: Nice.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: While we're talking about Texas, Denton is the home to
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: one of the largest universities in Texas, University of North Texas.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Oh I didn't meant to look at their mascot, failed
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: to do so, which makes it a little bit of
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: a liberal leaning town in a lot of ways. But
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: much of Texas obviously is still hyper conservative. It's a
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: real shame how many politicians here seem to be arbitrarily
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: pushing it to shut down solar and wind farms. There's
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: no logical reason for it. Sure, it doesn't grow the
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: oil industry, but it does grow our supply in total,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: which is what we need, and it's sustainable, which is
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: a win win in my book. Anyways, as always, I
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: appreciate what you guys do, what you say and how
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: you say it, and I'd always agree. But that's life.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: That is from Ben Jumper.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: Very nice, Thanks a lot, Ben.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: What are they? Did you look it up?
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: Do you want me to look at us? It's the
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: the University of North Texas?
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Right, uh yeah, sure?
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: Can you hear me going be b b b boop.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at that.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: I've got it right here. Scrappy the Eagle.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: I would have never come up with that.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: That's their mascot. They say they're the mean Green Nation. Okay,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: so yeah, they're the North Texas mean Green. There you go,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: so go mean Green.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, and go wind Energy. Who is that from? Again?
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: That was from Ben Jumper.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Ben. That's wonderful. Glad you're doing great
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: work out there. Keep it up, buddy. And if you
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: want to be like Ben and tell us about some
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: great work your town, or your region, or your country
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: or your universe is doing, we want to hear about it.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: You can send it via email to Stuff podcast at
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: iHeartRadio dot com.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: U