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CLASSIC: Why does the Guinness Beer Company Track World Records? · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. This is a
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: classic episode. Your pals have been having some adventures. Shout
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: out to our super producer Ben. The outlaw Hacketys always
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: welcome Ben's and Nol's on the show. I'm a Ben,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and we've got to know.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: I know Ben Hackett is a bit of a wild
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: West kind of figure. He's definitely our Huckleberry today. That's
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: for dang shore.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: No. We have just for context for our listeners. We
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: have embarked upon a strange crossover with our peer podcast,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime m I like.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Your previously unlost boys there super fun. I think I
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: mentioned in a couple of times on the episode itself.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: But while I am familiar with the concept of twenty questions,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: I have never personally until now played twenty questions, and
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: I never played it in my mind. I was like,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: there's no way this is going to be fun, and
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: like it seems like people will either never ever get
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: it in a million years or get it too quickly.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: But it was the.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Perfect balance of both had definitely, yeah, we had some walls,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: but overall it was a learning experience, a journey of
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: self discovery.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: You had a nice half court shot at the Buzzer
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: that I loved. No spoilers, folks, check out that episode
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: in the meantime, While Max Williams, Noel Brown, and yours
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: truly get ourselves together for the Danie Maull for the
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: second episode of this crossover, we thought we would share
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: one of our favorite classic episodes.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Already a class.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: It's a shot from the dark Man. It's one that
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I forgot about. I don't know about you, but at
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: some point when we're hanging out off air, we asked
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: each other about the Scholastic book fair and why the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Guinness Company, of all the companies in the world, why
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: is the beer company and are to world records.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: It's sort of like how the entire company is in
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: charge of fancy restaurant designations. It literally is just a
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: thing we were only running too all the time on
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: ridiculous history about being first to market with an idea
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: and then the legacy just sort of takes over and
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: if you become the authority on that thing just by
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: kind of being around. Don't want to give too much away,
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  Speaker 2: but that's exactly what happened with Guinness as a result
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: of little bets that drunken Europeans would make in bars
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  Speaker 2: about like the biggest whatever, the longest whatever, the fastest whatever, exactly,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: all the whatever, all the whatever's, which become increasingly attenuated
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: over time.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: So we can't wait for you to hear this one,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians. We also hope you enjoy the moment where
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: your faithful correspondents try to determine whether or not they
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: can actually get in the Guinness Book of World Records.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't quite remember how that went. I'm assuming
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: that it was a no.
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  Speaker 1: Well we'll have to see.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, we will see. Let's get right to it.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the show,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ben. We're here with
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: our super producer, Casey Pegram. I don't know if he
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: has a world record yet.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: And I'm Noel the average man. Brown.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Is that a world record? Are you the most average?
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: No? I'm quite average at being average, but I hope
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: to one day go out for a world record in averageness.
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  Speaker 1: It turns out, Noul, that there are so many world records.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: We always hear about these things, where so and so
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: has the largest collection of match sticks, which you know,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: going back on our earlier comment about poluminous from a
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: previous episode, I could see that being a world record.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Well, it's also like, you know, obviously we think of
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: world records. We think of things like being the fastest runner.
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  Speaker 2: Are things that are measured very specifically and precisely in
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: sports in the Olympics, you know, competitive sports that you like.
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  Speaker 2: But then there's the fun dumb ones like the match
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  Speaker 2: sticks or you know, the world's largest postage stamp. I
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: don't know if that's real, or like, you know, the
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: world's tallest man, which is a distinction worthy of being
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  Speaker 2: you know, put in in a document or a book,
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  Speaker 2: shall we say, and we know them love that book.
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  Speaker 2: And it's called the Guinness Book of Records, and it's
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  Speaker 2: been around for a long time. As it turns out, yes, it's.
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  Speaker 1: Been around for quite a while. But the question is,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: if you're like a lot of kids in the United States,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: the question is where does this book come from? For
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  Speaker 1: most people, it was a book. I don't know about you,
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  Speaker 1: but growing up there was a thing in my neck
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  Speaker 1: of the woods called like the Scholastic book Fair book Fair. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and one of the hot items in the book fair
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  Speaker 1: was gonna be Guinness Book of World Records, followed only
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: by scary stories to tell the dark YEP, nailed it.
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  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Do we go to the same school.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: I think everyone went to that school. I think they
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: toured around with that. There were those cases. It looked
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: like a rock show. There were like these kind of
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: like rolling cases and they'd open them up and they'd
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: be full of these scholastic paperbacks, and you could also
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: do a book order. I remember that. But yeah, the
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  Speaker 2: Guinness Book was always a hot ticket because it had
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: later editions, crazy like holographic kind of covers, and it
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: was very glossy and a really cool eye popping book,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: you know, and it was full of all kinds of
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: gross stuff and weird stuff. Kids love that stuff, but
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: as it turns out, so do drunk irish people.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, speaking of fantastic segues, my friend, the question for
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: today's episode is where did this book come from? Does
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  Speaker 1: it have anything to do with the Guinness Brewery, because
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  Speaker 1: you know, it's completely possible that there's just some guy
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: named Rutherford pe McGuinness who decided to calculate every world record. Luckily,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: it turns out that is not the case, Yeah, sort
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: of like.
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  Speaker 2: The case with the Michelin Stars for restaurants. People ask
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: the same question, like, is this Michelin like the Michelin
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: man the tire company. Well, it turns out yeah, they
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: had a stake in the game as best publishing a
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: travel guide, and then you end up with this thing,
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  Speaker 2: the Michelin Star system for restaurants. Such is the case
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  Speaker 2: with Guinness. So, as it turns out, the genesis of
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: the Guinness Book of Records can be traced back to
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  Speaker 2: a conversation that took place during a hunting party in
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  Speaker 2: County Wexford, which is in Ireland, not too far from Dublin.
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  Speaker 1: That's right, Sir Hugh Eerie Campbell Beaver. Well, I know
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  Speaker 1: he's name rich, Sir Hugh Ear or Eerie e y
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: r E. Campbell Beaver.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Let's refer to him henceforth as Sir Hugh. Okay, cool
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: with that.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go with Sir Beaver, but you could
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: do Sir Hugh.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: If that's might be confused. Let's go with okay.
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  Speaker 1: So, regardless of the nomenclature, we choose Sir Hugh Beaver
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  Speaker 1: was a British engineer and he was the managing director
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  Speaker 1: of the Guinness Brewery at the time. He was hunting
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: birds with his friends in nineteen fifty one. Beaver shot
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  Speaker 1: at a game bird and missed. The shot went awry,
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  Speaker 1: and this led the party to wonder not only about
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  Speaker 1: how fast this particular bird was, but it also led
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  Speaker 1: them to ask what is the fastest bird in existence?
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  Speaker 1: And they did not find any reference to this information
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  Speaker 1: across the European continent. They were dumbfounded.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you would think that that would be something that
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  Speaker 2: would be in like encyclopedia or record books of some
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: kind that to me is a more run of the
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: mill type record or at least just something of scientific
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  Speaker 2: note that would be out there. But no, they couldn't
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  Speaker 2: find it. So they figured, hey, this could be cool
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  Speaker 2: as a promotion for the brewery, you know, because he
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  Speaker 2: got guys in pubs that are having drinks and trying
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: to settle arguments. Why not have a book you could
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  Speaker 2: whip out and say, actually, it's sort of the invention
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  Speaker 2: of Actually, I.
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  Speaker 1: Like the way you phrase it.
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  Speaker 2: There.
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  Speaker 1: The lack of information haunted Sir Hugh Beaver. Picture this
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  Speaker 1: otherwise content irishman laying in bed at night, staring at
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  Speaker 1: the ceiling, tortured by this idea that no one knows
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  Speaker 1: which bird in the world is the fastest, which game
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  Speaker 1: bird is the fastest.
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  Speaker 2: I don't want to live in that world. I don't
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  Speaker 2: know what he was saying to himself.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want him to live in that world either,
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  Speaker 1: you know. And there was no single official record, or,
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  Speaker 1: as he later realized, there weren't many official records at all.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. So he did something about it, right, I mean,
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  Speaker 2: he didn't allow himself to be tortured by these waking
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  Speaker 2: nightmares of not being able to know what the fastest
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  Speaker 2: game foul was, No, sir. He sought out a pair
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  Speaker 2: of twins by the names of Norris and Ross mccorter,
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  Speaker 2: and they were journalists. More specifically, they were fact checkers.
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  Speaker 2: They were intensely pedantic fact checkers. They were known for
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  Speaker 2: their fastidiousness when it came to verifying data and facts
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: of any kind. And they had worked on Fleet Street,
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: which was I believe kind of a hub of publishing
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  Speaker 2: in London, and they were involved in a lot of
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  Speaker 2: encyclopedias and they would travel the world over to confirm
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  Speaker 2: various facts because at the time, obviously no Internet, you
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  Speaker 2: had to go to the place, see the thing, confirm it,
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  Speaker 2: test it, clock it, whatever, Yet what have you?
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  Speaker 1: And they did that what is the world's largest bag
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  Speaker 1: of hagis well.
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  Speaker 2: This is even before like this is like even just
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  Speaker 2: with their kind of more encyclopedic ventures. But they ended
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  Speaker 2: up being perfect for this promotion.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, it was great casting and this was so
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: our friend, right mister excuse me, Sir Hugh Beaver is
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: haunted for about three years by this experience, so it's
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four when he gets this idea for promotion.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: The mcquarter twins are perfect casting. There's no other way
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  Speaker 1: to say it. And together these folks team up in
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  Speaker 1: a triumvirate and Guinness Superlatives is incorporated. In November of
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: that year, they opened two rooms in a converted gymnasium
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  Speaker 1: on the top floor of Ludgate House at one oh
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  Speaker 1: seven Fleet Street. And it took a lot of work
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: to make this book. You can look on the official
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: history page for Guinness World Records and they refer to
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  Speaker 1: an initial research phase, but they don't count it. And
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: we can only imagine how much research would be involved
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: because this is the first time that someone tried to
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: compile all the world records. Who is what's the fastest animal,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: what's the fastest game bird? What's the tallest point on Earth? Right?
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Or the highest elevation from sea level.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: I found a really interesting stat about this. It comes
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: from the current marketing director for Guinness by the name
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: of Stuart Clachston. He wrote a cool little article that
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: I found on HuffPo and he says that it took
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: the twins sixteen weeks to put this thing together, and
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: it costs thirty five thousand dollars.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: And luckily I've got my handy dandy in fleetion calculator here.
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  Speaker 1: Thirty five grand in nineteen fifty four is equal to
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: about three hundred and twenty one thousand dollars today.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I found out even more specific stata about
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: how long it took them thirteen and a half ninety
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: hour weeks, including weekends, bating weekends, and bank holidays. So
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, no small feet and you know, the big
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: worders putting in all this backbreaking work for what, at
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: the time just felt like a promotional item for a
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: pint of ale Lagger? Is it lagger? Is it ale?
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Oof? I don't know if I drink it?
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Anyet know the answered out it's stout.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: It's a stout. I hear that it's very different when
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: you're actually in Ireland.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: I'm sure it is. Any any folks from Ireland feel
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: free to flame our inbox at ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: com for our ignorance about lagger versus ale versus stout.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Invite us to grab a pint with you in Ireland.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: I hear that it is different depending upon the pub
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: you visit, and I'm always curious what temperature is it
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: supposed to be served at? We digress?
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, all I was saying was that, like little
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: did the mcquarters know that this you know, seeming promotional
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: item for an alcoholic beverage, shall we say, was gonna
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: blow up to be this massive cultural touchstone that has
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: gone on to sell hundreds of millions of copies over
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: the years, and, like you.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Said, as a staple in book fairs the world over right,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty five, summer of nineteen fifty five they
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: publish the book. There are fifty thousand copies, and as
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: as we have mentioned, they were mainly promotional items. But
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: very soon Sir Hugh Beaver realized that he had accidentally
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: stumbled into the zeitgeist people the world over. They wanted
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: to know who the world's taught tallest man was, who
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the world's shortest person, or the fastest person, or the
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: fattest person, or the person with the longest fingernails, was.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Most average person or the most average person, who I
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: believe still is John B. Smith.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, there were like ten of him and they're all
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: tied for average.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's the thing, Like it was a zeitgeis
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: you think in and of itself because it hit on
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: an interest that many many people clearly shared. But it
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: also created this kind of outpouring of like obsession with
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: record keeping and record holding, right, you had to kind
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: of invent new records. Where it became it went from
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: like things like you're talking about, like the fastest or
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: the tallest or the biggest or whatever. It turned into
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: things like world record for most ballet dancers standing on
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: point on a pier and that was in Thessaloniki, Greece
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: on October first of twenty sixteen, and it was for
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: thirty seconds three times. So the further you get down
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: the line, the more specific they get. What were some
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: of the early ones that were in that first edition.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Ben Oh.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Sure, the earlier ones were things that still seem iconic
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to us today, such as the world's tallest man whoever lived,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: meaning both living or dead, that would be Robert Pershon Wadlow,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: who was eight feet eleven inches tall, although nowadays, if
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: we're talking about living people, the title would go to
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Turkish national Sultan Kosen, who holds the record at eight
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: feet three inches currently. However, the interesting thing about the
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: evolution of the Guinness Book of World Records is that
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: of the thousands of applications that the Guinness World Records
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: organization receives each month, most are for new records in
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: categories that did not exist in the original publication in
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five, things like the longest kissed. The current record,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: by the way, is fifty eight hours, thirty five minutes
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: and fifty eight seconds. You have to just twist your head.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: I'm going to show you a pretty cool picture that.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Look how bored this lady looks.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: It looks they're doing some head twisting, and there would
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: have to be something otherwise it would just be longest
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: period with lips pressed together? What qualifies a kiss? That's tough.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I think it's just the you know, fifty eight hours
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: is a long time to do, Eddie.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: I agree. The thing that's neat too, though, is to
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: this day the book contains about the same number of
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: records as it did when it first came out in
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: fifty five, and then the next year in the USA
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: in fifty six, which is about four thousand and the
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: original edition, there weren't any color, glossy images like you
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: see today. It was all black and white photos, and
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: there were a lot of hand drawn illustrations of the
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: more encyclopedic entries, like things like the blue whale or
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: any you know, animals like largest largest mammal exactly. But
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: some of the things that were in that first edition
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: that are still quite iconic today are a man named
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: John R. Cobb held the world record for land speed
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: in a single direction at four hundred and three point
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: one three five miles per hour, and that was in
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: nineteen forty seven. A man by the name of Manningford
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: faith Jan graceful these names my lord, wait again, Manningford
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: faith Jan graceful. O. I'm sorry. That's a cow, a
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: British Frishian cow Frishian cow that had the highest lifetime
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: milk yield at three hundred and twenty five and thirty
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: pounds over seventeen years. But good gravy man, you name
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: your cow that Manningford faith jan graceful. Oh my heavens.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: That sounds like a Toast of London name big.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Time, big time. I hear you climb fandango. And then
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: you've got if you guys never heard Toast of London,
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: check out Toast of London. It's it's fantastic. It's on
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Netflix right now. Actually plug. But then you've got this
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: last one, which I really enjoy. There's a pub. There
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: was a pub called the Smith's Arms that held the
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: record for being the world's a tiny pub and it
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: was ten feet wide and four feet high.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Four feet high, that's what it says. That's interesting. There's
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: also there's also a record for the largest prenatal yoga class.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: That's a thing. If you want to break that record,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: all you need, as of our recording to day, is
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: five hundred and fifty four participants. So you got to
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: get five hundred and fifty four pregnant people to do
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: yoga with you, and boom, you're in the book. We
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: have seen all three of us Noel Casey and I
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: have seen some pretty specific and strange records. There's one
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: for spinning a basketball on a toothbrush while holding it
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: in your mouth. If you can do it for more
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: than twenty two zero point four to one seconds, congratulations.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: That sounds like a Harlem globe trotter's kind of trick.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: It does, it really does. There are records for the
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: fastest planting of rice seedlings. There are superlatives plenty. You know,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: we've seen things like the person with the most piercings
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: or the most tattoos. Nowadays, the Guinness World Record brand
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: is owned by the Jim Pattison Group. They're the same
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: company that owns Ripley's. Believe it or not. Did you
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: ever go to those museums.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: I've been to a few. Yeah. They're kind of schlocky,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: boardwalk tourist traps, sort of fun. They're fun. They're fun.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: I sound like I'm poopooing. I'm not.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I love them. I'm fully into it.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: There are no museum of death, I'll give you that.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: That's true. They are a little bit you know, they
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: have their their morbid side, but they're way more lighthearted. Right.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: We do have some good news as well about the
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: fate of the mcwerter twins, who were really the driving
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: force for this.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: I think is it a good news bad news situation,
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: because there's definitely some bad news.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: It is a bad news good news situation. So from
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two on, the mcwerder twins were familiar figures
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: in a show called record Breakers.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that actually stemmed from a children's show called Blue
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Peter that I think is still running you this day,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: some permutation of it, But record Breakers was much more
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: specifically tied to the whole Guinness thing, and it showcased
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: the brother's steadfastness at clocking records and measuring success and
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: failures in all these departments. And they became kind of
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: presenters television presenters in addition to being behind the scenes folks.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: And they must have had some phenomenal cognitive ability because
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: part of the show involved putting the mcworders on the
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: spot to have an instant recall of obscure facts and figures,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: and they were almost never wrong and almost never at
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: a loss for the numbers they were asked to recall.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: Another thing, Now, I bet most of you boys watching
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: have got hair twice as long as your fathers, haven't
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: you four times as long as your grandfather's? But do
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: you know who grew the long hair in the world?
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: While it was a man called Swami Pendra Sandai. His
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: hair was twenty six feet long.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Twenty six feet long, Look at that.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't like to wear this the day after he
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: watched it? Or did you know? If you don't believe that,
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: the longest beard on record was that of Hen's Landseth
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: of Norway, and his beard was seventeen and a half
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: feet in length, and he died in nineteen twenty seven and.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: He had to walk backwards all that.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: The longest kingernails on record were theirs of a Chinese
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: priest who took twenty seven years to grow them to
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: a height of or length of twenty two and three
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: quarter inches.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very handy for scratching your ankles.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: So what happened next? Here's where we find the darker
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: turn that we mentioned briefly. Ross McWherter was shot fatally
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: by the IRA on his London doorstep in nineteen seventy five.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: That's right. He was a big, outspoken opponent of the
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: IRA and he used his celebrity to speak out against
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: them and pushed for a tougher response against these kind
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: of republican terrorists by the British government. And he actually
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: offered a fifty thousand pound reward in nineteen seventy five,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: that is a lot of cash for any information that
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: might lead to the arrests of an IRA cell that
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: was trying to carry out these just deadly bombing campaigns
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: all throughout London that were happening at the time.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: And Noras mcwerder soldiered on as the books editor until
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six. Afterwards, he continued as an assistant editor,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: and he spent a lot of time involved in political organizations,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: particularly what was known as the Freedom Association. He wanted
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: to reign back what he saw as the overarching or
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: overwhelming power of governments and trade unions. He retired finally
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six, and he was seventy eight when
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: he died playing a game of tennis in two thousand
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: and four.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: And what's interesting is that these brothers essentially created the
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: foundation for this publication that we still know today that
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: hasn't changed a ton. I mean, the whole idea is
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: very much the same as it was when they published
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: the first edition, which, by the way, you can find
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: on eBay for only about fifty pounds you can get
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: a first edition Guinness Record Book. Really, I was really shocked.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: I would have thought that they would be more scarce,
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: but I guess maybe not a first edition, but it's
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: definitely like among those first several editions becassa the first edition,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: I think they only made fifty thousand copies and then
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: they just kept having to go into reprints of that
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: first edition. But in that first edition, the Brothers are
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: not directly credited. Wow, they are just called the complers.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: The compilers, so there was a bit of anonymity there.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: It's fascinating you said that, And Noel, I think we
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: would be remiss if we did not address a question
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: that everyone listening is wondering, which is how do we
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: set our own world records? Is it possible in this
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: day and age, in twenty eighteen, is it possible for
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: a well meaning John Smith in the crowd, John or
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Jane Smith to grab a superlative all their own? The
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: answer is yes, but it's complicated, yeah.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: And one of the reasons it's complicated is because, like
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: it's been around for so long and the records have
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: to get more and more obscure and bizarre, and the conditions, right,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: like the whole ballerina standing on tiptoe and jumping every
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: thirty seconds or whatever, like, you can set these bizarre
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: guidelines that sure, that's a because no one else thought
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: of those exact conditions to do it. But as far
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: as like breaking like you know, a speed record or
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: something like that, that's a little more tough. But you
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: know you it's within your grasp if you want to
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: come up with something weird that no one's thought of.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: But right, it is not by any means impossible. It
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: really depends upon a couple of things. The first thing
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: that you will do if you want to set a
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: world record that goes into print in the book is
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: to find something that is measurable, provable, has a single
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: point to it, and can be beaten. Unless it's the
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: first ever version of something like the first person to
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: walk on an asteroid, right, or the first person to
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: eat the state of Texas, that's not going to happen.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: What if I just did the first person to hold
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: a pencil in my closed eyelid by the eraser for
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: twelve minutes and no one has thought of that particular
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: thing to do, yet could technically qualify if if no
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: one has done that one.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a little bit of subjectivity here because the
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: editors or the compilers must think it's interesting. And I
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: think that's specific enough that they would they would consider
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: it interesting, especially if you did it for like twelve
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: hours or something.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: I don't want to do it with twelve hours. I
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: want to do it for a maximum ten minutes.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Well, you could get it. You could get it for
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: ten minutes, but if you set it at ten minutes,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: what's going to happen I guarantee you is next year
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: there's going to be some JABBRONI who goes for eleven minutes.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: It's not going to be me. It's probably not going
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: to be Casey.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: I don't care. I just want to be in the book.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: You just want to be in the best one year.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: It's one year.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: So another thing people do is to set group records
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: the world's largest thriller dance, for instance. Right we talked
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: about prenatal yoga. Just if you want to set a
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: world record, get a bunch of your friends or a
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: bunch of strangers to do one very specific thing with
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: you for as long as possible, which the organization on
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: that boggles the mind. I guess I would try to.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I would beat the largest thriller
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: dance That was a record in Mexico with more than
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: thirteen thousand people. It was on Michael Jackson's posthumous birthday.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: They all did the thriller dance. So, as you can see,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: research is very important. And I'll anticipate the question that
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of us have. Is there a person who
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: holds the record for holding the most world records? The
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: answer is yes. His name is Ashrita Furman. One of
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: his records is for pushing an orange for a mile
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: with his nose, and he famously researched the type of
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: orange to use. So you need to pick your battles carefully,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: and you need to be aware that you can break
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: a record without spending a dime. The record breaking is
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: free and open to everyone. They only ask that you
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: give them six to eight weeks for existing categories and
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: eight to twelve weeks for new ideas. So this pencil
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: in the eye by the eraser that would that would
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: qualify for a new idea. And every record has a
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: set of guidelines you have to follow. You can apply
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: online at Guinness World Records dot com and they'll send
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: these guidelines to you via email. There is there's there's
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: a great piece of inspiration here by a record breaker
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: named Hannah Boseley. She, along with three hundred and twenty
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: four other people, holds the world record for the largest
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: gathering of people dressed as penguins. And according to Hannah Boseley,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: breaking record is not as hard to organize as you
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: might first anticipate, So just get going and if you
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: want to do it, you will.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: And a street of Furman who you mentioned, is holding
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: the record for the most records at two hundred I
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: believe he said. It also goes to show you don't
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: have to be some sort of superhuman or athlete. This
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: person is a health food store manager from Queens and
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: the first record that he broke was in nineteen seventy
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: nine where he did twenty seven thousand jumping jacks. And
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: then he also holds the record for rope skipping on
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: a pogo stick. He did that at Cambodia's Angor Watt.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Also he hula hooped at Australia's Air of Rock and
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: he traveled the entire length of Paul Revere's ride in
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: forward roles. So in what forward roles like somersaults? Yeah yeah, yeah,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: yeah exactly. So you know it's up for grabs. If
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: you believe it, go for it. And I think a
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: good way to wrap this up is to read the
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: forward of that original Guinness Book of Records, which was
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: by a man who at the time was the chairman
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: of the Guinness Park Royal Brewery. And speaking of amazing titles,
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: his name was the Right Honorable Earl of Iva and
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: he has KGCB and CMG titles after that, and there
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: are various military orders that he was a part of,
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: and he prefaces that first edition with this forward. Wherever
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: people congregate to talk, they will argue, and sometimes the
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: joy lies in the arguing and would be lost if
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: there was any definite answer. But more often the argument
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: takes place on a dispute of fact, and it can
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: be very exasperating if there is no immediate means of
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: settling the argument. Who is the first to swim the channel?
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: Where is England's deepest well or Scotland's highest tree, or
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Ireland's oldest church? How many died in history's worst railcrash,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: who gained the biggest majority in parliament? What is the
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: highest point in our country? And so on? How much
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: heat these innocent questions can raise. Guinness, in producing this
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: book hopes that it may assist in resolving many such disputes,
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: and we hope turn heat into light.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Fantastic and well said. We only want to add when
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: you are considering breaking a world record or forming a
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: new one, Guinness will not accept anything that harms animals
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: or is dangerous for the would be record breaker. So
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: you can't do longest time without sleep. Apparently you can't
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: do heaviest fish because people were overfeeding their fish.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: Monsterus. Hey, if you are working at breaking a record,
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: or you have a fun idea for a record that
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: maybe has yet to be dreamt up, please shoot us
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: an email at Ridiculous at how Stuff Works. You can
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: also send us a note on Facebook or Ridiculous History.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: We've got an Instagram in Ridiculous History, and leave us
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: We would be much in your debt.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe we can set the We can set the
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: record for the most reviews. It's a dangerous game to play,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: We're inching up on three hundred now, so let's shoot
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: for the move.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: And we will see you next week. Folks, go break
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: some records of your own.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.