June 26, 2026 • 46 mins
There’s a reason the Guinness Book of World Records keeps getting stolen from libraries! Learn just how hard it is to grow the world’s longest fingernails, why India’s lone records judge has the hardest job in the world, and how chainsawing apples out of your mouth can lead to glory. Featuring Dan Rollman.
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This episode originally aired on July 7, 2017.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what mango?
Speaker 2 (00:00):
What's that will?
Speaker 3 (00:01):
So I took a couple wrong turns on the internet
this week and I ended up in this gallery of
libraries from the Middle Ages. And you know, book theF
used to be a huge problem. So the first thing
any self respecting book collector would do is chain their
books to their bookshelf.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Like dog leashes.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Oh, these things were so much thicker, like heavy duty chains.
If you look up the Hereford Cathedral in London, you
see bookshelves filled with manuscripts, and in front of each
book there's just a curtain of chains hanging down because
every one of those books is tethered to the shelf.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
It's so imposing that cou'd be a great tactic if
you actually want people reading the books.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
But that wasn't even the best solution for protecting your library.
If you wanted to upgrade, you could put your chain
books inside a locked safe. It was kind of a
nesting doll approach to book security. But if you were
really looking for protection, the ultimate in book protection was
a curse.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Of course, a curse.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Well, they were a little more like little inscribed threat.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
That feels like such a hail Mary, Like you've Got
a thief who's broken in your home and then in
your safe, sawed through a thick chain. Got this Harry
Potter sequel he's been dying to read, finally in his hands,
and somehow a curse is going to make him put
the book down.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I mean, that's the idea. Let me read you my
favorite threat.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
It says, if anyone take away this book, let him
be fried in a pan.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
That sounds like such a Looney Tunes threat.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I know, it isn't that intimidating unless the book owner
also ons a human sized frying pan. All this research
on book thefts made me curious. What's the most stolen
publication from public libraries. Number two on the list is
the Bible.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Why does anyone steal a Bible?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Maybe they just skimmed the first few pages. They didn't
get far enough to realize that God's pretty clear about
not stealing. But here's some of the other things in
the top ten. You've got prep books for exams, books
on Nazis, and occult things. Generally books people might be
too embarrassed to check out. Sure, but the number one
book that gets stolen from public libraries, the Guinness Book
of World Records.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
What I mean that itself kind of feels like a record.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I know.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Honestly, I hadn't thought about the Guinness Book in years.
I mean I loved it as a kid, couldn't wait
for the book fair to come so I could pick
up a copy. But when I heard that fact, it
made me wonder, why are we so impressed with records?
And what is it about the Guinness Book that's made
it such a beloved institution. And who has the record
for reading the most baked beans in five minutes? So
(02:17):
that's what we're digging into today.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Important stop, Hey their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
good friend Mangesh Hot Ticket Earth, and today's episode is
all about world records, How the Guinness Book got its start,
how they're cataloged, what countries take the book most seriously,
and of course we'll have a couple of terrible quizzes.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
What do we have on the line today, Mango, We've.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Got Dan Rollman from recordsetter dot Com. He's terrific. He's
going to tell us how his site, which allows you
to set all sorts of World Records from the comfort
of your phone got its start.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
All right.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
So before this episode, it had been years since I
looked at the Guinness Book, how about you?
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yeah, I remember reading them with friends on the school
bus and dumbing through them at the library, but it
had been like decades since I held one. Actually, I
had a strange experience buying my book for this episode.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah, what happened?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Well, I went to this big bookstore in my neighborhood
and went up to the clerk. Who is this judge?
Literary type I know? And I said, I'm wondering if
you could help me, and he looked eager, and then
I said, I'm looking for the Guinness Book of World Records.
And as that title spilled out of my mouth, I
just watched his face.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
All right, why is that?
Speaker 5 (03:43):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
It was almost like when I was a kid at
the local video store and my friends and I would
approach the counter with like city Slickers too, or some
mainstream movie, and the clerk with just judges because we
weren't trying to rent like a Portuguese art film.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yeah, I think you're gonna have to explain to our
younger listeners what a video store is well, well.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
A long time ago, somewhere between when dinosaurs ruled the
earth and Netflix took over, people used to travel to
the stores to rent games and movies and sometimes pay
exorbitant late fees to them.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
That's probably the worst fact we've ever told on our show.
But you were talking about the bookstore experience.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, so I said Guinness Book, and he didn't even
bother to look at his computer. He was like, reference,
you just go to reference. But then I started flipping
the pages, and holy smokes, I honestly forgot just how
fun the Guinness Book is. Like, of course kids steal
this from libraries. Who doesn't want to know? What's the
most number of bowling balls someone's caught on their forehead.
(04:36):
It's six. By the way, guy had six bowling balls
in a row thrown at him and then he caught
them on his forehead one after the other, which is impressive.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
I don't even know how that works, but I'm guessing
presumably there was a seventh ball chucked his way that
he didn't catch.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah, the book doesn't mention that, but it does say
what the world's largest robot snake is.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Which is what I can tell you're dying to talk
about this.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Of course I am. It's the Titan of Boa. Not
only is it fifty feet long, but it was engineered
to be a life size replica of an extinct snake.
It's all based on a real fossil. Huh, and apparently
the engineer's remote controlled it around at science festivals where
it goes wild on dance floor.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I can't only imagine.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
So I love all those crazy facts too. What's strange
is that when I was a kid, the stuff I
really remembered was much more about the guy with the
longest mustache or the tallest man in the world. But
the book actually has so much general knowledge in there,
Like in the twenty seventeen edition there's a page on
the business of sports and how the average NBA player
makes six hundred times what an NBA cheerleader makes, or
(05:41):
that the Lakers franchise pulls in two point six billion
dollars a year, like those are real facts, not just stunts.
Like most apples held in a mouth and cut in
half by a chainsaw in a minute.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Which is an actual record, right Yep.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
It's Johnny Strange cut twelve apples and half out of
Daniella Martin's mouth.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Of course, that sounds terrifying. Also does the Guinness Book
look through all the apples and determine, well, this one
wasn't cut exactly down the center, so you're getting docked
in apple.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I mean, the record keepers are definitely meticulous, which we're
going to talk about in a bit because it sounds
like a crazy job. And how you actually get into
the Guinness Book is an incredible process. But this guy,
Johnny Strange, he is an artist, so he also holds
the record for most apples held in one's own mouth
and cut my chainsaw in a minute, he cut eight
apples in half in his own mouth.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Oh I get uncomfortable when I point scissor that myself.
I can't even imagine like turning a chainsaw in my
own direction. But let's get back to what I think
you were saying, which is that the Guinness Book contained
more history and economics and just facts about the world
than you expected.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yeah, that's right. There are all sorts of facts about
geology and earth science, like the longest natural arch, the
largest slot canyon. And that's because Guinness Book actually started
out as a way to settle argument. Really, Yeah, you know,
before people had cell phones or access to the internet,
you might be at a cafe and get into a
silly or something ridiculous, like what.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Country dominates synchronized swimming? Sure, Switzerland?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Okay, Well, let's say one of your friends is arguing
for Switzerland.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
If you correct, I mean, you never bet against Swiss precision.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
That's that's true, all right.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
So you're on team Switzerland and someone else can't stop
praising Russia, and the whole debate gets heated because maybe
you've had a few drinks and you're a little too invested.
But back in the nineteen fifties, there really weren't a
lot of ways to settle this without either taking the
word or the biggest synchronized swimming fan in the group,
or maybe calling him a bookie with a specialty in
the sport. And because sometimes a drunken argument, no matter
(07:34):
how trivial the topic, can lead to a brawl. And
that's what the Guinness Book was for. It was actually
a piece making device to be stocked in bars and
settle bickering.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Oh I love that. I feel like the Guinness Book
deserves a Nobel Peace Prize or at least an Ignoble
Peace Prize.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
You love the Ignobles, I do.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
But this feels so deserving. Speaking of which, do you
know what my favorite Ignoble Peace prize is?
Speaker 1 (07:54):
What's that? Tell me?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
It's from a few years back and it went to
a mayor in Lithuania. According to the Ignobles, he went
for a quote demonstrating that the problem of illegally parked
luxury cars can be solved by running over them with
an armored tank. I looked up the photos of this.
The mayor would actually drive the tank himself over Mercedes
and Lexus is parked and bike lanes no way, and
he was right, It's solved the problem.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
I think they're using the word piece ironically there though.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, or the Ignoble Pieces Prize also a full confession.
I don't know anything about Switzerland synchronized swimming team. The
only thing I do know about the sport is that
swimmers use jeladen to keep their hair in place.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yep, that's why their hair is so perfect and shiny.
So by the way, Russia is dominant in the sport.
They've won nineteen international synchronized swimming titles in a row,
which I learned from the Guinness Book.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
See it actually works well.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
It definitely stopped us from getting in a fist.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
But that's true.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
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com slash PTG. Details are in the episode description. So
do you know what the original argument that spurred the
idea for the Guinness Book was? Like? Was there one
specific thing people were debating there was?
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Actually it all started with Sir Hugh Beaver.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Sir Hugh Beaver. That sounds like a name out of
Wind in the Willows, but he's a real person.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
So Sir Beaver was out on a shooting expedition with
friends when he took aim at a golden plover and
missed After a few shots. He used the excuse that
the plover was the fastest European game bird. And you
know how friends are, they give each other a hard time.
So not only did his friends remind him that he
had a bad shot, but they also claimed the red
grouse was faster, and so they took their argument to
(12:05):
a pub than to a library, and when they couldn't
find the answer, Sir Beaver came up with this idea
of this fact book that might help settle pub disputes.
And because he was such a big shot at Guinness Brewing,
he knew there were over eighty thousand pubs in England
and Ireland and he hoped they'd create a market. And
it isn't that old. Sir Hugh commissioned the first version
in nineteen fifty four as a promotional giveaway. He hired
(12:28):
these twin brothers from London and they were meticulous fact
checkers to help him write it. But by nineteen fifty
five it was already this institution. They printed fifty thousand
copies of the first edition and immediately hit the best
seller list, which.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Is pretty interesting that the company isn't that old. But
you left me on a cliffhanger, was Sir Hugh Wright,
was the golden plover faster than the red grouse?
Speaker 3 (12:48):
What's funny is that the whole book was started to
answer this one question, but according to the Society of
Guinness Book Collectors, that answer wasn't tackled until the thirty
sixth edition, where they gave the nod to the red grouse,
which travels fifty eight miles an hour.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
For you, I hope his friends aren't walking him in
the afterlife.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Well, they wrote this thing so apologetically, like the book reads.
Airspeeds of seventy miles per hour have been claimed, but
it is extremely doubtful whether this rapid flying bird can
exceed fifty to fifty five miles an hour, even in
an emergency. But at least they waited until Hugh was
dead a few decades before broaching the subject.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
That's so considerate.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
So who do we have on the line today, Mango?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Today we have the number twelve rank competitive eater in
the world and the former world record holder of corn
on the cob beating forty seven to twelve minutes.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And also Canoli. And he's the defending champion of the
Tour to Donut bicycle race in multiple states. And his
name might be familiar to you will it's Yaser Seline.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Hey, ya, sir, how's it going?
Speaker 6 (13:55):
God?
Speaker 3 (13:56):
So, for full disclosure, when Mangesh and I were at
Mental philos Yaster worked in the marketing department, so during
the weekdays, he'd be working on brilliant marketing ideas, and
on the weekends he'd be off to these crazy competitive
eating contests and races and other kinds of extreme activities.
We're going to ask him all about those. But y'ahs
(14:17):
are to start off, how did you get into this
world of extreme sports and competitive eating.
Speaker 7 (14:22):
So back in twenty ten, my wife and I set
a pretty wacky goal of doing the New York City Marathon.
She was just coming up some major health thing and
we wanted to set a really big goal for us
both and then. I had dabbled in competitive eating a
couple of years earlier, but I never quite got the
hang of it, and I felt like I could do anything.
(14:42):
After doing a marathon, I thought, well, let me revisit
this whole competitive eating thing, and I went in it
with extra energy and you know, I'm going to give
this another shot. And it was really supposed to be
just a joke. I want to do it one time,
something that I could say, you know what, I competed
at Nathan's. But it turned into like a three year
(15:04):
affair of trying to figure out how to get it,
how to get there, because it's actually a lot harder
than people think.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Wow, it's amazing. I can remember when we worked together.
We were so excited to come see you at the
Nathan's Contest, and you offered us tickets to the spray zone,
which is the area in front of the competitors.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
We won't get into details that I think I set
the best seats in the house. So incredible.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
So you're the former world canole eating champion. In fact,
you had a world record in both canoli eating and
corn on the cob eating.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Is that correct?
Speaker 7 (15:36):
That's right, Yeah, I broke the world record last year
in corn. I did forty seven corn on the cob
in twelve minutes. A few years ago, I did Canoli
down in Little Lily, New York City, and I set
the record. But some of these other contests, there are
about ninety major league eating contests a year. So if
you can think of something new, and you come up
with a really smart technique to go in and disrupt
(15:59):
a competition, and there's there's plenty of contest there out there,
And in both cases, in canoli and in corn, that
was how I just sat down and figured out, well,
there must be a better way to eat corn. A
lot faster than everybody else that they haven't thought of.
So I'll tell you so in canoli, so there's an outside,
(16:20):
there's a there's a really hard shell on canoli, and
a lot of the conventional wisdom was like just put
it in and then start crunching away and the squishy
stuff will kind of make its way down your throat.
But it's the herd stuff they have to worry about.
You know what. I'm not going to put the effort
of crunching the shell on my teeth. I'm going to
(16:41):
crush it in my hand, so pre I'm going to
pre crunch it. So that's kind of what I did.
I would grab the canoli. I'd wear gloves, you know,
like just rubble gloves, and I crunch. I'd crush them
and then I just shove each one into my mouth,
and that that's what That's what got me to thirty one.
Nobody thought it. It was just like it was there
(17:01):
on the table and.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
I took it.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
I also wanted you to explain the concept of the
Tour to Donut. We obviously mentioned the fact that you've
you've won this race in multiple states, but how does
the Tour to Donut work and explain the whole idea
of how the timing is kept.
Speaker 7 (17:16):
The format is generally about a thirty six mile race,
and you have two donut stops, like at the twelve
mile mark and at the twenty four mile mark. You
get off your bike. At the twelve mile mark, you
set your bike aside, and then they have a glazed
donuts there from the local donut shop and you eat
as many as you possibly can now the person. For
(17:39):
every donut that you eat you get a three to
five minute time credit, depending upon which race it is,
and then you do the same at the second stop.
You know, you get off your bike again. You need
to do it again, and you can vomit that you
just qualified immediately, thankfully, so there's no mess on the course.
My record is fifty five donuts over the course of
(18:01):
a thirty six mile race, and that put me in
negative territory. So I'm actually going back in time every
time I do one of these races.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
That's incredible.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
To eat a bunch of donuts and you go back
in time, that's impressive, so very challenging.
Speaker 7 (18:14):
I can tell you just biking thirty six miles, you know,
a good clip twenty miles an hour or more is difficult,
but to me, adding the donuts in there adds a
bit of skill. But it's really fun everybody. I mean,
I approach it like it's just a fun thing that
I get to do on the weekend. I get to
(18:34):
eat the donuts, which I love donuts. I love bikes,
So why not.
Speaker 8 (18:37):
Put them both together?
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah, sounds good to me.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Well, we wanted to put Yasar to the challenge today,
although he has the Big Nathan's Eating Contest coming up
in just a few days. Of course, this episode will
publish just a few days after the Big Nathan's hot
Dog eating contest, so we're excited to see how you do, Yaser.
I'm sure you'll improve over last year. But what game
are we playing with Yaser today, Mango, We're playing a little.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Game called Mouthful of Donut and it's more than a
quiz because we're going to try to set a world
record most donut holes eaten while answering four trivia questions
about donuts and sixty seconds.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
All right, so the most donut holes eating while answering
four trivia questions about donuts in sixty seconds. Wow, what
a record? Okay, so We've got four trivia questions here.
We're going to ask you a question, let yasir answer,
and then while he's stuffing his face, we're going to
ask him another and we'll see how many donuts we
can get through with our donut holes we can get through.
And by we I mean he okay, So all right,
(19:34):
so yahsa, do you have all your supplies?
Speaker 7 (19:36):
Right?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
You've got your donut holes, you got your water, you
got everything else you might need.
Speaker 7 (19:39):
I got my water, I got my donut holes, and
I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Mango three two one?
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Go all right, yasir?
Speaker 3 (19:52):
What city has the highest donut shops per person?
Speaker 1 (20:00):
That's Boston?
Speaker 3 (20:01):
I heard it, all right, Let's let him Boston. Yes,
let's let him eat a few donuts. And which legend
of Sleepy Hollow author is credited with the first use
of the word donut in print?
Speaker 9 (20:15):
Oh man, uh.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
Is Washington area?
Speaker 5 (20:21):
Yes? All right?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
What Oregon donut shop used to make a medicine donut
coated with NIQ?
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Will I know?
Speaker 3 (20:31):
I want?
Speaker 6 (20:32):
I don't know what I don't want?
Speaker 10 (20:35):
Oh Man?
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Voodoo donuts?
Speaker 5 (20:39):
That's right?
Speaker 3 (20:40):
What role did renees Ellwegger Gang? Wait for by eating
twenty donuts a day.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Pretty Organs day one second time.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
All right, let's let him, Let's let him chew and swallow,
and then we'll get an official count of our donut eating.
Speaker 6 (20:59):
Okay, how'd you do? Thirteen?
Speaker 1 (21:03):
He ate thirteen donuts? I mean that's got to be
a record, a world.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Record, right while answering for trivia questions about donuts about donuts.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yes, that's got to be a world record.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
So, in addition to hopefully setting a new world record,
what else has Yaser won?
Speaker 5 (21:15):
Mango?
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Well, aside from the joy of his new accomplishment, we'll
be sending him a bottle of pepto bismol.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
All right, So, yeah, sir, good luck this coming week
at the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. And then you said,
just right after that, what do you have coming up?
Speaker 7 (21:28):
I am defending my title as a Tour tod Donut
in Stunon, Illinois, the twenty ninth Annual Tourted Donut. This
will be my third year depending my title, and I'm
hoping to hit at least fifty six donuts this year.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
All right, Well, good luck to you.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
It's always a pleasure to talk to you, and thanks
for coming on to Part Time You Love You.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Also, we're rooting for you Love You.
Speaker 6 (21:53):
Guys.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
You're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about
the Guinness Book of World Records. Oh Mango, what's your
favorite part of the Guinness Book.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I mean, there's so much fun stuff in there, but
I love the strange personal feats, Like I always remember
seeing a photo of the dude with the longest fingernails
in the world as a kid, and that's always the
first thing I think about. In fact, almost every fact
enthusiast i've talked to mentions that pick.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Yeah, those visuals are so unforgettable, and I think for
kids it's something both so creepy looking but also so ordinary,
like not clipping your nails can get you in the
Guinness Book.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
It's kind of insane.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
And I guess the thing that didn't occur to me
when I was a kid and the thing that I
really wanted to hear more of, and maybe this is
what separates it from being put in the kid's hobbies section,
But I want to hear more of the stories of
the people behind these records. You can find a few
articles on people, and you can find some of the
stories on Guinness's YouTube page. But take the guy Trida Chillel,
who hadn't cut his nails on his left hand in
(23:00):
sixty two years. It's like his left hand is growing roots.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
It surprises me every single time I look at it.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, but his story is insane. Like as a high
school kid, he threw a ball at a teacher playfully
and the teacher yelled at him because he chipped the
teacher's nails. And the teacher told him he'd never understand
the beauty of having long nails. So he and his
friend as a joke, started growing their nails out, and
then he kind of gets enamored with it. So he
keeps growing the nails on his left hand and people
call him dirty because of it. They start treating him badly.
(23:29):
When his parents try to arrange his marriage years later,
twelve families reject him.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
And when the families don't reject him, the girls do
because they think he's a monster and that he'll strangle
them that night. Like he can't get a job because
of the way he looks, even putting on a shirt
his heart. I mean, it's so depressing. But he grows
them and grows them to this insane length and to
keep them preserved. Not only does he treat them with
a special product, but when he's sleeping and he wants
to roll over, he has to carefully move his entire
(23:55):
hand to the other side of the bed. He claims
he rolls over every thirty minutes, so he never gets
a full night of sleep.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
And all this for a little bit of fame. And
in his mind he thinks he'll get paid a lot
for the nails to be in a museum later, and
that there's a good bit of money that'll come to
him now.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
And maybe it will, let's hope.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
But he just takes such pride in those nails. They're
like thirty feet long now and gnarled, but he sees
them as this thing of beauty. And he loves that
people like you and me know who he is. And
also that he never has to wait in the line in.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
A line like war like at the club.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I don't know this is what he says, but I
think it's like at the market. Of course, in India,
your left hand is the one you use to clean yourself.
So I'm not sure how he's performing. Certain tasts well.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
I do like some of these personal stories, like you
were telling me about the British woman who holds the
record for the youngest female with a full beard.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
That's another video gainnisted. Her name's Harnan Karr, and her
story is amazing because she has a genetic disorder that
gave her this lush facial hair at a young age.
At some point she chose to ignore the relentless bullying
she was facing and just decided to embrace the beard,
which had to be so insanely difficult. Yeah, she's very
feminine actually, and really quite striking, and I don't know
(25:05):
that she wants to extra attention. But the reason she's
chosen to be in the Guinness book is that having
all this facial hair drove her to have suicidal thoughts
when she was younger, and when she realized that her
life was worth more than that, she wanted to help
others with body image issues to learn to accept themselves.
She's really remarkable. Yeah, she is.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Well.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
As much as the book is filled with thousands and
thousands of world records, you're not really considering what's driving
each person to be in this book.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
So one thing that surprised me in researching Guinness was
just how popular it is in India. I mean, very
few big record keeping authorities in the country. Guinness is one, Limka,
which is basically India's Sprite is another. But this is
great New York Times story on the only Guinness judge
who lives in India and he's running around the country
trying to verify records and just how exhausting it is,
(25:51):
but also how obsessed Indians are with numbers.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Well, why do you think this is?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Well, I mean, part of it is just that India,
from my experience of it, loves trivia in a way
I haven't seen anywhere else. There's an obsession with general knowledge,
and having a book of records definitely fits into that category.
But I also think that in a place with such
disparity of wealth and resource, being the best in the
world at something and being recognized for it is something
that gives people pride and purpose.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Yeah, it's saying that there are actually some academic papers
written about this topic and how the records feel like
such a great level are in a place where the
odds can feel stacked against you exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Like the timespiece has all these funny stories. It talks
about the problems of trying to verify a handshake gathering
where millions of people turn up to participate. I mean,
that's a headache for one judge. You have to register
and verify each person and count them and ensure that
they're all shaking hands at the same time. It's like
a giant fact checking problem that could take days to sort.
(26:46):
And there's a story of a young athlete trying to
be a light bulb hurling record, which is also great.
But at the end of the piece, there's a story
about this farmer who does squats every day and at
fifty he realizes he could potentially beat the world record.
And when the Guinness judge asks him why he cares
about a squat record, it's all because his daughter is
marrying into a better family. And his quote is, I
(27:06):
want her husband's family to know that I'm worth something.
I want to make a mark.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Oh that's heartbreaking, I know, and kind of beautiful.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
I mean, I love these stories because you don't think
about the desperation and work that goes into trying to
set these records and the different motivations. Like for me,
I ether assumed they were always like publicity stunts.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Well, Gary's Enchilada shack is trying to break the world's
largest enchilada.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Records, right, and Guinness actually has an arm that works
with corporations to build out those events. Or I assumed
it was attention seekers but of a more fun variety,
like most baked beans eaten in five minutes, which is
two hundred and seventy one.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
So that's a street of Furman's record, right, He is
the best I know. He held over one hundred records
simultaneously at one point.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Yeah, I think it was one hundred and thirty one
records at the same time, and he's broken over six
hundred records in his career. He's done everything from like
pogoing up Mount Fuji to underwater jump roping to fastest
mile using two shells stilts. He actually has the long
distance sack racing record, which for some reason involved racing
(28:06):
a yak in The Man's a Beast.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Also, how much do you love his nickname mister Versatility?
Speaker 2 (28:12):
A lot, although if I had his name, I'd probably
go by a shreeta, the fur monster, Furman.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
That's good, or the Ferminator. I mean, mister Versatility has
a lot of options. But before we get into his
secrets or breaking records and how you can too.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Why don't we break for a quiz?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Sounds good?
Speaker 3 (28:38):
So our guest today has one of the coolest jobs
in the world.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
As the CEO of Record Setter.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
He's created a new digital home for world records, making
it easier for humans to compete in important categories like
most quarters fit inside a belly button and longest office
chair train pulled by a motorcycle. Dan Rollman, We've spent
way too much time watching videos on your site and
we're big fans of your work, so welcome to part
time Genius.
Speaker 10 (29:00):
Thank you so much. It's great to be with you guys.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
All right, well, let's dive right into it. Tell us
about your early obsession with records.
Speaker 10 (29:06):
Sure, well, I always say Record Setter started probably when
I was a ten year old kid and got my
first Guinness Book of World Record book, and it instantly
became my favorite book on my bookshelf. I was endlessly
obsessed with the pictures of the guy with the long
curvy fingernail and the world sad as twins on the
(29:30):
motorcycles at These images just became indelible in my mind,
and I really from a young age, just thought that
owning a world record myself would possibly be the coolest
thing I could do in my lifetime. For some reason,
I tried to a a girl in college by telling
her that I thought I was going to become the
world record holder in ravioli eating. So I looked into
(29:55):
ravioli eating. And then I also was researching the longest
time riding a roller coaster, and I quickly realized that
I was not a particularly fast eater. And I quickly
realized that I was never going to ride a roller
coaster for days and endow. But just that idea stuck
(30:16):
with me that somehow, someday I wanted to hold the
title of being the world best at something. But I
did not successfully get the lady with.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
My shocking I don't understand how that didn't work out.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
I heard some of the started at burning Man. Can
you tell us a little about that?
Speaker 5 (30:35):
Sure?
Speaker 10 (30:36):
So I started going to Burning Man in two thousand
and two, and after a couple of years, my friends
and I were really excited to develop a theme camp
that had a real interactive component. We'd like the idea
of something that would allow other people at burning Man
to come up to our space and engage with us
(30:56):
in a fun, creative manner. And since I had this
lifelong obsession with world records, I said, what if we
become the official world record camp, essentially a burning Man
kind of the governing body for all world records set
in the desert. So we created a camp in two
thousand and four called the ply A Book of Records
(31:18):
Apply is what burners call it. The desert area out there,
and we all put on a bunch of yellow sports
coats that were inspired by Howard Cotell Air Wide World
of Sports, and we just said that people, come on
up and we're going to make your world champion. And
it was amazing because I could see from the first
(31:42):
day we set up shop that I was not the
only person out there who had had these dreams of
being a world champion. And people were really excited by
this opportunity of like, what you guys, really you're going
to help me set like my own world record. So
in the first years and we did it for five years,
we saw things like the fastest accordion rendition that the
(32:03):
Devil went down to Georgia, the most consecutive backslips on
stilt was one that blew us away. We had like
people would come up and do balloon twisting, like I
think it was like the most balloon animals made in
thirty seconds.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
You know.
Speaker 10 (32:21):
We just saw a kind of this endless parade of
people coming up and being creative and then clearly getting
a deep sense of joy when we said great congratulations
were recognizing this as an official world record. So this
project kept evolving, and then inspired by Wikipedia as much
as anything, I felt that there would be an opportunity
(32:43):
to take what we were doing in the desert and
put it onto the Internet and love the open, democratic,
participatory approach of Wikipedia for encyclopedic information, and said, what
happens if we try and do the same thing with
human achievements. So we launched in two thousand and eight
what was originally called the Universal Record Database RDB dot org.
(33:07):
And it was the same premise that we had given
people at Burning Man. We gave the same invitation to
the world.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
So, Dan, I love that you once held the record
for the most banana stuff down a pair of.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Pants while wearing them.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
So how fun is it to see an entirely new
category of record open up?
Speaker 1 (33:25):
And what are some of your favorites?
Speaker 10 (33:28):
So yeah, the first time. So the first world record
that I set, which I actually did at Burning Man,
was the most times whistling Happy Birthday in one minute?
Speaker 1 (33:39):
And what's that number?
Speaker 10 (33:40):
By so I think I had done at fifteen or
sixteen or something. I did it pretty quickly.
Speaker 8 (33:47):
I'll give you a for example, right on exactly.
Speaker 10 (33:57):
I'm so I had this record up, and again I
would tell people like, yeah, I hold the world record
for the most times whistling a Happy Birthday in one minute,
and had this great sense of pride. And then we
launched a website and within maybe a month or so,
my record got broken by a teenager in San Diego
(34:17):
who I really like. When it happened that day, I
was angry at him, like I just couldn't believe that
this jerk had taken away my dreams and stolen my
world records for most times whistling happy Birthday. But over
the years, as I set more world records and basically
watched I think all of them or almost all of
them get broken, I've come to really find a deep
(34:40):
joy in watching people break my records. And the analogy
that I use is it feels like I've written the
song and somebody's covering it, but they're actually doing a
better job playing the song and than I did originally.
So for a category like most bananas sitting a pair
of pants while wearing them, I had sixty and thought
(35:01):
that I had set a pretty high mark, and then
it suddenly got broken by radio DJ in Australia, and
then I think some guy in Texas maybe holds the
record now. And we've seen this time and time again
on Record Setter, where we have a lot of these
really obtuse categories, like we've had people compete in the
(35:21):
category for most giraffe tattoos on a shoulder. We've had
a couple of guys go back and forth. And another
one of my favorite categories that's become very competitive and
I think could be able to come an Olympic Sports
someday is the longest high five. So it began with
these two guys in Toronto who call themselves the Record Collection.
(35:43):
They set themselves up several kilometers apart from each other
in downtown Toronto and they ran towards each other with
a camera following each of them and set the world
record for the literally the longest high five. They ran
towards each other, so it was sort of like a
two person running race, and then that exploded into a
(36:06):
globally competitive category. And I think the records gosh, I
haven't looked in a while, but I'm pretty sure it's
over ten miles. So it's become this two person running race.
Both participants have to keep their arm up for the
duration of the of the run, and the moments at
the end of these runs where they actually see each
(36:28):
other and exchange the high five. It's just it's jubilation
every time.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
That's pretty terrific.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
All Right, Well, this has been a lot of fun
and we are now ready to put you to the test.
Speaker 5 (36:41):
Mango.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
What game are we playing with Dan today?
Speaker 2 (36:43):
So this is a game called the Rename Game, And
since Record Setters originally went by a different name, the
RDB before taking on the Sleeker Moniker, we thought it'd
be fun to quiz Dan on some other industry giants
and the names their companies used to be called.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Okay, right, So we'll give you an old name and.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
A clue, and you'll tell tell us the name of
the current company. So we'll see how many of these
you can answer in sixty seconds.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Is that right.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
Mego.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Okay, So Dan, We're gonna put sixty seconds on the clock.
I'll ask you questions and you just keep answering as
many as you can. Maybe you'll set a world record.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
We'll see.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Does that sounds good?
Speaker 10 (37:16):
Sound great?
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (37:18):
This Oregon based sneaker company was called Blue Ribbon Sports
before it was renamed.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
For a Greek goddess, Nike.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Right. This lad magazine was called Stag Party before it
was renamed by Hugh Hefner.
Speaker 5 (37:29):
Hey boy, Right.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
This Larry and Sergei internet search company was called back
Rub before.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
It was renamed Google.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
This choice of a new generation cola was called Brad's
Drink before.
Speaker 5 (37:39):
It was renamed Wow Epsi.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
This big electronic box store and home to the Geek
Squad was called Sound of Music before.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
It was renamed Best Buy.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
This maker of smartphone devices was called Research in Motion
before taking a fruit of your name. Obama famously had
one when he started his first term in the White House.
Speaker 10 (37:57):
Black Berry.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
This eat fresh sandwich was called Pete Super Submarines before
it was renamed.
Speaker 10 (38:04):
Pete Is a Man Subway.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
This number one rental car company was called Drive Yourself
before it was renamed for measurement for frequency. That is correct,
and I think we do have a world record for
most correct questions answered in the rename game on Part
Time Geniuses.
Speaker 10 (38:21):
Congreteger from San Diego can beat that.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
So how many did he get correct?
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Mega Dans Gordon astounding eight for eight, which runs them
an official certificate of admiration from us here at Part
Time Genius. Congratulations, congratulations, Dan.
Speaker 10 (38:38):
Hi five, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Well. I hope all of.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Our listeners will check out record setter and aim to
set a record of their own. Dan, thanks so much
for joining us on Part Time Genius.
Speaker 8 (38:48):
My pleasure. Thanks so much, guys.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
So we were talking about Ashrida Furman, who's a legend
on the Guinness Circuit.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
What's his secret?
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Well, I think part of it is that it's the
same sense of validation everyone's looking for. Some people run
marathons to prove it to themselves, right, and for someone
like Ashreda, who apparently gained confidence after finding a guru
and getting into spirituality and meditation, he wanted to push
his body in fun ways, so he started by doing
twenty seven thousand jumping jacks. Whoa, and then he moved
on to things like long distance summersaulting or whatever.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
But it also seems like one of his better skills
is creating funny new categories that get attention.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Yeah, you're right. There are a lot of rules for
getting into the Guinness Book because they're super strict. I mean,
they're getting flooded with fifty thousand new record claims a
year and only three or four thousand of them make
it into the book, and they care about the accuracy.
But Ashreda is particularly good at gaming the system, right.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
I mean he's particularly good at creating spectacles. I mean
you need two witnesses, and you have to do this
in a public space and have multiple cameras and media.
There are lots of conditions, and part of the reason
he incorporates places like Mount Fuji and the Pyramids into
his attempts is that it's just an easier way to
draw press exactly.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
But he also understands the rules, like Guinness, is pretty
specific about what they will and won't admit. There's an
interview on Freakonomics with the editor of the Guinness Book,
which is really great, but it shows how hard the
job is and where the Guinness Book draws some of
the lines like they won't let you put an animal
in harm or another person, but you're free to put
yourself in danger. And in addition, they only want categories
(40:31):
with one variable. So like the example he gives is
someone submitting for heaviest person to raft a particular river,
and that just opens up a can of worms for them,
because in addition to verifying that, they have to open
up the category to the lightest person on a raft
on that river male female considerations, and then they'd have
to open up to every river. And you can see
how that sort of snowballs.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Yeah, yeah, Well, when we talk to Dan, his analogy
was really interesting to me. So a site like Record Setter,
where anyone can enter a new category with video evidence
and it's self patrolled in a Wikipedia way, is such.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
A smart idea.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
It really does feel like a Wikipedia model to the
Guinness Books Britannica.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Which is interesting right. It democratizes the whole process and
takes away all the need for judging and at the
same time allows everyone to feel special.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
You could see how something like this would take off
in India. You get quick validation instead of having to
write to Guinness and wait for two months for a response.
And even here, I mean Record Setter is all over
Jimmy Fallon. Like I think Cameron Diaz held the record
for the most bunny snuggled in a hammock.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Yeah, she did that on the show. And the thing
is everyone's good at something, you just have to figure
out what that is. It's like that guy David Kalb
who's the best in the world at horse He beat
Lebron James because he mounted the hoop on a forklift
and then did trick shots to a basket that was
like thirty feet in the air. And if you have
enough variables in the right stack of talents, you can
be the best in the world at something.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
So we should probably.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Figure out what ridiculous records we should try to set listeners.
If you have any thoughts on that, please email them
in to part time genius at HowStuffWorks dot com and
we'll work on trying to break some ridiculous records in
the not so distant future. But back to Guinness, with
competition like Record Setter, which is called fire in a
surprisingly big way, what do you think will happen to Guinness?
Is it bound to go the way of Britannica.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
I don't know. I mean they have evolved. They do
video game records and have a strong site online, and
I think there's so many good stories in there. The
books are really just a good way to get kids
into learning, and I feel like there's value in the
publishing and TV arms. But you know, Guinness has changed
hands a few times in the last few years, and
what's interesting is that they're now owned by the company
(42:33):
that owns their Ripley's Believe it or Not museums, and
they want to build these big, combined Guinness Ripley museums
where you can go with your family and try to
set your own records, like for the loudest family scream
or the longest laugh, which maybe gives the brand a
new leash. All I know is that I've loved reacquainting
with the book, and I have no intention of growing
out my fingernails to compete on that front. But I
(42:55):
do plan to change my Guinness book to my desk
and inscribe it with a threatening note no one takes
it away from me.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
That's great, that's a brilliant idea.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Well, one thing that's going to be harder to protect
is your part time genius fact off record? Are you
ready to drop some knowledge? And by drop knowledge, I
mean share super nerdy facts that we couldn't get into
the episode earlier.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
So here's a quick one to get us going.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
While the US has the most records on record per
capit of the Vatican City is the greatest source of records.
Roughly nine claims come from the Vatican every year from
a population of only nine hundred and twenty.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
I want to see what those records are too. Three
of the most common records to break also sound like
they're being craned for at preschools. Largest finger painting, longest
reading aloud marathon, and largest group hug are all records
that are regularly challenged and broken.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
Nice Kevin Shelley set the record for the most toilet
seats broken by one head in two thousand and eight.
He made his family proud, shattering forty six of them
in a minute.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
That's crazy, I know.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
The record for most people riding on a surfboard is
sixty six. Of course, if I had sixty five other
people on the board with me, I feel like I'd
have a better chance of learning surfing too.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
The highest shallow dive was accomplished by Professor Splash on
Chinese TV.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
What's a high shallow dive?
Speaker 1 (44:24):
It's what it sounds like.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
So he jumped from nearly thirty eight feet in the
air into a kiddie pool filled with twelve inches of water.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Oh that's insane. So here's a cute one. Black of
the cat is the world's wealthiest cat. He inherited twelve
point five million dollars. And I don't know about you,
but I need to find myself a sugar cat. Blackie,
if you're listening, call me.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
A sugar cat. Oh, good luck with that.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
Most number of fatalities in a crocodile attack used to.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Be a category.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Do you want to elaborate on that?
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Not really, except please don't tangle with saltwater crocodiles on
Ramrey Island.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
They hold the record for a reason.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Well, I'm not tangling with any crocodiles. But here's one
about a shark. When the Guinness Book of World Records
honored Jonathan Lee Riches as the most litigious man in
the world, he did what he did best.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
He sued them, of course he did.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Okay, I'll give you this round, but before we go
we should figure out who we should add to our.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
Hall of genius.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
What do you think about adding Sir Hugh Beaver to
the mix? I feel like he created the Guinness Book.
He honored millions of people while delighting others. He encouraged
generation upon generation to be their best selves, even if
that best self meant trying to crack more than seventy
two eggs in a minute by sitting on them. But
sir Beaver doesn't win them any awards anymore, and I
(45:38):
think he deserves one today.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
I agree, So the record stops today, Sir Beaver. Your
certificate will be in the mail shortly. That's it for
today's episode of Part Time Genius. Thank you so much
for listening. You know what I thought about, including farthest
distance to throw and catch a running chainsaw.
Speaker 9 (45:54):
It's four meters.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Thanks again for listening.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Part Time Genius is a production of how stuff works,
and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do
the important things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
Christan McNeil does the editing thing.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy
mixy sound thing.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Jerry Roland does the exact producer thing.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Gabe Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the
Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams
and Eves.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
and if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Do we forget Jason Basin who
Guess what mango?
Speaker 2 (00:00):
What's that will?
Speaker 3 (00:01):
So I took a couple wrong turns on the internet
this week and I ended up in this gallery of
libraries from the Middle Ages. And you know, book theF
used to be a huge problem. So the first thing
any self respecting book collector would do is chain their
books to their bookshelf.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Like dog leashes.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Oh, these things were so much thicker, like heavy duty chains.
If you look up the Hereford Cathedral in London, you
see bookshelves filled with manuscripts, and in front of each
book there's just a curtain of chains hanging down because
every one of those books is tethered to the shelf.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
It's so imposing that cou'd be a great tactic if
you actually want people reading the books.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
But that wasn't even the best solution for protecting your library.
If you wanted to upgrade, you could put your chain
books inside a locked safe. It was kind of a
nesting doll approach to book security. But if you were
really looking for protection, the ultimate in book protection was
a curse.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Of course, a curse.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Well, they were a little more like little inscribed threat.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
That feels like such a hail Mary, Like you've Got
a thief who's broken in your home and then in
your safe, sawed through a thick chain. Got this Harry
Potter sequel he's been dying to read, finally in his hands,
and somehow a curse is going to make him put
the book down.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I mean, that's the idea. Let me read you my
favorite threat.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
It says, if anyone take away this book, let him
be fried in a pan.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
That sounds like such a Looney Tunes threat.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I know, it isn't that intimidating unless the book owner
also ons a human sized frying pan. All this research
on book thefts made me curious. What's the most stolen
publication from public libraries. Number two on the list is
the Bible.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Why does anyone steal a Bible?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Maybe they just skimmed the first few pages. They didn't
get far enough to realize that God's pretty clear about
not stealing. But here's some of the other things in
the top ten. You've got prep books for exams, books
on Nazis, and occult things. Generally books people might be
too embarrassed to check out. Sure, but the number one
book that gets stolen from public libraries, the Guinness Book
of World Records.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
What I mean that itself kind of feels like a record.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I know.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Honestly, I hadn't thought about the Guinness Book in years.
I mean I loved it as a kid, couldn't wait
for the book fair to come so I could pick
up a copy. But when I heard that fact, it
made me wonder, why are we so impressed with records?
And what is it about the Guinness Book that's made
it such a beloved institution. And who has the record
for reading the most baked beans in five minutes? So
(02:17):
that's what we're digging into today.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Important stop, Hey their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
good friend Mangesh Hot Ticket Earth, and today's episode is
all about world records, How the Guinness Book got its start,
how they're cataloged, what countries take the book most seriously,
and of course we'll have a couple of terrible quizzes.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
What do we have on the line today, Mango, We've.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Got Dan Rollman from recordsetter dot Com. He's terrific. He's
going to tell us how his site, which allows you
to set all sorts of World Records from the comfort
of your phone got its start.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
All right.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
So before this episode, it had been years since I
looked at the Guinness Book, how about you?
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yeah, I remember reading them with friends on the school
bus and dumbing through them at the library, but it
had been like decades since I held one. Actually, I
had a strange experience buying my book for this episode.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah, what happened?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Well, I went to this big bookstore in my neighborhood
and went up to the clerk. Who is this judge?
Literary type I know? And I said, I'm wondering if
you could help me, and he looked eager, and then
I said, I'm looking for the Guinness Book of World Records.
And as that title spilled out of my mouth, I
just watched his face.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
All right, why is that?
Speaker 5 (03:43):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
It was almost like when I was a kid at
the local video store and my friends and I would
approach the counter with like city Slickers too, or some
mainstream movie, and the clerk with just judges because we
weren't trying to rent like a Portuguese art film.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yeah, I think you're gonna have to explain to our
younger listeners what a video store is well, well.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
A long time ago, somewhere between when dinosaurs ruled the
earth and Netflix took over, people used to travel to
the stores to rent games and movies and sometimes pay
exorbitant late fees to them.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
That's probably the worst fact we've ever told on our show.
But you were talking about the bookstore experience.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, so I said Guinness Book, and he didn't even
bother to look at his computer. He was like, reference,
you just go to reference. But then I started flipping
the pages, and holy smokes, I honestly forgot just how
fun the Guinness Book is. Like, of course kids steal
this from libraries. Who doesn't want to know? What's the
most number of bowling balls someone's caught on their forehead.
(04:36):
It's six. By the way, guy had six bowling balls
in a row thrown at him and then he caught
them on his forehead one after the other, which is impressive.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
I don't even know how that works, but I'm guessing
presumably there was a seventh ball chucked his way that
he didn't catch.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah, the book doesn't mention that, but it does say
what the world's largest robot snake is.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Which is what I can tell you're dying to talk
about this.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Of course I am. It's the Titan of Boa. Not
only is it fifty feet long, but it was engineered
to be a life size replica of an extinct snake.
It's all based on a real fossil. Huh, and apparently
the engineer's remote controlled it around at science festivals where
it goes wild on dance floor.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I can't only imagine.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
So I love all those crazy facts too. What's strange
is that when I was a kid, the stuff I
really remembered was much more about the guy with the
longest mustache or the tallest man in the world. But
the book actually has so much general knowledge in there,
Like in the twenty seventeen edition there's a page on
the business of sports and how the average NBA player
makes six hundred times what an NBA cheerleader makes, or
(05:41):
that the Lakers franchise pulls in two point six billion
dollars a year, like those are real facts, not just stunts.
Like most apples held in a mouth and cut in
half by a chainsaw in a minute.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Which is an actual record, right Yep.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
It's Johnny Strange cut twelve apples and half out of
Daniella Martin's mouth.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Of course, that sounds terrifying. Also does the Guinness Book
look through all the apples and determine, well, this one
wasn't cut exactly down the center, so you're getting docked
in apple.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I mean, the record keepers are definitely meticulous, which we're
going to talk about in a bit because it sounds
like a crazy job. And how you actually get into
the Guinness Book is an incredible process. But this guy,
Johnny Strange, he is an artist, so he also holds
the record for most apples held in one's own mouth
and cut my chainsaw in a minute, he cut eight
apples in half in his own mouth.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Oh I get uncomfortable when I point scissor that myself.
I can't even imagine like turning a chainsaw in my
own direction. But let's get back to what I think
you were saying, which is that the Guinness Book contained
more history and economics and just facts about the world
than you expected.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yeah, that's right. There are all sorts of facts about
geology and earth science, like the longest natural arch, the
largest slot canyon. And that's because Guinness Book actually started
out as a way to settle argument. Really, Yeah, you know,
before people had cell phones or access to the internet,
you might be at a cafe and get into a
silly or something ridiculous, like what.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Country dominates synchronized swimming? Sure, Switzerland?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Okay, Well, let's say one of your friends is arguing
for Switzerland.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
If you correct, I mean, you never bet against Swiss precision.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
That's that's true, all right.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
So you're on team Switzerland and someone else can't stop
praising Russia, and the whole debate gets heated because maybe
you've had a few drinks and you're a little too invested.
But back in the nineteen fifties, there really weren't a
lot of ways to settle this without either taking the
word or the biggest synchronized swimming fan in the group,
or maybe calling him a bookie with a specialty in
the sport. And because sometimes a drunken argument, no matter
(07:34):
how trivial the topic, can lead to a brawl. And
that's what the Guinness Book was for. It was actually
a piece making device to be stocked in bars and
settle bickering.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Oh I love that. I feel like the Guinness Book
deserves a Nobel Peace Prize or at least an Ignoble
Peace Prize.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
You love the Ignobles, I do.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
But this feels so deserving. Speaking of which, do you
know what my favorite Ignoble Peace prize is?
Speaker 1 (07:54):
What's that? Tell me?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
It's from a few years back and it went to
a mayor in Lithuania. According to the Ignobles, he went
for a quote demonstrating that the problem of illegally parked
luxury cars can be solved by running over them with
an armored tank. I looked up the photos of this.
The mayor would actually drive the tank himself over Mercedes
and Lexus is parked and bike lanes no way, and
he was right, It's solved the problem.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
I think they're using the word piece ironically there though.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, or the Ignoble Pieces Prize also a full confession.
I don't know anything about Switzerland synchronized swimming team. The
only thing I do know about the sport is that
swimmers use jeladen to keep their hair in place.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yep, that's why their hair is so perfect and shiny.
So by the way, Russia is dominant in the sport.
They've won nineteen international synchronized swimming titles in a row,
which I learned from the Guinness Book.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
See it actually works well.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
It definitely stopped us from getting in a fist.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
But that's true.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
So today's episode of Part Time Genius is brought to
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com slash PTG. Details are in the episode description. So
do you know what the original argument that spurred the
idea for the Guinness Book was? Like? Was there one
specific thing people were debating there was?
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Actually it all started with Sir Hugh Beaver.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Sir Hugh Beaver. That sounds like a name out of
Wind in the Willows, but he's a real person.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
So Sir Beaver was out on a shooting expedition with
friends when he took aim at a golden plover and
missed After a few shots. He used the excuse that
the plover was the fastest European game bird. And you
know how friends are, they give each other a hard time.
So not only did his friends remind him that he
had a bad shot, but they also claimed the red
grouse was faster, and so they took their argument to
(12:05):
a pub than to a library, and when they couldn't
find the answer, Sir Beaver came up with this idea
of this fact book that might help settle pub disputes.
And because he was such a big shot at Guinness Brewing,
he knew there were over eighty thousand pubs in England
and Ireland and he hoped they'd create a market. And
it isn't that old. Sir Hugh commissioned the first version
in nineteen fifty four as a promotional giveaway. He hired
(12:28):
these twin brothers from London and they were meticulous fact
checkers to help him write it. But by nineteen fifty
five it was already this institution. They printed fifty thousand
copies of the first edition and immediately hit the best
seller list, which.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Is pretty interesting that the company isn't that old. But
you left me on a cliffhanger, was Sir Hugh Wright,
was the golden plover faster than the red grouse?
Speaker 3 (12:48):
What's funny is that the whole book was started to
answer this one question, but according to the Society of
Guinness Book Collectors, that answer wasn't tackled until the thirty
sixth edition, where they gave the nod to the red grouse,
which travels fifty eight miles an hour.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
For you, I hope his friends aren't walking him in
the afterlife.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Well, they wrote this thing so apologetically, like the book reads.
Airspeeds of seventy miles per hour have been claimed, but
it is extremely doubtful whether this rapid flying bird can
exceed fifty to fifty five miles an hour, even in
an emergency. But at least they waited until Hugh was
dead a few decades before broaching the subject.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
That's so considerate.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
So who do we have on the line today, Mango?
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Today we have the number twelve rank competitive eater in
the world and the former world record holder of corn
on the cob beating forty seven to twelve minutes.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And also Canoli. And he's the defending champion of the
Tour to Donut bicycle race in multiple states. And his
name might be familiar to you will it's Yaser Seline.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Hey, ya, sir, how's it going?
Speaker 6 (13:55):
God?
Speaker 3 (13:56):
So, for full disclosure, when Mangesh and I were at
Mental philos Yaster worked in the marketing department, so during
the weekdays, he'd be working on brilliant marketing ideas, and
on the weekends he'd be off to these crazy competitive
eating contests and races and other kinds of extreme activities.
We're going to ask him all about those. But y'ahs
(14:17):
are to start off, how did you get into this
world of extreme sports and competitive eating.
Speaker 7 (14:22):
So back in twenty ten, my wife and I set
a pretty wacky goal of doing the New York City Marathon.
She was just coming up some major health thing and
we wanted to set a really big goal for us
both and then. I had dabbled in competitive eating a
couple of years earlier, but I never quite got the
hang of it, and I felt like I could do anything.
(14:42):
After doing a marathon, I thought, well, let me revisit
this whole competitive eating thing, and I went in it
with extra energy and you know, I'm going to give
this another shot. And it was really supposed to be
just a joke. I want to do it one time,
something that I could say, you know what, I competed
at Nathan's. But it turned into like a three year
(15:04):
affair of trying to figure out how to get it,
how to get there, because it's actually a lot harder
than people think.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Wow, it's amazing. I can remember when we worked together.
We were so excited to come see you at the
Nathan's Contest, and you offered us tickets to the spray zone,
which is the area in front of the competitors.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
We won't get into details that I think I set
the best seats in the house. So incredible.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
So you're the former world canole eating champion. In fact,
you had a world record in both canoli eating and
corn on the cob eating.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Is that correct?
Speaker 7 (15:36):
That's right, Yeah, I broke the world record last year
in corn. I did forty seven corn on the cob
in twelve minutes. A few years ago, I did Canoli
down in Little Lily, New York City, and I set
the record. But some of these other contests, there are
about ninety major league eating contests a year. So if
you can think of something new, and you come up
with a really smart technique to go in and disrupt
(15:59):
a competition, and there's there's plenty of contest there out there,
And in both cases, in canoli and in corn, that
was how I just sat down and figured out, well,
there must be a better way to eat corn. A
lot faster than everybody else that they haven't thought of.
So I'll tell you so in canoli, so there's an outside,
(16:20):
there's a there's a really hard shell on canoli, and
a lot of the conventional wisdom was like just put
it in and then start crunching away and the squishy
stuff will kind of make its way down your throat.
But it's the herd stuff they have to worry about.
You know what. I'm not going to put the effort
of crunching the shell on my teeth. I'm going to
(16:41):
crush it in my hand, so pre I'm going to
pre crunch it. So that's kind of what I did.
I would grab the canoli. I'd wear gloves, you know,
like just rubble gloves, and I crunch. I'd crush them
and then I just shove each one into my mouth,
and that that's what That's what got me to thirty one.
Nobody thought it. It was just like it was there
(17:01):
on the table and.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
I took it.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
I also wanted you to explain the concept of the
Tour to Donut. We obviously mentioned the fact that you've
you've won this race in multiple states, but how does
the Tour to Donut work and explain the whole idea
of how the timing is kept.
Speaker 7 (17:16):
The format is generally about a thirty six mile race,
and you have two donut stops, like at the twelve
mile mark and at the twenty four mile mark. You
get off your bike. At the twelve mile mark, you
set your bike aside, and then they have a glazed
donuts there from the local donut shop and you eat
as many as you possibly can now the person. For
(17:39):
every donut that you eat you get a three to
five minute time credit, depending upon which race it is,
and then you do the same at the second stop.
You know, you get off your bike again. You need
to do it again, and you can vomit that you
just qualified immediately, thankfully, so there's no mess on the course.
My record is fifty five donuts over the course of
(18:01):
a thirty six mile race, and that put me in
negative territory. So I'm actually going back in time every
time I do one of these races.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
That's incredible.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
To eat a bunch of donuts and you go back
in time, that's impressive, so very challenging.
Speaker 7 (18:14):
I can tell you just biking thirty six miles, you know,
a good clip twenty miles an hour or more is difficult,
but to me, adding the donuts in there adds a
bit of skill. But it's really fun everybody. I mean,
I approach it like it's just a fun thing that
I get to do on the weekend. I get to
(18:34):
eat the donuts, which I love donuts. I love bikes,
So why not.
Speaker 8 (18:37):
Put them both together?
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah, sounds good to me.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Well, we wanted to put Yasar to the challenge today,
although he has the Big Nathan's Eating Contest coming up
in just a few days. Of course, this episode will
publish just a few days after the Big Nathan's hot
Dog eating contest, so we're excited to see how you do, Yaser.
I'm sure you'll improve over last year. But what game
are we playing with Yaser today, Mango, We're playing a little.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Game called Mouthful of Donut and it's more than a
quiz because we're going to try to set a world
record most donut holes eaten while answering four trivia questions
about donuts and sixty seconds.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
All right, so the most donut holes eating while answering
four trivia questions about donuts in sixty seconds. Wow, what
a record? Okay, so We've got four trivia questions here.
We're going to ask you a question, let yasir answer,
and then while he's stuffing his face, we're going to
ask him another and we'll see how many donuts we
can get through with our donut holes we can get through.
And by we I mean he okay, So all right,
(19:34):
so yahsa, do you have all your supplies?
Speaker 7 (19:36):
Right?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
You've got your donut holes, you got your water, you
got everything else you might need.
Speaker 7 (19:39):
I got my water, I got my donut holes, and
I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Mango three two one?
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Go all right, yasir?
Speaker 3 (19:52):
What city has the highest donut shops per person?
Speaker 1 (20:00):
That's Boston?
Speaker 3 (20:01):
I heard it, all right, Let's let him Boston. Yes,
let's let him eat a few donuts. And which legend
of Sleepy Hollow author is credited with the first use
of the word donut in print?
Speaker 9 (20:15):
Oh man, uh.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
Is Washington area?
Speaker 5 (20:21):
Yes? All right?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
What Oregon donut shop used to make a medicine donut
coated with NIQ?
Speaker 5 (20:28):
Will I know?
Speaker 3 (20:31):
I want?
Speaker 6 (20:32):
I don't know what I don't want?
Speaker 10 (20:35):
Oh Man?
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Voodoo donuts?
Speaker 5 (20:39):
That's right?
Speaker 3 (20:40):
What role did renees Ellwegger Gang? Wait for by eating
twenty donuts a day.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Pretty Organs day one second time.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
All right, let's let him, Let's let him chew and swallow,
and then we'll get an official count of our donut eating.
Speaker 6 (20:59):
Okay, how'd you do? Thirteen?
Speaker 1 (21:03):
He ate thirteen donuts? I mean that's got to be
a record, a world.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Record, right while answering for trivia questions about donuts about donuts.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yes, that's got to be a world record.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
So, in addition to hopefully setting a new world record,
what else has Yaser won?
Speaker 5 (21:15):
Mango?
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Well, aside from the joy of his new accomplishment, we'll
be sending him a bottle of pepto bismol.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
All right, So, yeah, sir, good luck this coming week
at the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. And then you said,
just right after that, what do you have coming up?
Speaker 7 (21:28):
I am defending my title as a Tour tod Donut
in Stunon, Illinois, the twenty ninth Annual Tourted Donut. This
will be my third year depending my title, and I'm
hoping to hit at least fifty six donuts this year.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
All right, Well, good luck to you.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
It's always a pleasure to talk to you, and thanks
for coming on to Part Time You Love You.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Also, we're rooting for you Love You.
Speaker 6 (21:53):
Guys.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
You're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about
the Guinness Book of World Records. Oh Mango, what's your
favorite part of the Guinness Book.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I mean, there's so much fun stuff in there, but
I love the strange personal feats, Like I always remember
seeing a photo of the dude with the longest fingernails
in the world as a kid, and that's always the
first thing I think about. In fact, almost every fact
enthusiast i've talked to mentions that pick.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Yeah, those visuals are so unforgettable, and I think for
kids it's something both so creepy looking but also so ordinary,
like not clipping your nails can get you in the
Guinness Book.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
It's kind of insane.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
And I guess the thing that didn't occur to me
when I was a kid and the thing that I
really wanted to hear more of, and maybe this is
what separates it from being put in the kid's hobbies section,
But I want to hear more of the stories of
the people behind these records. You can find a few
articles on people, and you can find some of the
stories on Guinness's YouTube page. But take the guy Trida Chillel,
who hadn't cut his nails on his left hand in
(23:00):
sixty two years. It's like his left hand is growing roots.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
It surprises me every single time I look at it.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, but his story is insane. Like as a high
school kid, he threw a ball at a teacher playfully
and the teacher yelled at him because he chipped the
teacher's nails. And the teacher told him he'd never understand
the beauty of having long nails. So he and his
friend as a joke, started growing their nails out, and
then he kind of gets enamored with it. So he
keeps growing the nails on his left hand and people
call him dirty because of it. They start treating him badly.
(23:29):
When his parents try to arrange his marriage years later,
twelve families reject him.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
And when the families don't reject him, the girls do
because they think he's a monster and that he'll strangle
them that night. Like he can't get a job because
of the way he looks, even putting on a shirt
his heart. I mean, it's so depressing. But he grows
them and grows them to this insane length and to
keep them preserved. Not only does he treat them with
a special product, but when he's sleeping and he wants
to roll over, he has to carefully move his entire
(23:55):
hand to the other side of the bed. He claims
he rolls over every thirty minutes, so he never gets
a full night of sleep.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
And all this for a little bit of fame. And
in his mind he thinks he'll get paid a lot
for the nails to be in a museum later, and
that there's a good bit of money that'll come to
him now.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
And maybe it will, let's hope.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
But he just takes such pride in those nails. They're
like thirty feet long now and gnarled, but he sees
them as this thing of beauty. And he loves that
people like you and me know who he is. And
also that he never has to wait in the line in.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
A line like war like at the club.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I don't know this is what he says, but I
think it's like at the market. Of course, in India,
your left hand is the one you use to clean yourself.
So I'm not sure how he's performing. Certain tasts well.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
I do like some of these personal stories, like you
were telling me about the British woman who holds the
record for the youngest female with a full beard.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
That's another video gainnisted. Her name's Harnan Karr, and her
story is amazing because she has a genetic disorder that
gave her this lush facial hair at a young age.
At some point she chose to ignore the relentless bullying
she was facing and just decided to embrace the beard,
which had to be so insanely difficult. Yeah, she's very
feminine actually, and really quite striking, and I don't know
(25:05):
that she wants to extra attention. But the reason she's
chosen to be in the Guinness book is that having
all this facial hair drove her to have suicidal thoughts
when she was younger, and when she realized that her
life was worth more than that, she wanted to help
others with body image issues to learn to accept themselves.
She's really remarkable. Yeah, she is.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Well.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
As much as the book is filled with thousands and
thousands of world records, you're not really considering what's driving
each person to be in this book.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
So one thing that surprised me in researching Guinness was
just how popular it is in India. I mean, very
few big record keeping authorities in the country. Guinness is one, Limka,
which is basically India's Sprite is another. But this is
great New York Times story on the only Guinness judge
who lives in India and he's running around the country
trying to verify records and just how exhausting it is,
(25:51):
but also how obsessed Indians are with numbers.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Well, why do you think this is?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Well, I mean, part of it is just that India,
from my experience of it, loves trivia in a way
I haven't seen anywhere else. There's an obsession with general knowledge,
and having a book of records definitely fits into that category.
But I also think that in a place with such
disparity of wealth and resource, being the best in the
world at something and being recognized for it is something
that gives people pride and purpose.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Yeah, it's saying that there are actually some academic papers
written about this topic and how the records feel like
such a great level are in a place where the
odds can feel stacked against you exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Like the timespiece has all these funny stories. It talks
about the problems of trying to verify a handshake gathering
where millions of people turn up to participate. I mean,
that's a headache for one judge. You have to register
and verify each person and count them and ensure that
they're all shaking hands at the same time. It's like
a giant fact checking problem that could take days to sort.
(26:46):
And there's a story of a young athlete trying to
be a light bulb hurling record, which is also great.
But at the end of the piece, there's a story
about this farmer who does squats every day and at
fifty he realizes he could potentially beat the world record.
And when the Guinness judge asks him why he cares
about a squat record, it's all because his daughter is
marrying into a better family. And his quote is, I
(27:06):
want her husband's family to know that I'm worth something.
I want to make a mark.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Oh that's heartbreaking, I know, and kind of beautiful.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
I mean, I love these stories because you don't think
about the desperation and work that goes into trying to
set these records and the different motivations. Like for me,
I ether assumed they were always like publicity stunts.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Well, Gary's Enchilada shack is trying to break the world's
largest enchilada.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Records, right, and Guinness actually has an arm that works
with corporations to build out those events. Or I assumed
it was attention seekers but of a more fun variety,
like most baked beans eaten in five minutes, which is
two hundred and seventy one.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
So that's a street of Furman's record, right, He is
the best I know. He held over one hundred records
simultaneously at one point.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Yeah, I think it was one hundred and thirty one
records at the same time, and he's broken over six
hundred records in his career. He's done everything from like
pogoing up Mount Fuji to underwater jump roping to fastest
mile using two shells stilts. He actually has the long
distance sack racing record, which for some reason involved racing
(28:06):
a yak in The Man's a Beast.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Also, how much do you love his nickname mister Versatility?
Speaker 2 (28:12):
A lot, although if I had his name, I'd probably
go by a shreeta, the fur monster, Furman.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
That's good, or the Ferminator. I mean, mister Versatility has
a lot of options. But before we get into his
secrets or breaking records and how you can too.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Why don't we break for a quiz?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Sounds good?
Speaker 3 (28:38):
So our guest today has one of the coolest jobs
in the world.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
As the CEO of Record Setter.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
He's created a new digital home for world records, making
it easier for humans to compete in important categories like
most quarters fit inside a belly button and longest office
chair train pulled by a motorcycle. Dan Rollman, We've spent
way too much time watching videos on your site and
we're big fans of your work, so welcome to part
time Genius.
Speaker 10 (29:00):
Thank you so much. It's great to be with you guys.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
All right, well, let's dive right into it. Tell us
about your early obsession with records.
Speaker 10 (29:06):
Sure, well, I always say Record Setter started probably when
I was a ten year old kid and got my
first Guinness Book of World Record book, and it instantly
became my favorite book on my bookshelf. I was endlessly
obsessed with the pictures of the guy with the long
curvy fingernail and the world sad as twins on the
(29:30):
motorcycles at These images just became indelible in my mind,
and I really from a young age, just thought that
owning a world record myself would possibly be the coolest
thing I could do in my lifetime. For some reason,
I tried to a a girl in college by telling
her that I thought I was going to become the
world record holder in ravioli eating. So I looked into
(29:55):
ravioli eating. And then I also was researching the longest
time riding a roller coaster, and I quickly realized that
I was not a particularly fast eater. And I quickly
realized that I was never going to ride a roller
coaster for days and endow. But just that idea stuck
(30:16):
with me that somehow, someday I wanted to hold the
title of being the world best at something. But I
did not successfully get the lady with.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
My shocking I don't understand how that didn't work out.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
I heard some of the started at burning Man. Can
you tell us a little about that?
Speaker 5 (30:35):
Sure?
Speaker 10 (30:36):
So I started going to Burning Man in two thousand
and two, and after a couple of years, my friends
and I were really excited to develop a theme camp
that had a real interactive component. We'd like the idea
of something that would allow other people at burning Man
to come up to our space and engage with us
(30:56):
in a fun, creative manner. And since I had this
lifelong obsession with world records, I said, what if we
become the official world record camp, essentially a burning Man
kind of the governing body for all world records set
in the desert. So we created a camp in two
thousand and four called the ply A Book of Records
(31:18):
Apply is what burners call it. The desert area out there,
and we all put on a bunch of yellow sports
coats that were inspired by Howard Cotell Air Wide World
of Sports, and we just said that people, come on
up and we're going to make your world champion. And
it was amazing because I could see from the first
(31:42):
day we set up shop that I was not the
only person out there who had had these dreams of
being a world champion. And people were really excited by
this opportunity of like, what you guys, really you're going
to help me set like my own world record. So
in the first years and we did it for five years,
we saw things like the fastest accordion rendition that the
(32:03):
Devil went down to Georgia, the most consecutive backslips on
stilt was one that blew us away. We had like
people would come up and do balloon twisting, like I
think it was like the most balloon animals made in
thirty seconds.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
You know.
Speaker 10 (32:21):
We just saw a kind of this endless parade of
people coming up and being creative and then clearly getting
a deep sense of joy when we said great congratulations
were recognizing this as an official world record. So this
project kept evolving, and then inspired by Wikipedia as much
as anything, I felt that there would be an opportunity
(32:43):
to take what we were doing in the desert and
put it onto the Internet and love the open, democratic,
participatory approach of Wikipedia for encyclopedic information, and said, what
happens if we try and do the same thing with
human achievements. So we launched in two thousand and eight
what was originally called the Universal Record Database RDB dot org.
(33:07):
And it was the same premise that we had given
people at Burning Man. We gave the same invitation to
the world.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
So, Dan, I love that you once held the record
for the most banana stuff down a pair of.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Pants while wearing them.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
So how fun is it to see an entirely new
category of record open up?
Speaker 1 (33:25):
And what are some of your favorites?
Speaker 10 (33:28):
So yeah, the first time. So the first world record
that I set, which I actually did at Burning Man,
was the most times whistling Happy Birthday in one minute?
Speaker 1 (33:39):
And what's that number?
Speaker 10 (33:40):
By so I think I had done at fifteen or
sixteen or something. I did it pretty quickly.
Speaker 8 (33:47):
I'll give you a for example, right on exactly.
Speaker 10 (33:57):
I'm so I had this record up, and again I
would tell people like, yeah, I hold the world record
for the most times whistling a Happy Birthday in one minute,
and had this great sense of pride. And then we
launched a website and within maybe a month or so,
my record got broken by a teenager in San Diego
(34:17):
who I really like. When it happened that day, I
was angry at him, like I just couldn't believe that
this jerk had taken away my dreams and stolen my
world records for most times whistling happy Birthday. But over
the years, as I set more world records and basically
watched I think all of them or almost all of
them get broken, I've come to really find a deep
(34:40):
joy in watching people break my records. And the analogy
that I use is it feels like I've written the
song and somebody's covering it, but they're actually doing a
better job playing the song and than I did originally.
So for a category like most bananas sitting a pair
of pants while wearing them, I had sixty and thought
(35:01):
that I had set a pretty high mark, and then
it suddenly got broken by radio DJ in Australia, and
then I think some guy in Texas maybe holds the
record now. And we've seen this time and time again
on Record Setter, where we have a lot of these
really obtuse categories, like we've had people compete in the
(35:21):
category for most giraffe tattoos on a shoulder. We've had
a couple of guys go back and forth. And another
one of my favorite categories that's become very competitive and
I think could be able to come an Olympic Sports
someday is the longest high five. So it began with
these two guys in Toronto who call themselves the Record Collection.
(35:43):
They set themselves up several kilometers apart from each other
in downtown Toronto and they ran towards each other with
a camera following each of them and set the world
record for the literally the longest high five. They ran
towards each other, so it was sort of like a
two person running race, and then that exploded into a
(36:06):
globally competitive category. And I think the records gosh, I
haven't looked in a while, but I'm pretty sure it's
over ten miles. So it's become this two person running race.
Both participants have to keep their arm up for the
duration of the of the run, and the moments at
the end of these runs where they actually see each
(36:28):
other and exchange the high five. It's just it's jubilation
every time.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
That's pretty terrific.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
All Right, Well, this has been a lot of fun
and we are now ready to put you to the test.
Speaker 5 (36:41):
Mango.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
What game are we playing with Dan today?
Speaker 2 (36:43):
So this is a game called the Rename Game, And
since Record Setters originally went by a different name, the
RDB before taking on the Sleeker Moniker, we thought it'd
be fun to quiz Dan on some other industry giants
and the names their companies used to be called.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Okay, right, So we'll give you an old name and.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
A clue, and you'll tell tell us the name of
the current company. So we'll see how many of these
you can answer in sixty seconds.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Is that right.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
Mego.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Okay, So Dan, We're gonna put sixty seconds on the clock.
I'll ask you questions and you just keep answering as
many as you can. Maybe you'll set a world record.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
We'll see.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Does that sounds good?
Speaker 10 (37:16):
Sound great?
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (37:18):
This Oregon based sneaker company was called Blue Ribbon Sports
before it was renamed.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
For a Greek goddess, Nike.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Right. This lad magazine was called Stag Party before it
was renamed by Hugh Hefner.
Speaker 5 (37:29):
Hey boy, Right.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
This Larry and Sergei internet search company was called back
Rub before.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
It was renamed Google.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
This choice of a new generation cola was called Brad's
Drink before.
Speaker 5 (37:39):
It was renamed Wow Epsi.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
This big electronic box store and home to the Geek
Squad was called Sound of Music before.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
It was renamed Best Buy.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
This maker of smartphone devices was called Research in Motion
before taking a fruit of your name. Obama famously had
one when he started his first term in the White House.
Speaker 10 (37:57):
Black Berry.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
This eat fresh sandwich was called Pete Super Submarines before
it was renamed.
Speaker 10 (38:04):
Pete Is a Man Subway.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
This number one rental car company was called Drive Yourself
before it was renamed for measurement for frequency. That is correct,
and I think we do have a world record for
most correct questions answered in the rename game on Part
Time Geniuses.
Speaker 10 (38:21):
Congreteger from San Diego can beat that.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
So how many did he get correct?
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Mega Dans Gordon astounding eight for eight, which runs them
an official certificate of admiration from us here at Part
Time Genius. Congratulations, congratulations, Dan.
Speaker 10 (38:38):
Hi five, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Well. I hope all of.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Our listeners will check out record setter and aim to
set a record of their own. Dan, thanks so much
for joining us on Part Time Genius.
Speaker 8 (38:48):
My pleasure. Thanks so much, guys.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
So we were talking about Ashrida Furman, who's a legend
on the Guinness Circuit.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
What's his secret?
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Well, I think part of it is that it's the
same sense of validation everyone's looking for. Some people run
marathons to prove it to themselves, right, and for someone
like Ashreda, who apparently gained confidence after finding a guru
and getting into spirituality and meditation, he wanted to push
his body in fun ways, so he started by doing
twenty seven thousand jumping jacks. Whoa, and then he moved
on to things like long distance summersaulting or whatever.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
But it also seems like one of his better skills
is creating funny new categories that get attention.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Yeah, you're right. There are a lot of rules for
getting into the Guinness Book because they're super strict. I mean,
they're getting flooded with fifty thousand new record claims a
year and only three or four thousand of them make
it into the book, and they care about the accuracy.
But Ashreda is particularly good at gaming the system, right.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
I mean he's particularly good at creating spectacles. I mean
you need two witnesses, and you have to do this
in a public space and have multiple cameras and media.
There are lots of conditions, and part of the reason
he incorporates places like Mount Fuji and the Pyramids into
his attempts is that it's just an easier way to
draw press exactly.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
But he also understands the rules, like Guinness, is pretty
specific about what they will and won't admit. There's an
interview on Freakonomics with the editor of the Guinness Book,
which is really great, but it shows how hard the
job is and where the Guinness Book draws some of
the lines like they won't let you put an animal
in harm or another person, but you're free to put
yourself in danger. And in addition, they only want categories
(40:31):
with one variable. So like the example he gives is
someone submitting for heaviest person to raft a particular river,
and that just opens up a can of worms for them,
because in addition to verifying that, they have to open
up the category to the lightest person on a raft
on that river male female considerations, and then they'd have
to open up to every river. And you can see
how that sort of snowballs.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Yeah, yeah, Well, when we talk to Dan, his analogy
was really interesting to me. So a site like Record Setter,
where anyone can enter a new category with video evidence
and it's self patrolled in a Wikipedia way, is such.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
A smart idea.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
It really does feel like a Wikipedia model to the
Guinness Books Britannica.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Which is interesting right. It democratizes the whole process and
takes away all the need for judging and at the
same time allows everyone to feel special.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
You could see how something like this would take off
in India. You get quick validation instead of having to
write to Guinness and wait for two months for a response.
And even here, I mean Record Setter is all over
Jimmy Fallon. Like I think Cameron Diaz held the record
for the most bunny snuggled in a hammock.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Yeah, she did that on the show. And the thing
is everyone's good at something, you just have to figure
out what that is. It's like that guy David Kalb
who's the best in the world at horse He beat
Lebron James because he mounted the hoop on a forklift
and then did trick shots to a basket that was
like thirty feet in the air. And if you have
enough variables in the right stack of talents, you can
be the best in the world at something.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
So we should probably.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Figure out what ridiculous records we should try to set listeners.
If you have any thoughts on that, please email them
in to part time genius at HowStuffWorks dot com and
we'll work on trying to break some ridiculous records in
the not so distant future. But back to Guinness, with
competition like Record Setter, which is called fire in a
surprisingly big way, what do you think will happen to Guinness?
Is it bound to go the way of Britannica.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
I don't know. I mean they have evolved. They do
video game records and have a strong site online, and
I think there's so many good stories in there. The
books are really just a good way to get kids
into learning, and I feel like there's value in the
publishing and TV arms. But you know, Guinness has changed
hands a few times in the last few years, and
what's interesting is that they're now owned by the company
(42:33):
that owns their Ripley's Believe it or Not museums, and
they want to build these big, combined Guinness Ripley museums
where you can go with your family and try to
set your own records, like for the loudest family scream
or the longest laugh, which maybe gives the brand a
new leash. All I know is that I've loved reacquainting
with the book, and I have no intention of growing
out my fingernails to compete on that front. But I
(42:55):
do plan to change my Guinness book to my desk
and inscribe it with a threatening note no one takes
it away from me.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
That's great, that's a brilliant idea.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Well, one thing that's going to be harder to protect
is your part time genius fact off record? Are you
ready to drop some knowledge? And by drop knowledge, I
mean share super nerdy facts that we couldn't get into
the episode earlier.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
So here's a quick one to get us going.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
While the US has the most records on record per
capit of the Vatican City is the greatest source of records.
Roughly nine claims come from the Vatican every year from
a population of only nine hundred and twenty.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
I want to see what those records are too. Three
of the most common records to break also sound like
they're being craned for at preschools. Largest finger painting, longest
reading aloud marathon, and largest group hug are all records
that are regularly challenged and broken.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
Nice Kevin Shelley set the record for the most toilet
seats broken by one head in two thousand and eight.
He made his family proud, shattering forty six of them
in a minute.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
That's crazy, I know.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
The record for most people riding on a surfboard is
sixty six. Of course, if I had sixty five other
people on the board with me, I feel like I'd
have a better chance of learning surfing too.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
The highest shallow dive was accomplished by Professor Splash on
Chinese TV.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
What's a high shallow dive?
Speaker 1 (44:24):
It's what it sounds like.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
So he jumped from nearly thirty eight feet in the
air into a kiddie pool filled with twelve inches of water.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Oh that's insane. So here's a cute one. Black of
the cat is the world's wealthiest cat. He inherited twelve
point five million dollars. And I don't know about you,
but I need to find myself a sugar cat. Blackie,
if you're listening, call me.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
A sugar cat. Oh, good luck with that.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
Most number of fatalities in a crocodile attack used to.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Be a category.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Do you want to elaborate on that?
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Not really, except please don't tangle with saltwater crocodiles on
Ramrey Island.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
They hold the record for a reason.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Well, I'm not tangling with any crocodiles. But here's one
about a shark. When the Guinness Book of World Records
honored Jonathan Lee Riches as the most litigious man in
the world, he did what he did best.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
He sued them, of course he did.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Okay, I'll give you this round, but before we go
we should figure out who we should add to our.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
Hall of genius.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
What do you think about adding Sir Hugh Beaver to
the mix? I feel like he created the Guinness Book.
He honored millions of people while delighting others. He encouraged
generation upon generation to be their best selves, even if
that best self meant trying to crack more than seventy
two eggs in a minute by sitting on them. But
sir Beaver doesn't win them any awards anymore, and I
(45:38):
think he deserves one today.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
I agree, So the record stops today, Sir Beaver. Your
certificate will be in the mail shortly. That's it for
today's episode of Part Time Genius. Thank you so much
for listening. You know what I thought about, including farthest
distance to throw and catch a running chainsaw.
Speaker 9 (45:54):
It's four meters.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Thanks again for listening.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Part Time Genius is a production of how stuff works,
and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do
the important things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
Christan McNeil does the editing thing.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy
mixy sound thing.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Jerry Roland does the exact producer thing.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Gabe Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the
Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams
and Eves.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
and if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Do we forget Jason Basin who
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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