CECILIA VEGA:
00:00:55
For Colin Caplan, the stakes couldn't be higher. Not in my wildest dreams could I have ever thought that I'd be doing anything like this.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:01:02
After a year of planning, he's about to find out if his city, New Haven, Connecticut, can eat its way into history by hosting the world's largest pizza party. Let's get some pizza.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:01:15
Caplan, a local historian and food tour guide, is so obsessed with pizza, last year he chartered a jet to Washington and got his congresswoman to declare New Haven the pizza capital of America. New Haven, pizza capital, baby. Is this a serious endeavor? Yeah. [LAUGHTER] I think it is. I'll tell you what. It seems light and fun, but it's serious in a sense of what's on the line.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:01:44
What's on the line is the glory of a Guinness World Record. And people will do just about anything to get one. Humans are such an interesting bunch, aren't we? And record breaking is an innately human thing. And if that means you do strange things, like swallowing sausages whole or climbing Everest or running a marathon with a milk bottle on your head, then that's fine. That's great.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:02:11
Craig Glenday has been the book's editor in chief for the past 21 years. I really like that. So I think we want more of that.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:02:18
In his signature Scottish accent, he recounts with a straight face what is often a circus of absurdity. We get things like fastest time to run around my garden, playing the banjo with a snake on my head. It's like, next. They get a nice letter of like, thank you, but no thank you.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:02:36
Cutest babies and cutest dogs don't make the cut either. Records must meet strict criteria. They have to be filmed from multiple angles, verified by independent eyewitnesses, and measured with precision. Each year, Guinness World Records receives roughly 50,000 applications, but as many as 95% get rejected. The largest number of submissions come from the United States. One of my favorite days in the job I was at the X Games at the Staples Center in LA, and a dog zipped past me on a skateboard. And despite the heat, I chased after this dog, and I found the owner and said, I've never seen a dog on a skateboard. He said, oh, this is Tillman. He loves skateboarding. I had a tape measure. We measured out 100 meters of the car park at the Staples Center, and we set the record there and then because I was so amazed by it. Do you just walk through the world with a tape measure in your pocket?
CRAIG GLENDAY:
00:03:31
Well, I do usually. Do you? Yeah, I have a tape measure and a stopwatch because you never know.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:03:37
Many of the record holders you know, Usain Bolt for the fastest 200 meters, Beyoncé for the most Grammys, and many you've probably never even imagined-- Go.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:03:50
--like serial record breaker David Rush, an Idaho tech worker, who has broken more than 350 records and counting, including most bites taken from three apples while juggling for a minute-- Just passed the two-mile mark.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:04:06
--and most T-shirts worn during a half marathon and Monsieur Mangetout. That's Mr. Eats Everything in French. He held the record for the world's strangest diet. The guy who'd-- he'd supposedly eaten a Cessna because he could eat metal and glass. A Cessna plane? Well, apparently it took him two years. We couldn't quite give him-- Doesn't sound very healthy. Well, I mean, his wife wouldn't let him use the toilet at home because if he'd been eating metal, it tends to come out like bullets, and it would chip the porcelain. So he'd have to use a hotel with metal toilets near his house. This is the craziest interview I've ever done, just saying. Sorry. [LAUGHS] I'm sorry. Go back to what you were saying that when you-- I mean, for me, it's every day, so I don't quite get it, but yeah, OK. He could do glass and metal. He couldn't do chains. But to meet him was a real honor for me because he was like a childhood hero for me. You must get this question all the time. Why? I mean, it's different for everyone. Everyone has a different reason. Some just want fame. Some want to be in print. We do validate people that do things that others might seem about a bit weird, like eating aircraft and stuff. Do you not see that as weird? I mean, I see it as really interesting. I got to tell you, I thought it would be a little crazier in here. Inside the company's London headquarters, Glenday keeps a cabinet of greatest hits-- It's Craig's Cabinet of Curi-oddities.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:05:40
--like the world's smallest playing cards and a giant size 29 shoe. I'm like the Vanna White of oddities here. What is this? If you have a little investigation of that, it's the world's oldest vomit. Vomit? Vomit. So about-- You got me on that one. --160. It doesn't smell, and it's obviously petrified.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:06:00
Not everyone chooses to break records. I'm 5' 10". So what was she? She's just on 7 foot.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:06:07
The tallest and shortest people often have had genetic conditions. The woman with the longest fingernails, 43 feet, hasn't cut them since her daughter, who painted her nails, passed away in 1997. So she still holds the record? Still has the record. And I think that's the longest ever measured.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:06:26
The idea for the book began during a hunting trip at this country estate in Ireland, where the manager of the Guinness Brewery got into an argument over who could name the fastest game bird in Europe. To settle future pub debates, he commissioned a book of superlatives which eventually became The Guinness World Records. The first one was published in 1955. The initial reaction from the book trade was not that positive. In the first sales meeting ever, the salesperson wrote six on the slip. And they said, what? Do you mean 6,000, 600? He said, no, six. They just wanted six-- Six for the whole country. --copies? Yeah. By the end of the week, it was like 10,000. They sold that quickly? And it just blew up.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:07:10
70 years later, it's still a hit at school book fairs. But today, the name Guinness World Records is synonymous with viral stunts that become clickbait gold. Is Google your biggest competition? I could pull my phone out right now and search the world's fastest bird. You might as well open the window and shout your question into the street, and you'll get an answer. But is it the right one? Well, I can say I know Sultan Kosen's 8 foot 3 because I was there with a tape measure. I measured him.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:07:38
He's also measured the shortest person, who he learned about after a woodcutter passed through a remote village in Nepal and alerted the team at Guinness World Records. So there was confidence enough for me to then go to Nepal. You get on a flight and go to Nepal to measure this person?
CRAIG GLENDAY:
00:07:54
Yeah. And we would never have known about him had that woodcutter not gone through the village that day and sent us the video footage.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:08:02
And then there are the rules, so rigid they've sparked office debates over who makes the cut for the largest gathering of people dressed as Smurfs.
CRAIG GLENDAY:
00:08:12
So it's like, OK, well, what is a Smurf? What do they wear? Do they all have blue skin? Yes. You might have to write guidelines for any possible topic. So we've got this huge big book of experts, from archaeologists--
CECILIA VEGA:
00:08:28
To Smurfs. --to Smurfologists, yeah. [LAUGHTER] But we've got a myrmecologist, which-- What is that? Myrmecologist? An ant expert. So if we've got a question about what's the most dangerous ant-- Quick, get the myrmecologist on line nine.
CRAIG GLENDAY:
00:08:41
So you're like, we've just found this big ant. Is it the biggest?
CECILIA VEGA:
00:08:44
For large events like the New Haven pizza party-- I am today's official Guinness World Records adjudicator, so I'm basically the judge.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:08:52
--Guinness World Records sometimes sends an adjudicator responsible for enforcing the rules from headquarters. If you're going to write how many people you disqualified, hopefully that is a nice big round zero.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:09:04
Thomas Bradford is one of 81 adjudicators the company employs across six continents. His day job is as a performer at Disney. But when it's go time, he puts on his trademark blue jacket. The largest gathering of people dressed as dinosaurs was one of my favorite events. And you kind of expect people to just come in the classic inflatable T. rex costume.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:09:26
What do they come in? Diplodocus, triceratops. You name it, we had it.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:09:31
Legit gear?
THOMAS BRADFORD:
00:09:32
Everything. I had to turn away people that were dressed as Godzilla because Godzilla is not a dinosaur. How do you break it to a dinosaur in a bad costume that they don't qualify? You kind of just have to play the role. I think my accent helps. And there is a level of authority that comes with a British accent. School principal.
THOMAS BRADFORD:
00:09:48
Very much that. The largest pizza party is probably the most competitive record that I've ever been a part of.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:09:54
Is that true? I didn't think it would be as-- it's a lot, yeah. Is this stressing you out? This is one of the most stressful record attempts I've had.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:10:02
Colin Caplan needs 3,358 people to show up in order to beat the current record. You want to beat Tulsa? We're going to beat Tulsa, Oklahoma.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:10:13
Participants get 15 minutes to eat two slices of pizza and drink a bottle of water. But here's the catch. They have to stay until the party is officially over. And-- They must eat the entire pizza. No one can leave their crusts. They have to eat the crust.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:10:31
What makes a pizza party like this so difficult? People. You don't know if they're going to stay for 15 minutes. They might wait for 14 and be like, I'm fine. You're disqualified if you leave after 14 minutes. The people is the toughest thing. This official Guinness World Records attempt has begun. [CHEERING]
CECILIA VEGA:
00:10:54
At first, it was slow going. What if not enough people show up, or have you guys already accounted?
CECILIA VEGA:
00:11:00
But then in came the pizza-obsessed, college students, children, those in their finest pepperoni attire.
COLIN CAPLAN:
00:11:10
Its 10,000 slices, which is 625 pizzas in about three and half hours.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:11:16
Caplan's pursuit of a record didn't come cheap. Brands and businesses chasing titles for marketing must pay fees. He said he paid nearly $30,000 and fundraised six figures to cover all the costs, including eight ovens and all that cheese. There you are.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:11:37
When Thomas Bradford wasn't busy being a celebrity-- Awesome.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:11:42
--he and a group of 100 volunteers kept the tally. Only two didn't finish. One left. Perfect, OK.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:11:49
With an hour to go-- It's going to go to the wire, I think. It's going to be close.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:11:53
--Caplan was still trying to make the pie calculations add up. We could actually feed 1,800 people, starting at 6 o'clock still. And that means that we could 100% beat the record and almost get to 5,000.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:12:06
So did they? [CHEERING] Finally, the verdict. And now New Haven is home to the world's largest pizza party.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:12:17
4,525 people gathered for a new Guinness World Record-- Congratulations, New Haven, you are all officially amazing.
CECILIA VEGA:
00:12:30
--and a slice of history. Human beings are innately the same everywhere. They are really because they're trying to get through from birth to death and have as much fun and enjoy life and get all the experiences that you can. And we see this every day. The world is full of these amazing, fun things if you just look in the right place. [STOPWATCH TICKING]
