Worlds Biggest Whoopee Cushion

Yes! Silverstone Circuit more usually famous for their Formula One race are giving us permission to do our record attempt on their premises.

Thank you Silverstone Circuit.

This allows us to set a date of Tuesday March 8th at 4pm.

See you all there. Just arrive at the main entrance and you will see signs.

Anglia TV did not disappoint and the cushion appeared on the 'Closer to Home' segment of Anglia News, much to the amusement of all who know us.

And no, those are not condom costumes - any fool can see we are dressed as Whoopee Cushions!

Almost better than that we took up a whole front page of the Towcester and Brackley Adver.




Click picture for big image.

Rah, news of our cushion is spreading and Anglia TV News has been around to film us.

The cushion did not disappoint and performed well for the camera, flapping it's tootle with glee.

See us on Anglia TV in the Eastern Region tonight or maybe tomorrow Feb 24th or 25th.

Oh LookEast - you had your chance and blew it.

The cushion made it's first tentative steps in front of the media today when a photographer from the Towcester and Brackley Advertiser popped round despite the snow.

Our kindly neighbouring garage mechanic, Ike of Hillside Garage, had a clear space for us to exhibit the cushion in at the end of his workshop but we ended up outside in our traditional Whoopee Cushion Costumes which luckily are surprisingly warm.

We fully inflated the cushion for only the second time ever and it wasn't until the photographer had gone that we once again attempted to sit on the leviathan.

It didn't disappoint.

For all those of you who want to know what it sounds like it is very deep, fairly loud and of extremely long duration causing Phil to exclaim that nothing like it had been heard on this planet since dinosaurs roamed the earth some 65 million years ago.

You may be surprised to hear that we are not the first to attempt a world record with whoopee cushions.

A sports team in the States (don't ask me what they play - one of those obscure American ball games I think) call the Bowie Baysocks attempted the record for the most people to sit on whoopee cushions on June 29th 2004.

However according to Guinness the record is still held by the Quad City Mallards.

The Quad City Mallards, a member of the United Hockey League, achieved the
record for the largest simultaneous whoopee cushion sit with 3,614 participants
at Moline, Illinois, USA on March 19, 2004

Well done Mallards.

And here's the long awaited image of our soon to be famous cushion on it's first outing in front of the camera.

and here it is again a few minutes later as we struggle to keep it up. It is quite heavy with all that air in it. Next time I'm thinking of filling it with helium.

Please note the appropriate whoopee cushion costumes and the fact that the cushion is too large for our studio.

Ok, so now we have the biggest whoopee cushion not just in South Northamptonshire but most likely the entire world.

But that does not in itself raise money for Comic Relief.

I have a brain wave and swiftly order 768 regular whoopee cushions from Jarroy who upon hearing of our quest kindly help us out.

I plan on selling these whereever the whoopee cushion makes an appearance for a minimum donation of £1 and giving the profits to Comic Relief.

We will also sell them on SillyJokes with 50p going to Comic Relief. This goes alongside all the other red stuff we are selling with a percentage of the proceeds going to the charity.

Next I plan to get more sponsors and am hoping that appeals via TV and local papers will attract some help.

Opening the door of the shed the cushion was lying as I left it on the floor, it's glue curing to full strength. Waiting.

With tremulous hands I fed the tape measure over it and what joy! It is a fine 184cm in diameter, which is over the 10 times larger required by the Guinness Book of Records.

But would it work or would air leak out from every seam.

I stuffed the hair dryer into it's toot and switched it on. The cushion inflated quite quickly and certainly looked the part, quivering with expectancy.

And no leaks. Huzzah.

There was nothing for it but. Phil and I tried to sit on it.

We managed to get some of the air out with a gutteral splutter but it was obviously a job for a team of people.

However it does look like we have done it.

Now we need to arrange the record attempt.

It is time.

I have to create my monster.

Although to be honest I'm terrified. One wrong snip and the whole dream is ruined.

I have just one shot at this, one big sheet of latex and no prospect of replacement.

Cut it out wrong and it's over.

I fold up the ping pong table and sweep the concrete floor. It's freezing in the old shed. Why can't Comic Relief be in the Summer?

FourDRubber have come up trumps. Just looking at the sheet I can see there is enough to make the cushion once, but once only. I can't afford to make a mistake.

I go back to basics and remeasure the original whoopee cushion, even scan it so that I can make a pattern exactly to scale as demanded by the Guinness Book of Records.

It takes a while to draw out the pattern, using a jigsaw of scaled scans to create the sphincter correctly. Once it's done I have to sit down for a nice cup to coffee.

I can't bring myself to pick up the scissors immediately. Have I got it right?

Three steaming cups of mocha later I'm on my knees slowly snipping through the soft silky latex. It cuts beautifully and before I know it I am looking at two enormous whoopee cushion shapes resembling the fresh skins of a giant jelly fish.

I lay one on top of the other and they glide over each other as if powered by a tiny hovercraft engine, trapped air and talc forming the interface. It is easy for one person to manoeuvre the second skin on the first even though it is almost 2 meters wide and as floppy as a balloon.

Gluing next and experience has taught me a few tricks with this as the seam is the weakest part of the structure. It takes bloomin' ages to do and frankly I think the solvent fumes were starting to get to me at the end. Don't do this at home kids.

To make the strongest bond the glue must be allowed to cure overnight. I silently close and lock the shed door leaving my flat cushion lying breathless on the concrete shed floor. Tomorrow would be the real test.

It wasn't until later in bed I remembered I had forgotten to measure the width.

Popular Radio 1 Disc Jockey Chris Moyles is touring the country in a variety of bizarre vehicles in order to raise cash for Comic Relief.

On his Red Nose Rally he is going to be doing some interesting things and is asking for suggestions from the public.

Obviously he and his team should come and sit on our cushion. I mean, what else would you come to Silverstone for?

So I've invited him along.

Better get the cushion finished so it is ready for action.

The latex has arrived and there is enough to mummify a cow (have I just given Damien Hirst another Turner Prize Winning idea or what?).

At 2 metres wide the roll got wedged against the ceiling as I lifted it.

The whoopee cushion is going to be massive!!. In fact I think I might fill it with water and make a sort of trendy 60s spy bed out of it afterwards. Shagadelic, Man.

But no, if we can get it signed by celebs it should be worth trying to auction it after the event.

Anglia have expressed interest in filming the manufacture of the cushion so watch this space folks, we could be on TV.

I'm thinking the only place I have got to spread out a 2 m circle is in my shed where the ping pong table and pinball machine live.

Note to self:
Do not allow cats into building re: solvent adhesive, or indeed trapping said animals inside cushion.

Having decided to go for it and build a world record beating whoopee cushion the worst thing possible happened. The latex was not available.

We spent an hour in silence desperately trying to find an alternative supplier and gnawing on our wrist rests in frustration. The was a faint hiss as tears dripped onto the hot scanner.

It was an all time low. We couldn't proceed without the right 2m wide latex and if it was not available we couldn't set up an event and invite celebs to come and sit on the cushion.

The whole idea was on ice and our dreams of helping Comic Relief were sinking like Take That when Robbie left.

It was a struggle to come to terms with events when the phone rang. "Brinnng Brinnng. Brinng Brinnng," rang the phone, "Brinnng," and so on.

Eventually someone answered it and it was as if the clouds above were parted and a golden light shone down.

Sue at FourDRubber had scurried round the warehouse and found a piece of long forgotten latex of the exact dimensions required and it was ours for the asking.

What's more it could be with us early next week.

Oh the joy and elation! The Worlds Biggest Whoopee Cushion was once again within our grasp.
What cheerful scenes greeted the bloke our landlord was showing round when as one we threw our assorted novelty hats into the air (must remember not to throw the Tommy Helmet any more as it smashed a glass).

Huzzah once more.

This beats being a manic depressive.

Huzzah! Whether by coincidence or because of the barrage of emails I have sent in the last couple of days by various methods we get the go ahead from the Guinness Book of Records

The guidelines are pretty tight but we think we have a good chance of success.

The item submitted must be:

1. made from exactly the same materials as the original,
2. must be to scale
3. must work in the same way as the original.

Hence our cushion is made of rubber latex, is to scale and when you sit on it (or several people sit on it as is necessary) it makes the appropriate noise.

But here's the sting in the tail from Guinness. Remember the soberly dressed person with the stopwatch and clipboard on Roy Castle's Record Breakers? It costs £1,500 a day plus expenses to have someone like that turn up and ajudicate your record attempt.

Astonishing.

Happily they will accept hear say and rumour as evidence so we can make an application but will need to wait to hear if we get the record.

Actually they need quite a bit of evidence but this we can do.

Now to make my monster!

Now we know we can create a world record breaking whoopee cushion.

Indeed we think we may have already done so with our 88cm diameter prototype, however there is still no news from Guinness so we can't make it official.

We now decide that with Comic Relief Red Nose Day on March 11th 2005 approaching it would give the cushion more meaning if we used it to help raise cash for this great cause.

The aim of Red Nose Day is to use the power of comedy to:

try to make a difference to the lives of thousands of individuals facing
terrible injustice or living in abject poverty

Our giant whoopee cushion would be a great symbol of silliness which could help to raise cash - but how?

We are not sure what the cushion can do but we know it must be possible.

Great, we established we can stick two bits of latex together with glue and it is good.

Now we go for a bigger prototype before deciding whether it is worth investing in the 2m wide latex required to make The Big One.

Our latex is 92 cm wide so we go for it.



You can see the 17cm original on the left and the resulting behemoth is 88cm across.

It has to be inflated with a hairdryer and required two people to depress it although we think that three or four could actually get on it.

Formidable!

The smell of adhesive pervades the office despite working in a well ventilated room and freezing to death.

After carefully dissecting a normal sized whoopee cushion we discovered that they are 17cm in diameter. As a rule of thumb Guinness require a large version of something to be at least 10 times larger.

This means our cushion must be at least 170cm across to be 10 times larger in diameter although this will actually be much largeer in surface area.

We start out making one the size of the SillyJokes teatray. 29.5cm diameter. After a rather depressing failure and everyone saying we had made the worlds most normal hot water bottle Caroline remodelled the technique and actually came up with a very passable whoopee cushion which made the most amazing sound.

Result!!!