Production Blog 03/20/2006
The South Park McRib Challenge
As some of you know, I was offered a cool thousand dollars to do the near impossible at last year’s South Park Xmas party: eat 6 McRib sandwiches and drink one eggnog and one peppermint mocha in half an hour. I’m glad to tell you all that I succeeded.
What follows is a rough account of what happened to me that night. I’m neither proud nor excited about reliving these events. I’ve tried hard to forget this over our hiatus and it pains me to revisit any of it. But here goes…
Beverly Hills has no McDonalds. This is a hard fact to accept and the main reason why we showed up over an hour late. However, my fellow PA’s did their best to keep me calm and in a Zen like state. PA Rob kept repeating, “Don’t think you can, KNOW YOU CAN” over and over. This seemed to help and after a week of training (including eating massive amounts of grapes and six meals a day) I just wanted to get there and finish it.
We walked into the party and came face to face with a large group of people who had been at an open bar for over an hour. There was yelling… lots and lots of yelling. For some reason this reminded me of a boxer walking out of the locker room and into the ring. I even had the rest of the PA’s behind me, hands on my shoulders. Trey stood up and started yelling something about how we are all a family and that this is what families do at Christmas. They make one member force feed himself for money, while the rest of the family gets drunk and swears at him. Meanwhile, PA Kevin and PA Erin were putting the sweatbands and bib they purchased on me. I looked like a fool… a fool with a mission.
Now at this point Trey decided that since I was over an hour late, he would make my time limit twenty minutes. This seems harsh, but it really was nothing to me as PA Rob had been training me to complete this task with time left over. He wanted me not just to win, but to win with time left on the clock. That way I could sit back and stare down Trey when I finished. There was nothing left to do but start eating.
My strategy was simple enough, double up the meat on three sandwiches and then squeeze in the remaining buns. I don’t remember very clearly what happened when I was eating. I remember I ate fast and hard. I remember that bbq sauce, eggnog and mocha don’t mix well. I remember people were screaming both positive and negative things. I remember that PA Rob wouldn’t stop yelling in my ear. I also remember that once I got the Eggnog latte down I was about half way there. And, I remember when I finished the third double meat sandwich that I was in serious trouble.
The last three rolls were the hardest part. I squeezed them into tubes and soaked them in the peppermint latte so that they’d slide down a bit easier. It worked, but halfway through the last one is when I had to start swallowing back my own puke. My stomach had simply gotten too full. Luckily, I had PA Rob behind me yelling, “It’s not puke! It’s just food that you haven’t swallowed. It hasn’t even been in your stomach yet! SWALLOW IT!!!” I don’t know why, but at the time Rob’s words made perfect sense to me.
I choked back the puke and got it all in. Only to start puking it back up again. This is when Trey ran into the middle and yelled, “It’s done. He’s done it! And I’m going to give him $2000! ”
Someone held my arms up in victory and I concentrated on not puking (I wanted to puke real bad). People were cheering and yelling and then Matt’s voice came in… “And I’m going to double it!” PA’s Kevin and Rob were now screaming things at me about four thousand dollars, and all I wanted to do was just puke and lie down for a while. They dragged me into a quite corner and explained to me that I needed to hold down the vomit for 45 min to get the full $4000.
Then they handed me a bucket and I started pacing. Luckily enough everyone left me alone and I was able to pace back and forth with my chin held tight to my chest just choking it back. I should remind you that we’re in a swank Hollywood bar and I’m walking around in my bbq and pickle covered t-shirt and bib, holding a puke bucket. Welcome to the South Park Christmas Party…
At the end of 45 min Trey yelled something about me being able to puke and I sprinted to the bathroom. This was by far the worst part. UNBELIEVABLE amounts of vile liquid flew from my mouth. Followed by the sweetest feeling of release I’ve ever had. After about ten or so heaves, I had completely emptied my stomach. So, I cleaned up, brushed my teeth, changed my clothes, took the Jack and Coke PA Kevin handed to me and headed back out the party.
Was it worth it? For $4000… Hell Yes! For $1000 like it was originally, not a chance. Granted I do have the satisfaction of actually finishing it. But that comes with the price of gaining twenty pounds in a week and feeling like a cheap whore. Would I do it again? No f%#@ing way! It’s not worth the training, effort, dedication, puking, weight gain, cold sweats, shortness of breath, and numbness in my left arm. Once is enough.
Now taking part in The 2006 South Park Weight Loss Challenge… That’s a different story. After all I’m twenty pounds overweight. But I’ll let someone else tell you about that.