As you sit down to a table full of wings, chips, burgers and dips this SuperBowl Sunday, imagine being able to devour truck loads of these delicious items as a profession. Glamor, prestige & unlimited wet naps could be yours right?

Meet Crazy Legs Conti;  a man with one lofty goal in life. His dream? To one day become the epitome of guilt free gluttony by ruling the world of competitive eating circuits in the Good Old U S of A.

Years ago when the Fox network was starved for ratings (pun intended) and didn’t have twenty nights of American Idol programming, they would slap just about anything on the air. This was a magic time for lowest common denominator programming as “When Animals Attack”, “When Good Pets Go Bad” and “Man VS. Beast” flourished.

One of the last straws to break the good will camels back via this genre onslaught for Fox was the Glutton Bowl. A reality game show sanctioned  by the International Federation of Competitive Eating.  Let’s be honest here; any organization that has a soft serve cone as part of their official crest is too legit to quit.

Each episode was bulging with professional eaters being challenged to down whatever was placed in front of them. Butter. Miracle Whip, Vienna Sausages, Hobos.

Ok, ok I kid; there weren’t any competitions that involved Vienna Sausages.

While the Glutton Bowl only lasted as a two hour marathon of excess one classy night, mostly for concern that a regular series would result in the majority of repeat contestants dying from blocked arteries, the good old Yankee tradition of eating ones self to death carried forward with unwavering enthusiasm.

Crazy Legs’ journey to become a spokesperson for the world of competitive eating is not a pretty one my friends. That being said, it’s hard not to like this amiable scarfer and his die hard,  East meets West philosophy as it applies to the honed craft of consuming mass quantities of food in horrifyingly short amounts of time. He wields the same passion of any other seasoned athlete, who can inhale fourteen dozen oysters in under ten minutes.

You’ll feel little guilt as you cheer Conti on in his quest as he possesses a superhuman kind of freakish Jughead metabolism that keeps him comfortably away from obesity. A trait that the majority of champion human Hoovers seem to be blessed with.

Just to give you a better idea of what kind of sweet cash you can make with such a lucrative career path,  Crazy Legs makes ends meet by washing windows, posing nude for art classes and sharing a 20 square foot apartment with a surly Art student who seems to semi tolerate his non-stop binging practice sessions.

Travel with Conti to every backwoods, blue collar, get stabbed in an alleyway eating event as he crisscrosses the Country looking to build his reputation at regional events. His eye on the prize? First place at the Nathan’s Hot Dog eating contest. The culmination of the contests of speed and minimal chewing build to an epic showdown between Crazy Legs & his only true competition; 112 pound Champ Takeru Kobayash.

Kobayashi can eat one hotdog every 12 seconds with a patented double break and water soak approach. Once properly drenched in liquid, it’s argued if he actually chews the hot-dog but instead swallows them whole much like a boa constrictor. However a bit faster and with far less grace. In fact, watching a long line of grown, sweaty men stuff themselves silly with wet buns and tube steak is sometimes hard to watch.

Does Crazy Legs stand a chance?

A thoroughly enjoyable documentary that allows you a very unglamorous at times, inside look at the world of competitive eating. Crazy Legs deliciously enthusiastic passion for what he considers a legitimate sport makes for a fascinating view. It’ll leave you craving more.

Hot Dogs? Not so much.

The contest pies (mixed berry, chocolate cream, coconut cream):

Now you are probably asking, that’s not a ton of food, what’s the problem?  My friend, the problem is getting those pies down, and down fast.

The other issue was that I had never done this before, so I was totally at a loss for how to proceed from a strategy perspective.  Which pie do I start off with?  Do I go as fast as possible from the beginning, or start slow and gauge the competition?  Do I make such a mess that I only end up eating half as much as everyone else?  I had no answers.

I can eat a lot, but not usually under the gun.  And I like to enjoy my food and savor it; but this was not the time to smell the roses.  Also, silverware was not an option, so every eating rule I knew went right out the window.  So when the gun went off, I just went for it, shoveling in the chocolate cream.  I made the unfortunate mistake of chewing some of my food, which apparently really slowed me down.  I was half-way through the coconut cream, when the winner was declared.  Yeah… no chance. Not even close.  There are professionals, amateurs, and then there was me.  Although, upon further review, that is not such a bad thing.

This contest taught me truly what I am best at – taking my time, lingering over the especially good bites, and taking it all in.  While there is fame and fortune in competitive eating, it is certainly not for the true foodies among us.

H/t to @CoolinAustin for the pie photo.  And much respect to local mom and pop eateries making a go of it and succeeding.  Also, here is video of the event; thankfully, I am not featured.

The bacon craze sweeping the nation has been well documented on this blog.  I’m sure most of you saw the story in the NYT of the above “Bacon Explosion,” or as I like to say, the “Angioplasty, Please!”  As if it wasn’t enough for someone to make this “massive torpedo-shaped amalgamation of two pounds of bacon woven through and around two pounds of sausage and slathered in barbecue sauce,” someone else decided to eat it… by himself.  Enter competitive eater David Cagle, ranked #48, by someone with way too much time on their hands.

Not surprisingly, the bacon won – again.  You know the idea is bad when 4 out of 5 people in Houston think that something has too much fat in it.  Case closed.

H/t to NYT for the pic and @HoustonChron for the story.

Check out the trailer for the film below, as well as a clip featuring two women talking about their love of weiners.

 

Tim “Eater X” Janus finished a distant 3rd with 42 hot dogs, and Pat Bertoletti failed to challenge the leaders, putting back only 38 dogs. I have written before about how at the end of 2007, Pat Bertoletti was on the verge of claiming the #1 competitive eater ranking, having beaten Chestnut at grits, waffles, chicken wings and turkey. So is it that Chestnut and Kobayashi are just hot dog specialists? Or have Bertoletti’s skills regressed and he is sinking back towards the pack?

For those of you who missed the contest, below is video of the last two minutes of “regulation”, as well the 5-dog “dog off.”

Video via Serious Eats.

So like any patriotic American who wanted to help do something great for his country, I wrote a detailed post about his Facebook group. Within 12 hours, the story was picked up by Fark and several dozen other websites. By the next day, the story was being reported by radio and TV stations across America, even as far away as New Zealand. The Facebook group instantly zoomed to more than 60,000 members and Ryan was interviewed by radio stations about his planned attempt. Ryan even set up a website, 12 Meals or Bust.

A few weeks ago, his Facebook group finally hit 100,000 members. True to his word, Ryan trudged to a nearby McDonald’s, and with his friends filming, he began slowly eating each value meal, one by one.

In his Facebook group, Ryan vowed:

“I will consume every value meal from McDonalds, starting with the Big Mac all the way to the Fish Fillet. I cannot get up, it will all be done in one sitting. I will consume every piece of food.”

So did he do it? NO. Ryan hit his 10th meal and then quit. He never even made it to the dreaded Filet-o-Fish.  Downing 10 meals is an incredible performance, but in the end he came up short.

Sadly, his night ended not in a moment of glory, but with intense vomiting in the parking lot:

Ryan may not mind that he didn’t make it to all 12 meals. Perhaps prior to actually having to attempt the eating feat, he lost his training focus after becoming an on-campus celebrity. He was too busy doing interviews with his college newspaper and, I can only surmise, hooking up with a steady stream of college fatties – who were turned on by the thought of him stuffing so many value meals into his gullet.

But alas, the fame probably didn’t last long. In the end he was left all alone. Just him, a bunch of McDonald’s value meals, and a string of horrifying memories of hooking up with really, really fat chicks.

For anyone who has 20 minutes, the video of his attempt to eat all 12 McDonald’s meals has been posted on Google Video HERE.

* Note: I have never met Ryan Giesel. I do not have evidence to back up some of my statements, particularly those about him hooking up with a lot of fat chicks. But these statements COULD be true. Let’s just say that I have no way of disproving them.