Competitive Eating, the Bullet Catch & Five Words that Changed Reality TV

today despite my objections. I am joined today by my good friend mister Peter Tilden, who is not only a very talented writer, producer, and a beloved talk radio host, he has also been my creative partner for nearly thirty years, and together on this show we explore the things that perplex us, or fuddle us or intrigue us. I'm out of us the saurus, but they generally make us go really no Real. Hello, mister Tilden, how are you? Good morning?

I'm fine, but you didn't mention Amaza Sinius confound those shakus. Oh, and I brought daiway Today the thing that has made us go really no really This week begins in the world of competitive eating. Now, even if you take a quick glance at my generous figure, it might lead you to believe that I am a competitive eater. That is not what we mean. We mean these crazy people who pound down massive quantities of food as quickly as they can to win cash prizes and a very very specific

kind of famine notoriety. And Peter recently informed me, I was told these competitive eaters the way they get hot dogs down and food down so fast is they don't chew. Supposedly, they just swallow. Really, both Peter and I were told by our mothers, who could yell at a level that could crack a safe that so fast and cho, Cho, you got chunk uncle's daily. First of all, Jason condulces to cousin Stevie, but I gotta tell you competitive eating. These guys will down fifty sixty hot dogs in under

ten minutes, Which how do you do that? It's like a conveyor bolt of food, and we would be hearing about deaths, multiple deaths from choking, I would think. Because as Nathan's hot Dog Championship contest to Coney Island has been around, they say allegedly like a hundred years that I would never have guessed that, by the way, it feels much more recent than that. But that's yeah, that's amazing. So, in search of the definitive answer to whether competitive eaters

true or just swallow. We reached out to two of the reigning champions and superstars of competitive eating. So the first is Mickey Pseudo, the number one ranked female competitive eater in the world, who just returned from eternity leave and she just captured her eighth Nathan's hot Dog Eating championship by eating forty hot dogs and buns in ten minutes. Now, Mickey has competed in a multitude of timed eating competitions

where she has eaten. She's eating fifty fifty eight tacos, one hundred and ninety two chicken wings, one hundred and forty five voicters. I can't fathom the body blew one hundred and four dumplings, And of course there was that one hundred and nine hardball egg day, were she eat one hundred and nine hardball eggs in eight minutes. Oh God bless her. Mickey Sudo hello and welcome to Really No really, So starting out, apparently the myth is or the legend or the story that you ate a twelve

pound ball of Vietnamese noodle soup. I did the urging of some friends and one fifteen hundred bucks and said I can do this. Yeah, but wasn't going to do it again until some haters were like just giving you some stuff, and you went, I bet I can do this again, and then we went for the eight pounds

of ramen. Is that is that? Whatever I did? So I started collecting the jack potts all over the Las Vegas Valley, you know, the man versus food type challenges where if you eat a large portion, you collect some cash. And I really thought that was going to be the extent of it. But I got talked into doing my first ever had to head competition, and I was so nerves us walking into my first event because I was

competing against a field of about thirty five guys. A lot of them were larger, and I just felt like I didn't belong here. But long story short, I ate more ribs than all of them and ended up winning that contest. And I just told myself, you know what, I belong here more than anyone else. So how many ribs?

How many ribs was that? And everybody listening in vision you're eating like four or five ribs at a place, what that's like, what it feels like, how your face is the dirty, the sauce, the whole bit, And how many did you eat? It wasn't pretty. I want to see. It was about nine racks of ribs in an I had no idea what I was doing, but it was good enough to win that day, and I decided to

take on the professional start getting who we are. So Mickey, Jason and I when we discussed doing the show, We're fascinated by your ability to get so much food down in such a little amount of time in all of these competitions, and I feel like I've been training for it all my life in some way, But now I I'm not a professional. Do you know that, Jason, as a child, as a matter of fact, whenever there was a food in the house that was of value, cake, pie, ribs,

value of food. Tell her about what your family would do. So maybe I actually set an alarm for two forty five am so that I could sneak downstairs and eat the last of the good ice cream before my family got it, only to find sneaking down at two forty five am that my father had said his alarm clock for two thirty am and had polished it all off. And it was it was like it was like you know, the sharks and the Jets meeting in the kitchen. They were just fighting again. I like how you said the

good ice cream. Yeah, exactly exactly what you're talking about. You did ice cream. Ice cream is one of the things that you've eaten a volume of no ice cream headache. I take two fast bites and I'm down for the count. How do you do I think it was fourteen or fifteen pints? Fifteen, I'm right, fifteen and a half. Remember,

I hardly believe it myself. It was actually sixteen and a half pint, and I believe it was an eight minute an eight minute contest, a shorter contest, so over two gallons of ice cream, which is one of my world records. Is this you know, fully ready to serve, you know, solid ice cream. It's not like melty. You're not drinking it, you're actually eating it. This was with a spoon. Definitely not as soft as a milkshake. That's that's amazing. So so Peter's right, So you're chugging ice cream.

Is there no brain freeze element to this or is it? Is it just an eating issue now? To be honest, I think brain freeze only sets in if the roof of your mouth starts to chill. But even if it had said it. I think the adrenaline was so overpowering that I just kind of I kind of put that to the side. Um, you know, I was more concerned about my core body temperature dropping and I was shivering afterwards. Brain freeze was the least of my worries. Oh, I

don't remember it. So you win the contests, they give you a belt and they come out you're running with the milar blanket. Is that? Oh my gosh, that's not even funny, because actually that contest ran a little bit long and I was cutting my travel really tight, so I literally had to run after taking first place, I had to run about half a mile to my car with two gollons of ice cream in your stomach. That

is a terrible idea. I'm just oh, yeah, I know, no running involved, right, Mickey, Let's move on from ice cream to the hot dogs. If you haven't seen it at home, I watched the Nathan Championship. I have it on tape. I rewind. You're you're downing forty hot dogs and buns and under ten minutes and I can't tell what you're doing with your chewing or swallow. How do you do what you do? And you are going so fast.

You're putting the hot dog in your mouth, and you do this right jerk thing where your head turns to the right. I guess to jiggle it down. Yeah, exactly. And then you dip the roll in the water and then shove that sucker in and you are moving. It's like a machine because you know you have no time. Thank you, because I know some guy just jump up and down to make it go through. If I have to ever jump up and down to send for meal. Yeah, just trying to help, trying to get gravity to work

for you moving through. So what's the movement? Thank you for not saying it's like one a nervous twitch or some people think that I have. You know, I'm obsessed with hygiene and I want to get I want to wipe my mouth. It looks like you're working it down exactly. It's I think it's the way my throat shaped, or I don't know. Just turning my head to the side helps me swallow those larger pieces because I don't choo any of the hot dog in the competition. Yeah wait,

now a sword swallowing. What do you mean you don't you don't shoot you you literally just like a I'm not kidding, like a sword swallower. You just hold. So when when when Peter said it was almost mechanical, that's a huge compliment because it's it's very very thought out. I bite and sever these First of all, I ate the hot dogs two at a time, so they're two going down vertically, and I bite and sever in thirds so that, yeah, those two pieces are going down almost

like a conveyor belt. There's no chewing or mascation, nothing that Really the more you chew, the more you taste it, and the more time you're wasting time chewing. Who's chilling exactly exactly and the signals to your brain that you're getting full fast. Do you know what? It's still really hard for me to wrap my head around how much you can cram into your tiny little five foot four inch body. I have eaten not quite you know, dainty

portions of certain foods that you have eaten competitively. And I have gotten really ill, just where I felt like I was gonna die. I don't know why. I don't know if it's just your genetics. I don't know if it's the way you've trained. I don't know why. You and I react so differently to this kind of food that would be really fun to figure out. I don't know, I mean maybe just everybody's good at something and this is my weird talent slash you know something that I'm

I don't know cut out to do this planet. You were placed on this planet to eat seven point two five pounds the world defried asparius. Is there you have, Jason? We got the answer to both things. Number One, they don't they Oh my god, they don't chew. I can't even imagine. Can you, like, Joe, how do you not chew a double hot dog and snarf that that they come with warnings on the label? Hey shoot, don't eat the rapper and chew the inst I mean, it goes

against every instinct we were told about. You know how they do it? You know I'm doing Come on that. There's got to be a moment. Is it the water that just softens everything up and it slides? What they do? Drink olive oil before they start the thing. Yes and yes, but when they train, they do it so much. To be a competitor to your competitor, you have to get past the guy grieflick. You have to do so many if you want Joey Chess not do seventy six. He's

not gas. It's like a continuous conveyor belt of dog. Okay, I got you, but there's still it's a pipe. If you stuff the pipe, the pipe doesn't gag. It just gets stuffed. How do you I mean no, seriously, you

probably you watched more of this than I have. Do you ever see somebody go into they don't breathe that they give you the gig they have They have guys here, yeah, yeah, yeah, they have guys here the Heimlich you and when they're heimlocking, what's coming out it's fourteen pounds or something and hit somebody in head of to buy. I don't. I don't want to compete in something where the Heimlich guy is on standby. He's integral Park. Say hi to lou he's

the Heimlich guy. So but let me ask you one quick question, because there are other things to go go on here. Um like chipmunking, which means at the end of the contest you stick as much in your cheeks as you can. There's narfing, which is no zomit, which you're eliminated for it comes out. Why that like it's a term we should all know, nose Vomit is that part of the competition. You don't want it to be, but at times it can be. So it's to be avoided.

I'm assuming, well, if you hear a rough yard large fifteen yards, I guess you're penalizes your sent back at least another kind of a record that way, right, this is all the suf record. I don't care what it is. If we imagine I'll narf for fifteen feet, just a curiosity to get its people I want in one way or the other. Not a curiosity, you know, like my son in lawn and other people do this every once in a while to go. You know what, I decided, I'm going to run a five k, and the whole

family's excited and it's God. Could you imagine if you said to Dana, hey, Danny, you know what I was thinking about it talking to Peter, I'm gonna go to Nathan's and compete. What would her reaction be? Proud of you? It would be like every other day where she starts the morning with you fat and moving on, moving on, nothing about my eye, eating habits with surprise my wife. It would be more. It would be more of a really if I said, honey, I'm not going to Nathan's today.

So talking about choking, we got another competitor, a winner. This is a second time he's won in a row. He's a rapper. He's six foot five and quarter inches, four hundred pound rapper and competitive leader. He set the world record talking about shoving stuff down for chugging by chugging an entire time and chugging. Yeah, go ahead, Ruth Leader, bottle of soda in eighteen point four five seconds. Oh,

come on, and Erk bed Lands Brooker. Well, first of all, you know what he has over three million YouTube subscribers, which is two million more people watching him than CNN. Okay, so these two million of them about eighteen seconds, he's doing a two leader bottle of soda. Yes, Jason, Yes, he happens to be a super start. And I know you have some questions read the chugging obviously, so say hello,

oh I have questions, Yes, I have questions. As chugging champion, Eric bad Lamb's booker aka Chugs and if you watch his yourtube videos, he could also be called the burp heard round the world. So Eric, you you just won your second Nathan's chucking championship congratulations by by downing an entire gallon of lemonade virtually NonStop in under thirty seconds. I have watched you gulp down eighty ounces of carbonated Mountain Dews from a giant glass bigger than my head.

I forget physically, mentally, how do you do this? From the moment I started drinking, you know, your mind starts playing tricks. Tony. You're like, how are you going to finish this? You know this is impossible? You know, seeing you're running out of air. You know what I'm saying. You know, how are you going to feed and drink? Especially when you get to like a ass two to three ounces? Then you're like, everything is telling you no, no, no, you can't do it. Stop. You know what I'm saying.

You're about the blow right, Okay, speaking in the lot Wait wait wait, speaking in the last couple of ounces. Day, Jason, Picture that and I reading home, Picture that drinking that thing, but now fill it with instead of liquid, the Hobonaro saucer, chunky sauce that much in a glass that big? That Yeah, oh my lord, Yeah, I've chugged Hobbonaro south Side Chuck sarachach hot sauce. Yeah, I do well. I love all

the hot sales. But the most disgusting, difficult food I watch you eat Eric, for a number of reasons, was the octopus, because on your first attempt, you tried to eat three octopi octopuses, Pole and may I and Jay. They're they're raw and still moving for quite some time, even after they're cut up. They look like they're fighting back. He's eating food fighting back. Wouldn't you you'd be fighting back. I mean I tried to eat it like, you know, whole.

But then then it's just you know, you think about the face ugger from Alien. You think about what's his name called Davy Jones from from from Theban. But they had to cut it up for me, so I just said, yeah, just cut it off right. But even though it was tough, it was like the freshest seafood I ever had. It was really good. I mean, I love it. I don't want my food fighting me that way. Now. The other thing, Eric, correct me if i'm you also remember are you're not,

I'll do a little bit of rapping. Yeah, So can you wrap a sound? Do you do you have a do you have a rap about about competitive Yeah, yeah, yeah, what's good eating fans? They called me bad Lands Top Break American Eating Champion a k a. The Old Day buffeting. When it comes to eating the hot dogs, I don't play, but you're eating the week I eat in merri minutes. But all you can eat the face out of this. Just in case you forgot, who the heck is this a bad Lands booker in effect, bear with this. I

love thank you. Some locksto was great. I can't, I can't, you know, it's so sad. In the other episode we did, we were talking about intelligence of animals and they're such a smart animal. Octopus. Yeah, and this is almost instead of like my Octopus teachers, like my Octopus Appetizer. It's a new movie. It's coming out. I mean that's hard. I feel so horrible and you had to see it. They're moved. Could you eat anything moving? I don't think so.

I'm Jello Jello, I get that anything moving right? Yeah right, I mean if it's moving, it's alive. Yes, yeah, I will tell you. I mean I'm not oysters. No, it's not that. Yeah, he's you know I went for once oysters. Yeah, okay, they're not moving. They're not moving when I Most restaurants keep their oysters alive on ice up until they are shocked and served fresh for superior taste in your safety.

Since dead oysters may contain dangerous bacteria. Still up for debate is exactly when they die, when shocked or when you eat them. Oysters are low in calories, contain an impressive amount of vitamin B twelve, and can live up to twenty years, and they can change their sex more than once. Often considered an aphrodisiac. There's little, if any

support scientifically for this assertion. As we're talking about competitive eating, people still love after some maybe a hundred years watching competitive eating, and that's part of the carnival arts that

were around two hundred carnivals. We're touring our country's entertainment with fire eaters and psychics and feats of strength and pie eating, etc. Those things lasted until World War One hit and people are to go off the war, and of course the influenza epidemic which took out tens of millions of people and shut it down the entertainment industry

much like COVID did us. Those people where would they end up well as It turns out TV came along, specifically reality TV, and said wait a minute, and figured out they could use these people because we love watching, we can't turn away. And the guy who many say is the godfather of reality television, who understood best how to use these kind of acts is mister Woody Fraser, and the reality show that he produced, which many consider to be the first reality show, is called That's Incredible. Hey,

what do you? Honestly fantastic to meet you, so I'm just going to jump right into you. That's an incredible time four years worth. Is there one act that stands

out for you? The one I regurgitator. He was a Scottish guy and he would take a penny, a nickel, and a dime and he would swallow them and then you would call the order that he would spin him back out and they say, okay, I want nickel, I want penny, I want dime, and he'd get ready to do it, and then I would have one of the John or somebody say no, no, I'm changing it, I want dime nickel, and he'd go okay, and he wopped the back of his head and he had a glass

and I would come the three we'd replay it in SloMo and damned if he didn't do it. Every done. So when I did this in the taping, standards and practices were very big. Then, very big woman named Susan. She was a former if you can't believe this, kindergart and teachers, so she was tough. So she said, well, you can't do that. Children will do that. You can't do that. We had a big rowt So, Jason, I want you and everybody listening to just take a moment

and guess what game changing solution? What do you Fraser came up with so he could show death defying acts on Teleshion and something I gotta give. It's so simple, it's so impactful and revolutionary that it's still used today thankfully to allow us to watch dangerous and outrageous stunts. Any ideas, where do you come up with it? Is it commercial for Jacobean Barnes personally? I know it is. I know we'll say don't try this at home, as

she went, oh, that's a pretty good idea. You created the don't try this at home warning on that show because of that phrase that you guys would never want cleared the way, don't shry this in them. That's like on Seinfeld. You know, we had to do disclaimers all the time. We did the episode where some reporter thought Jerry and George were gay lovers, and you know, we tried to disavalid and the network note was, well, you know,

don't make it sound like that's a bad thing. You know, if they were gay lovers, don't make it sound like it's a bad thing. Their solution was, every time we said we're not gay, we'd go not that there's anything wrong with it. You know, that was the simple solution. Did those guys do that and come up with that to say, okay, they want that, we'll show them. Well, I'm sure it was a a solution and be a little bit of a really really really you feel like we have to say that that it's not implicit in

some way, Okay, we'll say it. And then they would just say and because again I produced shows with you, the network is you a note like that, like you can't do that, And you go back to your office and you just agonize and call Lloyd, whatever, I love that you said, We'll say, don't try it. You know how you see acts with a guy who has his wife on a turntablis stolen knives, that are people are on fire, people who are jumping over moving cars or

all cause don't don't at home. Yeah, really that's good. That's good. So speaking speaking of things, perhaps perhaps we shouldn't try at home or on the road or anywhere. Is this age old? This is an ancient magic act. It's called the bullet catch, and many magicians have attempted it. Many have done it. Some who have attempted it have actually died from it. Penn and Teller feature it in their Vegas show. They do a brilliant version of it that certainly I don't know how they do it, and

I'm not sure many people do. But Woody, this gentleman Carl's skemes is its skemes. Did the bullet catch on your show? So how do you do it? So he's going to catch a bullet in his mouth, a rifle bullet of twenty two. So we set it up in front of the honest to do it live in front of the audience, and we took his He had his friend who I had no idea who he was, and we bolted the rifle into the ground so that he could hold it and he was only he was twenty feet from him. Now, you know, look how big is

your mouth. Once you open your mouth, you're going to shoot something in there. So what he hand was a little box in there that they used the police, like the police use when they're testing guns. They shoot into it and it goes everywhere and then it doesn't come out. So he had one build for his mouth. So it

took us a long time to get it straight. And then he come out and stands on this spot and a guy lines it up and he's taking for frigging ever, So wait, after taking an ordinate amount of time to line up the shot perfectly, they figured the most prudent way to let the shooter now he's ready, is by moving his head and nodding up and down and guessing that's gonna be in the exact same place they lined up. It went down, came back up, but it was only off by like a half inch. A guy shot the

bullet and it took half of his lip. There's frigging blood everywhere. So I stopped the tape and we went in and are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine. Yeah. I don't know how that happened. Well, I know how it because you're an idiot, because you know, I mean, come on, this is I would think that would be the most scientific part of this and to you is the less the least. Oh my god, So what how are you allowed to do that? Based on insurance? We

had a lot of insurance problems. But thank you the godfather of reality television, mister Woody Fraser, thank you for coming on. Woody, appreciate it. You take care well. First of all, I love, I love I risk my life for a television show. I get hurt and the guy I go, I don't know what happened, and the producer goes, what happened, idiot. What I love is that one I pitched the act. I loved it. They're lining it up so that what he's going, you're gonna do it, You're

gonna do it. I gotta tell you, I cannot let it go. I gotta pay homage to my former boss Jerry, who's one of my favorite routines he ever did, was about watching this act on that's incredibly goes a guy caught a bullet in his teeth, and I'm thinking, how do you learn that? Do you start with the guy just tossing you the bullet and then when you get that down, does he put it in the chamber clicking? Go all right, Phil, this one's coming in a little faster.

I mean, what's the what's the learning curve? Oh my god, So Jason, I guess to some things that we learned the competitive leaders, basically swallowing and not showing, and that there's no shortage of people willing to do stunts and stuff to become famous. And today with the Internet and TikTok famous and Instagram and YouTube famous, the bar of entry so low. I think that many many people out there think they can become celebrities, that they got the

delivery system already with the Internet. Let me just figure out my thing obvious celebrity too, because everybody I see interviewed, every teenager, every young adult thinks I want to be our Kadashian. I want that celebrity. It's just it's just over the hill, over that next bridge. Let me tell you something, and I'm not saying anything profound here. There are two things that people who think famous celebrity is the end all be all don't realize. One is you

have no control over it. Once you belong to the public. The public controls it, and that is startling, and it can be it can be crippling if your image or your participation in this has taken the wrong way. The other thing that people don't understand is it's not something you can turn on and only the audience can turn it off. And when it is turned off, for many, many people, it's been like a drug. And you they

keep wanting to get back to that high. And let me just say, and I say this from they say to seriously, from my heart. The reason and don't interrupt. The reason that Jason and I are best friends is because he doesn't have an ego that way. There are many other annoying things about you. I can listen, but I can't interrupt. I'm not allowed to interrupt statement. Thank you now now, really, hey, a big thank you to all of our guests today are champion competitive eaters, eight

time Nathan's Hotdog Gating Women's champ, Mickey Pseudo. You can follow Mickey on Instagram at OMG It's Mickey and on YouTube at Mickey Pseudo. Eric Badlands Booker, who's a Guinness World Record holder for their fastest time to bring two leaders of Soda, also a Nathan's Chugging Champ. Follow him on Instagram at Bedland's Booker and on YouTube at Badlands Chugs.

A Major League eating dot Com is the place he goes you want to learn about the sport, and of course, Emmy Award winning producer and director Woody Frazier wood He's created, developed, and produced many of TV's most successful talk, variety, news, comedy, reality, and yes, even children's shows. Thank you, Woody for your time and to find out more about the Really nor Really podcast, all you have to do is go to really Norwali dot com or check us out on Instagram, TikTok,

and Facebook. Really No Really Podcast. We release new episodes every Tuesday. You can follow us in the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, of course, wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for listening, See you next Tuesday. Don't try this at home.