The loss of the McWhirters , the original authors , may have had something to do with it. They had something a certain dry humour . In the 1974 edition I remember a category relating to the greatest financial faux pas . The scion off a rich American family attended a dinner at the house of his fiancee , from a similarly rich family. :"Being inebriated he mistook the fireplace for a plumbing fixture of a different nature , leading to the breaking off of the union and a multi million dollar merger .
I especially loved the natural or mechanical records: the narrowest strait, the longest glacier, the longest escalator, the biggest truck.
The new book de-emphasizes all that in favor of the stupid human records.
That’s the version of the book I remember. And does anyone else remember a photo of two really big twin brothers on motorcycles? For some reason, that photo sticks in my memory. And apparently I’m not the only one. I remember seeing that photo referenced in an episode of The Simpsons.
Those were great but also trivially findable via google now with far more information than a book could provide which is why I imagine Guinness doesn’t really bother anymore.
It used to the be most wonderful book in the library for a curious kid. Now it sucks with bright colorful pages.
Well, you call it purely a money-making venture, but I would say it’s a useful service.
Say hypothetically I had some talent at something. But googling around, it’s not so clear what the best anyone has done at this talent is. Maybe a record hasn’t been set yet.
And then when I do some demonstration of my talent…I guess I can create my own wiki page, and tell the local press, but all that lacks the officialness and permanence of going into some sort of respected central repository.
Obviously there’s a point where it gets silly; where you’re letting people set stupidly specific records that no-one cares about. But even there I wouldn’t call it an outright scam, as Guiness is a respected authority on records. It’s not like you’re paying for nothing, like with naming a star or whatever; you’re putting something in this central repository.
And maybe that’s what happened with the book. Like others have noted here, the last readable GBoWR for me was 1997. Perhaps Guiness made the strategic decision that the human feats was something they could own (in a way that they could not with animal facts or whatever), so focus on those.
But unfortunately it makes for a useless, uninteresting book.
I remember reading once about a town in India where getting into GBoWR was kind of a cottage industry and Guinness was flooded with entries from this one town, mainly stuff that no one really considers an accomplishment per se (Longest name for a baby, most piercings, longest fingernails, that sort of thing). Yeah, neglect your personal grooming for a few years and you’re on a par with the fastest runner and the heaviest weight lifted.
Agreed. My last Guinness Book was one of the first hardback ones and I never bought another. I agree that the two inch thick paperback filled with facts was engrossing as a child. It’s a shame my kids won’t have that experience. A slightly less exciting but still fun thing to leaf through is the World Almanac’s book of facts…that same huge paperback filled with information, though less exciting for kids to know what the total coffee production of Colombia was last year.
I know. It was just weird to me that other people remembered that photo.
See but I liked to browse for random facts. Not just look things up.
That photo was very well known back when. I think that was the first mention of someone being ‘buried in a piano crate’ in my experience. I encounter that phrase occasionally still, though it might have been common before then. There’s something about two huge guys on motorcycles that’s hard to forget. The other one that comes to mind from an early edition was the world’s longest (largest? most expensive?) limousine, owned by an Arab Sheik or somesuch.
It’s kind of sad that I remember seeing that picture as a kid and being amazed at the size of those two guys.
Nowdays I see people like that everyday at Walmart and don’t give them a second look.
Yeah I think everyone who read it remembers that picture. I almost mentioned it in my post. I’ve seen it referenced on The Simpsons and Family guy and more than one stand up comedy act.
I think it was a kid’s eyes that made these sorts of records “gee-wiz” worthy. I don’t know if kids are more jaded now, but I suspect they’re even more internet influenced than we are.
I distinctly remember the entry for “youngest mother” wow, she had a baby at 9, what a marvel the human animal is. I never occurred to me when I was a kid, that this child was a victim of repeated sexual abuse very likely greatly pre-dating her pregnancy.
And no links please, the Snopes entry was what shocked me out of my halcyon reverie.
I also remember observing the eating records. They already had disclaimers … don’t try to eat more, just try to eat faster. And don’t eat anything dangerous – except for eating a bicycle. But you couldn’t try for that one anymore. Wished I’d had read that bit before I took two bites out of the tires. :smack:
won’t somebody think of those poor strained pocket bikes about to die.
Not only do I remember the photo, but I remember seeing the brothers themselves on a local pro wrestling show in the 1970s (the promoter would get a “special act” in for a Thanksgiving or Christmas show).
The one thing that I can point to concerning the “downfall” of the book is the inclusion of records that, at one time, were for categories where earlier editions made it clear that they would not accept entries for that record - and in one case, it was because of a celebrity:
“Longest note held on an instrument” - at first, it was, “Because of the ability of some trumpet players to be able to take in air while simultaneously blowing, we will not accept entries for this record,” but then they set up an event where Kenny G held a note on his saxophone for about 45 minutes, and suddenly this was the record.
“Longest chorus line” - at first, it was clear that “only chorus lines on stage will be accepted,” but then they accepted one that was, IIRC, in a parking lot.
One with an asterisk: “Most coins caught with one hand after being put on the same arm” - at one point, it said, “We will not accept claims where more than (I think) 125 coins are caught as this is more than anyone could hold in their hand, period,” but then, somehow, somebody managed to catch that many.
Besides - how would Guinness decide on the “most hot dogs in 10 minutes” record? Joey Chestnut has the record recognized by the International Federation of Competitive Eating, but supposedly Takeru Kobayashi ate more at an “unsanctioned” event (he won’t compete in IFCE events like Coney Island as only IFCE members are allowed, and he won’t join).
That show came out in 1998, which was around the time they started dumbing down the book.
I recall the show featured a lot of the gimmicky sorts of records, shit like ear flipping candy into mouth, or ingesting worms.
Anyway, I too have fond memories of the old version and as a kid bought the latest edition each year at our school’s book fair.
Guinness back in the day was really a fun book in the guise of a serious “grown up” book, and I think that was one of the big attractions. It resembled a thick paperback novel, had large blocks of small text and put a heavy focus on legitimate engineering and biological records. This was the sort of book that as a kid I could imagine a serious academic consulting, but which also happened to have a bunch of really cool facts in it.
All of the volumes I had or read as a child were hardbacks. I’ve never seen a paperback version.
It didn’t even bother me as a kid when the new edition came out and many of the entries and/or photos hadn’t changed.
‘Yep, there’s Robert Wadlow again, still the tallest man. Cool.’
mmm