How The World's Largest Popsicle Almost Caused A NYC Disaster
As summer's sweltering heat bears down upon you, soaking your brow and sapping your get-up-and-go, a nice cold popsicle is just what you might be craving. Whether you have a hankering for chocolate, cherry, or a popular alcoholic popsicle, its chilly, refreshing wetness is exactly what you need to make you feel a few degrees cooler — and to halt those nasty sweat beads in their tracks. Yes, a popsicle is a welcomed friend on a hot day. Or is it?
Popsicles seem innocent enough, just sitting there perched on their sticks, looking all cold and inviting. But the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man appeared to be a good guy too, and look at the damage he inflicted on New York City. Yes, even the most benign of things can become dangerous if the circumstances are right. The problem with Stay Puft was that he was dramatically enlarged, rendering him a towering menace. Well, it turns out that if you significantly increase the size of your innocuous popsicle, it can become a threatening harbinger of harm, too.
A stream of Snapple once flowed down 17th Street
In the summer of 2005, Snapple attempted to break the Guinness World Record for The World's Largest Popsicle by erecting one that weighed 17.5 tons in Manhattan's Union Square (via The New York Times). Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. After all, summer heat doesn't play well with chilled treats, and the event proved disastrous. A YouTube video from AP Archives reveals that, upon opening the truck that was transporting the frozen feat, a sticky stream of melted popsicle goo began pouring out at a rapid rate.
"What was unsettling was the fluid just kept coming. It was quite a lot of fluid," a Guinness World Record representative shared with NBC. Fearing that the icy monolith was too compromised to stand, the crane was sent home before it could erect the ice pop — and the whole thing was deemed a failure.
Many New Yorkers, however, won't soon forget Snapple's attempt at Guinness World Record greatness. "A small wave of slush began moving across 17th Street ... People were pretty bummed out with what was going on with their shoes," the owner of Rothman's Clothing Store shared, per Gothamist. Another bystander said she didn't see the popsicle but rather "just the pink water flowing down the street" (via The New York Times).
After firefighters washed away the deluge of kiwi-strawberry flavored stickiness, life went on as usual with Snapple telling NBC that a subsequent attempt would be unlikely. And Manolo Blahniks across the Big Apple breathed a sigh of relief.