Posted on 06/23/2005 6:05:15 AM PDT by Zunt Toad
An attempt to erect a 16-tonne ice pop in a New York square [Union Square] froze traffic and created a sticky situation for the company behind the stunt.
The soft-drink maker Snapple tried to get into the Guinness World Records book by installing the 7½-metre confection in downtown Manhattan on Tuesday.
As a construction crane began to haul it upright, a pink tide of kiwi-strawberry-flavoured fluid spread across Union Square.
The slush forced pedestrians to flee for higher ground. Firefighters closed off several roads, fearing that vehicles and bicycles could slip.
"What was unsettling was that the fluid just kept coming," Stuart Claxton of the Guinness Book of World Records told the New York Daily News.
"It was quite a lot of fluid. On a hot day like this, you have to move fast."
The frozen treat had to be fully standing to beat the world record, set in Holland in 1997 by a 6½-metre, nine-tonne ice pop.
Snapple called off the stunt while the ice pop was only partially lifted, fearing that it would collapse in the 27 C heat.
The company was trying to get publicity for a new line of frozen treats called Snapple on Ice.
"Gee, I have a great idea boss.. Let's make a giant popcycle and show it off in the middle of summer in 90 degree heat!!"
"Yea! Yea! That's good! Way to think outside the box there Dagwood!"
I heard someone slipped and broke their hip? Lawsuit, here I come!!
That even outranks premeiring a Disney movie in Central Park in the middle of the summer when sundown isn't until around 8pm and half the little kiddies are bored and/or asleep after being in the park for 4-5 hours because they wanted a good spot for their blankies.
Jeez, just imagine the ants after that. Blech!
Grew up in not far from Times Square. No ants in Manhattan.
Try Cockroaches. Or rats.
A Snapple Snafu?
Erected or melted down to a stick, the popsicle that wasn't created great publicity either way.
Leni
No ants, really? I suppose cockroaches would be interested in puddles of sugar syrup, but I'm not sure about rats.
LOL!
It would appear that "melted" is generating more publicity than "erected" ever could have. You don't suppose...?
That is easy a 6' square block of juice...who the heck was the engineer on that? You could put that thing on a lake in Northern MN in Jan when it's fitty below and it would take forever to freeze solid through
Yep. No such thing as bad publicity.
Well, you wouldn't see ants on the sidewalk in Times Square. Central Park, yes, but not the concrete sidewalks. That's where roaches and rats like to live.
That's what Monica said to Bill.
--Boris
I wonder what the Guiness Book record for largest ant herds is...
In the South, the ants excavate right through the concrete sidewalks.
I think I saw it on an Animal Planet special. Ant swarms so big you can hear them walking through the jungle. Nightmares.
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