Face-sized cupcakes, towering mountains of ice cream, and gallons of brain-freeze inducing milkshakes. The guys at "Man v. Food" have faced down some impossible food challenges in their day — but these sugar-packed feats nearly did them in.
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00:00Face-sized cupcakes, towering mountains of ice cream, and gallons of brain-freeze-inducing
00:05milkshakes. The guys at Man Vs. Food have faced down some impossible food challenges
00:09in their day, but these sugar-packed feats nearly did them in.
00:13San Francisco Creamery's Kitchen Sink Challenge consists of 10 scoops of ice cream piled high
00:18with toppings, totaling two gallons of dessert. And it's served in a basin-shaped dish rather
00:22than a real sink, so the bacterial count is reduced considerably. Whew!
00:27Only four other challengers had ever conquered the ice cream colossus when Adam Richman
00:31bellied up to the table, and after 30 minutes of intensive labor, man had nearly prevailed
00:35over food.
00:36In the words of William Shakespeare, this totally sucks.
00:40What remained in the dish was a soupy puddle that would have been easier to suck through
00:44a straw.
00:45Oh my goodness.
00:46Instead, Richman kept going with the full-sized ladle to become the fifth Kitchen Sink Challenge
00:51winner, while simultaneously grossing out anyone who's ever gorged themselves on too
00:55much ice cream.
00:57San Antonio's Lulu's Bakery and Café was where Webb geared up to clobber a three-pound
01:00cinnamon roll dripping with two oversized scoops of icing. The pastry in question resembled
01:05a cake more than a cinnamon roll.
01:07It's heavy, too.
01:09Webb dug his hands in deep and pulled out the heart early on, taking the richest bites
01:13first. Whether that was strategy or simple temptation, the sugar hit his blood as he
01:17shoveled bite after bite into his mouth. Though the shock slowed him down, he never stopped,
01:21and by the time he collected his Check Out These Buns victory t-shirt, viewers were ready
01:25to reach for a carrot stick and swear off sugar for good.
01:28Casey Webb was the lucky muncher who unhinged his jaw for the Pig's Trough at Betty's Pies
01:33in Duluth, Minnesota.
01:34"'Pig's Trough'? Get ready for some humble pie."
01:37Baked desserts are no joke at Betty's Pies, as the challenge featured three slices of
01:41pie, four scoops of vanilla ice cream, and plenty of toppings. The plate turned out to
01:45be three pounds of serious eating. Webb had 20 minutes to consume the trough, opting to
01:50work through the ice cream before addressing the bumbleberry, key lime, and lemon angel
01:53pie slices. Chilly temperatures at the end of the spoon started to take its toll, forcing
01:58the power eater to switch to the pie layer until the issue passed. After six minutes
02:02of sucking down sugar, the slowdown started, yet Webb pushed through and finished the whole
02:06plate in nine minutes and 21 seconds.
02:09The Comfy Cow is a quaint, unassuming ice cream parlor in Louisville, Kentucky, and
02:13offers one of the wildest food challenges in the state. A Man Vs. Food stand-in competitor
02:17named Burrito Joe Nikolai took on a massive five-and-a-half-pound mountain of ice cream
02:21with a pound of fruit toppings, a quarter-pound of nuts, and one pound of whipped cream topping.
02:26Burrito Joe had a full hour to devour the sugary tower, and with his family and host
02:30Adam Richman cheering him on, this iron-stomached warrior went for it. Ultimately, though…
02:35"...my stirring arm is tired."
02:37Food won the round. The Comfy Cow kicked Burrito Joe in the stomach, and he left a pound or
02:41so of ice cream in the bowl.
02:43Webb headed to the Fish House in Key Largo, Florida to devour a three-and-a-half-pound
02:47slice of key lime pie, hoping to earn a shirt as his trophy. It turned out Webb was the
02:51first challenger to step up to the plate and eat the quarter-pie-sized piece.
02:54"...the first to take it on. Oh."
02:57He used a regular dinner fork to attack the baked behemoth, developing the sugar sweats
03:01less than halfway through. It's brutal watching the eating machine work his way to the 20-minute
03:06point of a 30-minute challenge, but with just under two minutes left, Webb let the tears
03:10of the crowd propel him over the finish line. Anyone watching was probably finished, too
03:14— finish-liking key lime pie, that is.
03:17There's no mistaking what's happening with the Cookie Munchers challenge. Take the simple
03:20joy of eating milk and cookies, and turn it into a whopper of a task by plating up
03:24ten ginormous cookies alongside an entire pint of milk. All told, the food weighs a
03:28total of 3.5 pounds — enough to make your esophagus shiver. When Webb visited Cookie
03:33Munchers in Tampa, Florida, he was met with these face-sized cookies and 20 minutes on
03:37the timer.
03:38"...it is the size of my face, which I didn't think could ever happen."
03:41All the serious snacker had to do was dunk the cookies in the milk and slam them down.
03:45The tray was filled with a variety of flavors, but the sugar consumption proved a real issue
03:49by the midway point. By then, the milk was gone, a few cookies remained, and Casey was
03:54petering out.
03:55But the point at which watchers were likely to hurl was the same moment the Casey Monster
03:58emerged to push past the physical limitations of an ordinary human. Ultimately, there were
04:03a mere 48 seconds left as the last bite went down. You can practically feel your own blood
04:07sugar rise just taking in the episode.
04:11Santa's Candy Castle's Fire and Ice Challenge pairs a pound of fiery popcorn with a 64-ounce
04:15frozen hot chocolate chaser. Webb traveled to Santa Claus, Indiana, to take down this
04:19digestive tornado. Out of 200 prior attempts, only four had succeeded before he arrived.
04:24He was given 60 minutes to empty a family-sized bowl of popcorn and a Stein's worth of frosty
04:29hot chocolate, complete with a pillar of whipped cream. The heat in the back of his throat
04:33seemed immense, as he scraped the final kernels out of the bowl and wedged them into his mouth.
04:37"...there's a little kick in the back of the throat right there."
04:41With fewer than 18 minutes to go, the steel-gutted trooper drained the last of the hot chocolate.
04:45With the challenge successfully complete, somehow Webb's victory felt like a weight
04:49in your stomach.
04:51You pretty much know going into something called the Goliath Challenge that you won't
04:54come out with any space left in your gullet. So, Webb had to know he was heading into dicey
04:58territory when he realized he'd be up against a 2.5-pound chocolate cupcake covered in frosting.
05:03Webb traveled to Kirby's Cupcakes in Rogers, Arkansas, to spend 30 minutes attempting to
05:07down the decadent creation. The host even helped create the Goliath before he took a
05:11fork and knife to the giant cupcake. It was like watching a kid celebrating his birthday
05:14without sharing. Only, the kid is middle-aged, and the cake is, well, a full-sized cake.
05:20Well, we all know how this story ends. Goliath, you're going down!
05:24When the platter toppled at the 15-minute point, it seemed to be game over. But Webb
05:27rallied, and the cake was gone with just under five minutes left. The real potential gift
05:32here? Not having an appetite for chocolate cake for a very long time after watching the
05:35challenge.
05:37You may think of crepes as a lighter, gourmet dessert. But the Holy Crepe Challenge turns
05:41that idea on its head by jacking up the filling with four pounds of Thai rolled ice cream.
05:45St. Paul's Soda Hot & Cold served this tray a potentially bad judgment to Webb.
05:49Holy Crepe Challenge! Let's rock and roll! Yeah!
05:54The culinary crusher dove right in, wailing away at the ice cream rolls and doing an admirable
05:58job. But with only 20 minutes to finish the remaining crepes, there just wasn't enough
06:02space in the old bread box to pack away the rest. The challenge ended with crepes left
06:06on his plate, and Webb perhaps wishing he'd worn his stretchy pants.
06:10Why would anyone ever volunteer to chug 15 24-ounce malts in a malt milkshake challenge?
06:15Because this is Man vs. Food, of course! The site of this unlikely chugging contest was
06:19Crown Candy Kitchen in St. Louis, Missouri. There, Richman had a cool half-hour to slurp
06:23down 120 ounces of Arctic liquid, and in the middle of winter, no less.
06:26I'm gonna try to get them all kind of melty so they go down easier, because I think the
06:30thicker they are and the colder they are, the bigger problem I have.
06:33The shake glasses lined up on the table represented an array of flavors that included mocha, eggnog,
06:38and vanilla, arriving five per round. Even with his milkshake mustache, Richman's nausea
06:43was palpable as he braced himself against the wall to finish the final gulps. While
06:47brain freeze never seemed to hit, physiology did take over in an unfortunate way. Richman's
06:51shakes made a return appearance in the toilet.
06:54Webb swept into Justine's ice cream parlor in Ocean City, Maryland for the Titanic Sundae
06:59Challenge, which featured a beach bucket loaded with nearly 6.5 pounds of ice cream and toppings.
07:03Webb schmoozed with the locals before picking up the spoon and shoveling down his four self-chosen
07:07flavors of ice cream with 30 minutes on the clock.
07:10There's only one thing left to do. It's time to take down the Titanic.
07:17He plowed through the toppings, but with half a bucket to go, brain freeze began to nip
07:20at his upper palate. Something like a frozen brain couldn't be enough to stop the Casey
07:24train, however, and he kept at it until the bucket was empty and less than 15 minutes
07:28remained. Man may have got the better of food this time, but the episode likely got the
07:32better of Webb's digestive tract.
07:35The Hungry Monkey in Newport, Rhode Island is home to the Go! Bananas Challenge, which
07:38features a gut-busting four pounds of French toast stuffed with sweetened cream cheese.
07:43As Webb entered the restaurant, the huge platter looked like more than a crowd could finish,
07:47but Webb attempted to get it down all on his own in just 30 minutes.
07:50Are you ready to accept the Go! Bananas Challenge?
07:55Newport, are you ready?
07:58Rather than using a fork, he picked up the pieces like sandwiches and took a soup scoop
08:01to the looser fillings. The plate was hardly cleared before he started feeling the pinch.
08:05If you're going to be stuffed by an eating challenge, stuffed French toast is probably
08:09the one to leave you groaning. In the end, Webb didn't complete his mission, but watching
08:13him try likely weighed the audience down all the same.