There’s something about kids and world records. When I was a child I thought the Guinness Book of World Records was put out by a national or international government board, some entity tasked by officials with recording preserving humanity’s achievements for posterity. The world deserves a continual accounting of who currently has the longest fingernails.
Record Breakers was a British children’s show centered around the superlative; each episode celebrated the world’s largest whatever, the world’s tallest whomever, the world’s hottest wherever, to a crowd of delighted children. This Christmas episode from its inaugural season features host Roy Castle and Guinness Records founders Norris and Ross McWhirter exploring holiday-centric “est”s.
Things kick off very Christmasy, with the world’s largest stocking (12 feet, 4 feet in diameter!) (why are they measuring in feet?), and the world’s largest teddy bear.
The rest of the Holiday angles here are pretty forced. Roy and the McWhirters explore the world’s largest bottle of perfume and the world’s smallest bottle of whiskey. This is done under the framework of ‘you’d buy this as a present’. Pretty thin angle!
Because most people have a feast on Christmas, Roy features the world’s largest feast.
Pedantics aside, this is a really fun show and a really fun way to celebrate Christmas, and the kids in the crowd are really into it. Aces all around. And at the end Roy reminds us of his musical pedigree by belting out the world’s best selling song, “White Christmas”. Bless us, everyone.
-ds