Fox Crowns Two Simpsons Marathon Guinness World Record Winners

photo courtesy 20th Century Fox Television

In the early hours of Sunday morning, Fox found their Ultimate Simpsons fans! Jeremiah Franco and Carin Shreve broke the Guinness World Record for continuous tv viewing, once held by fans of another Fox tv series, 24. Jeremiah and Carin lasted 68 hours, 37 minutes, and 2 seconds, beating the previous record by a little more than a half hour. Beating out over 100 competitors, they went away from the experience with a stack of Simpsons merchandise, a $10,500 check, and a Guinness World Record title that won’t likely be beaten until Fox thinks up another marathon event to celebrate another one of their series milestones.

PopCultureGeek.com was there when the event started on Wednesday at 5pm with more than 100 enthusiastic fans determined to take home the prize. To kick off the event, executive producer Al Jean was there along with the women behind the voices of Bart (Nancy Cartwright) and Lisa (Yeardley Smith), boxes of donuts and the Simpson family themselves. Within 24 hours, only 50 contestants were left. A few days later, we stopped back at the Hollywood & Highland complex around 9pm with only 10 hours to go until the record would be broken. At that time, only 9 people remained scattered through the tent filled with now empty couches. Some sat on the floor directly in front of the tv. Another man stood, eyes glued to the screen. A couple sat toward the back, massaging each other’s feet to stay awake. But by Sunday morning only 2 of them would survive the final moments. And even though they didn’t make it through all 500 episodes (which would have taken 183+ hours to reach) , I imagine that if they each didn’t sleep all the way through Sunday, they probably caught last night’s airing of the 499th episode of the Simpsons… that is, if they were really Ultimate Simpsons Fans.

Fox hosted the event to celebrate the 500th episode of the Simpsons, which will air Sunday, February 19th.