COVINGTON, Ga. – The First Baptist Church of Covington is now the proud holder of the world record for the world’s largest whoopee cushion after the church’s youth group’s Aug. 5, 2017, video submission to Guinness.
The 25-foot award-winning whoopee cushion was the creation of a joint effort by Matt Funk, of FBC, and Lee Burgess, of Affordable Moonwalks. The official record was broken in an event on the Covington square.
“I have been wanting to break a Guinness World Record with the youth group for years, so I had some research,” Funk said. “I just kind of dug into various records that I thought we could break and when I stumbled upon the record for that one, I felt like it was doable.
“When I contacted Mr. Lee, I said ‘I’ve got this idea,’ and he said ‘Let’s do it.’ He was immediately passionate about it. He also happened to have a giant roll of pink unused vinyl that he uses for all of his stuff that was just sitting around. The perfect color pink.”
“It was actually on sale,” Burgess said. “Nobody would buy that ugly Pepto-Bismol pink. I bought it because it was like 50 percent off.”
The duo started with smaller prototypes to master the construction of the perfect whoopee cushion and the perfect “flatus sound.”
Burgess said the whoopee cushion was by far the most unique request he has gotten.
“We’ve done a lot of unique things, but this was probably the most fun,” he said. “You can’t get involved with it or get on it and not start laughing. Even the people that came on the square had a good time with it.”
The previous record-holder is a New Zealand television show. The whoopee cushion measured 19-feet, 9.48 inches in diameter.
Funk said each year the church does a kick-off event at the end of the summer to kick off the new school year. He hopes to continue the record-breaking tradition in the years to come.
“I would love to go for another one,” he said. “It was really fun and memorable for the students.”
Funk said the event was two-fold for the church.
“As you may know, first Baptist churches sometimes have the reputation of being kind of stuffy and stuck-up and that sort of thing and it was kind of an opportunity to show the community that FBC has a fun and lighthearted side as well and we’re not afraid to let loose a little bit … pun intended,” he said.
The whoopee cushion is now sitting in storage, “waiting for the right giant to sit down,” Funk said.
