A clip of Jenny Drumgoole’s documentary about Sonya Thomas at Wing Bowl 13 has been uploaded to youtube. If the documentary will not be released theatrically or direct to DVD, I hope all segments will be available on youtube like the “Chili Dawg” documentary.

(I do not have broadband this week, so I have not watched the documentary and am not sure if it is safe for work)

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Philly.com reports that “Swallow Your Pride”, a documentary about Bill “El Wingador” Simmons winning his fifth Wing Bowl crown in Wing Bowl 13, will be screened at the First Glance Film Festival in Philadelphia on Sunday night. Tickets are $10. Porn star/ former California gubernatorial candidate Mary Carey stars in a movie to be screened Saturday night.

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This blog entry provides an update on the efforts of the creators of the documentary Swallow Your Pride to obtain distribution for their film. The movie filmed at Wing Bowl 13 was screened last summer and received positive reviews but apparently no additional showings have taken place since that time. The film was not accepted by the Sundance Film Festival, but the documentarians sent Bill “El Winagdor” Simmons a copy that was forwarded to Mike Tollin, who is producing a fictional Wing Bowl movie starring (according to the blog) Adam Sandler . Tollin loved the movie and connected the film’s creators with the distributor of Napoleon Dynamite, Super Size Me and other independent films.

Swallow Your Pride has a domain name reserved at swallowyourpridemovie.com, but that URL is completely content-free.

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Philly.com reports that a documentary of Sonya Thomas at last year’s Wing Bowl filmed by Jenny Drumgoole will be screened at the Philadelphia University of the Arts Wednesday morning.

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ESPN.com’s Page 2 has a list of its top five articles for 2004-2005 which includes an article on the 2005 Wing Bowl, “The Worst Event Ever” by Jim Caple.

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Philly.com has an article describing the complaint Arnie “Chowhound” Chapman lodged with the Federal Communications Commission. Chapman claims that his being prevented from competing in the 2005 Wing Bowl after successfully completing his qualifying stunt violates the FCC statute that on-air contests must have fair and consistent rules. A video clip of the Chowhound’s stunt in which he ate 28 clementines is available.

In other Wing Bowl news, the Philadelphia City Paper claims that the 2005 Wing Bowl was probably fixed so that Bill “El Wingador” Simmons could beat Sonya Thomas.

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• Bahrain Ice Cream Eating Contest It is surprising an Islamic country would not only have an adult women’s division, but match up the women’s and men’s winners to determine the overall champion
• Trentonian column mentioning the NJ Pizza contest
• Humble Bob’s review of the “Swallow Your Pride” competitive eating documentary. The documentary features both IFOCE and AICE eaters and focuses on the Wing Bowl, especially the rivalry between Philly and non-Philly competitors. Eaters from the Philadelphia suburbs are apparently treated as outsiders, so Kate Stelnick might experience some hostility if she ever participates in it.
• In more movie news, boxofficeprophets.com (go to the end of the page) mentions the upcoming competitive eating film. I think the film will be based on El Wingador, but I believe that the Sonya Thomas biography from her first contest to the 2004 Wing Bowl would make a better story (if a movie studio did not find it too implausible.)

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Jason Fagone, who has an upcoming book titled Insatiable Appetites: Competitive Eating and the Big Fat American Dream has a blog at http://eating.typepad.com/ The blog is updated about once a month. The book is not scheduled to be published until 2006.

Fagone has written a preview of the 2005 Wing Bowl containing a profile of Bill “El Wingador” Simmons available at
http://www.phillymag.com/ArticleDisplay.php?id=485 El Wingador does not have very nice things to say about Sonya Thomas.

A few interesting notes from the blog:

• The Japanese competitive eating scene has all but disappeared since a school boy died imitating the eaters in 2002. Claims that Kobayashi earns a six-figure amount annually from eating in Japanese contests are almost certainly untrue.
• Japanese eaters (besided Kobayashi) would like to compete in US events other than Nathan’s .
• The 2005 Wing Bowl should have gone into a second overtime at a minimum and Sonya Thomas might have won outright in the first overtime period.

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