Kotaku illustrates post about MLE game with picture of Gal Sone, who will probably not be in the game
Joystiq thread about MLE game
AICE sets up page about Collegiate Nationals
PittsburghLive.com article about pierogi contest to be MCed by Crazy Legs Conti
Somebody purchased SurfAndStillwell.com and might put a website there.
MegaMunch has a post about his office pizza contest
Come for the baseball stay for the food – Pittsburgh Pirates start all you can eat ticket (via the Big Lead)

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A myspace page for Beautiful Brian’s CD project has been set up at http://www.myspace.com/theonlybandintown The band name is “The Pickles”. “Black and White”, a song apparently about the explusion of Dale Boone (who is not mentioned by name) from the IFOCE and AICE can be heard in its entirety. The entire album will be available on the myspace page for 24 hours after all tracks are completed.

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AICE news has a press release about the television schedule for the Collegiate Nationals. The coverage will start with a one hour special on the entire Collegiate Nationals May 25 on CBS. If footage from the eating contest appears in this program, it will probably be the first time competitive eating has appeared on national broadcast television since the Glutton Bowl on Fox in 2002 (with the exception of some short contests on morning shows). The Collegiate Nationals will receive 15 days of coverage on CSTV starting May 26, which will hopefully allow the eating contests to be seen in their entirety.

Text from the press release is available after the jump. I do not know what format the press release on the AICE website is in, but it is not in HTML, PDF or Word format.
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1up.com has a screen capture from the upcoming MLE video game showing Tim “Eater X” Janus and El Toro competing against each other. The score shows El Toro leading Eater X 10 hot dogs to 8. The game will debut as an exclusive to WiiWare, Nintendo’s upcoming downloadable game service for the Wii. WiiWare is expected to debut on May 12, but the MLE game does not have a price or projected release date. The game will use the Wii remote to simulate the action of eating competitively.

See also awn.com, ign.com Exophase.com has the full press release.

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1up.com has an interview with Bill Swartz, the head of Mastiff, the company developing the Major League Eating video game. Swartz says that the idea for the game was originally Mastiff’s:

We were looking for a product. We wanted to do a game with a under-appreciated IP that was still known by a large number of people. And the last thing we wanted to do was to try and be a mini-Activision or a mini-EA. I didn’t want to do robot soccer or baseball with penguins. And it’s [Mastiff Production Woof] Tom [Gaubatz], to his credit, he said, “Why don’t we do Major League Eating?” I called them up, frankly not knowing that much about it. I talked to them. And as we started this project, I fell head over heels in love. Major League Eating could be the best thing that has ever happened to me — as a human being, as a sports fan, as a game developer.

Bill Swartz also states that Joey Chestnut will appear in the game. He does not confirm any other names, but says there will be two beautiful female characters.

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Lyrics for 2 of the sample songs on beautifulbrian.com are available after the jump:
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AICE News announces that the finals of the Collegiate Eating Championship will take place at the Wave House in San Diego on April 19. Three collegiate eaters with impressive eating resumes will receive byes, others can enter the finals by competing in a qualifier on April 18. “Furious” Pete of bodybuilding.com will probably be one of the three eaters to receive a bye. Entrants must be currently enrolled in at least three college credits. Foods have yet to be determined, but will be items popular with college students. Jack in the Box is the primary sponsor, so the contest might feature food from that chain.

The contest will be held as part of the Collegiate Nationals sponsored by CSTV. The Collegiate Nationals will consist of four multi-sport events for college students to be held this spring. The other San Diego events will be beach volleyball, flowboarding and a battle of the bands.

CSTV has been acquired by CBS and will be rebranded as the CBS College Sports Network in March during the NCAA basketball tournament. It was not announced if the eating contest will be televised on CSTV. I believe this is AICE’s first deal with a television network.
CSTV has its headquarters in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, like IFOCE / Shea Communications.

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A competitive eating themed screenplay (pdf format), titled “The Gurgitators”, is available. The project was submitted as a thesis for a Master of Fine Arts at Louisiana State University.

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BeautifulBrian.com has samples from 4 songs on his upcoming CD. The titles of those songs:

1. Stink for yourself (parody of “Think for Yourself” by the Beatles)
2. Dont ever call me again
3. Retaliation
4. Black and White

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(From Rhonda Evans) Joey Chestnut was interviewed by Ben & Matt on KNIX Country of Phoenix on February 13 to talk about the upcoming MLE video game. Joey is unable to provide any details about that project except for the fact that the IFOCE contract signs away video game rights. He does not disclose how much he was paid, if any, for the use of his electronic likeness but does say that he is looking for a good competitive eating agent.

Joey also says that he expects to break Badlands Booker’s matzo ball record in Houston and calls Kobayashi a “little liar” for claiming he had an injury in the 2007 Nathan’s finals.

Streaming audio of interview, Direct link to MP3 file of interview (9 MB, 9 minutes)

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Beautiful Brian’s Bits & Pieces contains a report about last night’s performance of songs from his upcoming CD:

Badlands then took the mic and started rapping along with the band in what went down as one of Badlands greatest jam sessions .. Last but not least. i took the stage for the final number attempting to perform a track from my CD that hasnt even been released yet.Its a parody of the 1973 song hi hi hi with lyrics revolving around some of the bad calls that went against Sonya Thomas in past IFOCE contests. To make matters worse the volume on the mic was low and i forgot nearly all the words not to mention that the band could barely play two chords of the song. This is not the fault of the band because they are a great band . The fact of the matter is they never heard of or got a chance to practice playing the song hi hi hi which was released before the band members were born. There was a request by several people in the audience for “came in as an eater” I am embarassed to report that i forgot the words to that one as well even though i just recorded it less than a month ago. I hope its not alzheimers. Anyhow i was just happy to hang with some competitive eating pals.

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Beautiful Brian emails me that he might perform two songs from the upcoming “Stick to Blogging” CD at Otto’s Shrunken Head in the East Village Saturday night as part of the Anti-Valentine’s Prom. Brian’s performance will probably take place after midnight.

See also Bits & Pieces

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A website about the Wing Bowl 13 documentary “Swallow Your Pride” has been set up at http://www.swallowyourpridefilm.com/ The site has a trailer and a page with “eater cards” about the six competitors featured in the film.

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Beautiful Brian announces that he has completed 6 out of a planned 11 tracks for his upcoming CD, “Stick to Blogging”, and has moved up the release date to early March. One finished track is titled “Moses is Great”, which appears to go against the critical tone of the majority of the lyrics. Brian is considering closing the CD with a “We Are the World” type of song.

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The website for the newspaper of Providence College has an interview with Michael Springer. Springer was prohibited from competing in the finals for the “Eat The Meat” wing contest after winning a qualifier, but that ban was not mentioned in the interview.

In other news about big eating Friars, this Rhode Island Monthly article about former Providence basketball player, and current ESPN announcer, Doris Burke, reports she is the second biggest eater in women’s basketball:

She’s hungry, and as she parks in the darkness of a casino garage she hopes she isn’t too late for the crew lunch. She works out ninety minutes most days at a gym near her house, and she is as slender as she was twenty years ago when she played at PC. You wouldn’t know it from looking at her, but she can out-eat any woman on the basketball circuit but one, and she’s half Burke’s age.

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A press release announces that Mastiff Games has acquired the rights to make a video game based on Major League Eating.

Major League Eating: The Game features the world’s greatest gurgitory athletes competing across twelve different food types. Built much like a fighting game, MLE: The Game requires players to show brilliant on-screen eating; a mastery of offensive and defensive weapons including burps, belches, and mustard gas; and of course the technical mastery necessary to avoid emptying one’s stomach in a vividly colored reversal of fortune.

ifoce.com has no additional information except for a link in the sidebar to the Mastiff home page. The platforms and expected release date for the game were not announced.

It will be interesting to see how much eaters receive, if any, for use of their electronic likenesses.

update This AFP article reports that Mastiff hopes to release the game in time for the July 4 Nathan’s finals.

Kotaku has a blog entry with 77 comments currently

Japanese article about the game

update #2 ripten has an interview with game developer Bill Swartz He says that eaters will have signature moves (Will the “Baby Bird” be one of them? 😉 ) and evades the question of whether game characters will be based on real world eaters.

update #3 The San Jose Mercury reports that Joey Chestnut will appear in the game.

update #4 SoupyTrumpet produced a demo of the game box (see above)

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The New York Post’s television column lists the ratings for last Sunday’s contest on Spike TV:

* Spike’s “Ham N’ Egg” gorgefest snared 863,000 viewers during halftime of Sunday’s Super Bowl – a Spike record for a competi tive eating event. Winners: Eric Denmark (61 hard- boiled eggs), Joey Chestnut (7.14 lbs. of ham) and their cardiologists.

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Beautiful Brian announces an upcoming rock & roll CD titled “Stick to Blogging”. The lyrics will contain criticisms of people in the competitive eating community. Joey Chestnut is mentioned as a target. Brian says he might retire from competitive eating after the album’s release.

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The English network ITN uploaded footage from the Spike TV pig skin eating contest to youtube, and today that clip is the most viewed British video tagged as comedy. (The clip is the #19 comedy video regardless of country of origin.) Beautiful Brian has also uploaded video of the entire pig skin contest.

A full list of the video’s honors is available after the jump:
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BeautifulBrian.com has a bluesy song on his website about the travails he experiences. The first verse of the song goes:

I came in as an eater I do the best i can
I never made no money but i dont give a damn
I get the blues when im not eating Im an eater till i die
Dont care how i finish , It aint about a piece of pie

BeautifulBrian.com also has a review of Badlands Booker’s fourth CD.

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update The full “Ham & Egg” program is available on Spike TV’s MLE page

Ham contest results

1 Joey Chestnut 7.14 lbs. in 8 minutes
2 Pat Bertoletti 6.34
3 Tim Janus 4.1
4 Tim Brown 3.34
5 Rich LeFevre 3.24
6 Hall Hunt 3.00
7 Juliet Lee 2.98
8 Juris Shibayama 1.7

The ham standings are announced as the new rankings, which would put Juris Shibayama at #8 and ahead of Bob Shoudt, Sonya Thomas, Chip Simpson and Kobayashi.

Hard boiled eggs contest
1 Erik Denmark 61 eggs in 8 minutes
2 Chris Abatsas 59.5
3 Micah “Wing Kong” Collins 49
4 Allen Goldstein 48
5 Arturo Rios 43
6 Steakbellie 40

Erik Denmark’s result is announced as a new world record despite being less than Sonya’s amount (65) and in a longer time (6:40 vs 8:00)

Screen captures of the rankings and the teleblog follows after the jump:
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(From Matt Sollars) “American Stomach” author Frederick Kaufman reports that Crazy Legs Conti performed an oyster taste test at the Grand Central Station Oyster Bar in which he tried to identify one of seven oysters that was genetically modified. A video of the taste test is available on youtube.

2 “American Stomach” reviews are out: LA Times, Time Out New York

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Pig Skin results from IFOCE.com:

1. Tim Janus, 14.3 oz in 6 minutes, $2500
2. Russ Keeler 12.7
3. Crazy Legs Conti 11.8
4. Pete Davekos 11.6
5. David “Brickhouse” Braunstein 8.2
6. “Nasty” Nate Biller 8.0
7. Brian Seiken 7.6
8. Pete “Philly Guy” Miernicki 6.0

updated with results from beautifulbrian’s contest report Brian was originally announced as the 3rd place finisher and will have a contest video up later today.

update #2 The Times of Malta? has a Reuters news video

update #3 VH1’s Best Week Ever blog has a contest report with some pictures. (VH1 and Spike TV are both owned by Viacom) (Thanks Caroline Pierce)

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A new show on the Travel Channel called “Food Paradise” has started production by recording trips to the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, Texas and the 17th Street Bar & Grill in O’Fallon, Illinois. I am not sure if this is the same show that is currently seeking a host.

In other television news, AICE news reports that a film crew from the History Channel will be present at the burger contest at the Clinton Station Diner on Saturday.

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Krystal Square Off finalists offer advice on how to eat as much as possible in as short a period of time as possible in USAToday.com
The Hollywood Reporter on Super Bowl halftime viewing options
Giant sushi roll eating contest for teams of Japanese female college students
Blog entry & gallery by recent Quick Chek sub winner
Picture of Sonya Thomas & fan at Washington Capitals game
NY Daily News on Brooklyn vegan wing eating contest
Andrew “Skinnyboy” Lane attempts 7 pound breakfast burrito challenge (Female burrito finishers receive free food for life)
Don “Moses” Lerman is upset about not being named a jalapeno judge
Krystal Super Bowl photo contest

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