PAX: Safety Valve, America’s Best, Maneater, Popeye, Pope, Goose, Jackknife, Coyote, Bam-Bam, Duke

AO: The Peltch

By: Goose

After recently rewatching The Princess Bride with the kids, YHC knew we were way overdue for a beatdown themed for one of the greatest, simplest, most ridiculous adventure stories ever told. Not sure why it hasn’t been done before—there’s almost too much material. And even if you’re of the few who haven’t seen it, it’s a non-complicated, intriguing story, and it’s a rich mine of cultural references and one-liners you’ve probably heard your co-workers use.

After some warmups, which included some interesting shoulder rolls that are too effective and too weird looking to not be named soon (paralympic swimmers? backup dancers? collar poppers?), the opening scene commenced.

We partnered up for a farm boy catch me if you can—while one PAX farmer carried two coupons toward the lower field, the other did 10 big boy situps before catching up and switching. But, when they switched, the one carrying had to say, “Farm boy, carry these coupons for me,” and the other would reply, “As you wish.” The female British accents were impeccable.

We reached the cones on the lower field and YHC quickly summed up the plot to get to the part where The Man in Black had to climb the Cliffs of Insanity before defeating Inigo, Fezzik, and Vizzini one at a time. To climb the cliffs, we all started with 20 Mountaineer Merkins (comments revealed that these are a fan favorite). Then, the finger jousting tournament began, simulating the epic sword fight with Inigo. Finger jousting = two people join hands bro-style by locking thumbs and wrapping the fingers around, but the index finger remains in the upright position. That’s your sword. If your sword touches any part of your opponent’s body (minus the sword-wielding arm) you win. Winners battled other winners until one man remained unkilled. Those who lost had to kneel down like the defeated Inigo, over and over (genuflections) until there was one unscathed man standing.

This proved to be a battle of strength, strategy, and timing with AB and Pope both getting their faces sliced and everyone else losing lower legs. Next, the battle with Fezzik (Andre the Giant), who could have killed The Man in Black by throwing a rock at him, but preferred to do it “sportsmanlike”, hand-to-hand. So, using the same tournament structure, the PAX engaged in literal hand-to-hand combat. Two PAX lined up arms-length apart, set their stance, and by touching only each other’s hands, tried to make the other move one of their feet. This could be accomplished by pushing them back or dodging their push to make them fall forward. Losers had to do X-factors while waiting (like a huge guy trying to get up off the ground). This competition had way more to do with timing and balance, so Yote and Bam-Bam swept the bracket with Bam-Bam ending up the overall winner.

The last of the outlaw trio to be defeated required brains and 80’s and 90’s movie exposure over brawn. The Battle of Wits = the PAX split into two groups: the Westleys and the Vizzinis. Each would send a representative in turn to compete, buzzer-style, to answer a questions about or adjacent to The Princess Bride. The losing side did 30 goblet squats while the winning side did 30 regular squats. If neither could get it, both sides did goblet squats. Here were the questions:

* Who played Miracle Max?
-Billy Crystal

* Who played his wife?
-Carol Kane

* Who played Westley?
-Carey Elwes

* Name one other movie he’s in.
-Robin Hood: Men in Tights; Liar, Liar; Karol: the man who would be pope; Mission impossible 7/8; Saw; Twister ; Lady Jane; Hot Shots

* Robin Wright got her start in movies on the Princess Bride, but what role made her famous?
-Jenny on Forrest Gump

* What other young actor in this movie was more famous in a later TV show?
-Fred Savage

* How tall was Andre the Giant?
-7′ 4″

* Rob Reiner (Director) and Christopher Guest (Count Rugen) famously paired up for what other movie?
-This is Spinal Tap

Only the two PAX at the buzzer could answer, so despite AB and Popeye coming through on a couple (and Yote pulling “Billy Crystal!” out of nowhere), both sides did a lot of goblet squats. 30 at a time was a lot, but you won’t hear YHC say that out loud.

The next scene was the Fire Swamp, which boasts of three perils: the flame spurts, the lightning sand (like quicksand, but quicker), and the ROUS’s (not Rouses, but Rodents of Unusual Size, which may or may not be found at Rouses, depending on the location and its bouge-factor). For this scene, we would do the following set of three corresponding exercises twice:

Flame spurts = 10 stationary foxholes (merkin, roll, WWI sit-up, keep rolling, merkin, then back the other way); each WWI sit-up counted as 1 rep.

Lightning sand = 20 4-count scuba Steves (swimming down through the sand to retrieve Buttercup)

ROUS = Bear crawl brawl with partner to the cone, then swap and come back (bear crawl with partner pushing back against you)

Popeye shared his appreciation for the opportunity to really connect with the earth, to align his chakras and stuff.

Then, for the parts of the movie between the fire swamp and the storming of the castle, it was, “Lemme ‘splain. No, it’s too much. Lemme sum up.” So, we split into teams of three and each man took a role: Westley, Inigo, or Fezzik. While Inigo runs around the castle chasing Count Rugen (the six-fingered man), Fezzik drags Westley to the honeymoon suite and then goes to where Inigo is stuck behind a locked door to knock it down for him, and Westly, once drug, talks trash to Humperdink about cutting off his body parts one by one (“To the pain!”), while he waits for Fezzik to bring the horses. This is what it looked like for us:

-PAX 1 (Inigo): sprint 5 laps to the other cone and back, then do SSH while you wait for PAX 2 (Fezzik) to get to you, then bear crawl with him back to PAX 3.

-PAX 2 (Fezzik): partner drag PAX 3 to the opposite cone, then lunge walk (like a big, slow giant) back to meet PAX 1, then become a horse and bear crawl with him back to PAX 3.

-PAX 3 (Westley): get partner drug to the opposite cone, then do “to the pain” merkins (toe-tap, shoulder tap merkins) until the others bear crawl back.

Each team of 3 assigned roles to maximize the strengths and sizes of each, and it went pretty quickly and efficiently. But, there was a round 2, and roles needed to be switched, so it was a little less quick and a little less efficient, but still very doable. But, of course, there was a round three, which meant Safety Valve had to drag Popeye, Pope had to drag Maneater, and YHC had to skip menacingly around the castle. Valve and Pope blew everyone away with their strength and tenacity, shunning the PAX’s pity like Prince Humperdink to a Florin commoner. In contrast, YHC kept the rest of the PAX waiting, as expected, skipping from cone to cone like a large, bald girl.

After this, we gathered the gear and rode off into the sunset. But, we had five minutes left, and unlike a fairy tale, there is no happily ever after until you’re dead. So, we did a more than desired amount of Freddys, flutters, and slow penguins encased in a fog of sewage gas. During announcements, AB proposed the genius idea of moving the flag location to the grassy area about 20 yards further down the fence where there’s more grass and less raw poop smell. All voted in favor, so it is now codified.

Thanks for playing along this morning, fellas. Hopefully it leads to an enjoyable evening with the kids watching The Princess Bride and an enjoyable lifetime of one-liners with your co-workers.

SYITG,
Goose