Mike & Kim Miclon filming EepyBird's Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments. Nancy Bennett photo.
Alumni News: Diet Coke, Mentos, and an Internet Phenomenon
July 21, 2006
What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints? In just six weeks, the guys at EepyBird went from the woods of Maine to the Late Show with David Letterman.
It all began with a simple experiment: drop a stack of Mentos into a bottle of soda and it creates a geyser. Last November, Barn alumni Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz decided to take it a bit further. Okay, a lot further.
They spent eight months at their home base in Buckfield, Maine, developing different fountain effects, creating swinging and swirling images, using nozzles to get geysers over 25 feet high. Finally, this spring, they were ready. After eight hours of setting everything up, they filmed a spectacular three-minute candy-powered version of the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas.
Fritz and Stephen put their video on their web site, www.EepyBird.com, at the beginning of June. Two days later, the Late Show with David Letterman called. In the six weeks since, they have appeared on Letterman, the Today Show, Inside Edition, MSNBC, VH1, and more. Even the Wall Street Journal did an article on the phenomenon. Their video has now been viewed over 5 million times on their web site and at Revver.com.
"This went so much further than we ever expected, and faster too," said Fritz. "We never expected to be getting calls and emails from Mythbusters, Mentos, and Polynesian television."
"Our favorite phone call came from a company called WET Design," said Stephen. "They are the people who made the original Bellagio fountains. Having them enjoy our video was fantastic!"
Fritz and Stephen met at Celebration Barn six years ago at the Eccentric Performing Workshop with Avner Eisenberg and Julie Goell. Fritz is a five gold medalist at the International Jugglers Championships and is currently part of "Birdhouse Factory," a theatrical circus created by a group of former Cirque du Soleil performers. Stephen is a part-time performer and also a trial lawyer in the Boston area. They both make regular appearances at the Oddfellow Theater in Buckfield, just over the mountain from the Barn.
Fritz and Stephen will be posting more videos at EepyBird.com soon, although they are keeping exactly what new experiments they have planned a secret for now.
"We want to build our web site into a place where people can find all kinds of crazy, creative, unexpected theater," said Fritz. "A lot like an online version of the Barn!"
To see the EepyBird.com Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos video, click here.
