And they say that weird things happen in Los Angeles.
The 25-foot-tall, 17 1/2-ton treat of frozen Snapple juice melted faster than expected Tuesday, flooding Union Square in downtown Manhattan with kiwi-strawberry-flavored fluid that sent pedestrians scurrying for higher ground.
Firefighters closed off several streets and used hoses to wash away the sugary goo.
Snapple had been trying to promote a new line of frozen treats by setting a record for the world’s largest Popsicle, but called off the stunt before it was pulled fully upright by a construction crane. Authorities said they were worried the thing would collapse in the 80-degree, first-day-of-summer heat.
“What was unsettling was that the fluid just kept coming,” Stuart Claxton of the Guinness Book of World Records told the Daily News. “It was quite a lot of fluid. On a hot day like this, you have to move fast.”
Snapple official Lauren Radcliffe said the company was unlikely to make a second attempt to break the record, set by a 21-foot pop in Holland in 1997.
The giant pop was supposed to have been able to withstand the heat for some time, and organizers weren’t sure why it didn’t. It had been made in Edison, N.J., and hauled to New York by freezer truck in the morning.”
Neil says
My mother was actually there because she works on Union Square and was on a line for a free Snapple when it happened. She told me this story, not realizing that it was going to be on the news… and on your blog!
mquest says
I wish I was there with a camera. The publicity from this failed stunt must be greater than they had hoped for.