Advice on Pie Throwing
slammin
A colleague of mine has agreed to have a huge amount of pies thrown at his
face all in the name of good clean fun, and fund raising.
However, he has some control over what the pies will actually be. He
wants to maximize comic effect, while minimizing cost and any potential
for personal harm.
As a reminder, you might want to read the NYT obituary of Soupy Sales,
legendary pie flinger here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/arts/television/24sales.html. Soupy
said:
"You can use whipped cream, egg whites or shaving cream, but shaving cream
is much better because it doesn’t spoil. And no tin plates. The
secret is you just can’t push it and shove it in somebody’s
face. It has to be done with a pie that has a lot of crust so that it
breaks up into a thousand pieces when it hits you.”
So I figure this group of misfits, sorry, jugglers, would have good
additional advice on the following questions based on hard fought and won
experience:
1) What kind of pies should he use?
2) Shaving cream filler or something edible?
3) Pies in aluminum tins? Or take them out and put them on paper plates
before they get thrown at the face?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks
-Slammin'
--
----== posted via www.jugglingdb.com ==----
Jon Solberg
> Guys, I need your help.
>
> A colleague of mine has agreed to have a huge amount of pies thrown at his
> face all in the name of good clean fun, and fund raising.
>
> However, he has some control over what the pies will actually be. He
> wants to maximize comic effect, while minimizing cost and any potential
I would definitely go for steak and kidney pies. Now that _would_ be
fun.
--
Jon Solberg (remove "nospam." from email address).
Little Paul
> 2) Shaving cream filler or something edible?
> 3) Pies in aluminum tins? Or take them out and put them on paper plates
> before they get thrown at the face?
I haven't seen anyone throw an actual pie for many years, presumably
because it gets expensive quickly.
It seems that the "cheap and cheerful" approach is "paper plate covered in
shaving foam" although these really do have to be pushed into the face
rather than thrown as they're too light to fly nicely. They also look
nothing like any pie I've ever seen.
If you really want something involving pastry, then you may want to make
some enquiries to commercial bakeries or possibly large supermarkets or
wholesalers in your area and see if they can donate a quantity of (possibly
stale?) pre-prepared sponge cake bases, or ready made piza bases.
But yes, for the topping, shaving foam is cheap and easy to clean up.
-Paul
--
http://paulseward.com
Guy G
I'd go for shaving cream on paper plates (or possibly aluminium foil trays
which can be picked up and re-used), thrust into the face rather than
thrown (since they'd be rather on the light side, and probably wouldn't
fly well. Although they might. Try it and see).
Don't use real pies - wasting copius amounts of food in the name of
charity is probably a good way to piss a lot of people off.
Guy
clintonh
I'd definitely go with the shaving cream for the majority of the pies. If
you have some special media
attention or a celeb pie thrower then go with a good visual cherry or
blueberry (stains). I'd also go
with something softer than aluminum unless you're talking about those
"non-reusable" thin shell
aluminum pie shells you can buy three in a pack.
The point I wanted to bring up was to make sure the pie is "thrown",
albeit only from a short distance.
In my personal experience as the recipient of many cream pies the biggest
problem comes from the
rare person that wants to push the pie into the face, sometimes with
considerable force. It is not
necessary to continue pushing the pie forward once it hits the face.
Finally, the more cream the more cushion (and the greater visual effect).
Clinton
[RIP Soupy]
agedest
not really cream. For a lot of hits, shaving foam will be ghastly,
imo.
I had a pie pushed in my face once, for a kids' tv show. It was
shaving foam, and yes, I did not have to worry about hurrying to clean
my shirt collar etc.; but the terrible taste was in my mouth for the
rest of the day and then some. I think you should also ask what would
you prefer in your eyes, because even with fair warning, it will get
under the eyelids. Nothing should, but shaving foam is going to be
more uncomfortable. For that, I had removed my contact lenses, and
was asked at the time to remove my glasses. Dessert topping will take
a lot more cans for a lot of pies, shaving foam goes on forever; but
it is heavier and will carry better and more accurately for any air
time. Nobody thinks it's a pie, so paper plates or styrofoam would be
acceptable, plastic having a sharper edge, with paper plates needing
to be stout ones to hold the load.
Couldn't this guy just donate some money instead? Maybe some here
would chip in to buy his freedom.
.
Ewano
>
> Any advice would be appreciated.
I present to you the greatest pie fight in the history of film..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0BOOgW7rHE
This is taken from the woderfull:
http://www.cinematical.com/2008/09/30/the-greatest-pie-fights-in-movies/
Apparently there was a recent attempt on the world record for the largest
pie fight in your neck of the woods:
http://gothamist.com/2009/09/17/pies.php?gallery0Pic=1#gallery
perhaps you could contact the studios for the people that supplied the
pies for that...
So far all the searching I have done seems to point at a custard flan
being the best pie for distance accuracy.
Ewano - who is now hungry for a custard slice..
Monte
would have no problems getting volunteers to lick it off your face
afterwards
Ewano
>
> it has to be banoffee surely. Nice and heavy for better flight plus you
> would have no problems getting volunteers to lick it off your face
> afterwards
>
I suspect that using banoffee pies would wipe out any fund raising money
raised though..
Ewano - who is considering buying some condensed milk..
slammin
>
> Guys, I need your help.
>
> A colleague of mine has agreed to have a huge amount of pies thrown at his
> face all in the name of good clean fun, and fund raising.
>
Wow. I just watched a video of a 'test run' where my colleague had a test
pie in a aluminum pan thrown at him by his child.
WARNING: ALWAYS TAKE THE PIE OUT OF THE TIN PAN.
That pie flew about 1 foot, turned sideways like a saw blade and smacked
into my colleagues head with a very audible dull smack. He said it felt
like getting hit in the head with a baseball bat.
It looked very, very painful.
Dave Cheetham
Oh, come on! You can't say you saw the video, and then not link it here!
Dave
Monte
>
> Monte wrote:
> >
> > it has to be banoffee surely. Nice and heavy for better flight plus you
> > would have no problems getting volunteers to lick it off your face
> > afterwards
> >
>
> I suspect that using banoffee pies would wipe out any fund raising money
> raised though..
>
> Ewano - who is considering buying some condensed milk..
>
you could charge for the licking
lynne
>
> Ewano wrote:
> >
> > Monte wrote:
> > >
> > > it has to be banoffee surely. Nice and heavy for better flight plus you
> > > would have no problems getting volunteers to lick it off your face
> > > afterwards
> > >
> >
> > I suspect that using banoffee pies would wipe out any fund raising money
> > raised though..
> >
> > Ewano - who is considering buying some condensed milk..
> >
>
> you could charge for the licking
>
L