Three 24 Fans Win $10,000 and Set World Record: 86 Hours of Jack Bauer
Dec. 07, 2010 | 6:01 a.m.
Fandom went the ultimate distance Monday as three men — Kevin Coon, Farris Hodo and Victor Lopez — set a Guinness World Record for the longest continuous TV-watching period as part of a marathon event put on by Fox for the show “24.”
The three guys also won $10,000 each for their ordeal, which lasted 86 hours, six minutes and 41 seconds, watching every season of Jack Bauer’s travails. The tripling up of the prize money was a surprise to the trio, who were told to come outside minutes after they had surpassed the record.
“I felt strong … but it felt good being done,” Hodo said. “It was down to four yesterday, and one guy fell asleep. I felt so bad for the guy cause he sat right next to me. We were all trying to look out for each other.”
They were the last three of the 100 who had signed up for the marathon on the event’s Facebook page. The group began watching Thursday night in a makeshift room created in the middle of the Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood. By Friday afternoon, 49 had dropped out of the contest, all of them receiving copies of the complete series DVD (which comes out Dec. 14). Coon was the first one to show up and ended up being one of the final three.
“It did get kind of crazy toward the end,” Coon said. “There were nights when you just said, ‘Why am I doing this?’… Slapping yourself like Jack Bauer.”
Lopez didn’t do it for the money or the world record — he is just a hardcore fan who loved the show and wanted to be a part of anything that honored it.
“When they announced that they weren’t gonna show ['24'] anymore, I kind of cried. My friends were like, ‘Come on, man! Stop being a little girl,’ ” Lopez said. “I was like, ‘You don’t understand, man. That’s Jack Bauer. He’s everything!’ “
Kimberly Partrick, a Guinness World Record adjudicator, praised the competitors for their fan feat. “These guys are really amazing. They look like they could go much longer.”
Indeed. Even after the record, they stood around and chatted with fans and media for hours, probably running on adrenaline. Coon said: “I am going to go buy myself a $100 pillow.”
– Jevon Phillips
