Info about Staring Contests
Staring Contest
A staring contest, also known as a blinking contest, is a game in which two people will stare into each other's eyes and then attempt to maintain eye contact for a longer period than their opponent. The game ends when one of the participants intentionally or unintentionally looks away. One of the popular variations of the game exists in which the participants will not only attempt to maintain eye contact, but they also must resist the urge to blink; creating a physical challenge as well as a psychological one. Most other variations revolve primarily around either of these two main objectives, with some prohibiting virtually any action but staring (laughing, making a face, winking, nodding, talking, touching, bobbing, etc) and others allowing the aggressive use of these same actions to force an opponent into defeat.
Staring contests have appeared in a variety of media and popular culture such as movies, television shows and Internet skit shows. A semi-regular sketch on Late Night with Conan O’Brien featured Conan having a staring contest with his sidekick, Andy Richter. The contests would start normally, but then absurd scenes would take place in Andy’s line of sight just over Conan’s shoulder. (For example, a woman with deflatable breasts or Hitler planting a flag on the moon.) The scenes would get more and more bizarre until Andy either laughed out loud or flinched in horror, breaking eye-contact and losing the contest. During his final show before he moved on to pursue other projects, Andy finally won a contest after people playing Conan’s parents and grandparents appeared in Conan’s line of sight, stripped naked and started making out which still remains one of the most popular staring contests in media’s history as well as a popular scene from the Conan O’Brien show.
There was also a popular sketch on Saturday Night Live featuring Will Ferrell as a parody of Robert Goulet, having a staring contest with an artificial ram. The 1993 comic strip Return of the Taxidermist in Judge Dredd Magazine includes stare-outs as one of several unlikely Olympic sports, some of the others including taxidermy and sex. Staring contests also exists in cartoons, both animated and on television and in printed comic strips. In one Garfield strip the reader can see Garfield staring at a goldfish in a bowl intently, until Jon tells Garfield that 'fish don't have eyelids'. In another Garfield comic strip Jon and Garfield have a staring contest in which Garfield wins.
The animated movie, A Toy Story Treat featured Sheriff Woody challenging Lenny (a pair of toy binoculars with eyes but no eyelids) to a staring contest. After great effort, Woody loses and comments "Oh, you're good!" Furthermore, In a Muppet Sports segment on The Muppet Show, Klaus Mueller is shown at the end of an 87 hour staring contest against a tree. The tree loses. There was also a recurring sketch in the first series of comedy show Big Train featured a hand-drawn stare-out competition (the "world stare-out championships") accompanied by commentary (voiced by a professional BBC sports commentator, Barry Davies), based on a comic book by Paul Hatcher and animated by Chris Shepherd.