The Birthday Party: What Happened?
In my biggest mid-life crisis yet, we held an entire Project 20M shoot to celebrate my birthday. The Birthday Party was our latest four-to-one event, this time formatted like a mini-tournament. The four contestants competed in head-to-head matchups, the winners of which competed in one last championship game for our grand prize: the right to escape a Project 20M shoot completely clean. The game this time was Pathfinders, our love letter to “Blockbusters,” designed to test speed, strategy, and ability to pick up my “hints” to what I want for my party.
While the champion walked away spotless, those who fell short faced our traditional Godiva Walk to Punishment Island for a good solid sliming. And because my birthday is March 14, we made sure to pay tribute to Pi Day with a couple of pies for good measure. It’s a party favor three of these players won’t soon forget.
“But Eric, if your birthday is March 14, why didn’t you record the special sooner so you could release it on the actual day?” Turns out mid-March in Chicago is still winter, and even shooting our special then made for cooler studio conditions than our players—especially those who wound up getting slimed in their underwear—would prefer. They were all fantastic sports, though, even if they were left wishing I was a July or August baby.
If you’re wondering how it all played out, here’s a full breakdown of the action. SPOILERS ARE AHEAD! If you wish to watch The Birthday Party without knowing what happened, download it on Vimeo on Demand right now.
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But first: “The Godiva Walk”
Just to clarify some terms, the Project 20M Academic Bowl was the first event in which we used the term “Godiva Walk” as a pre-consequence to Punishment Island. For the Godiva Walk, every player who loses a game must undress to their underwear before making that march to the slime. Longtime fans of Project 20M know this as the “After Dark” consequence featured in our most popular videos. With “Godiva Walk,” we now have a term to describe the act and maybe strike a little bit of fear into the hearts of our fearless players.
Game 1: Meet the Players and Get This Party Started
We start by introducing our party guests: Vanessa, Dria, Pen (short for Penelope), and Belle. To determine which two will play in the first game, they drew playing cards. Dria and Pen drew the lowest cards, sending them straight to game 1 of the tournament.
Their game was the competitive seesaw “Pathfinders” was designed to be, with Pen always coming close to finishing her left-to-right path but Dria consistently jumping in at the last minute to block Pen’s path and start their own path up and down. At the end, persistence paid off, with Dria finally being able to string enough right answers to complete a path, win the game, and send Pen on that long lonely walk to Punishment Island.
In the island, Pen received a solid sliming with a full bucket of chocolate and a full bucket of our signature cake batter slime. And because we were celebrating Pi Day, Dria followed up with a pretty good (for a non-professional) pie in the face and a second pie on Pen’s shoulder. A light topping with sprinkles completed the segment and finished up game 1. Belle and Vanessa wait in the wings for game 2.
Game 2: Belle and Vanessa Find Their Paths
Now that Pen and Dria showed how Pathfinders is played, it was Belle and Vanessa’s turn to make their path. In short: Vanessa swept her game easily. Assisted by a couple of unfortunate wrong answers by Belle (including the one that sealed the game), Vanessa faced zero resistance in her march to four in a row, sending Belle from the playing area to Punishment Island so fast we could barely catch our breath.
Belle did not take her sliming quietly. In what might be the most sonically chaotic Punishment Island in history, Vanessa delivered her two buckets of slime to an absolutely screaming opponent. And even though Vanessa’s pie delivery could be considered polite (i.e. weak) by some pie-in-the-face purists’ standards, it was more than enough for Belle, who wanted to let people two counties over know just how cold and slimy the experience was.
With two winners confirmed, the stage was set for our grand finale. Will Vanessa again romp her way to glory? Will Dria’s fight win the day once more? Only one way to find out.
The Finals: One Path to Victory
How do two players who’ve already tasted victory respond when Punishment Island is still at stake? We find out in the final game of the Birthday Party tournament. Dria opened the scoring by securing the first space of the game. Then Vanessa repeated her Game 2 performance by answering four in a row and storming to the championship! During preparations for their Godiva Walk, Dria could only say what was on everyone’s minds: “What a day, what a day…”
Despite falling short of victory, Dria took the slime and pies like a champ. Vanessa once again was not as aggressive delivering pies as some would hope, but it’s a good reminder that hitting someone in the face with a pie is a thing almost nobody ever does. But at the end of the day, we wound up with one champion, three slimy runners up, and a video series that cannot be properly explained by this vlog. Thank you to everyone who made this a birthday for the ages.
Join the Party—Watch the Full Event!
Ready to celebrate? The Project 20M Birthday Party is available now! With multiple angles, uncut eliminations, and halfway decent audio, this is one competition you won’t want to miss.
