Dan the man “steps off” for the next smash season of Guinness World Records Unleashed
When The Modern last fist-bumped Dan Cortese, he had expertly landed feet-first in gold.
Best known for his association with extreme sports (MTV Sports, Guinness World Records Unleashed, and a classic appearance as himbo, rock-climbing Tony on Seinfeld, who exclaimed for all time, “Step off, George!”), he told us about why we can’t get enough of sports in the extreme.
Answer: because it’s unleashed. It’s gone wild. It’s the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat to the tenth power.
In turn, we told him why we insist on Dan giving us the play by play.
Why? Because Dan is us.
“I was the just the average guy who went along with it,” Dan tells us about his hosting duties on truTV’s Guinness World Records Unleashed. The series actually broke some records of its own, ratings-wise, in its first season.
Like the contestants on its show, it’s determined to beat its own viewing record with even more intense content and ballsy-er challenges.
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Since the premiere of Guinness World Records Unleashed this past February, a total of 42 uh-mazing record attempts were made, with 20 successes, 21 failures and one tie.
How do you top this, Dan the Man?
“In the first episode alone, we have this guy attempting to break the record for the highest bungee jump where at the ground he dunks a donut into a cup of coffee,” Dan tells us. “He’s over 200 feet in the air.”
We are so there.
Known since its inception in 1951 as The Guinness Book of World Records, and since 2000 simply as the more digital-age-friendly Guinness World Records, the official standard of human achievement has made its mark on television, with challengers and contenders lining up to outdo the doers.
“We’re bigger, badder, better,” Dan says of season two. “In the first season, we did six episodes. Now we’re up to twelve.”
Sounds like a binge-watch invitation if we ever heard one. We’re gonna laugh, cringe, cover our eyes, and cheer, just like Dan.
“My job is fun because you are truly pulling for these people,” he says. “We have a guy who is coming back from last season. He attempted to break the record for kicking himself in the head.
“We brought him back because he’s trained for a year. He’s dedicated to coming back to attempt to break his record. Therefore, I’m like the viewer at home. I’m just standing right next to them, and I’m pulling for them. You want to see them succeed.”
Dan’s always-game, always-on attitude is this: just do it.
“I once had a guy who came up to me on the street and said, ‘You know what’s great about your show? You don’t know how to do anything on it,’” Dan laughs, because it’s true. He admits, “I wouldn’t want to watch a guy who knows how to do all this stuff and can do it better than I ever would.”
Among last year’s successes were new records for the highest shallow dive; most drink can lids torn off with the teeth in one minute; most consecutive backflips on a pogo stick; highest jump into marshmallows; most eggs crushed with the head in one minute; and most sausages swallowed in one minute.
“That’s what makes the show endearing to me,” Dan says. “You can see people attempting the craziest things, but they are average, everyday people.
“It’s just people who want to say, ‘I am the best in the world,’ at whatever they are attempting to do. They don’t want money. They don’t want a trip to Hawaii. They’re out there because they want to hold that plaque that says that they are a Guinness World Record holder.”
Echoes of MTV Sports, the Nineties’ first-off-the-cliff series that did the Dew with exuberant rush heads yearning for more than just catching a Frisbee in midair or riding the rails with their skateboards.
“That show was groundbreaking at the time,” Dan says. We really sort of magnified extreme sports for people who had really never seen that before. Those people on MTV Sports just wanted to show the world what they were doing. And we have similar people on [Guinness World Records Unleashed]. It’s the same kind of formula, but it’s bigger and better.”
As well, it’s a one-shot opportunity to make and capture history.
“It’s not like you are out there shooting guys playing poker,” says Dan of the production challenges. “We have a guy getting shot out of a cannon. He’s breaking the record for getting shot out of the air into a ring of fire. These are not small things. You have to be extremely careful about how these things are set up. Obviously, safety is your first concern. The next concern is, it has to look great. We have to be sure that you do this right.”
Also done just right is the chemistry of the show’s cast, including comedian Zach Selwyn, and official Guinness experts Liz Smith and the button-down, veddy British Stewart Claxton, who is, at the very least, unflappable in the face of intense challenges and one of the show’s biggest draws.
“That’s my man, Stewart,” Dan says. “I love the fact that Stewart is so serious. He comes out and he’s a businessman. I always try to get him to crack every time he walks on stage. The crowd is into him. Ladies love Stewart. They go crazy for him every time he comes out on stage.”
Of course, one record Dan could never break is the generations of fans of his iconic appearance on Seinfeld, as the male bimbo Tony, who invited George Costanza to go rock climbing.
“That was the very first episode of a sitcom I have ever done,” Dan recalls, who has since appeared as a regular on such network sitcoms as Veronica’s Closet, What I Like About You and Rock Me Baby. “I was doing MTV Sports at the time. I’m 24, and Seinfeld is my favorite show on television.
“The next thing you know, I’m at the table read. It was the most relaxed working atmosphere. Everybody was very happy, and I think that is one of the things behind the scenes that helped make that show so great, starting with Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. They were open to anybody’s ideas. They just wanted the show to be funny.
“Regarding the whole “step off” line that my character said: Larry had come to me and said, ‘I don’t like what was written here, so what is something that the kids would say?’ And I gave him a few and “step off” was one of them. And Larry said, ‘okay, that’s it.’
“Still to this day, I have people come up to me and say, “’Step off!’”
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Find out more about Guinness World Records Unleashed here.
Read our interview with co-host Zach Selwyn here.
Buy the current Guinness Book of World Records here
