Why would over 64,000 people watch a bunch of college students with beach balls perform a โballetโ?
Well, as far as we can guess itโs because just about anything is funny when you do it with a straight face while Bonnie Tylerโs โTotal Eclipse of the Heartโ plays in the background.
Weโre not sure why thatโs the go-to song for parodies (well, other than the fact that it has thunder cracks on it), but weโre suckers for anyone who can look serious when she sings those first lines.
Turn aroundโฆ
An annual talent show, formerly called โMr. Big Chief,โ takes place at Dallas Baptist University. Of course, thatโs been renamed โ it is now called Mr. Patriot.
As the website explains:
โIn this all-male competition, contestants compete in three categories, swimwear, talent, and formalwear, as they set their sights on the coveted title of Mr. Big Chief!โ
But back in the day โ 2016 to be exact โ Reid Towns won the โmale beauty pageantโ without saying a word.
Beach ball โballerinasโ
During the talent competition, he enlisted 7 friends to perform a โBeach Ball Balletโ that he later uploaded on his YouTube channel the following year.
It all began with Reid, but the majority of the performance involved one particular friend, Zac. And as it turns out, it wouldnโt be the last time theyโd perform it.
As they balance the ball between them, they twist, they turn, look into each otherโs eyes, and leave their audience gasping for air as a result.
Itโs not ballet, but itโs at least an attempt at being graceful. And itโs certainly a masterclass is keeping a straight face as everyone around you cracks up.
We imagine that winning this part of the competition means youโre the most amusing competitor. And while we donโt know what the other contestants had up their sleeves, itโs clear no one had ever seen a beach ball ballet before.
Reid and Zac get a lot of laughs in the first minute of the performance and things get progressively more ridiculous.
To be fair, itโs not entirely inelegant either.
While Reid and Zac are the real stars, theyโre joined by 6 other young men at the end of the competition. And everyone has their own beach ball!
Now weโre ready for things to get complex.
The big finish
The performance ends after just a few moves by the group โ but the judges saw what they needed to in order to crown Towns what is not known as Mr. Patroit.
The video was widely shared in 2018 as well and the men were invited to be on ABCโs The Gong Show.
Instagram comments would suggest, however, that they got gonged.
Oh well, itโs all about the experience.
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According to Reidโs school publications, he later volunteered at a church-run camp after he graduated in 2018. We can only imagine what kind of skills he could teach campers!
Alas, he didnโt invent the beach ball ballet. Men have been dressing up and performing with beach balls for years (which is not a sentence we thought we would ever type).
There are around a dozen other videos of men performing something similar โ some even donning tutus!
But if you want to see the college version, be sure to scroll down below.
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