Spring has sprung, the grass is green again, the trees are in bloom, the animals are stirring. And to me, that all means one important thing: Peeps are in season! I’ve had a rather unnatural attraction to Peeps every since I was a child. There’s something about this strange, over-the-top-sweet, pillowy confection that makes it simultaneous attractive and repulsive. It’s WAY too much of a good thing: too much sweet, too much cute, two much color (this year’s colors are vivid to a degree that’s downright hallucinatory). And then there’s the strange “mouth feel” of gooey, pillow-soft innards and a crunchy crystalline sugar coating. Not to mention the rather disturbing idea of eating a rack of baby chicks, fused to each other at the hip, sold to you at Eastern time by a company called Just Born of Bethlehem, PA. It all adds up to a uniquely American pop-surrealist experience that I revel in each year. And from all of the crazy, educational, and absurd websites and videos I’ve seen online over the years, so don’t a lot of people. Happy Spring, everybody!
Every spring since it emerged, I’ve done a posting to my favorite Peeps-related activity: Peep War! It’s a free downloadable tabletop wargame where you get to eat the enemies you attack/capture, a section at a time! Jelly beans counters are involved too. Yum. If you don’t have Peeps and jelly beans to play with, you can use paper/cardboard counters. You are not advised to eat them.
The venerable website for evil mad science experimentation with Peeps is Peeps Research. They wrote the book on Peeps abuse… er I mean scientific study. They subject Peeps to extreme cold, heat, pressure, various solutions, and the health effects of smoking and drinking on Peeps. Hilarity (and a wee bit of actual learning) ensues.
Another Peeps research site is Bunny Survival Test. Here they perform experiments in laser light exposure, oxygen deprivation, and one intriguing one called “Coyote Test,” which sadly, has a broken link.
The go-to Peeps experiment is Peeps in a microwave. Do a search on YouTube and you’ll find dozens of examples. Here, Jeri Ellsworth’s friend Kevin Rouviere built a “Faraday cage” out of metal strainers. As long as the openings in the strainer are smaller than the wavelength of the radio frequency, the Peeps are safe. The control Peep outside the cage? Not so much.
I love the way this video starts off: “Ten Peeps in a package. Ten days in a week. Coincidence? I don’t think so.” From there, the Peeps are subjected to all manner of destructive mayhem.
It’s not all marshmallow chick cruelty in the name of basement science. There’s also Peeps movie re-enactment, like this telling of the Lord of the Rings: Lord of the Peeps: Fellowship of the Peep.
And did you know that Peeps like to travel? They do.
For more Peeps fun and games, check out the Big List of Peeps Links. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been updated in a while, so a number of the links are broken.
Previous Peeps coverage on Make: Online:
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