Maine comedians get sweet TV break

By BOB KEYES, Portland Press Herald Writer

Copyright © 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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Photo courtesy Eepybird.com Things could get sticky when Stephen Voltz and Fritz Grobe use more than 100 bottles of soda in their experiment tonight on David Letterman's show and Friday on "Today."

See It Work YOU CAN SEE Grobe and Voltz's video on various Web sites including www.eepybird.com. And folks, you CAN try this at home. We did. Watch the video. ACCORDING TO CHEMISTS who have posted on the Internet, the combination of Mentos and Diet Coke produces a geyser because of the carbon dioxide in diet soda and the porous nature of Mentos. Although Mentos appear to be smooth, they actually are pocked with microscopic nooks and crannies, which draw in carbon dioxide. To top of story

A little fizz has turned into a lot of fame for a couple of Maine comedians.

Fritz Grobe, 37, and Stephen Voltz, 48, are scheduled to appear on David Letterman's late-night TV show tonight to demonstrate what happens when you mix Mentos candies with Diet Coke.

The resulting explosive geyser of soda - imagine the dancing fountain at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas - has earned the two Buckfield residents Internet fame.

Their homemade experiment involves more than 500 Mentos and more than 100 two-liter plastic bottles of Diet Coke. Since they posted a three-minute video in early June, they've had more than 3.5 million hits on their Web site, www.eepybird.com, and received dozens of offers to perform their chemistry live.

Tonight it's Letterman, on Friday morning they'll be on the "Today" show.

They've been written up in the Wall Street Journal and interviewed on National Public Radio, and are entertaining offers from media outlets around the globe.

"We've gotten e-mails from German TV, Polynesian TV, calls from Australia," Grobe said Wednesday from New York, where he was preparing for tonight's TV appearance.

"This has turned into a global phenomenon in a way that was totally unexpected. We expected to tell our friends, who would tell their friends, and then maybe a few weeks later we would start seeing some larger interest. But we never anticipated this."

Around Maine, Grobe and Voltz are known for their regular appearances as part of the "Early Evening Show" at the Oddfellow Theater, a 156-seat theater in Buckfield that's operated by Grobe's friend and performance partner Mike Miclon.

Their Mentos-Diet Coke experiment began on a whim eight months ago.

"Stephen heard from a friend that if you drop Mentos in soda it makes a fountain. We tried it, like so many others have, and said, 'This is really cool,' " Grobe said.

"The next day, we had a show at the Oddfellow Theater, so I brought home 10 bottles of soda and said, 'Let's try to do a fountain. Let's choreograph something.' When we saw what 10 bottles could do, we knew there were so many more possibilities. We were just scratching the surface."

In the video, Grobe and Voltz orchestrate the geysers to resemble a synchronized fireworks show. Some shoot more than 20 feet into the air, and others spin around. The splash area is 30 feet by 60 feet, Grobe said.

Tonight, Grobe and Voltz will attempt to shoot off 120 bottles of soda, a new unofficial record. Grobe said he wasn't sure they would have enough air time to go through all 120 bottles, and their appearance is contingent on the weather. It might rain in New York, and they are scheduled to perform outside so the soda doesn't fill Letterman's studio.

A spokesman for the confectioner Perfetti Van Melle, which produces Mentos, said he is thrilled with the publicity the candy has received.

"We were just really delighted when we saw the video. These guys cook. It's a lot of fun," said Pete Healy, vice president of marketing for the company's U.S. division, based in Kentucky.

A spokesman for Coca-Cola could not be reached.

Grobe said it isn't essential to use a Coke product, although diet soda seems to work better than regular soda.

"And don't forget Moxie," he said of the soft drink with its roots in Maine. "Moxie works very well, as well."

Healy said the experiment is safe to try at home, though he recommends that people do it outdoors. There have been no reports of injuries suffered from mixing Mentos and soda, he said.

"If a kid was going to do it, we would certainly hope their parents would be there," he said.

To date, Grobe and Voltz haven't turned their fame into fortune, though they have made some money because of advertising that has come to their Web site.

At the very best, a hot Internet video might make its creator somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000 - good money for sure, Grobe said. "But it's a shot in the dark. It's a rare video that catches on that much."

Their larger goal is to translate other comedy routines they do at the Oddfellow Theater into Web videos.

"Most of all, what we're really trying to do is make eepybird.com a place where people will be able to see what we do in this crazy town of Buckfield.

"If we sell out the 'Early Evening Show,' we've sold 156 tickets. You start splitting that among a cast of five or six, the math is not good. If we start reaching hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, the few pennies we could make on each advertising click start adding up. It could really provide us with a new way to reach an audience and a new way to be able to do what it is we love to do."

Still, Grobe is not counting his pennies quite yet.

"We're just the flavor of the week," he said. "In two or three weeks, it's going to be gone."

Staff Writer Bob Keyes can be contacted at 791-6457 or at: