The Crunchinator sits at the center of the CrunchLabs floor, a machine Mark Rober describes plainly as ‘basically an at-home hydraulic press,’ except this version and its larger sibling, the Mega Crunchinator, can push with a force of 60 tons. That is roughly the weight of ten African bull elephants, one Abrams tank, or eight yellow school buses, depending on which comparison lands hardest. The question on the table was simple and slightly absurd: which of three competing teams could build the single most satisfying object to feed into it?
Three teams, one credit card, and a very short clock
Mark laid out the rules with characteristic efficiency. Three teams had three hours to shop, build, and stack whatever they believed would produce the most satisfying crunch of all time. Judging would fall to three subscriber guests seated at a panel. Team Yellow sent Danielle and Jake. Team Blue fielded Danny and Tyler. And in what Mark called ‘the first time in CrunchLabs history,’ he and Bam joined forces on Team Red. As a structural incentive, everyone was given access to Mark’s credit card, a development he noted was ‘not run by me.’
The shopping phase unraveled almost immediately. Tyler, operating somewhere between MrBeast cosplay and genuine enthusiasm, began pricing a Jeep on Mark’s tab. ‘I feel a bit like a lost child with unlimited money,’ he admitted. ‘This is a bad decision on Mark’s part, honestly.’ Danielle and Jake made a last-minute detour for what they called ‘structural sushi,’ arriving back later than both other teams. Mark and Bam, by contrast, loaded up on shaving cream cans, glass soda bottles, vases filled with BBs, watermelons, and a fleet of Tickle-Me Elmos. ‘Elmo, shh!’ became a recurring instruction that nobody obeyed, least of all Elmo.
The builds, the chaos, and the mysterious liquid
Each team’s construction reflected its personality. Danielle and Jake assembled what they called the Skibidi Sashimi: two bins as a base, a Skibidi Toilet as the structural centerpiece, a wooden platform, and the sushi arranged across the top for what they described as a chef’s touch. It was, by the final minute, visibly leaking.
Danny and Tyler billed their entry as ‘TikTok in real life,’ a layered media stand with a real flat-screen TV on top, glass panels beneath, and a running blender loaded with Tide Pods, vinegar, and watermelon in the middle. The TV did not survive contact with the press. The blender bottles, however, held on longer than intended, and the resulting ‘mysterious liquid’ became the judges’ favourite detail, even if the overall crunch went, as Tyler acknowledged, ‘pretty much horribly.’
Mark put it with unusual diplomacy during the judges’ bribery segment: ‘We know you guys are respectable judges, so we would never bribe you. This is just a token of appreciation.’ The token included CrunchLabs backpacks, signed photos, and what he called infinite platinum tickets redeemable on February 29th between midnight and 1 AM, for participants who are ten feet tall.
Team Red’s build packed 12 cans of shaving cream, 7 clear glass sodas, squishy carrots, googly-eyed vases filled with BBs, and a top layer of watermelons, with the Elmos ringing the whole structure as mascots. Science Bob, operating independently, had also spent the build window acquiring free broken items from Craigslist, plugging in blenders, and by all available evidence, enjoying himself enormously.
When the Elmos finally had to face the press
The watermelons went first, one per judge, cracking with the sound the panel had specifically requested: ‘things that sound like a potato chip.’ The rest of the layered structure followed. The carrots did not survive. The Elmos did not survive. The judges deliberated and handed the Golden Crunchinator to Mark and Bam.
‘This is an honor,’ Mark said. ‘We will do you guys proud.’
One of the judges immediately suggested they commemorate the win by crunching the toy Jeep Danny and Tyler had gifted as a bribe. The judges disagreed with considerable volume. The car remained uncrunched, at least for the moment.
