Romper Room, launched last year by Botched and Bellhop and inspired by the recently shuttered Sunnyside in BC, has been an unqualified success, drawing consistent numbers in the 20s and 30s. The popularity led to it going last month from biweekly to weekly, and shows no signs of flagging so far. 27 today. YHC feels it’s scratching an itch that folks are feeling acutely now with public health restrictions, getting the whole family moving, laughing and, maybe most importantly, out of the dadgum house. It can get tricky ensuring the appropriate spacing is observed with crowds this size, but we make it work by keeping families in little clusters together. The family component even allows for our long-lost friend, the buddy carry!

Our fam cast about for theme ideas for this week’s Q and landed on a Disney theme. Some may be a stretch, but a few were pretty clever, IMO.

One last bit of ado before the recap: this one got off to a very inauspicious start. Just before launch time, Houdini asked YHC to demonstrate an Eeyore Merkin (aka OPEC favorite the JAM). Mind you, YHC had endured an hour of Uzi and Bump Draft-led EC AND a particularly grueling extra hour of Catskill beatdown at TBR. So was pooped – and dehydrated. Attempting that donkey kick led to a major calf cramp. But the show must go on. Made all the introductory comments FROM THE GROUND trying to massage that calf back into place. It was awkward. But it improved enough to allow me to do most if not all of what we had planned. (Triceps ALSO cramped up a few times throughout. Word to the wise: Maybe don’t attempt a two-hour smoke show before trying to Q, especially if you are at a Cosmo-level of fitness.) Thankfully had THREE awesome co-Qs to pick up the slack.

So, NOW without further ado, your backblast, complete with awesome photos by resident Romper Room photographer and co-site Q Castaway.

WARM-UP

As you know, all Star Wars movies are now Disney movies now, so warm up had a bit of a Star Wars themes.

• Imperial Walkers, of course
• Jawa Jacks (aka Smurf Jacks)
• Abe Viyoda (sparking wordplay from Houdini there)
• X Wing (aka Bat Wing – OK, super stretch)

THANG

Girl 2.0 Splits (both she and the M are among the few around who got their name from the indefinitely hiatused FIA) led the next one, her idea.

A variation on the Goofball, instead of climbing a wall you are pulling like on a rope to mimic climbing Rapunzel’s hair, a la Tangled. Voila, the Tangled Goofball.

Next comes from YHC’s personal favorite Disney film, Mary Poppins. (Hey, shut up! The songs are genius and it’s about being a good dad. Seriously, shut up.) The Goofball Chimneysweep. Looked something like this:

Next up was the Ariel Merkin. It’s known as the Dive Bomber in the exicon, and WeedNFeed just happened to have busted it out at Tobacco Road on Thursday. Start in a pike plank and swoop down into a low plank and come up into a cobra. Kind of looks like this from The Little Mermaid:

Those with long hair were encouraged to give it a good flip. Optical illusion in this photo gives Houdini his sister’s ponytail.

Next up was the Simba Burpee. Of course the Simba is usually done just as a thruster with a rock, but it would have been a poop show getting 27 over to the rock pile. So everyone was just encouraged to just really get those arms up in the air on the jump.

Then, the dreaded Eeyore Merkin, which Houdini led and YHC observed from a respectful distance

Next time for fun with modes of travel. The Sebastian crab walk in tribute to the delightful crab from Little Mermaid. It was just a crab walk.

Traveled back with the Magic Carpet Ride bear crawl, in which parents could serve as their 2.0s’ magic carpet with them on their backs in a bear crawl back to midfield.

Then back to end line via Princess and the Frog hops. They were just frog hops.

Then back to midfield via YHC’s favorite part of the festivities, the Hi Ho skip, in which everyone was REQUIRED to sing the Hi Ho song from Snow White while skipping, bonus points for whistling. Most got into it.

One more round of travel modes, Duck Tales Duck Walk, then back with Tarzan Gorilla Walk.

Then did two rounds of Musical Doras:
One part of the fam runs while the other does star jumps for the duration of “When You Wish Upon a Star”

One part of fam runs while the other does Maui Merkins for the duration of “You’re Welcome”

Finally, Parents carried 2.0s to goal box, ran back to midfield, then ran down again to carry their 2.0s all the way to enplane, then all the way back to midfield and all the way back with 2.0s. 2.0s were supposedly doing SSHs while waiting. As this was buddy carry time, we did this to the strains of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” and all finished just as the song ended.

MARY

Splits led Mary
Arendelle Snow Angels (aka Aussie Snow Angels)

Wreck It Ralph planks – pound the ground like Wreck It Ralph smashing stuff. Bummed our very own Wreck It wasn’t there for the worldwide premiere of this.

Then it was Toy (Story) Soldier Planks – stiff legged march in cadence while in bows and toes

Penultimately, we gave the PAX one more mode of travel: the Cinderella Run, in which you are encouraged (but not required) to run the length of the field with just one shoe on. It was fun.

Finally, we ended with Sleeping Beauty Floyd Planks. Everyone displayed perfect Floyd Plank form.

COT

Botched announce it’s time to sign up for Iron PAX Challenge, coming up next month. Fireman announced that he and his sister have a sleepover coming up next month. 🙂 Castaway and Mrs. Wilson are celebrating their 10-year wedding anniversary, so we did 10 merkins in their honor. Then Ledecky announced she recently turned 9, so we did 9 more merkins for her. And FNK Madden announced that his little brother, Conductor, recently turned 3. So we did 3 more for that little guy. YHC took us out.

MOLESKIN

Such a great time after that weird start. Grateful for what this group means to all of us. And now, if you’ve made it this far, you are hereby rewarded with a few more Castaway pics. He’s really good!