Fizzball

Amusing and useful sport created by Steve Purcell in his Sam and Max:Freelance Police comic books. Essentially, it's abusing canned beerlike substances (the "beer" made by large-scale U.S. and Canadian manufacturers - you know: the stuff that tastes as if it's already been drunk once - think budweiser{see American Beer}) with large clublike objects until the cans explode. It's quite fun, if a tad messy.

Let's play FIZZBALL^TM!
It's the wacky new game that's filling hosipital concussion and laceration wards across the nation! And it's so easy to play!

Equipment:

Get yourself a few cases of that cheap, nasty beer that's usually found stacked and on sale near the checkout counter right before National Drinking Holidays.

You'll need an axe or mattock handle or some kind of primitive looking branch! Think atomic war-club size! YEAH!

The pitcher:

Ready to play? Shake the can vigorously until the little ball starts rattling. Oops, wrong game. Use your own judgement. Get about fifteen feet from the batter to pitch.

A real easy underhand pitch is used. You're not trying to strike the guy out. You want to see the can blow up, right? RIGHT!

The batter:

Swing like a mad ape. The object is to hack through the soft middle and split the can wide open! Yahooo! Some fun, eh?

The fielders:

What are you gonna do, try to catch a shredded metal can? What are you, stupid?

Official Fizzball uniforms:

Plastic rain slickers or a poncho, at least.

Have fun and be sure to wear protective head gear (but only if you're some kind of goddamn pansy), and maybe next time we'll tell you about 8-track skeet shoot.

(Smells like a bar rag in here. Maybe we should play outside next time...)

No points are scored

Fizzball is non-competitive and promotes cooperative behavior:

• Everyone gets to see the beer cans bust open!
• Everyone pitches in to carry line drive victims to the hospital!
• Everyone plays toward a common goal -- the mutual aesthetic appreciation of raining froth and shimmering aluminum shrapnel!
• And don't forget the fun of making a big stinking mess!

Reference Section:

Various fizzball phenomena -- create your own!

The Pinwheel

This is a great fizzball effect! The can is smacked open and rotates in the air forever, drenching everything in a twenty-foot radius with beautiful ribbons of foam!

The War of the Worlds

Picture the top of the batted can, snapped free, spinning and actually gaining altitude like a hovering alien craft! Wow!

The Cannonball

This one is often frustrating. The swelling can is bashed over the fence, unruptured and out of reach, but you might want to keep an eye on the kids next door when they try to open it. Hee hee.

The Time Bomb

A Tiny rupture starts a fine spray-leak as the spinning can skitters across the ground! Quick! Get it back in play before it's a dud!

(thanks to Art Adams, Mike Mignola, and Scott Mignola for selfless aid in research and development) -- Steve Purcell, 1987.

For the curious, fizzball is as fun as it is dangerous. I've only taken part in one game, ages ago at Burning Man, and I can easily say it was one of the stupidest things I've ever taken part in. Well worth the $2 per case of beer, in my ever so humble opinon. Now, PLAY BALL!

a fizzball is also a wonderful bath product. it is a fairly large, spherical, fizzy tablet to put in the bathtub to lend a soft scent and a wonderful tingly feeling to the bathwater. they're most often available in fruit flavors, (particular strawberry and citrus), generic flower-scents like lilac and lavender, or vanilla.

while not as satisfying as a bubble bath, these baseball-sized spheres have two highpoints. one, they're amazingly fun to watch dissolve (and even more fun to hold as they do so, for the bubbles they let off TICKLE!). two, the resulting fizzy water feels wonderful on sore muscles.