Who would win a hotdog eating contest?

Most hotdogs all at once, Kirby.

Most consecutive hotdogs in a short amount of time, Pac Man.

Most likely to get lost on the way to the event, Yoshi.

Everyone's clearly forgetting that Championship Edition Pac Man can eat a trillion Blinkies a minute.

I mean Kirby just opens up his craw and inhales every hot dog in the room before anyone else can even get started so he either wins easily or is disqualified.

I'd say Kirby, but I suppose Pac-Man has a decent shot. Anybody who thinks Yoshi even hangs in this company is a fool though. Yoshi can't even hold two turtles in his mouth at the same time!

Kirby eats every durger and every other contestant in one suck.

I feel like the people voting for Kirby are forgetting a crucial aspect of the hotdog eating competition: the timer. The question isn't "who can eat the most hotdogs". That would of course be Kirby. But Pac-Man is built for speed baby, he wins this easy.

But this is why it is not in Pacs favor, he has a wind up he has to get going on them dogs. Kirby has vacuumed up whole servings and is ready for more by the time Pac has hit stride.

@efesell: Excellent points! For some reason I was thinking Kirby had to inhale one dog at a time. Now I want to change my vote.

I'm like, ashamed for voting Yoshi. How am I so off the mark on this one? I just feel like his signature "yum" sound says "I eat all the hot dogs".

I think it all comes down to whether Kirby gets a hot dog suit after every hotdog, if that's the case, he'll have to get rid of his suit before having another serving, severely hurting his dps (dog per second).

Pacman must have the highest dps ratio here, though has a bit of a wind up but once he's choppin' there ain't no stoppin'!

Another important thing here would be his pills, do those count as doping? Will he be disqualified?

Yoshi seems like he has the lowest dps here, but lets consider that the dogs come in a package, or bundled in some way, this little bugger can eat them with the plate, plastic wrapping or whatever other inconvenience the jury might have prepared.

I feel like people voting for pac-man completey forgets that he’s probably not allowed to run around and catch floating hotdogs. He also lacks arms to feed himself off a plate. A stationary pac-man eats nothing. At least Yoshi can use the tongue. Kirby will probably swollow all the hotdogs and some collateral damage in the process and end up being disqualified for destruction of property. Yoshi will eat a few, not be disqualified and win by being average.

I posit that the only one of this list who has eaten hot dogs IN-GAME AND ON-SCREEN is Kirby.

The other two are just blind speculation.

Here is why Yoshi would win.

In a hotdog contest a server stands behind the eater and dishes hotdogs in front of the contestant one by one.

Pac-Man is a very manic person and most of his eating experience does not fit this format. He has to run at food in order to eat fast and the food he eats is often much smaller than he is, tiny dots and occasionally big pills. I think he could well be disqualified simply for running into the table, but if he manages to contain himself he traditionally does not have any limbs with which to grasp at the hotdogs in order to eat them. If we take his animated incarnation or 3D incarnation as the contestant I think he would still run into trouble as he simply isn't used to eating without being pursued and I still find how small the stuff he usually eats a potential hindrance. I also wonder if we can fully disregard the ghosts that continually haunt Pac-Man interrupting the contest, again causing a disqualification. If you enter an eating contest while being relentlessly pursued you run the risk of being caught off-guard, and I've never known Pac-Man to sit still. Ever.

Kirby doesn't have these problems but he does have the noted handicap of inhalation time between each dog and, as noted above, he cannot take full advantage of his mouth capacity with hot dogs being dished in front of him one at a time, unless you have an undisciplined server who considers a hot dog eaten if it simply vanishes from sight instead of waiting for a proper swallow of the food to ensure the contestant has fully consumed the hot dog and is ready for another one. I'm assuming professional servers in an ordered, disciplined contest. In that case, Kirby would have to inhale, close his mouth, swallow and then inhale again. He may also need to discard hot dog powers he absorbs from each hot dog, but I'm fuzzy on how that works. Since food is inanimate he may not take on qualities of a hot dog by eating them, but I was not certain of that when I cast my vote and considered it a potential obstacle for him. I still feel the conventions of an eating contest would preclude many of the advantages described in regards to mouth capacity, so I maintain his victory is certainly not assured.

Under the professional conditions outlined above, Yoshi would win. He would waste no time reaching for the next hot dog as he has his sticky tongue, and he fully swallows all food presented to him very quickly and is used to eating large food, as evidenced by the apples in the early stages of Super Mario World which are the size of his head. The only potential issue I see is after every tenth hot dog Yoshi may produce an egg with some manner of power up, but I don't think this would slow him down enough to lose to either of these contestants.

TL;DR The Rules of the Contest determine who would win, and under certain conditions Yoshi would win due to his quick swallowing ability, familiarity with large food and tongue reach. He can eat as fast as a kid can mash a button whereas Kirby has to inhale each individual dog in a conventional contest and Pac-Man may not be able to eat well without running opening him up to the risk of disqualification.

Pac-Man: The Goddamned Original

@kraznor: I've never seen said contest where they only serve one a time, you get little platters of them continually refreshed.

This approach would at least give Yoshi a fighting chance but he still is distant third here.

Also nobody considers the frightening modern humanoid Pac-Man and while certainly troubling this overcomes the constant need for locomotion.

I feel that Kirby would eat the other contestants and referee also and be disqualified.

Pac-man wins it fair and square.

Kirby . that is no doubt .

Kirby destroys the competition here.

I know this is video game themed but I would do a last second sub for majin buu for yoshi. It’s the anime version of Kirby anyways right?

Plus isn’t kirby’s Mouth like a transport to another dimension? Is he technically eating them?

Kirby can only eat one thing at a time, and has to spit something out or digest it before being able to eat something else.

Meanwhile, Pac-Man will eat whatever the fuck is in front of him INCLUDING AN ENTIRE ARMY OF GHOSTS LIKE WE'VE SEEN IN PACMAN CX CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION. He/she doesn't even digest anything, there's just an empty void you go into when you get eaten by Pac Man.

The real answer? Rorie, he's infamous for chomping dogs on a daily basis.

Isn't Kirby's stomach something like a gateway to another dimension or something stupid like that? I'm going with him.

@merxworx01:

That’s a good answer. I’d also throw Vinny in the mix for speed eating. He might not win, but it would be closer than you would think.

No? I abhor eating contests but even I have seen enough of them to know that this is wrong.

@flashflood_29: My main point of reference is the pie eating contest in Stand By Me where that is absolutely the case but I also scrubbed through a Nathan’s Famous contest on ESPN’s YouTube channel and somewhat mistook what I was seeing. There are guys in blue hats standing behind the contestants with plates of hot dogs but they dish whole plates of what looked to be six dogs in front of the contestant when they are running low, not one dog at a time as I stated. Either way, Kirby’s advantage is limited because he can’t just approach a mountain of 100 dogs and inhale all of them. He is limited to a plate at a time and has to rev up his inhale each plate. At that point it becomes a question of whether Yoshi could snare all six with his tongue at a time and I believe he could, especially if he just aims for the plate itself. I still think Yoshi is the dark horse contender in this contest.

Kirby can suck forever.

I was hoping the poll options were gbomb staff, and I was like, "Duh, Vinny."

@kraznor: pie are two very different sized foods.

The advantages you listed for Yoshi all apply to Kirby. Yoshi only eats one item at a time as far as I’ve ever seen it do, whereas Kirby immediately sucks in indefinite amounts of items at once, evidenced plenty of times. There’s no pause delay between inhaltions that wouldn’t also apply between Yoshi’s tongue grabbing.

Only chance for Kirby to lose this one is to disqualify him on the grounds of that weird dimension portal lore I have no familiarity with.

What a great thread.

@flashflood_29: I've had several conversations about this outside of the thread since I first responded and I guess I concede I just really like Super Mario World and don't know how eating contests are organized.

A proper eating contest is organized in the manner that best dehumanizes everyone involved.

One at a time is too clean and civilized. A dozen on a plate that you dunk in water and then slam them into your face? Now we're talkin'.

More like, who could eat them and retain them. Pac Man.

@pezen said:

Kirby eats everything and everyone