Image via Complex Original
On Easter Sunday, an Atlanta police officer punched a woman in the face at an IHOP. The woman had put hands on the officer, smacking him in the face and grabbing his shoulder. (Watch the video and draw your own conclusions.) This got us thinking: have other people been beat down at the International House of Pancakes? A quick YouTube search gave us the answer: Yes. A thousand times, yes.
Here are the worst fights in IHOP history.
The Splinters of Broken Chair Omelette
WHERE: Brooklyn
WHEN: Unknown
The action occurs in the background, giving an eerily detached feeling to the brawl, which appears only in glimpses. Like the viewer is watching through a hole in a fence. If on the other side of that fence people were breaking chairs over each other while pitchers of boysenberry syrup rattled heavily atop lacquered wood tables.
(An aside: there's no better site for casual racism, sexism, homophobia, et cetera, than the YouTube comments section. If you'd like to hang on to the conviction that maybe people aren't totally worthless and stupid, we would strongly—strongly—advise against reading the comments on this video and all the others. Now back to the show.)
Did She Mention the Butter Pecan Syrup?
WHERE: Raleigh, N.C.
WHEN: Tuesday, February 22, 2011
After an inscrutable taunting session involving different kinds of syrup, a young woman gets pounced upon, sending the camera jackknifing around the interior of this IHOP. The lights bleed and colors blur, changing this into something closer to abstract video art. Additionally, because the footage was recorded much closer to the fight, the soundtrack becomes a wall of indecipherable, high-pitched noise. Somewhere there's a class on experimental cinema dissecting this stuff.
Commentary
WHERE: Unknown
WHEN: Unknown
As you may already know, IHOP fight videos typically lack commentary. Oftentimes there's little decipherable language to work with, making it difficult to know where the fight occurred or what started it. We're led blind through clips of pain and breakfast food. Here, it's the thorough commentary that elevates this video to gem-status. If only every 24-hour restaurant prone to violence came equipped with their own Cosells and Carays.
"This Some Grown-Ass Shit."
WHERE: Virginia Beach, Va.
WHEN: Unknown
It's pretty brave of that girl to step in between those guys as they beat the hell out of each other. Had she been pulled into the melee, this would've been automatically upgraded to No. 1. Thankfully, this doesn't happen (to be sure, No. 1 is distressing in its own, special way, like a horrible snowflake). Instead we get the most exciting piece of dialogue in any IHOP fight video: "This some grown-ass shit." When someone tells you that, it's best to walk away. Which is exactly what the brave, but not stupid, girl does.
Judgement at Orangeburg
WHERE: Orangeburg, S.C.
WHEN: Unknown
A carafe as a weapon, a cane as a weapon—this video is brutal. For nearly two minutes, a dozen IHOP patrons savage each other while people circle the periphery with cell phones held outstretched like guns. 14 seconds in, witness the appearance of the man with the cane, who hurls a glass of water to announce his coming. It gets no badder than this.
