Background
About EepyBird
The New York Times called them “Hilarious,” Rolling Stone called them “Wizards,” and in January of 2007, Advertising Age called their work “the most important commercial content” of the year.
So who are these guys?
EepyBird is a company that explores creativity, and in particular, the ways in which ordinary objects can do extraordinary things. They are the creators of one of the best-known viral videos of all time, “The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments,” as well as “The Extreme Sticky Note Experiments,” which transformed over 250,000 sticky notes into cascading waterfalls of color.
Their videos have been seen over 120 million times, with over 50 million views online and over 70 million views on television.
EepyBird’s most recent creation is The Coke Zero & Mentos Rocket Car, a vehicle that propels a human using nothing but the power of Coke & Mentos. And it currently propels the pilot over 200 feet.
In their laboratory deep in the woods of Buckfield, Maine, Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz and their creative team experiment with Coke & Mentos, sticky notes, paper airplanes, shampoo, and more. They spend countless hours searching for ways to transform these things from everyday life into something new, into something unforgettable.
Fritz, the short, bearded guy, is also a professional juggler. Stephen, the tall, bald guy, is also a lawyer. Both of these skills have proven useful in managing the Coke & Mentos phenomenon.
EepyBird has appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman, Ellen, The Today Show, Mythbusters, and more. They have performed live in Paris, London, Istanbul, Las Vegas, and even on Wall Street.
They have won four Webby Awards, an OMMA Best in Show award, and have been nominated for two Emmys. They’ve even set three Guinness World Records and appeared in videos for Blue Man Group, Barenaked Ladies, and Weezer (the Grammy-winning “Pork & Beans”).
Stephen and Fritz have spoken all over the United States about their creative process and lessons from the frontlines of viral video. They have spoken at venues and events including Columbia University Business School, the Art Center Design Conference in Pasadena, IDEO in Palo Alto, and at the Producers Guild of America in New York City.
EepyBird has worked with The Coca-Cola Company, Coke Zero, Google, OfficeMax, ABC Family, Perfetti van Melle, DigiSynd (a subsidiary of Disney), Ogilvy, Edelman, O’Reilly, and more.
They are currently working with their creative team at the EepyLab in Buckfield, Maine on several new projects exploring innovative uses of everyday objects.
About Fritz
Fritz Grobe left his mathematics studies at Yale University to perform as a juggler, and he soon took the juggling world by storm. He has won five gold medals at the International Jugglers Championships and set a world record for juggling way too many objects. In 2004, he created a leading role, and was the featured solo clown, in the Cirque du Soleil spin-off “Birdhouse Factory,” a show that The New York Times recently called “engrossingly entertaining… in a word, excellent!”
About Stephen
Stephen Voltz was a street performer in San Francisco, doing shows as a magician, juggler, and fire eater, before becoming a responsible adult and going to law school at New York University. After sixteen years as a trial lawyer in Boston, he returned to performing with his one-man show “The Benefit of Doubt,” which premiered at San Francisco’s EXIT Theater. In 2000, he and Fritz met while studying physical theater at Celebration Barn, Maine’s international school for original theater. They began working together, exploring new possibilities in ordinary objects, and in 2006, launched what the world now knows as EepyBird.
