The Legend of Crunchy Frog, Episode #1 - The Failed Rehearsal Begins
"The Worst Drum Corps in the History of DCA" (2005)
*** Reader Discretion Advised ****
LEGAL DISCLAIMER: This is the true story of Crunchy Frog. This story contains adult language, extreme mayhem, and little to no respect for the rules of traditional drum corps performance. If that will annoy you, please move to the next story.
This tale begins with the rehearsal before Crunchy Frog’s final performance in 2005.
BACKGROUND - EPISODE 1
From 2003-2005, I was the Executive Director of the Crunchy Frog drum and bugle corps, which made its 3rd and final chaotic appearance at the I&E competition at the 2005 DCA World Championships in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Things had not gone well up to that point.
As you will see in future episodes, Crunchy Frog debuted at DCA 2003 as a cymbal ensemble. After a chaotic last place performance at DCA 2003, Crunchy was kicked out of the DCA percussion competition and banned from Canada.
Which is weird, because we weren’t in Canada.
The next year, Crunchy Frog competed as a DCA mini corp and got the lowest score in the history of the drum and bugle corps activity.
Really? Yes.
You see, DCA rules at the time assessed a 1.0 point penalty for each and every additional member over the 25-person DCA minicorps limit. And that rule worked fine for DCA until Crunchy Frog showed up with 400 members. The score is still in litigation, but do the math — had Crunchy Frog miraculously scored a perfect 100.0 in DCA competition, penalties would have brought that score down to -275. Which shatters the low full-corps low score world record previously set by the Crossmen feeder corps in 1980, which was a 7.0 or whatever.
So yeah, Crunchy Frog got banned from the DCA mini corps competition. New rules got made up, wanted posters went up. The whole nine yards.
Accordingly, we had to come up with a new evil plan.
Which is what Renegades do.
So, we secretly entered Crunchy Frog in DCA competition again, but this time, as a “choir.” We hoped this would allow us to fly under the radar of DCA officials and get Crunchy Frog back into competition for one final chaotic performance before anyone realized what was happening.
Here is some evidence.
One problem ghat we faced, was that Crunchy Frog had members from many different DCA corps. So, our one and only rehearsal of the entire season was held in Scranton on the day of the performance. And it did not go well.
And when I saw the first contra player, I knew it wasn't going to go well.
I tried to get the corps to rehearse, but it was typical Crunchy Frog mass confusion. No one had any idea what was going on. Then another belligerent contra player showed up and he stood right next to Vanguard man.
No one was listening to the drum majors. One of them picked up a megaphone and began yelling, “Where is the giant chicken?!!”
I thought, this rehearsal can not possibly get any worse. Then the contra line section leader showed up in a speedo and a red cape. At this moment, I thought Gil Silva of DCA might murder me before the evening is over.
I grabbed my phone and called the Giant Chicken for reinforcements.
Evil Bunny and Sweet Cakes threatened to mutiny if rehearsal didn’t improve.
Then more horn players showed up. None of them knew the music, but they played loud as fuck anyway. The guy on the left was from Prague, spoke no English whatsoever. But he played loud and he could blend in should we ever launch combat operations in the desert. So, there’s that.
Suddenly, the Giant Chicken showed up. I was saved!
The Giant Chicken gathered everyone in and tried to explain the concept of dynamics to the corps. Total fucking fail.
The fact that nobody knew anything about dynamics made the chicken go berserk.
He lost his mind.
More soon!
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