Florida's Most Bizarre Festivals

A lot of people tune into our show for the wild and the crazy news. And it's true most wild and crazy things do come from Florida.

People write in every single day to ask us if something is true. If you listen to our show for any length of time, you've heard us say almost every single episode: The biggest part of our job is confirming or denying facts or rumors about our state.

But over the last year or so we've gotten a lot of DMs and a lot of emails about festivals that either currently take place in Florida or have taken place in Florida. And by festivals, I am not talking about Coachella or the Florida Man festival that we hosted with the British rock band the 1975. Because that's true that happened. We are cool as hell.

But the festivals that people write in and ask questions about are so crazy that we at first didn't even believe that they were true. After verifying them with our writing team, I decided to bring my top favorites to my cohost Josh, who has never heard of these festivals and is hearing it for the first time right now.

The Worm Grunting FestivalThe worm grunting festival began in the late 1990s and is hosted every year in a small town called Sopchoppy, Florida. And yes, that's a real town.

According to Florida legend, worm grunting is the art of using plywood to beat the ground while mimicking the noises of a rodent, specifically a mole. Worms that are deep underground hear the noise and surface. For hundreds of years, this is how Floridians obtained bait in order to fish for survival.

But in the 1970s with the invention of the plastic worm, this ancient art form was all but lost. The worm grunting festival seeks to teach individuals about the process while offering games and competitions to people of all ages.

The most successful worm grunter in Florida history is the worm queen named Lossie Mae Rosier who started worm grunting in 1950 and used the money that she made doing it to raise 11 children.

Possum FestivalThe possum festival has been going on for decades in Wausau, Florida. And honestly, you may be asking yourself "how does one town become so obsessed with possums that they hold a festival?"

Well, the answer to that is that Wausau, Florida is actually the possum capital of the world. Supposedly, there are more possums in this small Florida town than any other location on the planet. So they do what Floridians do best: throw a party to celebrate the possum.

The 55th annual possum festival happened in North Florida about a month ago actually. The entire town shuts down and a possum-themed parade happens downtown and there are also other exciting activities like a quilt auction where locals make homemade quilts and auction them off to the community and the proceeds go towards providing scholarships for underprivileged students.

That's pretty cool. That's like super wholesome. And honestly, again, these are all listener submitted - if I had to attend one festival out of the dozens that were sent in, possum fest seems like the safest. The entry fee is five dollars but if you want to participate in the possum trot 5K run then you will need to pay an additional $30.

Cooter FestCooter fest used to be a three-day festival, but it was so popular with Floridians that now is a month-long celebration called Cooter-tober. And I swear on my life, I'm not making any of these up.

Also before you write in and tell us that our show is no longer family friendly - it's another term for a turtle. They didn't call it turtle fest because that's nowhere near as interesting.

Also sidebar: we've never claimed to be anything other than a PG-13 show, but we cover Florida news and Florida is crazy so if you don't want your kids to hear stuff that is probably over their head anyways be better safe than sorry and wait until they're in middle school before they're allowed to listen to Florida Men on Florida Man.

Felt like we needed to address that.

Now back to Cooter fest, better known as Cooter-tober. It kicks off October 1 at 5 PM with the Cooter king and Cooter queen pageant. The Cooter fest is so important to the city of Inverness, Florida that their town council and commission regularly meet to not only plan the month-long event, but the schedule has to be signed off on by the city leaders months in advance.

Cooter fest has grown so large that they moved the festival from Inverness's downtown area to the Whispering Pines Park so they could host the thousands of Floridians who attend each year.

The events include a zombie run, a car show, a Cooter scavenger hunt, movie nights, and I don't know why this made me laugh so hard but multiple magicians. That's right - there are multiple magicians.

I will say this is what's funny about Cooter: they just refused to say the word turtle. Cooter is southern slang for turtle and these people refuse to address the fact that they're just celebrating turtles.

So that in itself is funny. But the thousands of people who plan their yearly schedule around the month of Cooter is hilarious to me.

And that's just for you. So please do us a favor and write in and let us know which one of these three crazy festivals is your favorite:Is it the Worm Grunting Festival?Possum Fest?Or Cooter-tober?