By Matthew Halverson
Photograph by Peter Newcomb
“It’s a lurid tale of greed, money, power and politics,” read the e-mail from Mike “The Big Tomato” Gassman about the cancellation of July’s World’s Largest Catsup Bottle Summerfest Birthday Party and Car Show Bash, Collinsville’s annual downtown festival. (Evidently, finding a banner large enough to display that name had nothing to do with squashing the fest.)
“Lurid tale”? “Greed”? “Big Tomato” Wait, what?
According to the Catsup Bottle Lady (a.k.a. Judy DeMoisy), who was serving as B.T.’s oversized condiment spokesperson proxy, the big-bottle imbroglio was just a matter of good old-fashioned turf warfare. A wily new downtown coordinator, a fight over intellectual property rights and some shady business dealings, she says, were to blame.
“There’s a lot of bullying and a lot of behind-the-scenes talking,” DeMoisy says of the planning for this year’s shuttered fest, which was to include a visit from Erica Nelson, owner of “the largest collection of the smallest versions of the world’s largest things.” It may not be over yet, though: Savvy Web surfers will tell you that friends and family of the World’s Largest Catsup Bottle Fan Club will party on nonetheless, on July 8 at an undisclosed location.
