‘Top Gun’ fan said he’d ‘eat a shoe’ if sequel was made — and he did

nypost.com:

Top Gun sequel ever happened, was forced to swallow his pride and some laces this week.On October 26, 2010, at exactly 7:42 pm., Patches declared on Twitter, “If ‘Top Gun 2’ happens, I will eat a shoe.”As “Top Gun: Maverick,” the highly-anticipated sequel to the classic ’80s movie, hits theaters Memorial Day weekend, Patches admitted, “I made a grave error.”The original tweet has since been deleted, but that hasn’t stopped it from resurfacing throughout the years.

Paramount reportedly even joined in on the joke, sending Patches a cake shaped like a shoe. On Thursday, Patches uploaded a video to YouTube, titled “I ate a shoe because of Top Gun 2.” The 20 minute parody of the action thriller begins as Patches, doing his best Tom Cruise impression, details the saga that led him to this podiatric predicament, and his eventual decision to make his own edible creation of fruit leather, edible glue, and licorice laces.

But it was no walk in the park — except when it was. Even if he couldn’t eat a real shoe, he did simulate one, by walking around his street and lawn in the edible footwear he’d cobbled together.“I had a very bad tummy ache that I have survived,” Patches later told Vanity Fair.

Looking back at his tweet, the journalist attempted to justify his prior confidence that a “Top Gun” sequel would never be made. “It seemed impossible, but why would I doubt Tom Cruise?