If Guinness World Records creates a category for the country most obsessed with being in the Guinness book of world records, Mexico will surely be in the running.

As August came to an end, Mexicans danced to Michael Jackson’s Thriller, clawing at the air and marching like zombies, led by a Mexican Michael Jackson impersonator called Hector Jackson. While the matter is still under review by Guinness, it appears Mexico had enough dancers to best the record set by 242 college students in Virginia. In fact, Mexico brought together 12,937 participants.

In many ways, it has been a rough year in Mexico, with the swine flu outbreak, economic crisis and violence tied to the country’s drug cartels, but it has been a good year for records.

In August, Mexico produced the largest meatball, which weighed 109 pounds, besting a 72-pound, 9-ounce meatball. In January, a team of 55 chefs created the world’s largest cheesecake, using a ton of cream cheese and yogurt, 551 pounds of sugar and 331 pounds of butter. It took 60 hours to create the cake, which was chopped up into 20,000 servings.

Mexico also set a kissing record this year, as 40,000 people locked lips on Valentine’s Day in Mexico City. The smoochers beat a 2007 British record of 32,648 kissers. Later, the government began discouraging kissing because of h1n1.

Not all of Mexico’s attempts go as planned. In January, Mexico’s National Association of Matadors declared that Michel Lagravere, 11, had set the record at his age for the most baby bulls killed in a two-hour fight. He brought down six. Guinness refused to recognise the effort as it does not accept killing of animals.

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