The film crew shot over 200 hours of tape, which was cut into a 48-minute show. John feels that they purposely slanted the show a certain way. "They came in knowing the story they were going to tell and knowing the shots they needed to tell it," John said. "Even though I think a more interesting story developed, at the end of the day they told the same story they had planned to tell right at the beginning."

One of the things ABC failed to mention was that the Baurs actually have six kids. Only three of them were seen on the show, the other three are older and are no longer living at home. They also didn't mention that Tori was attending college at the time, which is part of the reason the house was such a mess. She ended up graduating Magna Cum Laude with an English degree.

Tori isn't bothered by her portrayal on the show. "I'm secure with who I am. I've never had a problem being who I am," she said.

As for her messy house: "It was an amazingly freeing experience to not give a shit about cleaning and how my house looked. And I've never cared. If people don't like the way I live, they don't have to come over."

However, she didn't enjoy her time with the Fines. "I was in a family in a household that was so oppressed," she said. "They weren't kind people at all. The husband was rude, he was boorish."

The Fine's daughter called Tori fat and lazy. "She was the antichrist so far as children are concerned," said Mad Sally.

Tori also displayed some of her signature pirate spirit during the filming of the show. She was given a list of chores that she was expected to perform the next day in front of the cameras, but instead decided to do them on her own, filming herself using one of the cameras they left behind.

"The family had gone to sleep and I knew I had this list of chores to do and I'm like, 'Screw this, I'm not going to do this list of chores with some asshole standing over my shoulder telling me how to clean or scrub things,'" Tori recalled. "And so I said, 'I'm going to pull an all-nighter.' So I stayed up all night long and I filmed myself doing all the chores all night long." At the end, she licked the floor to prove how clean it was.

The next morning, the camera crew arrived and was a bit bewildered to discover she had already completed the chores, but they decided the video she shot was good and included it in the show.

Cap'n Slappy also made a guest appearance on the Wife Swap episode, but his experience was much different from the Baurs. Mark was flown to California to assist Tori. He was driven to the airport in a limo and had an assistant with him for his day of shooting.

"I highly recommend anyone who can get an assistant, get one," Mark said.

However, he could see the toll the show took on his friends emotionally. Mark, who is a licensed clinical social worker, said, "By the time we all got back together after the whole ordeal was over, I realized that the two of them were responding like people who had been through a trauma."

When the episode originally aired last September, sales of their book skyrocketed on Amazon.com. And the response Team Pirate got was mostly positive.

The Baurs and their children – Ben, Jack, Max, Millie, Alex and Kate

"One of the best compliments I got were letters from teenage girls and grown women with children of their own who said, 'Thank you for showing us that there is an alternative way to live. You don't have to pretend to be perfect,'" said Tori.

Wife Swap also has garnered them more attention in their town, making them quasi-celebrities.

"We were not unknown in the community before the pirate thing started," said Ol' Chumbucket, who explained the Baurs would occasionally be recognized from their performances at the community theatre. "We are what passes for celebrities here. We used to be curiosities, we've worked our way up to oddities and we are working on celebrity now."

Cap'n Slappy also gets recognized around town. Being a man of larger carriage, he says that it's not hard for people to pick him out of a crowd.

"When I go places, people either say, 'I saw you on Wife Swap' or 'Aren't you Santa Claus?'" Mark joked.

He also gets recognized during his day job as a social worker. He goes into schools to council troubled kids and inevitably, some of the kids will recognize him from his appearance on Wife Swap. Usually, this leads to kids asking for his autograph, which is something Summers can't quite understand. "Those kids need a Tiger Beat magazine."

As their popularity continues to grow, The Pirate Guys have found support in the strangest places. Some of their biggest supporters are Pastifarians, followers of the parody-religion created by Bobby Henderson known as The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. One of the beliefs of Pastifarians is that global warming is caused by the decrease of pirates worldwide.

"Makes perfect sense to me," John said. "I think this entitles us to federal grants because we are obviously doing our part to reinvigorate pirates and therefore reduce global warming."

Mark agrees: "The science is indisputable."

Talk Like A Pirate Day has also spawned imitators. In response to their holiday, the creators of the Ninja Burger website declared Dec. 5th The Day of the Ninja. This added fire to an already heated Internet debate over who would win in a fight - pirates or ninjas.

"For some reason, there is this whole pirate-ninja war that frankly I don't understand," said John. "I think we are all kind of working the same side of the street. We're guys with swords that misbehave. I do think that perhaps the reason for all of this animosity is that ninjas are kind of jealous because pirates are so much cooler. Ninjas are supposed to be silent and invisible, so they should shut up and go away."

"You've got to give ninjas a lot of credit for training," Mark added, "but a pirate has a cannon. And, as far as fashion goes, a pirate wins every time. And really, wouldn't you rather win the war on fashion?"

There are sure to be a lot of fashionably-dressed pirates at Ye Olde Tattoo Shoppe in Studio City, Calif., Sept. 19th. The pirate-themed shop has been celebrating Talk Like A Pirate Day for the past three years and has invited Cap'n Slappy and Ol' Chumbucket to attend their big celebration, promising free tattoos to The Pirate Guys. So, the duo is breaking tradition and skipping out on 30 hours of radio interviews in order to party with tattooed pirates. Last year, the shop inked 120 skull and crossbones in 12 hours.

Mark "Cap'n Slappy" Summers

While out in California, The Pirate Guys will also attend a screening of Pirates of the Great Salt Lake, which the filmmakers will be showing on Talk Like A Pirate Day in hopes of selling their film to a studio. The boys, who both say the original Pirates of the Carribean movie is their favorite pirate film, are both big supporters and fans of Pirates of the Great Salt Lake.

It's unclear what the future holds for Team Pirate. The Baurs are planning on leaving Albany and heading to the Virgin Islands. The Pirate Guys partnership will be continued via email. They also recently sold the sequel to Pirattitude, which is scheduled to be released next September. Tori has also written her own book Mad Sally's Guide to Living Life, which encourages women to reject traditional feminine roles by borrowing pirate ideals, and she is looking into teaching full-time.

"Our life is an adventure and we're having fun doing it," said John.

"I would try to take stock of it all, but I'd have no confidence in the market," said Mark. "It's fun; it's been a fun ride."

And, for all of you planning on celebrating Talk Like A Pirate Day this year, Cap'n Slappy has some advice: "Drink a lot of rum and let the rest of it come naturally."

Written by Joel Murphy, September 2007. For more information on International Talk Like A Pirate Day, visit the official website. To read Aeo from Ninja Burger's response to The Pirate Guys' pirate vs. ninja comments, click here.