Dear Hank & John - 443: A Top Podcast for the Elderly

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

Why do I have the desire to rebel against my parents? Why does pen on paper fade over time? Do we make new water? What is the scent of soaps and why do I want to eat it? How should I reveal that I can do the splits? Has there been any updates regarding Stars on Mars? …Hank and John Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohnProduced for Hank and John Green by ComplexlySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening to a Complexly podcast. Welcome to Dear Hank and John. Yours, I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbled and John. Yeah. I actually have recently started to rent out one of my toilets to a British soldier. Well, you're a land court.

Yeah, but only for British soldiers, which is a real betrayal of my roots. I asked him, and he said that he's a lieutenant. I like how you said it's a betrayal of your roots as if like your ancestors participated in the American Revolution. We can't be providing quarter to British soldiers. That's like the main American thing. That is true. I mean, ostensibly we also can't provide quarter to American soldiers.

Yeah, no, that's also a big deal. Shouldn't do that. Yeah. It is in the Constitution. So you've been illegally lieutenanting. Yeah. It's okay as long as it's not forcible. It's just a betrayal of my roots.

I'm okay. We had an amazing Project for Awesome. I chose a British joke because during the Project for Awesome, I was forced to speak in a British accent. And not just one, but many different British accents at random flowing into each other without control for over a half an hour. Yeah, it was pretty impressive from what I saw of it, but not in a good way. It was impressive the way that like me doing an Olympic ski jump would be impressive. Like, you would be impressed. Yeah, an impression would be made.

You would see a guy die. I made impressions. I thought you'd survive, but I bet your lower legs wouldn't. Based on my skiing results so far, which is that I got fairly badly hurt going 10 miles an hour down a green. I suspect that I would not do well with the Olympic ski jump. I give you a greater than 50-50 chance that you'd survive. Well, let's go ahead and not find out. which side of the coin flip I land on this particular time.

Yes, for sure. Don't do it. But I did go off the ski jump of doing British accents live in front of Demi Adjouibé, who is an amazing impersonationist, which was very embarrassing. Yeah, but you did your best. And it's like karaoke, you just really have to commit to it. Whatever you're doing in life, you have to commit to the bit. And the more embarrassed you feel, the worse you are.

because you've just got to be totally committed. I was committed. I went hard and all the British people in chat left. They just left. They went to go to bed, which was probably the right call. It was late. It was a great project for awesome. We raised over $4.1 million for great charities like Save the Children and Partners in Health.

Super proud of the whole team of people who work on the P4A every year. I got sick on the last day and I'm just now recovering. He's pushing through. He's been coughing during the pregame that we do. where we do like a couple of beers and then we make the podcast. We don't do beers because Hank can't drink. I would do beers. It's 1 p.m. on a Wednesday.

I'd have a beer, but Hank can't drink. So last night I slept 15 hours, which I didn't even know was possible. That's the way to do it. Congratulations. I was like a bear. I went to bed at 4.30 and I woke up at like 6.30. Wow. Yeah, that's what you got to do sometimes.

It's good for you when you're sick. Well, I feel a little bit better today. I still feel kind of crappy, but I feel a little bit better. I'm ready to do the pod, though. I'm excited to be with you. I'm excited to be with our beloved listeners, our belicted listeners, maybe. Our belikeed listeners, for sure. And so everybody, I know that we're out of date here, but everybody who showed up for the Project for Awesome, thank you so much. It was an absolute blast. It was a really wonderful time and those last two hours where I showed up early by accident. Well, you're going to show up early from now on because that was a transformational two hours. We raised like $400,000 in two hours. It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. It was crazy. And not from any big donors, just from thousands of people donating all at once.

As a studier of the Project for Awesome, I've been there for a lot of them. That is very weird. Yeah. No. This is our 19th Project for Awesome, and we were pretty sure where we were going to land. Yeah. And we landed somewhere that the Project for Awesome has never been before, which is It was really fun. It was tiring. I wore a lot of wigs. It was great. But now we have to be

professional podcasters again, Hank, because we have to provide America with its sleep slash gym slash dishes podcast slash hit podcast for teens. If only, John, we could be a hit podcast for the elderly as well. I mean, what is, what is it going to have to take? We talk about our aches and We talk about our diseases and our medications. You know? Yeah. Look, the AARP is in my inbox. They're here.

Oh, I'm a member of the AARP. They'll go as low as you'll let them. Yeah, no, you can join. It's like AAA. You just got to pay your membership fee. But I'm a member of AARP because it got me a discount on my phone that was worth more than the membership to the AARP. So I just joined.

And look, I am 48. I'm not that far away from retirement. just retired from complexly, kind of. I don't get paid anymore. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You aren't an owner. I said this to Orrin. I was like, what if I retired? And he said, that would be bad. Oh, interesting. When I tell my kids I might retire, they're like, that would be great. Yeah. No, yeah. And I was like, why? And he was like, where would the money come from? And I'm like, oh, boy, I got news for you. That's not what it's about. No. Yeah. No, it all goes back to our hit episode of the future podcast. Why does Hank Green want to be famous? But first, let's answer this

question from Haveland who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm struggling a lot right now with morality, religion, personal beliefs, and politics. It seems that every opinion my parents have on a particular stance. I seem to have the opposite. The subject line, by the way, is being a teenager is the worst thing that ever happened to my morality. This is a hit podcast for teens, Hank. We're addressing teen questions. Wow. Wow. That's a great subject line. I think this is because I'm getting older, but that itself doesn't fix the problem. How am I supposed to be myself if my parents, disagree with everything that makes up myself. They still love me, and that makes it even worse, because I could tell them what I think, but they'll just discard it in the name of protecting me

from influence. I was always a good kid. I always did what they wanted. I always used to agree with them. So why do I have this unquenchable desire to rebel against them? Teenagering is strange, and I'm confused, Havelin. Wow. That is a remarkable amount of difficulty and also self-awareness. Yeah. I was going to say, just you being aware of the fact that you're rebelling from your parents when you're a teenager is a huge amount of self-awareness. There's two potential things happening here. One is that it's completely normal. I remember like my therapist being like, when I was like 16, my therapist being like, you're rebelling against your parents. And then when you're 20 or 21, you'll come back to them. And it was completely right. That is exactly what happened.

I mean, I have this like a frame for understanding this period of life where, you know, cultures have to evolve. Like one of the things, that you know, like, that you learn an evolutionary biology is that you don't want a rate of zero mutation. You don't want a rate of zero change. You want some amount of not too much change. And so you, you actually, like, the systems engineer ways to introduce change and to select for advantageous change. And that's wild. And I think the cultures do that too. And I think that, like, youth is about that. It's about, it's about testing boundaries because if we never do, then we never change and we never evolve and we need to and we need to evolve a lot. We need to change a lot right now because

all of the systems are built for a world that no longer exists. Yeah. So that's one thing. But the other thing is that maybe Havelin is coming to a place in themselves that is a true place. For sure. Yeah. Sometimes the distance you create between your parents is not just a matter of, you know, developmental appropriateness. It's also because you are going to have different values from your parents in some important ways. And that's a hard thing. Like, that distance being created is really difficult. You know, if our parents had been more religious, your atheism would have been really, really challenging for them, for you, for everyone involved. And that's a hard part of growing up. It's not necessarily a tragic part of growing up. I know it's hard, but when you say it's the

worst thing that ever happened in my morality, it could also be one of the better things. that happened to your morality, because maybe you're coming into your own moral sense of the universe, and that's an important process for you. Like, the coolest thing about being a teenager to me is that you're asking those big questions about what it means to be a person and what we owe other people and what we owe ourselves. You're asking those questions about suffering and everything else separate from your parents for the first time. And good parents encourage that, even if they land someplace that isn't exactly where you wish

they'd land. Yeah, I mean, the hard thing. about this is nobody knows like what's right and like your your brain will tell you that you know your brain will tell you that there's certainty and when you're a child you feel like your parents version of reality is the certain reality but all of us are are like struggling with the sense of our our conception of the world being a sort of defined reality that we think is real and then also the knowledge that it might not be and that we can pick and choose different ways of being and of understanding things of having worldviews and having values.

We can grow. We have to grow. Like getting stuck with a certain worldview is bad. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, that's the biggest thing I'd say is like, be open and curious. That's the biggest thing. This is the only thing that has brought me, like, freedom from the crushing weight of

feeling like I am in a world that is unjust and immoral. And, like, you know, not feeling that way. being like that that is the that is the truth of the matter and curiosity is the only thing that has has provided me relief from that and also data that makes it easier to understand how we ended up in that world and like it not being about evil but it being about eight billion people all on the same planet trying to make life work for themselves and their family yeah and in important ways things are more unjust than they used to be but also in important ways things are less Justin they used to be, right?

Like, whether it's educational opportunities for girls or malnutrition, those things are better than they were when we were in high school. What I would say is continue to be curious about where your perspectives are coming from and continue to be curious about where your parents' perspectives are coming from and continue to be curious about like all of the other people who are important to you too. Yeah, stay open. That said, I will tell you, Havilon, that being a teenager was actually the worst thing for my morality.

Yeah. It's so hard because there's no certainty anymore. Yeah, that's part of it. But part of it was that I just had a deep-seated urge to, like, blow up my world and everything in it. And I don't know why. But, like, I remember being on the, like, back porch of our house in Orlando and mom coming outside and saying, you can't smoke cigarettes on the back porch of my house.

Yeah. And me, like, taking a drag of the cigarette and saying, what are you going to do? I had a backwards version of this where I read this very sort of radical book, and it was one of the first, like, nonfiction books I ever read. Oh, I remember. And I gave it to my parents. Everyone in the family remembers. I gave it to mom and dad, and dad read it. And he looked at me in the eyes, and he said, you don't believe this, do you?

Which is like, our dad is very understanding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He makes space for people, but apparently not that much space. Looking back, and like, I still have that book, and I'm like, oh, wow, this book is designed to alienate you from culture and reality to, like, make you, like, lose faith in everything. And, you know, because that can be very, it can be a kind of appealing. You know, like, the idea that everything good is actually bad and everything bad is even worse than you think. Yeah, it's hugely appealing, especially when you're younger. And those ways of looking at the world have a ton of explanatory power and any relatively simple worldview with a ton of explanatory power is going to get some traction. For sure. I have one more piece of advice, which is don't read The Fountainhead. Moving on to this question from... It wasn't the Fountainhead, just for clarity. It's not the book that we're talking about with me. I know. I know. I don't want people to think that. Well, I mean, you know, the Fountainhead is a very influential book in a lot of

smart people's lives. And so I shouldn't be as, as, I shouldn't be the way I am with it. But I am that way because I have a different worldview because my parents and those around me had different worldviews and I'm a product of circumstance just like all of us. Moving on to this question from Isabel. Dear John and Hank, why does pen on paper fade over time? Why does anything fade over time? I too shall fade, Isabel. Top podcast for teens.

And the elderly. I mean, the elderly, the elderly have this on the mind, Hank. they're watching as their old manuscripts fade away. They're watching as their lives themselves fade away. It's hard out there for an elderly person like Isabel. Why isn't anybody writing editorials on top podcasts for the elderly? I don't know. I'm going to do it.

And we're going to be number one. Yeah, I like it. It's all it takes. I'm going to create a media outlet. It's designed entirely to create fake promo for myself. Like any good famous person would do. Have you seen the... Facebook pages that have millions of followers that just report, not like fake news, but

like fake fake news, like that, for instance, I died. Oh, no. Like, Facebook is a real no-go zone for me. They'll have an AI-generated picture of me inside a coffin. Or they'll be like Nicholas Cage, dead at 61. All the comments will be like, Nicholas Cage isn't dead. And then some of the comments will be like RIP. Yeah. And that's happening because it's not that hard to trick some people. No, yeah. But why does pen on paper fade over time? I mean, it's so, so, like the pen part of the ink, the ink part of the ink, the stuff that has color in it. So there's other, other pieces of the ink to make it like flow and stuff. But the part that's colored, it's a molecule and it is a color for God knows why. But it is only a color because of its specific shape and the way

that the molecules are arranged. I'm never going to understand. I think I may have given up understanding why things are the colors they are. It's because they like absorb some wavelengths and reflect, but why? I'm like, ay, y a yi, quantum effects maybe. Anyway, the photons go in there. Some of them get absorbed. Some of them get reflected. And that's why it has a color. But some of them are getting absorbed. And when they get absorbed, that actually jiggles the molecules around a little bit. And over time, that can change their shape and it can break them apart. And those new molecules that are different shapes or are broken apart don't have color anymore. And this won't happen if you keep them out of the light. So this is photo degradation where it's really the more light is hitting

it is what's degrading it. So the answer is light, Isabel, the visible reminder of the invisible light. This is why if you have a nice painting, like I've got a painting right now, and it's got some light on it, I'm not going to lie. And if that painting were the Mona Lisa, people would be freaking out right now. People would be furious with me and with good reason. Oh yeah. Because you've got to protect, You've got to get the light just right. This is something museum curators do. Something Sarah did when she worked at a museum all the time was like figuring out the right light

so that you can see the art, but that you're not harming the art. Because you don't want to jiggle those molecules. They're jiggled. You don't want to jiggle those molecules with light. It's weird. It's just a bunch of particles and waves. That's all of it.

That's everything that we're doing. Not that I have a solution to the problem of consciousness, just for clarity. Why is there light? What do you mean? Just what I said. We don't know, John. Really?

Well, I mean, we know that, like, we know why, like, we know why photons are produced. Why? So there are atoms, you know about them? They have electrons. When energy comes into electrons, which are sort of, like, wobbling around the nucleus, those electrons gain energy. And that might, there might be a number of different ways that this happens. And they will, like, go up to a higher state of energy.

And when they drop back down, they have to really. that energy and they release it as photons. Now, deeper than that, there's probably like one or two levels down that a particle physicist or a quantum physicist could tell you. But another level after that, it's really like, oh, because that's the way the universe is structured. And we don't totally know why the rules are the way that they are, and we don't even totally know why there is matter in the first place. Right. There is only matter because the rules are the way they are. But the photons don't have mass, right? They do not have mass.

So they're not matter. They're something else. That's right. Light is not matter. It's energy. It's just energy. I'm just going to stick with the TS Eliot quote about how it's the visible reminder of the invisible light and move on from there. This next question comes from Eileen, who says,

Dear John and Hank, I know about the water cycle. I even taught a rudimentary version to kindergartners for years. But here's the question that's been bothering me. Do we make new water? Or is the water we have just a really huge closed system? Really, I do, I lean. Again, we could get into complexities here, but no, we mostly don't make new water. I'm going to even take out mostly.

I'm qualifying here because there are like weird situations in which water gets made, but no, it's a pretty closed loop. Okay, so like, let me ask you a question, though. If a really icy meteor were to hit Earth, wouldn't that increase the amount of water? Yeah, so new water comes in in that way. and it's a fair amount. And water also exits when water in the atmosphere can get broken apart, again, by photons or high-energy particles from the sun. And they can get broken apart. And I think that that can last.

So, like, the hydrogen will float away and even get, like, knocked into space. The oxygen, I don't think, does get knocked into space because it's too heavy. So we can lose it that way. There's also, like, a bunch of, so there's a bunch of water on Earth that's not part of the water cycle because it's, bound up in rocks in the mantle. And we think that there are some ways for that water to get out sometimes and that that might be part of how on long-term geological scales, like the history of the Earth scales, we think that that might be an important contributor to the amount of water that is in the system.

But the amount of water in the system is pretty stable. Like Jesus lived in a world where there was a pretty similar amount of water to where I live. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you, like, grabbed a handful of water almost, I would weigh the way. that like 99 plus percent of that water, those molecules were water molecules when Jesus was around. Wow. So what you're saying is that I was baptized with the same water that Jesus was baptized with? You were 100 percent, like when you got baptized, some of those molecules were in the water that baptized Jesus. All right. Can I go back further than that? Did a dinosaur drink my water? Oh, yeah. So the further back you go, the more true it is.

Like, you and I probably weren't baptized in the same water because it didn't have time to spread out. Though we were both, I think, baptized at the same church, which means maybe. Which would more likely, yeah. But the more time, the more space you give it, the more the water has time to mix up. It's like how everybody is descended from Genghis Khan. Yeah. I don't think that everybody is. But like you go back further than Genghis Khan and it's like, yeah, everybody's decented from anybody who has descendants still.

When I drink dinosaur water, does that mean that the dinosaurs are sort of still alive inside me? No. But I am the result of their chemistry, Hank. So it's not the water, but you do have a common ancestor with dinosaurs. And so in that way, the dinosaurs are still alive, alive in part of you. Though that common ancestor was not a dinosaur. Okay. So the dinosaurs are still with us in a matter of speaking.

No, the dinosaurs are still with us absolutely. Well, because of birds, because all the birds. Theropods is that, like, they are still here. Everybody treats this like a fun little science fact, but they are dinosaurs. Like, the theropod dinosaurs are still around, and there's lots of them. And they're like, there's like lots of them. They're like way, I think there are more of them than there are mammals. Really?

I think so. And these are, these are birds? Yes. There are significantly more species of bird species than mammal species. and then individuals also. There are more, I mean, there might be more chickens. There might be more like there are upon chickens than there are humans in America. Yeah, there are a lot of chickens.

I mean, no doubt. Not necessarily a good gig. Oh, my God. At any given point, there are well over 1.5 billion chickens in America. Wow. I mean, I don't know about you, Hank, but I just saluted the flag. Yeah. Do you know, like, wasn't like Hoover before he crashed the entire economy and everything, everything got

destroyed? It's a little bit of an over simplification, but yeah, what was his slogan? I think it was like something and a chicken in every pot. And we did get that. Yeah. No, I mean, if anything, right now we've got five chickens for every pot. God, we got so many chickens per pot. There are more chickens and pots.

I just read a book that was a little more generous to Hoover than my previous books I've read about the Great Depression. It seems like, I mean, two facts about the world, Hank. Yeah. One, the world runs like on the confidence that the world will continue to run. And two, at any given moment, we are way, way, way too confident. And when we become too confident, the confidence fails to deliver and there's a big crash and then we lose all our confidence and it takes like a decade to regain it. Yikes. I'm not ready for that.

It happened in 2008. You lived through it. Yeah, I definitely, like, really, let's make it so that it happens every 80 years. Oh, yeah. I'm a big believer in not having two once-in-a-lifetime events occur inside of a single lifetime, because otherwise, it undermines the idea of a lifetime. Okay? It drives me crazy when they're like, oh, we had 600-year floods the last 100 years. No, we didn't.

We had one. We had 100-year floods. You did your math wrong somehow. We had five what used to be 100-year floods, but things changed. Okay? Yeah. So I have already lived through one once-in-a-lif-a-lif financial crisis. If there's another one, I throw out the whole concept of once-in-a-lifetime.

Which reminds me, John, that this podcast is brought to you by once-in-a-lifetime events. Once-in-a-lifetime events, sometimes they should not happen once-in-a-lifetime. Yeah, today's podcast is, of course, also brought to you by your teenage morality, your teenage Morality, Information. This podcast also brought to you by Herbert Hoover. Herbert Hoover, apparently, not as bad as you think. Well, no, I want to be clear. Bad.

I'm not coming down pro-Herbert Hoover. And, of course, today's podcast is brought to you by Light. Light. It exists. This episode of Dear Hankajan is brought to you by Lisa. Are you excited that you may soon be living the classic adult dream of getting a mattress delivered and feeling like your whole life? is suddenly put together, or maybe you've got a guest bedroom mattress.

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while the subscription is active. All right, John, let's do another question. It comes from Haley who asks Deer Hink and John, what is the scent of soaps like Irish Spoke? spring and palm olive. And how do they achieve it? The only word I could think of to describe it is fresh, but that's not really a scent. Also, why do I want to eat it so badly? Oh, that makes one of us. I got soap put in my mouth when I was a child. Oh, did you? Not by my parents, but by my best friend's parents. Wow. That's cursed. That's awful brave. I know. Yeah, that's, uh,

that's definitely not a thing I would do. No. Like, come home from a sleepover and be like, oh, yeah, I did slightly abuse your kid last night. I will totally discipline a child that is not mine. I'm not afraid to tell them that they need to behave more different. Yeah, tell them with words, but not with stinks. Yeah, when I think of discipline, I do not think of causing them physical harm. Yeah, so anyway, I don't remember liking that taste at all, actually. I remember being like, oh, man, I really shouldn't have used the S-H word in front of that guy.

Boy, yeah. Did you tell mom about this? I don't remember. John, there is a ton of stuff that goes into soap to give it those smells. There's maybe one called Linololol or Linolol. Oh, God, how would you even say that? You're doing a great job. Just keep trying.

It's L-I-N-A-L-O-O-L. Maybe it's just like Lin-A-L-L-L-L. L-L-L-L-L. But usually with these, it's like Lin-O-L-L-L-L. Lenol-O-all-all or something like that, but I don't know. At any rate, that's what they put in it. The way that they describe this is fresh, which is so weird to me because, like, what does that mean? I think that what it means is that it's like, it smells like fresh produce or specifically

fresh citrus. Hmm. Yes. So, like, if you walk into the part of the grocery store where the citrus is, you will get this smell. I think that there's definitely a citrus element, but that doesn't cover the entire spectrum of Irish Spring. Irish Spring also has some spring forest in it? Yeah. So that's, that's, that there is a, there is a thing called Hexel Cinemol, and that has like a green leafy smell that is also in the

Irish Spring, and that probably also adds to the freshness. What they call this is synthetic ozonics. So it smells like the ozones that are produced by life, but they're synthetic. Interesting. Yeah. So that's like that's like kind of the freshnesses. As you, as you, know, Hank, have been trying to work with Sun Basin soap to recreate the smell of my childhood dorm room. My high school roommate had a special deodorizer that we used to mask the smell of cigarettes. And it's the best smell I've ever encountered, and I would like it to be a Sun Basin soap smell. Sun Basin soap has all these, like, fancy, nice, you know, classy smells, nice citruses, nice Christmassy smells, whatever, whatever.

I wanted to smell like my high school dorm room. Could you put a little bit of burnt tobacco in there? No, to no, minus the tobacco, obviously. I mean, unburnt tobacco has a lovely smell. It does. It does. But yeah, there is... So is...

But that's neither here nor there. I don't know what you're talking about. That is not my experience. Well, thank God I quit a long time ago. Yeah. All right, Hank, before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, we've got to answer this question from Miriam, who writes Dear John and Hank, inspired in part by the fiddle player that wrote to this podcast years ago, I decided not to tell my mom that I've been trying to learn the splits because I thought it would be funny to just suddenly be able to do that. I'm very nearly there. And now I'm wondering, how can I make the reveal? Any ideas, ideally something where I can warm up first, committing to the splits, Miriam. I've got, it's easy. It's easy. You're going to be doing a You're going to be doing a funny dance in your socks, in your awesome socks club socks. Yep. On your, on some slippery floor, on the tile, on the wood, on the linoleum.

And you're going to be doing a dance. And then for your mom, and then you're going to act like you fell. Yes. And you're going to be splits. And then you're going to go, hazza! I don't know if you're going to go haza. The other thing I was thinking is maybe you could do a, you could go to your mom and say like, what's that song? It's like, hello my baby, hello my.

Your mom says, darling, and you're like, what's the end there? And she's like, hello, my ragtime, gal. And then you're doing the splits. It's good stuff. That's good stuff, Miriam. I really need an update. I need an update of your mom being duly shocked when you do the splits. Can we do another question that is inspired by an old episode of Dear Hank and John? Sure, of course. This is from Eliza. This is amazing. and I can't believe that we have never gone deeper into it. Dear Hank and John, over the summer, I've been listening to Old Back Catalog, Dear Angonon, episodes with my parents.

Thank you for all of the joy that you guys have brought. The family, episode 371 from May of 2023 is a banger. You spend the first half discussing the meaning of life in the second half pitching a horror film called 44 Olympic-sized swimming pools full of mosquitoes. But the Mars news from that episode comes in the form of an announcement of a new reality TV show called Stars on Mars. I had completely forgotten about this

where celebrities vote each other off of a fake Mars. Since this was the last regular show before a six-month break, there's never been an update for how Stars on Mars fared. And I would love to know if there has been any notable news on this subject you wanted to share Martian Pumpkins and Space Penguins Liza. Hank, while you had cancer, what happened to Stars on Mars? The whole thing happened, John. Stars on Mars happened.

They did it. They made stars on Mars. And it was completely and totally a 12-episode series that was made for one season and then never again. Wow. They flew these celebrities to Cooper Pedy, Australia, and each cycled the group elected a base commander who would assign tasks to complete around the compound. And the base commander would not be able to be, like, voted off. and the base commander also selected another celebrity to be the mission specialist who helped oversee stuff. And some names of the people on this show.

We have Bruce Willis's daughter, Tallulah Willis. We had the guy who played McLevin, Rhonda Rousey. We have Lance Armstrong. Lance Armstrong was on the show. Andy Richter was on the show. Yeah, are legitimate celebrities? Some people I've never heard of, like Kat Kora, who was. on Iron Chef.

Oh, she was a big star. There's also a real housewife of Atlanta. There's several professional sports players like Marcion Lynch. What is wrong with Lance Armstrong that he wanted to do this despite being a wealthy person? I am not sure. I am not sure. We also had Adam Rippin. The Olympic figure skater was on it.

Who won? He was the winner. He won. Adam Rippin won. Yes. McLevin was voted out on episode one. John, you know how like Jenny Nicholson will do like a four hour long YouTube video about I mean, I really want to be that guy so bad right now.

I want to watch this and I want to tell the whole story of the whole thing. I bet you could get Lance Armstrong to co-host it with you. That guy seems willing to do anything. I mean, I bet I could get Adam Rippen to do it. Yeah. Oh, man. This is great. This is gold, man. Stars of Real Housewives of Atlanta. I mean, everybody. Everybody. I can't believe Marshawn Lynch did this. Marshan Lynch also a person with adequate funds. Probably doing okay. Wow. Yeah. Stars on Mars. It happened. It happened. Talls on Mars. It happened. Tallulah also. Willis did not last long. No. Richard Sherman, great cornerback. Not apparently a great Martian. He was out in the third episode. And then who is our fourth episode loss? It says Tom.

Tom Schwartz from Vanderpump Rules. One of the only people on this list who does not have a Wikipedia page. Brutal. Brutal. Brutal. Hard out there for a Tom. So, Hank, it's now time for the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. AFC Wimbledon lost to the top top of the table, Cardiff yesterday.

They lost 4-1, which, if anything, was a scoreline that flattered them. But that's not the kind of game that's going to define our season. The kind of game that's going to define our season is beating Redding 3-2 and tying with Barnsley 3-3. So in this Barnsley game, we went down 2-0 after 13 minutes. And I don't think AFC Wimbledon have come back from 2-0 down in like seven years. But we did. We came back and we were actually ahead 3-2, but then Barnsley scored in the 82nd minute tying the game. And thereby we just got one point out of that.

We're currently six points clear of relegation. There's five teams between us in relegation. And so I don't know. I'm not brimming with confidence, but we're doing our best. Just to remember that there's a reason why those teams down there are down there. Part of the reason they're down there and not lower is because they tend to beat us. But yes, that's true. There's a reason those teams are down there.

And look, hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words. And there's every reason to believe that here in the last 15, 16 games of the season, we can pick up the four or five wins we will need in order. order to survive. Well, John, in Mars news, we're still having Mars news that's moon news because that's our step, you know, we're going to go one step at a time. Yes. And first we'll be on the moon.

So as we are recording this, so God knows what happened, but NASA is carrying out its second wet dress. That's what? Is that like a dress rehearsal? It is. Yeah. So they're actually putting fuel into the tanks. So that's a way. I'm not here to tell NASA scientists much, but I am here to tell them to rename the wet dress.

I think that they more commonly call it the wet dress rehearsal. It doesn't matter. That's not any better. Okay. Well, so the first one got cut short because there was a leak in the liquid hydrogen tank. That's no good. Easy to have a leak in liquid hydrogen. A lot of pressure and very small molecules that you're dealing with.

They've also sealed up some. of the problematic parts, and they did a partial fill. If it goes well, Artemis 2 should launch as soon as March 6th. And I'm ready, John. I've got a YouTube video all queued up for it, actually. Wow, good. Well, it'd be great to shoot around the moon again. It's been a while since we saw the back of the moon as people. Yeah, for sure. It's been a long time for this species. I should get one of those astronauts on, dear Hank and John. You should. I'll take the week off. But instead, John, we've got Adam Rippin. He's joining us right now. What was it like to be the final star on Mars?

What did you get? Did you get a Mars? Did you get a promise from Elon Musk that he was going to let you be one of the first Martians? God, what do you get? Do you think the person who gets voted off early is actually the one who like most wins? Because it's like you get your appearance fee. I think you get paid by the week. Ugh. Really?

You must get like a bonus for showing up in the first place. I wonder what the prize was. Yeah. What did they get? A mission patch called Brightest Star. There was no monetary prize for winning the reality competition. They were paid for their participation. The final challenge involved constructing a satellite tower to broadcast a message to Earth.

Wow. Oh, my God. The brightest star in the universe. Winning stars on Mars was amazing, but the real prize was all the incredible friends I made. Not being cheesy. Just let me be earnest on Instagram for once, says Adam Rippen, 129 weeks ago. I am so grateful for all the time I got to spend filming this show. Just imagine that Adam is here.

I laughed. I cried. I won. Thank you to everyone who put so much work and made this crazy show of reality. The cast, the crew, everyone. Last but not least, I love you, William Shatner. He did. He got a patch.

Yeah. You got a patch. I mean, ultimately, you do that kind of thing for the experience of doing it, right? It's got to be. And you might say yes to that. I wouldn't be shocked if you said yes to that. Not right now, but like there's a version of me. Yeah.

For sure. There was a time when I like being on wipeout was a dream. Oh, God. Hank Green wanting to be famous. A subject for a future podcast. I don't think that wipeout is the path to feed. Thank you for potting with me. Thank you to everybody for listening.

You can email us your questions at Hank and John at gmail.com. This podcast is edited by Ben Swardout. It's mixed by Joseph Tuna Mettish. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Halse Rojas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Deboki-Jrock Rivardi. The music you're hearing now.

and at the beginning of the podcast is by the Great Gunnarola. And as they say in our hometown, Don't forget to be awesome.