Good Job, Brain! - 106: Life of the Party

Episode Date: April 15, 2014

Put on your party hats and loosen up that belt for some cake because we're nerding out about parties this week! Festive facts and celebratory stories about party rituals, inventions and more: Shakespeare Goes to a House Party music quiz, etymology of party words, Dana finds the first examples of party balloons (and it's gross), Karen wants to climb the traditional ham pole of Spain's La Tomatina tomato-throwing festival, and Colin explores the weird ritual of having live birds fly out of pies.  ALSO: GJB listener John wrote us an "Um, Actually..." theme song! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Ahoi, awesome alliance of alert and adorable attendees. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and off-be trivia podcast. This is episode 106. And of course, I am your humble host, Karen. And we are your bumbling but barely beastly bunch of brain buffs. I'm Colin. I'm Dana.

And know Chris this week. He is in Boston at Pax, Pax East, the video game convention. And he already told me that some good job brain fans already recognize it. Yeah. And said hi. So very, very cool. Before we start the show, we have a giant correction segment. Um, actually.

Um, actually. What you said just wasn't. true um actually do you mind if i correct you because actually factually and quite enthusiastically i was right and you were wrong that's exactly what inspired me to write this um actually song you were wrong we have a big um actually two episodes ago in our april fools episode Chris is not here. It was actually his mistake. That's why he's not here. He talked about some of the famous April Fool's jokes around the world, and one of them

was from a news segment. It was about the spaghetti farmers, and he said it was the Swedish spaghetti farmers, but actually it's the Swiss. And none of us caught it. No. It was kind of embarrassing, but at the same time, like, when I was fact checking it, when I was editing it, I was like, ah, it's Swiss. But I didn't want to take out the whole segment. because it was funny. Yeah, yeah. We apologize to two countries. Yes.

Whoops. So thank you guys for all your emails and posts telling us that we got it wrong. Thank you very much. All right. Then let's jump into our first general trivia segment. Pop quiz, hot shot. Here I have a random trivial pursuit card. Oh, no.

All right. And you guys have your barnyard buzzers. Are there pictures or something? I just see the first question. I was like, I'm going to botch this up. All right. So, Colin versus Dana. Here we go.

Oh, boy. Blue Wedge for Geography. I'm so sorry if I'm pronouncing this wrong. In what country is the town of landfair, Pula, Gala, Gila, Gila, Gila, Gowger, Chawano, Drobe, Willingogogos, located. Wow. I'm going to guess, based on, just on your laughter,

in the mangling wales. It sounds like a mangled Welsh name. Yes. Lots of L's and G. Lots of double letters. Do they have the correct pronunciation on there in parentheses? Oh, that's not helpful. I mean, I could have, I could have like researched it how to really pronounce it right, but I think that would, that's not random. Yeah, and you're not going to do that in the middle of your trivial pursuit game at home. It is Welsh for St. Mary's Church in the Hollow of White Hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Ticilio of the Red Caves. Very descriptive. It sounds like a Game of Thrones thing.

They want to make sure you don't confuse it with the next time. There's another one, not by a whirlpool, but by a moderate pool. All right. Pink Wedge for pop culture. Name two of the three Jonas brothers. Maybe together we can. Okay. Dana.

Nick and Joe. Nick and Joe. Oh, okay. That's all we had to do is two with the three, right? The only one I knew is Joe. The only one I knew was Joe. There's a Kevin. Kevin, Joe, and Nick.

All right. All right. Yellow Wedge. Name two of the four. There's a lot of name blank out of blank. Name two of the four U.S. presidents who have won a Nobel Peace Prize. Okay. We could do this together too.

Barack Obama, right. Bill Clinton. Did he win? No. Jimmy Carter? Yes. Yeah. For.

Nobel Peace Prize. Carter, Obama, maybe like, oh, Roosevelt? Yeah, like Theodore Roosevelt? Which one? Yes. And one last one. Woodrow Wilson.

Interesting. Oh, I guess that kind of makes sense. Yeah, yeah. That's a good list. Okay. Wilson, Roosevelt, Obama, Carter. Okay. I'm trying to see if I can come up with a mnemonic.

Yeah, cow R. No. Cow R. Crow. Crow. Cow arc. If only there were something that made more sense than cow arc. With the letter C.R. Oh, well. Yeah, we'll come back to that. Cal Arc. Carter, Roosevelt, Obama, Wilson. Okay. We have the Crow Nobel. All right. All right. I like that. Crowbell. Crow Bell. Crow Bell. Crow Bell Peace Prize. On the fly. We're just loosened up. Okay. Let's see. Purple Wedge. What structure did the Chrysler building surpass in 1929 as the tallest building is. in the world.

1929 surpassed. Oh, would it be Eiffel Tower? What do you think, Dana? We'll do a team answer. Was the Eiffel Tower the tallest? I guess it could have been. I mean, I know the Brooklyn Bridge was tallest for one point, for at one point. Hmm.

Although at Eiffel Tower. Sure. Since when are we voting? That's a team answer. It's more collaborative. It is the Eiffel Tower. Okay. And we actually have this once in trivia, which building is taller, the Eiffel Tower,

or the space needle. Right, in Seattle. And it's Eiffel Tower. I knew that. I got voted down. Yeah. We all thought, well, space needle is a more modern structure probably is. Yeah.

All right. Green wedge for science. When was the computer mouse patented? 1970, 1978, or 1984? Oh, I think it's the earliest. 70, 78, 84. I think it was like one of those like Xerox Park Lads. Yeah.

I would say that whatever the earliest one is. Yeah. You are correct, Colin, 1970. The first computer designed to use a mouse came out in 1973. Okay. All right. Last question. Orange Wedge for sports and leisure.

What popular toy was first introduced as the power drencher? The Super Soaker? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Of course. Must be. They're like, oh, guys, we're so close. Is there anyone we can get some alliteration in here?

Yeah. We just need some of some power drencher. Like, if you were going to make a knockoff, of the Super Soaker It would be the power Drencher. Yeah, the power drencher. That's great. Super Soaker, correct.

And we have a Lope Trotter question. Loeb Trotters are our fan club members who bought a fan club pack last year is from Liam. What was the Lucky Looney? This is actually a sports-related thing, so I don't know, Colin you've heard about it.

It does sound, I would agree with that. Because they're money. Looney, yes, Looney is a Canadian coin. Something with a duck if it's sports, is it? Something with Well, if you're giving me the sports clue, I'm going to go hockey. Correct. Okay.

Man, we're getting in probably like the most shallow area of my sports knowledge, which is hockey. I don't know. I think that's as far as we can get it. A lucky shot in a big game maybe or something. Is it like the coin flip? The coin is actually, it is referring to the coin. Oh, it is lucky. Oh, okay.

Oh, oh, oh, was this the coin flip for the team that got the rights to draft somebody or something like that? No. Okay, I don't know. I don't know. You were so exciting. I thought I was on to something. Okay. So in 2002, the Winter Olympics, there was for the hockey or for the rink.

They had a consultant, Dan Craig, and he's from Edmonton, Canada. Him and his whole team were there to be consultants. And what they did was they hid a coin, a loony coin. At first it was a dime, but it was a little bit too small to see. They hit a loony coin in the middle of the room. rank underneath the ice and didn't tell anybody about it except for the Canadian teams. That year, both men and women's team won. And so that coin was dug up. And then it was just got really popular. They even did reprints of the coin, even though it's just a loony. Right, right.

Because it was like, you know, sports and superstitious. Which is a $1 coin? Is that what that is? I think so. Yeah, because there's the Tooney, which is the $2. I like that. So that is the Lucky Looney, 2002 Winter Olympics. Which is probably somewhere in the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame today. No, they gave it to Wing Gretzky. Oh. They actually gave the coin, the actual coin, but they also remade a bunch of them. Nice.

The lucky loony. Well, thank you, Liam. That was a very Canadian heavy or hockey heavy fact. Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one. All right. So this week, there's a lot of stuff going on. There's Coachella, which is the music festival that's going on.

There's PACs, which is the video game stuff going on. Easter is coming up. It seems like it's a really festive time. So this week we decided to explore the world of partying and celebration and festivities. Spring break is coming up. Oh, spring break is coming up. That's true. So time to party.

Make up your mind, sweet baby. Right here, right now is all we got. A little party never killed nobody. We're going to dance until we drop. A little party never kill nobody Right here right now Is our weekend All right up

All right I will get us going With a little party for the brains, if you will It sounds super cool You party animal You You guys can do this as a team if you want Only two of you here We'll relax the rules a little bit

I've noticed that I was doing kind of just some brainstorming research as I always do for the show. And I noticed that a lot of party terminology are loan words or very common terms we get from other languages. So I've got a few choice select samples here for you. These are terms that we hear all the time that we may not know the meanings of. Oh, okay. From different languages.

From different languages. Well, from at least three languages, yes. Pinata. So we will get started here, warm up your brains together. So when you guys are invited to a party, often be asked to our. RSVP. So please, please enlighten us and tell us what does RSVP stand for? Responday, so close, very close. It's, it's, it's, repondé, repondé, yeah. But fair enough, I will absolutely give you guys. Please respond. I'll give you credit for that one. That's right. Repondes if you play, please respond. Unless otherwise stated on the invitation, you guys may or may not know, the really strict etiquette is, means respond either way. You know, it doesn't just mean, let me know if you're coming.

It means let me know if you're coming or if you're not coming so I can plan. Yeah. So like weddings. Weddings, especially, things like that. Formal. Yeah, if you're following like the really formal, you know, like we talked about Emily Post on the show. You know, she's like, it's like bad etiquette not to respond. Maybe or you say you're going and you don't show up.

Yeah. Because you're like, I'm too tired. Flakes. I feel like with like an internet. We're a generation of flakes. We should say, yes is, I don't want to look like a jerk by being in the no list. Yeah. I would say most of the people who's like, yes, show up.

I'm always like, that sounds fun. That sounds fun. Yes, I'll go. Yes, I go. And then Wednesday comes. I was like, I'm tired. There's like a 60% chance. Yeah, yeah.

It's better than 50-50. Horrible. So let's assume that you do, in fact, go ahead and attend that party. And you show up, it's a fancy party. And when you arrive, you are served with some hors d'oeuvres. All right. Get your, get your application. Appetate going there. So you guys, I'm sure, correctly assume that this is a French term. Correct. You're not getting points for that. You're not getting points for assuming it's French. It does. It does. I'll even spell it for you if you'd like. It's H-O-R-S-D-A-A-U-V-R-E-S. Okay, I know. So the question, as you can probably guess, is what does hors d'oeuvre mean in French? Okay, I think, oh no, that's ooves. I was like, I think it means egg.

It sounds like it, but it's not the same word. Oh, man, you know what? I know a moose-bouche. Uh-huh. I don't know what order is. It's mouth teaser. Yeah. You probably know, Oof.

You probably have heard of mouth pleasurer. So hors d'oeuvre means outside the main work. Outside the main dish. Outside, so if the main dish is the primary work of the meal, these are things aside from the main course. Which one is the work? Uv. Okay. Yeah, and then Oar is outside.

Yeah. Oh, okay. At New Year's Eve parties, particularly in English-speaking countries, there's a good chance that at the stroke of midnight, you'll hear people singing Alden Sign. Yeah. So tell me, what does Old Langsign mean? It's Latin. Yeah.

It's not Latin. It does sound Latin. I'll give you a little bit of it. It was written by Robert Burns, one of his most famous compositions. It's Scots. Okay. Something about the times? Yeah, yeah.

Of the times? I'll give it to you. I'll give it to you. It's like times gone by. Like days gone by. So poetic. Time's long ago. So in Scots, it would literally translate most closely.

Old Langs sign would be old long since. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Is it that song? That's the song. That's the one. I was sitting here. I was like, what song are they talking about? Which he kind of put the words to an existing tune.

You know, so it was like that that melody is an old melody that we sort of paired with our national anthem, right? Yeah, that's right. Star-Spangled Banner. Happy birthday, right? Yeah. Yeah. Existing tune, they put words to it. Also, yeah, exactly.

All right, last one. You might spot this item at a children's birthday party. And though it is usually associated with Mexican culture, the name itself is ultimately derived from an Italian word for pine cone. What am I talking? about Karen. Yes, pinata. Sorry, everyone in the beginning of the show, I was like, I know piñata. I'm pretty impressed, though.

You're right off the bat. Yeah, you knew pinata was going to be there. Well, so do you know pinatas used to not be like paper machet animals? Yes. They used to be a clay pot that kids would beat up. You are absolutely right. And it would shatter into a bunch of pieces with kids running around. Yeah.

That seems easier to break. Well, it's not glass. It's not like, you know, it's clay. But still. No, you were absolutely. fish through the candies through shards of like pottery? Yeah, no, the sort of the modern pinata that we have, like that practice was introduced to Mexico by the Spanish. The original practice, yeah, before they started getting fancier and more decorated was it would be a fairly simple, just kind of earth and wear clay pot.

Yeah. It seems like it's one of these things where like sort of the European Spanish style tradition meshed well with some existing traditions. Yeah. It sounds like a lot of cultures, I mean, it's sort of simple. A lot of cultures have some variation on the hitting. an object with treats inside celebration. One of the segments I was going to

talk about, I was going to do like a history of pin the tail on the donkey which I couldn't really find that much about it but a lot of different cultures have a similar game. And you know, we put the tail on the donkey but in Japan they put like eyebrows on the guy, you know.

And I was like, oh, that's funny. Of course there's a tradition where you beat the crap out of a thing to make candy And get something good out of the middle. Sure. All right. Well, well, well done, guys. Speaking of Mexican-Astect culture, they were the first people who made animal-shaped balloons. Whoa. But they would take out of, I'm afraid to ask out of what?

Guess. I mean, out of like intestin, it's got to be intestine. Okay. So from small animals and they had a special thread and they'd sew it up. And then they'd blow some air into it and twist it a bit and let it harden in the sun and then put more air in it and twist it more and let it harden. And because if you think about working with guts or grist it, it would be really hard to blow it up and twist it. And to ensure that it's like airtight. Yeah. And then they'd do some like religious rites with it. And they'd make them into the shape of dogs or some kind of like a special kind of donkey, which is awesome. I would imagine then the balloon animals back then, they're hard.

They're not flexible, bouncy. They're like, almost like a statue or like a sculpture. Or like a, yeah, like a paper mache almost. It sounds like. But it's a bladder that's been inflated in the future. What a fun child's toy. So the rubber balloons, though, where did those come from? They were, it was for scientific research.

Oh, really? This guy invented it. Like capturing vapors or something? He was doing experiments with hydrogen, the gas. And so he took some rubber and he made two rounds. He put some flour between them. He sealed the edges. And then he forced hydrogen into it and floated.

And he's like, whoa, look at that. And then the next year, they made balloons commercially available to people. There was a kit. And it had like a jar of rubber, liquid rubber and a syringe. Oh, weird. It wasn't until the late 1800s that they got it going. And you could get them from like Montgomery Ward's catalogs and became a huge novelty. Right around the Depression, actually, they started.

That's when they really started. You know what kids want captured air. It's like the cheapest. They're so neat. Yeah, they are. So the modern balloons, most of the rubber ones are actually made out of latex. And so you fill them out with helium, they leave the atmosphere. They freeze when they get into the really cold air.

Oh, really? And then they break up and become really thin spaghetti-like strips of, and then when they go to the ground, they're biodegradable. They're like pieces of leaves. Oh, that's good. So it's less terrible. All right. I'm going to start releasing even more balloons every day then. Because I think about when I go to Disneyland, which is a lot, I see.

all the kids like crying because they actually left the Mickey ear balloons out floating in the air. And I'm like, where do they go? They'll probably return to the earth at some point. But they freeze. That's interesting. That is really cool. I did that once as a kid. I wrote, with my dad's help, we helped me like, I wrote like a message. And like we like, you know, weatherproofed it and tied it to a helium balloon and just released it. And then, you know, it's like, if you find this, you know, call us, whatever. And then nothing happened. Of course, like, you know, we never heard anything about it again. It probably broke up until little people. pieces. Yeah.

Oh, the note. Yeah. The note did. Also, man, just the odds of, the odds of it landing, like, you know, yeah, near a human or. Who will entertain that. Yes. I don't want to do it. Some walrus somewhere. I'll let you know if I ever hear back from the balloon. I want to know. It's been, it's been, it's been over 20 years. I probably not going to hear back at this point. So I want to talk about a party that we probably are all familiar with, but like me, I've heard about it, but I don't know. know the details. It's coming up. It's going to be in August. Okay. And it's La Tomatina. Oh, yes. It's the tomato fight festival. Right. Yeah. Right. I've seen this on table. Where thousands of people join in throwing tomatoes at each other. And they just just trucks and trucks and trucks full of tomatoes. This is like on my bucket list. This is amazing. Like I one day I'm going to do it. So La Tomatina occurs in the town of Buneal, which is near Valencia.

So participants join in, and they basically just hit each other with tomatoes. And the whole street's just covered with smushed tomatoes and tomato juice. And people look so happy. All of their clothes are drenched, and red. It looks kind of bloody, but it's not all tomato juice. It's so fascinating. And there's so many other festivals that are kind of like this. Like, you know, kind of like a fight of mine.

There's a big water fight one in Thailand. In Thailand, there's Holy. The Indian one with the. cornstarch that's colored. Yeah, the color, the color festival. And so when I first read about the tomato festival, I thought it was like, oh, it must be some sort of religious thing because holy is. And the water fight one is too.

Actually, Tomatina, not religious at all. Oh, it isn't. It isn't. There's no real good origin story that's confirmed of how it started. One theory is there was like just a parade in the street. And there was this one guy who fell off afloat and got really. angry and there was a vegetable stand so in his rage he you know flipped over the stand and you know I don't know yeah I agree with Dana my my skepticism alert is up the other theory is

is even crazier there was like a another kind of town celebration or people are out in the square island streets and there are these uh vermin's eating some food or whatever and this one guy decided to throw a tomato to like shoe off the animal and and actually accidentally hit a guy, and the guy was like, what, you throw a tomato? I'm going to throw a tomato back. Oh, that does sound equally. I like that one better. Yeah. They both sound, they both sound really kind of weak explanations to me. Or really, it's just an excuse for a couple of kids to throw tomatoes age. It seems like that's kind of, how long has it been going on? It started around 1940s. Okay. So it's not super old. Not super. So it's not that traditional. Okay. And you might,

think it might be traditional it's like oh related to the harvest or something that was always my assumption like it evolved out of some you know tribute to some saint or some harvest festival and no no no so the next year i mean according to both theories the next year the same kids showed up and they started throwing they brought their own tomatoes this time and threw tomatoes at each other and just more people joined in and at first you know for the first probably decade the police had to break people up. It wasn't, it wasn't like, oh, this looks like a fun thing. It's like, no, you are posing threat and danger to people of this town. But people just kept showing up every year around this time and throwing tomatoes each other and just kind of grew and grew and grew.

Finally, in the 80s, late 70s, early 80s, the town was like, let's embrace this. It took 30 years. Yeah. For them to make it official. That's a long time. Yeah, it's a long time for them to miss out on cashing in on tourism. So the town hall. decided like, okay, this is going to be a town-sponsored event. We're going to organize it. This is how party day, tomato throwing day, this is the itinerary. Oh, okay. All right. I thought it was just a whole day of chucking tomatoes at each other. No, there's like a certain schedule. It would get old, I would think. Itinerary. 10 a.m. festivities begin with the first event of Tomatino, which is called, which is called the hampole. Sure. The Palo Yama.

The ham bone, right? Ham. Oh, the ham pole. Ham bone. Yeah. The pork product, ham. Uh-huh. The ham pole, of course.

Sure. It's a pole, like a flag pole that's greased up, and there's a ham on the top of the pole. And the goal is for people to climb the grease pole to reach the ham and make the ham fall to the ground. Okay. And that is sort of a common event at a lot of traditional festivals. A tall grease pole. A flag or something. Right, right.

You know, people are already drunk. They're dancing. They're singing, waiting for the ham to drop. It's like a ball and drop. The ham drops and that's the beginning of the tomato throwing. That signifies the start. When the ham hits the ground, it gets real. There is like sometimes a gun or some sort of sound effect.

I'd be like, okay, ham is, we have confirmed. Ham is on the ground. Repeat. They have tomatoes in trucks. already and everybody's gearing up and they start throwing tomatoes for exactly one hour one hour and exactly

one hour later they will signify that this is the time to stop and everybody stops so really depending on how good the ham catcher is or whatever the ham fall or the ham tipper you're probably done by noon you know honestly like an hour

a solid hour of like throwing tomatoes and being hit by tomatoes I'd probably be done as well yeah yeah then then they have water hoses and stuff where everybody for the whole street And it's a water party Right right Just giant bags of chips

Yeah Yeah You scrape it off of each other Scrape it off yourselves So well that's the thing Actually they're grown specifically For Tomatina For Tomitina

They're cheaper and they have a You know the taste is not as good as Right These are throwing quality tomatoes Yeah There are five main rules All right It's like Fight Club

First rule of tomato throwing club. Uh-huh. The tomatoes have to be squashed before you throw them. Oh. You cannot throw a fully whole tomato. You got to... Because that hurts.

Yep. You got to soften it up. Interesting. It's not allowed to just hurt people. Makes sense. It's also juicier when it hits them. It's better. Because if it just bounces off of you, it doesn't have the same.

Number two, no other projectiles except tomato are allowed. That's fair. You know, they just like, like, they had to, some jerk is, like, sticking, like, coins and rocks in like the middle of his tomatoes like no just tomatoes buddy there's a similar festival that where you throw oranges in italy i believe yeah i don't know if you have to yeah swash those but like tomatoes are are softer okay number three tomato fight club uh participants have to give way to the trucks and the trucks are huge they carry like uh i think the numbers are 150 000 tomato okay single tomatoes over 40 metric tons seems fair yeah stay out of the trucks don't get

In the traffic. Okay. Number four makes sense. Festival doesn't allow ripping off t-shirts. I can see that being a problem. Yeah. Like you get caught up in the mob frenzy. And you grab people.

Yeah. Now, does that also include like Hulk Hogan style? Like, can I rip off my own t-shirt? That is probably what it was for. It's like, keep your shirt on. Stop flexing. Yeah. Yeah.

Last rule of tomato fight club. After the second shot, signifying the end, no tomatoes. can be thrown right or you will get in trouble so in just the last year they actually had to limit the tomato festival because you know it was really it's fun it sounds super fun lots of tourists come and uh they had to finally limit the number of people so uh 5,000 tickets are allotted to locals of the town okay and then three times that 15,000 tickets allotted to foreigners wow so that just gives you a sense of how many tourists come to this small town and just to flood this one main street and hurl tomatoes at each other and now they even have like

an online kind of a buy your ticket online and stuff and now it's like you know sponsored by this brought you by Coca-Cola you know whatever but it seems like a fun party I think it's going to be on my on my bucket list nice if you have been to the tomato festival yeah let us know send us a photo yes sounds super fun maybe that's our next meetup who is a tomato what what That would be crazy. That'd be awesome. All right, let's take a quick break, a word from our sponsor. There are really many reasons to listen to our podcast, Big Picture Science.

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Party inventions. Yes. Okay. Inventions are things that you see at a party. To facilitate. party having. All right. I have one in particular.

I'm hoping that you'll talk about, but I'll wait. I'll see it. Yeah. All right. So here we go. It's all kind of scientific. That's where my mind is at. All right.

What party related item comes in various wits and sometimes features a concertina type hinge. Concertina. Item comes in various widths. I was thinking disco ball, but I don't know. Concertina is a type of instrument. The piano? Different width. Hinge, like the little noisemakers party hat.

Different widths. Different wits is what's throwing me. It is a drinking straw. Oh, it's the little bindi straw. It's the bendi straw that what the industry calls in articulated straw. We call it a bendi straw. That type of hinge, the little accordion style. Concertina is a accordion.

Oh, accordion. Right. Ah, of course. Called a concertina type hinge and it comes in various wits and they have different numbers assigned to the wits. Usually they're describing millimeters. Okay. And so you have something, standards is like 2.5 or 3 to like up to 15, which is kind of like a bigger than a boba straw. Okay.

So many, many wits. All right. Next question. So the Pillsbury Company, famous for their crescent rolls and frozen cookie dough. and other frozen or ready-made baked goods and do-boys. Yep, yep. They have the dough boy as the company mascot. What is his name?

Oh. Isn't it Poppin Fresh? Yes. Oh, my God. I read this. I was like, he has a name. That's right. Pillsbury Do-Boy.

Poppin fresh. Popin' fresh. No G. Popin apostrophe. And they have like, like, they use that in the commercials, right? Like Pop-in-Fresh dough or Pop-in-Fresh rolls or something. I think they used it. more in maybe the 80s or 90s and in the States.

It sounds very 90s. Yeah. Pop and fresh. Oh, it wasn't like a hip hopped thing. It was like. Put some little sunglasses. It wasn't like popping and locking in a fresh way. It was like.

Like the rolls are pot. They're popping. Yeah. Can you do the dough boy impression? Uh-huh. He-he. I thought it was. I thought it was he-he.

We're like freaking people. Yeah. All right. We'll stop making that noise in their ears. Like all the animals. The cat, the cat's looking at us. like, what are you guys doing? All right.

Next question. What decorative item is an example of demonstrating the fluid mechanics phenomenon called the RT instability. I have a hint. Oh. Okay. The RT instability is an interface between two fluids of different densities that occur when the lighter fluid is pushing out the heavier fluid.

Dana. Lava lamp. Yes. The lava lamp. All right. Last question. Time out London. a list of 100 ultimate party songs.

Okay. The song in the number one spot features 19 uh-ohs and 14 consecutive all rights and its titular holler 25 times. What song is this? Ah, okay, holler. It's a party song. And it says all right. And Anna. So the title comes up 25 times.

Oh, is it everybody dance now? 19 uh-ohs And 14 consecutive All right No All right All right All right

Number one party song You hear it And you just want to dance It's got to be something That's just like What is it? Hey Yeah

Oh All right All right Yeah Yeah It goes into Outcasts That is

That's the number one Party song Established by Timeout London Got it All right There you go That's my little

mini party quiz Excellent Good quiz So we talked a few episodes ago, I think, about the nursery rhyme. Sing a song of Sixpence, you know, because Dana, like, you know, you were talking about specifically how there was a story that it was a pirate recruiting song. We sing a song of Sixpence. A pocket full of rye. Four and twenty Blackbirds baked in a pie.

Yeah, it was like a pirate message. That's what Snopes planted. Yeah. And, like, they planted it like as a way to troll. People were stealing their information. Aside from that, there are actually a. number of theories about what exactly this children's rhyme means, you know, that, oh, it's an allegory for political conflict or it's connected with the Reformation and that although the

verses are full of meanings. I'm not going to talk about what we know it isn't. I'm going to talk about what we do know. And what we do know is that in the past, at fancy dinner parties, it was indeed a real thing to serve a pie with live birds inside. Oh my God. You know, just for fun. cut it open and birds fly out. That's like, you know, having the sexy girl on the birthday cake and they pop out. Like, oh, that's so weird. It is kind of like that. You're right.

But it's gross. You didn't bake the cake with the girl in it, though. Yeah, how does that work? Are they baking the pie with the live birds in it, like slightly? Are they bruleying the top? I will tell you exactly how they would pull off this feed. So there's one particularly famous example that's cited. Is this from a cookbook?

Well, yes, this is from a cook. book. This is from an Italian cookbook in the mid-1500s. It was translated into English in 1598 and offers quite detailed instructions on how to pull off this prank pie. Essentially, what the prank would be is prank. What the serving is, you bake a tiny, real little pie, smaller than a normal pie, and you get that along with some real birds inside of a larger shell. So you cut it open, the birds fly out, but then there still is at least something in the middle for you to eat. When it's covered with bird poo. I know.

I don't want to eat a pie that, like, weird way of birds have been standing on. Birds in distress have been marching over. Stressing out pooping. What can be more sanitary? I mean, so here are some, here are some selections from the recipe, quote, to make pies that the birds may be alive in them and fly out when it is cut up. And I'll summarize the intro to the recipe. Basically, you start with a larger-than-normal pie shell, which they call a coffin. Okay.

Pre-baked. Yeah. And the recipe, I'm quoting here, then having a pie of the bigness of the hole in the bottom, aforesaid, you shall put into it round about the aforesaid pie as many small live birds as the empty coffin will hold besides the pie aforesaid, which he's referring to the small real pie that you would have made. Stuff as many birds in there as possible and fit the small pie. Okay. Yes.

And this is to be done at such time as you send the pie to the table. So right before you're serving. You know, you know, they're not hanging on. You minimize the time in there. And set before the guests where uncovering or cutting up the lid of the great pie, all the birds will fly out, which is to delight and pleasure show to the company. The birds like attack. You shall cut open the small pie.

And in the sort, you may make many others and serve as you would a tort. So it's like, sorry I scared you with the birds. Here's the real pie inside. All right. Sure. Why the hell are people baking birds into pies? Like, why is this even a thing? Why are you going to the efforts of pranking your guests like this?

And I did a little bit of research into this. And I admit, the whole thing still sounds rather absurd. And it is. But it makes a little more sense in a larger context. Okay. All right. So if you were attending, like, a fancy dinner party in Europe, you know, like nobility or royals or just well-to-do people in the medieval era, you know, up even into the early Renaissance,

you would frequently have many courses. And between the courses, they would often have what are called entremes, which is from an old French term, meaning between servings, between courses, entremes. And the idea of the entomé was entertainment food. Okay. Entertainment food. What else? So these are things, you know, to amuse you, do you have a little bit of snack of some kind?

And, you know, they think originally it probably just started as like really colorful or fanciful looking things. things, you know, like maybe a little dessert or something brightly colored to kind of just grab your attention, cleanse the palate. But it got a little bit more elaborate and a little bit more elaborate and more and more spectacle. So, Karen, you asked like, what were some of the examples? A very common example was disguised foods.

Okay. So a lot of the enthramint were really focused on foods made to look like one thing but taste like another. Oh, okay. Like meatloaf cake. Tofurkey. Yeah. Yeah.

Like the meatloat cake. Like, so you might have some sweet, something really dessert like or bretti made to look up like a savory or a roast chicken or something. That's awesome. You might serve the meat of one animal stuffed into the skin of another animal. So turduck in. They would do elaborate things with birds like swans or peacocks even where you would cook it, dress it, get all the meat prepared, and then refit it with the original plumage.

So it's wheeled out to you, sort of looking lifelike with the plumage, but it's cooked. There would be a lot of little scenes created, you know, like that had particular meaning to the host or maybe the guest of honor. You know, it might be a recreation of a castle or a recreation of a little battle scene, you know, all made out of food. Like a diorama. Like a diorama that you could eat. Some of the most intriguing examples to me, like they sound like something out of a mad magazine version of Game of Thrones. Like, they're just silly. So my personal favorite is a scene that's brought out.

It's a roasted chicken, suited up to look like a medieval knight. So, okay, a roasted chicken complete with little paper helmet, little paper lance, riding a roasted piglet, like a horse. Ew. That's a riding into battle. Like anything else involving nobility and people with money showing off and trying to one up each other, it just escalated to extreme heights. It really was about the entertainment value and a very common requirement. thing that would be done would baking things into pies. Did they

put other animals in the pies? Oh, yeah. Like cats? It could be as big as you wanted to make the pie. It was reported that at a reception in the 17th century, the Duke of Buckingham had prepared for his guests a fake pie concealing

Jeffrey Hudson, who was a famous little person at the time among the courts of Europe and was friends with the guests that the Duke was celebrating... This is where the sexy girl from the birthday you come from.

Yeah, you know what? I think that's probably the closest thing to the sexy lady popping out of the cake is Jeffrey Hudson popping out of a pie at a celebration by the Duke of Buckingham. Yes. So I think in that larger context,

four and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie. I'm like, yeah, you know what? NBD. I believe it. I believe it. They didn't even bake them in there. Yeah, they were not baked in. That's right.

Which explains how they could still be alive and fly out. Yeah. Wow, that's weird. Yeah. Cool. So keep that in mind next time you hear that nursery rhyme. A lot of time in their hands. Yeah. It feels really good to be productive, but a lot of the time it's easier said than done, especially when you need to make time to learn about productivity so you can actually, you know, be productive. But you can start your morning off right and be ready to get stuff done in just a few minutes with the Inc. Productivity Tip of the Day podcast. You'll hear advice on everything from how to build confidence to how to get the best night's sleep. New episodes drop every weekday, and each one is five minutes or less, so you only have to

listen a little to get a lot more out of your weekdays. Listen and subscribe to Inc. Productivity Tip of the Day, wherever you get your podcasts. That's Inc. Productivity Tip of the Day, wherever you get your podcasts. And speaking a lot of time on their hands, I had a lot of time in my hands because in our final party quiz I've brought back Shakespeare goes to a house party. Oh yeah. The the premise of this quiz is I have

written, I've picked famous big party song hits like when you go to a house party they might be playing the song and what I did is I wrote them into all except one into Shakespeare and Elizabethan English couplets. Okay. And I have

a William Shakespeare reading them back with some fresh beats. Yay. And you guys will listen to what I wrote and try to name the line of the lyric. You can name the song or the artist you want, but specifically it is alluding to a famous line of a famous party song. Awesome. Okay. And see if you can identify them.

Here we go. Let's start with the non-rhyming, probably the easiest one. So everybody gets a flavor of it. Here you go and buzz in with your answer. Tis mine banquet And ball with sorrow Mine I shall Oh

It's my party And I'll cry if I want to Yes Who's saying that? Was that? Leslie Gore Tis mine banquet And ball with sorrow

Mine I shall It's my party And I cry if I want to Next one you there good lad not any reason for lament i say good lad kneel up from that pavement oh oh you guys are quick it's YMCA yeah yeah young man there's no need to feel down I said young man pick yourself off the ground yeah yeah yeah you there good lad not any reason for lament. I say good lad.

Kneel up from that pavement. Nice. Okay, this next one was a weird line of lyric. We'll see if everybody gets it. All right, here we go. A jug of whiskey on my fangs. It will clean and burn. For when tis

time to pot this evening, I shan't return. Dana. Is this Kesha? Yeah. Oh! The line is Brush my teeth with a bottle of jack

Because when I leave for the night I ain't coming back Whist you on my fangs Yeah I was like I was like well bottle of jack I guess that's a jug of whiskey Yeah I didn't really have I like it's fangs though Because I didn't want to say teeth right

So that's this thing when I when I write these I'm not doing one to one like I'm never going to repeat the words You gotta make us work for it Yeah All right next one I beckon thee Let sweetness cascade down mine's skin Tis your affection

I desire within Is it Oh man Is this a deaf leopard To pour some sugar on me? A pour some sugar on me Yes Poor sauce shit

On me Nice All right, and last one, probably my favorite one. Here we go. The air hath ripen, feverish in these parlors. I say, disrobe thine ensemble of coats and collars. It's Nellie, hot in hair. Hot in her.

off all your clothes. I try to make these all rhymes. That was good. That was good. The rhyme into rhyme. Yeah. It pays off. I like laments and pavement.

That was good. Thank you. All right. Well, you guys did very well that Shakespeare goes to a house party. Thanks to William Fakespeare. And that is our show. We'll be back next week with Chris in hand.

In hand? No. Thank you guys for joining me. And thank you guys listeners for listening to our show. You can find us on iTunes, on Stitcher, on SoundCloud. and also on our website, Goodjobbrain.com. And we'll see you guys next week.

Bye. on Alarick of the Bissigoths, Enemy of My Dreams. Amanda Boucher, best-selling author of The Kingmaker Chronicle, says, quote, this book has everything, high stakes action, grit, ferocity, and blazing passion. Julia and Alaric are colliding storms against a backdrop of the brutal dangers of ancient Rome. They'll do anything to carve their peace out of this treacherous world

and not just survive, but rule. Enemy of my dreams is available wherever books are sold. Thank you.