Good Job, Brain! - 117: We Love the 90s

Episode Date: July 1, 2014

EXTREME!!! Pull out your Dunkaroos and dive into the artificially colored frosting of 90's trivia: fads, foods, music and more! 90's snack food facts, Ninja turtles, and famous firsts in TV, movies, and world news. Slap on some knowledge about the invention and science behind the slap bracelet. And walk down memory lane as we discuss the omnipresent activist ribbon explosion, and the Y2K hysteria. And test your pop knowledge with the ultimate boy band quiz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, bodacious booze, baldwins, and betties. Welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode 117. And of course, I'm your humble host, Karen. and we are your sonic speeding, clueless, catching, Hansen Humming 90s nuts. I'm Colin. I'm Dana.

And I'm Chris. It's like I'm right back in the 90s. All right, let's jump into our first general trivia segment. Pop Quiz, Hot Shot. Here I have a random Trivial Pursuit card. You guys have your morning radio zoo, morning zoo radio buzzers. Here we go, Blue Wedge for Geography. Name five of the 80s.

U.S. states that start with the letter M and go around the table. Collin, you can start. Minnesota. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Missouri. Ding, ding, ding. Massachusetts.

Dany, ding. New Mexico. No. Tanger. What do we have so far? We had Minnesota, Michigan, Maine, Missouri, Massachusetts. Montana.

Montana. And Maryland. And Maryland. Everybody always forgets Maryland. Um, actually, you guys also forgot to say Mississippi. All right. Pink Wadge for pop culture. What instrument does billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffett play? Multiple choice?

Oh, good. Clarinet, trombone, or the ukulele. Oh, Colin. I believe it's the clarinet. Incorrect. Boing, Chris. Yucalelele. It is the ukule.

Everybody plays the ukulele. He's such a hipster. Yeah. That Warren Buffett. Okay, Zoe Day Chanel Buffet. When you have that much money, you can get away with it. With this pork pie hat. Make fun of my tiny guitar.

I dare you. I can buy and sell you. Sitting on a pile of money. All right, Yellow Wedge, in 1910, about what percentage of Americans, age 25 or over, had college degrees? In 1910. How many over 25-year-olds have college degrees? Multiple choice. Oh, thank goodness.

3% 10% or 16% Colin I'll say 3% It is 3% Note here says by March 2007 This figure had risen to 29%

All right Purple Wedge What's Simpsonian Simpsonian? Simsonian Simsonian Expression made it to the new Oxford dictionary of English in 1998

Chris Don't Yep, Doe, D-A-Postrophe O-H. Homer's catchword is defined as, quote, used to comment on an action perceived as foolish or stupid, end quote. Hardcore Simpsons fans, of course, of course.

We'll know that famously in the scripts for the show, it's transcribed as annoyed grunt. Oh, yeah. So Homer's do is annoyed grunt. Interesting, not spelled out as dough. Right. All right. Greenwed for science,

What doesn't, oh man, pronounce you, anemometer measure. Anamometer. Oh, anemometer. Anamometer. Man. Is that wind speed? It is wind speed. Okay.

Not see anemeter mes. That's what I thought. How do you pronounce it again? How big is this anemometer. Anamometer. Anamometer. Anamometer. How do you spell?

A-N-E-M-O-meter. Oh, okay. Annamameter All right Orange wedge, last question Which is not a color Of one of the Olympic rings Oh

So we should know this Actually, this is really easy Can you name me all five colors Of the Olympic rings Bludgeoning your bladder Gets it red Yes So blue, yellow, black, green, red

Yes Was I here for that? I don't think I remember that bludgeoning your bladder gets it red. Yeah. That's a Karen shoe original. Wow. Makes sense.

And true. Yeah, and true. What were the choices that the card listed? Black, blue, red, silver, or yellow. Yeah. Duh. Yeah. There are no gray ones.

They're no gray ones. So there you go. Well, good job, Brains. Oh, good job. Remember that mnemonic. Available for free at good job, brain.com. No charge for the first mnemonic. We give you that one for free.

We give a bunch for free. That's right, yeah. In fact, all of them, all of the mnemonics. No, no paywall mnemonics. No. So today's show, I'm very excited. I'm very excited because it's about the 90s, my favorite decade. I was a kid of the 90s.

I think you guys are too. You were a girl to woman. Yeah. Right, right, right. I was a tiny kid in the 80s, but I... I feel like you guys are more children of the 90s. Yeah, I would identify more as an 80s kid. But 90s was a...

It was a strange decade. It was very extreme. Lots of pop culture, lots of different things happening. So today our episode is about 90s trivia and 90s stories and walking down memory lane. To the max. Extreme. This is how we do. This is how we do.

I will start us, oh, this is how we do it. It's Friday night, and I feel right. The party is... I will start us off here. I will go first, and appropriately enough for this quiz, this quiz is called number one in the 90s. Oh. Okay. So this will be all about things that were either number ones or firsts or led their particular category of what have you.

Number one in the 90s. So here we go. Please get your buzzers ready. And here we go. In 1996, this natural disaster movie was the first feature film released on DVD. Whoa. Oh, geez. Karen.

Natural, oh, natural disaster. Does Armageddon count? It was not Armageddon. I would count it, though, to answer your question. But it was not Armageddon. That was 1998, I believe. Chris. Oh, that was David.

Dana. Is it Twister? It is Twister. Yes. First movie. First feature film released on DVD. Huh. It also has the perhaps ignominious distinction of being the last film released on HD DVD.

When HDD. Oh, really? Lost the format wars to Blue Way. Yeah. Interesting. This TV show was the highest rated series for the Fox Network in the 19th 1990s. And I'll give you a hint. It was not The Simpsons. Karen.

Beverly Hills 90210. Incorrect. Chris. Melrose Place. Incorrect. What was the first part of the question? This was the highest rated series in terms of like Nielsen, year-end ratings. Highest rated series for the Fox Network in the 1990s.

It was the first Fox show to crack the year-end top 20. Oh. It's a cult hit, Dana. X-Files? It was the X-Files. Oh, sure. Yes, year-by-year, X-Files was their biggest hit. Wow.

So 90s. So 90s. In addition to being good for David Dukovny, the 90s were a great time for what I kind of call the high-volume novelists. Yeah. What does that mean? They crank out novels at a superhuman speed. Right, right. They may or may not be.

Okay, they had ghostwriters. I think some of these names, at least, were doing most of the writing for themselves. Stephen King and John Grisham each had, they each had eight New York Times number one bestsellers in the 90s. It's like a whole ten years? Yeah. Wow.

See, where you're like, hmm, okay. But this author had them both beat. This author had 12 number one New York Times bestsellers in the 1990s. Novelist? Dana. Coons? Not Coons. Good news.

Yes. Novelist? Yes. Okay, not like comic book artists. Right, right. 12 number one New York Times best-sells. James Patterson. James Patterson. Not a bad guess as well, not James Patterson.

Chris. Michael Crichton. Also, not a bad guess. Daniel Steele. It was. Danielle Steele. Yes. Ladies love their love books.

They really do, and she could really crank them out. Crichton, I forgot. Oh, yeah, that's right. Grisham and Crichton. Yeah, the other big name, you guys, Tom Clancy, also. 90s really good for him. Yeah. So as impressive as 12 number ones in the decade was,

uh, she did not accomplish what this author did, which is three New York Times number one bestsellers in the same year in 1999. Chris. J.K. Rolling. Absolutely correct. 90s.

That's right. 1999. She had Harry Potter in the Chamber of Secrets. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone and Harry Potter and the prisoner. of Ascommandum. Yep. Because it all just kind of hit last year of the 90s. Yep. Just rolling in the money.

Not that she did not write them all that year. J.K. She launched, the Harry Potter series, got launched from obscurity into stardom that year. Right. And people bought the older books. Yep. Yep. And they just sort of, the popularity of one laddered right into the next one.

Yep. Yep. The 90s, of course, were also very good for James Cameron and Stephen Spielberg. Yes. Between them, they directed four. of the 10 year-end highest-grossing movies of the 1990s. Can you guys name all four? And you can team up, if you like.

Okay, well, Titanic. James Cameron and Steven Spielberg? James Spilbert? Let's go around. Titanic. Titanic? Yes, 1997. Jurassic Park? Jurassic Park, yes, 1993.

Independence Day? No. No. Not, yeah. 94 is not. Stephen Spielberg. Wait, two of James Cameron and two of Spilbert? Two each.

Yeah. Oh, is there an alien movie in there somewhere? Not an alien. There was a sci-fi franchise. in there 1999 Oh, not abyss 1991 was Terminator 2

Oh, wow Yeah, that was the 90s Yeah, what's the last one? And last one 1998 War movie Oh, saving private Ryan saving private Ryan

That's right Amistod I forgot that he did that one Yeah Yes, millions and millions And millions of dollars later What was special About the 1994

Winter Olympic Games held in Lilahommer, Norway. What did they... What changed maybe in the way they ran the Olympics? Oh. Was that the year when they were not the same year as the Summer Olympics? That is correct. Yeah. Davis got it.

1994 was the first year when they started staggering the winter and summer. They used to be in the same year? They were always in the same year until 1992. So, 1992 with the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, and the Winter Olympics in Alberta. Ville, France, they decided to give, basically to give the games more time to prepare, and quite frankly, a way to make more money was to stagger them. So they got on opposite schedules.

So they had another one two years later, just the Winter Olympics in 94. I like the staggered. Yeah. So the first one that was not in the same year as a Summer Olympics. Cool. This recording artist had the most Billboard number one hit songs of the 1990s with 14 hits. Karen.

Mariah Carey. You are correct. Yeah. Wow. Maria Carrey, yeah. More than the next two combined. Jenna Jackson had six. Boys to Men had five.

Yeah, Mariah Carey, just in terms of Billboard Hits, just owned the 90s. She killed it. Yep. Yep. According to the Social Security Administration, the number one boy name for babies born from 1990 to 1999 is Michael. I'll give you that one. I'll give you that one. Michael was most popular name. By a good margin over number two, which was Christopher. Okay. So Michael, most popular boy's name. Tell me what was the most popular name for girls. And I'll give you a multiple choice here. Unless someone wants to

just take a stad right out of the dark. Chris. Jennifer. That's what I was going to say. It is not. So tell me, was the most popular name for babies born in the U.S. in the 90s? Jessica, Ashley. Emily or Sarah. I know. Sarah. It is not Sarah. No, really. Jessica.

It is Jessica. I knew so many Jessica's and Jennifer's. Yeah. A lot of Jessica's in the 90s. All right. Last one. Here we go. They're obviously still quite popular today,

but the 90s was just boom times for Starbucks coffee. In 1996, Starbucks opened their first location outside North America. Oh. In what city? Chris. Tokyo Japan. It is Tokyo Japan.

Is it the Shibuya crossing one? I'm not sure if it's exactly one. Probably wasn't that one to start off. First one in 96. Today there are over a thousand just in Japan. Oh, yeah. Yeah, more than 23,000 worldwide. Yeah, it's my understanding that that Shibuya Crossing one,

which is the one you've seen, the massive, like, crosswalk in Japan where all the people rush across it is huge. Right, right. There's one there. And, I mean, this is certainly true. They only sell one size of beverage because it's so popular and so heavily traffic. Oh, so it's put down. Yep.

Just keep people moving through. It's just tall, I think, or possibly Grande. I think it's just tall. All right. So we are now mentally transported back to the right decade. So I think for me in 90s and being a kid in 90s and was kind of the convergence of supermarketing and kids stuff and food. Snack food in the 90s was pretty extreme.

There was a lot of experimentation. There was a lot of marketing force behind it. Different shapes and forms. So I'm going to just list out some of the things I remember. And I keep in mind, I lived in a different country and I still got a lot of these Americanized, like, 90s stuff. And let's see if we remember some of these things. Do you guys remember clearly Canadian?

Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. We had that in my house for sure. Was that the sparkling water with, like, three? It was not sparkling. It was soda. It was soda, but clear. Oh, really?

Yeah. But it was sugary. Oh my gosh. So sweet. Oh. It really did, though. You're right. I mean, like, yeah.

I vaguely remember it is like, oh, it's like flavored sparkling water. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's not. It's actually soda. It is really just soda. With a lot of sugar. Ha ha ha. We definitely drank those in my house.

You're like, oh, it's Canadian. The water must be fresh. Yeah. Fruit flavor is so healthy. No. It was operated by its own beverage company. It wasn't owned by like Snapple or co-cola. It was really from a Canadian company.

Oh, okay. They also released, I don't know if you remember, Orbits. Oh, yeah. Those balls. Which was a drink with suspended balls. Yeah. Jelly balls. It was not good.

No. Everybody bought like a bottle of Orbits because we had, it was the thing. You had to try it. Yeah. But no, it was just gross. Why would you drink it? Sadly, clearly Canadian, you know, didn't do so well after a couple years. But in 2013, now they have a crowdfunded.

campaign to bring it back. I like the Loganberry. You can go online. You can commit to buy a case. Oh, man. I love that you have such specific memories of the one flavor. Yeah. It was the, yeah.

They want to hit a certain number for production, and they'll start producing, and they'll ship it to your place. Fruit by the Foot. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Super 90s. I remember having Banjo-Kazooey video game codes printed on the paper, and so you'd want to eat.

Food by the foot. Is this still around? Still around? Okay, yeah, yeah. My sister used to, because the rappers have the inches on them, and that was how she kind of understood what a foot was. Like, she'd use it and be like, oh, like a foot. Right.

Usually one roll of fruit by the foot is? Three feet. Three feet? Three feet. So really, it's foot by the yard. A lot of artificial coloring as a gimmick. Do you guys remember, tricks yogurt? Yes.

It's half of the yogurt is like green and half the color is, blue and you eat. Oh, it was, oh, it was yogurt. It was colored. A cup of yogurt. Oh, okay. It wasn't like, um, trick cereal with yogurt flavored bits in there. No, no, no, it was actually a cup of yogurt. That's stupid. That's stupid. That was purple. Yes. Purple. Yes. Crazy flavored cat or colored ketchup. Um, yeah. I read this, I've never seen this before. Maybe you guys heard of it. Pop quiz popcorn. Quiz spelled QW. IZ. Of course. It's by Pop Secret, which is one of the microwave was on the bag. It's, um, it's colored popcorn. It's, it's colored popcorn. in your microwave.

You get, like, green popcorn, and then there's one of the packets is a mystery color. I don't know the color until you put in the microwave. That's cool. Never seen it. But I saw the commercials very 90s. Dunkeroo's, I remember. Oh, were those the little chocolate, the graham crackers? Cookies?

That you would dip in the chocolate. With frosting. Oh, man. It was just a vehicle for frosting. They still have those. It was like the, where they'd sell you, like, the crackers that you dip in peanut butter, but it was like they sell you a cookie that you dip in frosting. And it's extreme

because there's like a skateboarding kangaroo with a backwards baseball hat and sunglasses. Yeah. You know he's cool. And this I've never seen and I wish I was here in America to taste it and to put in my body

hostess Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pies. Oh, I'm sorry you missed it. Filled with Turtles. Greenoes. Vanilla pudding power It is What does that have to do with Minda Turtles? So it's a pie

The outer crust has a green frosting on it So it's turtally And inside is vanilla pudding Like their guts or something? Yeah Where's this metaphor? Am I eating the turtles or is this? I do want to say

Growing up in the 90s Teenage Mutin Ninja Turtles was such a big part of Karen's life Like, I watched all the cartoons. I would draw Ninja Turtles on my free time. Which one were you? I was a Mikey. I was definitely Mikey.

Everybody was. Everybody wants to be Mikey. What? I was Donatello. What? Yeah, exactly. But did you like Donatello growing up? But probably I was more like Raphael.

You know what I mean? I could see that. You're very good. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You're cool but rude. Right. Yeah.

I'm a party dude. Growing up, I did not know, Teenage Meant Ninja Turtles was a comic before the show. It was a very dark comic. Eastman and Laird. Eastman and Laird. Really gritty. Black and white.

Basically what happened was a licensing agent approached them and was like, hey, have you guys thought about making these figures into toys? And then that's when the giant market machine kind of swooped in and was like, okay, we're going to make lines of toys, and then we're going to have this company make into a TV cartoon. And it just became so separate from the original comic. It just became like He-Man and all of the Saturday cartoons. It became a marketing machine to sell toys to kids and other licensing deals, including so many Ninja Turtle food tie-ins. Here is a list of a curated list.

There's a lot of stuff. I'm just picking up the really weird ones. Abridged. There's something called TMNT Cracks. For kids. For kids. Goldfish crackers shaped like Ninja Turtle

characters and Shredder's one of the shapes too because kids call them cracks I call crackers Crackers Packer is like I'm a crack's head

Yeah I love my cracks You was a little kid guy Hey dad Guess I'm a cracks We're taking these back to the store right now Cracks Of course

It came in pizza flavor And cheese flavor Naturally Sure. There's also pizza Crunchabungas. Perfect. What's going on?

Pizza-flavored corn snacks in the shape of pizzas. Wow. Just in case the kids don't get it. Yeah, that is an MC-Echer. Pizza flighted corn snacks. There were cookies. Chef Boy already had Teenage Moon Ninja Turtle pasta

where the little turtle heads. There was cereal that came with a pouch of green ooze syrup topping for your sugary cereal. Oh, my God. The green ooze really was a big help, right? I mean, the fact that they got coated in ooze to become the mutant ninja turtles, like then they could just incorporate that into every food. But the 1990s, 90s were the low-fat era.

It was the era of, oh, just as long as you're not consuming any fat, you're okay. So everybody was like, all right, I'll just eat all the sugar. Twizzler is low in fat. Right. You're like, well, yeah. It was never the fat of the cookies. That was the problem. Yeah, right.

There you go. Trip down memory lane of some snacks we probably ate as kids. I would like to talk about another fad of the 1990s that I did not in any significant way participate in. But that touched all of our lives, and that is, of course, the slap bracelet. Oh, literally touch all of our lives. Yeah, it slapped all of us on the wrist. Did you not play with them? I think I had, I probably had a slap bracelet, but I mean, I never did you guys,

like get into it. I was a little too old. You were, yeah. Yeah, because that was very much a, it came out in the 90s. I spent many an afternoon just like slapping it on and off, like, while I watched TV. I was like, yeah, this was my pre-i-phone game kind of activity to do while I, pre-caddy-watch TV. Well, it was that, it was a thrilling combination of fashion and toy. So slap bracelets are very, very simple. You have a, a curved ribbon

of steel, and you have a cloth covering, and basically, just in case you're like with a one person listening to the show has never encountered it before, it's sort of a straight piece of steel, but then when you bend it, it immediately snaps into a coil. And so if you slap it on the top of your wrist, it immediately kind of goes from being straight to wrapping around your wrist like a bracelet. They were invented by a shop teacher, a high school shop class you know, teacher. A guy's name was Stuart Anders. And they were actually invented.

He invented them in 1983. Oh. He never productized it until the 90s. And it was picked up as a product by Main Street Toy. And this was a company that was based in Simsbury, Connecticut. Oh. And it was founded by former executives of, what do you think? Connecticut.

Calico? Colico. Founded by former Calico executives. Now, these guys, having been burned by the. The boom and bust of cabbage patch kids had learned a lot of lessons about don't tie up too much of your money in overhead. Like, don't have super expensive products that as soon as people decide they don't want to buy cabbage patch kids anymore, you go out of business. So Main Street Toy was really looking to be like a lean, mean organization with those lessons they had learned from Colico. And they wanted to find inexpensive toys that they could make, you know, cheaply that kind of limited their risk, limited their exposure.

but, you know, could potentially be a big hit. This is like the opposite end of Cabbage Patch Kids. Exactly. Yep. Right. And so they kind of, they found Stuart Anders's invention because he had basically tried to shop it around to people. So I seemed to remember when I was a kid, my dad had a, like a yardstick. Yeah.

That was a three foot long, essentially that steel ribbon thing. And my sister and I would just play with it like a toy, but it was very clearly, like, I remember when SnapRaclets came out, I'm like, oh, that's the same, it's the same phenomenon. This is what he invented. Yeah, because, in fact, it is, if you think about it, the same thing that's in your role of measuring tape, for example, right? It's just, it's a curved, you know, ribbon of steel. There's actually DIY videos, how to make a slap bracelet with measuring tape. You just cut it off, and you do have to work it a little bit.

Yeah. The natural state is curled, coiled. What's actually fascinating about this is it is what is known as a bi-sense. stable structure. Slap bracelets are a commonly used example of a bi-stable structure, which means that it is stable in two states. Your light switch is probably a bi-stable mechanism. It wants to be either up or down. It doesn't like to be half up, half down. It will snap back into that state. And that is what is so fun about the snap bracelet, because it goes from rigid to immediately coiling. It wants to be in one of those two states, and those are the states in which it is stable.

It's a ballpoint pen is also a bi-stable mechanism. It wants to either clicked or unclipped, and it does not like being in between those two states, but it will go to one of them. So, Main Street Toy Company picks up the slack bracelet, and they showed it at the Toy Fair in 1990, and they had totally planned on releasing it. But after Toy Fair, they realized that the steel they were using was, thin enough that it actually could cause injury

because the edge of it could cut somebody especially if they were to take off the cloth covering so they delayed the launch of the and the actual brand name the original was the slap wrap slap wrap that was the official original brand name they delayed the launch this let

knockoff makers very quickly and cheaply make knockoffs and they actually got those to market first and when you started hearing about there were like news stories about like kids getting cut on these and they insisted they were like they are getting cut on knockoffs of our product our product actually is safe and in fact it's the only one that's passing the safety test because we are using thicker higher grade steel that will not cut you

in 1990 alone when they launched they sold millions of these um and of course already by the end of 1990 you have a report in the new york times of slap wraps slap bracelets being banned from schools. Yeah. They're distracting. They're distracting. They're distracting. They're distracting.

They're just fashion. They're toys. And people are seeing they're playing with them, playing with them. Yeah. What's really interesting about the slap bracelet measuring tape connection is that a lot of the knockoff slap bracelet manufacturers also realized this. They started making a lot of their knockoff slap bracelets out of coils of actual measuring tape. Like either whether they were reusing them or unsold measuring tape. they were cutting it up into slap bracelets.

So if you took the cloth off and looked underneath. If you would in fact see, and in fact, if you buy a crappy knockoff slap bracelet and take, if you just start taking the covers off of slap bracelets, you'll probably start uncovering some reused measuring tape. Yep, that's underneath there because it is the same thing. In fact, in the year 2011, something very funny happened with slap bracelets. Slap bracelets came back into the news briefly. A Florida elementary school gave out slapbrac. bracelets to some of its kids as a reward for, um, you know, participating in a fundraising drive.

And it was all well and good. They had their slap bracelets. And until, uh, one of the children took off the cloth covering to find that, uh, inside the bracelet had in fact used recycled measuring tape, except that the Chinese company that had made these, um, had actually reused, uh, sexy novelty measuring tape. Uh, and that every few inches along the measuring tape, a sexy lady, uh, sexy, naked photograph of a lady had been strategically placed. Every cover was off by the end of the day. Yeah, yeah.

The school recalled them of the hundred something they distributed, they got four back. And after the story hit the news, Stuart Anders, inventor of the slap bracelet, sent all of the kids. Actual official slap wrap brand.

Safe. Yeah, safe. And no naked ladies underneath the coverings. Promptly went in the garbage. Because that's not the point. And I will leave you with this observation. You know, like many fashion trends at the 1990s, the slap bracelet may be poised after a fashion

to be making a comeback at some point. Because, of course, the patents that have been leaked out for what people believe may in fact be Apple's eyewatch use a slap bracelet as the band. Oh, that's cool. So we may all be slapping our eyewatches onto our wrists.

So just last week at our pub quiz, remember Karen on our way out, there had been an event there and one of the sponsors had left slap beer coesies, basically. So it was like neoprene with two strips embedded in it, flat, and you're like supposed to slap it around your beer.

We're like, Karen and I were like, wait, so you just smack it on the beer? And then the bartender lady was like, yeah, I guess. She's like, or you can put it on your wrist. But it was, it was an interesting. Now it's like a slap cuff or something. It is. I did it. It was like, okay, well, it's knee appreys.

It's a lot of it. Right, yeah. So we laughed, and then we just left it there. It went on our way. So did the people who left there, too. We're like, wow, what's this? Oh, cool. Slipbris said.

Yeah, later. It's so funny when you were signaling, like, what it was? Then I was like, a bra? Slap on bra. Slap on bra. You've only got three seconds. Get ready in the morning. Yeah.

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there's always something for us to learn. So, subscribe to the stray day nursing podcast, and I'll see you on Thursday. You're listening to Good Job Brain. Smooth puzzles, smart trivia. Good job, brain. All right, so I'm going to talk about a symbol that appeared in the 90s, and now is everywhere. It really started in the 90s. It's the red ribbon.

The AIDS ribbon. Oh, that was super big. In 1991, the red ribbon was created by the visual AIDS artist caucus. They were a group of artists in New York and AIDS activists, and they wanted to create a symbol to show solidarity with AIDS research and AIDS awareness. Jeremy Irons was the one who wore it to the Tonys. It became big. That was 1991.

By 1992, the New York Times was calling it the year of the ribbon. Everybody was putting ribbons on everything. Everybody was making ribbons to raise awareness for whatever their causes. Oh, but the red one for AIDS was the first symbol, was the first ribbon. And before that, there was the yellow ribbon that you tie on a tree to, you know, symbolize support for military abroad. Is that what the song is from? Taya, yellow ribbon. Yeah.

But the little ribbon, the little fold of ribbon that you wear on your shirt, it started with the red one for AIDS. The visual shorthand of it. Yes. So I have a little, a very small quiz for you guys. I will describe the causes, or some of the causes. And you tell me... Pink with purple polka dots is for gallstones, I think. It might be.

Some of these are very on the nose. You're like, hmm. I guess that is why it's that color. Wow. I didn't know there are so many to necessitate a quiz. Oh, there are tons. And I'm going to pick, I'll give you some hints. So these are very, like, straightforward.

colors. I'm not doing like zebras or clouds or. Are there zibras and clouds? Oh yeah. The ribbons get very intricate. So I was like, you're never going to know that it's puzzle pieces. Is all of their shape the same? The loop? Yeah, that's a, yeah, but then the ribbon on it has different things printed on it. It's different colors, stripes, whatever, you know. So these are all solid colors. They're all colors you know, but you may not know that they're the causes that are associated with that color. Okay, this is the, this is the color for breast cancer awareness, everybody. Pink. Pink, yes.

Oh, pink. What's the color for lung cancer awareness? Whoa. Yellow? No. Brown? Black? No.

Blue? No, it's clear for clear air or. Oh, that's not a curly white. That's not a very good symbol. Clear isn't a color. Yeah, right. Sorry, you guys. That's okay.

There were way more intricate ones than that. In comparison, that was a pretty... Okay. No, that's good thing. I'm wearing one right now. No, you're not. So among other causes this one is for Lyme diseases, legalizing marijuana, pedestrian safety, and mental health and awareness, Colin.

It must be green. It's green. Wait, wait, what were the other one's Lyme disease? Lyme disease. Right, because limes are green. Sure, sure. Legalizing marijuana. Okay.

Yes. Pedestrian safety? Yeah. You know, green light. Yeah. Sure. And mental health awareness. Okay.

For peace? I don't. Yeah. Sure. How about bullying child abuse awareness, the Electronic Frontier Foundation Freedom of Speech? Oh. I think I remember bullying. Bullying.

Freedom of speech. EFF. And what else? And a child abuse awareness. White. No. Blue. Blue.

Yeah. I think bully was blue. Bully blue. Genetic disorder awareness. This is so weird It is really weird But I can imagine this coming up on a quiz Where you have to like know

Genetic disorder awareness This one is kind of on the nose The color that they Oh Gold? It's jeans Blue jeans Yeah

Yeah Like denim colored? Yeah, denim colored Well It's a denim ribbon Wow Yeah It's so specific

It's not even a color more Yeah, it's a fabric. It's a thick blue jeans. How about lupus, orca whale awareness and protection, pagan pride, March of Dimes Awareness, Migraine Awareness. And there's like a whole, whole laundry list more. What color represents all those things? What do you think, Karen?

I think it's yellow. No. Oh, I thought Lupus was it. Silver. Nope, it's purple. Wait, lupus. March of Dimes awareness. Orca, killer whale.

Orca? Also migraine. pagan pride purple purple had the longest list yeah okay just two more and they're very basic colors bone cancer amber alert armed forces return Colin white no oh yellow yes oh armed forces return yeah yeah yeah and amber also amber alert yeah but not amber okay last one I would assume amber alert is amber close enough yeah close enough okay close enough um 9 11 Virginia tech and sleep apnea. Black.

Yes. I'm not laughing at any of those things. No. It's the random. It is so random. You have so many colors and you have so many causes. Yeah. They're going to be overloaded on any color.

They're all overloaded. Even the very like weird colors have more than one thing on them. Wait. I want to look at this list. I want to know what the Ziba stripe is. Wow. This is a giant list. I know everybody wants a ribid.

So there's rare disease awareness for zebra print. I like that rare diseases is a zebra print. That's very clever. Common diseases is horse color. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Blue paisley ribbon for thyroid disease awareness. People still do it, but it was really big in the 90s. It was.

Yeah, my goodness. What a world. I think in the new generation, it's those bracelets, those rubber bracelets, like Lance Armstrong had the yellow bracelet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Were those part of the aughts, the 2000s? Yeah, that's kind of, that was the 2000s. So not relevant.

Grins, you're so mean. What a troll. I'm like Raphael. So you're saying, yeah, you are. You are so cool. You are such a raphael. Give me a brick. Give me a break.

Leonardo leads Donatello does machine. That's a fact. He's cool. Give me a break. The mansion It's a party to party! I remember we played the video game. We played the video game a lot.

Game Boy and... No, like arcades. Oh, yeah. Like, stand-up, and it was a four-person side-scroller, and we would fight over, like, who got to... And it was so perfect for that type of game. Oh, which one were you? Who was Nunchucks?

I would always... Michael Angel. I would always want to play a Nunesho. See, I would always do Donatello because it gives you a range weapon. He had a bo-stack, so it was good. It was, like, kill it. It was. It was a good team. It was team-based. Yeah.

So I'm sure you guys remember, as we approached the end of 1999, there was one question, one issue everybody was talking about all over the news. The Y2K, Y2K bug. So much real ink, so much virtual ink spilled writing about the Y2K bug. People were really worried. I was worried. They're like, what if... That, like, the world was going to shut down. Yeah. Right. Every computer on Earth was going to just stop functioning. Yeah, right.

People's credit card bills were going to get erased and the national debt was going to get wiped out. Airplanes are going to fall from the sky. I mean, just explosions. I mean, some of the doomsday scenarios were so dire. Right. Well, before we go any further, let me ask you guys just to verify that we're all on the same page. What we are talking about when I say the Y2K bug? First, what does it stand for?

What is Y2K? Oh. Year 2000? Yeah, year 2000. Right. And then a little more in depth, in a nutshell. And do you guys want to just briefly summarize it? Some of the computer systems were using two digits to represent the year.

So when it rolled back around, when it was zero-zero again, it's like, is this 1900 or is this 2000? It was going to think it was the year 1900. Right. And it was going to like repeal, you know, the 21st Amendment basically. Or you have to pay your grandparents bills now or something. Right, right, right. Or they're going to, yeah, barque you as 120 years old. So it wasn't really a bug, bug.

It was, you know... Poor planning. Poor planning. I mean, in fairness, in fairness, like a lot of the computer programmers at the time who, you know, who made some of these tradeoffs basically to save space and code or, you know, they, they said, we never thought that this code would still be running, that these systems would still, by the time I got around, we figured it would just, we'd patch it up later. We thought we'd be living in cities on the moon in the year 2000.

Not running our old computer code, we wrote like in the 60s and that it would just be like, you know, be layering patch after patch after patch on it. Right, right. I mean, you know, and it's funny to look back at it now. So to get ready for this, I went back and I read a whole lot of news articles and news coverage in the last year or two in the run-up before 2000 switched over. And even by that time, I think most newspapers and news organizations were kind of reporting on it, sort of tongue-in-cheek, kind of a light-hearted approach.

Like, they didn't really think anything seriously bad was going to happen. But it was true. Corporations and governments had to spend a lot. lot of money and a lot of time patching code, writing updates, monitoring systems. President Bill Clinton, he created the council on the year 2000. He had a year 2000 czar, you know. The transportation department, FEMA, they were all, you know, as a government, you can't afford to take it lightly because God forbid something bad did happen. You don't want to be the one who didn't fix it. There were 400 government, federal government technicians and computer specialists

tasked just with making sure everything transitioned smoothly as we moved from 1999 into 2000. I didn't know this until reading some of the old coverage. The U.S. and Russia coordinated a joint nuclear monitoring task force. So they got reps from both countries together in a special bunker in Colorado. So as the year switched over, they could together monitor both countries' systems just to make sure, you know, no misunderstandings, no. alarm goes off and somebody thinks an attack is imminent. Better safe than sorry. Better safe than sorry.

I mean, it's one thing with the post office, but it's another thing with nuclear weapons. Right. I mean, and in the end, of course, no planes fell from the sky. Banks didn't lose all their money. There were no nuclear missiles launched. There were some issues. There were a few things. So, I mean, for the most part, they were fairly benign, fairly minor.

Right. But, I mean, nothing bad happened because people anticipated the problem coming up and retrofitted all of their systems to make sure that nothing bad happened. Right. There were a few incidents, you know, with hospital records getting messed up. On the whole, it was about as serious as a railway station showing the wrong departure date, you know. Oh, okay. For the most part, nothing catastrophic.

Nothing catastrophic happened. Who coined the term Y2K, do you know? It was some of the computer specialists, basically, who first sort of talk about in the 90s, you know, leading up to this, like, hey, this is something we're going to have to address here. Wow. Very elite hackers of them, right? Wasn't office space the plot of it They were patching up bank software for Y2K? Yeah, that's right.

In a tech. That was what they were spending. Yeah, that's right. Wow. No frills, delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca.

All right, I have one last 90s, extreme 90s. segment for you guys and of course what's 90s without pop 90s was really kind of the height of pop and I have a music quiz for you. It's all about pop boy bands from the 90s and I

have to preface it's not just a random assortment of boy bands I pulled out like the thing is like people have to understand the success of new kids on the block in the late 80s sparked the whole boy band pop movement of the 90s

Sure. And so all of these bands in the quiz are related to that, not even resurgence, but because of new kids on the block. This is how the format's going to go. I feel like Dana has an upper edge on this quiz being a girl growing up in the 90s and also likes pop. So for her, she has a notepad and she's going to write down what she thinks the artist is from the music clips I'll be playing. And Chris and Colin will work together, team up and try to see if you can. you can get it. One big hint is,

as long as you know what the lead singer of all these boy bands sound like, you probably can guess the boy band. Wow, that's great. But like Justin Timberlake,

you know. Sure, if I knew what Justin Timberlake sounded like, I would be able to guess that it was... All right, here. We got two,

two brains here. What was Justin Timberlake in? He was... I have a feeling you guys are going to beat me. He was in sync. He was in sync. Nicholas She was 98 degrees. Oh,

don't give us his answer. She's helping us. It's okay. Yeah, because we don't know what he's just complicated. He doesn't know what he's talking about. All right. Here we go. First one.

Don't care what it's written in your history as long as you hear with me. I don't care who you are, where you're from, what you did as long as you love me. Who you are Way on from Don't care what Okay Okay This is the song

I'm not picky By By the Backstreet Boys This is As long as you love me I see I think this is I think this is insane No this is the Backstreet Boys

Oh it is the Backstreet Boys I believe you know This one Okay You seem very confident Yes Okay All right I will defer to Chris

On this one Okay All right you guys Boy say Backstreet Boys Yes Dana reveal your answer Backstreet All right.

All right. Next one. New kids on the block had a bunch of heads. Chinese food makes me sick. And I think it's fly away and girls start by for the summer, for the summer. I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch. I take her if I had one dish. She's been gone since that summer, since that summer.

Cherry pants, cold crushed, rock, stud boogie. You stay in school, so white. If you don't know it, you don't know it. They sing you kids on the block? I mean, I don't think they were just name checking them. Oh, yeah. They also talked about Chinese food makes them sick. Yeah, I mean.

I mean, okay. I don't know. Just throw a, throw a. I know, I want you to guess something because I really. It's in a punch bowl in your head. I mean, oh, yeah, yeah, it's in the punch ball. Yep. It's somewhere in there.

I mean, I don't think it's in sync. I'd never heard it. Is it like O-town? O-town. Is it O-town? Incorrect. Dana. LFO

The light funky ones Wow Wow That was not in my punch bowl Is the singer punch bowl? I didn't think it was That was not in the punch bowl It's a very specific

So this is actually very related to New Kids on the Block I mean obviously they're more They do some kind of rapping Are they related to the funky bunch? No they just So they did a cover of New Kids on Block step by step

and that kind of gained some attention and they actually worked with Danny Wood from New Kids on the Block in the kind of behind-the-scenes production process. There you go. There you go. All right.

Next one. I'll tell you. Yes, I'll tell you. Oh, yeah. It's going to my sunshine after the rain. You're the cure against my fear and my pain. Because I'm losing my mind when you're not around. It's all.

It's all. It's all. Because of you I'm leaning toward 98 degrees on this one. I feel like we should just keep guessing O-Town Over and over and over again, one point, yeah. But you want to say 98 degrees? Yeah, just for something, for some reason, getting a Nicklachet vibe.

Sure. Yeah, I don't know. Day and I answer up? 98 degrees? Yeah, 90s. Oh, hey. That is what Nick Lechay sounds like. Okay.

Pretty bad. Yeah. Sorry, Nick Lechay. I like it. Oh, God, he's listening right now. I'm sure he's crying all the way to the bank. So in this quiz, I haven't put any, you know, there's All 4-1, which is kind of a boy band, but there were two camps in the 90s. You had boy bands, pop boy bands, and you had what boys to men kind of sparked were all these harmonizing R&B groups.

And to me, they're very different camps, right? Boy bands are very designed, whereas the. more R&B groups are more, you know, kind of like A cappella group. You have a base, it's based on voice need. And the funny thing is when I say they're more designed is all the boy bands, you can name the lead singer of all of them.

Whereas for a lot of these R&B bands, there's no one star. You know, there's like a I can't even name anybody from all for one. And for 98 degrees, they kind of also started this, because they're a pair of brothers. They're the Lachet brothers and two other dudes. Oh, I didn't know that. So that kind of

gave him a like a family edge what's the other Lechay brother doing these days? Drew Lechette he won Dancing with the Stars Wow! All right This one is a little bit more international So complete in our love

We will never be uncovered again Whatever I said Whatever I did I didn't mean it I just want you back for good What you want you said They're British

Oh okay A British And the creation of this band is solely because You know the manager record head, saw the success of New Kids in the Block in America. It was like, I'm going to jump on this. Was there a band called,

um, is it two words? Yes, two words. Is it, uh, take that? Yes. Wow. Good night, everybody. Wow. I'm done.

Wow. Wow. I put something else. And then you said that and I was like, that's the name of the band. I knew, no, no, I knew what I put was not the right one. Like, there are two of them. I knew. Main singers.

Gary Barlow, who wrote most of the songs, actually. He was a talented songwriter. They kind of built a band around him. Robbie Williams. Most notably, she can't come take that. Was Ronan Keating in that one as well? Was he in the other one? He was in Boisome. All right. Next one.

I am down on my knees. I can take it anymore. It's tearing up my heart when I'm with you When we are a part I feel it too And no matter what I do

I feel the pain With or without you Is this one going to be In sync, do you think? I think so Yeah, all right Let's go for it In sync

And it is And I was tricky I actually did not pick a clip with Justin Timberlake scene. Who is J.C. Chese? Yeah. He's the other lead singer. The brunette lead singer.

They always have a blonde one and a brunette one. There's like the brooding one, the cute one. The older one. It's like a poo-clatter. The one with glasses. Yeah. All right. Last one. Last boy band.

They're all blending together now. Very much so. Here's one more. I've had the rest of you know I want the best of you. It's time to show. and tell Because I want it all Or nothing at all

There's nowhere left Too far When you reach the bottom It's now Or never Is it all Or all we just friends Wow

Wow All right I mean I'm pretty much like down to Like I can only think of two more. I can think of like, O-Town or Minuto? I don't think it's Minuto. I think we keep saying O-Town, so we should probably

just... You don't think she would have doubled up, right? No, no, doubling. Okay, that was... No. That's what... Okay. Those are literally the only two that I can think. Let's go with... I would not go with Minuto for many reasons. So, O-Town. Sure. Also, I think Minuto started in the 80s, too. They really did. Yeah. I guess that's true. You're right. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So you guys say O-Town. What was Dana say? I said O-Town. It is okay. Significance of O-Town is... So in the whole boy band craze, O-Town was the first or notable reality show. I remember that. I remember that they put them together on a reality show.

And I was like, oh, okay, well, they're not going to become popular because this is clearly like they're up front just stating, like, we are manipulating you. And we know, it's like we're putting them together as this sort of marketed thing. They actually are reuniting this summer for a new album. I've been wondering where they're just kidding.

The reuniting was easy because none of them ever left Orlando. Aren't they named O-Town for Orlando? Yeah, for Orlando. Orlando Town, as they call it. Which is like Insync and Backstreet Boys, they all started in Orlando. Oh, I mean, there's like the hotbed of boy band culture. Lou Perlman or whatever. Yeah.

A lot of the InSync members and Backstree boy members, they're in kind of performing as kids. It's in the parks or also in the Mickey Mouse Club. But there was that guy. There was like the Svengali manager type dude who is organizing them. Yeah, they're all. Just kind of like handpicked them and assembled them. In Orlando was the hot town. Got it.

So there you go. Some of the major boy bands. Well, I think Chris and I acquitted ourselves well. Pretty good. Yeah, I'm not sure whether that's good or bad. And that is our totally tubular 90s show. Thank you for joining me. Thank you guys listeners for listening.

You can find our show on iTunes, on Stitcher, on SoundCloud, and on our website, good jobbrain.com. And we'll see you next week. Bye. Give me a break. Iceman. You know, I'm not playing. Devastate to show what the turtles are saying.

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