Good Job, Brain! - 13: It's a Monster Mash!

Episode Date: May 28, 2012

Grrarr! We find scientific theories about the existence of popular monsters such as cyclops, unicorns, and the Loch Ness monster. We do some unnecessarily extensive research on how exactly would mermaids make merbabies, and sexy vampire lore. Also: monster body part quiz, what "Godzilla" actually means, a mnemonic that will help you memorize all of the 12 labors of Hercules in order, and the "Black & Blue" quiz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, Dandy and definitely darling data devotees. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and Offbeat Trivia podcast. This is episode 13, and of course I'm your humble host, Karen. and together we are your double duo of dexterous detail dealing deputies. Dang. We're a double duo. Double duo.

I guess I see what you can go. Two duos. Two duos. That's your best one yet. I'm marking the show 15. Best celebration. Thank you. Thank you.

And it is episode 13. We should have really done our superstition show for this show. It makes a little bit more sense. It makes so much sense now in retrospect. We'll try to match later episodes up with appropriate. Yeah. Our 42 can be meaning of life. Yeah. Oh, yeah. 16 can be like John Hughes movies.

Oh. Yes. Yes. Yeah. All right. We're committing ourselves. Here we have. I'm Colin.

Dana. And Chris. In 13, in our superstition episode, the fear of 13 is Triscafobia. Triscadecaphobia. Trisca decaphobia. Fear of 3 and 10. And you also shared that it was an EMERP number. Oh, yes.

It was the smallest prime number that if you reverse the digits is also a prime number. I also found out that 13 is also a what mathematicians called a happy number, a happy number. Which means what? So a happy number by definition, you start out with any positive integer and you replace the number by the sum of the square of its digits. So one and three are the digits. So the squares would be one and nine. and you repeat the process until the number equals 1 when you add it together. So if they equal to 1, then it's a happy number.

If it doesn't, then it's a sad number. I like math terms, like imaginary numbers. Do they have like sparkle numbers? Shiny numbers. Rainbow numbers. So 13, 1 plus 9 equals 10. And then you take the digits of those. Square of 1, square of 0.

1. I see. What, is this useful at all? I don't. I think so. I really don't think so. I bet there's a way it works in some, like, complicated. One more piece of evidence for mathematicians need to get out more.

And we also have some cool news, bizarre headlines. The big brainiacs over at MIT solved the age-old question of pouring ketchup smoothly onto things. Oh, right. I read about the stuck ketchup problem has now been solved by MIT engineers. And what they did was they actually invented. a slippery bottle coating that takes away a lot of the friction

that the ketchup get stuck in the bottle and it's called liquid glide that sounds like something you might find at an adult novelty store MIT engineers again

proving that they're really good at inventing things not so great at we'll leave that to marketing let's get the marketing liquid glide it's made out of non-toxic and FDA

approved materials though it has not not been disclosed. What actually liquid light is made out of? It's made of a substance we found inside this meteorite. Can we call it tomato move? Oh, tomato move.

But what if you use it for honey and other mayonnaise? Right. Oh, I suppose. Or mustard or... Right, right, right. Well, anyway. I think of more condiments we can use it. Gjb.podcast at gmail.com for all your naming suggestions. Yeah. All right. And we have our usual general trivia segment, which is

Pop quiz, hot shot. Here I have my Trivial Pursue card. Bartered buzzers ready, please. And Geography Blue Wedge. Here we go. From what California community do you cross the border to Tijuana, Mexico? I was a little early. Sorry, I'll recuse myself from that one.

And you'd probably speak from experience, probably. That's from San Diego. No. Oh. San Yisidro. Yeah, San Asidro. Oh, okay. I heard that, but I wouldn't be able to roll it.

All right, pop culture pink wedge. The presidents of the United States of America, the band, performed the theme song to what TV show? Oh. Colin. Was it, uh, oh, no, it wasn't. I was going to guess Malcolm in the middle. That's, they might be giants.

That's right. As I was halfway through, I realized. That's what I was going to guess. Um, no, it's not get a life that was REM. Uh, pass. It's not Pete and Pete. Nope. Cleveland rocks.

Oh. The Drew Carey show. That's right. I knew it was a big, big hit show. Did not know that was them. A yellow wedge. What U.S. president coined the term Axis of Evil? Chris.

George W. Bush. Correct. Yeah. And here's another question for you, Chris. Purple Wedge. What 2005 bestseller has the tagline, A Rogue Economist explores the hidden side of everything? You buzz in early, Colin, Chris.

Freakonomics. Freakonomics by Stephen D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Green Wedge for Science. What skill do you possess if you can bend a spoon without touching it? Oh, sorry. Dana? Telekinesis. That's right.

Yes. And last question. Deception, I believe. The accurate answer. Bolognaut. The skill of deception. last question in 2005

what basketball star was sorn in as a reserve officer in the Miami Beach police department I knew you know this that was Shaquille O'Neal his salary, do you know what his salary was? Oh as the reserve officer

Is it $1? Yeah it is something token like that $1 a year which is nothing compared to what he makes Well, it's because they have to pay him something. Right. Right. Yeah. And he doesn't want to, you know, elicit any taxpayers complaining.

Like, well, he doesn't need this $30,000 a year or whatever. Right. Give it to somebody who deserves it, yeah. Right. There are these great stories of him. I mean, he really does have a genuine interest in law enforcement and has said many times that he would like to be a sheriff or a police officer. And so he, there are these great stories of him going on ride-alongs, you know, and even

busting down doors. Like, I mean, can you imagine yourself as like, you know, a drug dealer or you're in your apartment and the cops break in the door and there's Shaquille O'Neal. Well, Stephen Segal is also a fan of law enforcement as well. He's a deputy, isn't he? Yep. I smell a reality show. It already is. I don't know. I mean, the Shaquil O'Neill version. Yeah. That would be weird. Shack and Steve. And we got our Kickstarter backer question here from Shane Williams from Maine. And his question is a little bit of a mouthful. What English word that starts with with an A. In French is the Australian term for the British.

English word starts in a A. It's used in the French language. In the French, yes, used in the French language. If a French person were to use this word, it would, they would be described, would be how the Australians describe the British. Correct. Angles? No. It is Apple in French, which is Palm.

And Palm is the term Australians use to describe. to describe the British. And Shane himself is a Welshman. And he says here, he's like, oh, Wales is the UK version of Alabama. We're going to get angry letters from two places now. So these Kickstarter backer questions are just one of the cool things

that we reward to some of our initial Kickstarter backers who are generous enough to give us some money to help us set and start this podcast up. So again, a big thank you. to all the ones who donated money back in January. And in addition, there are a few individuals who really were extra generous. And one of the rewards for these high-ticketed backers

is that they get to choose our topic of the week. So today's episode is our first backer-dictated topic show. Yes. And Nathan, he gave us a ton of suggestions, including from name origins. He's really into mythological creatures, from fantasy and video games. So for today's topic of the week, we're going to talk about monsters.

I got a monster in my closet. Someone's underloose my bill. The wind's knocking at my window. I kill it, but it's already dead. Rar! Monsters, mythological. and fantasy creatures. Big topic, but a wonderful topic.

Yes, we'll try and scratch the surface. And I'm going to start off with a quiz. Oh, all right. So get your buzzers ready. Get this buzzer back here. All right. This quiz, I'm going to call it the monster body part mashup quiz. Okay.

So in many cultures, a lot of monsters are a hybrid representation of multiple animals, featuring different body parts from different creatures. Right. So for this quiz, I'm going to describe the makeup of this monster's animal parts in his body, and you have to identify the monster. So, for example, if I say body of a horse, torso of a human, you would say... Centaur. Centaur, correct.

And these monsters are pretty common in literary and mythological references. So nothing too obscure. Here we go. Okay. Number one, half snake, half person. Darn, I knew this. I know this, too. It's chilling me.

It is a Naga. Naga. Naga. Okay, yes, yes. In Final Fantasy games and Dungeoning the Dragons. Okay, this creature has the body of a lion and head and wings of an eagle. Colin? That's the Griffin, right?

Correct, it is the Griffin. I buzzed it. Get a louder buzzer, Dana. Oh, my God. And Griffin is also known as the king of birds. Oh, okay. The king of all beasts, very kingly, and a lot of flags and such. This is a two-legged dragon with a rooster head.

Oh. Is that a chimera? Incorrect. It is a cockatrice. Oh. This creature has snake hair, winged. and sometimes boar tusks. Oh, I know.

I mean, snake hair, I just, I'm not saying Medusa. It's not Medusa. Oh, sorry, we did. Yes. I knew that. I knew that. It is a gorgon. That's like calling a vampire a Dracula.

Darn it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, this creature has a human face, a lion body, a scorpion tail, and occasionally dragon wings. Uh, is that a sphinx? Incorrect. Gosh. This is, in fact, a chimera. Incorrect.

It is a mantacore. Oh. That's right. The scorpion tail. So... Do you know what you do with the mantacore? What? You throw it away after you're finished eating the mantua.

Yeah. Okay. This has a body of a lion, tail that ends with a snake head, and a head of a goat on back. Chimera. Yes. I didn't want to say it. This, in fact, is a chimera, which a lot of the lore that we see with chimera, they kind of look

more like dragons or mantacores, but the quintessential chimera is actually a really weird looking animal. It has body of a lion, and the weird thing is it has a goat grown out of the back, like from the spine. Right. Very strange. It's more aerodynamic, apparently. You have less goat drag

Okay, this is a rabbit With deer antlers And sometimes a pheasant tail Jackalote Jackalote Okay, this is a horse With a scaly fish-like Hein quarter

Oh I think I've seen pictures of these Or Or pony I wish It is called a hippocamp Ah, that's what it is, that's right, yes So in the famous Trevino fountain in Rome

One of one of the creatures is a hippocamp And also in a lot of the old paintings of King Poseidon You know, riding on his carriage Those actually are not horses, those are hippocamp Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right I had to go to hippocamp when I was a kid Oh, they made us walk a lot Okay, this is from Asian mythology.

It's a dragon, lion, deer, and ox. In both Japanese and Chinese mythology, famously known more as a beer name. Oh. This is the carrier. Yes, the carrier. Yeah, that's right. There's even a picture of it on the label. Why is it so familiar?

Yeah, yeah. And sometimes in some of the stores where they have the Kieran beer mini kegs, they actually include a little plastic spout that you put on the opening, and it's a little Kieran head. Oh, I like that. That's cool. And his mouth opens, and the beer comes out. Okay, the last one.

So we know a centaur is a man and horse. Yeah. What is a man and donkey? Oh, oh. I mean. Ah. I'm just going to catch. I know I've heard of this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is called an Ono Centaur. Oh, no. Oh, no, centaur. O-N-O-Sentor? Oh, no, centaur. Ono-Sentor. Ono-Sentar.

And that is my Masha Body Part Monster Quiz. That's a good one. That's a good one. I thought you're going to do Merleon. Oh, the one from Singapore. Singapore. Yeah. Merleon.

Which is what? It's a lion with a fish tail. It's a murpony. But with a lion. It's a better branded Murpony. Murponies are coming back. My little Murpony. Kind of speaking of Gorgans, I was going to talk a little bit about Medusa.

So Medusa came up in trivia for us once, and we couldn't remember which Greek deity cursed her to have the snake hair and, you know, turn people into stone with her face. And the answer was Athena. And so I looked up the story, and I'll give you the Dana version of the story. This is the Dana's notes version. Right. Medusa was a beautiful maiden, and she was in Athena's temple for some reason, and Poseidon raped her for some reason there. Athena caught the rape happening and was mad at Medusa for it, not at Poseidon.

Wow. And then decided to curse Medusa with the snake hair and the face. Blaming the victim. I know. That is so effed up. So this isn't all of her beef with Athena. It goes on. So I'm never going to forget that it was Athena.

who did this. So Perseus goes on his journey and he has all these tasks and he got all these gifts from the gods. And the gift he got from Athena was the mirrored shield. And he used that very same mirrored shield from Athena to look at the reflection of Medusa and cut off her head with it. Oh, by the way, when he kills her, she's pregnant with Poseidon's child. And what comes out of her is Pegasus, the winged horse that he rides. And a golden sword comes out of her too. Wow. I want to see the sonogram of what that looks. Now, to the left of the sword here, I see some wings. I don't understand when I'm looking at as the bird horse with, so Pegasus is the white horse with the big wings.

It can fly. And its mom and dad is Medusa. Or Poseidon and Medusa. Yes. Wow. Whoa. I bet he thought he was adopted. And my brother is a sword.

I look nothing like my sword. Perseus uses Medusa's head as a weapon and turns people into stones and the blood from her head turns into serpents in Ethiopia like it's intense all the things he does with her dead head and then he gives it to Athena at the end of his quest and she puts it on her shield

and it becomes kind of part of her like suite of weapons her coat of arms yeah her coat of has a Medusa's head on her shield man don't piss Athena off or don't piss Athena off or don't piss any of the Greek gods they're pretty brutal yeah they rarely take pity and when they when they afflict you with things they afflict you with things they don't forget yeah they don't mess around speaking of winged horses so for this episode i decided to um investigate uh the origin story of the official

unofficial mythical animal of good job brain the the unicorn for some reason keeps coming up podcast after podcast um and i just i wanted to know like why this extensive centuries long fascination with unicorns, like, where did the idea of it come from? Like, why is it so intoxicating to believe that there is a, why the one horn? You know, like, what is the deal? Apparently, there was a, the first, like, written reference to the unicorn, there was a Greek historian named Tishis, who wrote about seeing them in India. And so basically what happened was, like, oh, yeah, you guys, I totally saw these things

in India, where you'll never, ever go, because you're going to live your entire lives like five minutes distance from the village where you were born. But no, seriously this thing exists in India. And so anybody who traveled around, the locals told me stories of the horse with one horn that kind of walks around in the forest and stuff like that. And so

a lot of it kind of comes from like, apparently there were cave paintings of certain beasts and they were drawn in like 2D in profile. And so instead of drawing two horns, they just draw the one horn because that's all you could see in the profile. So this kind of comes into like, oh, but they only had one horn. There were creatures

that they called, like, mono caros in Greek, meaning, like, one horn. But, like, that's also where, like, rhinoceros comes from, which is nose horn, right? And so, like, that might have all gotten a little bit confused in the telling and retelling and this, you know. And actually, what's what I didn't know until I started looking this up is that unicorns are mentioned in the Bible, like, many times. What? Like, for instance, if I may do a dramatic reading from Job 39.9. Yes. Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee?

or abide by thy crib, canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow, or will he harrow the valleys after thee? And basically, like, a lot of this could be mistranslations of, like, again, like Monoceros, like actually referring to actual, like, an ox. Like, that's what they kind of think is that the translation of these things into unicorn doesn't necessarily mean horse with, you know, one antler and wings flying around the forest, but in fact, you know, just like an ox or something to that effect. But unicorns don't usually have wings, right?

That's like the extra special spark. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I don't think that. That's aftermarket. So, no, in fact, so. The Lisa Frank version of the universe. So for centuries after this, you know, people believed in unicorns. People believed that somewhere out there, there were unicorns.

And you're right, yeah, at that point, they probably didn't have wings. Horses with one horn. So, of course, they ascribe mystical powers to them. Right, right, like dragons as well. Like medieval religious art, you see unicorns, and it comes to symbolize Christ and purity, and, like, Unicorns can only be tamed by a virgin, you know. I did not know that.

That seems like a really clear allegory or metaphor. Well, I had a, just a very quick aside, I did have an old art history professor. I thought you're going to say, actually, I did tan the unicorn once. We knew a virgin. I was a virgin. No, I did have an art history professor who would always point out that the obvious phallic symbolism of the unicorn having to be tamed by the virgin. Of course, right, right. And actually

You just got that. Ew. It's always that. It's always that's the match of. Right, right, right. Whenever you're trying to figure out where anything came from. It's always there.

And people would actually take tusks from narwhals, you know, the whales that have like the one really long. Oh, sure, sure. Well, tooth is, you know, you evolved from a tooth, right? Did you not know this? No. The narwhal tusk that they have. My mind is getting blown left.

It looks a whale. It's actually a, it's a canine tooth. Right, right. that just sort of evolved into this tusk. And it's spiraled, and that's what the unicorn horn was supposed to be. It was supposed to be spiraled. And so people would take these and they would sell them as unicorn horns. Ah, that's clever.

Which, quite frankly, I think that selling them as narwhal tusks is really interesting. It's actually real. Well, but narwhals aren't magical the way unicorns are. I think narwhals are cooler than unicorns because they're in the ocean. It's even more mystical. You're not buying your narwhal horns in the right place that day. You don't have to be a virgin to tame a narwhal. Let me tell you right now.

And now I believe you may have seen this when you're doing your research. Didn't they, at some time I feel like in our lifetimes, they've genetically engineered a unicorn? Ew! Am I totally making this up? No, I want to look it up now. I want to Google this. Yes, that is actually, it's kind of true. Like, there are, well, okay, so helping to perpetuate this myth have been, like, you know,

drawings or descriptions of other animals that might have had one horn, but there may have been genetic, you know, uh, flukes where like a goat would be, would just have one more. Right. You know, like it totally possible. I do have, I do have a fascination with mer anything. Like, mer anything is weird. Anything that, that you see on land, but it's like some sort of an ocean version. Right, right. It is really weird. And so, of course, we've mentioned this in our advertising show, because we were talking about the Starbucks logo lady, which is a siren, but specifically, a specific type of siren that has the split tail. And of course I'm like, well, how does

reproduction work with that type of creature? But then again, how does reproduction work for mermaids? You know, for generic. For your garden variety of mermaid. Yeah, let alone the split tail. We've talked about this before at great length. At great length. So I'm interested to hear what you figured out. I did. Guys, I did so much mermaid reproduction and anatomy research. Here we go. How much? How is

Murbabby formed? Murbabi I want to know how much bad Splash fan fiction you had to read So obviously a lot of this stuff Is not scientific Hard to believe

It's not scientific But from a lot of different sources From a lot of pop culture Or literary references And analysis And there are quite few vocal people Who have written very extensive theories

About mermaid anatomy And so this is kind of like my boil down, you know, I've collected all these facts and I kind of categorize them. Really, there's four main, I guess, camps of a mermaid anatomy. And the first one is very generic, right? They really are a fish animal that look like humans. And so, which means if they were to reproduce, they lay eggs. But Karen, we were like, what about the belly buttons? That's a life birth kind of thing.

A lot of, that's a thing, because throughout history, there are a lot of different depictions of mermaids. Yeah. We know them probably known as more of the Disney variety where we have like the sexy shell bra, the belly button. Yeah, fish tail at the bottom and then topless lady on top. Exactly. And so there are actually a lot of different depictions of that. So one of them is that they're actually fish creatures. The second one is that we've seen from Splash is that mermaids can switch forms.

And so there are a lot of tales where, you know, when people, and once you get in contact with water, they become their mermaid form. And so to reproduce that way, you would just wait until they're human form. I see. And have normal human sex. And how does that work? Well, when a man loves that. And so the third camp is a lot of a historical art. The mermaids are depicted.

The fish tail doesn't start until below. below the genitalia. So kind of mid-thigh, is where the tail starts. And so they still have a womb. They still have human reproduction organs, basically. And so, yeah, a lot of old art, 1800s, and before depict mermaids that way. It's just pictures of mermaid. That's what I did.

That was my research. These people are just a bunch of old perverts. It just sounds like a cottage industry for pervy little artists. Yeah. Now, what if the tail started here? What if the tail started here? And our last camp is that they are more like dolphins and manatees, that they are mammals, but it's not scaly fish tails. They do have tails, but not associated with fish, but more so like dolphins or porpoises.

They have slits. Boys and girls have slits and all of their genitalias housed inside the slit and they come out when necessary. I like that one because they're still mammals. Yes. And that's, I think essentially the main issue with MIR people anatomy is that, you know, you're assuming that a mermaid is really a fish and human hybrid, which is a whole can of worms because fish are cold-blooded and people are warm-blooded and how would that work? And so that's really the main issue. Well, yes, speaking of waterbound creatures, we're all about the forced segues on the show here. I, I, one of the monsters, speaking of mermaid sex, speaking of mermaid genitalia, this is really, I really want to thank our high donating backers for suggesting the show on mermaid junk. Remember, remember listeners.

You asked for this. You created this show. You might say, you created this monster. One monster is a kid that always fascinated me was the Loch Ness monster. I was like, I was totally, I was like, I was a little rational, skeptic kid. even, you know, the way I am now, but I wanted to believe. I really wanted to imagine. You know, not growing up in Western culture, I did not know it was a thing. Oh, interesting. Until I was much older. I mean, it's, you know, it's obviously and purported to live in Loch Ness, Scotland.

And generally, you know, the most common depiction, it looks like what we all think of when we think of sea serpent. It looks kind of like the dinosaur with a long craning neck. And yeah, I mean, you know, the rumors are that it's been spotted and photographed and videotaped or filmed and all these things going back. The newsflash, they've never actually found one. The idea is that it might be some sort of prehistoric creature that's a holdover. People who believe in it, the most common theory is that it's like a pliosaur, sort of a holdover, that somehow managed to survive when all of the rest of its species were extinct and it's living in this, you know, lake. And as a kid, I think I always had this idea, well, why don't they just drag a big net across the lake and, you know, see what comes up, you know? I should have just asked you, Colin. Yeah, you know, dear Scotland, I think, we keep getting these letters from this annoying eight-year-old in the States.

We should just do it. We're going to. And I think, you know, even when there's an episode of The Simpsons where Homer gets roped into a Mr. Burns scheme to try and track down a Loch Ness monster, and they show them kind of pumping the lake out, you know. Yeah. And I sort of had this, but so I was doing little research, I had no idea just how massive Loch Ness is. And so it actually, it gives some credence to the fact that there could be this creature lurking in there that's been there for hundreds and hundreds of years. The lake is over 22 miles long. Whoa.

It's just huge, huge, huge. It's over 22 miles long. It's over a mile wide at places. I've read that the volume of water it contains, it's over 700 feet deep at its deepest. It's basically impossible to pop it out. Massive. You could fit the, they say you could fit the entire world population in there. What?

That's what they say. and have plenty of room to spare. So this is this huge, huge, huge lock, and it's murky, murky water. It's really hard to see through. There's a lot of debris in there. So the fact that it's so deep and so long and so wide, you could sort of conceivably believe that there's a pliosaur

maybe swimming around in there. Did they ever find bones? Well, no. I mean, they've never found anything that's conclusive. I mean, I'm going to say obviously. I'm going to say obviously because at this point, I don't actually believe that there's a monster there. But they still, one of the thing that really fascinated about me about this, even as a kid, was that they kept sending all these missions out there, you know?

And I was thinking, well, if they're sending out these scientific crews, there must be something there. You know, surely all these grownups wouldn't pay all this money to go look for something that I was a naive child. Now as a grown up with lots of hobbies. Right. They've sent side-scanning sonar out there. They've sent all sorts of crews out on the water trying to find it as far back as, as far back as even the thither. 30s, you know, serious undertakings have been taken. And, you know, there was one, even into the 70s, they had a huge, they called it the big expedition, which was, this was going to be the one,

we're going to find it. And they had developed a system of underwater microphones, and they deposited them all throughout the lock, and they were going to try and listen to it. What's the conclusion then? The conclusion is always inconclusive. It's always, well, we kind of saw this big mass of something, and there are theories that it could be algae blooms or chunks of, you know, animal detritus on the bottom. The most likely scenario, to me, seems to be it's either seals. There are known to be seals that live there. But someone, other theories are that it's just simply a dead tree floating around. Someone has pointed out, though, that, you know, that there are several locks in Scotland, and a lot of them have going back rumors of sea creatures living in there.

And someone had pointed out that the locks that have trees growing around them have the most stories of creatures living in them. So it seems like kind of, I don't know, a little bit of a prosaic explanation. People see all kinds of things. People do, yeah. So there is probably not a dinosaur living in Loch Ness, unfortunately. I know, I know. Eight-year-old Colin would be greatly disappointed.

Oh, I'm a dinosaur. 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. And we have a new monic today, and it's kind of tied in... A new monic?

That's a new mnemonic. That's a new mnemonic. A new mnemonic. And I made this one up. It is to help people to memorize the 12 labors of Hercules. Oh, good one. Because he had a whole bunch of labors. I think the famous ones is probably the hydra, killing the hydra.

Hydra's big. The nirberus. The lion. The lion. And then it's like, well, What are the other nine? I think there's stables, right? He has to do something.

Does it clean out the stables? Is that what it is? Yes, no. The big stables with a lot of horse poop. Right. So here are the actual labors in chronological order. Oh, excellent. So we have the Nemean lion.

He had to kill it, right? He had to get its skin. Oh, okay. It's hide. Which typically involves killing. I'm no expert. The hydra. The hind, which is a deer.

Diana's a sacred deer. It's called a hind. Did you have to capture it or kill it? He had to capture it, but he ended up killing it. The hind, the boar, the stables, the birds, the bull, the mares. He had to steal a girdle, the cattle, and the golden apples, and cerberus. So a whole bunch of labor is really hard to... I mean, there's a story behind each of those.

Exactly. Very extended story. How could we ever memorize the... order of these. I'm so glad you asked, Chris, because I have a little mnemonic, and it is little hyper-hipster boy, strains biceps, busting moves. Girls can apply, certainly. So actually, this is, usually nymonics, we use the first letter. So every word is actually uses the first two letters, except for moves. Okay. I just thought busting moves sounded better than originally I had busting macarena.

Well, using the first two letters makes a lot of sense for this because there's a lot that are a lot of three first letters. So let's go. All right. So line by line, we got. So little hyper hipster boy. Lion, hydra, hind, boar. Okay.

Strains, biceps, busting, moves, or macarana. Stables. Birds. Bull. Mairs. Okay. And girls can apply certainly. Girdle.

Gertle. Cattle. Apple. Cerberus. Little hyper hipster boy, strains, biceps, busting moves. Girls can apply, certainly. Very nice. Hopefully that will help you out.

We've definitely had questions in pub trivia about the labors of Hercules. Usually it's the first one or the last one. Now you know all 12. And, of course, continuing our monster theme, we have a bunch of monsters and pop culture that we would like to talk about. When I saw monsters in popular culture and was asked to come up with one, it was like, well, Godzilla. Gojira, aka Gojira, created in the 1950s in Japan. Now, we all understand that what Gojira is a metaphor for, right?

I mean, the terrors of the atomic age. Exactly, yes. What? Yeah, yeah. The movie is just sort of manifestly about, I mean, Japan had just survived like the firebombing of Tokyo and then the nuclear annihilation of two of its cities. And so it's working through these fears and, uh, and, and, and, and sort of lingering emotions about nuclear disaster. And that was his main weapon, right? Well, that's where he came from. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was a, he was a lizard that was

in a nuclear accident and grew to giant size. They, they, they would bring these movies to America as well as Japan and just changed the living heck out of them. These, these movies just went on and on and on. Trivia about gojira, the name. Uh-huh. Do we know where the name comes from? Oh. It's one of our favorite things. It's a portmanteau. I was just going to say, I don't know what it is, but I was going to wager anything. It's a portmanteau word.

Oh, oh, oh, is it, it's God, God, never. No, no, because remember, Godzilla, Godzilla was a American, and English as a thing, right? And it was a mangling of it, basically. Gojira, it's actually gorida, gorilla, which is whale. And that is, that is absolutely true.

Gorilla whale. Guerrilla whale. Corpanto of gorilla and whale. Where's the whale come in? Well, he lives in the sea. He comes out of the ocean. He's big. Oh, yeah, that is true. Yeah, he's big.

His home is in the ocean, right? That was always my favorite scene. It's him slowly rising out of the coast, you know, water coming across the coast. Do we know if it's a boy or a girl? I don't know if that's ever been answered. Oh, okay. If there's a movie called Bride of Godzilla. He does seem to be exhibiting a lot of testosterone.

Because you guys could say he. What if it's a girl? It could be. It's true. And he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I also found out. He does. True story.

Really? Is it under Godzilla or Gojira? Godzilla is it? Yes, yeah. Does it have his claw prints? No, no, no, no. It takes up seven. Yeah, seven.

It's a giant footprint. He died in the movie originally, right? The very first one? Yeah, they weren't really big on continuity between all of those. Especially because the movies that come over and get Americanized, right? But even in Japan, they were not exactly. They actually did, like, the first few Gojira movies, like, they actually had continuity. where like, I think at the end of one movie

he was like frozen or something and then, you know, was it thought out. And then actually what basically happened was he was supposed to be this like terrifying, horrible monster, right? But Japanese children started to love him. And he became not

quite a hero, but like an anti-hero. Like he got more intelligent. And what would basically happen was some other more terrible force. Hence like Mothra. Mothra. Yes, and then later on, Mecca Godzilla and Space Godzilla, but also, but, yeah, worse monsters would show up,

then he would end up saving Earth by battling these monsters and then retreating to his home in the ocean. He's like the T-Rex from Jurassic Park, saving from the velociraptors. He was still a real jerk, you know, but it's like it was a way of sort of positioning him where you could... It was more that he was misunderstood. Yeah, it wasn't that he was out and out evil. So, you know, going to the other end of spectrum of history here, you know, we've got the modern-day Godzilla. I was doing little research on the Cyclops. I love the Odyssey. Yeah.

Yeah, hands down, I mean, the most well-known appearance of the Cyclops is Polyphemus, the head of the Cyclops, guys on the island that Odysseus and his men end up crashed on in the Odyssey. Also played by John Goodman in O'Brother War. Yes, Karen's favorite movie, as we discussed. That's right. I mean, they do appear a lot, though, in Roman and Greek writing. You know, Hesiod talked about three Cyclopes brothers, Brontes, Thunder. Stereopies, lightning, and... These sound like American gladiators or wrestling games.

Brontes, and Argeese, bright. Clops count as a deformed human, or are they on their own a whole different species? They were classically described as offspring of the gods. So, you know, when Hesiod talked about them, they were the offspring of Uranus and Gaia. So they had sort of divine origin. But what I got interested in is sort of the story that I had read about the origin, maybe for these in real life. There's a theory that part of the Cyclops legend

may have come from ancient dwellers in ancient Greece finding dwarf elephant skeletons. If you look at the photo of a dwarf elephant skull, it does the giant nasal cavity at the top of the elephant's skull looks not unlike a single eye socket. And you have to remember that elephants, you know, the big trunk, that's all fleshy, flesh and cartilage. And so that will all disappear.

All that will be left behind is this sort. skull with a big cavity right in the middle. Oh, that's where the nose go, not the eye. Right, that's right. And the eyes are on either side of where the hole comes out, basically, yeah. Right, and so, you know, one theory is, and it definitely, they would have lived in Cyprus and Crete and Malta and around there, and, you know, being dwarf elephants, they would have been closer to the size of a human, you know.

Like a big human. Right. And, you know, when we talk about giants, when we talk about giants now, you know, we imagine 30, 40 foot tall, but a lot of times in the classical tales, When they say giants, they really just mean 10 feet tall, 12 feet tall, you know, something like that. I couldn't let a episode about monsters and pop culture go by without talking about romantic vampires. You just want to talk about Twilight. You just want to talk about Twilight.

I'm not a Twihard, but it's fun. But I think it's really interesting the difference between what happens in romantic vampire fiction and what happens in traditional vampire fiction. Yeah, because it's almost like two different creatures. So by romantic, you mean the twilight and true bloods and like... Basically, they get a, there's a lot of pushback saying that they're not real vampires or they really violate the traditions of vampires. I think it's interesting to look at what the traditions are and what they are violating and what they don't and why they're violating certain rules of the vampire universe.

Got it, got it. So I went over the list. It totally makes sense why the powers are the way they are. And I know people get really upset and they're like, they're not real vampire. But it makes sense. It makes sense in this world. Enlighten us. Hear me out.

Hear me out. The thing about vampires being cold, that's pretty solid amongst all of them. They are dead in true blood and twilight. Then vampires don't need to breathe oxygen. That's true. Really? Because they're dead. Oh, okay.

Makes sense. And then the whole thing about vampires being able to shape shift or turn into bats or fly, like they can't really do that. That's a more modern thing you're saying? No, that's the traditional. Oh, that's the traditional. You know, like the Dracula turns into a bat and fly the way. The no reflections thing, vampires don't have reflections.

That's not true in true blood or twilight. You can't see their reflection. Well, they've got to sit there and admire themselves. Yeah. Yeah, how are they going to do their hair? The same with the picture. How can you take a picture of your hot boyfriend with your camera phone? Yeah, hide it in your jewelry box.

The thing about entering your house if they're invited or not. Right. Wait, I don't know that. There's a thing. Yeah, like vampires can only enter your house if you invite them. And I've seen that referenced in many modern tellings. Not someone, Twilight. He comes into her room while she's sleeping all the time constantly.

But True Blood keeps that rule. The whole thing about sunlight. So that's the really, that's a big part of vampire lore where sunlight burns your skin. Yeah. That's why they're only out at night. They have to be back in their, you know, coffin or whatever by sunup. Yeah. So this is a really, this is a key one to romantic vampire lore and fiction is.

So in Twilight, their skin has spark. and that's why they can't go in the sun. People will know that they're vampires. It identifies them as. They're coverably blown. They won't die. In true blood, they start to burn up in the sun, but it's not immediate. The whole sun thing kind of takes a back seat because it's kind of inconvenient to the logistics of the romance.

Right, to the storytelling, right. So it's basically everything that's inconvenient to the logistics of hooking up with a lady, with a human lady. So the whole thing, vampires drink human blood. They'll kill you if they drink you or convert you right at way. to a vampire. No, not in romantic fiction. They can kill you. They do like human blood, but they can also eat animals. Well, they have to leave time for the seduction, as you say. Yeah, right. But if you're just like a juice box and that's it. So the thing with the vampires and romantic vampire fiction is that they have special abilities. They have telepathic powers or sometimes they can run really fast.

They know what you're thinking. They can glamour you and convince you to do things, which does turn up in traditional vampire sometimes. It's just all about seducing the ladies. Right. So, Okay, Dana and Karen, having discussed this, why are vampire sexy? I don't know. Why are girls so intoxicated with the idea of their boyfriend being a vampire when they're teenagers? Is it like an escape fantasy? I think it's maybe like the bad boy archetype but heightened, right?

Amplified like, oh, they're mysterious and they could hurt me, but it's kind of alluring. But this one really likes me. He won't hurt me. He could, but he won't. They're so abusive those books. It's weird. Why do people like this? But then again, we're, you know, we're not teenagers.

I feel like maybe it does fill some sort of emotional... Yeah. And the creators of the popular science show with millions of YouTube subscribers comes the Minute Earth podcast. Every episode of the show dives deep into a science question you might not even know it you had. But once you hear the answer, you'll want to share it with everyone you know. Why do rivers curve?

Why did the T-Rex have such tiny arms? And why do so many more kids need glasses now than they used to? Spoiler alert, it isn't. screen time. Our team of scientists digs into the research and breaks it down into a short, entertaining explanation, jam-packed with science facts and terrible puns. Subscribe to a minute earth wherever you like to listen. Uh, well, I have a quiz prepared to our final quiz segment. We'll move away from monsters, not monster themed here. To the buzzers. Yes, to the buzzers. This is a common thread quiz. Uh, the name of this quiz is black and blue. Somehow the questions or

the answers will all have some connection to black or blue or both, perhaps. Oh. All right. We'll start off with a simple one here, with a 50-50. I know you guys like this. All right. So, you know... I hate 50-50. It seems like we always get them wrong. In the American Civil War, we associate blue and gray with the two common uniform colors. Which side wore blue? Oh. I think that was Chris. Union. Yeah, it was indeed the Union. It wasn't until sort of, as the war really got underway, that they were really standardized.

In the early days, they had all kinds of crazy uniforms. Even, I mean, just within a one side, you can. You'd have blue, gray, reds, blacks, different styles. And, yes, as you can imagine, it looked a little confusing. Unlike a, you know, a war at sea, you really didn't have that much time to prepare for them attacking you. Like, they were just across the street, basically, in some cases. Yeah, yeah, right across the bomb. It's like, put on whatever you have. By what name was Edward Teach, T-E-A-C-H?

By what name was Edward Teach more commonly known? I think that was Chris again. Blackbeard the Pirate. It was Blackbeard of the Pirates. Oh, yes, yes. What was his name again? Edward Teach. Edward Teach.

The archetype of the pirate image, yeah. This actor made his film debut in Tim Robbins' movie Bob Roberts in 1992 as a fan of the title politician. I'm waiting for you to finish. I'm sorry. Jack Black. It was Jack Black, a young Jack Black playing a young, very young conservative fan of Bob Roberts. All right, so are you guys familiar with Otter Pops? You guys know their frozen treats, right?

So you know how they all have these terrible puns associated with them? So very quickly, if you don't know what otter pops are, they're brightly colored, sugary liquid that comes in a plastic tube, and you freeze it, and then you kind of push them out and eat it like a popsicle. But each of the colors has a character associated with it. So I'll give you a couple here. So, for example, the purple ones famously are Alexander the Great. And the green one is Sir Isaac Lyme. and they have these little cartoony pictures of them.

Yeah. What is the blue character? Dana. Is it Louis Blue? Yes, absolutely. Good call. Louis Blue Raspberry. What does he look like?

French? Kind of Frenchy. Yeah. It's like, yes. He's a beret and a striped shirt. Right, right. Louis Blue Raspberry. That's right.

I had to go to Hippo camp too. In the saying, pitch black or black is pitch. But what is? pitch. It's like tar or asphalt. Yeah, basically, it is. Yeah, that's right.

It can be like a part of a family, but it's basically a byproduct of petroleum products or plants. It's like tar, resin, believed to be like some of the least viscous substances on the planet. There's a really interesting experiment called the pitch drop test where they put some pitch in a funnel and it's been dropping for decades and decades. Yes, yes. It's amazing. It's voted lowest viscous. Liquid in Discosity Today magazine, five years running. The Fiji crested iguana was previously unknown, and it was discovered because it appeared in

this 1980 movie, where it was spotted by herpetologists as a creature they had never seen before. Whoa. Huh. The Fiji crested... Karen. Blue lagoon. Correct.

The blue lagoon. Wow. So this is an amazing story. So they filmed in Jamaica and Nanyuya Le Vu, which is an island in Fiji. And apparently there are some iguanas there that had never been documented before that just showed up in the filming. Oh, my God. And so a herpetologist named John Gibbons was watching the movie and is like, I don't know what that iguana is. And this is my area of expertise.

So he, after the film, he flew to the island where they filmed it and discovered the Fiji crested iguana. And it was, you know, entered. new species. A new species, a hitherto unseen species. He didn't name it after himself? Well, you know, he showed some remarkable restraint. Mr. Opportunity. Yeah. So in addition to Brooks Shields and Christopher Acton's nude, the Blue Lagoon also gave us an iguana. You should have given the movie like a special award. For outstanding achievement in iguana. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll close that I hear with a couple musical questions here. So, you know, we always have these band names, original band names, started as this, went on to that. I love

these personally. All right. What legendary musician and singer was originally in a band called the Blue Flame? And I will give you another clue. They were sometimes known and referred to as Jimmy James and the Blue Flame. Karen. Jimmy Hendrix? Correct. Jimmy Hendricks. That's right. He originally started out performing under the name Jimmy James and had a band before the Jimmy Hendrix experience called The Blue Flame. Sometimes, sometimes incorrectly referred to as the Blue flames, I had learned. One flame. Yes, the single flame. What British band was originally known as

the Polka-Tolk Blues Band? Chris. Black Sabbath. Correct! Yes! Did you just pull that out? Oh, well, yeah, I was thinking of the colors. Yes. Well, you know, so that one's a good one. It goes both ways. Yes. Apparently,

Ozzy Osbourne relates to the story that he, Polka-Tolk, he took the name from a can of talcum powder in his mother's bathroom, is the way that he relates the story. And that's what I got. Black and blue. All right.

Black and blue. Awesome. All right. And that is our show. Thank you guys for joining me. And thank you guys listeners for listening. Hopefully you guys learn a lot of stuff about mermaid genital. And whatever else it is we talked about.

Okay. Unicorns. But mostly. Unicorns hooking up with mermaids. Mervonies. Sexy vampies. And you can find us, of course, on Zoom Marketplace, on iTunes, and also on a Stitcher. If you use Stitcher, we're also on Stitcher.

And also our website, which is good job, brain.com. And we will see you guys next week. Bye-bye. Thanks. From the terrifying power of tornadoes to sizzling summer temperatures, Acuweather Daily brings you the top trending weather-related story of the day, seven days a week. You can learn a lot in just a few minutes with stories about impending hurricanes, winter storms, or even what not to miss in the night sky.

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