Good Job, Brain! - 169: Too Cute!

Episode Date: December 23, 2015

Cohorts, come coo at and cuddle with crumbs of cuteness. Facts and trivia about things that are cute: baby animal names quiz, the power of Sanrio, and Japan's most valuable kawaii characters and mascots. Learn about Hello Kitty phobia and take Chris' animal fear quiz. "You're so cute, I just wanna eat you up!" Yes folks, "cute aggression" is a real phenomenon, and you're not the only one who loses their cool over puppy photos as Colin dives into the science behind what makes things cute. Also: Salt water taffy origin revealed! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, medallists who meditate about metadata. Welcome to Good Job, Rain, your weekly quiz show and Offbeat Trivia podcast. This is episode 169. And, of course, I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your always. alliance of alluring alligators who love alliterations. I'm, whoa, I'm joking. Whoa, I'm, like, I'm Colin.

I'm Dana. And I'm Chris. Before we dive in, I would like to quickly do a real quick installment of our errors and omissions segment. Um, actually. This was more kind of a follow up. It wasn't, I mean, because Karen, you on last, on our previous episode, previously on Good Job Brain, We were discussing saltwater taffy. Why is salt water taffy?

Yeah. And you, like, man, I really rode the roller coaster there of like, because at first I'm like, well, duh, Karen, obviously it has salt water. And then you're like, no, Colin, it does not have salt water in it. It was made out. So why is it called saltwater taffy? So since the last episode, I went and dug this up. I'm like, okay, why is it called saltwater taffy?

There must be some reason. Now, would you guys like to know the fanciful, likely untrue fun story? Oh, yes. Or would you guys like to know the real, likely true reason? Can we hold both? Yeah, we'll do both. Oh, sure. And I will be pulling, paraphrasing liberally from an article written by Matt Soniac on Mental Floss.

Oh, okay. So thank you to Mental Floss and thank you, Matt. All right. So first of all, I should say, it was called Saltwater Taffy specifically to allude to the fact that it's a seaside treat, Karen. So you were right on it with that. And specifically Atlantic City, New Jersey. So there's a story. this is the legend that in

1883 a storm hit Atlantic City Oh my God Yes, right And the waves Blue salt water into the vats The waves came No no no no no no not quite

Yeah right It couldn't sell it So the waves came crashing over the boardwalk Flooded a bunch of the stores Along the boardwalk with seawater Including a candy shop Owned by David Bradley So then a young girl

she comes into the store and she's like Mr. You have any taffy and he kind of looks around and you know ingest is like all I have is salt water taffy so you know she misses the the intended joke by some little kids Right

And the adult lets her Terrily candy So she of course loves it And shares it with her friends Then everyone comes back asking for more of this Saltwater Taffy Right right right And a legend was born

That is probably baloney story. The more likely, much more prosaic version is that it's just a marketing ploy just to kind of allude to the fact that you're by the seaside and to maybe allow people to think that it's made with saltwater, seawater without coming right? It's like, oh, we better get it here because, like, you know, this is where

they get all the saltwater right, yeah. Yeah, and it did in fact become a hit. Yeah, and, you know, in the late 1800s. in early 1900s, yeah, everyone started making their own version of salt water tap. Yeah, because it's not just called Tavie. It's specifically salt water tally. I mean, I think maybe, I mean, I'm making this with no truth, but I'd like to think maybe the real story is somewhere in between the two stories where like, you know, they have the machines that pulls the taffy. Uh-huh. And there's like sea breeze. Oh, that's true. Yeah. Some like. Trace

elements. Like the old beer. Yeah. Or sourdough. Or San Francisco sourdough. We're like there is something native but not trace amount right but it's not but it's not no yeah yeah all right well thank you that's one of my favorite candies yeah me too me too yeah what flavor blue blue green I don't know green is blue a flavor I like the cinnamon kind oh that's what kind of spicy and hot okay okay or you know the ones with like like like I love watermelon everything because usually the watermelon candy always they always

color it to look like Watermeling. Yeah. Anyways. Well, thank you, Colin. Yeah, yes. Well, thank you for bringing it up and prompting me to go chase it down. All right.

Well, let's jump into our first general trivia segment. Pop Quiz, Hot Shot. You guys have your Barnyard Buzzers. Here, I have a random Trivial Pursuit card, pick from the box. Oh, Genus 4. Oh, direct the genus 4? We're still Genus 4. Solid.

You guys have your Barnyard Buzzers. I have a card. Let's answer some questions. Blue Edge. for people and places, what two U.S. states are home for the long-living bristlecone pine trees? Oh. Man. Oh.

No, the bristlecone pines. I was just looking at these because I saw some of them in Utah. So Utah is one of the states? No. Chris. Maine and New Hampshire. Incorrect. Dang.

California. Yes. Oh, really? Yeah. And Oregon. Yeah. What's between Utah and California? Nevada.

Yes. California and Nevada. Maybe I was in Nevada. Yeah, maybe it wasn't. You were there. All right. Pink Wedge for Arts and Entertainment. What former general posted the highest score on Celebrity Jeopardy in November of 1994?

Who was that? Chris. Norman Schwartzcoff. Yes. That'd be a fun list to see the highest. Oh, a celebrity, Jeopardy. All right. Yellow Witch for history. What did De Beard Diamonds worth 5 million pounds go down with in 1912?

Chris. The Titanic. Yes, that is correct. Great. Did they retrieve the diamonds? I mean, they've... This is a very good question. Have they gone back to...

Where the Titanic sank and tried to get all this stuff? Yeah. Did they get the violin? I feel like, didn't they sell a violin? Yes, they did. Okay. So maybe they found the diamonds. Those diamonds could be really small, though, you know?

Yeah. If the wood of a violin can survive that. Right. Underwater, you know, a diamond can survive anything almost. All right. Yeah. Let's do Brown Wedge for Science and Nature. What falling fruit supposedly inspired Isaac Newton to write the laws of gravity?

everybody Watermelons Big new ones You guys are all trolls Was calling the only person I answered sarcastically An apple It is

An apple It's sort of true In that it got him thinking About gravity But it's not like it hit him No no no All right Greenwich for sports and leisure

What U.S. Tennis Star's father boxed for the Iranian Olympic team I mean I'm going to guess I'm going to guess it has to be Andre Agassi Yeah Why it has to be Well because I know he's a famous from Iran So yeah I did not know that his

Wow okay Cool Sporty family All right last question Wildcard Orange Wedge Who's been married to Joan Joanne Joanna and Alexis

Joan Joanne Joanna and Alexis Uh, Hugh Hefner. Incorrect. No, this sounds like a dynasty thing. Colin, one more time. Is it Johnny Carson? Yes.

Okay. Uh, okay. Joan, Joanna, and Alexis. All right. Good job, Brains. All right. This week's show. Okay.

It's going to be cuddly. It's going to be adorable. Because this week we're talking about things that are cute. Too cute. Oh, my God. Do you know there's a show called Too Cute? Yes. The best show.

I've watched it. I will admit that. It's the most soothing thing. Yeah. It's just like not. We did talk about it because there's sleep to that. Just kittens and puppies. You get your baby goats in there sometimes.

Yes. Ducklings. Ducklings. Yeah. This week it's all about too cute. I'm cute. Yes, it's true. I really can't help it, but what can I do when you're cute?

It just shows with these two darling eyes and this cute little nose and a pretty pink dress that's adorable. Yes. And when they see my dimples and everyone. says, oh, shoot. Is it she cute, cute, cute, cute, oh, is a she cute, cute, cute. I'm the one they adore. All right, well, I'm so glad you were talking about baby animals just now. I have a quiz for you guys about baby animals.

Just to make sure we're all on the same page. Ooh, baby animals are amazing, amazingly cute. Yes, true. True, true. What baby animals are called. Yay! There's a lot of overlap in the name of. of baby animals. It's not as diverse as like groups of animals. There were so many, so many of

those. So I will give you two or three animals and they have the same, their babies are called the same thing. So that's a little bit of a hopeful hint. Maybe no one of the animals. Do you think that baby animals are cute like on their first day? No. No. They're often like hideous and scary. Yeah. Yeah. So it takes them a little bit. I mean, you guys know I love cats, but like a brand new newborn day one kitten it looks like something that something threw up it doesn't yeah they day two though yeah yeah yeah into the cute territory yeah all right let's kick it off raccoons walrus and bear that their babies are cubs aunt eater armadillo and bat babies oh babies what are Armadillo.

Anteater. Armadillos. Bat babies. Bat babies. Bats. Pups. Wow. Nice.

Wow. Wait, so those bats? Armadillos and anteditors. Yeah. Anteater pups. Yeah. Anteater pups. That would be...

Bat pups. Well, Armadillo pups. What have they looked... Are they born with armor? Yeah, it's part of their... I mean, it's, you know, not as hard. They look like... They look like...

They look like... They look like... Little Armadillos. Armadillo. Armadillo. Armadilatons. Oh, my God, they're so cute. Very cute. Oh, my God.

They look like little pigs in little armor. We got to stop Karen from doing any Google image searching during the entire episode. Yeah, it's getting derailed. How about eel, clam, and yellow jackets? Whoa. They all have the same name for their babies. You'll let Chris go. Clamatoes.

But it's the same as eel and. Yellow jackets. Yellow jackets. I have a guess. Karen, what? Hatchling. No. A nymph.

No. Oh, that's a good one too. That's usually bugs. Headpoles. No. What is it? Larva. You should look at clam larva.

They look like see-through clams. Oh. It's really interesting. It's like special limited edition. Chase clams. Like tiny, tiny. Yeah. Kyle, like, they look like boba.

They do. Or they were the 80s to be Crystal Clam. Right. It is Crystal Clam. I kept looking at pictures of them. They're kind of pretty. There's something weird about them. Anyway, how about cockroach grasshopper and cicada?

Oh, I think that's... I'm going to say nymph on this one. Nymph, yeah. All right. Okay, okay. Nice. Yeah, usually bugs are nymphs. Possum, a possum.

Wallaby and Kuala. Everybody. Joey. Joey is... A blanket term for a lot of Australian animals. Yeah, right. Baby animals. What about Akidna and Platypus?

Oh. That is a Pugel. Puggles. Get out. What? Yes. Have we talked about this before? No, but I've read up on this.

Wow. Wow. A Pugle. A kidnap, baby a kitten is so weird looking. But they're really cute. They're really cute. Pugle. Pugles.

That's awesome. That's a great word. I was excited about that word too. I can't believe that never came up on Phineas and Furb. Oh, yeah, because of Perry. The major characters is a flyer much when you ever came up a puggle. When he was a puggle, yeah. Missed opportunity.

He was a puggled. Yeah. What about crocodiles, turtles, and dinosaurs? I think. Karen. That is hatchling. Hatchling, yeah. So that's like egg.

Mm-hmm. Elephant, giraffe, and manateeatie. Karen. Calf. Calf. Yeah. Calf. Yeah.

I think cowish four-legged. Well, I didn't know giraffe. I didn't know a giraffe said as well. Oh, I didn't know, that was also a calf. Oh, rhymes. Giraff calf. A giraffe calf. A giraffe.

Yes. I get those. A giraffe and giraffe calf. Karaf, giraffe calf. Okay, two more, two more baby categories. Muskerat, skunk, and weasel. Oh. Whoa.

Those are specifics. Is it a kit? A kit, yes. Weasel. What you say? Muscat. Muscat. Muscat and skunk.

Skunk. Kit. Yes. Oh, skunk. kit yeah baby skunks are i mean almost every animal is very cute okay alpaca and lama these are the um yeah sorry it's only two this time because i think they're the only two with this wow so well could we do process elimination okay it's a weird one i know it's a weird one oh it's gonna be like puggle or something yeah yeah it's like you mommeling zeper lomoling you know what

you're not far i like you should just stab in the dark for it if you don't know it could be no it's a crea C-R-I-A yes yes how is it C-R-I-A oh that's a good one that's a crossword that's why I know it's a crossword yeah it feels like a trivia question yeah Crea that's a good one wow good job you guys all right Puggles Puggles it sounds cute you know it's like I don't even need to look it up to know that it's cute yeah we're gonna be doing an um actually um actually they're not that It balances out the fact that they have like two penises and weird and stuff like that. Right, right, sure.

It might even augment the fact that they have two penises. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a pig lit. Yes, so we heard. Yeah. Well, you've met, you've met my penis. I have, yeah. So there's a phrase sweating like a pig.

Yeah. Pigs all sweat. Oh, are they like dogs? Yeah, their noses are wet. Yeah. And so they pant. Right. And that's why, like, a lot of the, a lot of the picks that you see, they're, like, rolling in mud or rolling in waters because that's how they regulate their heat because they can't sweat.

And it's, if it's really hot outside, then just, like, ah, that's why they like being in mud or in shady areas. And then someone on Twitter corrected me and said that the pig in sweating like a pig isn't, like, the animal pig. It's about the pig iron. Oh, okay. Oh. Really? Yeah. It's smelting, smelting iron, smelting pig iron.

People, well, people probably think pigs sweat because pigs have this reputation of being unclean and dirty and, you know. Actually, here, Nita Rama explained that it specifically deals with pig iron. When pig iron is originally created from the iron ore, the smelter or the blacksmith, they need to heat the ore to like a super high temperature and then move the liquid metal into the mold. Until the liquid metal cools, it can't be moot because it's extremely hot and you might burn something, right? Or you might spill and then, you know, accidents happen. So how does the smelter know when the metal is cool enough to transport? Well, when the iron starts to sweat because of the water content in the air. And so as the metal cools, the air around it will reach the dew point, causing droplets to form on the surface of the air.

the cooled metal, and that's... So sweating like pig iron. Yeah, sweating like pig iron. I like that. Weird. I'm staring at my baby pig. I was like, why aren't you sweating? Right. These poor pigs. So slandered. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Bad red. You don't know me.

You don't know me. There are really many reasons to listen to our podcast, Big Picture Science. It's kind of a challenge to summarize them all, Molly. Okay. Here's a reason to listen to our show, Big Picture Science, because you love to be surprised by science news. We love to be surprised by science news. So, for instance, I learned on our own show that I had been driving around with precious metals in my truck before it was stolen.

That was brought up in our show about precious metals and also rare metals, like most of the things in your catalytic converter. I was surprised to learn that we may begin naming heat waves, like we do hurricanes. You know, prepare yourself for heatwave Lucifer. I don't think I can prepare myself for that. Look, we like surprising our listeners. We like surprising ourselves by reporting new developments in science and while asking the big picture questions about why they matter

and how they will affect our lives today and in the future. Well, we can't affect lives in the past, right? Oh, I guess that's a point. So the podcast is called Big Picture Science, and you can hear it wherever you get your podcasts. We are the host. Seth is a scientist. I'm a science journalist.

And we talk to people smarter than us. We hope you'll take a listen. So I will tell you this is a true story. I have a friend who is deathly afraid of Hello Kitty. What? I don't know if it was something that happened in her childhood with Hello Kitty. Deathly afraid? But the very afraid of Hello Kitty.

Okay. Like the way that you are afraid of like bugs, Karen. Okay. She's still sitting. That is her reaction to Hello Kitty. Weird. It is like, get me out of here right now. Wow.

I do not like Hello Kitty. And so, of course, if there's like someone in it, a hello kitty costume like that is just terrifying to my friend and this got me thinking like we all love cute animals but there must be people who are

afraid of animals of cute animals of things that are not in any way to us scary yeah because there was a lady who was scared of pickles on the Mori show oh yeah so there's people who are scared of everything pickles yes yeah there was a well looking this up there's actually a show

called my extreme animal phobia And there is a clip. There is a clip. This guy, there is a guy. He is this big shaved head tattoos all over his body, piercings, like this big, scary, scary, hard-looking dude who is scared of dogs. And they bring out, I mean, Karen, you have to kind of watch this clip because they walk out for his like immersion therapy. You know what I mean? Yeah.

They walk out a little pit bull puppy. who is the cutest dog you ever seem to do do do do and this guy just he's he's crying he like breaks down into tears because he's so scared of this dog so anyway animal phobia is it's a thing like crippling animal phobia is and so i have a list of um those wonderful whatever ophobia great words um and i'll give you some hints as to what the phobia is about. You have to guess what animal the phobia. All right.

What's hello kitty phobia? You have to make it up. You would have to make it up. Actually, I went ahead and did that. Oh. So through the magic of recklessly combining Greek words with a Latin prefix here and there, which does happen

every now and again, I give you pedio-astomo ailerophobia or fear of mouthless cat dolls. Nice. Piediostom. alerophobia that is what my friend has um and so by way of example uh if i were to say ailerophobia that is fear of i don't know cats ailero wow yes aileros yeah we're so used to

latin latin base i don't know the greek base right right right well let me ask you i'll give you you guys some hints and we'll see who gets to this all right here's one that you might know right off the bat lepidopterophobia oh uh uh That's butterflies and moths. Fear of butterflies, yes. Also, you have motophobia. Matophobia is fear of moths. That I know.

Lepidopterophobia very specifically. That I have. Because that you got. Lepidopterophobia. Yeah. Avoid flowers and cocoons because you never know what might... Oh, I don't like them. I don't like both of us.

Yeah. Cynophobia. That is C-Y-N-O-phobia. Swan. Oh, you'd think. No. Not Cignettes. Yeah, no.

Sinophobia. Um, you would want to avoid, uh, for example, you would want to avoid orbiting the earth on November 3rd, 1957, because you might run into one of them. Uh, a, oh, who was up there for a dog? Yes, yes. Or you just might want to avoid dog parks, but, you know. Wow. Sino. Sinophobia.

Cynophobia. C-Y-N-O. Fobia. Fear of dogs. Man, Greek roots. Um, here's a trick question. Hippophobia. Collin. Horses. Yes. Not fear of hippos, but it is fear of horses.

Because hippopotamus is horse river. Yes. Or river horse. River horse. River horse. Right, right, right. Phobia. Hypophobia.

Dana. Birds? Fear of birds. Yes, yes, yes. Yes. Icktheophobia. Wow. Colin.

Fish. Fish. Fear of fish. Ickfio? Yeah. Yes. So you know what? Some of these like the.

So, because most of those are Greek. So ichthyologists, ornithologists. Indeed, indeed, indeed, yes. Chiroptophobia. Chiroptophobia. C-H-I. C-H-I, R-O-P-T-O-P-H-B-I-A. Cropto-B-I-A.

Snakes. Oh, no, not so much. Oh, because chiropract. Yeah. Oh, vertebrates. If you are a criminal and you have chiroptophobia, I would suggest you commit your crimes anywhere other than Gotham City. Oh, bad.

Bats, carophtophobia, fear of bats, which is, you know, totally normal. I mean, those are scary. Also totally normal. Apophobia. Apophobia. That's bees. Oh, yeah. Like apiary.

Apophovia. Apophoea. Apophobia. Apoph, okay. And one final question. So, zoophobia is a generalized fear of animals. Yeah. What do you suppose agri-ziophobia is?

Agri. Agri. A-G-R-I-Z-O-O. Farm animals? Not farm animals, not farm animals. Not farm animals. Agrizoophobia. Aggressive animals.

Not aggressive animals. Old animals? Angry animals. Agrizoophobia. Agriculture. I mean, it sounds like agriculture. It is. Growing, oh, baby animals.

Not baby animals. Yeah, I mean, I, Dana was... Agrizoophobia is specifically the fear of wild animals. Oh. So it's the opposite of farm animals. Indeed, yes. Opposite of domesticated. Yeah.

Some of those are perfectly rational. Yep, yeah, yeah. Agriculture being sort of like, you know. Taming the wild. Taming nature. Right, right, right, yeah. Yeah, I can break down, by the way. Oh, your pedioastomaphobia.

PEDAO means dolls. So pedophobia is fear of dolls. Okay. Stomo, mouth. A-stomo, astomo. No mouth. And aloraphobia, of course, we learned earlier. I thought you'd be, like, salutation.

Yeah, no, mine is funnier. Objectively. It's objectively, funnier. Yeah, it's like, oh, is she specifically afraid of the mouthless aspect of the cat doll? I don't know. I'm afraid of hell kitty. Actually, piggybacking on that. So, do you guys watch John Oliver?

Yeah. Occasionally, yeah. Last week tonight. Great show. I learned so much about everything watching that show. He's awesome. And so one of his segments just blew me away and in Japan culture

and other in cultures, but Japan culture mostly, there's mascots or there's characters for everything. Yeah. You know, everything from the train system to, you know, like, hello kitty and serial characters. Right. It's very important for every, like, company, every police department, everything, every regional government. Yep, has a little cute mascot. It's serious business

in Japan. It's so, super serious business. There is even a data analysis and marketing company consulting agency called Character Databank. And they do consulting. They also have a lot of, you know, analysis for some of the top character brands of the nation. Character Data Bank released their top 20 most valuable character brands. So a lot of this is popularity, licensing. income of everything in Japan. This list is from 2012. They have not, I tried looking for a more recent one, but 2012 is the most recent official one that I could find. And it's interesting because what do you think number one is? What, you just guess. In Japan? Hello Kitty. Hello

Kitty. Hello Kitty is number four. And Helicitty has not been number one for a while. Sanrio actually has been, even though it's so popular overseas. Oh, are they declining domestically? Domestically, they tried to, like, trying to find the next it character for Sanrio, and nothing really made it to Hello Kitty. Probably the second most successful character is probably Bad Batsmaro. Yeah, the Blan. Yeah, because it's...

And the frog, right? Cropi kind of was more in the 80s in terms of, like, emo. Yeah, well, the thing is, bad. Bad Batsmaru, because it caters to both genders. It's not necessarily only girl. It's girl and boy and little kids. And he's kind of like a bad, not a bad guy, but he's kind of like a little punk penguin. Yeah.

That's a heat. He's an edgy cute. Yeah, he's edgy cute. But nowhere near the success of Hello Kitty. And even Sario themselves say that when there is a boom, people get sick of a character. And the thing is Sanrio designers and businessmen and execs. talk about how because Hello Kitty was so popular, all of their efforts weren't really focused on creating this whole time on a new character. It was sustaining it. Most of the income is all from overseas and domestically, no one really cares about Hello Kitty in Japan.

Well, they care, but not nearly as much as they had in the past. Yeah, exactly. Is Pikachu on there? Yeah, so well, here, well, sir, here I have a bunch of questions. Some of these franchises, of course, you know, no one in America. Erica would know or, or, so out of the top 20, four of these top characters are Disney, really. Okay. Okay. Can you, uh, can you guys work together and, and maybe, I will tell you, I will tell you, I'll go, we'll rotate, yeah.

Stitch is ridiculously popular in Japan. It is ridiculously popular, but it's not in the top 20. It's not in the top 20. Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mmy-Mouse. Mickey Mouse. Minnie Mouse. Minnie Mouse. Donald Duck.

Nope Donald Duck's Big in Sweden Randomly Yeah Mickey Mouse Minnie Mouse Mickey Minnie

Um A franchise and another character Oh A franchise Yeah Like a movie Let's just say a movie

Oh okay A Frozen No Oh I guess 2012 Yeah It's not a human It's not a human

Is it? No But that's also Very popular Orange Bird No So Mickey Mouse is number three

Uh huh Winnie the Pooh Oh Winnie the Pooh Yeah Huge Very Yeah

Yeah, yeah. Pusan. Pouson. Pousan. Number 14, mini mouse. Number 19, cars. Wow. Okay.

I'm surprised that cars is more valuable than Stitch, honestly. Funny thing about Stitch. So, Lilo and Stitch, said in Hawaii. Stitch, somehow that character is, I mean, it's very cute, and it just captured the hearts of a lot of Japanese kids. So there's a Lilo and Stitch show in the U.S., which is like an animated. cartoon, there is a Japanese version of it and they replaced Lilo

with Yuna with a little girl called Yuna and instead of having it set in Hawaii, it's set in Okinawa. What? And the looks of it is more more anime than it is Disney. That's interesting.

But like the stitch is still the same. Yeah, yeah. It looks the same. Yeah. Very interesting. Produced and animated in Japan. I'm never I never liked Stitch. My character designed, I always felt like they were trying too hard to make a cute character.

It was a koala. I just, I just, yeah, it was a blue koala, right, right. And it worked.

Yeah, PPS, they don't care what I think. Yeah. They got this under control color. Yeah. Okay. And of this top 20,

two are of Nintendo. Two are, oh, okay. Mario. Probably Mario and Pikachu. I was going to say,

oh, yeah. Go ahead. I was going to say, I was going to say, also we should consider consider Yoshi in there as well. But, but, I mean, I think that's the safest.

Super Mario Brothers and Pokemon. Oh, Pokemon. Pokemon is number two. Oh, okay. And it makes you think what is number one? I think I have a stab at it. Okay. If it's not Hello Kitty, it's not Sanrio.

It's not Pokemon. I'm going to guess. Okay. I guess that it is Snoopy. Snoopy is number 10. Oh, okay. It's not Snoopy. Snoopy.

Snoopy parentheses peanuts. Where's the colonel for? from Kentucky Sanders. So is number one a worldwide, or is it Japan-only? Japan-only, but you might have seen a cast of these characters. It's Anpanmon. Oh, wow. He's a superhero whose head is a bread.

Filled with Red Diennes. Yeah, and his friends are also superheroes with breadheads, different breads. So there's like a melon bread. There's like a curry bread. That's very interesting to find out how, like just how big some of these characters. are like it to scale so in in anpanman is not even sanrio and one of one of the problems that people have stated about sanrio's decline is it takes them so long to come up and test with a character and then do the product and marketing and little companies smaller companies they have more

flexibility to create more characters and introduce them in stickers or whatever and one of the what used to be a small known stationary company called san x nothing to do with Sanrio, it's called SanX. They had so much success with, growing up, I knew Taripanda, which is like a mochi panda that's just very like a mochi, like it's made of mochi? It has like a dumpling panda. Yeah, it has a kind of like a soggy. He has a droopy kind of.

Droopy saggy. Like they have, have you, uh, have seen Kogi Pond, like the burnt piece of bread? Yes. It was sad because he was burnt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. His hollow eyes. Yeah. His hollow orphan Anniiase.

And also from San X, what was popular was Afro Ken growing up. With a little dog with a Afro. With a rainbow. Rainbow Afro? Yeah. And that was like super popular. I think we've seen that. We have a little cooler.

And the mascot is Beer Chan, which I think might even be from San X. But it's a cute little mug of beer. Oh. It's cute. Beer chan. Yeah. I just want to drink him up. So one of one of,

Sannex's most popular is Rilakuma, which is a little bear. And once you see it, you're like, oh, I've seen, I've seen this bear before. Like Rilakuma. Rilakuma. Rolakuma. Rolakuma. Oh, so he's a relaxed bear? Kuma's bear.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, relax bear, relax bear. Of course, we probably all know that the word to describe cute, in the Japanese

in the Japanese cute way, you, you would describe something as cute is. Kawai. What is kawai mean? What does Hawaii mean? If you spell it, it's K-A-W-A-I-I-I. Yeah. Because E-E-E. And when you break it down, literally, it means able to love or something that is so lovable.

It's a good way to describe something cute. But that's cute. Like adorable. Oh, do you have beer chan up? I do have beer chan. Maybe I saw it at your house. Oh. Oh, and his hair is like little beer suds.

Right, right, right. He's holding his love of beer. Everything is cute. One of Hello Kitty's problem is that for a lot of these characters, they can vault into TV shows or, you know, like Pokemon had a TV show, and Hello Kitty doesn't have a mouth. And that brand, yeah, that brand Bible is so strict on Helicitty, never having a mouth that you couldn't really have a TV show or have the cat talk.

It could all be internal monologue, you know. Which is weird. Yeah. And that's one of the, one of the problems with, with Hello Kitty. Yeah. Do you remember Mancichi? Yeah. It was like around the same early 80s, right?

There is dairy loo, cinnamon roll. I've never, yeah, on pan man. On pan, man. And what does that literally translate? That means bean bread, man. Bean bread, man. Yeah, great. On pan is very traditional.

Yeah, just bean bread. I love it. Yeah, I love it. All right, let's take a quick break. A word from our sponsors. History never says goodbye. just says, see you later. Edward

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We think you're going to love the Data Over Dogma podcast. Wherever you subscribe to awesome shows. Good job, brain. And Colin, you got one last cute-related segment. I do. I hope it's cute. Oh, it's cute. In fact, it's about the science of cuteness.

Oh, okay. Yeah. So, Chris, your baby, your baby son is in the adjoining room while we record here. Yeah. And he is, I'm going to go ahead and say it, so you don't have to sound like your ragging, but he is cute. He's very cute. Your son is super cute. Thanks, everybody. Yeah, this is just in.

Babies in general are cute. But Chris's son is on the list. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, while you were holding your son earlier today, you know, you made a comment that I think a lot of new parents realize, you know, shortly after having, you know, babies, which is that, you know, and I'm paraphrasing you here, but I think you'll agree, babies are trying to kill themselves hundreds of times a day. Absolutely. So what does that have to do with cuteness?

What was babies having to kill themselves, trying to kill themselves, a hundred times to empty cuteness? So let me start. I want to tell you guys a little bit about Conrad Lawrence, all right? Conrad Lawrence. He was a Nobel Prize winning Austrian zoologist and ethologist. Do you guys know what ethology is? ETH, ethology.

Ethics? It sounds like it. You might think so. Ethology is the study of animal beings. behavior. Oh, okay. Okay. And broadly, human behavior from a biological perspective, you know, looking at, why do we do the

things we do being that we are animals? And in the late 1940s, Conrad Lawrence developed the concept of the Kinder Schema. Oh, the Kinderr Schema or baby scheme or baby schema. Okay. Baby schema. Okay. And what the baby schema was is essentially a science. scientific description of what generations of grandmas and Disney animators already instinctively

know, which is that there are certain characteristics that are just inherently, undeniably cute. Yeah. We look at babies and we're like, babies are cute. We look at puppies and things like that. We're like, they're cute. But, okay, and he was trying to really quantify what is cute. And for a couple reasons. And he was, this is not like a silly kind of scientific lark.

He really went through codified, this is what makes babies cute, the baby schema. I will list of several of these things here. A large head, big head relative to body size, right? A rounded head in particular. Always cute. Not the spiky one. A large protruding forehead. Big eyes.

This one's key. Big eyes relative to the face. And this one is very subtle, especially when the eyes are below the midline of the head. So this kind of... Oh, when they're towards the bottom half of the face. That's exaggerating the size of the forehead. Exactly. Rounded cheeks, kind of big puffy baby cheeks.

Yep, little fat cheeks. Sort of an overall sort of soft body shape, elasticized shape. And even sort of... Not like those ripped babies. Not cute. And his theory was, is not just that these characteristics are what make babies. cute, right? And not just baby humans, by the way. I mean, if you look at

kittens and puppies and baby gorillas, and they also share these characteristics. So, okay, so why is that? Why do baby humans and baby animals look cute? So his belief is, was, uh, that it's to create an intrinsic need for adults to take

care of babies. Yes. Um, you know, because I mean, especially humans, humans, human infants are helpless. for so long. A real long time. A real long, right? Real long.

Until college. The studies show that exposure to cute things, to babies in particular, creates a real chemical response in the pleasure section of your brain, you know, like a lot of other things,

like good meals or sex or any other sort of high pleasure activity in humans that nature kind of wants to reward. And as I say, this extends to other animals. for the same reason, that they are hardwired to look after the young of a species so that maybe the parents aren't around. Maybe something, God forbid, happens to the parents, that other

humans are going to pick up the slack. And you just, oh, I can't help it. I want to take care of this. And there are some, you know, reasons why some of these things happen. You know, human brains are big. So human baby heads are extra big. The cartilage in baby's noses is really soft. And so that's why they get the little tiny baby nose. Did you guys know, baby's eyes baby's eyes are virtually the same size that they are as human adults

right I kind of figured so you got to imagine you've got these giant eyes on a tiny little face right so we're hardwired to recognize these as young animal features and as I say

you know as I Disney knows this as well so many Disney characters have the big eyes they're on the front you know it's like animals that normally have their eyes on the side of their head like mice for instance are moved to the front

so they can be a lot cuter, you know, like if you had a little cartoon mouse with realistic eyes and it's just not cute. Or realistic head shape. Right, right. That there are definite lists. This guy won a Nobel Prize for this? He didn't win a Nobel Prize directly for this research.

But he is, he is legendary for establishing the idea of, as I say, the baby schema, that this is something it's not just anecdotal like, oh, you know, I find babies cute too. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's we are built to find babies cute.

Yep, and animals as well. All right, so, okay, so here's where it gets really interesting. Have you guys ever heard someone say, you're so cute, I could just eat you up? Yeah, all right. Sure. And you guys are the trope of the over-affectionate aunt who just pinches your cheeks so hard. Right, right, right. Stop it.

My wife, like when she sees babies, you know, we're out, she's like, oh, I just want to just squish them. I just want to crush them up. This is a thing. This is a thing. Yes. This is a real documented biological phenomenon. This is not, again, just some random anecdotal thing, right? Yeah, because I do this.

It's like, people do this, and you don't really realize you're going to do it, but then you just have a baby, and you're just like, you know, yeah, yeah. That's so weird. So researchers have dubbed this cute aggression. This is, I think, the perfect term for it. Research out of Yale University. So how do you document that this is a real thing, all right?

Oh, man. So they did... I put 100 grandmas and 100 babies in the same thing. So the theory is that the exposure to cuteness creates this aggressive instinct somehow, right? So what they did is they would conduct an experiment where they take a group of people and you show them three different kinds of slideshows, right?

You show them some neutral slideshows, you know? You show them cute photos. And then you show them funny photos. And each participant is also handed a sheet of bubble wrap. And they are told they can pop as many bubbles as they want, and you're going to watch the slideshow. The group that watches the cute slideshow pops more bubbles. It is, they cannot channel the aggression in any other way compared to the neutral or the funniest slideshow. Okay, now I get it.

At first I was like, I don't know what you mean by a great. But like sometimes when I do like a Google image search for baby image, like I can't stand. Yeah. I can't describe it, but I'm overwhelmed. You are experiencing. That's what this is. You're like, ah, I just can't. I got to do something with it.

Does it ever make you dizzy? Like, I start feeling like I'm swooning when I look at cute. Yeah, like I can't handle it. Oh, that's too cute. Yes, Rebecca Dyer, one of the researchers at Yale University says, we think it's, she says it's almost a sense of lost control. It's so adorable. It drives you crazy. So talking about the, I could just want to eat you up, I just want to just bite you.

Other studies have shown that exposing mothers and women in general to the baby smell is enough to trigger the cute aggression reaction. It's enough to trigger the, I just want to just, yeah, I can't control it. So why is this? Like what could possibly explain why we want to do this? Why we go crazy? And like a lot of other things in our brain, brain in our bodies. They don't exactly know. We don't come with instruction manual. There's a

couple theories. One theory is that the cute aggression is your body's way, your brain's way of balancing out the extreme attraction and affection you feel towards something cute. It's almost like your brain gets so overloaded that it kind of has to like bring you back into balance with something that cancels out wanting to just love it and adore it. The study does show that people who have strong, cute reactions, like really attracted to cute babies, animals are the ones who tend to have the strongest, aggressive need to get it out when they are, like, exposed to that stimuli later. And I mean, like, Karen, like, we see you.

Like, we were walking down the street. We pass, like, a little puppy or something. Karen's like, oh, my God. The other idea is that maybe it's just your wires getting crossed, you know, the fact that the pleasure center of the brain is connected with so many other things. Like, it could literally be, it's stimulating the part of your brain that wants to eat and makes you think you want to eat the baby. Luckily, we, luckily our higher reasoning process is step in.

That's crazy. Don't do that. Yes. And we don't actually eat or crush or nibble the babies. When you eat the baby. Yeah. Yeah. Social biting, you know, is a characteristic that you'll see among like puppies or kittens

playing together. And they, they will only do it with friendly animals. You know what I mean? Just like the little soft, love, love. nibbles, love bites. I mean, these are all biologically grounded things, even if we can't quite explain why it is. So the next time you talk about, like, something being, that's just objectively cute, you are right. Something can be objectively cute. Ah, yeah. Now, to all you parents out there, I have to tell you something that may make you feel guilty. Studies have shown

cuter babies will elicit a faster reaction response time from parents if they're shifting tasks. What do you mean? Meaning that if you give a parent a task to do something and you see like baby starts crying, right? The cuter the baby is, the faster the parent will switch tasks and go attend to the baby.

We're just wired for this. Well, what if you don't see that? You're not looking at this. Assuming you're looking. Yeah, right. Right. But then you have to like, well, what do they do? Get 100 babies and rate them by how cute they are. This is science. This is how it works.

We've now quantified humans. So you can that. This baby has a short forehead. Size of eyeballs, forehead, roundness of cheeks, yeah, floppiness of body. And, you know, it's funny, like, the researchers of people who who... Super buff babies. Nobody responds to that. The writers and researchers who are into this, the baby schema, cute

aggression, things like that, you know, they note that, like, a lot of, in the early years of Disney Studios and other animation studios, you know, guides, you know, distributed to how to draw cute characters. They'll describe these same rules that they came up with, I mean, on their own, along before, you know, Conrad Lauren.

They did not know. They thought it was just sort of subjective. They did not realize that there was actually a biological imperative going on there. But they didn't have a system. I mean, yeah. They did. They did. And this is why, as you say, Dana, it's like, it's so easy for us to transfer to other things.

Like, you just, you know, you draw just like a little face on something that's kind of round and soft and cute. And you instantly want to just embrace it. It's also why sort of in general, like even if they're not grown up, we tend to find round soft animals cuter than kind of hard, rigid animals. Like even the manatees are kind of cute in their own way. Yeah, yeah, you just want to hug them. Yeah. Yeah. But don't worry, parents, studies have also shown that your little baby is the cutest baby.

But your baby is cute. You actually, we had, we had some, we will occasionally, we will like, have people walk by and just sort of have that initial reaction just to say, like, even before they see and like, oh, what a cute baby. We actually had somebody at one point who was just like, oh, what a cute. Whoa, that is cute baby. Yeah, he has all the right proportions. Yeah, we took him to Tokyo Disneyland.

And that was just like, uh, Kauai'u overload. Women in their 20 is just losing their minds every time they see him. It's like, Kaua, they just melt. All right. And that's our show. Thank you guys for joining me. Thank you guys, listeners, for listening in.

Hope you learned a lot of stuff about animal, baby animal names, and then the fear of animals, I guess. Japanese characters and the science of cuteness. You can find our show on iTunes, on Stitcher, on SoundCloud, on Spotify, and on our website, good job, brain.com. And we'll see you guys next week. Bye. Have you ever wondered how inbred the Habsburgs really were, what women in the past used for birth control, or what Queen Victoria's nine children got up to?

On the History Tea Time podcast, I profile remarkable queens and LGBTQ plus royals explore royal family. trees and delve into women's medical history and other fascinating topics. Join me every Tuesday for History Tea Time, wherever fine podcasts are enjoyed.