Good Job, Brain! - 217: It's the Cat's Meow!

Episode Date: November 2, 2021

Just call us Selina Kyle as we leap from cat quiz to cat quiz in this week's special feline feature. After waiting for eight long years, Chris finally gets to share part two of "Fictional Cats!" Karen's got questions all about foods deceptively named after feline body parts, and Dana's got a quite the catalogue of cattery categories. And let's celebrate astounding cat super powers - why their eyes glow, and what is up with that butt wiggle? Also: bee poo Good Job, Brain is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. For advertising inquiries, please contact [e-mail]! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Yo, yo, yo, youthful yin's yearning, yodeling, and yowling for yaks and yaps and yuppies. This is good job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. Today's show is episode 217 and, of course, I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your persona grata at the regatta of Madulam-Ablum-a-ir-a-ir-a-ir-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ha-a-a-a-ha-a-a-a-a-a-a-for-sure. It's a lot of being in the rhyme-zone rhyming dictionary. I don't know if you guys ever used that before. No, no, no, for sure. It shows. All right. Without further ado, let's jump.

into our first general trivia segment pop quiz hot shot here I have a random trivial pursuit card and you guys have your barn yard of buzzers here we go

Blue Edge for geography which bird features on Ecuador's flag oh which bird features on flags lots of flag birds which bird is it is it

I have a guess, and I hope this sounds like a reasonable, educated, nerdy guess. I'm going to guess the Finch, maybe like a Darwin's Finch, like because the Galapagos are near Ecuador. Nope, not Finches. The answer is Condor. Oh, okay. All right. Ecuador, Condor. Pink Wedge for Pop Culture.

Which late night talk show host was voted most likely to replace David Letterman in his school days? Oh. I have heard this. Chris. Conan O'Brien? Incorrect. Colin. Jimmy Kimmel?

Jimmy Fallon? It is Jimmy Fallon. Pick your Jimmy. The late night jimmies. I got the late night jimmies. All right. Yellow Wedge, which of these household appliances was invented first? Dishwasher, electric vacuum cleaner, or microwave oven.

Oh, my. gosh. I feel like the vacuum cleaner. It seems fundamentally simpler. You really just need a powerful enough fan. I feel like the dishwasher might be the simplest of all of these. Oh, you think it's just a thing that shoots water and swirls around? A hand-crank dishwasher. Yeah, like a hand, yeah, yeah, hand-cranked dishwasher, sure. What is it? The answer is dishwasher, you guys are correct. Yeah, good logic. Does it give years for them respectively? Or only for dishwashers. 1886 by Josephine Cochran Oh, lady

Good job. Yeah, well, she was sick and doing dishes. She has just motivated. You have to figure it out, yeah. Purple Wedge, which magazine shares its name with the novel by William Thackeray? Oh. Interesting.

Oh, I know also. But Colin Buzz first, Colin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My guess is it, is it town and country? Incorrect. Chris. Vanity Fair. Of course.

Correct. Vanity. Yes. Green Wedge for Science and Nature, which famous astrophysicist warned that, quote, full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human phrase. Chris. Stephen Hawking. Correct. Okay. Which famous astrophysicist? Yeah. It's almost an oxymoron. Last question, Orange Wedge. Professional football and soccer both field the same. same number of players, true or false? Colin, you know. Colin, Colin, save us. I think that's true, 11 for both. You are correct.

Best kind of correct. 11 players in both sports. Congratulations. Oh, good job, guys. That's a good card. And I have one Patreon listener fan fact. This is Kellyn from Chicago, and she wanted to share this cool fact with us. because it has to do with poop and of course our show we always talk about

so naturally this is this is what we call native content yes so she says bees do poop if it eats it excretes right but they do not poop in their hives they're incredibly hygienic and will take all of their business outside but obviously during the winter what do they do they literally have have to hold it and wait for a day that warms up just a little bit, and they will all fly out. It is on mass. It's been reported that thousands of bees will fly out of the hive at once for a mass poop flight, known as a cleansing flight. Oh, yeah.

That sounds much more elegant. Yeah. That sounds like a series of small smoothies that you get at a spa Versus like versus a whole bunch of insects just taking a dump at once Right, right. I wonder what happens if it doesn't get warm enough in time. Yeah, what does happen? You just got to cut your losses at some point. Yeah.

If I may, if I may draw a broad analogy to my own experience. Yeah, yeah. When I'm camping often, you know, at night, it's the middle of the night, you're often in places where it's, you know, in the 30s, maybe, 40s, you know, it's chilly out there and you really got to go pee. And sometimes I'm like, all right, I'm going to wait and see if I fall asleep in five minutes. And if I don't fall asleep, then I'll decide again. And it's like, I don't want to go out in the tent and go pee, but you can't hold it all night. And yeah, and I just, but the other part is you know it's just going to get colder as the night goes on. And so at a certain point.

Well, you know, if you stay in place, it'll be warm for a little bit. Yeah. Oh, actually, well, I remember we learned this from Dana from a long time ago in an episode. It's like if you're out camping in order to stay warm overnight, you really should pee before going to sleep. Because then your body's going to waste all this energy keeping the pee your body temperature. So you don't want that extra thing that your body's trying to. of warm up right so just just go pee get it out yeah it won't get better the longer you wait it doesn't yeah i don't think so yeah i always think well maybe this time but now

for today's episode we're going to be scratching the trivia post and we're going to be venturing into the trivia filled litter box because this week it's the cats meow Well, well, well, folks, they said it would never happen. But back in, let me check iTunes here, just to be sure, back in 2013, we had an episode called The Truth About Cats and Dogs, and in that episode, I had a quiz that was all about fictional cats. Cats in Fiction. It's a long time ago.

Yes, ma'am. And at the end of that quiz, Dana said, oh, I thought such and such a cat was going to be in it. And Colin said, you know what, Dana? He's got to save something for the sequel. And I know you've all been waiting for it. So that's right. Buckle up, the long-awaited fictional cat quiz part two.

Straightforward title. Yep. So in the first one, every single question was I would describe a fictional cat from comics cartoons literature poetry and you would tell me that the name of the cat uh that is most of these questions but just to mix things up a little bit there's some other things uh here and there as well that are all related to fictional cats but the answer might not always be the name of the fictional cat here we go it's got to be a buzzer quiz but you to buzz in fictional cat quiz part two eight years later here's the sequel well can we meow in instead of buzzing can we meow in

So that is precisely what you guys did last time. I don't know if you remember that. And it was a real mess. So you should definitely do it again. Definitely do it again. I don't remember this. We had deja vu the same thing. I mean, I didn't remember until I went back and listened to it.

I totally don't remember this. Karen was like, oh, should we meow in instead of buzzet? Not much has changed. I love that you're consistent, Karen. I love that your brain. That's me. So there you go. Yes.

I want you all to meow in with your distinct meow. Folks who there's listeners out there who have listened to these episodes like five, six times so they all know how bad it got. You guys all forgot how bad it got. So we're doing it all again. The meowing, all singing, all dancing, all meowing, fictional cat quiz. Got to be a real banger. Here we go. Are we, are we going to be out or are we?

Yeah, oh yeah, I think it would have to at this point. Karen, Karen has signed you up for it. Yes, so here we go. Okay. If it's hers, I can't believe it. All right. Okay, here we go. Question one.

This 19th century literary character utters the famous line, we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad. Mio, meo, meo, meo, meo, I'd say it's everybody, but I think Karen meowed first. That is the Cheshire Cat. That is the Cheshire Cat from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Do we know what Cheshire is? Is that a place? I want to say a place, yeah, but I don't know if that's why the cat is called that. Okay, question number two. This 19th century literary character has a name that roughly translates to Leader of the Tigers. 19th century Literary character Oh is it

Meow meow meow meow yeah thank you Is that Cher Khan That's Cher Khan That's Sher Khan That's a big cat That's right Please phrase your question in the form of a meow Yes

I will not Unless somebody's meowing I will not recognize The share does not recognize Okay question number three This 19th century literary character from Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is not a cat. Oh. But he does share his distinctive mononym with a famous cartoon cat.

Meow, meow, mao, mao. Oh, no. Heathcliff. Heathcliff. Heathcliff. Both Heathcliff, the character from Wuthering Heights and Heathcliff, the cat, are mononymous. They go by a single name like Cher or Adele. In fact, Heathcliff was the cat that Dana was anticipating would be in quiz number one, but did not show up.

And so just for you, Dana, we have a series of Heathcliff-related questions. You know, when you said that I asked for a cat that didn't appear, I was like, it was probably Heathcliff. That's what I thought. If you remember the Heathcliff TV show, which Dana does, you know that it featured stories about Heathcliff as well as another group of. of cats who were named Riffraff, Cleo, Mungo, Hector, and Wordsworth. Yeah. Yeah. What name, what group name was that group of cats known?

That's right. Oh, man. I had just, until you set those names, Sheldon the Egg. No, that was Garfield. Oops. So similarly, Garfield also had U.S. Acres, which was another comic strip by Jim Davis. They were the B plot of Garfield and friends. Heathcliff did the same thing

So half the half the episode was about Heathcliff. The other half was about another group of cats. They all worked in, I think, a junkyard, riffraff, Cleo, Mongo Hicker, and Moresworth. What was their name? Bina. Were they the Ellie cats? You're close. You're closing in on it. There's actually

two names for this group. The primary one is the Cadillac Cats. Yes. Oh, good. Cars. I did not remember that. They're sometimes referred to as Cats and Company as well. Terrorize your neighborhood.

That's it. Cliff Cliff just won't come. I was like trying to sing the whole song to get to what they were called. If you, they, I think Katz and Company is in the, the extended version in the, you know, the, in the, yeah, yeah, not the, not the single, but the album cut. Yeah. Um, so the Heathcliff show ended its run in 1988, and Heathcliff was the final original character that was given a voice by this legendary cartoon voiceover artist before. his death in 1989. Oh.

Mio, meo, meo, meo, meo. That was a lot of people. So I'll go with Karen on this one. That's okay. Mel Blanc? Yes. Mel Blanc. Yes.

His name was originally spelled blank. And he changed it like with a K. And then he changed it to the C. Oh, is that right? Apparently a teacher once told him that that was all he was going to amount to was a big blank. And he didn't, then he changed his name. Or I don't know if the two were connected, but yes.

Different times. Yes. Also, as I was researching this, I found out that his gravestone actually says, that's all, folks. Wow. Brilliant. That's fantastic. A plus. I mean, if you can have your catchphrase work as a tap. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Now, beginning in 1945, Mel Blank, who again had a very long career, beginning in 45, he began voicing another cat character of whom he has said that when he was recording this character's lines, his scripts would get so covered with saliva that he would have to repeatedly wipe them clean. Yum, meow, meow, meow, meow.

Okay, as everybody, I'll go with, I'll go with Colin on this one. I think we all got it, but that has to be Sylvester. That is Sylvester. Sylvester. Suffer and Thucketaph. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Blank has said that that Sylvester.

Wester's voice was actually closest to his own voice, just with a big old, you know, spray of saliva at the end of it. Yeah. And sticking with Mel Blank, so prior to that, starting in 1937, Blank lent his voice to another cartoon cat with an alliterative name. Now, this one had been created decades earlier in newspaper cartoons and often paled around with Ignaz mouse. What was the cartoon cat? Meow, meow, meow, meow. That sounded like Colin? Is this crazy cat with two Ks?

It is crazy cat with two Ks. Okay, all right. So that was 1937, where Mel Blank first voiced crazy cat, who had been around for decades. Two years later, in 1939, in what 1939 book of poetry did we meet cats such as old Deuteronomy and Skimble Shanks? Miao. Heron. Isn't it just called cats?

It is not just called cats. It's in the punch bowl. I'm trying to think. I looked at the Wikipedia. I knew T.S. Eliot wrote this. Somebody's book of something cats, right? Exactly. It's somebody's book of something cats. The name of the book is Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.

Oh, my God. That's the name of the book. Now, of course, in 1981, this book served as the source material. for a musical all about cats, which was called cats. Cats. Getting a little, well, not even a little off-tracker because we're still talking about fictional cats,

but on Thursday, June 19, 1997, cats marked its 6,138th performance on Broadway, which officially made it on that day, the longest-running show on Broadway. Anybody who grew up in the New England area in the 1980s, remembers, like, the TV commercials for, like, Cats at the Winter Garden Theater. Yes, Winter Garden.

Yep. Yep. On January 9, 2006, Katz's longest run was surpassed by what show? Oh, man. Meow, meow, meow. Colin. Is it Phantom of the Opera? It is Phantom of the Opera.

Okay. And it is still running. The Phantom of the Opera, the Phantom of the Opera, the Phantom of the Opera has been playing a the majestic theater on Broadway continuously since it opened in January, 1988. Wow. Over 13,000 performances. If it ever shuts down, I mean, it eventually will shut down. It is going to take a really long time before anything passes it.

Again, Katz had 6,000. There's other shows with hovering in the 9,000 area, but like with 13,000 performances, it's crazy. It's a classic. Okay. So a couple of years, a couple of years. a couple of years after Phantom opened, February 10, 1990. February 10, 1990. On that date, a song sung in part by this cartoon cat, went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100,

and it stayed there for three weeks. What is the name of the cartoon cat? Meow, meow, meow. Dana. So this is DJ Cool Cat? You are, no, I can't give it to you, Dana. Karen? Is it MC Scat Cat?

Oh my God. Yes. That's what it is. It is MC Scat Cat. Two steps back. Paula Abdul's song. Just like Crazy Cat, those are both Ks in the Scat and the cat. Sure, sure.

That's right. And yes, MC Scat Cat from Paula Abdul's song, opposites attract. Three weeks at number one. I don't know if it was the first time a cartoon cat hit the top on the Billboard Hot 100. but I can't, I can't think of another one. Opposite of Paula Abdul is a cartoon cat. It's pretty funny. Yeah, right, right.

They're pretty opposite, and he smokes, too. Yeah. Okay, so just two more questions here. On August 31st, 1993, in the fiction, Hermione Granger purchased this cat at magical menagerie. Meow. Gingrin. Crookshanks.

It's Crookshanks. Technically, Crookshank's was half-neasel, which is a cat-like mystical creature. Oh. Right, yes. But still fictional. Still fictional. Still fictional. Still technically counts, yes. Also, Harry Potter fans are so crazy that they were able to figure out the, literally the exact date and year in the fiction that Hermione bought this cat.

Wow. Okay. Yep. And I applaud this. Okay. Finally. this cinematic cat's a live cinematic cat live action was portrayed on screen in 1997 by a hairless sphinx cat whose name was Ted nude gent I'm sorry can you read that again I'm sorry there's a lot going on there this this cinematic cat so I'm looking for the name of the character okay in the film was portrayed on screen in 1997 by a Hairless Sphinx Cat named Ted Nude Gent.

Yum, yum, yum, yum. Miao. Miao. Miao. Karen Miao the loudest. She wants it. She wants it more. She wants it more.

Mr. Bigglesworth? Yes. Mr. Bigglesworth in Austin Powers, yes. Apparently, Ted Nude Gent was actually very nice. And he loved Mike Myers so much that he would just get super relaxed on set and just which was not professional at all in fact cost a lot of money and delayed shots but they brought him back for all the sequels so yeah all right good job everybody on the all the fictional cats and the meowing really good i think this time i will i'll want listeners to go back and listen to the

meows or eight years ago and the meows today you know maybe our maybe our voices are not as they're not as fresh and springy as they were for meowing eight years ago. But, you know, perhaps today they're just lent a certain gravitas due to the weight of the world being honest. Yeah. We all have children now. Yeah. So or maybe very like.

Rum-Tum-Tigger. We're like old Deuteronomy. Right, right, right. That's rum-tum-tugger, by the way. You're mixing, you're confusing it with Christopher Robin's friend. You're conflating. You're mixing your cats. We don't want to do that on this on this show.

Oh, yeah. That'll be the next quiz, which I'll combine the names of two cats, and you have to figure out to extract one cat from the other cat. A cat, or gene-splicing fictional cats. So in eight years, we can expect that quiz. Yeah, I'm going to be ready next time. 2029. Okay.

You can spend less time staying in the know about all things gaming and get more time to actually play the games you love with the IGN. Daily Update podcast. All you need is a few minutes to hear the latest from IGN on the world of video games, movies, and television with news, previews, and reviews. You'll hear everything from Comic Con coverage to the huge Diablo for launch. So listen and subscribe to the IGN Daily Update, wherever you get your podcasts. That's the IGN Daily Update, wherever you get your podcasts. So growing up, there was this one semi-fancy restaurant that my parents would take us to as kids.

It's like one of those things where I still remember the interior. I still remember like the plate design. It's just one of those things like growing up in my memory, it's like kind of stuck in there. One time we were there, a dish came out, Chinese restaurant family style, and my dad leaned over and he goes, Oh, here, eat this. It's cat ears. And took a scoop, a scoop of cat ears and put it in my bowl. And I was like, oh, my God. I mean, literally, like he said cat ears. And I'm looking at it. And it looks like cat ears. And I was like, okay, well, is he pulling my leg? Like, well, that doesn't seem really efficient. Like, what do they do with the rest of the cat? But then again, like, we eat pig ears. That's a delicacy. But then pig ears are bigger. These are like little cat ears. And then finally, as it turns out. out it is really actually not real cat ears. It's noodles. It's a type of pasta. It's a lot like Orchietta does really look like cat ears. But for a small moment there, I believe him. Such a dad thing to do. Such a dad thing to do. It's good for you. There's a mushroom.

And my dad was said that they were monkey ears. They're like the black mushroom. Oh, yeah, wood ears. Oh, like the wood ear, the wood ear. Yeah. Yeah. He said, oh, these are some monkey ears. and he's like they're delicious and he ate one and I was like there's so many like deceptively named foods out there in Chinese cuisine the gooey duck or the geoduck yeah it's a big clam right a big clam with a weird phallic a very long extension in Chinese it's called elephant trunk oh and so with I mean when you don't see the clamshell and you just see the elongation thing you're like oh is it looks like an elephant trunk oh that's interesting and then there's also like what we're we know as sweet bread, which is the biggest lie of all. It's not bread, nor is it sweet. It's like organs. So inspired by this, I actually have done some fun research here. And I have a list of food from around the world deceptively named after feline animal body parts.

So like cat ears. I'm going to be introducing you to them one by one. And I was hoping for the ones that you've never heard of, you could venture a guess. want to kind of see where your imagination goes. All right. And these are actual food items. So if you don't know, try to reason and try to think what it could be. Okay.

So we're going to take our first stop, Canada. In Canada, they have something called the Tiger Tale. What do you think Tiger Tail is? The Tiger Tail. All right, so it's got to be something striped. Yep, right, right? Yeah. Oh, geez.

I mean, I should know this. I mean, I think it's a donut. Oh, okay. Like a pastry. I like that, like an acclair or something. Something sweet. Okay, you guys are close. Tiger Tail is actually a flavor.

Most famously, it's Tiger Tail in the form of ice cream. It is orange ice cream with the swirl of black licorice. Oh. Interesting. Everybody's making a face. You can't see it. Okay, I haven't tried it. I'll save my judgment, I guess.

All right. I've never seen that. I was hoping it'd be orange and chocolate. Supposedly very delicious. To people who like licorice. And some say that the orange, like the strong orange flavor is very refreshing in contrast with licorice. Okay. This is a Canadian thing.

You cannot find it outside of Canada. And also it sparks like other tiger tail flavored things. Got it. Got it. All like a pumpkin spice or something. You might just see it. Yes, yes. They have Twizzlers, you know, that's like tiger tail.

Taylor. Yeah, I don't know if it's funny, but. Next stop, we're going to France, and we're going to be eating cat tongue. Cat tongue. For the people who don't know, take a guess. What do you think a cat tongue is? Is it a pastry? Warm, warm.

I was going to guess like a... Maybe I've seen this on the baking show. Like a little toasted bread or a little, like a little toast point or something like that, maybe. Oh, that's because it's like kind of Raspian. Yeah, yeah. Or maybe it's like a meringue or something. It is a cookie. If you think of, if you think of the Pepperidge Farm, Milano.

That type of cookie that's not sandwiched, the cookie by itself is a cat tongue. I can see it. I can see it. I can see it. Long Deschat is the French term. There's also a Dutch term, a Spanish term. It's an old kind of butter cookie, a long round shape.

All right. Cat tongues. We got cat ears. What about a lionhead? A lionhead. Where's this from? This is from China. Oh, this is cabbage, I think. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not. It's a meatball. Yes, it is. It's huge. Usually it's cooked with cabbage. And the cabbage is supposed to be like the main. Oh, okay. Okay. That's cute.

Okay, next stop, we're going to Spain, and we're going to be drinking panther milk. Ooh. Panther milk. Panther milk. I'm going to, yes. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'll take a hint.

Whenever people use the term panther to describe, like, consumer goods, it's always really intense, almost borderline illegal. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was. I was going to say some sort of like, like spiked beverage, like something, you know, like maybe there's some alcohol in it, but maybe it's dairy-based. You are 100% correct.

Panther milk from Spain is condensed milk with gin. Oh. Oh, that sounds good. That sounds like a nice evening. I don't know. I'll tell you what. I'm going to be trying some Panther milk later on today because I have the required ingredients in my kitchen.

A Barcelona treat. And you know what, Colin, you're completely right. Those are two ingredients that many people have on hand, especially if you're in the military. So originated in the 1920s in Spain among the Spanish Foreign Legion. The story goes, the founder of the Legion asked a famous bartender at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid for a drink recipe that was easy to make could be served in any situation. anywhere for his soldiers so obviously can condense milk is like high shelf life it's sweet and mix with whatever clear alcohol is lying around so some historians think that originated from injured soldiers who wanted some quick relief and what they had was medical grade alcohol and so they put some condensed milk to make it you know a little bit more palatable or a that fits the name better also say like it's going to rough you up yeah yeah yeah industrial medical yeah now nowadays it's commonly with gin connects milk with gin and maybe like some spices or maybe some other additions

like granadine syrup but it is it is a milky drink i like it so we started with tiger tail and we're going to end with the the tiger nut what do you think tiger nut is our last one Tiger nut may sound familiar Yeah I mean I thought it was a nut I've had I think things with like Tiger nut flower in them before But I'm yes

Not like is it so it's not a nut is what you're saying Well it's not a tiger testicle Like a like a Like a cashew or a peanut or not nuts Botanical It's not a botanical numb It is a tuber Oh

It's a small round kind of like a little sweet potato. It made its way from North Africa to Spain and actually the proto horchata, like the drink that horchata is based off of is made from tiger nuts, like roundup tiger nut milk. Interesting.

Currently there is a giant health food craze for tiger nuts. If you go to Whole Foods or a supermarket, you're going to see tiger nut milk. As an alternative to dairy, there's tiger nut food. flower. It's super high in fiber. It has antioxidants. However, it is a very invasive species of weeds. Oh. So there you go. From Tiger Tail down to Tiger Nut. We got it all. Well, you know the expression from soup to nuts. We've got from tail to nuts. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's

take a quick break. And we'll be right back. This podcast from Beneath the Hollywood Sign. Mary Astor has been keeping a diary. Mary writes everything down. And so this torrid affair with George S. Kaufman is chronicled on a daily basis. In great detail. And Ive pulls out a box and gives McAllister a ring saying, here's something to remember me by. This article caused Daryl Zanick to hit the roof.

Actress Ruth Roman followed that up with playing a foil to Betty Davis in Beyond the Force. if you can stand toe to toe with her, boy. And she does because she plays the daughter of the man that Betty Davis kills out in the hunting trip. And it's directed by King Vidor, so he's no slouch. How do you go wrong with that? Speaking of the Oscars, talking about what I call Beginners Luck, it's all about the actors and actresses who won an Oscar on their very first film. Get your fix of Old Hollywood from Stephen N on the podcast from Beneath the Hollywood Sign.

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You're listening to Good Job Brain. Smooth puzzles. Smart trivia. Good job. brain and we're back and this week we're feline fine all right it's our feline cat show and of course one of us is I would say our own cat expert Colin guilty as charged there's there's no doubt about it yeah I I've had 11 cats by my count over the course of my count over the course of life they've all been great i wanted to put together a segment for you guys kind of just

celebrating what i consider the everyday superpowers of cats karen you're you're the dog person i'm the cat person that's cool that's all right it's it's not that i don't want cats i don't think i've ever had cats but if i did have cats i want like a fat cat not to take away from your segment but one of the interesting things i came across was um we always see articles celebrating. This is the fattest cat or this is the fattest dog. Turns out the Guinness Book of World Records does not, does not give an award for fattest. That's good. They don't want to encourage the behavior, right? They don't want to encourage people artificially fattening their poor kitty just to get in the book. That's why. That's just got to be really moralizing for the cat,

you know, if they earned it the right way. And then find out. You're just chronic overfeeding and lack of stimulation. I've seen a lot of times, you know, people talk about sort of like, you know, our five classic senses, right, of sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste. Woo, that was a dicey there for a second. We had to cut out a lot of mistakes. That was feeling out of it.

Got it on the seventh try, guys. I'm pretty happy about that. I have some kind of just, isn't this cool facts for you guys about cats? But, of course, we are a trivia quiz show. I'll try and couch this with some questions here at various points. Let's start off here with a couple questions related to cats' vision. All right, let me ask you a question here. True or false?

And you guys can do thumbs up, thumbs down. True or false? Cats do not have color vision. True or false? Oh, I have no idea. Chris says false. Dana says true. True.

Because in the Witcher, when you take the cat, I think. potion. It's in black and white. I like it. I like it. I like whether you're wrong or right, I really like the reasoning. Maybe they see some colors. Do you know what I mean? That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. Okay. It is in fact false. Yeah, cats, it's, they don't really see strictly speaking in shades of gray. But as you guys all kind of were getting at, that there is some truth to, we believe,

that they see muted colors for sure. Have you guys seen there's a product. I think it's called Enchroma and that's colorblind. correction glasses where people were colorblind. It's a whole, a whole hole on YouTube of seeing reactions of people who are colorblind and they put on these glasses, they see color for the first time. What happens if we get a hold of these glasses and put them on a dog, on a cat? Are they going to freak out? Would it work? Someone must have done this before. Certainly the cats that I've known have freaked out when you try to put any kind of glasses on them. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. I'm going to put this on a posted note to ruin myself.

This is like Karen's notes in the middle of the night, her little journal. Yeah. Colorblind glasses on dogs, question mark. That's a great idea. All right. True or false? Cats can see finer details than humans.

Finer details. Yeah, if you're getting right up close to something. Who can see in better detail? You or your kitty. Not the kitty. I'll say true because I feel like maybe they have to evolutionarily, you know what I mean, to be able to do what they do. Maybe they just really need those fine details. Okay, okay.

I say true because I've seen cats play with very tiny things before or like look for bugs and things like that. Like they care about little details. It is, it is in fact false. We act as humans actually have better up close detail resolution of detail. detail vision than cats do. This was one that really surprised me when I learned it, to learn that up close, it's kind of a little fuzzy or blurry for them. And again, I was thinking like, well, they're hunting bugs and mice. The cat's kind of ideal perfect focus zone is actually about six or 10 feet out in front of them. So it's for kind of in that stalking zone, stalking prey. And then when

they get closer to the prey and are in sort of for the, you know, final engagement, it really relies on on their other senses. So you're saying reading glasses. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. Let me put it on the posting. They are not great on detail vision up close, as I said, but they are really, really well-suited

for detecting movement. They're also really good at judging distance. Now, you know, again, for an animal that pounces to catch prey, this makes sense. And also then, if you think about it, makes sense why maybe their ideal focus is out a few feet, because that's kind of their pouncing. zone. If a cat is stalking something and they kind of in a little quiet moment, they kind of do that little butt wiggle, you know, and they'll kind of do a little wiggle. Yeah. Yeah. The belief really is is that the butt wiggle is largely to trigger vision recalibration. They're kind of like

jiggling their field of view a little bit to kind of trigger the motion detection, just get a sense of how far away it is so they can make that last little lunge. So I thought that was really, really, really cool to read, yeah. They don't in fact see in the dark. They cannot see when there is no light present. But they really, really, really, really can see in much lower light than humans can. They can see up to about five or six times lower light than we can. One of the reasons they can do this is cats have what is called the tepeas.

That's T-A-P-E-T-U-M. This is a layer of cells, pigmented cells, and it sits behind the cat's retina. It functions like a little eye mirror. And what it does is light comes in, passes the retina, they get one chance to process the light, bounces off the tepeetum, hits the retina again, and they get to process the light again. So it's almost like they get two bites at the apple. on their retina. This layer is what you're seeing effectively.

Like if you take a photo of a cat on a dark night or if you're driving down the road and the cat is in the headlights and the little glow reflector eyes, what you are seeing is the light coming back at you off of their tapitum. True or false? True or false.

Cats can hear higher frequencies than dogs. Higher frequencies. I feel like my dogs freak out. Yeah, that's the thing, right? Dogs freak out over dog whistles, but cats don't freak out over dog whistles. Now, maybe they just, maybe they just like the really high. I think that, um, based on like the size of the ear canal and the ratio of ear to head and, um, you know,

various other math that I'm doing, just, just some quick back of the envelope stuff. I'm going to say dogs can hear higher frequencies than cats, therefore this is false. All right. So which says, well, I'm thinking about this as a, as a question. And it's like, would he make dogs? be better than cats in this quiz? Yeah, I'm in your head. I'm in your head now.

So now I'm going to say true because cats win in Collins' quiz. Dana, Dana is correct on this one. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think you're right. I think it says a lot about cats that they kind of just maybe give you an annoyed

glance when you use the dog whistle. But they're like, yeah, man, I can hear it too. They're like, trust me, I can hear it too. They chase little tiny rodents that make little tiny sounds. And they chase birds that make little tiny sounds. You may not know this. Not all people don't know this, but they can rotate their ears independently. Each ear can rotate independently through 180 degrees.

So the cat can basically, with almost no movement of their head, can really map the entire sort of sphere around them. True or false, cats cannot taste sweetness. Ooh. Okay. Sure, why not? They can't taste sweetness. That's why they lick their butt all of them.

They can taste deliciousness. Yeah. Cats cannot taste sweetness. They feel, they suspected it for a long time. Many mammals have sweet receptors, in fact, really good sweet receptors. Like we do, of course, as humans, almost all the primates have really good sweet receptors, because it's a really good signal of in nature things that are very valuable to us. You know, high caloric intake from sugar, you know, usually, but not always, you know, good vitamins,

you know, berries and things like that tend to be generally very healthy for us. But that's you're right, Karen, cats not only want meat, cats need meat. Cats really, they need it for regular bodily functions, like they will break down if they don't have touring in their diet. The cats have something called the vomero nasal organ. also called Jacobson's organ. And what this is is a little tube, more or less, of cartilage inside the top of the cat's mouth. What this organ can do is suck in chemical components.

I don't even want to say the word smells because it's sort of like between a smell and a flavor. They can capture this from the air. They hold it in this little tube. It converts it into a taste. It just is the simplest way of thinking about this. So the cat can certain things that put off the right compounds, they can suck them into their mouth without touching the thing physically, taste it before they even take a bite with their tongue.

And they know exactly what it's going to taste like. This is really, really closely related to like what snakes are doing. When snakes kind of flick out their tongue, you know, like we've all sort of heard as kids, you know, that's how they smell the world is they flick their tongue out. And sort of a simplification, they're, they're smell tasting. It's sort of, it's a sense that we don't really have as humans. Yeah, it's really neat. I have a question. Yeah.

Is it by choice or do they just live through this day to day all the time? Yeah, no, that's a great question. They're walking down the street. What if there's like a pile of dog poo and it's like, well, I don't want to smell it, but like they have to. I'll taste it. Yes. have to taste it. That's a great, no, it's a great question. And in fact, there is a special process that they will trigger in the way they want to do this. And this is, this is again,

really interesting, really interesting. It is, it's by choice. Cats exhibit, horses do this too. You might see it. It's called the Flamen reaction. Okay. And what this is, if you, again, if you've ever lived with cats or been around cats, I promise you, you've seen them do this, is they'll come over to something that looks maybe interesting and maybe kind of to you, even a little, you know, a strong odor and they'll pull their lips back a little bit and kind of stiff in their neck and they kind of just freeze and they go and it's a it's this funny looking expression to us it looks like maybe they're kind of grimacing like so when they want to do this type of smell tasting they will exhibit the flame in reaction i have to give some credit here to the wonderful

wonderful book how to talk to your cat by claire besant this is a book that has been in my library for a long time. Dana, you got our next cat segment. So what I have for you all today is a cat word quiz. Okay. So how it works is all of the words I've picked contain the letters C-A-T in that order with no words, no other letters between them. Okay, okay, okay. These words contain the word cat.

And I'll give you two hints about this word to help like narrow it down. Turns out a lot of words have the letters C-A-T-N-M. But there should only be one word that fits both of these clues. That's what I'm saying. So get your barnyard buzzers ready. Let's blast through some cat words. All right. First one.

This is the word describes improvisational jazz, but also an unamborational jazz. Related and unrelated meaning of it is poop. I heard Chris first, I think. Scat. Yes. Skat. How about this?

So this is a page near the front of a book, and it also means self-sacrificing devotion. Self-sacrificing devotion. And a page near the front of the book. Self-sacrificing devotion and a page near the front of a book. Oh, my goodness. Oh. Okay, Chris. Dedication.

Dedication. Oh, good one. Good, good, good. Dedication. All right. This is the I and PIN and a passport, for example. And Karen. Identification.

Yes. Pin number. Oh, I see. Oh, okay. Yeah. This means to lie. It also means to manufacture or invent something. Oh.

Karen? Fabrication. Yes. Fabrication, yes. How about this one? This is a 2015 sitcom starring Sharon Hogan and Rob Delaney, and it's also the name for a devastating event. So there's a 2015 sitcom with Rob DeLine. Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Colin, maybe. It was a catastrophe. Catastrophe. Yeah. Yes. All right. This is a song from Taylor Swift's reputation album. It's also a setting on a clothes dryer.

Karen. Delicat. Yeah, delicate. Delicate. This is the main character in Eric Carl's classic children's book, and it's an area of study for a lapidopatris. Ooh. This is the caterpillar, the hungry caterpillar, if you will.

Very hungry. Okay, in music, it's indicated by a note with a dot above or below, and it's a note that's played sharply detached or separated from others. Colin. That is staccato. Staccato. This one. There's an idiom for it, and it's blank brained.

And it's also the fake grass and dioramas and model railways. Meow, meow, meow, meow, meo, meo, meo, oh. Karen, I'll accept it, yes. Is it just scatter? Scatter, yes. Scatter. Scatter. Scatter.

Scatter. That fake grass that they, spray on it's like powder it's like flocking or scatter good term to know okay last one it's the c and crt television and it's also part of a diode that allows power to flow out i think i heard a horse first i i think i jumped a little early but i i believe that is cathode cathode cat hoady catthode why is pronouncing words incorrectly so funny it always is It really is. I don't know. Something about it. Spanatch. Yeah. It just, yeah. I feel dumb for this to this day.

But when someone intentionally mispronounces jalapeno as jalapeno, it makes me laugh. It makes me laugh every time, every time makes me laugh. It's just because somebody in eighth grade Spanish class did it once and it, yeah. I think we like dead jokes. Like we have a real bias towards that. And that's a real dead joke. I'm low-hanging fruit. Fruits. Yeah. Once you start realizing like the dad jokes, the dad's actually in on them and the joke is on you for believing it.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Like when we went to Paris in high school, the husbands of our language teachers also went on the trip. I think the husband of the Spanish teacher is in Paris. And he comes out of a store where the sandwich is like, yo, look at this. I got this sandwich called a bagget. They call it that because they put it in a bag. for you.

No, we all thought he was just stupid, you know what I mean? Like, because we're high school kids and we're real jerk, so we all thought that he really thought that. No, and then I realized it's actually a funny, it's a good joke. It was just, it was wasted

on us. It's so embarrassing. It's so embarrassing when you're on the wrong side of the dad joke. You think someone's making earnest. You try to help them. They're like, I'm not. stupid you're like oh that's such a good joke now good it's good yeah I mean you have to think

I mean he's also coming out of the thing he's got the huge bread it's in the big long cheese you know and crying yeah and that's our show thank you guys for joining me and thank you guys listeners for listening in hope you learn stuff about super cat senses, fictional cats, and foods deceptively named after feline body parts. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and on all podcast apps. And on our website, good jobbrain.com. This podcast is part of Airwave Media Podcast Network. So visit airwavemedia.com to listen and subscribe to other shows like The Accidental Creative.

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