Good Job, Brain! - 224: Today is a Gift, That's Why It’s Called "The Present"

Episode Date: December 21, 2021

We're wrapping this season up with an episode all about gifts and presents! Remember Tickle Me Elmo, Razor scooters, and the Talk Boy? Then take a walk down memory lane with Colin's hottest toy challenge. Learn about a present you should never give yourself from the hardware store, and Dana's got a list of Christmas song presents and she's checking it twice. And Karen's writing gift tags in "From Country with Love," a quiz about country-to-country gifting traditions. Also: horror bird statue, and the thrilling conclusion to our puzzle adventure with Carmin San Mateo. 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. Ho, ho, ho, ho, holiday and hot stuff, hollering for a heck of ham and hoarderves. This is Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. Today's show is episode 224, our season finale. And of course, I'm your humble host, Karen. And we are your elegant, elvish, elders, elated for ellipsies, elixers, and elbows. Oh, I'm Colin. I'm Dana.

And I'm Chris. Matt, you started so strong. I was just like, whoa. Just right out of the gates. Yeah. All right. Without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment. quiz hot shot here I have a random trivial pursuit card and you guys have your barnyard buzzers here

we go let's answer some questions blue edge for geography which ski area in Utah became the largest in the U.S. when it merged with nearby canyons resort in 2015 oh man uh Dana uh is it Provo? No. Okay. Colin. Man, is it Squaw Valley? It is Park City. Oh, Park City.

I think now largely known as the Olympic training ground for a lot of the snow sports. Oh, yeah. I feel like I should have known that well, the extreme snowboarding that I do. Well, you've actually grown up with snow out of all of us. That is true. That's right. That's right. Do you know how to ski? Absolutely not. Oh, okay. I went skiing once when I was a kid.

I got up to the top of the, I mean, to call it a mountain. I mean, I went up to the top of the small hill, looked down, walked down sideways on my skis, went into the lodge and played the arcade version of Punch Out for two hours. That was my one and only skiing trip. My favorite part of the ski trip is hanging out in the lodge, too. Yeah, me too. Oh, yeah, it was great. I love that. You're outside for 10 minutes and you come in the lodge.

You're like, woo. Time for a hot chocolate. Yeah, the hot cocoa tastes better. Everything is better in the ski lodge. Okay, so we're all on board. Okay. I think I mentioned on the show before that like I, my only, my only window to snowboarding was playing SSX tricky on PlayStation 2.

And like, I played so much of it. I, like, convinced myself that I was going to be good at real snowboarding. how did that go And so I went to Vancouver I went to Whistler I was like my friends are like going on a ski trip I was like I'll go I'm really good at SSX tricky I cried the way down

Like crying Like maybe I should fake an injury So that one of those like motor snowmobiles would pick me up and come down the mountain Yeah It was not like the game at all Anyways, I'm glad you shared that one of my most embarrassing moments in my life, I just remembered when we were talking about the ski lodges. What happened?

Okay, I'll tell it. So I was just in the ski lodge. It could have been anywhere, but I was in the ski lodge for this really embarrassing thing that happened. I went to the bathroom, and I came out, and I was like, what's that sound? Like, I was walking around for a while, and then I found out that the toilet seat. cover was stuck in my pants. I was hanging out the back of my

pen. Not a piece of toilet paper, the toilet seat cover thing. That's so traumatic as a kid. I wasn't a kid. I was in my 20s. The pants were so

crinkly and like, you know how they're so excited. I just didn't I was like, oh, this is the normal sound that the pants make, I think. They're so crinkly. You know, I had one of my more embarrassing moments, yeah, on the slopes as well. I went to visit my sister and she was living in Boulder, Colorado, and I flew in from sea level, California, flew into Boulder. We went up to her favorite. The next morning, we went up to her favorite, you know, I don't even remember what resort.

it was. We'd get up in the mountain. I'm like, I'm not feeling well. I was just, I was like, I was determined to make it down. So I, you know, in fits and starts, maybe stopping halfway to throw up a little bit, but in fits and starts, I made my way down, down the mountain precariously. And I'm on, you know, it sort of flattens out at the bottom. And you're supposed to sort of take it easy. But I had picked up so much speed there. And I couldn't really stop. So I finally managed to stop and still fell flat on my butt, flat on kind of there. And then I suffered the worst indignity of any modern person, which was a group of high school students started laughing at me.

I said, nice landing, guys. And I had to just sort of get up and meekly, yeah, skate over to the lodge. And I just sort of sipped on hot chocolate for the next hour. Wow. We should have just all played the arcade machine and not even. try to go out. Again, that's what I'm saying. I got up there.

I could have had an incident just like any of these incidents. I chose not to. Did we just like invent trivial pursuit therapy? That was only the first question on the card. Okay. All right. Next question. Ooh, Pink Wedge.

Which gone girl was a bond? Girl in Pierce Brosons die another day. Which Gone Girl was a Bond Girl? Are they talking about the title character or the... Well, they're looking for an actress. Oh, okay. Colin. Well, the only actor I can remember from Gone Girl who might fit this bill is Rosman Pike.

Yes. It is Rosman Pike. Okay. I didn't know she was in. I did not know that. All right, Yellow Edge. Who voiced these words on air after Nixon resigned the presidency? Quote, my fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.

Who said that, Colin? Was that Walter Cronkite? Incorrect. Chris. I was going to guess Gerald Ford? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Okay, all right, okay. Yeah. Well, he was the vice president, right? So he, yeah.

Purple Wedge, which 1,136-page novel takes place on a single day, June 16th, in the city of Dublin, in the life of Leopold Bloom? Oh. Yeah. Chris. Is this Ulysses? Yes, it is Ulysses. James Joyce's very long. Yeah.

Has anyone read it? I'm going to go ahead and say that I have not read Ulysses and probably die without reading it. I will admit to being one of the probably millions of people who started it and abandoned it. Yeah. Like for fun? No, I had to do it for school.

I started and abandoned Finnegan's Wake actually, not Ulysses. I did read a portrait of the artist's young man and I did read Dubliners. Then I'm like, okay, I'm going to read Finnegan's wake and I'm like, no, I'm not. Never mind.

And I put the book down and went to play some punchout. In the lodge. Hot chocolate. Back to the Lodge. Right back in the ski lodge. I just read after 20 plus years longer, I guess. I read It. I just, I picked it up with a pandemic just to kind of knock it out.

And that one was probably over. I don't know, maybe not. I was going to say, one of the longest books I read was Roots, I think. Yeah, I was like 13 when I read it. I was like, look at this book I read. It's real big. I liked it, too, but I was very proud of that. Green Wedge for Science, which implement long use in cattle driving is capable of breaking the sound barrier?

Oh, Colin. That is the whip. Yes. A whip in shape. Keep it up. The card says, specifically the sharp crack of the long tapered bull whip. Yeah. Orange Wedge.

In 2015, who became the second youngest golfer to win the Masters tournament after Tiger Woods? Oh. Golf, not our strong point. What year? Yeah, no, 2015. 2015. Who became the second youngest golfer. Oh, okay.

Is that Rory McElroy? That's right. No. He's young, too. Yeah. Well, that's all I got. The answer is Jordan Spieth. Oh, okay.

Yeah. Yeah, Jordan Spieth. Yeah. From Texas. Jordan Spieth. All right. Good job. Good job, Brains.

Everybody, thank you for sharing your deep dark trauma. Trauma at the ski resort. Ski-related drama. And we have an amazing, guys. We have an amazing Patreon Purple Pledge Fact. This is from Gabby Ubea, and she says this. I currently live in Madrid. in Spain where I teach middle school language arts in an American school, but I'm originally from

Stirling Virginia. My brother recommended you to me in 2014, and I have since listened to the catalog four times all the way through. It's such a source of comfort. Since then, I've gotten really involved in pub quiz here in Madrid, and I now host at an English-speaking bookstore bar called J&J's Books and Coffee. So now she's a quiz host. I love it.

She says, anyways, this podcast means a lot to me, and my trivia team is sick of me saying, I learned this on Good Job Brain. They should be happy. Because you're winning. Gabby here, my goodness, she's one of our purple Patreon pledgers, and she gets to share a fact with us on the show. And it is amazing. And I'm so glad it's happening on the season finale. So this is her fact, she wrote. In Madrid's Plaza Mayor, there's a statue of King Felipe the 3rd.

It was cast in the early 16th century, and eventually it started to smell really bad. Okay. When it was pulled down by the Republicans in 1931, hundreds of tiny bird bones fell out. Turns out birds were able to get in through a hole in the statue but couldn't get back. out. Oh my gosh. It was an elaborate bird trap. It was cast in 16th century. Hundreds of years of birds.

Four hundred years. Four centuries. Just birds were just going, dying. How did this work? So it's King Felipe on a horse. And so the whole is actually the horse's mouth. Oh, my gosh. It was cast like, so if you imagine a horse, birds, you know, when it's raining, they're like, oh, this is a nice

spot so they fly into the mouth and then into the cavity of the inner part of the the horse body however in order to get out they have to fly down and aim down but but it's not enough space for their wings so they end up getting trapped and die in there oh no 400 years this is like a bird horror story you know what I mean like the 400 year old statue that eats your ancestors They might realize the moment they go in, they shouldn't have gone in because it's like full of bird bones. You're just like, oh, this is bad. I like that people are like, that's just a stinky statue, you know? Yeah.

No need to look into it any further. That's fine. They actually reconstructed the statue and they welded the mouth of the horse so that we can prevent this bird horror story from happening. I think they should erect a statue of the birds in honor of, you know, I mean. To commemorate the birds who's lost their lives. Yeah. Well, thank you, Gabby. Gabby.

Holy cow. This is ridiculous. All right. Today, season finale. It's our season finale. And, of course, we're in the midst of holiday season. And one of the best parts of the holidays, we've done a food episode. But another awesome part of the holidays is getting presents, is getting gifts, giving gifts.

But most, you know, most of the time, getting gifts. So this week, today is a gift. That's why it's called the present. Wow. Oh, in the brush stroke font. Yeah. Yeah, it's one o'clock. You're like, oh, okay.

Yeah. It's like if you're not going to smile at my, then get the heck out of here. Yes, it is the holiday season. And that means that I have, you know, I just wanted to talk about a gift that you should not give to yourself and that you should not give to other people. Whoa.

It is, yeah, so it's the holiday season. That means that, you know, all around America, hardware stores are going to start hanging up some festive holiday signage. The typical holiday sign that they're going to hang up at, you know, Home Depot or Ace Hardware as a little illustration of a product that people typically want to buy during the holiday season. And below that product, that image that illustration, is usually written something that goes a little bit like this. These are not made. These should never be made.

We will not make them. We will not help you make one. Okay. Well, this sign seems to mean business. What is this product? Why are people asking for it? It is, put simply, if you can picture this in your head, a male-to-mail power cord. Both ends of the cable.

Wait, like two plugs? Yeah, like both ends of the cable are a plug that you plug into the wall. And the other end is another plug that you plug into the wall. And, yeah, you cannot buy this at hardware stores. But I recently discovered, actually, around this time last year, that these signs showing one of these, saying, get out of here if you want one of these, go up every holiday season because there is a big surge in interest for them around this time. And why is that? Well, typically this is what happens. You, like Clark Griswold, go up onto the roof of your home and you hang about 500 feet of

Christmas lights up there and Santa and the reindeer and everything. Then once that's all, you know, stapled in and secure and you know it's not going anywhere and it's really fixed to your roof you climb down the you know ladder that's kind of like precariously leaning up against the side of your house with like one setting the scene you know and you you're finally done right you've been up on your literal roof this whole time like risking your life and uh you go over you're going to plug the strand of light into the outlet and light the pole place up and you look down at your hand and you're holding the female end of the cord. The holes end.

And the holes end of the cords. And the male end is somewhere up near your chimney, like stapled up right. You put a man backwards. Oh, they do it wrong. That people will do it backwards accidentally. And so at this point, if you don't really know that much about electricity, you think, oh, sure, no problem. I just need an adapter.

You know, just like you do USB to USB micro, whatever. Oh, no, I just need a dongle. I just need a dongle that plugs in the mail end and goes in here. And then I'll plug the mail end into my wall. And then bing, bang, boom, I got my adapter. Problem solved. Actually, no, for like many reasons. So, so I'm talking about this, by the way, because I think some of you guys may have seen, I actually tweeted about this last year in 2020. On Twitter, I showed some examples of these signs because I could find many of them. So I showed like four. examples of these, we don't make this sign. And the tweet like kind of went viral that year. And then this year with me doing nothing, it came back again. You know, like it just seems like every holiday season, this tweet is going to come back on me because people are very interested in,

you know, in this and the fact that this sort of just happens. Oh, I just thought to myself, you know what? Let me, let me bring this on to the show. Because I plugged the show under the tweet, plugged the show. There's another one. That's what you're supposed to do. You're you're supposed to promote your SoundCloud, right? When the tweet goes viral. But I'm like, oh, I should actually talk about this on good job brain. Now, I learned something interesting.

Before we go into too much detail here, I learned something interesting in the replies to this tweet, which is that Christmas lights do not necessarily work in other countries the way that we do them in America. Because people are actually very confused. They're like, what do you mean the female end of the Christmas lights? If you're a non-American listening to the show right now and you're a little confused about this, yes,

are strands of lights that you buy and you put. put on your house and stuff like that, or even you put on your Christmas tree. Christmas lights generally have a male plug at one end that you plug into the wall and a female plug at the other end. And we can daisy chain our strands of lights together to cover our gigantic American houses. Now, you might think, gee, isn't that, isn't that like dangerous? Like, will that, like, overload the circuit if you do it too many times? And the answer is no, because what a lot of people don't know is that each of those strands of lights actually has a fuse in it. the female end, there are fuses in the strands. So if something were to get overloaded,

you wouldn't overload the whole thing and cause a big fire. The fuse would blow. So with that in mind, now we get to, well, why can't Ace Hardware sell me, you know, a male-to-male power cord? Well, the first danger here is basic electrical safety, because the reason the plugs are designed as they are, it's that the electricity is deep inside your wall. That's why there's no plugs sticking out from outside your wall. And you plug it to the other end. The electricity is in there. So you put the prongs inside and then it meets the electricity versus it just being out.

When you plug this, you plug one of these things in. And now the electricity is all outside of the wall. And it's just open and exposed. Because people ask this question on Twitter, it's like, why is this dangerous? It's like, imagine. if you had a taser, but it was floppy and always on and concluded.

At ankle height in your living room. Yeah, exactly. And this is why some people very morbidly call this cable a suicide cable. It's super dangerous. And back to the Christmas lights. Now, okay, so let's say that you were really super careful, if you still shouldn't do this. If you were really

super careful and you plug the, you know, into your Christmas lights and plug it into the wall, well you've now kind of lost the protection of all those chains of fuses because the fuses are at the wrong end of the whole thing and so you don't you just all you want to do is it's like this is what some of these signs are like if you need this adapter you put your lights up wrong you don't need this adapter doesn't exist what you need is a big extension cord for the other end or you need to restring your Christmas lights but you but if you want to get a big extension cord and do that do it that way you can do that so some of the replies to this tweet said something to the effect of, oh, well, I actually do use one of those because that's how I plug my generator into the house's electrical system. You know, if you have a portable backup, you know, generator, you can plug it into your home using one of those cables. And I'm sure there's a lot of them actually out there being used for that purpose. You know, you have a generator. You plug one end in. You plug one end into an outlet in your house and

it, quote unquote, back feeds. It back feeds the electricity backwards into your house. instead of it coming from the power line, you're putting the electricity into your house into your house. Yes. So you can do that. It's illegal everywhere in the United States. You can do it. And the reason, I mean, one of the reasons why is because if somebody is, let's say the power goes down, right?

Okay, I'll plug my generator into the wall and start sending electricity through my house that way. Now the power line guy comes to that goes up in the power lines. Well, the power lines are dead, so he's going to fix it. Oh, oops. you're sending electricity through, because it's leaving your house and going to the power lines also.

Now you zap that guy and he dies. Yikes. But people are like, oh, well, you know, then I'll just, I'll shut off the main breaker. It's like, yeah, okay, like, I guess if you do that, but it's like, then you have to, you know, make sure you do it. So, there is a way to have a backup generator for your

home, but, like, it involves, like, what's called a transfer switch, which which takes away all of these, you know, sort of uncertainties and dangers and things like that. Yeah. And so the thing is, you can go, if you go to Amazon, you can buy a mail-to-mail power cord. Oh, my God. I would not. I thought you said places don't make them.

You, so responsible places do not make them. But there are sellers on Amazon that will sell you a lot of stuff that, um, you can't buy in a store. I looked at all the reviews for it. The first review for the first one that I saw, five out of five stars, good for pools. I plug one end into my home outlet and I put the other end into my pool to kill all the frogs. Oh, God. Did you kill all the frogs?

Oh, my God. Yes. So the holidays bring a bounty of gifts. Let's make sure that one of them is not a suicide cord. Also, important PSA. There were so many people who responded to this tweet who were like, yeah, I worked at a hardware store and I constantly had to deal with people like yelling at me, telling me that these did exist and that they just know more than me.

and I'm like, it could kill you, and they're like, no, no, no, not me, you know? It's like, yeah, I'm the electron charmer. I know what I'm doing. Right, right, precisely, right, yeah. Well, so now I'm curious, Chris, you alluded to this. So have other countries solved this problem in a more sophisticated way than we have? And yes, in a lot of cases, if you do have strands of lights that connect together, they just have special proprietary plugs on the other side so you can own the,

connect them to other strands of lights. So less confusing. Or they just don't have them. Yeah. Be careful out there, everybody. Yeah. Thank you, hardware store employees, keeping ourselves safe. All right.

Now that our group safety lesson is out of the way safely for the year, I have a quiz for you all about holiday toys, not necessarily Christmas toys, more just end of year. whatever your end of your holiday of choice is. Q4 shopping. Yeah, there we go. I like that. That sounds nice, warm and fuzzy. The Q4 shopping quiz.

I have gone through multiple, multiple lists. A lot of research here and compiled some of the hot, best-selling number one toys of various years over the last, oh, 50 years or so. Wow. I am going to give you guys some clues here, a few, and usually the, number one selling toy of a given year. And I want you guys to write down your best guess as to what year I am talking about. Okay. Some of these will be a little easier than others. I have mixed these up chronologically. So you cannot use that as a hint of going an order from oldest to most

recent. Whoever is closest to the year will get a point. We can share points if there's a tie. guess the year exactly. I will give you two points. So we'll start off with one here that hopefully not too hard. And I've really tried not to have too many video game related ones on here, which I think would be an unfair advantage for our own Chris Kohler. All right. Some of the best-selling Toys or Games in this year included the game Bananagrams, toys from the movie Wally and the Nintendo Wii home video game system

Try and start off with a little easy one here for you guys What year was this? What year was this? Banana Grams Wally, Nintendo Wii. Okay. Now certainly some of these toys are hits in multiple years, but this is the year when they all

kind of struck at the same time. I got it. All right. Okay. Ready? okay everyone says 2007

the year that these all peaked actually together was 2008 but you all get a point you all get a point yeah that's right of course the we introduced building up steam building up steam

supply shortages of course affect how many you can sell all right moving right along moving right along what year were the top selling toys included a buzz light year figure space jam the movie action figures and the runaway runaway hit tickle me elmo oh okay space jam the movie action figures starring michael jordan of course many others the buzz light year and the Tickle Me Elmo, one of the best-selling holiday toys of all time.

I don't know. All right. Answers up when you're ready. Chris says 1996. Karen says 1996. Dana says 1997. Oh, so, it is, in fact, 1996. That's right.

So two points to Chris, two points to Karen. Dana, so close. I know. This year had truly. some all-timers on this list. What holiday season saw Care Bears, my little pony figures,

and the absolute Titanic runaway success of Cabbage Patch Kids. What year was this? Care Bears, my little pony, cabbage patch kids. I remember this year well, my sister clamoring for a

cabbage patch kid. All right. Answers up. up when you're ready. Ooh. Chris says 1983. Karen says 1985.

Dana says 1984. Man, I love it. You guys are just, you guys know your toys. It is in fact 1983. So two points to Chris.

I do. I specifically remember Cabbage Patch Kid Mania being 83. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They were introduced in

the late 70s, really picked up steam. That's so crazy, because I feel like I was into my little ponies and care bears, but like, they were cool for a while. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And again, this is not to say that, like, you know, in 1984, no one cared about cabbage patch kids or anything like that. Yeah. All right.

What year? What year are these, these toys were among many, many, many kids lists. The Amazing Alley Interactive Doll, electronic, okay. Okay. Techno, the robotic puppy. All right. This year actually saw, this given year saw a lot of these sort of breakthrough robotic pet year. Okay.

And the absolute king slash queen of that year, the razor kick scooter. Oh, my God. The razor scooter. Amazing Alley. Techno, the robotic puppy, razor scooter. All right, when you're ready, let's see, answers up. This was definitely one of those years who are crossed over into adult purchase as well. All right, let's go earliest to latest here.

Karen says the year 2000. Chris says 2002. Dana, little later there at 2010. Karen has it on the nose. Oh, how symbolic because it's like the robot toys and the... There were a lot. I looked into this, man. I did not even remember the poo-chee was another early electronic dog.

Yeah, you heard me, the poo-dash-chee. Did the robot dog poop? Is that why it's called poo-chee? As far as I know, Karen, it did not actually poop. But yeah. Okay, all right. The Atari, 2,600, the Stretch Armstrong figure. And, again, the number one runaway.

ran out of stock hit Star Wars the movie action figures hopefully you guys can hook into this Atari 2600 Stretch Armstrong Star Wars action figures If you're asking me what year did Star Wars

Action Figures debut I know that So I got to go with it Let's get the answers up Oh no Answers up Okay Dana 1978 Chris 1977 77

Karen 1975 Chris is walking away with this one so far. It is on the nose, 1977, yeah. This year, the Barbie Dream Motor Home moved a lot of units, moved a lot of units, the Barbie Dream Motor Home, but it could not compete with the hype and the sales of the Talk Boy, the Talk Boy,

the voice modulating tape recording device, which was boosted in population. already by its appearance in a hit movie. Oh. Oh. That's all that's all I'm going to give you. I might have said too much already. Talk boy. Could record audio. You could play it back. You could make it slower. Speed it up. It's slower. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Does that ring a bell? Yes. Your voice would sound like your dad's voice. Maybe. Whoa. Oh, all right. Dana says 1989. Chris says 1992. Karen says 1979. I think Chris is on. I think Chris is on.

the trail of the movie. Chris, what movie am I talking about here? The feature film you are mentioning in which the talk boy made its appearance and made every kid want one to pull off the incredible pranks committed by Mr. Kevin McAllister and

Home Alone 2 lost in New York. You got it. Not even the first one. Not even the first one. It was the sequel. That's right. That's right. Wow, you really know your McAllister. What was the answer? Ninety-three.

Oh, that's tough. Okay. Yeah, so point to Chris there, one year off. Yeah, this one was great. I, it was such a key part of some of the marketing from the film. Obviously, kids were like, that's a pretty cool toy. So they decided to turn it into a real toy. Hasbro, in fact, the, you know, one of the leading toy manufacturers, they made one.

It became so popular that, again, it was selling out. They had, they could not keep up with the demand for this toy that was sort of popular. as a lark almost in just for a plot point in the movie going way back i will tell you guys we're going way back on this one i'll even tell you before any of us were born here what year had the talking viewmaster debut not just your regular view master but oh man this thing could talk the light bright system had been on the market but i really peaked this year but the the number one toy, introduced earlier that year, the Nerf Ball. No way.

The Nerf Ball. Yes. The Nerf Ball. The Nerf Ball. What year? The Talking View Master and the Nerf Ball. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

I feel very confident that I am, you know, really close. It's just a question of. Okay. How close is close. How close is close. Yep. All right. Let's see your answers when you're ready.

Chris says 1971, Karen says 1972, Dana says 1975, all great guesses you guys, really. It was 1970. So Chris, yeah, Chris one point off, amazing. You're always the closest. Zero. I know. It's true. It's true. It's true.

All right. Last one. Last one. Here we go. Here we go. Relatively recent, I hope, in your memories, last one. Among the hot toy lists, including another toy that just sold out, could not be kept in stock. So this year saw a lot of Minecraft action figures being sold. This year, you know, sign of the Times, right? This year, the iPhone 6 was on a lot of kids' wish lists. Shows you how far we've come.

But by far, the best-selling, most demanded, hardest to keep in stock to it this year was the Snow Glow Elsa figure from, of course, the movie frozen it talked it sang like everything else it was electronic what year what year was this Minecraft action figures iPhone 6

snow glow Elsa it feels so recent but it's not if you go back to you know like the hot toys of the year 1970 it's like a ball and then like you know you go up and then it's like the world's most expensive

phone how far we've how far children have come okay answers up answers up here we go across the board you all have the correct answer 2014 yeah two points for everybody yeah 2014 wow yeah all right well I think I could not think of a better way to close that one so let's tally it up here I will not give you the exact number Chris indeed won. You're not going to give the exact number? I win one. I'm not going to tell you how good he did.

Your prize is not to shame everybody else. 12 points. 12 points to Chris Kohler with four on the nose guesses. It's a good number. Yeah, good job. Well, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. 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 no-frails.ca. From the terrifying power of tornadoes to sizzling summer temperatures, Acuweather Daily brings you the top trending weather-related story of the day every day of the week. You can learn a lot in just a few minutes, stories that will impact you, such as how a particular hurricane may affect your area, Or, will that impending snow event bring more than just a winter wonderland? Occasionally, there are weather-related stories from the lighter side, like how a recent storm

trapped tourists inside Agatha Christie's house, a setup perfect for a plot of one of her novels. And if there's a spectacular meteor shower or eclipse coming your way, we'll let you know if the sky in your area will be clear to check out the celestial display. You see, AccuWeather Daily is more than just weather. It's Accuweather. Listen and subscribe to Acuweather Daily, wherever you get your podcasts. That's Accuweather Daily, wherever you get your podcasts. On the 12th day of Christmas, good job, brain gave to me,

12 foreign snacks, 11 literations, 10, timetam slamming, 9 noon nimb morning, six, eight waxed mustaches, seven robots singing, six quizzes, quizzing, five be verbal, four crazy co-host, three poop jokes, two acronyms, and then of actually. And we're back. It is my turn. I'm going to name my segment slash quiz from Country with Love. Oh, good name. Chris, you're our resident Liberty Head. You're the Statue of Liberty.

It's true. Yeah. A kid expert. And, you know, that's a really common fact that we know from trivia or Snappelids that, like, the Statue of Liberty was actually a gift from France. And we've seen a lot of other gifts. from other nations. The pandas in D.C. are a gift from the Chinese government on loan.

The cherry blossoms in the spring of D.C. A big thing is to view the cherry blossoms bloom and those trees were a gift from Japan to the States. So here I have a segment slash quiz where I will be talking about some of gifts between nations. your job is to write down from what country to what country does that make sense so we're going to write two answers give you a great clue and you have to guess from which country gifted this to what receiving country all right so for example the statute of liberty it was from france gifted to the united states all right well here we go our first one is called the resolute desk it's an ornate office office desk that was built from the timbers of an Arctic exploration ship. I'm sure you have all seen it before in photographs, probably not in person.

What country was the gifter and what country was the recipient? The resolute desk is an ornate office desk that was built from the timbers of an Arctic exploration ship. I definitely know the recipient. Yes. A pretty good, pretty good guess on the donor. All right, answers up, please. Chris, your paper is so small. Chris says UK to US.

Dana says UK to US. Colin says UK to US. Across the board, correct. It is UK to US. The Resolute Desk was given to President Rutherford B. Hayes by Queen Victoria in 1880. And it has become the most recognizably the Oval Office desk. So, a backstory. So it was made out of timbers of a certain ship.

And it was from the HMS Resolute. That's where the name comes from. The HMS Resolute was an abandoned ship in the Arctic. It was found in 1855 floating by an American whaling ship. And so the U.S. repaired the HMS Resolute ship and returned it to the U.K. And so when the ship was decommissioned years later, the UK held an art contest to ask for design and ideas of what to do with the wood from the ship so that Queen Victoria could make something to give to the. American president as a thank you for helping find and repairing the ship. The desk actually has been modified twice, majorly, famously modified by Franklin D. Roosevelt. It used to be a desk where

the legs, where you see the legs is empty. And so he requested to make a door. Privacy shield. Yeah, privacy shield for his legs because, you know, he had to wear braces. And so that's where, like, the presidential seal is. And most famously, we've probably seen the photo of JFK working on the desk with his son J. F.K. Jr. as a kid playing coming out from the little sliding door. So that is the resolute desk. All right. Next present. Next gift. Every year since 1947, the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree, the spruce tree itself is a gift. What country is the gifter and what country is the recipient? So every year since 1947, the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree from what country is the gifter and to what country is a recipient.

I think the name Trafalgar Square Christmas tree gives you a hint. Yeah, again, I like you're giving us a hook in here. Or the recipient. What is a country that might have a lot of big spruce trees? Oh, geez. Oh. Yeah, right down there. Go ahead and just cross something out on my paper here, not related to the question in

anyway. Answers up. We have. Chris says Canada to UK. Data says Germany to UK. And Colin says, USA to UK. It is Norway to UK. Oh. Every year, Norway will cut down a Norwegian spruce and ship it to England as a token of gratitude. For like World War II? Yep, Second World War. So what happened was Norway was invaded by Nazi Germany in 1940. And the king, the Norwegian king, you know, rejected the German demands and refused to abdicate, finally evacuated to the UK where he worked on the liberation of Norway and the Norwegian resistance. So as a thank you, Norway would ship a huge Norwegian, the giant spruce tree to England every Christmas. The tree has its own Twitter account.

Like everything else these days. Yeah, it only usually tweets like around November when it's like, hey, it's time to chop me down. Or like, oh, now I'm in England, you know, made my journey. All right, next one. Similar to the Trafalgar tree tradition, the annual gift of 10,000 tulips every year since 1945 has turned into a whole tulip festival event that happens every May, claimed to be the world's largest tulip festival. So what country was the gifter, the gift being 10,000 tulips, and what country was

the recipient since 1945 think we might have a good idea of the gifter yeah who was the recipient have we ever heard of a giant tulip festival

since 1945 you said spoiler alert a lot of these are tokens of gratitude after the world right right right right there's a lot of countries coming together thanking each other right right

Tulip Festival, A? Was that a clue? All right, answers up. Here we go. Chris puts. Sorry. Sorry. There you go.

Netherlands to the U.S. Dana put Netherlands to France. Colin says Netherlands to France as well. It is Netherlands to Canada. It's the Canadian Tulip Festival. The Canadian. sheltered the future Queen Juliana and her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. And so actually, Juliana, who became queen, she even gave birth to her daughter in Ottawa.

And they actually had to rezone the hospital's maternity ward so that it allowed the baby citizenship to remain Dutch. Like, this room is part of the Netherlands. for the next day. It's an unofficial embassy for one day, right. It's really cool. Next one. The Mercy train, not the mercy train, was a string of 49 box cars, each filled inside with gifts, donated from the public, include clothes, dolls, ornaments, furniture. Nineteen 49.

What country was the gifter and what country was the recipient? So the Mercy train was a string of 49 box cars. Each box car was filled with goodies and stuff. All right. Answer is up. Chris says France to U.S. Dana says France to France. And then Colin says France to USA.

It is France to the U.S. The 49 box car. So each state, the plan was each state would have its own special. box car. That's kind of what I was thinking. So the train arrived in New York City, and then the train, each box car would be distributed to each state. And so at that time, Alaska was included, and Hawaii and D.C. had to share a car. This is why there's 49 box cars. Most of the states, except for five states, still have their box car somewhere. The one for California is in Fresno. It's at like a post office.

to display of Fresno. A lot of these are in museums. I put France to France because I didn't know if they gave or received. And then I was like, surely it's not the U.S. because it's a train. And you can't ride a train from France to the U.S. Next one. The Teardrop Memorial from 2005 has a distinction of being called one of the world's ugliest statues by Foreign Policy Magazine. What country was the gifter and what country was the recipient?

think about like what it around that time what it would be memorializing i will describe the statue as you guys write it down it is um like how do i say it nicely it looks like a silver testicle like one that's nicely drooping hanging inside like a rock crack oh i have seen this It's like, it's, it's 10 stories tall. Oh, yeah. No, I can picture it. 10 stories tall and this and a silver, uh, oh, man. Uni ball sack. Oh, okay. Well, yes.

All right. Here we go. Answers up. What country was the gift or what country recipient? Uh, Chris says UK to US. Dana says France to US. Uh, Colin says Germany to U.S. It is Russia to U.S. Sculptured by sculptural. artist Zuraab by Zuraab Terateli was given to the United States as an official gift

at first it was gratefully accepted by the local government of Jersey City but then they rejected it once the city officials actually saw it Hey it looks like a ball No thank you Mr. Taratelli had had some bad luck in the past of getting countries or cities

to accept his sculpture gifts He keeps getting denied. All right, last one, last one, from Country with Love. In 1820, three giraffes were gifted from one country to three other countries in Europe. And it created genuinely what, you know, you'd call giraffe mania. People all over Europe were swept up in giraffe frenzy. Homes were decorated with giraffe wallpaper. They drank from, they drank from giraffe.

China. People wore giraffe print clothes. Bakery's made giraffe torts and pies. Um, so what country was the gifter and what country was the recipient? Wait, when was this? There are three recipients, but you can name just one of the three. Okay. 1820. So in 1820, three giraffes were gifted from one country, one African nation. Let's let's narrow that down. One African nation to three other countries in Europe. And it created giraffeomania. Giraffamania. Okay.

All right. So answers up. We have Chris says Egypt to UK. Dana says Kenya to UK. Colin says Kenya to Italy. Chris is correct. It is Egypt to France,

UK, and Austria. Interesting. The viceroy of Egypt, they wanted to keep Greece within the Ottoman Empire, while parts of Europe supported Greek independence. And so the viceroy sent three giraffes to, you know. Yeah. Giraff rhyme.

Maybe my friend, Mr. Giraff, will change your mind. Yeah. People were obsessed. I mean, this is 1820. Most people have never seen anything like it. I found pictures of fashion magazines where women actually would do their hair up to have the, like, the little horns. It's so cute. all right well good job guys that was hard that was good that was good but those are fun fun facts yeah

and we have one last quiz Dana what are you going to give us oh I'm so glad you asked that Karen I am going to give you a quiz about giving people Christmas presents so so basically I I've compiled a list of pretty famous Christmas songs. I think you've all heard these songs. And they have like specific gifts. Oh gosh. Oh, gosh. And you don't have to tell me the gifts.

Instead, you just have to tell me the song. Because out of context, sometimes you're like, what song talks about this thing? Yep. Okay. Okay. Buzz in or write down? Let's buzz in. We'll start with the song I thought of first that is.

full of stuff about what she wants. That's the hint. It's a sable, a light blue 54 convertible, a yacht, a deed to a platinum mind, a deed to a duplex, some sign checks, some Tiffany's Christmas tree decorations, and a ring. What song? Wow. No hesitation on Christmas part. Santa Baby.

Yeah. You know who sang it. First the kit. Oh. Yeah. that woman so this next song the singer gave someone their hearts with a note saying i love you and they meant it oh oh it's just this last christmas by way yeah okay yeah gave you my heart and the very next day you get yeah he gifted it yeah one of the top songs one of the top streaming christmas

now. How about this one? This singer wants a plane that loop-de-loops and a hula hoop. The singer is Alvin of Alvin and the Chipmunks. The song is, what is it called? The Christmas song? No. You're kind of right. It's called the Chipmunk song. Parentheses. Christmas don't be late. Christmas don't be late. Okay, good. Good. Good. The Christmas. Yes, because it is. It's called, yeah, because that was the first one, right? It was like, that was the first song. So it was just called The Chipmunks song.

Yes. Oh, I see. Okay. So this singer won't give you a diamond ring, a fancy car, or a house in the hills. Instead, you'll get a body part in a package. It's a dick in a box by Justin Timberlake. Or Lonely Island. Oh, the Lonely Island.

Featuring Justin Timberlake. I forgot that was a Christmas song. An Emmy award-winning Christmas song. Yes. Yes. How about this one? The singer wants their two maxillary central incisors. Colin.

This one, I believe, is that the song is all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth. And my best known version is the Chipmunks version. Right. that makes sense because they need it is the title of the song All I Want for Christmas Parentheses is my two front teeth Close parentheses

No parenthesis No That would have been good That would have been good I read something And I said that It was written by a teacher Who thought of it

And wrote it in half an hour After he saw all these kids in his class Who were missing their teeth He was like Oh cute Yeah Yeah that's funny And I think it was made famous

By the singer Spike Jones Ah How about a new year without any fear because war is over. Oh. Colin. You guys are still good. Is that, so this is Christmas?

No, no, no, no, no. I think there's a parentheses here. I believe the title of the song is Merry Christmas, parenthesis, war is over. Happy X-Miss. Oh, happy X-Mis. Because it's British. Yeah. Yeah.

Britt. And that's John Lennon, right? Yes. All right. This last one, you may have not heard this song before, but you might be able to kind of narrow down who it is based on what they ask for. What they want? Because it's bananas. Okay. It's they want a pair of Chloe shades, a diamond belly ring, a crop jacket with dirty denim jeans, a poem, a gift certificate for CDs. and the keys to a CLK Mercedes. Like, I feel like it kind of gives you a sense of when the song recorded. Okay. Was recorded.

Uh, yeah. CDs. I mean, right there, kind of, yeah. A diamond belly ring. Some dirty denim jeans. Yeah. Oh, oh, oh. Karen.

Is it Christina Aguilera? No. It's a girl group. Oh, it's a girl group? Is it the spicy? girls no no pussycat dolls no all three are famous one of them is very famous now destiny's child okay yes this is the eight days of christmas by destiny's child that's what they for christmas weird stuff i want for christmas by destiny's child this is the list can you repeat

the list of things they're funny a pair of chloe's shades a diamond belly ring a cross jacket with dirty denim jeans, a poem, a gift certificate for some CDs. Yep. And the keys. I like that it's not just the CDs. It's the gift certificate for the sea. I don't trust you to pick them out. They throw in the poem so it doesn't sound too shallow too.

I'm not all about materialistic stuff. Like in addition to the Cadillac and the other things, you can just get me a poem. And then I'm taking that and the gift certificate down to Sam Goody and we'll see which one gets me to more speedies. Good one. Good job. Good quiz. The new BMO, V-I-Porter MasterCard, is your ticket to more.

More perks. More points. More flights. More of all the things you want in a train. travel rewards card and then some get your ticket to more with the new bemo v i porter master card and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months terms and conditions apply visit bemo.com slash the i porter to learn more all right well the season finale it's been quite the season of good job brain much of it for our parts recorded up here in outer space

in space because as you know way back way way back now in episode 219 several episodes ago at the end of the escape room hosted by our good friends and escape this podcast we found out at the end of that virtual escape room that in fact our prize our trivia pub trivia prize had been purloined by our old nemesis Carmen San Mateo had yes had made off with it and Carmen San Mateo by the way being

unrelated to any other globe-trotting arch-criminal that you may have seen on public television or MS-DOS-based personal computers, anything like that. So we followed Carmen San Mateo into space solving a puzzle at each location with the help of you, our listeners. Finally, we narrowed down Carmen's location to right here where we currently are

the Dwarf Planet series. Now, enraged by the revelation that the big prize that Carmen had stolen was, in fact, a small card reading, The Real Pub Trivia Prize was the friends we made along the way. Carmen then stole our ship and ditched us here on series, where we found many massive cabinets full of boxed breakfast cereal brands and a plaque reading,

this cabinet was placed here to commemorate the following spaceflight missions. Atlantis 2, Apollo 6, Gemini 5, Discovery 9. Now, fortunately, you, the listeners, realized there was something a little weird about these space missions and their designations and came at one point to the conclusion that Atlantis 2, for example, must mean to take the second letter in the word Atlantis. Apollo 6 means takes the sixth letter in the word Apollo and so on and so forth, giving us the word Tony. and it doesn't take a serial expert of which we all are anyway. Yes, of course. To know that that means to look for maybe the world's most famous serial mascot. In fact, one of the first serial mascots on the moon,

as Tony the Tiger's signature Frosted Flakes was on board Apollo 11, along side Kellogg's own flakes. Yeah. So armed with this knowledge, we run to the cabinet full of the F serials, pulling out the layered rows of various boxes of frosted flakes from all eras and times and special offers. It just rose on rows. It goes to the back.

This is why we couldn't just start doing random stuff. We had to have a solution to this puzzle. We started on the frosted flakes and we dig and we dig. And as we feel like we're getting to the back of this extensive cabinet full of cereals, we begin to hear strange, vaguely familiar voice. And it was a voice that we honestly. I honestly thought we were never going to hear again. Hello, it's me, the former Quizmaster who's been trapped in this cabinet.

Nobody ever lets me finish my speech about how the cabinet doubles as a wormhole. Just step right on through here, and you can open the other side and set us all free. You and the ancient, old Quizmaster. I'm 53! You crawl through the insides of the cabinets, crawling over cereal boxes that eventually give way to outsized bottles of wine, emerging into the bombed-out trivia venue, the old Quizmaster begins to speak again. Oh yeah, the final prize was a real letdown, huh? Cheapskates that run this place. They tried that when I was Quizmaster, and people got pretty mad and they locked me in there. Fortunately,

you all seem like you're not going to do that. You walk out of the bar. It's a starry night. Orion's belt hangs low over the earth, looking particularly belty tonight? You have no prize, you have no spaceship, and Carmen San Mateo is somewhere out there in space and or time plotting her next move against you. But you, unlike the greedy Carmen, realized that the card was correct.

The real prize truly is the friends you made along the way, and that's always worth more than a pitcher of beer. Wow! I can't believe this throwaway joke. Improf throwaway joke. You thought it was an improv throwaway joke that was never going to come back again, but it turned out to be the key to the whole thing all along.

The wizened, grade. Last Crusade Quizmaster. Yeah, he's 53. He's still pretty young. Thanks so much to our friends, Danny and Bill from Escape This Podcast for not only the Escape Room, but for coming back at the end. And when I decided that...

Fantastic. Yay. Carmen technically got away, and that's probably for the best, because it's really hard to make the... It's really hard for Carmen to make all of these puzzles, so she'll probably think of nice... I don't think she's going to bother us again for a while. Oh, well, thank you, Carmen.

wherever you are. The time space somewhere. Yeah, she's gone for a while. And that's our show. Thank you guys for joining me. Thank you guys, listeners, for listening in. Hope you learned stuff about toy sales, famous gifts between countries,

presence in songs, and the male-to-mail connector that does not exist. Please be safe about that. You can find us on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, and on all podcast apps. And on our website, brain.com. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. Visit airwavemedia.com to listen and subscribe to other shows like

Big Picture Science, Subtext, and Movie Therapy. And we'll see you guys next year. Well, wait. You know, remember, remember, I mean, you know, even though Carmen did get away, I mean, that happened on that other, the PBS show with that other lady all the time, too. And they still celebrate it at the end. So there is just one more thing that we have to do before we close out this season. And you guys know what it is. Do it, Macapella!

Don't sue us. Please, please don't sue us. Please, please don't sue us. Please, please don't sue us. She's a satirical swindler legally to stink from others. She's a fairer-use finnagler who is plainly parody. She's discreetly designed so we don't get called from lawyers. Tell me, who in the heck is.

Carmen San Mateo. This is Jen and Jenny. from Ancient History Fan Girl, and we're here to tell you about Jenny's scorching historical Romantici, based on Alaric of the Biscogh's Enemy of My Dreams. Amanda Boucher, best-selling author of The Kingmaker Chronicle, says, quote, This book has everything, high-stakes action, grit, ferocity, and blazing passion. Julia and Alaric are colliding storms against a backdrop of the brutal dangers of ancient Rome. They'll do anything to carve their peace out of this treacherous world.

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