Good Job, Brain! - 253: Going Green

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

Vexillologists rejoice! Colin's got a green flag quiz, and find out which country's flag is the most nightmarish to reproduce. Can you smell all that spring greenery? Karen has found plants that smell like everything from groin sweat to chocolate chip cookies. We got a green-making-green situation here with the powerful profiting prowess of Shrek. And boy, really test your musician ID skills because themed music round is back, now with 100% more green felt! 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. Hello, Flossy, who love all things glossy and saucy, like Bob Fossy and Emerald Legassi. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and Offbeat Trivia podcast. Today's episode is 250,000. And of course, I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your boy, cumbersome cucumbers succumbing to being cumbered by Cumberbatch Cumberbuns. I am Colin. And I am cucumber, Chris. Bob Fosse and Emerald Lagassee together, Karen.

Oh, perfect. Oh, man. It's great. One is glossy. One is saucy. All right. D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D. A little bit of a trivia update here.

Very recently, Chris, you had a segment about mailing. children. Yes. Using the United States Postal Service, which we cannot do anymore. We were able to a long time ago. You're not supposed to, exactly. You also on the show shared what you currently can mail live. And not humans, but what other live things that you can mail?

Including scorpions. Scorpions. I have a follow-up. This happened last. year, a man from Eugene, Oregon, he had to plead guilty because he was, not only was he illegally importing scorpions, but he was also mailing them in the USPS package service. And, you know, Chris, you said there are only two cases where you're legally allowed to mail scorpions. What are those two?

When you are, for purposes of medical research, scientific research, and for the purposes, of the manufacture of anti-venin. Yes. And this guy is just mailing them out to other scorpion enthusiasts. I didn't know it. It's the scorpion freaks. You're supposed to label the box very well. You're supposed to have stickers and it's like double box, you know, the whole shebang.

He put it in a box labeled chocolates. Oh, no. They caught him. He played guilty. And let's see, what was his sentence? He faces a maximum one-year prison sentence, a $100,000 fine, and three years of supervised release.

He must stay away from Scorpions for a few years. What he should have written on the box was not Scorpions. Yeah. I think that would have been. Real chocolates. Right, right, right. Babies. His downfall was he used those envelopes with a little glassy and wind

in it that you can see and that you just, that doesn't look like chocolate. All right. Well, without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment, pop quiz, hot shot. Here we go. I have a random trivial pursuit card. You guys have your barnyard buzzers, listeners at home in the car wherever. Play with us. Shout out your answers.

Be weird. Let's do it. Blue Edge for Geography. Which river, known as the Mother River by the Chinese, is considered to be the cradle of Chinese civilization and is the muddiest river in the world. Chris. I'm going to guess the Yangtze River.

Incorrect. It's the other one. Colin? I was going to guess the yellow river or Huangho. Yes. Yes, Huang He yellow river. The yellow color is because of the silt deposit. So muddy, that was kind of a clue.

Yeah. I can't freaking believe I remember the name of a river in China, and I wasn't it. It's the other one. Yep. All right. Next question, Pink Wedge. What is the name of the spaceship in the movie Alien? The first one, singular alien.

Oh, okay. Well. Colin. I believe that is the... What are we going to have buzzers for? Okay, Chris. Chris. Nostromo.

Yes. Do you know the letters in front of it, like the HMS or the whatever in the future? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's like, it's not HMS. Yeah, is it like a U.S.C.S. Yes, you know what? I do. Yes, it's U.S.S.S.

That's right. Okay. All right. I thought like I was missing a letter there, but all right. Good retrieval. That was good. Yellow Edge. Which world?

leader spearheaded glass-nost, an opening up of the dictatorship leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Colin. Was that Mikhail Gorbachev? Yes, Mikhail Gorbachev. All right, next question, Purple Wedge. Which Chinese American architect designed the Louvre's iconic glass pyramid? Colin.

That is I.M. Pei, I believe. Yes, I.M. Pei designed a lot of stuff, including the JFK Library in Massachusetts, but his glass pyramid is the triumph. It's pretty neat. It's pretty neat. I've been fortunate enough to visit there. It's pretty cool. It's funny to read about what we think now as great modern monuments, that at the time when they unveiled or, you know, picked a design, people are all livid about it. And changes, change is hard for a lot of people. Change is hard. There's no question.

Green wedge. Okay. I'll say it and I'll spell it out. Lacanofobia, and that's L-A-C-H-A-N-O-Lacan-O-O-Lac-A-Kon-O. Yeah, okay. What root does that sound like? Chris. Beans.

Fear of beans. Incorrect. I wonder what that would be. Maybe that's like a fava phobia. Oh, sorry. You said food. You said food group. Food group.

Food group. Oh, oh, no, I just figured it out. What? I figured it up. Dairy. Fear of dairy. That's what I thought, too. It is not.

It is vegetables. Vegetables. Okay. I had no idea. But now you know, Orange Wed. What is it called when a surfer hangs all ten toes off the front end of the longboard while writing a wave? Come on. Chris, your rooster is dying.

Oh, no. Hanging 10? Yes. Is that it? Yes. So angry. You can't have like a two-word answer and both of the words are. in the question to be in the question yeah come on all right okay okay let's do another card let's uh second

chance for this is uh pop two culture pop culture two uh blue wedge tv what cbs show help launch the careers of justin timberlake drew carey and ray romano oh oh okay he shows up all the time it does it does it does uh Colin show me star search it is star search i wonder if um i wonder if you can do like paid gorilla advertisement to trivia pursuit do you know what i mean it's like oh like star star search is paying them off yeah but star search is like an old show doesn't exist yeah uh here we go long term vision i really honestly like if they are doing that like man props to them yeah really the long game uh pink wedge for fat what do contestants jump

over using 40-foot aluminum poles in the Dutch sport of Fierl Jipen. Let me spell that out. Okay, all right. F-I-E-R-L, so feral, J-E-P-E-N.

Fieril J-E-P-E-N. So what do contestants jump over using 40-foot aluminum poles? What are the crossing? That was Colin. Rivers or bogs. Fjords?

Yeah, sure. It's canals. Canals. Okay. All right. All right. Okay. We're in the family.

We're in the family. Yellow Edge. What talk show host revealed in 2003 that he puffs medical marijuana to ease the pain of a multiple sclerosis. Chlorosis. Sclerosis. Chlorosis. 2003. 2003.

Medical marijuana to ease the pain of MS. Talk show host. Oh. Not night talk show. Okay, all right. Chris. Okay, ready? Bill Donahue.

No, it is Montel Williams. Oh, gosh. Montel Williams. Did not know. Okay, Purple Wedge music. Who did Miles Davis call the, quote, loudest, fastest saxophonist he'd ever heard? Chris.

Kenny G. No. I wish you wasn't. I was. John Coltrane Correct John Coltrane Oh that's right Oh okay

Green Wedge for movies What Independent Alternative Event is held yearly Up the Street from Utah's Sundance Film Festival Oh Independent Alternative event Up the Street from Sundance Yes

Hmm Would you say this is a household name? No, it is not. It is slam dance. Slam dance. Sun dance and slam dance. I have vaguely heard that, but I would never be able. I wonder if it's like a Razzie equivalent or something. Probably like independent film. Yeah, slam dance. Okay. Last question. Sports and Games. Who did Giants pitcher David Ardzma replace a top major league baseball's alphabetical list of players, noting, quote, I owe it all to my parents. So who did Giants pitcher, David? Oh, okay. A-A-R-D-S-A-A. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. Chris. Oh, I know. Yeah. You want to guess, Karen? Yeah, I haven't flipped the card yet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you think it's Hank Aaron? I do. A-A. Yeah, it's got to be. It is Hank Aaron. Wow, they're both A-A-A-A-R. A-A-R-O-A-A-R-D. that is such a baseball trivia head question the alphabetical first player that's I mean wow I'm so proud of us we got this this sports question correct that has nothing to do with sports that's a better question because it's phrased in a way they wouldn't they wouldn't actually ask you to pick the guy who got ahead of Hank Aaron yes yes they phrased it in a way well who did he get ahead of yep yep cool good job brains it's springtime guys It is time for rebirth, regrowth, things that are green, things that are lush. We did an episode a couple seasons ago that was about the color red or whatever red made us think of, right? I did a segment on the Smarishino Factory. Chris, you did a segment on Taylor Swift's red scandal at the Grammys. And then calling you talked about traffic lights.

And so I actually like it when we have kind of these groupings of episodes. We have like a big show and a small show. We had a show about circles and a show about squares. And so we did a red show. Okay, what if we do a show dedicated to green? Whatever green makes us think of. So this week, we're going green. Well, I will start us off.

I have had green on the mind for sure. Just about a week-ish or so ago, it was St. Patrick's Day. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, Karen, I know you're up in Seattle now, but surely you have not forgotten that San Francisco always tries to put on a strong showing for St. Patrick's Day. So mostly the bars, but there's a lot of green everywhere and green Irish flags all over the place. Do you guys know I love flag trivia? I even included, as you may recall, a flag quiz in our official Good Job Brain book.

Yeah. I have a quiz about flags. All of the flags in this quiz have green on them. Okay. So I will sort of give you a little bit of history, maybe some hints or clues. I'm going to describe the flag. You're going to name the country. So every question in this quiz, the answer will be a country name.

Some of them, hopefully, not too challenging, but we're going to get into some trickier ones. It'll be a good, good review here. These come up all the time in that quiz, flag. This is going to be quite the show because. I am very into vexelology and Chris now is the father of a budding vexelologist. Yes. So through osmosis, you've leveled up. Well, through osmosis and also just the fact that he's constantly doing flag quizzes and memorizing flags and things like that.

So yeah, like I can actually, I can now say thanks to him, I might actually be a player in this one. All right, all. First of all, let's get a little terminology out of the way. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you study or look at national flags long enough, you know, you'll notice, among other things, hey, a lot of these flags have three stripes of roughly equivalent thickness, you know? And you are correct. Yes, there are a lot of national flags that have three stripes, sometimes horizontal, sometimes vertical. Yeah.

This type of flag is called a tricolor flag. And in fact, if you're from a country where your national flag is a tricolor, you may even even just refer to the national flag as the tricolor. On this quiz, no surprise, I'm going to use the term tricolor a lot. That's what I mean. I mean, a flag with three stripes, roughly equivalent, sometimes vertical. Usually vertical, sometimes horizontal. We'll see.

Yeah, just to get that out of the way. Question one. This country has one of the more, frankly, badass tricolor flags you will ever come across with stripes of green, white, and red, and in the middle. A picture of an eagle perched on a cactus devouring a rattlesnake. Karen. I didn't know that was the exact image in the middle. Like, I knew eagle and like a cactus.

I didn't know, is it the cactus eating the snake or is it the eagle eating the snake? Either way, very badass. It is Mexico. That is Mexico. That's right. That's right. The seal, the official seal of Mexico. And it's a really cool piece of iconography there.

And it's based on an Aztec legend that when they were looking to sort of found the city that would become the capital, that they were to look for an eagle eating a snake on top of a lake. All right. Question two. Another tricolor flag. There's going to be several of them here. All right. This nation's flag officially uses the colors saffron. white and green for its stripes.

Oh, Karen, I was going to give you another little hint there. What do you got? Is this India? It is. It's India. Correct. That's right. Yeah.

It's like, in my memory, I see the color, and I know there's some sort of emblem in the middle. I just... Right. It's the Ashoka Chakra, which is a 24-spoked wheel. Oh. 24. That's the number.

Not 20. Not 30. 24-spoke wheel. the Dharma Chakra in the middle. So India, like a lot of countries, has some pretty specific definitions around the colors to be used. And for this, it is India saffron is the color.

It's not orange. It's not gold. Yeah, I didn't. And most countries these days for these colors will have hex values and pantone guide colors and RGB values. It's just very technical and dry.

You know, like whereas like, you know, in days of yore, it would be like, a green the color of a verdant field after a rain. You know, it would be a lot more poetic maybe. CC-9-0-0, yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Just no ambiguity.

Question three, the flag of this country, only just adopted in 1972, relatively recent here by flags, consists of a dark field of green with a large red disc, shifted ever so slightly and ever so disconcertingly to me to the left dark field of green single red disc

yeah I know I know the flag you're talking about but not in the center not in the center just off center ooh I'm gonna go on a limb is it Palau ooh it is not Palau

Palau it starts with the B yeah it does it does It does. It's it Borneo? It's not Borneo. Bangladesh. It is Bangladesh. Yeah, 1970.

Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was trying to give you a little bit of a hint there. Right, right, with the 1972. Yeah, Bangladesh. Now, so this is one of those really interesting flags, and I have to, I have to cop to some ignorance here. Like, it's always bothered me that the circle is not in the middle. It's not, like, noticeably, like, severely to the left.

Like, it's just a little bit to the left. And just as, as, like, a design-minded person, it's always. bothered me. Is this supposed to symbolize something? Yeah, I'm a little shook. I'm reassessing this flag now. Apparently, there's no symbolism. Apparently, it is so that when the flag is flying, all right, it is to compensate for an optical illusion and create the appearance that the circle is centered. So it's like they're factoring in the little extra distance on the pole. The hoist side is it's called. That's right, the line side of the pole side. It's like, wow. All right. They actually have a reason for it and an optical reason for it.

So I was like, okay, all right. I don't know if there's any real science behind this. I don't know if they actually studied this, but that's the reason that I read is that it's to make it appear centered. Good job, Chris. Yeah, I get one of these at some point. Here, moving on to question four. The flag of this country features a green field adorned with white text and a white sword.

both you buzzed i think karen a little bit earlier what do you got karen Saudi Arabia it is Saudi Arabia that's right it is a otherwise solid green flag and in white there is a an inscription in Arabic you know kind of calligraphic script the the shahada and then below that is a white sword this is an interesting flag partly because it has a religious inscription directly on the flag which not many flags do. I mean, a lot of countries' flags have very prescribed rules about, you know, you don't let the flag touch the ground or, you know, you don't put it on ostentatious things.

But this one has sort of another element of sort of the religious honor that has to go into it. I read that it is not considered appropriate to fly the flag sort of vertically, you know, sort of hanging, that there are special versions made of the flag. If it does have to fly vertically, they rotate it. That's right, exactly. So the design is rotated. It's a portrait mode. Not a lot of flags with actual writing.

Not a lot. Not a lot. Not a lot. Maybe in our seals or in our like state, state emblems and stuff. On the flag, yeah, and I think that's because it has to be kind of iconographic. You know, it's usually like a holdover from some colonial seal or a motto, something along those lines. Yeah, but not a lot. You're right.

You're right. All right. Question five. This country's flag consists of a green field. which contains a yellow rhombus which contains a blue disc which contains 27 stars Greenfield

contains a yellow rhombus Karen, what do you got? I'm pretty sure but Chris do you want to take a stab? Greenfield, yellow rhombus, blue disc, 27 stars. This is a flag that does have writing on it. Speaking of flags with writing. So I'm going to, okay, is this Brazil? It is Brazil.

All right, there we go. It is Brazil. Right, that's right. And here's another example of a flag back to back. I didn't even think about it until I put these together. Right. It has the motto, uh, ordem a progresso, which is Portuguese for order and progress. There's a lot of stuff going on in this flag.

You know, if you've seen the flag of Brazil, if you're from Brazil. I did not realize what a nightmare this flag is to reproduce. let alone keep up to standards, all right? Every nation, basically every nation has, you know, guidelines around how to design the flag out. Sometimes it's a little more loosey-goosey on the exact color. Sometimes it's precise. The flag of Brazil, I just discovered how complex it is.

All right. So first of all, the stars depicted on the flag of Brazil are trying their best to represent a somewhat accurate-ish depiction of a night sky view, specifically the constellations visible over Rio de Janeiro on the night of November 15, 1889. All right.

Furthermore, by law, there must be one star representing each Brazilian state. Okay, so not necessarily unlike the U.S. And when new states are added or removed, the flag needs to be updated. to reflect this. Okay.

Furthermore, to that, there is a ranking system of sizes to the stars, okay? And so there's a grouping. And so the stars are sized proportionally to the size of the state that they represent in the country of Brazil. And then, just to underscore again, it is basically required to resemble an accurate view of the constellation. So when they add new stars, it has to be proportionally correct. It has to also represent a real star in a real constellation that would have been visible on that night and in the right orientation. It sounds like an absolute nightmare. It's been updated, you know, several times since it was first adopted in, as I say, 1889. There were 21 stars

originally. It got one more star in 1960 for the state of Guanabara. got another star eight years later and then in they got a little bit of a backlog here apparently you know they they they had to deal with four all at once in 1992 they added four more stars was the last time it was added to represent the four states that had been um brought into the this is what they say about the domino's pizza logo yeah they were going to add a dot for every store and then someone's like yeah let's let's think they're like forget it forget yeah let's not all right Back to Tri-Colors. It's been a couple of questions here.

I hope you guys didn't miss them. The flag of this country contains stripes of green, white, and orange, designed to symbolize a peaceful union between Roman Catholics and Protestant supporters of William of Orange, of course. I'm going to give this one to Chris just for a change here. Sounds like Ireland to me. I couldn't get all the way through a quiz about green and flags without throwing Ireland in there. It wasn't trying to trick you. Yeah, that's right. Ireland, eventually adopted

officially, officially after that flag being used for a while in Ireland. That's right. Question seven. The flag of this West African country. The most populous country in Africa is, you guessed it, another tricolor. We got three vertical stripes.

This time we got a repeat. It is green, white, green. What country am I? Oh. Most populous country in Africa. Is it Ghana? It is not Ghana. Ghana has black or red.

Our quiz is green. You cannot spell this country's name without G-R-N in some order. Oh. What do you got, Chris? Nigeria. It is Nigeria. Yes, Nigeria. More than 200 million people in Nigeria, big, big country.

Yeah, and I feel like Nigeria is smart here with the tricolor. Like if you're going to have a tricolor, have one that you can flip upside down, have one that you can flip backwards and you're still looking good, right? You're not going to embarrass yourself on, you know, TV at a soccer match. Like, yeah, like, like leaving your flag upside down. When you color yourself and with your friends, and you got to stand in the right order. The order, right, exactly.

Last question. Last question. Number eight, here we go. This country's flag was adopted August 6th, 9th. 1962, the day the country officially celebrated the end of British colonial rule. It contains a gold saltire, all right? A saltire. It's a great, great vexological term here.

A saltire is a diagonal cross, all right? Sort of like a wide X, okay? Fairly common in flag. So, Karen, doesn't even need the rest of the flag description, confident. cool runnings Jamaica You got it All right Jamaica

Jamaica is one of my favorite country flags It is indeed Jamaica You know It wasn't like Independence just like They woke up And it was like

Oh hey we're free today You know I mean It was like It was a process So they knew it was common So as part of Jamaica's independence The government Set up a public competition

For flag ideas Like what should our new national flag be I love it This is so great So apparently there were more than 350 designs that were submitted, as often happens with these things. None of those designs won. They didn't like any of them.

Any of them. They didn't field a winner. None of them, right. So instead of going with any of the submitted designs, a bipartisan group of the House of Representatives from Jamaica got together. What better way to design a flag than a bunch of politicians? They got together. They came up with a.

design. And unfortunately, their design was found to be too similar to the flag of Tanganyika then does not exist as such anymore. It was like three horizontal stripes. It would have been a tricolor, another one. So then they came up with the sultire of which I think is, frankly, a much cooler design. I really like Jamaica's flag, the gold, the green, the black. It just works really well. It's a good flag. All right, good job, guys. That's a little bit of greenery and flags around the world and Chris you did not embarrass yourself you can tell your son you did well yeah good job so dear friends and listeners uh i don't know if it's it's the case now but for a while at least for the past decade if you visit Disneyland Anaheim California as you head into the park

if you take the right by the train station you split if you take the right entrance You'll walk through the little gateway and the plaque, and that's like your magic day starts. Depending on what time of year, what time of day, and what the conditions are, as you go through that right entrance, it might smell a little funky, a little bit weird. It smells kind of like let's say a bodily fluid. We are a PG show, so I'm just going to end it there. It smells weird. Turns out this is not a phenomenon just in Disneyland. This is a phenomenon in a lot of places in America because of this plant called Calorie Pear. This plant is known to have flowers that kind of stink in the spring.

If you know, you know. Calorie pair with a lot of other plants as well all kind of give off weird smells in the spring. We talked about the corpse flower. We have like a whole family of plants. that stink up. And part of this is because they want to attract pollinators. Flowers smell nice because they want to attract bees. And some plants or some flowers smell not so nice to attract flies, other bugs that are more attracted to, a stinkier smell. And so here I have a segment. I'm going to talk about some cool plants that smell like other things that plants

shouldn't really smell like we've done stinky plants before some of these plants just smell like weird unusual things that you would never expect a plant to smell like such as seven up there is a plant called the seven up plant hadalgo stacus or stacus evergreen sprawling perennial and it has leaves and the underside of it um i think maybe you guys would see uh lamb's ears they're kind of like fuzzy oh yeah yeah yeah On the lawn. So a part of that family is the seven-up plant on the underside. It smells like seven-up soda.

How delightful. So much so. It's called the seven-up plant. There is something called the popcorn cassia. Popcorn cassia. Not only do the flowers themselves look like clusters of golden yellow popcorn. It has a buttery popcorn scent. I'm not making it up.

It smells like buttered popcorn. But don't eat it. It's poisonous. Oh. I'm glad you said that because, like, I'm going to be 100% 100% 100% of you, Karen. If I was out in nature and I saw a little flower that looked like a piece of popcorn and I smelled it and it smelled like buttered popcorn, I'm going to put that thing in my mouth. Yeah. Yeah.

So I'm glad you warned me. But the smell can be divisive. In a very old episode, I talked about the science and phenomenon of the scent of dog. Colloquially called Frito, Frito paws, because of the chemistry of the dog fur and body and whatever native bacteria that lives in the fur, dog paws can smell like corn. Some people think it smells great, like a bag of fritos or like corn snacks. And some people might think it's a little gamey. And that's the case with this popcorn cassia. And then we have a family of plants that smell like peanut butter, salty roasted peanut butter.

This is called the honeyflower or the melianthus, honeyflower. It's a shrub, and if you like bruise the leaves and you kind of rub it, it smells like salty, crunchy peanut butter. And in the Bay Area, we have something called the tree of heaven, the ghetto palm. And in this context, the ghetto actually does mean the ghetto. It is used a tree used in, like, low-income areas to quickly grow trees, but turns out they're invasive. And turns out they smell like peanuts. And take over. And take over.

And take over. Yeah, we had to, we actually had to get rid of the tree because it was just too, too invasive, too invasive. And we have something called the roast beef plant. What? The roast beef plant. This is like the spaghetti tree. tree. You can't fool me, Karen. It's called the stinking iris. But it's also called like a lot of nicknames just refer to the meat. It smells like beef. It smells like meat. It is, it's not the

flowers that smell, but it's the leaves. Like when when they're bruised, they can give off a boiled beef. You know, roast beef plant. Please don't eat it. The berries are poisonous as well. I don't know why these plants are tricking you. This is starting to sound like, you know how like Violet Beauregard and Willie Wonka in the chocolate factory eats the gum. She goes through different courses. It's like, oh, now it's the roast beef plant. The roast beef course.

And let's move on to finally, flowers that smell like cookies. I'm not making this up. There is a Cosmos, which is a very common kind of flower, you know, kind of look like a daisy. Chocolate Cosmos.

Chocolate Cosmos are a dark maroon, a cheery flower. many, many petals. And it looks like chocolate. It's like brown. It's beautiful. It's this dark, rich brown. It's set to have the aroma of baked chocolate chip cookies because it has vanilla. It gives off vanilla. And Chris, you mentioned about books, right? You know, how like people love the smell of books. And they analyze the chemical compounds. And it turns out there is vanilla and it makes people think of cocoa or toasted vanilla. Chocolate Cosmos is native to Mexico. lots of places are miscited, like a lot of places I saw were misciting that this is extinct

and doesn't grow in the wild and it has to be like humanly cloned or propagated, but they do grow in the wild. They're from Mexico. They do smell like chocolate. And then finally, we have something called the Tree Daisy, the Montanoa Grandifolia. And let me just read this excerpt from a seed catalog describing Tree Daisy. During the fall and winter, white chrysanthemin, flowers bloom, giving off a scent, reminiscent of chocolate or freshly baked cookies. I want to wrap the segment up with this. There is a whole world of people who read seed catalogs. It's like, um, Jay Peterman level.

Jay Peterman. Yes. Yes. Yes. There's like a whole story. When I was on a trip through Ankara, I first noticed, yeah. The New Yorker just actually published an article called What We Learned from Leafing Through Seed Catalogs. And here's an excerpt. Here's an excerpt. Seed and Garden catalogs sell a magical boozy jack-in-the-beenstock promise.

The coming of spring, the rapture of bloom, the fleshy wet watermelon and lemon tang of summer. Trade your last cow for a handful of beans to grow a beanstock as high as the sky. They make strangely compelling reading Like a village mystery or the back of a cereal box So this is exactly what's it like If people, if you're an avid cereal box reader People who like to read menus before going to the restaurant Or you like to read like monument plaques

Seed Catalog will fulfill that dopamine whole I love it I love it I love it It's nothing but potential It's like you're buying this little round spec and you have to just really paint the picture of where you're going to be when it all works out. Turns out this whole seed catalog thing is such a phenomenon. Here's an excerpt from Baker Creek Seed Catalog for their green zebra tomato. Beautiful chartreuse with deep line green stripes very attractive. It's like almost borderline like sexy, you know. Flesh is bright green

and very rich tasting, sweet with a sharp bite to it, just too good to describe. You're like, yes, the most striking tomato in our catalog, a real beauty. This is the tomato colored for the Green Bay Packers. I love, like, I want this job. That's so fun. And then, so you can buy these seat catalogs,

and people keep them. It's like a whole collectible. It's like the people all save the TV. TV guides, right? It's like I save the seat catalog to read the little, to read the little descriptions and stuff. I kid you not went on the website and I was like, I need to have this. I need to have the 2,00023 C catalog. And I can't wait for it to arrive so I can read all of it and just fill myself with with green hope. We have a basil plant in our kitchen that, and I mean, I remember reading it at this at one point that, that. that there's a chemical compound in basil. I forget the name, of course, that does, in fact, smell very much like cat pee and kind of over the basil plant

that we have right now. And sometimes like, the cat pee on the counter? Oh, no, it's just the basil plant. It's okay. All right, it's fine. All right, let's take a quick break, and we'll be right back. Get to Toronto's main venues like Budweiser Stage and the new Roger Stadium with Go Transit.

Thanks to Go Transit's special online e-ticket fairs, a $10 one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel on any weekend day or holiday anywhere along the Go Network. And the weekday group passes offer the same weekday travel flexibility across the network, starting at $30 for two people, and up to $60 for a group of five. Buy your online go pass ahead of the show at go-transit.com slash tickets. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you? no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca.ca. Smart Trivia.

Good job, Brain. All right, folks. I've got it. I've got what you've been waiting for this whole show. It's the themed music quiz. Everybody loves the music quiz. Everybody loves the themed music quiz. So we're going to jump right in.

We have eight songs here. I'm going to play eight clips for you. They are all by very famous names, well-known names, okay? Some of them may be from a bygone era known as the 19 years, so you may have to stretch your mind back of little ways, okay? There is, and as I promise, there is a theme to this music round, and that theme will probably become apparent very fast. Within about 15 seconds or so, I don't think you're going to have any trouble guessing

the theme, but I will let you both guess it, uh, as we, while you're listening, uh, to clip, uh, number one. So let's go ahead. Oh, are we head to head or are we working together? We'll do team. No, let's do team. Yeah, music, music round is team. What are you just deciding that, yeah, no, no, I think team is actually fine because some of these, some of these are going to be fairly obvious and some of them you may have to put your, put your, put your Noggins together, maybe come up with an answer for us. So we will do it as a team, not because you said so. Okay, you said so. So if you both are, are you both ready? Are you ready to go? Yes. Yes, sir. Here we go.

Theemed music round. Let's let's go. Here is clip number one. alone forever but I won't be tonight well I'm a frog without a pun but I think with you I could spend my entire life name the artists well it's a duet it's a duet right one of them is this Kermit T. Frog. 100% Lady Gaga. Yes, there you go. Yeah.

It's Lady Gaga. Yes. So the theme of this round is celebrities, singers, doing duets with Kermit the Frog. I didn't know there's so many of them. There's a lot more,

but we're whittling it down. Wow. Fantastic. Yeah. So who is green? Who is green? So now with the theme in mind, we can move on to clip number two. We're in every land about while leaving me moaning low.

Oh, firefly. Firefly. Why can I latch on to you know how. Oh, how. I love you, but gee. Trying to set the night on firefly. Shine a little light on me. Oh, man.

Oh, my, so my initial guess is Tony Bennett. Is that the team's final answer? Got it. Yeah, I wasn't sure, but now that you say that, totally agree. Yeah. Yes, that's correct. Yeah. It is Tony Bennett and Kermit the Frog from a firefroft.

Man, it's been a long time since I, as soon as it got to play a music quiz, so this is, like, really fun. Oh, good. Also, like, anytime you put a duet quiz together, like, there's already, like, a 70% chance Tony Bennett's going to pop up in there somewhere. I should have realized. Yeah, exactly. He's got two albums with Lady Gaga. Yeah, yeah.

Well, moving right along, let's go ahead and do clip number three. I'm ready to be lazy hanging around with you. Well, even in the very, very worst of times, there's one thing I know. The way to guarantee a little peace of mind is a walk in the woods, a friend by your side. And here we go. Hmm. Hmm. The other thing is like, Kermit has been around for, I mean, my whole life.

So, I mean, like, we could really be, you know, span and the whole rate. Like, at first I was like, is that like young Willie Nelson? I mean, it was like the first, but I don't know. What do you think, Karen? It sounded a little bit show tunesy. So I was like, oh, maybe it's like a showtunes person. Nathan Lane, maybe a little too deep. I would recognize them.

Oh, give us a hint. frequent collaborator with the Muppets who in fact has two albums out with the Muppets. Well, I know one of Chris's favorites, you know, John Denver, but didn't really, all right. We'll do Nathan Lane. You're going to do Nathan Lane. I'm going to tell you, Colin, you should have stuck with your gut. It was John Denver. That is off of John Denver, the Muppets, Rocky Mountain Holiday.

Don't self-censor. All right. Okay. Available now on cassette tape and LP. Let's see how you fare with clip number four Okay, okay, I think I have dream in my life away I need you so that I could die Okay, okay

I think I have a good guess on this one Okay, all right, okay It sounds like Linda Rodston I was going to say Linda Ronstat, absolutely, who I, who I definitely, I know she did sing with the Muppets. I would say Linda Ronset. Who sings the original? Dream, dream, dream, dream. I believe that was the Everly Brothers, the original version of that.

But anyway, you guys are correct. It is Linda Ronstat. Nicely spotted by the both of you. Incredibly versatile. Pop, country, bulk, Muppets. Last of us. One of those people who will give you her best, even though she's, singing with a puppet it's not like yeah yeah they're intentionally funny because it's like

they'll just be pouring their heart and soul into it and then you know kermit will come in on the harmonies yeah um and uh yeah so i mean what can i say except uh let's let's go to click number five oh are you ready to do this i am so ready let's do it all right Jingle bells Jingle all the way Oh, what fun it is to ride And one horse open sleigh Jingle bells, jingle all the way

Oh, what fun it is Okay I think it's Michael Blue Blay But in the beginning It kind of tripped me up Because he sounded A little bit Louisiana And so my

Then I was like, oh, Harry Connick Jr. Too committed to the bit But yeah, I'll stick with Michael Bublay. What do you think? Colin? Yeah, I'm on board. I'm on board. I'll co-sign. Well done. It's Michael Boubley. And Kermit the Frog. You guys doing great so far. Three clips left. Let's just move it right along. Let's hit up clip number six. Here it is. illusions and rainbows have nothing

to hide oh man just to just throw this out there you know Kermit has sung his very famous song Rainbow Connection with many many celebrities he's been on

he's done it on American Idol I mean he's toured that he's toward this all over the place I am I'm trying to identify if it's like you know Jim Henson before he passed or if it's, you know, right, because I can't believe his son took over voice in Kermit, right? Sure.

So that could be. Karen, I feel like that's Jim Henson. I feel like that's original flavor Kermit. Ah, see, I feel like it's modern. You do. Okay. Well, that's going to help us decide, like, what era it is. Okay.

Hmm. I'm not saying this is him. It's like a Jason Marzzi, you know, like a guitar dude. Deep cut Philip Phillips, but like that kind of like guitar. I was like, oh, maybe Ed Sheeran. It's funny, you say Ed Shearin. It was one of the first names that came to mind. We'll go with James Taylor, Ed Shearin.

Yeah, Colin, should have gone with the gut again because it was Ed Shearin. Oh, no. Ed Sheareran. So hilarious. Wow. Yeah. The quality. Like, it really, like, the sound quality really gives it away.

Like, it's too crisp. Yeah. I betrayed. Yeah, I should have really, I over thought it. Well, we both said Ed Shearin. Yeah. Well, okay. All right, you can get this, you can still get it back.

We have two more clips to go, so let's go ahead. Here is clip number seven. Such moments bring. Happiness comes in on Tick-toe. Well, what do you know? Well, what do you know? It's where that Kermit sounds different in a lot of these clips. Irreplaceable, the brilliant Liza Manelli.

Jazz hands. Not going to phone it in. Not going to phone it in for you. That's correct. Yep. Liza Minnelli. There you go. Singing one of her staples, a quiet thing.

The breathiness over the top is. Yeah. Oh, it's, yeah, it's over the top in a big way. That quavering, just tension she can bring. Oh, my craft. Yeah. Quivering tension. Queen of the Nepo babies, Liza Minnelli.

Very good. I thought that was going to be kind of a tough one, but you were just like, no, absolutely, no question. So great work. There's one more. Okay. It is clip number eight. What you hear is not a tough and I'm rapping to the beam. It's just me, the band.

And the frog, we're going to try to make you move your feed you. Come on. And see, I'm the green amphibian, and I'd like to say, hi-ho. Hi-ho. To the black, to the white, the red and the brown, the purple, and the yellow. But. Wow. I've never heard that one before.

Incredible. I've never heard Kermit Rat. That was strange. The one, the only, Sugar Hill Gang. I'm going to give you guys a hint. What if it's not? Not Sugar Hill Gang. It's not.

No, no, no, no. Okay. It's a cover. It's a cover. You may need to expand your mind a little bit. This is certainly a person who is known in part for his singing abilities. Actor, singer, was the host of a television show. Or Senior Hall.

No. It is not. He was the host of a television show and sang this with Kermit on his show. Jamie Fox, no. It is not, it is not Although he may have fallen into that category A lot of people had short-lived shows Lots of pleasure

This is definitely a short-lived show Short-lived Short-lived I think it is short I think it is actually short live Oh, Wayne Brady It's Wayne Brady

What was the Wayne Brady show? Was it a talk show? I believe it was, yeah, talk show, yeah, talk variety, maybe something like that, yeah, yeah. He's so good. He's too good. Great job brains on the Kermit. Kermit duet. It is easy being green when you have a lot of celebrity friends.

Right. Brown, yeah. Liza Minnelli's. Liza Minnelli. Queen of the Nepo babies. She is. It's the first. I don't know if she's just talking about the first.

Queen, yeah. For real. There are really many reasons to listen to our podcast, Big Picture Science. It's kind of a challenge to summarize them all, Molly. Okay, here's a reason to listen to our show, Big Picture Science, because you love to be surprised by science news. We love to be surprised by science news. So, for instance, I learned on our own show that I had been driving around

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

And while asking the big picture questions about why they matter and how they will affect our lives today and in the future. Well, we can't affect lives in the past, right? No, I guess that's a point. So the podcast is called Big Picture Science, and you can hear it wherever you get your podcasts. We are the host. Seth is a scientist. I'm a science journalist, and we talk to people smarter than us.

We hope you'll take a listen. I have a last segment. Here, we're going to talk about another green character, and just in a sec. Let's go back in time to the year 2000. The Heinz Company, the Heinz Corporation, the Heinz Company, took the nation by storm by launching this incredible product called Blastin Green Easy Squeeze Ketchup. Easy, big E, big Z, Z squeeze.

Kids had blasting green easy squeeze ketchup on their Christmas list. Kids did not have ketchup on their Christmas list. Yeah, no, I believe it. I believe it. It is Heinz ketchup. in a Elmer's glue type bottle. The wrapping is very psychedelic, you know, late 90s. Like, wow, easy squeeze, like with a tie-dye whirl.

The ketchup is green, not fresh green, tomato green. This is like Crayola Forest Green. It's 2000. It's kids want more interactive food, you know, color food. It's fun. Marketers called Eatertainment. Eatertainment. things like the luncheables where you stack and you make your little lunchable things

or a yogurt that you put like sprinkles on and then it changes the color probably remember there was like this Oreo, Oreo magic dunkers where through some chemical reaction it turns the milk blue. I'm like, wow, and I'm going to drink it because it's blue. That era was this eat entertainment at its peak, right? This is when parents didn't really care about what kids ate or, you know, like, We're a little bit before the organic movement, so it's like... Everything was extreme.

It was the late 90s. Everything was extreme. Everything was extreme. You know, easy squeeze. It didn't stop at green. There was purple. There was teal. There was pink.

Pink ketchup. There was mystery color ketchup. Would you even know what color was going to be? Easy squeeze. Of course, you can't find them in the stores because they discontinued it in 2006. Like I said, people cared about their health more. parents were more conscious about food. But when it launched in the year 2000, it was a big deal.

And Heinz sold more than 25 million bottles, just to put things in perspective, what they expected to sell in a year, like a year's worth, they sold in the first 90 days. Wow. Wow. So they hit their annual quota in the first 90 days, first quarter, I guess. Kids are meant to doodle on their burgers, you know, draw on, like different colors. And the green was a big. big hit because it was related to the promotion

of the first Shrek film. Of course. The first Shrek film. And let me tell you, Shrek had an incredible co-branded history of Shrek version foods. I really, even to this

day, 20 something years later, it's hard to really remember movies that had that much marketing stuff tied to them. I'm like, wow, frozen's big, but I was like, I don't see frozen Elsa Ana foods, you know, like some, maybe like a fruit roll up that had like snowflake shapes, but like Shrek, A, because it's green. And B, Shrek is like a chubby monster. Those two things completely lend itself perfectly to co-branded Shrek foods. Quick list. Let's just run through some of the magic, the marketing

synergy that happened for the first couple of Shrek movies. Shrek Pop Secret Popcorn. Guess what? The popcorn's green, right? It's like bright green popcorn. Kids love that. Shrek gushers. So, you know, you're a little, their fruit jelly snacks with like the quote juice.

It's not real juice. Obviously, that slime is green. Shrek toaster scrolls. It was cherry flavor but had green icing on it. Shrek M&Ms, shades of green, and also, quote, ogre size. So they're like M&Ms, but just a little bit bigger. Shrek Twinkie, which is that the cream is green. Shrek circus peanuts.

They call Shrek marshmallows, but it was made by the people who made circus peanuts, who just put it in green and put it in different mold. And now we have like... They've just got a big dial. Like, it's just like St. Patrick's Day. I just had it to Shrek. Just put just Shrek over those labels. Yeah.

So 75 co-branded junk food items. with Shrek. And by the third movie, there was kind of, you know, groups caught on and there was kind of a backlash. Like advocacy groups, parent groups were kind of like, man, all Shrek does is promote junk food. Advocacy groups wanted the Department of Health and Human Services to get rid of Shrek branded green foods. It's too much, guys, too much. We need to cut down. Tree Marks, however, has a long contract with the establishment known as McDonald's. So by the time the third movie hit, the McDonald's Happy Meal and Tie-in, they're like, okay, let's do something different.

We'll use Shrek to feature the healthier items at McDonald's. And that's what they did. They had Shrek do apple slices. You know, the apple slices come in the pouch and they have like Shrek's picture on it. and Shrek is encouraging people to drink milk. The Happy Meals, this is like when they have like the white chicken breast nuggets. And so they really made kind of an effort to try to use Shrek in a healthier way through their McDonald's partnership. They're like, there are some foods that are naturally green.

It's amazing. We just found out. We just discovered that salad is green and apples are green. incredible yeah oh man and and you know they did some hokey things like oh if you go on mcdonald's website shrek will do some exercises and games for the kids to do you know where kids are going for their exercise videos yes McDonald's website yeah and the crazy thing is the sales were up like it worked it really worked this is not just in the U.S. across the globe.

Yeah, McDonald's actually benefited from this healthy, healthy Shrek angle, which is, which is kind of crazy. I mean, it just goes to show what a promotional machine Shrek is. Yeah.

He has both ends of the spectrum. He's got healthy apple slices and he's got, and I'm going to close this out with probably my favorite Shrek branded item, which is Shrek Kids Cuisine, kids cuisine everything is the same as a normal kids cuisine except for two things the tray is green

so it has a different colored tray it still has chicken nuggets and it has like corn or whatever and the dessert is different in the Shrek Kids Cuisine dessert they have something called swamp pudding usually it's like a brownie swamp pudding

when you eat it will make your tongue green so yes the power of Shrek Oh, man. Shrek is life. I thought I knew, but I did not know. I did not know the extent. I just don't think there's anything in our childhood that is that pervasive.

Just so simple, right, just conceptually. Just what can we make green that is not already green? And boom, Shrek, you got it. Yeah, Shrek. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here, DreamWorks, Pious, yeah. All right.

Well, that is our show. Thank you guys for joining me. And thank you guys listeners for listening in. Hope you learned stuff about Kermit Duwe. green flags, plants that smell like other things. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and on all podcast apps, and on our website, good job, braring.com. This podcast is part of Airwave Media Podcast Network.

Visit Airwavemedia.com to listen and subscribe to other shows like Tumble, the Science Podcast for Kids, All Creatures, and History Tea Time. And we'll see you guys next week. Goodbye. Bye. From the terrifying power of tornadoes to sizzling summer temperatures, Accuether Daily brings you the top trending weather-related story of the day, seven days a week. You can learn a lot in just a few minutes, with stories about impending hurricanes, winter storms,

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