Good Job, Brain! - 262: Winter is Coming

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

If we were to knit trivia into a chunky scarf, this episode would be it. Befriend a giant snowman and take a spin on ice in Colin's "Winter by the Numbers" quiz. Prepare for your jaw to drop in Chris' minty science segment, "Why Japanese People Don't Like Root Beer." Warm yourself with Karen's comforting soup trivia (just don't pair the chowder with tequila), and did you know people can actually be allergic to the cold? 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. Salutation, my sensual scorpions of scientific searchers of super friends. This is good job, brain, your weekly quiz show, an offbeat trivia podcast. Today shows episode 262. And I am your humble host, Karen, and we are your blimpful of blithely blinkers blitzing blueberry blintzes. I'm Colin. And I'm Chris. Actually, I have, and actually, because as somebody pointed out, I said, for some reason, I said that the year of the simply read album, a picture book, I said, 1975, I have no idea why, holding back the years, clearly a 1980s classic, classic of 1980s.

80s radio. It came out in 1985. I apologize to you listeners. I apologize to simply read. And I'm holding back the years. Clearly, I'm holding back the years. Clearly, I'm holding back

the years, but in a lot of ways. 85. All right, without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment, pop quiz, hot shot. here I have a couple random trivial pursuit cards I'm going to just I'm just going to pick one you guys have your barnyard buzzers so let's jump in and answer some questions let's do TV

this is a trivial pursuit TV card before you get excited too late Karen the the card is pretty weathered so I don't think it's current it's current All right. All right. Well, it was that one time accurate. Let's jump in, Blue Wedge. What relation to Morticia Adams is Fester? Ooh. Okay. What relation? Colin? Is that niece? Do I have it right? What relation to Morticia is Fester? Brother-in-law. You know, what's the card says, uncle. Okay, so not the relationship. He's Gomez's brother. He's the kid's uncle, Uncle Fester.

Well, maybe not. Mortisha's the mom. Wait, that's in the movie. Now, hold on. All right. To the internet. I was, I flipped the question of my mind, but I was thinking uncle and niece, right? That's what I was.

You think Uncle Fester is Morticia's uncle? I think he's that, he's above, he's above Gomez and Morticia's generation. That's what I think. In the original, okay, I'm reading from Wikipedia in your, the original 1960s sitcom, Fester is said to be Morticia's maternal uncle. His name rhymes with that of Morticia's mother, Hester. However, from the 1970s onward, he is Gomez's brother. In the show.

Okay. I think in everything. But this is specifically talking about the 1960s. 60s sitcom. He is Mortitious Uncle. That is an interesting piece of trivia. That is. All right. Next question. Pink Wedge. What show had critic Douglas Durden, raving, I quote, this is the most important comedy show for women ever. Oh. Colin. Murphy Brown. Incorrect. Most important comedy show for women jumping back in time a little bit. it. How about Kate and Allie? No. It is the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Yellow Wedge. What was Detective Pepper? That's quotes. Okay. All right. What was Detective Pepper Martin's real first name on policewoman? Oh, man. That's with Angie, with Angie Dickinson, right? Is that who it was?

I don't know. Oh, man. What was her first name? I'll say Angie. Oh, that's good. Yeah. I'll say Angie. It is Suzanne.

Suzanne. All right. I'm guessing this car just from like early to mid-80s. That's kind of the vibe I'm getting. You know what? You know what? I feel good. Let's keep going.

Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. Okay. All right. Next one, Brown Wedge. What kids show Lampoon Star Trek with a skit called Pigs and Space, starring Captain Link Heartthrob on the Swine Trek. Chris.

That is the Muppet Show. Love it. All right, Green Wedge, which I'm not going to ask this question because it's kind of offensive. It was written in the past. I'm going to sub in a question here. Sub in a question, also TV-related, but from a more current card, which restaurant chain founded by Mark, Donnie, and Paul Wahlberg is the subject of an A&E television series.

Chris. Wall tacos. No, it's Walburgers. Just kidding. Guy who counts all the points. I get the point. I was just kidding. Wallburgers.

Correct. All right, we're going back to the old TV card. Orange Wedge, last question. What fraction of Americans showed interest in buying TV's in 1939, multiple choice, 13%, 26% or 52%. I mean, the rule of Kohler, the rule of Kohler says choose the middle one, right? Choose the middle one. When given three multiple choice numerical options.

I would feel like a jerk if I did not follow the advice of my good friend, Chris Kohler. But I got says maybe a little, the lowest one. That's the thing because it's so early. And I mean, I can totally see a lot. lot of people saying, you know, it's like asking people if they want to buy like a zoo or whatever. It's just like, oh, why would I want that? You know, so it's like, right, like, it's a more interesting trivia question if it's the lowest one. It would be smart to go with the middle one. I'm going to, I'm going to actually say the 13%. All right, then I'm going to

ride along. 13. And the answer is 13%. All right. All right. Logicking over there. Yeah. All right, today's topic. So when we meet people, who learn that we run a trivia podcast. We always get asked, hey, what's your favorite fact? What is your all-time favorite fact? It's so hard to answer because there are just too many. Or some people would ask us, what's your favorite segment that you did? What was your all-time favorite segment?

It's like, man, we did 260 episodes. There's like multiple segments in each episode. There's like a lot. So I think a better question to ask is what is the fact that you always think about? What is a piece of trivia from the show, whether or not it was your favorite segment or not, but it's something that you always think about or you always kind of find yourself thinking about. Do you have any of those guys? I often find myself thinking about the Chinese emperor who died and then was sort of weekend at Burnied, you know, for as long as was needed.

to kind of keep things rolling smoothly. That one, I don't know why. It's like I find in my own mind a ways to make analogies between that and a lot of things in life that I see. I think about Thomas Jefferson getting roasted and canceled over the mountain of salt, which I think is still a really good story. For me, this is something I think about all the time because I see it all the time. Chris, it's from your segment.

it's the phenomenon of leaves falling. Leaves falling when it's fall to winter. Every time I'm out and I see dead leaves on the ground, I think of you and your segment, you know, what we think of beautiful leaves falling. The seasons are changing. It's like, no, it's leaf murder, the tree on purpose, killing the leaves and pushing them off the ledge.

It's leaf murder. I find myself taking walks all the time. And every time I see leaves, So I was like, I think about it. I was like, ah, leaf murder, leave murder here, leaf murder there. And so today's episode inspired by the season's changing. It's getting cold.

So this week, let's keep warm with some winter trivia, winter facts. So this week, winter is coming. Wow, that was such a big part of my life. Oh, my gosh. It really was. Yeah. Maybe. No, it's over.

Yeah. Okay. So, Karen, I can actually, I would love to tell you about maybe some plants that don't lose their leaves in the wintertime. How about that? Yes. A very on-topic segment. this segment is called Why Japanese People Don't Like Root Beer

Totally on topic For the winter themed show Why Japanese People Don't Like Root Beer So if you know anything about Japan It's that it is an absolute wonderland Of just various different products If you go to the soda area Or the drinks area

In any convenience store you will simply be assaulted by every possible variation on everything. You can get almost anything there. You get anything in Japan, but you cannot get root beer. You cannot get a frosty glass of A&W root beer, you know, whatever, dad's Heinz. There's no mug,

there's certainly no A&W restaurants. I cannot imagine. I mean, they got KFC in Japan. They got Taco Bell in Japan. They got Wendy's in Japan. There's no way that A&W would ever be able to open up because they are centered around a product that if you give it to, I'm not saying every Japanese person.

I'm saying the vast majority. If you give it to them and have them drink it, very likely they've never had one in their life. And the second they taste it, they will taste it and just be like, that is disgusting. Like that's not like I don't like it. It's like that's super gross.

Why would you drink that? I had a friend who back in the day, lived in Japan for like eight years was like dang I can't find root beer anywhere and then one day he went to a store that had like some Western products they had in a glass case some six packs of root beer so he's oh it's root beer so he brings and he takes it home and then a little while and he's saving all these bottles you know for like special occasions he had a he had a Thanksgiving party he had people over the house there were Japanese people in the house Japanese guy opens the fridge oh can I have one of these beers oh yeah yeah you can have a beer and like

the guy opens up the root beer and like he turns and he sees the guy about take a sip of root beer and he's like no slow motion i co-worker you know takes a sip of the root beer and just makes the it's just like oh and he just starts pouring it down the drain he's just like this went bad so what's what's going on here and also what does this have to do with anything Well, to understand this, we have to talk about a plant. We have to talk about rather a grouping of plants that are known as winter green. Oh. So you probably heard of winter green like a flavor of gum or a flavor of toothpaste or lifesavers or lifesavers or whatever.

And the word winter green was originally used like the word evergreen to refer to like plants that were still green in the winter. or like their leaves don't turn ground. Their leaves are not murdered. That makes so much sense. It does. But the way we say now that plants in evergreen, people used to say, oh, that's a winter green. But now it refers more to a specific grouping of plants. And in North America, the plant that we know is winter green is very common in New England.

It grows on the ground. It's like ground cover type plant. And it has the leaves and it has little red berries that are edible. They're called tea berries. So it's not so common anywhere If you ever heard of like Tea berry pie Tea berry flavored gum

As a cold-scale kind of gum You can still get it According to Wikipedia And no I did not have time To dig any further on this one So teachers can mark me as You know not using a proper source But tea berries

I just want to let you know that Tea berries are also called Boxberries Canterberries Checkerberries Chicken berries deer berries ginger berries, green berries, ground berries, grouse berries, hillberries, one berries, spice berries, or starberries. That was like a doctor's juice book.

Yes. I think a lot of the chicken berry and the deer berry and the ground berries all because they grow on the ground. The ground. So anyway, so from winter green, aka the tea berry plant, you can get the tea berries, you can eat them, or you can get winter green oil from the leaves. And this is the flavoring that is used to make Wint-O-green lifesavers and, you know, that's what they call it, yeah, and winter green toothpaste and whatever. It's a real thing.

I think I always assumed it was just, you know, kind of marketing talk. Yeah, just branding. Yeah, I didn't. Nope, nope. I mean, Spear Mint is from literally mint, and then Wintergreen is from this different type of plant. And Wintergreen is considered to be like a minty flavor, but it's not mint. It's not in the mint family. It's a different type of plant.

You are blowing my mind with this flavorful oil. And by the way, I want to go on a little tangent here. It's nothing to do with anything, but this is really interesting. There is a phenomenon known as triboluminescence, and that means light from friction. Yes. If you add friction to something, the electrons take on the energy of the friction, and when it gets released, it gets released in the form of light. So if you're in a really dark room and you take a sugar cube and you crush a sugar cube in a dark room

and you, like, add that friction to it, you might actually. be able to see a faint blue light appear when you crush the sugar cube because the energy the peanut gallery here is freaking out um so you crush you might actually be able to see a faint blue light when you crush the cube right now a winto green lifesaver has sugar in it but it also has winter green oil and the thing with the winter green oil is that it's fluorescent so so if you're it, go into a dark room with winter green lifesaver brand mouth rings and you chew it and you're doing the triboluminescence

of the glucose, that's giving off light and that's hitting the fluorescent winter green oil and you will see sparks, light sparks, when you crush it up or chew it with your mouth open, right? Yes. My sister did it. Yeah, me and my sister. We read about this and we're like, let's buy a pack

and we're just like in the corner like eating and be like, do you see it? Do you see it? My sister and I did the same thing. Like, we had our mom buy a pack. And we went in, like, the closet in my sister's bedroom. We were just like, crunch, crunch, crunch. It's like, oh, I see it.

I see it. Yeah. We were probably just the mintiest two children, I know, right? Not minty, winty, but you need the. Speaking of good marketing and branding. But anyway. So, yeah, so you need. So it turns out.

it's not the winter green alone and it's not the sugar alone, but it is, it's the combination of those two things in the, the winter green lifesavers. So the winter green oil, the actual science name for the winter green oil is methyl salacillate, okay, methyl salacillate, right? So apart from being a flavor of gum, methyl salacillate is also, in fact, maybe you're thinking about like a recent episode in which I asked you about acetyl salacilic acid, which is, which was more commonly known as Aspirin. Aspirin. And in fact, when methyl salicylic gets into the body,

it is broken down into salicylic acid, which is very similar to aspirin. It is a pain relief drug. And it's not that you necessarily take it orally, but methyl salacillit, just winter green oil, can be, and in fact, is often used in pain relief ointments or those pain relief patches that you have a muscle pain and put the patch right on it.

so it is in fact it is it is used to great extent in a pain relief brand of pain relief patch called salonpus i don't know if you've ever seen yeah absolutely absolutely getting more yeah well salonpus was invented in 1934 in japan we're starting to get there you will now not be surprised to hear that one of the key ingredients that makes root beer taste like root beer, that kind of spicy flavor, is wintergreen oil. And in the U.S., see, we kind of associate, like, the topical pain relief patches with, like, either athletes or, like, old people like us, like, oh, my back, I got to put a patch on my knee, you know, whatever.

But in Japan, salampas patches in particular are still very, very popular among all A.E. of people for any kind of topical pain relief. By the way, you got to watch out with those things because people have died because they're like, oh, I'm just going to put a bunch of these patches on. And they OD on aspirin, basically, right? So you got to watch out with that stuff. But so whenever you see a YouTube video that's like, we got Japanese people to try root beer, watch the funny stuff that happens.

Young people, like young people in their teens and in their 20s are just like, oh, it tastes like it tastes like a medicinal patch. It tastes like salampus. They don't taste the salampus, but it has such a powerful odor and it tastes like it smells. And that smell is highly associated with being in pain or being sick. So that is a gross smell. So when they drink the root beer, it tastes like being sick. Sick smells. You're just sort of your gut level, brain level reaction.

Wow. And then the weird thing is every now and again, they find the Japanese person who loves it. So I have no, I don't know. Yeah, well, you know. No blanket statement is going to work for everybody. Yeah, right. So winter green oil. It's interesting stuff and it's why Japanese people don't like root beer.

That is really amazing. I think I always assumed Salampas was, I don't know, French or something like that. I mean, and just so many, so many aspects of the story are just so, uh, incredible jaw-dropping. Yeah. It's like hits after hits, Chris. Yeah.

That was a tight set. Ten years into the show, more than, and still like dropping this on us. I know. Wow. Crazy. It's cold outside. And you know what the best thing to eat when it's cold outside. You need some of that comfort is a bowl of a super.

Yes. Mm-mm. Mm-hmm. So here I have a quiz all about soups. Get your barnyard buzzers ready. This is a buzzing quiz. All right. Most of these are pretty easy, but there's some good trivia nuggets in here.

So let's jump in. In 1895, Campbell, Campbell's Soup Company, introduced their first ready-to-eat soup. Back then, it was actually in a jar. It wasn't in a can. They haven't developed the can yet, but it was in a jar. What kind of soup was it? We've had this on the show before. What flavor was it?

Bonus points if you can give me the full flavor name, Colin. Oh, geez. Mushroom soup. Cream of mushroom. Incorrect. Okay. Chris, you want to take a stab. How about chicken noodle soup?

It is beefsteak tomato. Not just tomato soup, which they eventually changed. Yeah, but beefsteak tomato. Beefsteak tomato. A good bit of marketing. Good bit of marketing there. Yep, yep, yep, yep. All right, next question.

Ding Tai Feng, or in Chinese, Ding Tai Feng, is a Chinese food restaurant based in Taipei, Taiwan. That's now a global chain. Hmm. The Nairfong is famous for what signature dish? Ah. Chris. The soup dumpling.

Yes, the soup dumpling. Shaoong Bao. I just ate for the first time at the one in Las Vegas. I don't know if this is true or not. From people who've eaten it in both Asia and in America, what they have said is like the soup in the soup dumpling is not as hot. in the American restaurants. That was absolutely my experience.

Yep. Okay, we all agree on this. And we understand why, right? Because the way that you eat these things, if you haven't eaten them before, is they have very hot soup inside a dumpling. So you're supposed to puncture it, let the hot soup out into a spoon, and then slurp the hot soup, and then you eat the rest of the dumpling, right? But Americans will just take the, if they got an Asian hot dumpling, hop it into their

mouth, explode, boiling hot water into their mouth, and then they would sue Dintai Fong, you know, to the ground, right. Yep, yep. Yep, you're right. Here's the thing. Growing up in Taipei, Taiwan, the soup dumbling is not a particularly super remarkable thing. It's nothing super extra special or anything. So how did the Tintai Fon phenomenon blow up? We got what you're calling you. He said, it's in Vegas. It's in Dubai. It's in Australia. It's up here in Seattle.

It's a global chain now. And it's such a big deal. And it's like, how did it get? All of a sudden get so big for this item that I was just kind of like growing up. I was like, ah, it's okay. It's fine. All thanks to Japan. Oh, really?

Yes, the restaurant itself. There's so many places that have soup dumplings, you know? But Dean Taifon, advertised in Japanese. tourism magazines. So when tourists from Japan come to Taiwan in their travel planning, you know, literature or

catalogs, they would see ads for Dinkai phone and they're like, oh, well, if we're going to go to Taiwan, we have to go to this traditional place to eat soup dumplings. And all a sudden you see this one store with a whole bunch of Japanese tourists line out the door and you're like,

wow, what's that place? And it just gained momentum from there. Oh, interesting. I didn't know that. I didn't know that at all. Yeah. I think when most people think about Chinese food,

they think about a hole in the wall or they think about like Chinese takeout or delivery, whereas the Tangphong is like such an experience to go to the restaurant. Everything is so clean. Everything is so efficient. Yeah. The customer service is spectacular.

You see the people making the dumplings and the little fish tank or, you know, like, sorry, not fish tank, but. It's called a chef tank, Karen. Yes. It's a spectacle. There's always a line. And it's always good.

It's always good. It's consistently good. All right. Next question. Who was the host of the cult classic TV show, The Soup, which recapped various pop culture moments throughout the week? At what point? Oh. Oh.

Joel McHale. Or Greg Kinnear. I'm sorry, Colin. thinking about talk soup. Oh, which is a different show. But yes, Joel McHale got his start hosting The Soup, which was on E, exclamation point channel. So great. I mean, as much as people like him on community, I think that was his best thing that he ever did,

was he was so perfect for that role. And children, for those of you who don't know what The Soup is, it is a kind of pre-internet, I guess, a show would take all of the crazy insane moments of reality TV or normal TV and then kind of do a commentary over it. Back then, it was a very novel idea. And Jill McHale was great. Next question. Soldiers coming back from World War II might have helped popularize the grill cheese sandwich. But it is in American public schools where it got paired with what? Chris.

I have to guess tomato soup. Correct. Tomato soup. Because of vitamin C. So they would serve the processed cheese, grilled cheese, but like, something moderately healthy to go with it. So let's give them some tomato soup, which happens to have vitamin C. Perfect, perfect marriage of flavors.

Thanks, lunch, ladies. Next question. Miso soup, a mainstay in Japanese cuisine, is made of soup stock additions like seaweed and tofu, and, of course, miso. What exactly is miso? Chris. Fermented soybeans. Yes, correct. It is fermented soybean paste.

Importantly, it is soybeans. Like, actually, they get a bunch of beans. Inoculate the soybeans with a special. special fungus. And it's called Koji. In Japanese, it's called Koji, which is a special strain of fungus. Next soup question, what is the key difference between gazpacho and most other soups? Colin? Gaspacho is typically served cold. Cold. Not good for winter. Cold. Have you guys had gazpacho? I love a good gazpacho. Yeah, yeah. I really do. I've had ketchup right out of bottle, is that?

So Grisbacho is, it's Andalusian, which is the region of South of Spain. But yes, you had the Americano version of Gispatto. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the Americano version of. All right. Next question. Kakaliki. Yeah.

Kakaliki is a soup hailing from Scotland. What are the two main ingredients of Kakaliki? This could go so many directions. Chris. I would have to say probably chicken and leeks. Correct. It is chicken and meat. Fun to say.

Kakuliki. All right. The three main aromatic herbs in Thai soup, Tom Yum. We love a good Tom Yum. It's lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, and galangal. I'm sorry if I'm pronouncinga. Galangal. Glamgall.

Lemon grass is grass. Kaffir lime leaves are leaves from the kaffir lime plant. What is Galangal? Colin. Is it a root like a ginger or something sort of like? Okay. Yes. It's a rise.

I mean, I was looking for ginger. You know, it's not exactly ginger, but it's in the ginger family. And for a long time, I thought it was like a fruit, but it is a hunk of root that looks like ginger. That's what Galangelo is. All right. Next question. This is a hard one. In the Pixar film, Ratatouille.

In the movie's climax, Remy the Rat, prepares Ratatouille, a French vegetable stew for the food critic. What was the food critic's name? Oh, God. Oh, man. Just rewatch this, too. I saw this not too long ago. Who was he voiced by?

I think he was voiced by Peter O'Toole. Oh, let's see. Goodness. Did it start with an M? No. No. His name is Anton. Eagle.

Oh, right. Oh, gosh. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Who was the voice actor? Hold on. Peter O'Toole. Wow, good job.

Nice. Good job. Brain. Yeah. Can't get to pull that out. Ooh. Oh. Last question.

Last question in the soup quiz. New England clam chowder is white, cream-based. Yes. We talked about this on the show before. Manhattan clam chowder is red. Yes. What do you call it when you combine the two into a A pinkish chowder.

What? Chris. New Jersey clam chow. Your logic is on the right track. Thank you. It is called the Long Island clam chowder. Oh, my gosh. Because it's somewhere, it's a place between New England and Manhattan.

Oh, my gosh. A long island. clam chowder is made with rum, gin, vodka. 151. Heavy cream, clams. Yeah. And then you float the 151 and oyster crackers. And then he set it on fire.

Yeah. Right. And then you set it on fire. Then you throw it in the garbage. Oh my God. Someone should have like Long Island night where to drink Long Island Clam Chowder and Long Island Ice team. Put down some tarps first.

Time to, oh, close myself. All right, time to take a quick brick, and we'll be right back. You can spend less time staying in the know about all things gaming and get more time to actually play the games you love with the IGN Daily Update podcast. All you need is a few minutes to hear the latest from IGN on the world of video games movies and television with news, previews and reviews. You'll hear everything from Comic-Con coverage to the Huge Diablo for launch. So listen and subscribe to the IGN Daily Update, wherever you get your podcasts. That's the IGN Daily Update, wherever you get your podcasts.

Are you dreaming about becoming a nurse, or maybe you're already in nursing school? I'm Nurse Mo, creator of the Straight A Nursing podcast, and I want to be a nurse. I want to be a nurse. you to know that I'm here for you. I know nursing school can be challenging. I've been there, but it doesn't have to be impossible. Sometimes the key to succeeding in nursing school is to hear the concepts explained clearly and simply, which is exactly what you get with weekly episodes of the Straight A Nursing podcast. Each Thursday, I teach a nursing concept or share tips and advice to help you succeed in school and at the bedside. My goal is to help you improve how you study, get more done in less time, pass your exams, and feel more confident

and clinical. And if you're already a practicing nurse, these episodes are for you too, because as nurses, there's always something for us to learn. So subscribe to the Stray Day Nursing podcast and I'll see you on Thursday. You're listening to Good Job Brain. Smooth puzzles, smart trivia. Good job brain. With the theme of winter and wintory facts, I have enjoyed assembling for you to a grab bag quiz about all things,

wintery, cold, icy, frozen, snowy, Christmasy, what have you. This will be a write-down quiz. Why don't you each get something to write with? And the name of this quiz is Winter by the Numbers. And every question in this quiz will have a numeric answer. So for every question, it is going to be closest to the mark, gets the point. Some of them will be years. Some of them will be measurements.

some of them will be various other things. So here we go. First question. How tall, and I'll do the unit conversion for you, okay? How tall is the current Guinness World Record Holder for World's Tallest Snowperson? Oh, wow. Like assisted or unassisted? You know what I mean?

Like someone with like a rebar structure. underneath, bouncing water? Yeah, right, yeah. What, I mean, you know, what effort are you going to put into to make it into the Guinness book? You decide what units you want to give me. All right. Answers up. Okay, Karen says

80 feet. Chris says 52 feet. I like the specificity. Karen takes the point. You both underestimated the current record holder for world's tallest snowperson. She is, in fact, a snow woman.

It is in the town of Bethel, Maine. In 2008, they built a 122-foot-tall snow person with substantial amount of assistance. This was not just some kids getting some snow together in the backyard. No, this is amazing. The towns people and people from surrounding towns as well built a snow woman. over the period of one month, this snow woman is only a little bit shorter than

the Statue of Liberty. I mean, just to put this in context. Yes, the statue herself, as Chris has talked about before on the show, though, you know, the pedestal makes her seem more imposing. But yeah, 122 feet, one inch, in fact. Her name is Olympia, Olympia, the

Snow Woman. This is a direct sort of homage to Senator Olympia Snow. who was Senator of Maine from 95 to 2013. I mean, 122 feet tall. Her eyelashes were made of eight pairs of skis. This thing is just giant.

Her arms were trees. Her arms were two 30-foot-tall spruce trees just wedged in on the side. I mean, these are not twigs for arms. If you're looking at pictures online, and I encourage you to do so, It's not like three balls, right? Kind of the classic American snowman.

To make something 122 feet tall safely, she's basically sort of a gently sloping tall pyramid. You know, I mean, it's... She's an inverted funnel. She's a cone, more or less. But yeah, very impressive. Her scarf, her scarf is 130 feet long. She has lips made from five red car tires,

kind of stuck in a smile there. I mean, just truly, incredible feat of of of gumption by i wrote down a hundred feet and i was just like no there's no way somebody would know but i i underestimated people's ability here that just 10 years prior to her um debut there was another mega snow person a snowman in bethel main uh in in 1990 in 1999, Bethelman introduced Angus, King of the Mountain, who was 113 feet tall. So the proud people of Bethelmae have a rich tradition of these, yeah, gargantuan snow people. Yeah.

It might be downhill from here after Olympia, the 122-foot-tall snowwoman, but we'll see where we can go. All right. Moving right along. Next question. at the beginning of the novel, A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. How old is the character John Snow? Ooh.

As you guys know, it is different from the TV show, but how different? All right, answers up. You have both answered 14. You both got it right on the nose. You got it. All right. He was indeed, he was indeed 14 years old at the beginning of the book. On the HBO TV series, they made him slightly older.

They said he was 16. It's hard living. It's a hard live in 16, you know. Next question. Every year around this time, millions of Americans turn on their TVs to watch a beloved holiday story about the protagonists' seasonal depression and disillusionment with capitalism. I'm talking, of course, about a Charlie Brown Christmas, a beloved staple of American TV, premiered on CBS. What year, what year did a Charlie Brown Christmas first air, has aired every year since then? Sure.

Oh, okay. My sister was born. The show was a. smash hit despite being considered a gamble for CBS they were they were pretty reluctant to air it in fact at first answers up chris says 1966 karen says 1978 chris one year off december 1965 yeah i really had no idea i mean looking back it seems like such an obvious hit now but cbs passed on the pitch at first they really it was kind of just untested and unproven they didn't didn't think there was going to be a big market for it.

They really had, there was a lot of cajoling to get this thing made at all. I mean, even I guess right up until airtime, even the executives were really kind of like, let's just get this thing out there. We're kind of like contractually obligated to run it and then just move on. Nearly half of TV viewers in the country tuned in to watch it. Oh, wow. Yeah. They love Snoopy.

I mean, look, every year since then, it has definitely proven that. All right, moving right along. What is the coldest temperature recorded in U.S. history? Oh, my gosh. I will even offer you a bonus point for the state that this temperature was recorded. Coldest temperature recorded in U.S. history. Oh, wow. This dates to 1971.

It's negative. I will tell you it is negative. Yes, it is negative. In fact, in fact, all but one, all but one of our great states has experienced a sub-zero temperature. Yes. Okay, answers up. Karen says negative 52 degrees Fahrenheit and Alaska. Chris says negative 42 degrees Fahrenheit and Alaska.

Karen gets two points because it is indeed Alaska and the lowest temperature ever recorded there was negative 80 degrees Fahrenheit Yes, yes That was, yeah, January 1971 Prospect Creek Alaska, negative 80 It is interesting, I was looking at this

At the records for every state here And even Well you guys, maybe you can guess here think about it. What state do you think has not experienced a sub-zero temperature? It is Hawaii. That's right. Yeah, the lowest temperature on record for Hawaii is a balmy 12 degrees Fahrenheit

dating to 1979. But yeah. Yeah, it's pretty cool for Hawaii. Yeah. The coldest temperature in the contiguous U.S., not far off, negative 70 degrees Fahrenheit in Rogers Pass, Montana. Yeah. So we're not going to be a leg in too far behind. Yeah. Now, again, it only has to hit these temperatures once, not saying it does this all the time.

All right. Well, when you get temperatures that low, negative two, three, four, negative 70, negative 80, wherever you fall in there. Depending on where you live, you will very likely encounter frozen lakes and frozen ponds. according to the National Weather Service, what is the minimum safe thickness of ice to drive a car across? No. There are guidelines for how safe it is to walk across, one person, you know, snowmobiles.

All right. It's got to be like. All right. I love that we got the West Coast people here. answering this question. All right. Karen, I love the range here. All right. Karen says 20 inches and

Chris says 10 feet. Chris, you are indeed extremely conservative on that side. Most sources say you need at least eight inches of ice to be safe to drive a car. Eight to 12 is kind of the range at which it's

yeah, but eight would be on the absolute lowest end according to the national weather service. Yeah, to drive a car. I'm sure listeners out there who know more than I do about this laughing at my naivete. But yeah, I mean, growing up in Los Angeles, this is not ever a concern of mine. I mean, you don't want your car anywhere near a lake at any time of the year. But no, it's, I learned, I learned some interesting stuff about this. Like, well, so for one, the safest ice is the newest ice, just new, clear, the most integrity. You want to avoid the older, slushier.

cloudier ice is not going to be as strong. You can walk on ice safely, starting, you know, around four inches even. And you can ride, you know, a snowmobile starting around five inches or so. So, yeah, it really has a lot of integrity. Now, lakes and ponds are much safer than rivers. Sure. Maybe for obvious reasons because there's no current underneath. Yeah, right.

You know, don't count on good job rain for survival. This is for entertainment only. Do not drive your car out on a frozen lake and be like the podcast told me to do it. Money? Does this look like about eight inches ice to you? How many inches would you say this is? All right. Point to Karen closest to there with the 20 inches to eight.

10 feet. I thought you would spinal tapped it for a second. And I'm like, oh, Karen, Karen, she put the little inch markers. She must be neat, you know. No, you're right. All right. Sticking with adventure and danger here. We'll see how conservative maybe your guess is here, Chris.

How many people have reached the summit of Mount Everest? Oh. Now, of course, this is according to the best records. This is, okay. How many people, according to the Himalayan database, in fact, I won't give you any hints here one way or the other, but yeah, we have a pretty good idea. A lot of people have attempted. A lot of people bail out. I mean, regretfully, a lot of people have perished doing this.

How many people have successfully completed the trip to the summit of Mount Everest? Very top. All right. Very top. Are we counting Sherpas? We're counting every single human being who has been up there. Yep. Okay.

Oh, okay. Karen says 815. Chris says 5,000. Again, I love seeing the spread here. This is great. What I hope for with these quizzes. Chris gets the point. As of January, 2023, the number, the best number that I could find is 6,338 people.

Yeah. Definitely more than I would have guessed. I would have guessed in the hundreds, too, before I did a little bit of research on this. Let's transition to a safer activity somewhat. Each winter season, more than 100,000 New Yorkers and tourists from around the world visit the Rockefeller Center Ice Skating Rink. Features prominently in many TV shows, many movies over the years. What year did the Rockefeller Center Ice Skating Rink open? I will tell you it was a hit right away. Rockefeller, Rockefeller. Yeah. I mean, you might know when the building and the plaza were completed. That might help you pin it down a little bit. Nope.

Maybe not. No, I sure don't. All right. Let's see your answers. Chris says 1903. Karen says 1883. Chris is closer. You both a little bit early here substantially.

It opened to the public on Christmas Day, 1936. Yeah, later than I would have guessed as well. Yeah, so 1936, point to Chris there. It was temporary at first. So prior to the ice rink being there, it was definitely not part of the original vision. It was sort of an open plaza with, you know, there was some retail space. It was not particularly popular, it sounds like. And they kind of just figured, let's try something here sort of maybe and see how it goes for the holiday season in 1936.

Yeah. Like I say, immediate hit. New Yorkers loved it. And it became clear that they had to bring it back the next year and the next year and the next year. In 1939, it was upgraded to a permanent installation of a 120. by 60 foot rank. My impression of it the first time I went there was it seems so much smaller

than it looks like on TV and movies. Like you get out there's like, oh, wow, it's very intimate and kind of cozy out there. The Nintendo store is across the street, right? It is. That's where I go. It's pretty big in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, well, we are all tied up here.

Five to five. Oh, gosh. Yes, this is exciting here, unless I goofed in the scorekeeping. But let's just go with this. We're tied up. Bear with me a little bit on this last question. Maybe a little sideways thinking involved here.

But still in line with our numeric quiz, and we'll plug a good cause here. So as you may know, the United States Postal Service runs a yearly program named USPS Operation Santa. And this is a program where children and families can send an official letter to Santa Claus. and for many years, the Postal Service would accept letters just simply addressed to Santa Claus North Pole. And they would have sort of an unofficial, official policy of employees could answer them if they wanted to. They could pass them on to other groups

if they wanted to answer kids. Very often, very legitimate wishes for things, you know. And over time, this got formalized. Whoa. In fact, now it's become a very well-run. kind of gift exchange or you know almost like a charity program that you know so they the postal service will select a number of these candidate letters each year and they will match people with gift givers so as I mentioned once upon a time you could just write you know Santa Claus North Pole

and there's a very good chance that your letter would end up somewhere so a few years ago they assigned an official address that you should use for Santa Claus when you're sending your letters as part of Operation Santa. Now, the street address, if you will, is 1, 2, 3, Elf Road, the North Pole. And my question to you is, what is the zip code for Operation Santa? I will tell you only that it is a valid U.S. zip code,

at least in terms of it following the rules of what zip codes need to be. Even though it's a zip code, we'll go with closest two, as if we were approximating a value. Never mind. I thought that was clever. Okay. Well, no, you should be clever. I want to encourage you guys to just kind of, you see where your brains go with this one.

It's a zip code that might be appreciated by Olympia the Snow Woman. It is cryptic. Chris says, 040404. Oh, I like it. Like, ho-ho upside down. That's great. That's great. Yeah, yeah.

Karen, however, has not. Nailed it with 8888.8.8.8. Yes. It is 1-2-3 Elf Road, North Pole 8888. And I saw that I'm so cute. There's snowmen. There's snowmen. There's no people. Right. How clever. I looked into it. It turns out, no, actually, it's not necessarily to resemble snowmen. It's kind of just a general purpose administrative zip code. That's like easy to write it. It works so well, 8888.8.8.8. Yeah, well, Karen, well done. All right. You know your winter. Winter is coming. Good job. Good job, Brains. And the moral of the quiz is Snow Woman, Snow Cry. Throughout history, royals across the world were notorious for incest. They married their own relatives in order to consult. consolidate power and keep their blood blue. But they were oblivious to the havoc all this inbreeding was having on the health of their offspring. From Egyptian pharaohs marrying their own sisters to the Habsburg's notoriously oversized lower jaws. I explore the most shocking incestuous relationships

and tragically inbred individuals in royal history. And that's just episode one on the history. On the History Tea Time podcast, I profile remarkable queens and LGBTQ plus royals, explore royal family trees, and delve into women's medical history and other fascinating topics. I'm Lindsay Holiday and I'm spilling the tea on history. Join me every Tuesday for new episodes of the History Tea Time podcast, wherever fine podcasts are enjoyed. All right, I have our last winter segment and travel back in time with me. This was 1992. I was in third grade.

I'm in the nurse's office, the nurse's room at school, unwilling to look at anybody. I'm just trying to like disappear into this, into the wall, into this corner, facing the corner. Very recently we had an episode about embarrassment. And I talked about what is called an involuntary memory, which colloquially we call it a cringe attack. It is a memory of something that is so embarrassing that happened in your life. And for some reason, your brain holds on to it.

And when you least expect it, the memory will appear. And it will make you cringe, right? It's a cringe attack. And the interesting thing about this is it's so embarrassing that it made your brain remember it, like, remember. all of these details very vividly. So this is a cringe attack memory. So I'm standing, so I just remember everything. I remember I was wearing a dark pink sweater. I had my pink glasses. I'm just staring in this corner of being like, oh my God, please, can I please disappear? So this happened back in Taiwan. Taiwan is a relatively hot country, but the winters can get chilly. It's one of those

things where the winter hits one day, the temperature just drops. And you're like, oh, okay, it's winter now. Just before I got to the nurse's room, I was outside at recess. And this is one of those days when the temperature dropped. This guy, I even remember his name, Teddy Chi. He was on top of the play structure at recess. So he was like high up there. And he looks down. He sees me. He points his finger at me and yelled, Karen's face is about to explode. My next memory is I'm in the nurse's room. So why was I there? Why was I hiding in the corner?

Why is my feet about to explode? What's happening? So I didn't know it at the time, but I had a rare case of cold urticaria. Huh. Cold urticaria. The skin has an abnormal reaction to cold. Oh, my gosh. I was legitimately allergic to cold.

Wow. It was something that happened to me. If I get out of the swimming pool, I will get it. When it's really cold, I will get it. And this is what's actually happening. My skin will start getting little bumps, like little, like, not flea bites, little bug bites. Yeah. A bunch of little bumps.

Then they start to get itchy. then they start swelling up like wells and the bumps grow into bigger bumps and they start growing together and it's like splotchy I felt like I was a mutant you know that's what I was 10 years old I was like this is happening I'm like going to morph into a lizard holy moly I didn't know at the time that this is a rare case so you know let's back up sometimes maybe you find yourself in the rain maybe you're like out cycling in the cold or you're walking somewhere, you come back home and it's warm and your skin might feel a little bit red, maybe a little bit itchy, you know, when it's like a long exposure to cold. So that's like a mild case of cold urticaria.

So you're like mildly allergic to this cold. But I had a case where I was growing hives. I was legitimately growing hives. And was it painful? I mean, is it? It's itchy. It's itchy and it's painful in that a kid at the playground told me that my face was going to explode. Yeah, Teddy. Teddy. Emotionally. Yeah, yeah. My gosh. You know, I don't know if he did it as like making fun or he

was like actually concerned. Yeah. Yeah. In a very early episode, good job, Brian. We talked about the science of sneezing. Right? Like sometimes when you sneeze, this is how you stop sneezing or you need to facilitate a sneeze. What do you do? People tell you to look at the light. Right? Because your sneeze nerve in your face is very close to your optic nerve in your face. So if you trigger the optic nerve,

it will kind of like stimulate the sneezing nerve. And so I had that too. So, you know, every time I wake up and I'm in the sunshine, I'll start sneezing. And my dad used to, you used to joke around and be like, oh, you're allergic to the sun. But you know, it wasn't a joke to me. I thought it was legitimately allergic to the sun because it made me sneeze every day. So now I'm 10, I'm allergic to the sun, and I'm allergic to the fold. I can't win. You can't live on the earth. I was like having an existential crisis.

Like, am I X-Men? I don't know. Yeah, when did the cool powers kick in? Yeah. But now I know this is cold urticaria. So what can you do to prevent it? It is just a very intense allergic reaction. Wow.

Right. So, like, your cells have histamines. And, you know, when this is triggered, the histamine kind of burst out of cells. So could you, like, like, would an antihistamine? I mean, just like any other kind of histamine attack, help or, you know. Yeah, but no one gave me any back then. Right. I mean, I can drink cold water. Some people are so allergic that, you know, having ice cubes on their skin would trigger this. Or drinking cold water would trigger some sort of allergic reaction. I mean, that's super. super, super extreme kids. If you ever experience this, don't feel alone. I'm there with you. You know, we're humans. A lot of things are on spectrums.

My wife, you know, this hasn't happened in a while, but it used to be a recurring thing where every winter, like her legs would just get really itchy and like persistently. And, you know, like we would even call it the winter itchies. And it was just like almost some of years were worse than others. But there's sometimes when it was almost hive, hive like, yeah. Hmm. I wonder if this is on the same continuum. Cold urticaria. It's weird.

Yeah. Sounds like a Game of Thrones character. I know. Sir, S-E-R. And I'll end on this. This is one of those facts earlier in the show. This is a fact I think about all the time. I think it was in Dana's segment.

We had a camping episode. And she talked about how you have, to go when you're camping you have to go pee before you go to sleep yeah yeah oh yeah otherwise you just have pee in your body that your body is wasting energy trying to keep warm and keep it warm that's right yep yep yep every time i wake up in the middle of night to go pee i think about that you're like i'm gonna come back to bed and be a little be a little bit warmer yeah yeah yeah yeah a lot of stuff happened on this episode yeah what a what a what a trip this subject. Yeah. Really. Covering the corners. That's our show. Thank you all for joining me and thank

you listeners for listening in. Hope you learned stuff about root beer, about tallest snow people, about soup, and about cold hives. You can find us on all major podcast apps and on our website, good job bring.com. This podcast is part of airwave media podcast network. Visit airwavemedia.com to listen and subscribe to other shows. like reach the space podcast for kids, the ancient world, and IGN movies. And we'll see you next week. Bye. Hello, this is Matt from the Explorers podcast.

I want to invite you to join me on the voyages and journeys of the most famous explorers in the history of the world. These are the thrilling and captivating stories of Magellan, Shackleton, Lewis, and Clark, and so many other famous and not so famous adventures from throughout history. Go to Explorespodcast.com or just look us up on your podcast app. That's the Explorers Podcast.