Good Job, Brain! - 289: Bubblicious

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

Prost! Sláinte! Kanpai! Raise a glass to the bubbly brewskis all around the world in Colin's international beer quiz. Chris chews on the history of bubblegum. Something wicked this way comes... Karen's got a cauldron bubbling with witchy potion trivia. And descend into the watery world of the bathysphere bubble and how people were able to observe deep sea life for the first time in history. 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, chaotic cool cats, craving for cranberry colored cranial crumbs. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode 289, and I'm your humble host, Karen. And we are your wolf from strong wolf pack of wolf riders, wolfing down wolfberries and wolfbane. I am Colin. And I'm Chris. All right, without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment, pop quiz, hot shot.

Ooh, here I have two cards, two trivial pursuit cards random from the box. You guys have your barnyard buzzers. Listeners, play along. Let's answer some trivia questions. Here we go. Ooh, Blue Wedge for geography. All right. I'm intrigued.

What is the easternmost town in the contiguous United States? Oh. Okay. So not state. We all know what state. Town. Town. I mean, it's Maine, right?

I mean, I'm going to defer to the native New Englander. You never went up that far to like almost Canada, Maine. Should we know this answer, Karen, in your judgment? It sounds familiar now that I'm looking at it, but I don't think I would have recalled it. It is Lubeck. Oh, I've no idea. No. L-U-B-E-C, which does sound French.

Okay. Lubek, Maine. Loubeck, Maine. That's a really good one to file away. The easternmost town and the contiguous U.S. That's really good. Pequatch for Entertainment, which actress had roles in the West. West Wing and Mad Men.

Oh, it's, uh, Chris? Christina Hendricks. No, incorrect. I know her and Mad Men, but she played the daughter. Peggy, right, Peggy, Elizabeth, oh, my gosh. Moss? Yes, Elizabeth Moss. She's great, okay.

She's great. She's great. Just in case your list. anything, Elizabeth. You couldn't remember your name, but he knows your, you know, you were, I'm picturing you so hard during that moment. Yeah, you were, you were, you were seared in my, in my vision. All right, next question, yellow wedge. Which African American band leader celebrated his race in the 1920s with songs like black and tan fantasy and black beauty? African American band leader.

1920s. Okay. 1920s. All right. Chris. Count Basie. Incorrect. Calaway? Incorrect. Duke Ellington. Okay. All right. 20s, I guess, a little earlier for...

Okay, wow. All right. Purple Wedge in the Archie Comics series. Yes. Who is Archie's main rival? Colin. That's Reggie, of course. Yes, Reggie.

Oh, I hate him so much. Oh, yeah. Green Wedge, for Science and Nature, how many miles does the globe skimmer dragonfly migrate the longest on record for any insect multiple choice okay okay middle option middle i'm just going to go blind blind middle all right 5 000 or 11 000 again how many miles does the globe skimmer dragonfly migrate the longest on record for any insect 8 000 i got to go that's the thing i got to go with you because if you if you If there's no way you're going to figure it out, and it's just a random guess, go with the middle answer.

Okay. So 5,000, 8,000, 11,000 you guys are guessing 8,000. It is 11,000. All right. You know what? It was still the right play. Yes. I agree.

Because if it were, you feel like, yeah, you'd regret. They go back and forth across the Indian Ocean from India to East Africa. I mean, good for them. Again, if you guys are listening, well done. Yeah, really. Good job, dragonflies. Hats off to you. All right.

A little dragonfly hats. Orange Wedge, last question. Sports and leisure. In a box of Lucky Charms. Oh, dear. Sports and leisure? Is this a wild card? Leisure.

This is leisure. This is a definition possible. Wildcarn. Okay. In a box of Lucky Charms cereal. What are you eating Lucky Charms? What do you think you're working? Which color are the horseshoe marshmallows?

Wow Colin that was fast I'm pretty sure they're purple They are purple Okay It's in the song You guys know all the colors And purple horses shoes

Yeah exactly see Oh okay Jingles Taking up those brain cells All those years later K-A-R-S cars for kids I can't Karen

Why would you do Why would you do that to me But that's like I still hear it In the car sometimes And not only do I hear it in the car, but occasionally, like, they're using those the TV version as well. All right.

Okay. Let's do another card. Here we go. I'll make a quick geography. Which country boasts the biggest barrier reef of corals in the world? Wow. It's not a trick question. Go for it.

Colin? Australia. Australia. Pink Wedge for Entertainment, which HBO series follows the lives of pals Hannah, Jessa, Marnie, and Shoshana. Chris. Girls. Girls.

Yellow Wedge. Which U.S. president was head cheerleader during his senior year of high school at Phillips Academy. Ooh, prep school. I know this. Oh, Chris. I believe it is George H.W. Bush. Yeah.

It is George W. Oh, no. I knew. That was who I was picturing. I just put it to H. Purple Wedge, in Dr. Seuss's ABC, A is for Aunt Annie's What. Oh my gosh, I read this book with my daughter. Chris.

Alligator. Yes. Yes. Green Wedge for Science in Nature, which wrist launched flying cameras generated lots of buzz at the 2014 CES Electronics Trade Show. Hmm. Huh. it's not a brand it's weird it's not a brand name or anything yeah Chris just oh I was gonna be like Polaroid yeah I thought I was looking for brand are they just looking for

drones I mean what are they looking for selfie drones oh oh okay oh yeah yeah and it's not it's not like it's not like it's not even that's not even trivia that's like everyone's forgotten that's like everyone's totally forgotten about that now 2014 I know yeah yeah All right. Last question, wild card and or sports and leisure. What's the modern day name for the eternity bracelet, a thin symmetrical string of diamonds? Chris. Tennis bracelet. Tennis bracelet, yes.

So-called because tennis player Chris Everett. Really? Lost hers during a match. It wasn't that she was wearing one. I lost it that made the news. I always wondered why do they call it that. I just thought it was like a posh. I never looked into it.

Right. I thought it was, yeah, I don't know, I guess. And it's actually a joke. Like a country club thing, yeah. Yeah. I really did think it was like, oh my gosh, are you playing tennis without a tennis bracelet? Yes. How does it give it disgusting?

What was the original name? Infinity bracelet. What did you say? Eternity. Eternity. The eternity bracelet. Okay. All right.

Good job, Brains. Yeah, we did okay. Well, I can tell you, Karen, I may not have been able to retrieve the A and the Dr. Seuss, ABC, but I, I, I, I can tell you what B is. It is barber, baby bubbles, and a bumblebee. Wow. Yep.

I don't have it in front of me. I did not prepare, did not know that ABC was coming up, but Barber Baby Bubbles and a bumblebee. And it's very convenient because it includes the top. topic of today's show, which is bubbles. Bubbles. Bubbles. We've never had a topic about bubbles specifically, but we've talked about so many

bubbly things in the past. Really great segments and quizzes. They're so memorable. Chris, I remember you had a segment about Scantrons, how Scantron test bubble sheets work. Of course, you had your awesome bubble wrap story, bubble up segment. I remember I talked about the parrot fish that makes the booger bubble that like there's a bugger bubble but yeah I mean I was I was just like oh man all this stuff we've talked a lot about bubbles and we never even had a dedicated bubbles yeah I mean we probably mentioned

it but you know yeah yeah so from many angles Zima speculation bubbles I think we've talked about you know beanie dot com yep yep yeah yeah it's so funny and then now and then we got to the bubbles up so I was like I'm running I don't know what to do don't worry I got stuff oh I got some stuff and as I was going to say one of the things we do when we prep for the topics is we always have to do research on ourselves and say hey don't talk about this again we already talked about it it's like kind of been diving into our own archives you know what it's it was a lot easier maybe five years ago where I remembered every single thing and now it's time time makes fools of us all I'm slow slowly slipping, not remembering.

So this week, we're feeling bubblishes. So immediately I thought of this. I had to do nowadays with the kids, you know, when I'm chewing a piece of gum, they're like, dad, dad, make a bubble, make a bubble, right? So I'm trying to make a bubble

out of the extra sugar-free gum that I'm chewing, you know, you may not bubble gum at all, and you make a little tiny little bubble that pops immediately, but they're like, oh, if you can get one that holds it for like, you know, a second, you've done really well. So in the process of doing this, I'm like, oh, I wish I was chewing like bubble gum right now, and I really could make something really impressive. And I started to understand why people created bubble gum, because you're sitting there, you know, you're making a little tiny bubble with your garbage gum and it's so unsatisfying. It's like there's got, you know, got to be a better way, right?

Like, but I invent some gum that, you know, makes a big bubble. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're completely different. They need to be different. Oh, yeah, chewing gum and, I mean, they're, they're similar, but bubble gum is, is a formula that lets you make really, you know, huge bubbles out of the gun. Engineered for success. It's not just because I'm bad at it. Okay.

No, no, no. You have to get real bubble gum. to really blow bubbles. Of course, it gets to be thinking, like, well, what is the story behind this? Like, who invented bubble gum? Is there, is there like a funny anecdote behind it? Maybe there is.

Let's find out. So I don't want to spend, this is an bubble episode, not a chewing gum episode. I don't want to spend too, too much time going into, like, prehistory of chewing gum. You've probably heard this sort of stuff before. The shickle, yeah, you know, the plant sap out of a tree, out of the ancient, the ancient Mayans.

this. They called it chickle, which means like sticky stuff many years later. Chickle becomes the original ingredient in chicklets, gum, which was basically flavored chicle, you know, with a candy kind of shell. But really, the funny thing is like, if you just look at cultures all over the world, they were all chewing. We love to chew. Whatever we could get our head. Well, you know what, Colin? I think we do. I think there's something, there's like an urge, like an inbuilt urge to chew on stuff. And so whether you're talking about people chewing on tobacco leaves or coca leaves in some cases or, you know, chewing on leaves, chewing on nuts, beetle nuts, you know what I mean?

That sort of thing. Or chewing on trees, basically anything people get their hands on that did not immediately kill them, I guess they would just walk around chewing it. So by the turn of the century, by like 1900, you had the chewing. gum industry, basically. It started in America. Chichlitz were available in 1900. Rigley spearmint gum was available in 1900. They figured out this process of like refining some base ingredient, all natural ingredients at this point, but they were they were close to starting to develop like synthetic gum bases and stuff like that. But like at this point, it's naturally

derived ingredients and figured out how to reliably add flavor to it. There was a story that I read where like an early type of gum people were like chewing on like gum made from wax or whatever and they keep a little keep a little dish of sugar next to them take out the gum dip it in the sugar put it back in yeah flavored so eventually they kind of figured out how to like kind of get a flavor in there and so in 1906 1906 Frank H. Fleer yes um not frank H. W. F. Flerer. Frank H. Fleer. The head, got to get it right. The head of a confectionery company, which was called Frank H. Fleer company, invented the first bubble gum, a gum formulated around the idea of letting you blow a large bubble.

Okay. And he named this invention blibber blubber. no Frank come on blibber blubber is what he called it and it sucked and it was bad let me I'm simply going to read from a 1976 book now called the great American chewing gum book say lengthy tome with massive histories of chewing gum but this is how this book described Frank H. Fleer's blibber all right far too sticky

it didn't hold together and it had a wet bubble that initially burst and stuck to junior's face so stubbornly that only hard scrubbing

with turpentine could remove it poor junior so the gum itself didn't hold together very well. The bubble exploded and got all over your face. And then mom had to come in with a hard scrubbing and some turpentine. Get it off. Um, so the search for workable bubble gum was not about making something that could blow up a really big bubble. It was, but when that bubble

inevitably popped, you had to actually be able to just take it off your face. Yeah, damage control with nothing else. It's not like detonating. everywhere. So even though blibber blubber was a failure and not actually released, as Frank Fleer's company expanded, he continued to search

for the magic formula for a dry bubble gop. And 15 long years, like 15 years later, in 1921, he died. Oh, no. But in 1928,

an employee of Fleer, an accountant named Walter, Walter Deemer, was his guy's name. The book points out he had, quote, no knowledge of chemistry. Wow. Probably shouldn't have been messing with anything. But just decided to mess around. He was experimenting with different gum recipes because he knew that the company's late founder had been searching for this magic formula for the last like 15 years of his life. Incredible.

And Walter Deemer actually did hit a pocket. a formula for gum that blew a really big bubble and then popped on his face and he was able to just peel it right off. Didn't stick to it. Post it gum. Exactly. It took a while to perfect it for it to be kind of stable because like the first batch it worked and then he came back to it the next day and it didn't work anymore. So I had to figure out how to get it to be stable. Once he perfected the formula, he made a huge batch of his bubble gum in the in the Fleer companies like mixing vats and he put in the only food coloring that he had on hand at the moment. Pink.

Pink food coloring. And they test marketed their gum that year in 1928 under the name. Double bubble. It is double bubble. It is double bubble. The first bubble gun. Nice. Instant huge success.

Wow. It was a one cent candy. I mean, there were lots of one cent candy. for kids. At the time, the best-selling one-cent candy was Tootsie Rolls. Double Bubble very quickly overtook it and instantly copied by competitors. Oh, wow. Everybody who's involved, the Bowman Company was one of the first imitators. And it introduced its own bubble gum the next year. And it was called Bloney. Like brownie, but with the L.

No, like B, no, like B-L-O-N-Y. Bloney. B-L-O-N-Y. B-O-N-Y. Sure, yes, right, right, right. Moving right along from that, as you know, as you are aware, if you have listened to Good Job Brain, for a while. In the 1980s, packs of trading cards would often come with a stick of bubblegum inside. So here is a question. Here's another question for you. Why did packs of trading cards

come with a stick of bubble gum inside? Oh, interesting. I mean, we say the name Fleer. And, you know, so I mean, I have been in the collectible adjacent world long enough to know that Fleer is one of the leading names in baseball cards. I'm going to go ahead and assume that, in fact, the gum was the primary product and the cards were a way to move the gum rather than the way around. And the baseball cards were the bonus that was included in your pack of gum from the Frank H. Fleer confectionery company. And indeed, if you start looking into it, Colin, you know, the name Fleer is a maker of trading cards.

In fact, all of those major trading card companies, practically all of them, all started out originally as confectionary company. Like Topps? Topps was a maker of candy. Don Russ made candy. Fleer, Bowman. That's incredible. Well, Peachy, if you collected those Canadian cards back in Opeche, Candy Company.

The cards were Great Upper deck Not a candy company They started in the 80s Yeah they were like a second generation High-end trading cards Also they were sports day

But yeah All of them Candy companies That is amazing Baseball cards That makes so much sense Now eventually the gum became a nuisance

Because the cards were becoming Collectible And people were like Please stop putting a gross stick of cheap gum on my you get a rookie card and it's a big rectangle like stain on the back you know a little bit of like greasy like transfer yeah yeah right and so uh tops was the last holdout 1991 tops baseball cards stop having the last year that the gum was included in the package that's that's i mean it's the only candy that's like flat it was flat and

hard. I mean, it was vestigial. It was like the human, you know, tailbone. It was like nobody wanted. It used to be a bunch of gum and a couple of baseball cards. Now it's a big bag of baseball cards and one kind of weird stick of gum, you know? I love the idea, though, that like, if you look at the whole history of the gum and the trading, like, at some point, if you go back, the gum and the trading cards were equal. Exactly equally desirable. You know, and then it's clearly shifted to the point where, People are just complaining about the gum now. They're complaining about the gum. Yeah. So now, since we've been doing this whole segment about bubble gum, and this is good job right,

I'm sure you're wondering what is the biggest bubble of gum ever blown, according to Guinness World Records? I'll tell you. What are the constraints, though, like with one piece of gum, or is it like unlimited piece of gum? No. No, I think you can use as much gum as you want. I mean, maybe there is, no. So, I mean, for this, for Guinness World Records, it is, Chad, fell good job chad of the united states of america blew a bubble gum bubble with a diameter of 50.8

centimeters or about 20 inches whoa and then it it specifically says without using his hands oh okay all right you can't support it oh just blew it just straight blew it you know 20 inches yeah that's that's that's big that's also means it's 20 inches out from your face Exactly. The diameter, the diameter. 24th of April 2004. The most bubble gum bubbles blown in one minute is 15.

Whoa. And it was achieved by Michael Amato of New Jersey USA. Huh. September 14, 2014. So that record is stood for a while. And finally, we need to make sure to honor Joyce Samuels of Louisville, Kentucky, who on November 10th 2000 blew a bubble gum bubble with the diameter of 27.94 centimeters or about 11 inches

from her nose. I thought you're from her butt. Right out of her butt. No, it was now, now to be clear, she's not chewing the gum with her nostril. No, she takes the gum and puts it on her nose. Very violet bow. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not, like it doesn't like hork it up her like her soft palate and make her nose well and out that yeah yeah yeah no not reasonable no it's just she the Guinness World Record usually doesn't go into these sorts of details but she that says she pre-chews the gum for at least an hour to get the sugar out before making it into a rectangle shape with her hand and putting it over her nostrils she began putting the gum on her nose to blow bubbles for

entertaining her children. Mission accomplished. There you go. There's your bubble cum trivia. That is great. Man, just what a great American story all the way around. Yeah, I think it's worth mentioning a special record, too, for Chris Culler and Colin Felton.

Loyal, long-time, good job, brain listeners probably remember very early on good job brain more than 10 years ago. Uh-huh. I got a pack of trivia cards from the 80s. which were like baseball cards and it had a stick of gum. That 20 year old gum and Colin and Krista like, let's eat it. I can still taste it if I close my eyes, Karen. 30 year old gum, I think, by that point.

Oh, yeah. All the polymers that caused it to be gum. Yes. And not just like dust were gone. Yeah. I'll say the gum, the gum surrendered immediately. Yes. It immediately did make anything.

You were making any bubbles with that. It just sort of like fell apart into a, into a coarse powder. A paste at best. Yeah, right, yeah. It's like trying to blow bubble with applesauce. Right, right, right, yes. Chris, do you ever read what the flavor of bubble gum is? Ooh.

Oh. I know it's a trade secret. Like, I know it's not only a treat secret, but it's like just a hodgepodge of chemicals. Yeah. It's got to be based on something, right, as the. I heard it's kind of like the dumb, dumb mystery flavor situation where it's, it was created with the flavors that the gum companies already had. Like all of them mixed together. Yeah. And, you know, this is like old tiny. So with fake banana and like clove.

That's just looking it up, it does seem like they take a whole bunch of different fruit flavors and just sort of mix it all together until it tastes like America. When I was a kid and I came to America, I remember going to. to a target, early target, not targei target. And they had like, you know, the ice cream counter where you can get scoop. No, I don't know that at all. I know what you're talking about. I remember seeing bubble gum ice cream for the first time in my life. And it was blue.

And then, you know how they put the ingredients on top of the ice cream cancers to tell you what it is? And there's all these gumballs on it. As a kid, I was like, oh, my God, I have to have this. I have to have this. A bubble gum ice cream. You get it. It's bright blue and I ate it and I was like, this is disgusting.

What a letdown. It doesn't work. No, no. And it would have like gum pieces in it. They're frozen solid. You can't chew them. It's like trying to chew a jawbreaker. Oh, yeah.

But there is always a new generation of children who are seeing it for the first time. Yeah. Yeah. It keeps it going. All right, my turn. Bubble bubble. Chris, you mentioned the first successful bubble gum was double bubble. And do you remember what the name of the first unsuccessful bubble gum was?

Libber blabber. Libber blabber. Libber blubber. So no. Libber blubber blubber. Libber blubber. Blowny, double bubble. Well, speaking of double bubble, I'm going to read you a quick passage.

And you don't have to identify where it's from. But I just want to ask you what doesn't make you think of? Like, you know, you close her eyes, you know, this imagery wasn't making it. So I'm going to read a little bit passage. Double double toil and trouble. Fire burn and caldron bubble. Yeah. What's the imagery?

What are you thinking? The Scottish play. The Scottish play. Not allowed to say it on set. Yes. That and more and more directly, witches with a giant cauldron and the big sticks. Yes. And they're kind of stirring it around.

and it's bubbling and maybe green and smoking and, you know, a little frightening. It's really, it's really thick. So it's not like boiling. Like it's like, it's like, it's coming up and it's go, yeah, exactly. Every bubble comes up that goes, bloop. You think of witches standing in front of a cauldron brewing something nefarious, mysterious, maybe a potion or getting ready for a spell. Yeah, kombucha.

Chris mentioned it. This passage is from the Scottish play, a.k.a. Macbeth. Shakespeare's Macbeth. Good old Billy Shakes, Shackasperare. It's the Witches Caldron scene. It's Three Witches of Macbeth. Then it goes on. They're adding ingredients into this cauldron. There's Eye of Newt, Adder's Fork, and all these like weird, creepy ingredients. And historians have credited this scene from Macbeth what popularized the whole classic imagery of witches standing in front of a cauldron. Not to say cauldron's Witches didn't exist before Shakespeare, but like this really brought it to the masses, right?

Right, right. He was, he was pretty influential. So here I have made a quiz all about witches, cauldrons, bubbling concoctions, potions, poisons, brews from books, movies, television, folklore, and more. This is a buzz in quiz. All right. All right. Something wicked. This way comes. Here we go. Question number one. In the classic children's book, Strega Nona by Tommy DePaula. Streganona, an old cute witch, has a magical bubbling pot that makes what? Chris. Spaghetti.

Spaghetti. She does pasta mancy. Cute old witch, who it's like kind of a sorcerer's apprentice situation. Yeah. Her apprentice started fuzzling with the pot and then the whole town flooded with spaghetti. Grew up with that book and I was like, wow, I wish I had a magical spaghetti pot. All right. Question number two. In the movie, Hocus Pocus, the Sanderson sisters brewed a potion to steal the youth of children so that they can look and appear young. What three actresses played Sarah, Mary, and Winifred Sanderson? Oh, okay. Chris? Sarah, Jessica Parker, Bet Midler, and Kathy Nejimmy. Yes. Yeah, I knew you would get all three. I had two solid, but I knew you'd get all three. Thanks for believing in me.

Which was the one that? I forgot about Kathy Nogimi. Yeah, who is great. She's great. She's great. Good job. All right. Question number three.

In Homer's Odyssey, who slips a potion into a feast eaten by Odysseus' crew and turned them into pigs? Oh, thank you. Oh, Chris. I don't know. Is this Medea? No. No. She also is witchy and does potion stuff.

Yeah. It's not her. Oh, dang. I would be so mad when you say it. I read it. I read it. Also a name of a bestseller book, Circee. Oh, yes.

Not Circee Lanister. No. C-I-R-C-E. Circe. Like circle without the L. Right, right. All right. Question number four in this potion's quiz.

Madeline Ashton and Helen Sharp are the main titular characters who both drank an immortality potion in what 1992 film? Oh, Chris. Hell and mad. Death becomes her. Yes. Now on Broadway. Yes, now on Broadway.

That's a real good one. Oh, that would a good movie. Oh, yes. Saw it in the theaters. Yes, me too. I was too young and that Isabella Rosalini wearing her crystal top was, I was like, wow, that's really scandalous. Next question.

In what book can you find? the potion Formula 86, Delayed Action Mouse Maker. Chris? Witches. Man, witches. We're on a roll. On a serious role here. On a roll doll.

Which is, I think, pronounced rule. Rule doll. Yeah, but it worked for the joke, so we'll allow it. Fantastic book. Fantastic movie with Angelou. Okay, Houston. Yes. Oh, incredible movie, yep.

And then they remade it with Anne Hathaway as the Grand High Witch. All right. Next question. In the Emperor's New Groove. Oh, man. You know, Colin, let's see if you'll get this one. Yeah, let's see. I put enough hints.

I've seen it. Okay, yeah. I don't know. I'm going to be able to, okay. Fantastic and underrated film. Emperor's New Groove. Yizma is the one who brewed the potion that turns Kusko into a llama. What veteran.

feline actress voiced yizma. Colin. Is it Eartha Kitt? It is Eartha Kitt. Woo! Yay, Colin. She's fantastic. And great hint in Karen.

She also turns into a kitty in the movie, which I thought was cute. And her henchman, Patrick Warburton, also. Also great. Great movie. Yes. All right.

Last question here. Nanny Og. OGG. Nanny Ogg, the jolly, no-nonsense witch with one tooth, known for her cooking and drinking, is from what literary universe? Oh. She's a best-selling cookbook author in her world and also in ours. Okay. Oh, what is that franchise?

Literary universe. Terry Pratchett's Oh, okay. Disque Whirl. Okay. That's why I didn't know. That was in the punch ball. There's the disc world books, but there's also Nanny Ogg has her own cookbook,

a separate book that Terry Pratchett wrote, but it's like, you're reading a book that's from her world, written in her voice, and the recipes are like, some are real, some are like fake. Yeah, very funny, very, very funny. Good job. on the potions quiz. So circling back to the witch-cultron passage in Macbeth, in the passage there's like, tow a frog, lizard's leg, howl its wing. So, spoiler alert, these aren't what they say they are.

It's not really an eye of anew. They're all actual old-timey folksy names of common herbs and plants of that time. That's much less exciting, but it makes more sense. It makes more sense. Herbalists, they're not really witches, but there's apothecaries and herbalists. And yeah, they have sage and time and stuff, but each culture or area had their own, like, funny, cutesy, folksy name for it. Like, no one's taking a little spoon and gouging out eyes of nudes. Yeah.

So I have new. What does I have new? It's just mustard seeds. Hmm. What? I'm picturing them, like, gently, like, sprinkling in. It's like, everything bagel. I know.

What is she? Oh, she's making just Dijonais over here. Yeah. Give me some. And a wool of. bat. No one's shearing little bats and getting their fur. It's, it's moss. Because moss is really. They're found in dark caves where bats live. I hate to break it to you. It makes a lot more sense. It really does. That they're just botanicals essentially, right? Yeah.

I thought they had to go out there and, you know, get this stuff. And that's what made it difficult to make the, you know, bubbly potion. After, you know, years and years and years, decades and centuries of this imagery were like, oh, yeah, witches are evil. And so they have, you know, odd animal body parts and stuff. Like lizard's leg is an ivy vine. So, okay. Oh, okay. Well, I guess that makes sense is like, why is it just the leg or the eye?

Exactly. What do they do with the rest of the animals? It's all metaphorical. So it's literally just, so it's just plant leaves and mustard seeds and they are making kombucha, essentially, is what you're telling me. That is really, really fascinating. Next time, let's say Halloween, you see that window classroom decoration of a witch with a cauldron, you can partially make Shakespeare for that.

Good job, everybody. All right, we're going to take a quick break, and we'll be right back. When planning for life's most important moments, sometimes the hardest part is simply knowing where to start. That's why we're here to help. When you pre-plan and prepay a celebration of life with us, every detail will be handled with simplicity and professionalism, giving you the peace of mind that you've done all you can today

to remove any burden from your loved ones tomorrow. We are your local Dignity Memorial provider. Find us at Dignitym memorial.ca. The Dignity Memorial brand name is used to identify a network of licensed funeral cremation and cemetery providers owned and operated by affiliates of Service Corporation International. When Johan Rawl received the letter on Christmas Day 1776, he put it away to read later. Maybe he thought it was a season's greeting and wanted to save it for the fireside. But what it actually was was a warning, delivered to the Hessian colonel,

letting him know that General George Washington was crossing the Delaware and would soon attack his forces. The next day when Rawl lost the Battle of Trenton and died from two colonial Boxing Day musket balls, the letter was found, unopened in his vest pockets. As someone with 15,000 unread emails in his inbox, I feel like there's a lesson there. Oh well, this is the Constant, a history of getting things wrong. I'm Mark Chrysler. Every episode, we look at the bad ideas, mistakes, and accidents that misshaped our world. Find us at Constantpodcast.com or wherever you your podcasts you're listening to good job brain smooth puzzles smart trivia good job brain and we're back

This week, we're bubbling. Column, what do you have bubbling up for us? I am taking us around the world with beer. Woo! One of my favorite things experiences, beer. Yes, I love it. It's great. What more is there to say about beer?

I put together a quiz about this wonderful, bubbly concoction that people all around the world enjoy. many, many, many famous beers that we can drink here come from other countries. And so I have tried to assemble a quiz here for you guys that the format of this quiz is I will give you the question. The answer to every question will be a country, a country name. There are no repeats, all right? So if a country is answered once, it will not show up again.

If you're waiting for a certain country, you can answer it to everyone and you might be correct. Okay, get your buzzers ready. I will read the questions out. Again, the answer to every question will be a country name. Here we go. Moulson, the oldest brewery in this country, was so large at one point that they owned multiple other businesses, including home improvement chain, beaver lumber. Karen.

Canada. It is Canada. Canada. Great Molson brewing. Yes. Beaver lumber. Yeah, they were once in a moment. Yes. Among their home improvement chain portfolio. They owned more than one. Yeah. They were still own? No, they divested themselves of beaver lumber. Yeah. I should note here at the beginning of this quiz, or at least close to it, that many of these famous brewery brands, they may today be owned by some global, you know, multinational company. Anheuser-Busch, InBev owns many of these. brands but I am talking about historically where yeah exactly yeah you guys know what I'm saying here all right question number two Casablanca beer is the leading premium beer from this country and is available at its themed pavilion at Epcot in Disney World oh Karen again Morocco it is Morocco yeah trying to warm up here a little bit yes no no real tricks no curveballs here Casablanca beer, yeah.

Great pavilion in Orlando. A great pavilion, yes. So Casablanca beer, yeah. I mean, so Morocco has a few, you know, successful, popular beers. Casablanca, as I say, kind of the premium one. It is one of their bigger exports, too. Like outside of Morocco, if you're having a Moroccan beer, there's a good chance. It's a Casablanca.

Question. Yes. Did they name it after the movie? Well, I mean, they named it after the actual location in Morocco. Yeah, but would they have named it that if the movie hadn't been what it was, you know, who's to say? Who knows? Okay. Okay. If you are visiting this country and you order a Smithwicks ale at the local watering hole, you may receive quite a raised eyebrow. For one point each, what is the country and what is the, quote, correct pronunciation? Chris Kohler. Ireland and smithics

You got it, exactly That is a good classic Red ale type It's not Smithwicks They put the W in there Just to mess with you Yeah, that's right Smithics, smithics

Just leave out the W And you'll be all right Sing beer Which is spelled S-I-N-G-H-A Sing beer is the leading beer from this country

And the only beer brand there to boast a royal endorsement after King Rama the 8th gave his permission to use the golden royal seal in 1939. Oh, my gosh. Karen. Is that Thailand? It is Thailand. Not Singha beer.

Not, you know what? They will take your order. They will not shame you. That's right. It is not Singha. It's not Ireland. Yeah. Yeah.

It is properly a Sing beer. Wow. Good to go. Yeah, that's right, Thailand. And it is a very pretty label. Just nice, you know, gold, white label. That's right. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah, I mean, once you get the royal, you know, symbol on there, you're not going to take it off the label. That's right. Cronenberg beer has been produced since 1664 when it was founded in the free imperial city of Strasbourg, Holy Roman Empire. in what modern-day country is this? Ooh, both at the same time, Chris maybe by a nose.

What do you got? Is that Austria? It is not caring. Whoa, that was mine. You can open for caring. Yes. Not Austria. Take a stab.

What else you got? Holy Roman Empire. The Strasbourg we are talking about is in modern day France. It is in France. Yes, Strasbourg, France. Yes, Cronenberg beer, many varieties from the Cronenberg Brewery. They have a 1664 beer, labeled beer. Yeah, a lot of varieties there.

Lowenbrow, as it's called in America, or Lyons brew, dates the founding of their brewery to 1383 in this country. Karen Oh, I feel like Joe Bloggs answered Germany It is Germany, Joe Bloggs, yeah, yeah, yeah, one of the old ones, that's right, 1383 I was going to be club, be like, oh, Switzerland, but then, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, got it out of me. They themselves, their commercials would call it Lowenbrow here, even though in Germany it would be something

closer to, you know, Leuvenbrough or something, right, yeah. Despite being founded, by three Germans, the brewery that produces Pacifico beer is located in what country? Oh, this is true question. Chris. Mexico. It is Mexico. Okay.

Yes, yes. O.B., which stands for Oriental brewery, produces several of the most popular beers in this Asian country. Chris. South Korea. It is South Korea. Obie, yeah. Can't go to Korean barbecue without OB on the menu. Yeah, or posters on the walls, maybe a calendar on your way out.

Oh, yes. All over. Yep, all that. You got it. Orion beer, one of the top five brewers in its native country, takes its name from the Orion constellation, which the company says has long had an association with the island where the brewer was founded. Karen.

This is Japan. It is Japan. Yeah. It's Japan. Yes. Right. And they, in fact,

a little three stars on their bottle caps and their labeling and stuff. They made up the constellation. Apparently, they did sort of a naming contest for the brewery.

Again, the company themselves says that there is a longstanding affinity, I guess, between Okinawans. Yeah, okay. And the Orion constellation

founded on Okinawa. Estreya is the oldest beer brand in this country where its name means star. Chris. Well, Brazil. Not a bad guess, but not correct. How do you spell it? Well, then I know what the other country is. E-S-T-R-E-L-A-E-S-T-R-A-E-S-T-R-A-E-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-R-A-R-R-R-A.

Karen, if it's not that, then it's... Portugal. Wait, really? Also not correct. Oh, I thought that was... I thought that was... It is... You're close.

You're at least getting onto the right peninsula. It's close. It's not Portugal. Spain. Spain. Spain. Oh, I really... Oh, I really thought that was...

Maybe that is also Portuguese first star. The brewery founded in Barcelona, Spain, since 1876. Another one where the founder was not a native. Oh, no. The Estreya brewery was founded by August Kuntzman Dam, who was Alsatian, immigrated to French German, yeah. Right, and founded the brewery, yes. That's what they called German Shepherds. Oh, is that right?

Alsatians, yeah, you'll see, like, in some old movies, they'll say Alsatians. And part of the reason during World War, they didn't want to call it German Shepherd. And they're like, oh, the dogs from the Alsatian area. So there are Alsatians, yeah. Snow beer is primarily sold only in its home country, yet is consistently ranked as one of the top-selling beers in the world, at one point even claiming the number one spot. Snow beer. Why is that so? primarily sold only in its home country, yet it is consistently one of the number one beers.

Karen. China? China. Yeah, don't overthink it. That's right. China. That's right. Snow beer, snowflake beer, I guess, in Chinese.

But yes, that's right. Huge. I mean, just another one of these companies that has just multiple brands, multiple varieties of snow beer in addition to their, you know, flagship beer. Yep. All right. Last one. Wrap it up here. San Miguel.

beer is the number one selling beer in both Hong Kong and this, it's home country. Oh, geez. San Miguel. Karen, maybe the closest thing to tricky question. Yes, Karen, you got it. Picking up what I was laying down.

Close to Hong Kong. But with a Spanish-sounding name. There you go. Religious Saint Michael The original San Miguel Brewery was founded in Manila in 1890

by Enrique Maria Barreto under a Spanish royal charter essentially because at the time the Philippines were under Spanish colonial rule right as you reasoned out that's right

good job guys you did very well on this beer quiz I think we did great yeah you know your beer You know your beer. Hungry now. Now. What about now?

Whenever it hits you, wherever you are, grab an O. Henry bar to satisfy your hunger. With its delicious combination of big, crunchy, salty peanuts covered in creamy caramel and chewy fudge with a chocolatey coating. Swing by a gas station and get an O'Henry today. Oh, hungry, oh. Henry All right, I got one last bubble portion of the show.

One of the ideas you had listed, Colin, when you were brainstorming about bubbles, was you listed underwater diving capsules for water exploration. And I think I've made it known on this show. My all-time, all-time favorite video game is Bioshock. Yes. A great game. My favorite, it's just, it's so imaginative, it's so good. Quick summary, you play a character

that has been mysteriously led to an underwater art deco city built on the bottom of the ocean. Yes. But to get down to the city, city of Rapture very early in the game, you have to get into a bathosphere, which is like a steel in the game. It's like a steel glass bubble elevator that takes you, you know, into the underwater depths and into the city. And now I thought, I was a dummy and I thought this was something existed for the game, like the idea or even the term a bathysphere. And I didn't know it was like a real thing. The real bathysphere, even the time frame fit within the video game. Like obviously, the people who made video game did a lot

of really awesome research. And so in real life, the bathysphere, I'm not going to go in a deep dive on the history of it, but just some quick hits. The Bathysphere was invented in the late 1920s for the sole purpose to observe life in the deep sea. Before the Bathisphere invention, no one, no one even explored. And like no one knew anything about deep sea. It's really crazy to think about that. Yeah. Yeah. It was like a huge mystery. And partially is because it was impossible to explore. Humans just couldn't, at that time, in the 1920s or before, couldn't venture deep enough. Diving suits could only go so far. Yeah. And for limited time periods, too. For limited time. They can't really move because they're wearing an armored suit and they can't

really see. There's no light source. Submarines existed and they could do deep dives, but you can't see out of them. And so what do you do? So naturalist William Beeb. His last name is Beeb, William Beeb, and inventor Otis Barton. So Bebe and Barton, they paired up to come up with something that could descend to a greater depth than a human diving suit, but also allowed humans to observe and actually see what's going on in the deep sea, like wildlife. And so what they came up was the bathysphere, which is essentially a steel sphere because sphere is the best possible shape for resisting high pressure. that's like, you know, enemy number one where you're doing like deep sea dives or deep ocean dives.

And there's like small windows made out of fused courts so you can look out. And it's surprisingly small. It's not a room. It's not a room. Very small. The idea is that the bathysphere is attached to a boat with a long cable. You get into the bathysphere. You close the door.

And then you get lowered into the water. And the ship moves and kind of just drag, drags you along. I want to stop here. And I want to assure everybody that this is not a sad story. Nobody dies. There's no tragic accident. The bathysphere was somewhat successful, making it the first time people observe deep sea animals in their native environment. And was it like a thrill ride kind of thing for rich people?

I mean, was it like, who was just them? Okay. It was just them. They were under government grants. Partially it was funded by the National Geographic, England held. But part of the funding was from National Geographic in exchange for Bebe to write some articles and reports. They even did a radio transmission. They did a deep-sea dive, a two-part radio transmission.

So they were like kind of halfway into the dive. It was swinging so much that Barton puked in the bathysphere. And then they're like, we'll just go with it. And we'll just do the second part. We'll grin and bear it in this puk that's that's everywhere in this sphere. Where are you going to go? Where are you going to go? There's two people in this thing.

You're like touching each other. You know, you're like all over each other. And then you just puked everywhere. It was successful. They went down a couple times. They did see a bunch of animals. And Bebe documented five new animal species that he had observed. This is the first time anybody has seen.

any deep sea animals. But here's the problem. Usually the dives are max two people, usually with one person. And so if Bebe is saying, wow, I identified and I've observed five new species of animals, do people believe him? There's no one to verify it. Right. Right?

The five animal species turns out to all not exist. not that he made it up but like he was but they're not they're not the animals that he said that they were like so for example like he said he saw like an five line constellation fish it was like a beautiful fish that had dots of light you know and nowadays people are like oh that was probably a comb jelly like a type of jellyfish that had like the biolumicent and so yeah the the five animals that he excitedly talked about turns out to be not verified. They're not real, but they're not real.

So what do you do when you think you have found a new species? What are the steps required now to register a new species? You hear about like, oh, they discover new species of a frog, like in the jungle. Like, what do you actually need to do to make that in the books? Exactly. So here, of a quick rundown of this is what needs to happen. Step one, discovery and documentation. So you found this animal, you've observed it, you're writing down what looks like, the habitat, physical traits, but you need a specimen.

And most of the time this means you need a dead specimen. Right. Right. So you need capture or you wait for it, stumble upon, you know, one of these animals that have died and you take high quality photos, have genetic samples. And then number two, you bring it back to some historical society where experts, this is step two, which is like verification and comparison. You have all these like experts that will study this supposedly new species and compare it with what's already have been found. And so they're going to do the taxonomy. They're going to go through all the research.

And then number three, you have to name the species. So you have to choose a scientific name. You have to register it with the ICZN, which is the. International Code of Zoological nomenclature. It has to be Latin and follow some sort of grammatical structure. And then number four is the hard part. You have to write a formal scientific paper and you have to describe the species, get it published. Then you have to get it peer reviewed by other experts in the actemia.

If accepted, then it will be recognized after the publication. Then you register it. Wow. I didn't realize it was that involved. You have a DNA sequence, then you have to register that too, put it in the genetic bank. And yeah. So it's not enough for this guy to be like, yeah, I was in a steel bubble dark down in the ocean and saw some flittering light thing. Trust me, bro.

So poor Beeb, he's so excited. He got it, got the bathsphere, he got it down, saw these animals and turns out. I mean, Karen, even in 2025, I mean, it's still finding new stuff. It still is like, are this great, the greatest unknown, right? I mean, yeah, it is still captivating even now. Remember older segment I did? I found out why barnacles are called barnacles. Huh.

They're named after the goose. People in the olden days thought barnacles, the sea creatures are. Right, right, right, yeah, yeah. They thought that's where geese came from was like from barnacle shells. Here's another one I found, which I thought was interesting, called the vegetable lamb of tartary. a medieval legend just like the barnacle and barnacle goose where people thought cotton the plant the plant cotton gave birth to sheep they thought it was like an umbilical cord coming out from the ground and the little fluff of cotton ball is like a sheep embryo like a baby sheep yeah i mean could

you explain why they look so similar smart guy yeah multiple cultures had the story about a plant that bore a lamb as the fruit. I love it. I believe that you believe it. This is why we have peer review. The bathosphere bubble. It couldn't drive itself, right? You had to like drag it along.

Yeah. Technology moved faster and the bathysphere is now a thing of the past and in video games. And that's our show. Thank you all for joining me and thank you listeners for listening in. Hope you learn stuff. about bubble gum, about witches and bubbly cauldrons, about bubbly beer. You can find us on all major podcast apps and on our website, good job, braine.com. This podcast is part of Airwave Media Podcast Network.

Visit airwavemedia.com to listen and subscribe to other shows like Triviality, nerd wallet, smart money, and for the love of history. And we'll see you next week. Bye. Bye. Ever dreamed of traveling the world with your children without leaving your home? Tuning to Culture Kids podcast to embark on an incredible adventure right where you are. At Culture Kids, we collaborate with cultural organizations, authors and educators from all over the world

to expand our children's horizons, inspiring them to embrace our differences while bridging communities worldwide. And that's Culture Kids podcast. Here's your passport. Let's go. All aboard!