Good Job, Brain! - 296: It's All In Your Head

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

Heads up! It's the new fall 2025 season, and we're on the road to 300. Remember learning about the dinosaur's "tail brain" in elementary school? Chris investigates the elusive dinosaur butt brain and the mesozoic mind. Karen gets in your face with a mystery music round. Whose heads were on our coins before presidents? And don't lose your head while playing our cryptic word game! --- Thank you to our special guest, Tyler Hinman! --- 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, pumped up pumpkins, pumpeons, pumpkin ears with a pumpage of pumper nickel. Welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and Opi trivia podcast. This is episode 296, and of course, I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are, your triarchy on trial for triangulating tryptophan triumphantly. I am Colin. And I'm Chris. Woo!

Hello this season! We made it through another summer. Incredible. Hey, if you're a new listener of Good Job Brain, Good Job Brain is a quizy, fun facts trivia podcast. Colin and Chris and I used to play Pub Trivia quite passionately for many years. And so the idea of the show is to bring that pub quiz hanging out experience to you. So it's like as if you're sitting with us at the table.

We started this podcast, boy, since 2012. Amazing. And in fact, you are catching us at a very interesting point in time because we're about to hit episode 300 very soon. The Road to 300. I'm not quite sure what this podcast is. is anymore. This started out as, you know, we would go to pub trivia. We'd have all these conversations and, you know, make each other laugh as we're trying to figure out the answers to the trivia questions. We started doing this. And if you go back and listen to episode number

one, we're not quite sure what this is yet. But it sort of filtered out into, you know, everybody kind of brings in something for the group, whether that's a quiz or a word game or just something we learned recently. And hopefully the idea is that you leave here, maybe knowing, you know, with a few more little chunks of knowledge rattling around in your head, that if you end up on Jeopardy as like,

apparently like all of you end up beyond Jeopardy, like as far as I can tell, like every single person who listens to this podcast. Yeah, exactly, right. So yes, we're on the road to 300. And guess what, everybody? we've opened up the Good Job Brain hotline. Hotline.

You can call in to a real phone number that has a Rhode Island, a Rhode Island area code. We'd love to hear your voice, your Good Job Brain stories, messages, because we're about to hit episode 300. So it's a big celebration. So leave us a message and we might share yours on the episode. I can't wait. I love these.

Don't forget to tell us your first name. and we're calling from, and the number is 401-903-332323. Call now, 401-903-33232323. Please keep the threats to a minimum. All right, well, without further ado, this is a trivia podcast. Let's jump into our first general trivia segment, Pop Quiz, Hot Shot. Uh, what's that? I didn't know we had one of those.

It's the good job, brain, doorbell. Oh. I guess someone should open the door? I'll move at the door. I'll get it. I'll get it. Why, it's our old friend, seven-time American crossword puzzle tournament champion, Tyler Hinman. Hey, hey.

Hey, how's it going, everybody? What are you doing here? Well, I heard you were approaching episode 300, and I figured I'd pop by, see what's going Come on. Come on in. Yeah, we're just recording an episode of Good Job Brain. What an amazing coincidence. Incredible timing. All right.

Well, I don't want to interrupt. Oh, no, no, no. Please stay. Well, okay. I suppose I have some time. Welcome back. Thank you so much. Well, Tyler, you're here just in time for our first general trivia segment.

Pop Quiz, Hot Shot. So here I have a random Trivial Pursuit card, game card from the board game. and you all have buzzers. Chris is the rooster, Colin is the horse, and Tyler, your buzzer is... Oh, I prepared this especially for you. What does that say? It's just yelling buzzer. It's a yelling buzzer.

It's your voice. Into a buzzer. Into a buzzer. It's very meta, yes. He's not a buzzer, and the sound is him yelling buzzer. All right. Here we go. First question, Blue Edge for geography.

The Argentine Resort Town of Ushaya is situated in the middle of what fire archipelago. Fiery. Fiery. Fier. Tyler. Is it Tierra del Fuego? Of course.

Would not have had it without that fiery hint. Southern point of South America. You can actually traverse to Antarctica from there. That's one of the points. Here we go. Pink Wedge for entertainment in the television series Battlestar Galactica. Nice. Which one?

What is the mythical 13th Colony? Oh, geez. Chris, come on. Earth. Yes, it's Earth. It's Earth. God, we were so into that show. We were super into that show. Oh, man. Yellow Wedge. In 2016,

the Ringling Brothers in Barnum and Bailey Circus retired which magnificent performers ending a 145-year tradition? What year? 2016, Chris? Oh, okay. They retired their elephants. Yes, elephants. All right.

Next question. Not a sports question, but sounds like a sports question. Purple Wedge, basketball legend, and apparent super nerd Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote a novel about which occasional Baker Street regular. We have some literary nerds here and one basketball nerd here. Wrote a novel about which occasional Baker Street regular? I mean, is that a... Go for it, Colin.

Is that a Holmes reference? I mean, what is the... It's a person. Okay. Do you want to guess a person? A real person. No. Just a character.

A per se. Is it Sherlock Holmes? Incorrect. That wouldn't be occasional, I wouldn't think. Yeah, okay. All right. Right. That is fair. Not occasional.

Right. I didn't know how cheeky they were being here on this card, right? He's occasional. I would say, do you? Oh, yeah. I narrowed it down. He's occasional, huh? I have two things in mind.

I could try to. All right. Well, try something. How that is? Something down. I'll try Moriarty? No. It is not Moriarty, his nemesis.

NIMSys, who sometimes rings the doorbell and goes fine is Chris. Is it Watson? It is not. It is Sherlock's brother. Mycroft. Mikeroft. That's a left field question there.

I wonder what this novel is called. I wonder if it's like, are there good reviews? Let's see. Can someone go on Amazon and see it? It's like a well-received book. Goodreads, see what they're, yeah. Mycroft Jabar is what I searched for. Yeah. It's just called Mikecroft Home.

It seems like people like it. I'm going to have to check at least part of this out. Yeah. I don't know if I'm going to come into a series, but I'm curious now. All right. Green Wedge for Science. What is the name of the lander that tumbled onto the side of a comet in 2014? Oh, right.

Props to all you yelling this in the car. She was yelling at right now. I, you know. I guess I wasn't paying very close attention. It is filet. Feele. Maybe I'm pronouncing it correctly. P-H-I-L-A-E.

No, I never would have pulled that. I was not going to pull that one. No. This is a tough card, man. Yeah. Interesting. It's interesting. Last question, orange wedge.

Which traditional Hawaiian dish is made with cubes of seasoned raw fish served over a bowl of hot rice? Everybody. Pokey. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right, good job, Brains.

Woo. This week's topic was partially inspired by pub trivia. A quick story time, I swear, I'll make it short, but it's very, very cute and it has a good payoff, so be prepared. As I said last season, there's a bar near me that just started doing pub trivia. It's like two blocks walking distance. Hmm. This is the cash game, right? Okay.

So everybody who participates at the bar has to put in $2 and first place wins the entire cash pot. I love it. I love this model. Nothing like the feeling of losing money and seeing it go into someone else's pocket across the bar. Like just to really stoke your fire. It's golden board material right there. So we sometimes bring our kids because we have to. We can't leave them at home.

And so one night, this round was about dinosaurs. I'll tell you, I did not grow up as a dinosaur kid. You know, like, kids can, like, recite. I was a dinosaur kid. I was not. Yeah. And so there was a question about what dinosaur has a mace-like tail, like a club tail, and also an armored head.

Oh, sounds like. I know what that looks like. I've seen it. Yeah, I can draw it. I don't know the name. If you guys play trivia with me, I like to write and draw things. And so I drew a crappy dinosaur with a mace tail and armored head. head. And I just pointed to my daughter, who's five, and I was like, hey, Billy, do you know

what kind of dinosaur this is? And she looked at it and she goes, oh, it's an anclosaurus. Oh, all right. At this point, me and my husband, we don't, we're like, that sounds like a made-up answer. Like, that sounds like a BS answer. She knows what she's talking about. We have to put an answer down and we put the answer down. And then later, we won first place, $93. What was her cut? Yeah, exactly. She gets all of it. Every point counts that one point.

How rare is it that she knows something that we both don't know at all? Man, like the trivia milestone here. Like what a trivia. Yeah. Oh, my God. We just, we still talk about it. We're like, this is crazy. Anyway, this is the long-winded way of saying that I was like, oh, we should do something

about like, I was looking at the drawing. I was like, oh, something about like tail or heads. I felt like we just did a butt episode. So I was like maybe tail is like two butt adjacent. So I was like, oh, we should do something about heads. So this week, it's all in your head. So Karen, it's funny that you told that trivia anecdote about the ankylosaur because sometimes with our topics, it takes me a little while to figure out what I'm going to do. you know, there's some, maybe some paths that I go down that are maybe not the right one.

But sometimes I see the topic and I'm like, oh, we got to talk about this. So I saw the topic of like in your head for today's show. And for whatever reason, something just sort of instantly popped into my head. A piece of trivia that I had learned as a child. And I thought, oh, this is an interesting piece of trivia. I should dig into this. Why haven't we shared this before? There's probably a lot more knowledge about it now than I was a kid.

And it pertains to. dinosaur brains. All right. Brains of dinosaurs. Now, the place I had to start was obviously I had learned this piece of trivia in a video that they showed us on the AV cart

in elementary school. Big CRT TV. That was a great day. I got to go find that video so we can start at the very beginning. This was going to be difficult because I had no idea what the video was called and I wouldn't remember any details about the video except it was a about dinosaurs and I would have seen it in the mid 1980s right it was produced no later than whatever year you remember like 88 89 maybe right not expecting much but I had to start somewhere I love the

hunt I I googled 1980s educational dinosaur video fantastic first result. No kidding. Come on. I'm feeling lucky. So the video that we saw was the first thing that comes up was titled Dinosaurs! Exclamation points. A fun-filled trip back in time. And this video was released in 1987 and it starred, as did everything that released in 1987, Fred Savage. Oh, I remember this. The man the myth of legend. Do you? Man. The conceit of this video, as it starts, is that Fred Savage had a school paper due

and he couldn't think of a subject to write about. So he falls asleep and he has a dream about a dinosaur rock band. I love it. And he wakes up from the dream and he realizes that he should write his paper about dinosaurs. So I do want to start by playing a little bit of the song. that the dinosaur rock band is singing in Fred Savage's dream, which I realized, having glanced at this for a second, has actually been living in my head rent-free for the last 38 years.

So here's a little bit of that. Give me a masozoic mind. Teach me to learn from what I find. You can keep your Santazoic, but I'll take that messa-zoic. Give me a man. It's a little weird owl and a little weird owl and a little journey. Yes, yeah, yes.

That's really the reason that this video comes up, like, as I think the first result for, like, 80s dinosaur education. Because the song, the song is such an earworm. And there's a website called mesozoicmind.com dedicated to the song because I think of a lot of Gen Xers, also possibly elder millennials who saw this video as kids, the song gets in the brain, you sing the song to yourself, but you're like, where is that song from? Wow. So at any rate, we are here to talk about Mesozoic minds, aka Dinosaur brains, as I said. So this is a real Web 1.0 website, by the way. Oh, very much so. You go to Mesoicmind.com. It's quite the site. So it's 1987, 88.

we are watching in school, this epic directive video masterpiece, which is, again, I'm pretty sure this movie was just played primarily by elementary school teachers who just need everyone to shut up for like 27 minutes and 30 seconds. Halfway through,

this video undergoes a bizarre tonal shift because Fred Savage, after the fever dream of the dinosaur singing the song, wakes up, writes his paper, and then goes to school, and the video immediately, turns into a Will Vinton Claymation short for the duration of the video.

Watch twist. And the reason for this 180 is that the rest of this video is a previously existing Claymation short from 1980 that was called Dinosaur. Paced on the end. They needed to pad it out so they did half of it is Fred Savage and then it ends. and then the report that Fred Savage was writing for school is now told in this claymation video. It's a rapper. Yes.

The savage rapper. The savage rapper. And this was, so this short that Will Vinton did called Dinosaur is actually a really wonderful stop motion clay animation short about the lives of dinosaurs. And at one point, in the short, they say this about dinosaurs. The longest dinosaur measured one-third the length of a football field. That ought to keep everybody in the locker room. When he received a message here, it had to travel all the way to its brain. Here.

And then the message from the brain had to travel all the way back again. That could take as long as a minute. So the Diplaticus had a sort of a helper brain. Here. Is this the tail brain? I thought we weren't doing butts. It always comes back to the butt. So the animation is showing a stick of dynamite

dropping onto the tail of a Diplodicus, I guess. And the signal travels up the tail to where the brain would be in the head of the dinosaur. And the brain gets the signal. And you may have heard in the clip, he says, it could take over a minute. That's a long time for that signal to travel back. from the tail to the brain, then back to the tail, then the dinosaur can react to it by

switching his tail. And then when it says it at a second brain here, it shows a little brain in the dinosaur's butt. And then it shows a second brain in a human kid's butt just for so I learned this as a child. Dinosaurs had a second brain in the butt. Yeah, sure. And what a good piece of trivia for this show. It's a butt brain. We got to talk about the, about the butt brain. Now, okay, we need to stop for a second. If you out there in podcast land want to believe that dinosaurs had a butt brain, you can stop listening to the podcast right now. You can go watch dinosaurs, a fun-filled trip back in time with Fred Savage.

You can believe that dinosaurs had a butt brain because you can all agree a world where dinosaurs had a brain in their ass is better than one where they don't. However, at this time, I am legally obligated to inform you that no. Oh, my God. One more thing they were lying to us about it. Ruined Christmas. We learned it in school, Karen. It's the only thing I learned in elementary school in the 80s that turned out to not be true.

So let's go back and meet the man who told us that dinosaurs had a butt brain. Let's get him. It is not Fred Savage, although he's complicated in this. Exactly. He's got some share of blame. He's not off the hook entirely. took the money. No, the guy's name is Otheneal Charles Marsh or O.C. Marsh. He was a late 19th century paleontologists and really one of the most famous paleontologists ever. Very impactful. He did not found the Peabody Museum at Yale University, but he did convince his rich uncle George Peabody to found the Peabody Museum. The Peabody Museum now houses a great many dinosaurs and other prehistoric fossils.

that O.C. Marsh dug up on his many expeditions. This is a little off topic, but O.C. Marsh and one of his prime rival got involved in what are called the Bone Wars, where the two of them were trying to get, trying to find as many fossils as they could. I think I've heard about this. They were both kind of jerks because if they, like, found a dinosaur fossil that they couldn't extract because they didn't have the time or manpower or whatever, they would sometimes blow it up or destroy it. So the other guy couldn't get it. Yeah. So at any rate, O.C. Marsh did

dig up a lot of dinosaur fossils. And O.C. Marsh, Karen, your daughter might like to know, named a lot of dinosaurs, such as like the Brontosaurus, Apatosaurus, Stegosaurus, Tristarotops. He came up with all of those famous names. Those are some A-listers. Yeah, some big dinosaurs, yeah. But he didn't get everything right. And one of the things that he got wrong was when looking at the, the reconstructed sort of skeleton of a stegosaurus, he saw that the canal in the spine, where the spinal cord would have run, was very kind of enlarged in the sort of puddle area. There was like a space there. And that space was, in fact, larger than the cranial cavity where the brain was. And they did think that dinosaurs were stupid because they looked at the brain cavity,

and they basically were doing some napkin math, like, well, the brain as a function of the size of the dinosaur is small percentage-wise, so they must be stupid, which scientists now are like, that, that would, that's not the case at all. And he was like, oh, well, the head brain is so tiny. And there's a big space here that we can't explain. So butt brain must be a butt brain. Obviously. And every- We're just confidence passes as evidence, right? And everybody else is like, yeah.

Well, because they're like, you're the experts. Yeah, you're the ones with the bones. He knows those are talking about. And so the idea of the butt brain takes hold and was pretty widely accepted fact, like, going into the 20th century. There were, I found a paper from like 1918 with like paleontologists going back and forth about not whether it existed, but what the function was. They're like, well, I think the butt brain was for eating and procreation.

And I think the butt brain was for that, you know, and there, but nobody was, was challenging the idea that they had a second brain. However, I think that Will Vinton, as he was putting together, the dinosaur short, probably got some bad info or outdated info because by at least by 1987 at least in the newspaper column i think colin you know this the straight dope by cecil adams yeah in 1987 same year as dinosaurs with fred savage was released he was like yeah scientists now believe truly that the the butt brain is just a myth um and so then the question is what's the point of that big space um yeah they don't know Yeah, Smithsonian Magazine in 2012 was looking at this and said, well, it could be like an expanded space for a larger nervous system tissue because when you have limbs that you use more and they're all connecting at a certain point, the nervous system tissue, there might be more tissue there, like you need more tissue.

Then also noted something interesting that some birds, which of course we understand are closely related to dinosaurs, they have a similar expansion in the same. area like a similar sort of cavity and that's actually used for a store of glycogen and they're not even sure in the birds what they're not even sure they're not even know what the birds are using the glycogen for much less dinosaurs but okay there's several theories for what it's like for energy is it for balance like who knows but that's kind of what people are thinking right now that it may have been glycogen storage. Either way, RAP dinosaur butt brain, too good to be true. It's a bad fact.

It's amazing that, air quotes here, facts like that persist for so long. Yes, and then nobody corrects. There's no big, like, hey, everybody turns out this is wrong. We're halfway through this animation. But butt brains, that's what it is looking around. Yes, right, right. Is this a typo? I'm not saying it was really easy to be a paleontologist.

in the in the 19th century but it did kind of seem sometimes like are you independently wealthy go dig something up at it and make some stuff up about it indeed many of the early reconstructions and I'm using the term loosely right the early reconstructions of the skeletons were just laughably off and you know people just kind of trying to reconstruct it the best they could sort of like vibe based approach to paleontology vibe coding. No. Shattered.

Sorry, I know. I had this great fact and then I lost it just in one fell swoop. If I ever run into Fred Savage, like, you best believe that I'm going to hold him to account for this. Yeah. All right. Who's next? Tyler, what do you have for us? Well, geez, I just stopped by.

I didn't know I'd be on a podcast, but, you know, actually, you know, I do have a quiz here. And it just so happens to be head. Related. My goodness. What are the odds? Wow. Wow. That, that worked out. Super, super lucky for all of us. Okay. So I'll give you a clue to a made-up two-word phrase in which one word is a beheadment of the other, as we say in National Puzzers League parlance. That just means take a word, remove the first letter, the head, and get another word. Very simple. Hold on, is this a buzzer? Yeah, I figured we do it that way. You may also want to keep a pen and, or, you know, paper and a, and a, a, implementing implement handy because there is a final meta phrase because I didn't do a meta last time and that I've been losing sleepover ever since. So either word may come first, by the way. I kind of tried to make it so they'd be at least semi-sensible phrases, even if they're not things people actually say.

Just so everybody knows, last season, I couldn't find my buzzer. I had to use an accordion. Oh, yeah. And then I broke the accordion, but now I have a buzzer thanks to my coworker, Johnny, who's also a good job listener. Oh, that's good. What a classic sound effect. All right.

So our answers are... The whole phrase. Okay, okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. I mean, I know one word might sort of imply the other if you get the longer word, but let's say the whole phrase for...

We're buzzing in. We're writing down everything to keep track of it. I would recommend you write down the answers. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay, so we'll start with numerically traditional. Number one. Small, sparkly bits polluting the street.

Oh. All right, Colin, go for it. Glitter, litter? Glitter is correct. Excellent. All right, so you got the taste for it now. All right, second one is draw this line between two countries right now. Brewster.

Border order. That's a border order. All right. Number three, and aromas gain in altitude. I mean, aromas, gain in altitude. A little whiff of a, whiff of something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm having trouble.

And aromas gain in altitude. Gane, okay, an aromas, okay, a little whiff of something. Odour. I'm more, I'm more thinking about the gain and altitude now because, like, yeah, yeah. Yeah, me too, me too. Rise, lift. height ascend

what was that ascend ascend oh the scent the scent ascent the scent ascent assent

there we go tough one there number four defamation of a Hawaiian for example slander islander slander

yeah I like that because the S is silent in one and... That's good. All right. Number five. Clicade remark about the equator or one of the tropics. Okay.

The equator or one of the tropics. Oh, yeah. A latitude platitude. A latitude platitude. All right. Number six, this is. Stand for a painting of an untrustworthy mammal. Boing.

Weasel-Easel. A weasel-easel. That one's fun to say. I like that one. Yeah, it is. All right. Number seven. A brief flirtation with NATO.

Oh. Oh, that was a lot of people. Same time. Chris. A alliance dalliance. An alliance dalliance. Pronunciation. Pronunciation.

Pronunciation. So, I kind of like that. Dalliance. So dalliance means like a little. Yeah. Like a little brief dalliance with something. It can be a romantic context sometimes. Number eight, this one I think is my favorite.

Really doesn't look forward to sponsors, messages on a podcast. Really doesn't look forward to. Cuckoo. Dreads reads. Oh, you're so close. Oh. Went the wrong direction. Dreads is the shorter word.

Dreads is the shorter. Oh. Dreads. reads. Dreads adreads. Oh, wow. Oh, my God. All right. Wow. That's funny. All right. This is number nine, I think. Three more here. Sadness or disappointment that comes with a less prestigious job title. I mean, demotion emotion. A demotion emotion. There we go. Yes, right. All right. Second and last one here. Number 10. A brain teaser posed. while making pancakes. Rooster. Griddle, riddle. A griddle riddle riddle.

Oh, I was speaking flip. Griddle. Oh. And finally, something that might make a space rock artificially large. Space rock. Okay, all right. I was there. I would just like, how did this work?

Oh, okay. An asteroid steroid. Asteroid steroid. There we go. All right. So you've got your 11 answers there. All right. Let me go down the list. We have glitter. Mm-hmm. Border. Ascent. Islander. Plattitude.

Weasel. Daliance. Ad reeds. Demotion, griddle, and asteroid. Yep. Uh, L-O-S-S. Lost leaders What was that? Lost leaders

Lost leaders Los leaders Are the first letters Of the first letters of the shorter words Because of course Once the loss is taken place Those are the leaders So there you go

I was I was scrolling through like The possibilities for D going like There's got to be one come on Oh and that was ad reads Yeah I was like oh good There's one good one

There's always one You got like thing of shoe horny on the lost leader. So satisfying. When you know you've got it. Yep. Yeah. My first thought was like, let's, oh, it's just the letters you take off. Yeah, I had those all written down and I was like, well, I don't think it's this. Yeah.

I didn't get any further than that. That's great. That's great. Lost leaders. All right. Well done, everybody. Nice. Nice work.

Thank you. And on that high, we'll take a quick break and we'll be right back. Hey, this episode is brought to you by I-Excel Learning, an online learning program that enriches the homeschool curriculum that offers subjects in science, math, English language arts, social studies, and more, entrusted by 15 million students worldwide. Back to school looks different when you're a homeschooling family, whether you're continuing a rhythm or shaking things up with a brand new curriculum. It's a perfect time for reset. I-Excel is a simple way to bring structure, confidence, and progress to your homeschool routine. If you're listening to

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Good job. brain. And we're back. This week we're talking about things in your head. And here I have a music quiz. Sometimes that's a fun time. Sometimes it's a not-so-fun time. We'll see.

This is not my strong suit at pub quizzes. I think you three can boltron together and work together. So what I'm going to be doing is. is I'm going to play a very short clip of popular song and you have to identify the music artist. It could be a band. It could be a one solo act. But yes, these are all pretty famous performers and artists. Okay. All right. See how this goes. Is there a, is there a thread or a common theme or anything? Yeah. Yes, there is. That was my surprise. Oh, okay. Hey, listeners. If you love music round, you're going to nail all of these.

All right. Here we go. Number one. Let's play clip number one. If you're feeling like you need a little bit of company, you met me at the perfect time. You want me. I want you, baby. My sugar boo.

I'm meditating. The monkey way. We're mitigating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got you. All right. I think I have this one. Oh, please.

Well, good, because I have nothing. I think this is Dual Lipa. Yes. Correct. It is. Which I recently put in a crossword along with double IPA, because you can also read her name as dual IPA. That's good.

Oh, my God. To be in your brain. Blessing and a curse, yeah. And that song was featured in the Barbie movie, was it not? No, that stands the night away. Oh, okay, all right. It's levitated. So no theme.

I'm just trying to sniff around for the theme here, all right. I think let's focus on getting the artist first. Okay. And then worry about the theme later. I think getting the artist for some of these songs would be harder, I would say. Okay. For this crowd. Okay.

All right. Good job. Here we go. Let's play clip number two. Okay, pretty sure, pretty sure I know that's round. Yeah, I think that's cool in the gang. Is it not? Oh, I don't know. That sounds right to me. Okay. Earthwind and fire. That was in my hair as well. It is earthwind and fire. It is. Okay, all right.

Wasn't confident enough. Good guess. Yep, yep. Amazing music video, by the way. Peak early 80s, triangle shoulder pads and keytars and, like, neon. Oh, so good. All right. Love it.

Here we go. Let's play number three. Way to tomorrow. isn't everything Hmm Not sure about this one And by not sure I mean I don't know it all Definitely definitely like

Karen grew up with this Yeah exactly That's like solid grunge post grunge there Karen Sounded me like a little like puddle of mud Or stained or one of those This is Silverchair Oh

If you remember that album It's a white CD cover with a frog on it, Silver Chair. I do remember this album, or at least the cover. It's called Tomorrow, and guess what? They were 15 years old when that song. Wow. What?

Hit, they were 15. Wow. And I was like, that was like my age when I listened to that. Yeah. Tomorrow by Silver Chair. All right. Okay. Next one.

Let's play number four. things busted in in a bottle to the face thing. I feel like my head a toxic base. Here's some pretty girls in her.

I heard I'm whispering. Talking about that's that dude that sing right, sir. Keep listening. I ain't come to talk. Big fat nothing over here. I put a key lyric in there.

He references another song that he's saying. Okay. I couldn't play that original song because that song was would be too easy. I thought it wasn't appropriate. Should we listen to it again? Yeah, yeah.

Let's listen to it again. All right. Let's play number four. I'm on a scene of things. Bust it in. Hit it bottle to the face. Fing in. Feel like my head of toxic waste.

Here's some pretty girls in her. I heard I'm whispering. Talking about that dude that sing right. I keep listening. I ain't come to talk. Oh, is it? Is it Ching? It's Ching.

Oh, wow. Only because it's something, something. thing singing, singing right there. That dude who sings right there. Needed that hint. Needed that hint. This is a holiday inn with Ludacris and Snoop by Chingi. Chingi?

Chingee? I'm pretty sure it's not Chinji. That's all I know. Let's move on to song number five. I'm the radiator grill. Shari, don't like it. Rock the cat box. Rock the cat box.

All right, I think I've got this one. Rock the cat box. I remember that ad. Oh, my God. You're my brain. Stop. Lock the cash box. Stop the cat box.

Jingles just in vain. That is, of course, the clash. The clash. It is the clash. all right let's move on doing pretty good let's move on to song number six all right oh yes oh yes remember i remember this one yeah this was a this was a this was a Big one, big one, big hit. What's the answer, boys?

James Brown, the hardest working man in show business. Living in America. Live in America. Do we remember what movie that song? Of course. It is seared into my brain that it is part of Rocky, Rocky Four?

Yes. The Dolph-Lungren. Golf-Lungren. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Before we play the last song, I just want to go down the list of what you guys have achieved. We have Duolipa, Earthwind fire, Silver Chair,

Chingi, the Clash, James Brown. And here we're playing the last clip. I just want to say sorry, but not sorry. Okay. All right. What are you doing to us? All right. Let's play seven. Everything's gnarly

Howdy, haughty This is the hobby I'm legit Oh No idea This is released this year I've heard it Everything's gnarly

This song is by The Global Girl Group Cat's Eye Okay All right Okay All right From Dream Academy

Netflix show Where they're trying to build a worldwide girl group within the k-pop model and training cat's eye a couple hits this year and that was all right all right there is a hidden theme wow and looks like tyler is very excited all right well that's why we brought him here shall i yes please tyler's yours goes back to our theme for the episode of head uh if you look you'll find uh words embedded in each of those artists and do a lip we have lip and then ear

Air Hair in silver chair Very good Chin and Chingie Lash in the Clash James Brow and of course That's mine

Really nice Really good All right I can keep my puzzlers card Well spotted Things on your head Hidden in the artist names

Really good I like the chin The chin and Chingy I was considering bridge, I was going to put, like, maybe Bridgers, but I was like, might be a little bit too much of a deep cut. And I was like, oh, maybe the theme song to Bridgerton. And I listened to it. Oh, wow.

Nobody really watches the intro of. Smash mouth, too easy. Right. Yeah. Oh, smash mouth. No. For volume two. For volume two.

It's a fertile area. You ever listen to the nostrils? They're fantastic. When we're on the road to 600, Karen, you can bring this one back. All right. Good job, Brains. Good job, Tyler. Yay.

Thank you so much. Great. 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.

And we have one last segment. Colin, we're heading to you. Hey. All right. So I, just a couple weeks ago, returned from a lovely trip. to our nation's capital, Washington, D.C. Haven't been there since we were there a couple summers ago for Sporkel Khan, which was a big blast.

In fact, I stayed at the same hotel. So I was like, you know, showing the family. I was like, oh, here's where we recorded my session, you know. And, of course, like, yeah, that's right. Here's where Reagan got shot, you know. And of course, like, my seven and a half-year-old daughter, you know, really, really keen to find out where President Reagan was shot. Right. It was really high, high on her list of visiting D.C.

So this was her first trip to, to D.C. Great opportunity to just do all the touristy stuff. You know, we went to a lot of places. We went to some of the Smithsonian Museums, Washington Monument. We went to the Lincoln Memorial, the reflecting cool. At the Lincoln Memorial. Did you see the typo? I did.

As avid listeners might remember, I talked in a previous episode about mistakes, literally written in stone. There is, in fact, a typo in the Lincoln Memorial on the inscriptions in the wall. Luckily, you can turn a stray E into an F. Not too hard. You can kind of, you just fill in that bottom arm on the E. It's not, yeah, yeah, yeah. So while we were there just laying down all kinds of dad, trivia,

dad knowledge, tell my daughter, you know, the Washington Monument, like, you see how, like, the colors change kind of in the stone, about a good chunk of the way up, it's because it sat unfinished for a number of years. And, you know, trying to drive home to my daughter, like, you know, who this is. Like, this is Abraham Lincoln, the president with the tall hat, you know. And so we're fishing in our pocket, pulling out a penny to show her the penny.

Like, look, here he is. He's right there. And she was actually, like, out of all the things, she was actually a little bit impressed, like, oh, he's on the coin. But then I impressed my wife. I say, you know, it's the only coin where you can see the president on the front and the back. Because if you flip it over on the back of the classic penny, it's a, it's the Lincoln Memorial. And if you look really closely, and if your penny is not too old and weathered and worn down,

you can in fact see a tiny little version of the Lincoln Memorial right in the moon. So if you have to win a coin toss, use a penny and call heads and you win every time. Yes. That's right. Now, this very neat bit of trivia is not quite as true as it used to be. Because in the last years and decades, they've come out with so many variants and versions of coins, as you guys know. So there have been other examples of coins where the president is on the front and the back. There have even been pennies where there's a different lincoln on the back. But this is a very neat little bit of trivia on just that classic American one cent penny design. I apologize to some of international listeners.

But we're going to talk about American coins here for a little bit. And indeed, on our coins, there are heads. of dead presidents for the most part, not always, but for the most part. And I put together a quiz called Don't Let It Go To Your Heads. Love it. Hey. Now, you guys know probably who's on them now. I have some questions for you about who was on these coins before the presidents got featured on the coin. All right.

Did you know that, in fact, Abraham Lincoln was the first president. to be featured on U.S. coins and circulation. It was just not something that we did. Also, you know, our country's only got a couple hundred years or so of history to choose from. Did it just say the number, like the denomination on the country? Well, it was a variety of things. And we're not going to press too much on that here, because that's going to be some of the meat of this quiz. So the current Lincoln Penny in circulation in some form or another since 1909. They issued the Lincoln penny in on. of Lincoln's 100th birthday or what would have been his 100th birthday. Okay, here's your trivia

question. And this is going to be right down. Always take a guess, never leave it blank. Oh, boy. So keeping in mind what I just told you prior to Lincoln, no presidents had been featured on the coin. What was on the penny? Who or what was on the penny before Abraham Lincoln was featured on the front of it? Who or what? Who or what? who or what was featured on the penny and if you don't know take a guess and we'll see where we go with this like you're talking like like a symbol right not like it could be right it could be a historical figure could maybe be an allegorical figure um it was it was a it was a humanoid i'll give you that and i'm going to cross out that answer then okay i'll give you that one it was

a human figure of some kind who or what was on the penny right before Lincoln took over in 1909 oh boy answers up when you're ready Karen has written Columbia lady Chris has written a Native American

Tyler has written Uncle Sam I'm sorry Tyler not not not really close on this one but I'm gonna I'm gonna give Chris and Karen they're at least in the right in the right ballpark here it was it was it was the

goddess liberty the allegorical concept of liberty i happen to think uncle sam is very close to that thank you very much wearing a feathered headdress so as if to present as a native american yes so i'm gonna give you guys i'm gonna give you guys each a point on this one i'm feeling very generous tonight chris and karen each got a point directly before abraham lincoln was called the quote unquote indian head set it is called the indian head set oh but it's not As I learned while researching this quiz, there is the common name for these coins. And then there is the official depiction that is on these coins. And often they're not the same thing.

So yes, you are 100% right, Chris. It is called the, quote, Indian head sent. That was the immediate precursor to the Lincoln penny. It was, in fact, meant to depict Liberty, okay, wearing a feathered headdress. to very explicitly allude due to Native American history and population of the Wow, there's another thing I quote unquote knew as a child that I apparently did not do not as not actually a fact. The whole thing as you look on it is kind of a mess, honestly, from a 20, 25 perspective. The subject of the artwork was a woman, all right?

And so it was a woman, a white woman posing wearing a explicitly male. feathered headdress in some sort of mishmash of symbols and and allegories. But yes, the Indian head sent right before the Lincoln penny. Hot mess. Yeah, hot mess. We wouldn't do it again. All right. Moving up into nomination here from the penny to the nickel.

You guys, you guys know who's on the nickel, right? I mean, you all know who's on the nickel currently. Jackson? You got the right letter. Jefferson? Thank you. I wasn't even going to make this a question. Tyler's got it.

I had to make up for Uncle Sam. Classic nickel. Currently, it shows Thomas Jefferson on the front. And for most of our lives, the reverse shows Monticello. Of course, Jefferson's long time home. That makes more sense. Okay. Okay.

All right. That design debuted in 1938 and replaced what had been a very famous, very well-known design that had been in use since 1913. I've got two points here on the first. the board for two points prior to becoming the Jefferson nickel who or what who or what was on the front of the nickel the obverse is the term and what animal was on the reverse what animal was on the back side Chris Chris set to writing almost immediately well because he's a coin nut I would do it was a junior numismatist

It is the animal have a name. It is not a griffin or a fantastic beast or anything like that. All right. So the front and the back, what do you got? Answers up. All right. Tyler has written Buffalo and another Buffalo. Chris has written front Franklin back a Buffalo.

Oh, man. Buffalo Nichol. Karen has written Paul Revere and Brown Beauty. That's the name of his horse. Oh, that's very nice. And of course, like, why would they not be together? Right. Yeah, why would they separate?

The buffalo nickel, you got it. Yeah, Tyler and Chris at least got one out of the two points. That's right. The buffalo nickel named for what's on the reverse, not what's on the front of the front. It is an American bison. On the front of this coin was a profile of a Native American. This time. This time.

at least based on an actual Native American man. Commonly accepted that it is based on two well-known Native American figures named Iron Tail and two moons. But again, not 100% on this one, but that's right. All right. The Buffalo Nickel replaced by Tommy Jeff's and his estate. And his estate. That's right. All right.

One cent, five cent, up to 10. the dime, the dime. Who's on the dime, guys? FDR. FDR. FDR. All right. There we go. That's right. Franklin D. Roosevelt. That's right. It appears on the 10 cent piece, the good old dime. This design has been out since 1946. They issued it very soon after Roosevelt died. He died in 1945. Wow. Let's put him on the coin. That's right. Let's put him on the coin. I never in my life until putting this quiz together connected the dots like oh Roosevelt barge of dimes like he was the big proponent of march of dimes and so when it came time

to like all right we got to put him on the dime right guys everyone's looking around the room like oh yeah put him on the dime of course makes sense right because he very famously contracted polio and you know supported research for that so we're not talking about Roosevelt though for nearly 30 years before Roosevelt took over on the front of the dime. The front showed a profile of Liberty, again, wearing a cap with wings to represent freedom of thought.

Okay. Back then and today, this design took another name because people did not pick up on this allusion to liberty wearing the freedom of thought cap. They all thought it was depicting the Roman god. by what name? What Roman god did people think was being, yes, the Roman name? You had your buffalo nickels and your...

Your blank dimes, that's right, exactly. You got your blank dimes. You had your Indian head pennies, which was a lie. You had your buffalo nickels, which was true of the back. And you had your blank dimes, which was a lie again. All right, Chris, why don't you please give us the answer here? Everybody's got it, but it's Mercury. Mercury dime. You got it. That's right. The mercury dime. Again, another one, I've heard this term before. Oh, the mercury dime, like the buffalo nickel. Nope, it's not Mercury. The messenger of the gods. And so the wings and the helmet and all that, yeah. All right. We're climbing up the ranks here. We're up to the quarter. The good little quarter, guys. In my mind, this is the stalwart of the U.S. coin supply. I mean. Once you get to the quarter, you're talking about real money. You can do something with that. Video games, gumball machines.

Yeah, exactly. The current dead president shown on the quarter, of course, is George Washington. Our very first one, in case you're just tuning in to American history. Prior to 1932, who or what appeared on the front of the quarter before we got George Washington's head on that. You got it. Give me. Yeah, we get nothing else there. Nothing else.

All right. I will say it's an allegorical figure. I will give you that. It's an allegorical figure. And there was a small amount of scandal, maybe, small amount associated with it at first. Is it a humanoid? It is a humanoid. Yes, it is a humanoid on the front.

You guys are going to be so mad at me, except maybe not Chris. We probably knows it. You know, I mean, I knew it at one point, I'm sure. It has a name. It's not as famous as Mercury Dime or Buffalo Nickel. But it does have a name. You've got to put something down. All right, answers up.

Karen has written Lady Liberty. Tyler has written Nike or Niki, Victory, and Chris has written Walking Liberty. Wow, man, I, you guys, the quarter is known as the Standing Liberty Quarter. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, well done.

That was somewhere. I was around the, yeah. You got it. That's right. It is a... So it's also Lady Liberty. I feel like we don't see a lot of liberty imagery these days. It seems like back then they're like really into it. We didn't used to have presidents on our coins. It wasn't a thing. And into the late 1800s and early to mid-1900s, there really was a push to kind of both beautify and sort of class up our coins a little bit. And I think Part of it was getting rid of some of the allegories maybe and, you know, stop leaning on Liberty and Eagles and Laurel ranches and stuff too much.

Yeah. The very first design of the Standing Liberty, she's holding a shield and she's got like, you know, the olive branch. And on the very first designs from 1916, she had a bare breast, okay? Wow. This was deemed simply too much. for the American public to handle. Get me my fanning couch.

Yes. And by 1917 had been reissued and updated with a much more modest layer of chain mail over her bare breast. Yes. No, not a tankini. Right.

Not that I'm into the boobs one, but like because that was reissued. One boob, one single boob. Is it worth a lot? Like, if you have it? It's worth more than the later types, yes, for sure. People have been collecting coins for a very, very long time. People saved a lot of those coins.

So, I mean, ones in, like, extraordinarily good condition are got to be worth a lot more. I mean, coin collecting is a thing that a kid could get into now. Not that they would because they're all on their iPads, but, you know, if they were to, you know. Yeah, right. Speaking of hoarders, Chris, as we move up to the, to the half dollar, the 50 cent piece, if you will. These are not really in general circulation, but you will see them every now and then,

depending on where you are. The half dollar coin has John F. Kennedy currently on the front. Another case where the redesign was in response to the recent death of a president, the very recent then death of a president, because it was issued in 1964. Kennedy, of course, was assassinated in November of 19, I learned that at least by the time we had reached, you know, mid-century in the 1900s, congressional approval was needed to change any coin design that had been changed within the last

25 years. So this was sort of the idea was to introduce some stability to the coins and it's not just changing willy-nilly. It had already been changed the half dollar in 1948. So in order to oust the previous occupant and put Kennedy on there, you needed congressional approval and motion to do this. The members of Congress were pretty united behind us. It moved very fast. But we're here to talk about the previous occupant. From 1948 to 1963, the half dollar featured what founding father on the front of the coin? And I'll give you a hint if you feel you wanted or needed. I have like two points, so let's have it.

All right. I'm going to wait for Chris to write his down because I feel like he's locked in. All right. On the reverse of this coin was the Liberty Bill. Oh. Oh, I shouldn't have taken the hint. That's what I would have said. Well, I already wrote it.

You know, that's on me. That's on me. I should have trusted myself. All right, answers up. Chris was locked in. We know he was committed. Chris has written Ben Franklin. Karen's written Ben Franklin.

Tyler's written, Benjamin Franklin, you all got it, yes, eventually one way or the other. Founding father. That's right. If it was a president, not a president. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. I was thinking Hamilton, the possibility as well. Oh.

I think I had, I had one Franklin half dollar as a kid. I remember getting it. You know, the cardboard coin books, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Franklin half dollar. Oh, yeah. I've never seen one. Oh, it was not in circulation.

I may have asked for it for like a Christmas president. like a Franklin half dollar because I needed one just any one yeah you know all these yeah who's laughing now who's laughing now it pays off and so I mentioned hoarders regarding the half dollar uh because this was so public the the lead up to getting Kennedy on the coin and he was as you all well know a beloved figure that as soon as they came out with the Kennedy half dollars, a lot of people immediately started hoarding them as collectibles. And that is part of, not the whole story, but that is part of the reason that you didn't tend to see a lot of them in circulation, at least for a few years anyway, because people were kind of sitting on them seeing if they would, you know, I don't know,

skyrocket and value. Did they? No. Not 51. Like everything else, you know. there's brief surges and, you know, things settle down over time. Oh, I know, Colin, with my pallet of Labibu's over here. All right, guys. Let's, let's rig it in. Let's wrap it up here. Ah, the dollar coin.

I will put the most positive spin possible on this. And I will just say, you know, in our lifetime, we've seen a number of dollar coin innovations, haven't we? Oh, yes. They keep, they keep trying in seriousness. it is baffling that just as a nation, we just do not seem to want the dollar coin. You know, I mean, like, we just, we tried so many times. They tried, we just, we rejected it.

We will not give up our dollar bills. It's like the reverse of the UK. Totally. Of really, almost any other nation, of almost any other country has, as their version of the dollar coin. But isn't it because of vending machines? That's a big part of it. It is a big part of it, Karen.

And if you read, if you, if you dig into the history of it, they always talk about, yes, there was reluctant in the vending machine industry. And that's true. So in 1979, starting in 1979, for two years, they minted Susan B. Anthony dollar coins. This was a big deal. It was a very big deal in the 1970s. It was the first time that a non-mythical woman appeared on a U.S. coin. for circulation, right? So not Lady Liberty or something like that. They brought it back for a one-time

revival in 1999, sort of to set up the transition into the Sakajuwea dollar. I had totally forgotten this, that they brought back the Susan B. Anthony. You will occasionally see some very shiny ones still in circulation now because they're, you know, only 26 years old at this point. All right. To our last question here. When Susan B. Anthony started gracing the dollar coin in 1979. She booted off a president. What 20th century

president? Did Susan B. Anthony boot off of the dollar coin? 20th century, okay. The dollar coin. What year was this? This was beginning in

1979. This president had appeared on the dollar coin from 1971 to 1978. So you know this person was dead by 71. Okay. That's what I was getting at. Oh, man.

Had a bunch of these. I had a bunch of these. You really don't see too many anymore. No, no. Very rare. All right. 20th century president, dollar coin, 1971 and 1978.

Answers up when you're ready. Tyler has written Truman. Karen has written Teddy for Teddy Roosevelt. Chris has written the correct answer of Eisenhower for Dwight D. Eisenhower. I thought about it, man. They were big. They were so big.

One of the reasons, any history of this coin about why it didn't catch on talks about the fact it was so freaking big. It was an inch and a half diameter. 34th President of the United States from 53 to 61. World War II hero, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Played by Robin Williams. Daniels the Butler. That's nice.

All right. Good job, guys. Don't let it go to your heads. Presidents' edition. We did not always have presidents as the heads of our coins. Liberty on there a lot. When in doubt, guest liberty. When in doubt, guest liberty.

I remember getting silver dollars in elementary school for perfect attendance. Maybe we shouldn't encourage perfect attendance because people will come to school sick. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As Chris Kohler Jr. and numismatist, I was very excited when my fourth grade teacher told us that the student that got the most 100s on their spelling tests throughout the year would get a silver dollar. And the three silver dollars, if you were the number one, if you were number two, you'd get two silver dollars. And I'm like, wow, that's quite a, that's quite a reward.

Yeah, at end of the year, I was second place. and I'm ready for my two silver dollars and she gives me two Susan B. Anthony dollars. Because the color was silver. Oh, yeah, because the color was silver. It's like, lady,

I am 10 years old. What do you think I'm a what do you think I'm a toddler? Like, what are you trying to pull on me? Come on. Wasn't even the worst. Wasn't even the worst thing that she did. Okay.

Oh my gosh. I'll just leave that. That unsaid. Well, everybody, that's our show. Reminder, our good job, brain. Road to 300 Hotline is open. You can leave us a voicemail. 401-903-33232323.

Thank you all for joining me. And thank you, Tyler. Oh, my pleasure. Stopping by. I glad it worked out. What a coincidence. Well, tell us, Tyler, where can people find you? I'm that puzzle guy on most social media platforms, including a whole bunch that I don't use.

But chiefly, Blue Sky and Twitch, I'll be on there playing various games and occasionally crosswords even and things like that. And hire me also, if you want a puzzle person. Yes, hire Tyler. Thank you, listeners, for tuning in, listening in. Welcome to another season. Hope you learn stuff today about coin heads, about beheaded work. about dinosaur butt heads, you can find us on major podcast apps and on our website, good jobbrain.com. This podcast is part of Airwave Media Podcast Network. Visit airwavemedia.com

to listen and subscribe to other shows like Spycast, the official podcast of the International Spy Museum. Triviality. And what should I read next? And we'll see you next week. Bye. Bye-bye. The 250th anniversary of the American Revolution is here. But do you really know the full story? I'm Liz Cobart, historian and host of Ben Franklin's World, the podcast that takes you beyond the miss and into the real histories of early America. From before Christopher Columbus to the early days.

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