Good Job, Brain! - 313: Into Indigo

Episode Date: August 13, 2026

You might have questioned us, and frankly, we even questioned ourselves - was it possible to actually do a full trivia quiz show about the very specific yet enigmatic indigo? C'mon what's indigo's deal and why is it crammed up in there between blue and violet? Chris is on the case! BAMF!💨 Colin's X-tatic to X-tol the (only?) canonically indigo-colored creature in his Nightcrawler quiz. And let's hear it for the Indigo Girls and other ladies of Lilith Fair in a round of movie music. And don't get your Canadian Tuxedo frayed in Karen's riveting "Jean Jargon" quiz dedicated to the world's favorite indigo-dyed garment. ALSO: Fish butt diving 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. Megahertz and megawatt, megastars and megatrons listening to Megalomaniac by Incubus. Welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and Offbeat Trivia podcast. This is episode 313. And of course, I'm your humble host, Karen. And we are your weekly Wikipedia wielding weevils. I am Colin. And I'm Chris.

I heard that we have some animal butt news. Animal butt update. It came across my feed. I had to share it with you in the world. Quoting here an article from Scientific American headline, Suckerfish are hiding in Manta Ray's butthole. Butthole in quotes. New study reveals.

Awesome. Yeah. I mean, you got my attention already. Yeah. So Suckerfish hiding and Manta Rays buttholes. new study reveals, the practice of cloacal diving. Cloacal diving. Also in quotes, could help Ramoras hide from predators, could also be a feeding strategy,

or help the fish hitchhike. All right. All of this information, haven't even gotten to the article yet. This is an article by Jackie Flynn Morgensen on Scientific American. has a fantastic, it's an animated image. Okay, so it's an animated GIF at the top of this article, and it is of a Manta Ray just sort of floating along, and there's a remora here kind of just hovering right behind the cloaca,

you know, and then just diving right in. And you can see the Manta ray kind of just like flinch, you know? I mean, I would too. Yeah, I would too. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, oh, what's you doing there, buddy? Yeah, what's going on back there?

So, yes, this is new. This is new research. And indeed, remoras, so this is a fish that are not parasitic necessarily, but they live alongside. Yeah, they're feeder fish. And they suction themselves onto rays as well as sharks and dolphins, other things like that. They've known this behavior. Researchers are now studying in detail this cloacal diving, as they call it, where so they were sensationalizing the diving aspect.

It is diving. It's like Scrooge McDuck diving into the swimming pool of coins. This fish, which is not Ramora's, they're not that skinny or slim. No, it's like a fish. It's like a fish, fish, yeah, yeah. Leaping in with very good aim. You're going to need to do it with a little force here. Right.

The cloaca, as you may know, is the, the, let's say, the all purpose opening that many animals have that they use. for waste as well as reproduction. This is the article, quote, it does not look like the Manta Ray likes it, says Catherine McDonald, who is the senior study author and marine biologist at University of Miami. Right. And indeed, it does not look like the Manta Ray likes it.

The point of this study is beyond just documenting it. And I mean thoroughly documenting it. There are photos with arrows. There's video. Like, this is a thing. It's not just some, some remora with a fetish that they found. No, it's, they found the remora's right.

So they're trying to figure out, right? Is it that they're hiding from predators? It's safe in there. Is it that they're looking for food? Because, you know, it's a little gross here, but remoras do often eat a diet that includes scraps and feces and waste and stuff like that, right? Or it might just be that they're hitchhiking for a spot with, quote, reduced drag, they write in the study.

Yeah, free, free colonel. Wow. In a way. Yeah, right. Mm-hmm. People pay a lot of money to do that. It's like the doctor fish, right? It's the new kind of doctor fish, yeah.

Exactly. What's the matter with that guy? He's got a remora and his cloaca. Party was going great. Yeah. And then Dave came in. You know, he's such a remora in the clique at the party. Yeah.

Oh. Oh, my face. Oh, okay. Well, let's move on. Time for our first general trivia segment. Pop quiz, hot shot. Here I have two random Trivial Pursuit cards from the box. You guys have your Barringard buzzers. Listeners, let's answer some questions. Here I have my cards are from Trivial Pursuit GNS 2 and Trivial Pursuit Music Singles. So let's start with Trivial Pursuit Genus 2. Here we go. buzzers at the ready. Blue Wedge for geography. What's the capital of South Africa's Cape of Good Hope province? Wow. Capital of a province, huh?

Capital of the province. Colin? Johannesburg. Incorrect. Cape Town. Okay. Okay. Pink Wedge for entertainment.

What comic actor? Oh, no. This kind of mean. Okay. What comic actor did Joan Rivers say? gave Susan Anton quote, Hickies on her knees. Oh, that is kind of mean.

All right. Joan Rivers era. All right. All right. So we're going back away as if Joan River. I don't know. I don't know who would have, I don't know,

dated Susan Anton because I don't know who Susan Anton is. Hickies on her knees. This is like a lateral. It's a short person. Comic actor. We get it. We get it. And they're short.

Yeah. British? Okay. I was I was already going to guess someone British. Oh, oh, okay. Dudley Moore. Dudley Moore. Yeah.

That's funny because I don't, I'm so discreet. Like, I don't equate him with like being short, you know, but okay. All right. Yellow Wedge history. Who was the first U.S. president to swim three miles in the Pacific? Uh, wow. Okay. Okay.

The first U.S. The wording of this is strange. because it's like, is it the first U.S. President to swim in the Pacific or were there presidents before him that only swam one mile or two miles? Yeah, or waited in the Pacific. Were they, were they like sitting president or just anybody? Yeah. Chris.

Ronald Reagan. No. Before. That's a good guess. Yeah. Oh, that is, you know what? Reagan is a good guess. He's from California.

Yeah. He was governor of California. Yeah. Yeah. Colin, you want to throw it out there? Is it a 20th century president, Karen? Okay. Colin.

John F. Kennedy. JFK. While you are on a roll with your guesses. Brown Wedge, what kind of puzzle first appeared in the U.S. in the New York world on December 21st, 1913. Chris. Thanks. A crossword puzzle.

Crossword puzzle. Green Wedge for a science and nature. Which? Oh boy. Here we go. Which horse has more teeth, the male or female? Ah, good old 50-50. Go for it.

Male. Chris. Man, I don't know. That's ridiculous. They got different amounts. All right. I guess I'll go female because Colin's a male. Yeah, let's have some conflict here.

All right. The answer is the male. Oh, okay. Wow. Last question on this card, sports and leisure, orange wedge. Where does baseball's umpire in chief stand? Ooh. Huh.

Hmm. A lot of refs and umpires. A lot of them out there. I guess there's a head. There's a head one. I don't know. Behind home plate. Behind home plate verbatim.

Don't overthink it. Don't overthink it. Yeah. All right. Next card here. Trivia Pursue music singles, Blue Ed for Bands. What Metal Death Band

released the 2007 album An Ocean Between Us? What metal? What death? Metal death band. Okay, 2007. Is it a well-known band? Is it like a, like you've heard of them?

I've never heard of them. Okay. I am not in that scene. It is. As I lay dying. Oh, okay. Does I bring a bell? I've seen that name before.

Yellow Wedge. What Michael Jackson album won three Grammy Awards and celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2008. Oh. Chris? That's got to be thriller. Thriller. Thriller. That's 83.

Yeah. Purple Wedge. What type of drums are typically used by thrash and heavy metal drummers to create extreme and intense beats? Really? Colin? I'm looking for like the kick drum, bass drum. The double bass drum. Oh, the double.

Okay, all right, oh, sure. Green Wedge. What rap artist wrote songs for other singers like Alia before breaking out with her debut album, The Rain, parentheses, Supa Dupa Fly. Oh, yeah, isn't that Missy Elliott? Oh, sorry. I can't stand the rain.

Yes, me. Missy Elliott. I forgot to buzz. My bad. Misdemeanor, Elliot. Last question in Pop Quiz Hot Shot. What Amy Winehouse song warns you that she's going to do you wrong? Chris, just go for it.

No, wow. Okay. Warns you that she's going to do you wrong. Is that you know that I'm no good? You know I'm no good. Okay. All right. Okay.

Great, great song. Good job, everybody. Good job, Brains. I have some more ado before we are done with the adieu. We have another egg corn watch. This one comes from Good Job Brain Facebook group member, Darren Hull, who posted this in the Good Job Brain Loeb-Trotters Facebook group.

Darren writes, my wife recently told me that her pasta was a bit undone. Undante. He said, I liked the egg corn so much that I refused. used to tell her that the term is al dente. Now, what's interesting now, first of all, I agree. I love it. It's a wonderful egg corn. It's a little undone. Now, what's funny is

of course, al dente, meaning, you know, to the teeth in Italian, the idea behind al dente is that is how you should be cooking pasta. You're supposed to cook it, so it's still has some kind of a bite. You've still got to go through it with the teeth. You don't want to see mush,

where it just falls apart in your mouth. You want to have a little bit of resistance. But I think that people, people sort of trying to be polite when the pasta is like, yeah, undercooked and bad. It's like, oh, it's a bit al dente, don't you think? Yeah. Like, but now al dente has undergone this sort of linguistic shift where people think it means that the pasta is underdone. Undercooked. Oh, it's still al dente.

You have to cook it more, basically. Yeah, I'm going to start using undonte, I think. Thank you. Thank you, Darren and Darren's wife. She doesn't know. I know. who's probably listening to this episode like slapping him going like, you told them that?

All right, today's episode, oh boy. This week, our topic is Indigo. Ooh. Yeah. A little tricky there. So I'm excited to see what you guys came up with. We've prepared quizzes and segments all around Indigo. So this week, we're into Indigo.

So last weekend, I was at the flea market. I ran into a pair of coworkers who I had not seen in a decade. And they just happened to be at this flea market. And they were like, hey, Chris, what's up? And I'm like, oh, you know, just looking for video games as I usually am. And I'm like, what's up with you guys? And they said to me, we are going to an indigo dye party. we're going to a party where everybody gets together and they have a big batch of indigo die and they're like we're looking for white stuff at the flea market that we can bring to the indigo die party again this was literally just days ago and i'm like wow after not having had to think about indigo for let's be honest my whole life it just came up just as we were prepping to do

the indigo episode of Good Job Brain. If that is not an incredible coincidence, I do not know what is. That's the universe talking to you. Well, of course, on an episode about indigo, we cannot not talk about blue jeans. Yeah. You know, we've mentioned indigo dye. Denim manufacturing is by far the dominant industrial use for indigo dye worldwide. In honor of that, I here have a quiz.

I call Gene Jargon. Oh. Not a DC comic book character, Jean, Miss Jean Jargon. Sassy reporter, Jean Jargon. Yeah, yeah. Interesting terms of vocab industry slang around denim and fashion.

Starting with this one, what is the term you use for an outfit that is head to toe in jeans? So like a jeans top? and a jeans bottom column. What do you call it? Different people call different things. All right.

First, with apologies to our northern neighbors, I was taught that this was called a Canadian tuxedo. Yeah, Canadian tuxedo. Also, Texas Tuxedo. Ah.

Nice alliteration there. Double denim. I hear this more, which is denim on denim. There's a denim Dan, which is based on a Super Troopers character. A lot of different names for like a full denim. outfit. But yes, Canadian tuxedo is by far the most popular. Why do you think people call it

Canadian tuxedo? Like, what is the imagery of it? I think it's meant to be, you know, a mocking, condescending maybe view of, oh, that's what they think is fancy up in Canada. They got so much, it's just denim. It's not like a real tuxedo. I don't know. Canadian tuxedo, Texas Tuxedo, it really gives off, oh, it's like rustic. Yeah. The origin of the term Canadian tuxedo is so excited opposite. Okay. American singer, crooner, actor, entertainer, Bing Crosby. Bing Crosby had something to do with Canadian tuxedo. Huh.

Interesting. He was very fond of wearing jeans and being comfortable. And so he was on vacation in Canada on a hunting trip. Him and his probably also famous friends, they tried to check in. to a hotel in Vancouver. And the Vancouver hotel was very, very, very fancy. And I guess the person who was checking them in didn't recognize that it was being Crosby. And because they were wearing denim and looking casual, the desk clerk wouldn't give them a room.

Wouldn't check them in being like, what you're wearing is not up to our dress code. You know, we're a very high class hotel. Turns out, oh, it's Bing Crosby. Whoops, sorry, sir. Check them in. And this funny story got to Levi's. And so Levi's in a kind of a snarky, petty move created a custom denim tuxedo jacket for Bing Crosby. Thanks for being a fan.

Next time you check in this hotel, why don't you just wear this on top as well? Like, you know, full blazer, lapel, you know, bachelor. And it's like, hopefully they won't give you any trouble anymore. And so it was the Canadian tuxedo for this Canadian hotel. Wow. I've never heard that story. That's amazing. It turns out Canada was too fancy.

All right. Next question. When you buy a sanferized pair of jeans, sanforized. That means it has already gone through the mechanical process of what? Right. Right. Colin? I believe it's like a heat treatment or a pressing something like that with it.

Am I anywhere close to it? To the fibers. Oh, why? It's to make it more durable, right? Or water repellent or longer lasting, something like that? The process you're describing is accurate. But there's a reason why most places process the denim before they get made into a garment.

Why? Well, Sanferize is a fancy term or the mechanical term for basically saying it's pre-shrunk. It's pre-shrunk mechanically so that when you get your pair of jeans and you throw it in the washer and dryer, it's not going to shrink. And now it's like for a doll. Important. Yeah. And they will often say on the label, right, pre-shrunk.

And I think most clothes we buy went through the Santer's, forizing process, named after a Mr. Sanford who invented this process. So it's more true to size. Got it. Got it. It's funny because I'm sure this used to be a big problem, maybe 50 or 100 years ago. But now it's like a lot of the fabrics are pre-treated so that they won't shrink in the wash anymore. Or at least they'll shrink like 1% to 3%, not 30%. Yeah, yeah, a little more predictable. All right. Next question. What fabric looks similar? to denim, but it's more lightweight, and it breathes better. The U.S. Navy officially authorized it as part of their utility uniforms in 1913, and then it made

its way to industrial era workwear and eventually contributed to the expression blue collar. What fabric is this? Looks similar to denim, but it feels more lightweight. It feels thinner. You know, denim's pretty thick. Yeah. Is it also made of cotton? It is also made of cotton.

It's weaved in a different way. It's a very lovely name. I know we're going to know it. Yeah. If you're a Seinfeld fan, you might say, Sleep tight mates in your quilted chambray night shirts. Oh, wow. Shambray.

No, I don't know that. So when you're out buying a denim shirt, most of the time it's chambray. Because it's lighter. It's not, you're not wearing like big, thick, jeans on your body. It's shambray. And yeah, shambray then became part of the Navy uniform. When you see old pictures of Navy guys, they're in light blue shirts. Yeah, yeah. And then the blue shirts of blue collar workers. That's where blue collar came from. Ah, I mean, I knew they were blue. They're blue because it's

easier to hide sweat stains, you know, crime versus a white shirt. All right. Next question. Honeycombs, whiskers, and stacks are all terms for what, usually found on a pair of worn jeans. Honeycombs, whiskers, and stacks are all names of what, what happens, usually found on a pair of worn jeans. Colin? Is it like the distress lines, like the, you know, where the white stress. lines of the wear and the fading? It is the fade. Whiskers, I think, most people know.

Whisker is like on your upper thigh, you know, because you sit down, the fabric bunches and you'll get like these lines. Yeah, the crease lines across your thigh are whiskers. Honeycombs is the pattern behind the knees. So if your jeans get creased and it fades away, distresses, it does it in a like, it almost looks like an accordion. Okay, yeah, I can picture that. Right, right, right.

And then stacks are what happens at the ankle part, like the bottom part of your jeans above your shoes. So they all have names for like wear patterns. I love that just there's a taxonomy for just like just these different types. Like all on your lower body, you can have, yeah, the different types of the fade patterns. That's great. All right. Next question in this gene jargon quiz. Moroccan French brothers, Haim Riva and Jacques Riva hit it big in the 90s.

with what jeans brand inspired by graffiti culture? Chris? Is that JNCOs? It's Janko! Janko! Gotta be! I had... You must have had some Janko.

Maybe 10 pairs. Yeah, yeah. 10? Oh, yeah. All the different wits, the openings. Jankos, yes, notorious 90s wear. JN-C-O, pronounced J-N-C-O. The founders were actually pretty private in my own. maybe mysterious.

They didn't really give out interviews. And so they never elaborated what Janko stood for. J&C. Oh, I was hoping to find out. I assumed it was Jeans Co. Some say it's an acronym for Judge Nunn Choose One. Some people say it means journey of the chosen ones. It's great.

I just imagine all just like the skater teens like trading the theories and what it stands for. It's fantastic. Do they still sell and produce the Janko jeans? Jankos are still available to buy. I'm unsure what is the corporate ownership history or what's happening on a corporate level. You can still buy Jankos and they're still big jeans. It's funny, it was genes that were first targeted towards teenagers. It's not like, so it's not adult jeans and it's not little kitty jeans.

This is like subculture genes or teenagers or young adults. We haven't seen jeans this big with such wide open. It just was really practical for skateboarders, especially rollerbladers, because you can wear knee pads underneath. And then they're big enough to accommodate rollerblades. I mean, you could have two legs in one side of them. Yeah, you can. All right.

Last question here in this gene jargon quiz. This is a fun one, kind of like a lateral thinking puzzle. So denim heads and vintage fashion fans have been on the hunt for the coveted and elusive big E jeans. Ah. Big E, the letter E, jeans. Using your skill of deduction and your experience in appraising collectibles, take a guess. What do you think are what people call big E jeans? Okay.

I have a guess. I have a guess. I have a guess. Chris? I think it's like the word Levi's is spelled with a capital E versus a versus a small E. And that indicates like the earlier Levi's genes. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, that's it. That's it.

From the years 1930 to 1971, the Levi's pocket tab spells Levi's all caps. L-E-B-I-A-A-A-A-A-Posrophe S. Big E. And then after 1971, they changed it. to a title case. So big L and then lowercase. And so it helps people to really date old genes. And it's like, well, why do you want old jeans? People collect them because they want the vintage American made denim because now Levi's, a lot of the modern jeans are not made in America. Also, it came from older manufacturing methods that people say it's better or more premium, higher quality denim.

You know, there's like production details that people are looking out for. And then also just kind of the nostalgia of like this historical Levi's era. But yeah, finding a pair of Biggie jeans is a big deal. Biggie. Interesting. Okay, now I know what to look for. Yeah. Go raid your grandpa's drawers.

See what you can find in there. I will not be rating my grandpa's drawers. All right. Good job, Brains. So I would like to talk about what I think might be a universal sort of experience, whether we remember it or not. You go to kindergarten and you sit down and the teacher is like, okay, today we're going to learn the colors of the rainbow. And they are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. And some kid probably says, but all the other kids are thinking,

which is, what's indigo? What's indigo? What the heck? And the teacher is like, Uh, well, you know, it's this color here and it's sort of, it's like between the blue and the purple. It's like, really, that's a color? Okay. So the name, so indigo, the word comes from the Greek, Indicos, which means Indian, as in from India, as in that's where they got their indigo dye from. That's right. from India. So it's, it's, they called it indigo as in Indian as in like Indian parentheses die, right? It's, it was a blue dye made from, not an indigo, that blue, we call them blue jeans.

Yeah, we'll call them indigo jeans. You don't call them Levi's indigo jeans, call them blue jeans, because it's blue. So what is indigo? Why is indigo here? What is it doing? Wherefore art thou indigo? It's the I in Roy G. Biv. it makes the acronym easier to say, but like, does it exist as a separate concept? What is the deal? Well, turns out, this all goes back to Isaac Newton. So I was going back and looking and yeah, we talked about Isaac Newton in the rainbow on episode, I think, 32 or something like that. Yeah, long, long time ago.

So Isaac Newton, this is all explained in his 1704 book, which is called Optics with a K. Oh. A treatise of the reflection. refractions, inflections, and colors of light. This was his book in which Sir Isaac Newton documented his groundbreaking research into, how does light work? Colors, experiments with prisms where he showed that white light contains all the colors and you can refract them.

And then you can put them all back into a prism and, you know, create white light again. And Sir Isaac Newton was the one who took the prism, passed the light through it. shown a, you know, kind of a rainbow on his wall. And he's like, oh, these colors, they're like an apparition. They're like a, they're like a specter. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'll call this the spectrum. The spectrum!

I am going to rip my face off. Yes, yes. Specter. It was a specter. Wait, did you know, already know this, Colin? No, I am today, today is old. I have heard this. I have heard this before.

Oh my God. But now it's like we use the term spectrum completely void of this ghost. It means second level. On a line or that, you know, exactly. A great. Yeah.

Oh my God. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he called it like, oh, these are these spectral colors. This is the spectrum. Because it, because it's sort of like this ghostly apparition that he caused to appear on his, on his wall. Smart dude.

This rainbow. And so this is where Sir Isaac Newton was like, I'm going to name all the colors that I see in here. Now, actually, there's a lot. There's a lot of colors in there. I think that there's some, there's some question as to whether there's an infinite number of colors in the rainbow or whether it's actually finite because everything is a certain wavelength.

But there's a lot. At first he was like, I see red, yellow, green, blue, and violet. And then he was like, I think actually there should be seven because the, musical scale has seven. Doremi Fussela Lati, seven is the magic number. So a little haphazard. So I think that there should be seven.

So what he jammed in there was orange and indigo. So here's, this is from a book called Introduction to Light by Gary Waldman. And Gary Waldman pointed out, well, first of all, he says Newton named seven colors in the spectrum, red, orange, yellow, green, blue,

indigo violet. More common today, we only speak of six major divisions leaving out indigo. A careful reading of Newton's work indicates that the color he called indigo, we would normally call blue. And his blue is what we would call cyan. Sion. Because if you look at the big color spectrum, you see this big old band of cyan in the middle there and nobody talks about Sian.

Why aren't the teachers telling us about cyan? Why isn't it Roy G. Because, you know, it's like, nobody's talking about the cyan. Because that is what historians believe looking at, if you start looking at this book that Newton wrote, it becomes clear that when he's talking about blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, he's talking about the cyan in the middle.

That's what he's calling blue. So then he's like, well, what's between cyan and purple? He calls that indigo, because it looks. like the color of indigo dye, which is blue or what we would call blue today. Got it. So really, it's just blue. Now, the funny thing is, again, if you, I'm not suggesting you do this right now, but if you go and you look at like rainbow clip art on the internet,

there's so much in there of people trying to figure out like what indigo is. Yeah. Yeah. How do they push their seven pins? Because they make blue, like what we would call like royal blue, like blue jeans blue. And then they've got like violet on this end. And they're trying to figure out what could possibly go between them. And they don't really know.

Oh, the other thing, by the way, brief tangent. So yeah, initially he used the colors that a lot of people refer to was that you got your red, yellow, green, blue, and then violet. And the two that he's like, okay, I need two more. Okay. let's go with orange, which was a fairly new concept. Yeah, at that time. English at that point, they didn't actually really have a word, orange, until they started importing Naranha from Spain, which again had only been maybe a couple hundred years ago. But the funny thing is they're importing this fruit from Spain, right?

They're not growing it in English-speaking territories. They have to import the fruit. And by the time that it gets there, it's not, doesn't look like fresh orange. It's actually reddish brown, right? Because they're using it for like marmalades and so. It's like, it's a reddish brown. So originally when they're like, what is this? Well, it's, you know, it's not an aha.

You know, it's like, oh, orange. Okay, fine. They used orange to mean like brown. Brown. And they were like, my cow is orange because it's like brown. and a little bit red. These are the oranges we know. Because it's the color of what the only oranges that they had.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this starts shifting once they, A, start getting the oranges shipped more expeditiously and start planting citrus trees like in England. Orange now, by the time of Sir Isaac Newton writing it down, it had shifted, again, not that long ago to meaning like the color between. red and yellow that you see on this factory. He's like, oh, yeah, that's orange. So very similar to indigo, it was named after a thing, right?

And up until that time, my understanding is that anything that we called orange would have been called red, right? Which is why, like, a redhead. It wasn't literally red. It was more orange, but that was red to them, right? It was red. Okay. Yeah.

It was all just various shades. If the sun, if the sun looked particularly orange, they'd be like, oh, the red sun. You know, so you always hear about the red sun, but not the orange sun. And yeah, exactly. But also it's like, well, what did they call carrots? Well, carrots weren't really orange yet. Like, their carrots were yellow. What did they call pumpkins?

They didn't have pumpkins yet. So it's like only around the 1700s, you start actually seeing a, like, actual orange, like things that they have to start describing, like popping up. But Newton did have orange at hand to name that. So basically, yeah, he was like, yeah, seven notes of musical scale, seven magic. number, yeah, let's go seven. So he go poop, and he just sort of sticks those in there. And like, that's why they're in there. There's another famous Isaac who wrote about science. That's Isaac Asimov, who said in his book, Eyes on the Universe, a history of the telescope. He writes, it is customary to list indigo as a color lying between blue and violet.

But it has never seemed to me that indigo is worth the dignity of being considered a separate color. to my eyes, it seems merely deep blue. So I'm right there with you, Isaac Asimov, as Indigo Hater. Yeah, get rid of it. Now, there's another thing about Indigo. There's this question of, well, indigo exists. It's a thing. We're all taught about it.

It's in the mnemonic. It's supposedly just as important a color in the rainbow as yellow, even though nobody can really tell you where it is. But we all have it in our brains. There's this phenomenon known as web indigo, as in like, World Wide Web, Indigo. You two are both designers. Don't get me started.

Going back. No, no, no. I mean, you know, tell me, like, when you are writing like HTML and you say, color this indigo, yeah. It does not color it indigo. It colors it's something that is obviously just straight purple. Yeah, yeah. The history of indigo and web colors goes way back and has almost from the beginning pushed

way more toward the purple end than what an indigo, quote, should be. So basically, it goes back. back to the X window system, which is the graphical user interface that was developed at MIT in the 80s for like Unix computer systems, very early graphical user interface. And it had a list of colors that were sort of defined as these are the colors of this early GUI. With keywords. With keywords. And they all had the numerical definitions of the color were then attached to fanciful color names, which were named by computer programmers. who had no actual training whatsoever in color theory.

And there's no standards in terms of how computer monitors display colors. And it's all open source. So people are just adding stuff. And if something gets added to the open source project and it sort of sticks, then it sticks. And then it's like, well, now it's the standard so we can't back off of it. There was one programmer who added who was like, I'm kind of sick of. lot of these colors that are in X-11, and I'm going to add a bunch. And so he did the extremely scientific method of looking at his monitor, getting a box of creolas, and holding the

creola up and going, yeah, okay. And then putting in, like, that's why we have, like, if you go to Google, like, right now and you go into Google box, and you're like picking colors, like, one of them is cornflower blue. And it's just a whole. over from this guy just like getting out of a box of creoleas and saying, okay, this will be cornflower blue, this will be golden rod. Like that's why all those colors are in there because they're just adding them all in. And it's like a mishmash.

It has no system to it whatsoever. It's maddening. But X Windows system became so broadly used in web browsers that when they came time to develop CSS, like the style sheets, standards that are like still used for web design, they're like, well, all the browsers are already using all these colors. So for compatibility purposes, we'll just keep going with this. So all these color names are in there. And one of these colors that was just arbitrarily assigned

a name was they called basically the shade of straight up purple. They just called it indigo. It's not. Whatever indigo is, it's definitely not that. So it's just like this parade of weird arbitrary decisions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it goes back to Isaac Newton, kind of throwing it in there, but really when he did it, he actually was describing two different things as blue shifts. Yeah. The consciousness of what blue means. It's like everything moves over a little bit and everything gets crammed all together. And now you've got blue, which is where what, which is really what he meant by indigo. And then you've got violet. And then people are trying to figure out what the middle of those things are. That was always the best answer I ever got from a teacher.

It was like, it's between, it's between blue and purple. Is, Nobody can answer this question. If you're thinking that the color of blue jeans and the rainbow is blue, then you can't really answer the question anymore. Yeah. The answer is shut up. Just write it down, kid. The only thing that I would tag on Isaac Newton is the idea of like looking at the rainbow

going, yeah, I would say seven. Yeah. I would say I'm seeing about, say the same exactly seven colors. And really thinking like, oh, it's got to be because I bet you, it's related to the seven notes in the musical scale. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, we're going to take a quick break, and we'll be right back. Hey, this episode is brought you by I-Excel Learning, an online learning program that

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In Toronto, every arrival is a statement and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19 speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility and optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility, Canadian New Vehicle, Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. You're listening to Good Job Brain. Smooth puzzles. Smart trivia. Good job brain. And we're back. This week we're talking about the mysterious color that is indigo. You know I am into indigo.

A couple episodes ago, you guys will recall we talked about green and green things. I asked you a trivia question where you had to name a beloved green character. And indeed, there are plenty of green characters that easily come to mind. From Kermit the Frog to Yoda, Incredible Hulk, to, of course, Shrek himself. So when we agreed to cover Indigo for, this week's topic. I was determined to incorporate one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. And the only one that I knew for sure is canonically indigo in color. I am talking about the Marvel comic book character Nightcrawler, one of my favorite, favorite members of the X-Men.

Nightcrawler was introduced as a member of the X-Men way back in 1975. Oh, wow. Yeah, as part of the so-called new X-Men at that time. They were trying to sort of make over the title. He is like the other X-Men a mutant superhero. And he has been in many iterations of the X-Men franchise, comics, TV, movies, video games, you name it. Now, a little bit about Nightcrawler. I don't want you to worry if you've never read or seen an X-Men.

There will be something in this quiz for you, I promise. An X-Man. An X-Man. Nightcrawler, maybe just to jog your memory, maybe it's in the Punch Bowl, has a rather demonic or devilish appearance. He's got pointed ears. He's got fangs, yellow eyes. He's got a long, prehensile, devilish tail.

Yes. And most importantly, for our purpose, purposes today. He is indigo. Indigo skin and he is covered in a in a velvety indigo fur. Yeah, very cool character, cool character. So I've got some questions here for you in a quiz. We'll do this buzzer style. Some are in fact about night crawler. Some are more loosely wide view, let's say, the night crawler concept maybe or even just the word night crawler. So there will be something in this quiz for everyone, I hope. Get your buzzers ready. Karen may have a small advantage over you, Chris.

Why? I don't know. I associate you as more of an X-Men fan than Chris. Maybe I'm wrong. We'll find out. Get your buzzers ready. What is Nightcrawler's primary superpower? Karen. Teleportation. Yeah. Teleportation. Yes. He can pop out, pop in another place. There's a signature sound effect even in the comics, his bampf sound, which I was, BAMF, BAMF, yes. It's like over many

years that they've been super consistent. That's, that's the sound. Nightcrawler makes when he teleports is bamp. And it just, you just such a great automotopia. You can just, you can just hear it. And yeah, I was very happy when they, I felt like they got that sound effect right in the movies. Yeah, he has other superpowers. He's super agile, you know, like a Spider-Man or something like that. He can more or less, disappear in the dark. In the real world, what type of animal is a night crawler?

Chris. It's an anilid. It's a worm. Yeah, it's a worm. I see. Yeah, it's a big old worm. Yeah, it's an earthworm in particular. Yeah, especially, especially in the context of fishing.

We used to go looking for night crawlers as being. Yeah. Yeah. It's sort of a catch-all term for a variety of different, you know, beefy earthworms. Got it, got it. In the hit 2003 movie X2, the second of the X-Men films, Nightcrawler was first portrayed by this award-winning Scottish actor and TV host. Karen. I'm going to get this right because you guys roasted me last time.

It is Alan coming. No. Got it. No, S. Five-time Emmy Award winner, two-time Tony Award winner, host of the traitors. In my opinion, a great Nightcrawler. I thought he did a really good job there. Yes, and I said first portrayed because it was announced that Alan Cumming will be reprising his role as Nightcrawler in Avengers Doomsday coming out later this year.

Oh. Yeah. All right. We'll stick with the movies here. The acclaimed 2014 film Nightcrawler did not feature any superheroes, but it did feature an unstable hustler in the L.A. local news scene portrayed by what Hollywood actor? Karen? Jake Jillenhall. You got it.

I will not make you spell it, but you got it. Jake Jillenhall. As I mentioned earlier, Nightcrawler was part of the new X-Men team introduced in the mid-Sahelan-Hall. 70s. And part of what Marvel wanted to do was have the X-Men become more of a multinational team. And indeed, that's why some of the members added on, like Wolverine, who is Canadian, of course. They added Storm, who was from Kenya, Colossus from the Soviet Union, et cetera, et cetera, right, right. What country is Nightcrawler from? What country is Nightcrawler? meant to represent.

I have studiously avoided telling you his name. Right, right, right. Interesting, interesting. He's European. Yeah, yeah. And he also speaks Latin, but then I wonder if that's just because he's like a soul. You know what I mean? He's Catholic, yes, in the storyline.

So the Latin connection would make sense. You know, well, I'm just going to, I'm going to guess. Take a guess. France. Hmm. You're close. He is from born in Germany. He is German.

Yes. And his civilian name is Kurt Wagner, if you're American or Kurt Wagner, right, if you're German, Kurt. In the comic books, Nightcrawler has a strong sense of flair, an adventure, and likes to compare himself to the actor, Errol Flynn. What was Errol Flynn's most famous movie role? Chris. Was it Robin Hood? It was Robin Hood. You got it.

Okay. And last one. All right. I can get a little weird on this one with me, guys here. A cryptid. A cryptid. All right. So, you know, like Bigfoot, Nessie, right?

Oh, okay. And cryptid, known as the night crawler, described as a pair of walking legs with no torso. Okay. Has been alleged to exist in this California Central Valley City famous for their raisins. Oh. Famous for the raisins.

Yes. The raisin capital of the country. Really? But wouldn't the raisin capital be also the grape? No. But Central valleys. Just the raisins. So they're like, use your guys California knowledge.

What counts as Central. Home to the Sun-made Raisin. Cooperative. Fresno. Oh, Fresno. The Fresno Nightcrawler in the tradition of other great regional cryptids like the Jersey Devil. Yeah, the Fresno Nightcrawler. I will share a link with you guys here.

Our listeners can Google this one. First reported or at least evidence maybe first surfaced in 2007. Some appropriately creepy, you know, nighttime footage. The image in the article here is AI generated, I believe. But if you click into the article, you'll see some video. It is reported to be. And if you watch the video, there's no better way to describe it. It just, it kind of looks like a floppy pair of pants just walking by itself.

No, it looks like balloon animals. It looks like balloon animals with hollow eyes. Yeah. They're silly. This is so silly. They do. They look very kind of cute and silly, at least how they've been interpreted by a number of artists.

Yeah, there's been more than one reported citing. And yeah, I mean, it can best be described as a pair of pants. Like a pair of pants. Like a pair of pants. Locking pair of pants. Very, very sucian. You know, in my head, it was so much scarier than this. All right.

Good job, guys. Thank you for, as always, indulging my comic nerd side and give me the chance to be like, oh, actually, he's indigo. I know an indigo character. Nice. I want to know, Colin, when you first saw his appearance in X2, like, were you just like, oh, my God, this is so awesome? Or were you hating on it?

He was a little bit creepy, but he's supposed to be sweet and charming at the same time. He's sweet in the movie. And in the comics and in all of his appearances, that is sort of one of the through lines, is that he's very good at charming the ladies. and he does imagine himself sort of as this swashbuckler type. No, I think they did a good job. And again, not to harp on it, but I think they nailed the sound effect of the bampf of him teleporting, you know, in and out.

And yeah, so well done to them. All right. I have our last indigo segment here. And when we were, when we amongst ourselves were like, what are we going to do? What are we going to research for this episode? This came up, which is Indigo. Indigo Girls.

Indigo Girls. The amazing singer-songwriter's duo Indigo Girls, just fantastic. I grew up with an older Gen X sister who was just in that sweet spot of kind of college music. And she introduced me to Indigo Girls. And so this got me thinking, Indigo Girls were part of in the 90s the Lilith Fair Festival. You're taking me back, Karen. If you were not alive, or if you were too young, I was too young for Lilith Fair. This is like, again, my sister was the sweet spot.

She was like in college, Lilith Fair, Sarah McLaughlin. Just a quick rundown. Little Fair was a music festival started by Sarah McLaughlin, another singer, songwriter. And she was unhappy with the music industry. As at that time, radio stations and concert promoting. voters wouldn't promote multiple women in a row or back to back. Okay. There should always be only one.

In her mind, it's like, okay, well, what if all the women gather together for a show, for a festival, so that the radio stations would then have to collectively advertise all of us, promote all of us. Yeah. And so here I have made a quiz called Lilith Fair in. the movies. So I have a music quiz where I'm going to play music that was featured or used in famous movies. And it's music and songs all by artists that were part of the Lilith Fair Festival. I'm going to tell you who the artist is. And then I'm going to tell you the year of the movie.

I'm going to let you listen to a clip of a song. Sometimes it's the song in the movie. So you'll hear like other movie sounds and you have to identify the movie. How does that sound? All right. All right. So you're giving us artists. We're giving you movie. Yes.

All right. Lilithair in the movies. This is a music quiz. Let's while you guys work together. Okay. While you guys work together. Sure. Can't make us do worse.

Since our theme is Indigo, let's start with Indigo girls. What you're going to hear in the clip is actually not performed by them. It's a cover. This movie. is from 2024. Oh, okay. All right.

Okay, all right. All right. All right. Let's hear the clip. Identify this movie. And unless I seek my swords from son definitive. Closer I am to find. Closer I am to find.

Ah! Ha! Ha, ha. Big blockbuster. Oh, really? Hey. She's driving. in a car, she's listening to Closer to Fine

in this movie. There was a surprise Stowaway in her car. Okay. Oh, oh. Just one of the biggest movies of that year. One of the two biggest movies of the year. Colin? Yeah, wasn't this the Barbie movie? It is the Barbie movie. Yeah, that's right. And Ken

pops up in the car, right? This song, Indigo Girls, wrote in 1989, and it's decades after it's made relevant again. And it fits with the movie theme as well. Yeah. All right, good job. Next movie, I'm going to do this one. Emmy Lou Harris, Emmy Lou Harris, also a Lilith Fair performer. Here is one of her songs that she performed in a 2000 movie, a movie from 2000.

And here we go. Here's the movie clip. Well, you for you, ladies, are about the prettiest. And the devil makes three. Nice. No other love you. What are lilies? Go to sleep your little baby.

One liquor. Oh, it has some water sound. What year you said? 2000. What year? 2000. 2000. Emmylou Harris.

Okay, all right. I think I know this. I guess we're supposed to be working together. Is this, oh, brother, where art thou? Oh, brother, where art thou? Yes, correct. It did seem familiar. I had the soundtrack to that.

Oh, one of the best movie soundtracks out there. Oh, man. All right, so elaborate on that scene then. So that movie is based on the Odyssey or Lucy makes on the Odyssey. And it's described as the Sirens scene. So our three characters. they stumble upon these three women kind of washing their clothes. And in the scene, they're singing this like a very soothing song.

And then they're giving them liquor to drink and they just kind of pass out. Yeah, yep, yep, Emily Lou Harris. All right. Our next song is by Cheryl Crow from a movie in 1997. Here we go. This sounds so familiar. Okay. So is this a, is this a, could this be the world is not enough?

It sounds so bond like. It sounds so bond like, I'm counting 97. Is it, is it a bond? Do we have, are we at least in the right? Yes, okay, all right. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Unmistakably a bond. Yes, it's Pierce Brosnan.

I mean, it's like right after a golden eye. So it's like. Oh, geez. See it in your eyes. Tomorrow. Never dies. Okay. Okay.

Yep. The one, yes, with Pierce Brosnan and Jonathan Price as the villain. And the Bond Girl was Michelle Yo, Michelle Yo. Ah. So Cheryl Crow, you know, one of also a Lilifair performer got to pen a Bond song. Wow. Nice. Nice.

Tomorrow never dies. Yeah. All right. This is going to be a hard one for you, too. So I'm just going to say that. Okay. All right. Pat Benitar also took the stage at

Lilifair. Oh. One of her songs is used in a pajama party scene from a movie from 2004. Okay. Here's a song in the movie. A little background noise, maybe clue us in here. Okay. So, no, not so much.

Well, they're kind of lip sync into it. It's a pajama party. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, I mean, the song would be, you know, 20 years old at that point, right? Yeah. And it kind of plays.

into the movie because the main character lived in the 80s who would enjoy 80s music, but somehow was brought to a more brought to a more modern day setting. Starring Jennifer Garner. This is 13. Oh, 13 going on 30. 30. Okay. All right.

Time to get sad, everyone. Time to get sad. Just like a lot of Sarah McLaughlin songs. This one's from Sarah McLaughlin herself, the creator of, Lily Fair. No, it is not the SPCA puppy commercial song, which is Angel. It is not that. I'm not going to do that to you. But this is a

song of hers featured in a 1999 movie. 1999 movie. Here we go. Oh, yes. Never thought she'd look my way and she smiled at me and held me just like she used to do

like she loved. Like she love. Caring, you're breaking my heart. It's so, like, I'm about to cry. Like, it's so sad. You hear it. It just, yeah, exactly. It just makes you want to just start bawling.

Famously, the original song that she wrote for, Toy Story 2. Yes, Toy Story 2. This is played when they're explaining where Jesse the cowgirl came from. Very, very sad. Let's move on. Yes, the less said about that, the better. Well, here. To our last final song, this is the cardigans, who also performed at Lilifair.

They had a big song in a big movie in 1996. Here it is our last clip. Honey, nurse, what news? Nurse, I am a witty. Give me leave away. Bye, how my bugs. Hey, what the drums, chav. Okay, 96.

I was having hard time following that dialogue. Were you able to follow that, Chris? Did I play it again? Yeah, play it again. Yeah, can her. Nurse? What news? Nurse, yeah.

Yeah. Any nurse, what news? Nurse? I am a witty. Give me leave a wife. I call my bones. Hey. What the drums, chava.

Wow. This movie is from 1996. Okay. Oh, man. I cueed this, I cueate this quiz with my husband. Yeah, yeah. He just heard the band Cardigans and he's like, oh, it's this movie. Oh, okay.

He's like, that's so easy. And I was like, that's because me and my husband are, are the same person. Was it, was it an Adam Sandler movie, 96? Am I, like in anywhere in the right ballpark? I'll tell you, the source material is from 1597. Okay. Yeah, it's kind of what I figured, right? They're speaking old-timey.

Is this, oh, is this the Romeo and Juliet? Romeo and Juliet. Romeo plus Juliet. Romeo plus Juliet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Boslerman, right? Leo DiCaprio, right? Claire Danes.

Claire Danes. Yeah, okay. The defining movie of teenagers of that era. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, amazing soundtrack. This one is the Cardigans. The song is Loveful.

Big Radio hit. Yeah. Big movie hit as well. And you'll also see Paul Rudd in there who was in the movie looking the same like he does now. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. He played Paris. Ageless wonder. That's my Lilith Fair in the movies quiz inspired by Indigo Girls. Indigo for episode. Indigo Girls. I try not to be stuck in the 90s, so I try to find songs that were kind of spanned different years. but, you know, they were all very 90-centric. Lillifair was a very 90-centric thing. Can't hide from it, yeah. And that's our show. Thank you all for joining me and thank you listeners for listening in. Hope you learned stuff today about cloacal diving, about night crawler,

about the random assignment of colors in our world, about Indigo Girls in Lillifair, and about blue jeans, indigo jeans. You can find us on all major podcast apps and on our website, good job, brain.com. This podcast is part of Airwave Media. Podcast network, visit airwavemedia.com to listen and subscribe to other shows like The Historian Table, IGN movies podcast, and unspookable. And we'll see you next week. Goodbye.