Good Job, Brain! - 39: Smell Ya Later

Episode Date: November 26, 2012

Hey, who farted? We sniff out the story behind scents and smells! How our brains associate smells with memories, Smell-o-vision at the movies, bizarre perfume ingredients, the odd world of celebrity fragrances, how stores are manipulating you with scents, anosmia, and can you trademark a smell? ALSO: fantastic old-timey words, "First in Line" quiz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, flipping flawless flashbulbs, flaunting flavors. Welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and Offbeat Trivia podcast. This is episode 39, and of course, I am your humble host, Karen, and we are your flock of flamethrowing fledglings flabbergasted by flamingos and flan. Wow. I'm Colin. I'm Dana.

And I'm Chris. Before we dive into the show, Karen, a little housekeeping here. We have time for another installment of... Actually. In last week's episode, in answer to one of your questions, I made a passing reference to MPEG. It does not stand for motion photography experts group. It was moving picture experts group, just to clear up the confusion there. versus JPEG.

Well, you spelled it right, at least. So what is JPEG again? That was Joint Photographic Experts Group. And MPEG? Moving Picture Experts Groups. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, and so these experts are, yeah, put together by the standards organizations. Yeah.

Can you apply to be one of these experts? That's a good question. I think my own file extensions. I think that they're sort of selected. A paycheck. And so with my intro, I looked up a lot of words that start with FL. flippin flawless fledglings flabbergasted so I found some really crazy sounding other fl words and I want to share with you guys because they sound old-timey and fantastic

go on do you guys know what a flannel mouth is and I think you can probably guess maybe because they're old-tile mouth yeah if I call you a flannel mouth isn't a flannel like a washcloth or something I don't know I give up it is a person whose speech is thick slow or halting. Oh, okay. So which kind of makes sense, like having the cloth in your mouth. Sure. Here's another one.

What is flap doodle? Ooh, I love it. I don't know, but I enjoy it. Bologna? Yeah, I'm going to say, not nonsense. A bunch of flakduddle. Yes, exactly. Oh, I thought you were pointing ahead and saying, yes, to meat.

It's baloney meat. It's a flap doodle. Do you want a flap doodle sandwich? What part of the pig does the flap doodle come? I'm not sure I want to know. Flapdoodle means non. nonsense or foolish talk. Ah, okay.

And lastly, here's another one, Fliberti jibbitt. Fliberti gibbet. Is this a... It's a very Zoe D. Chanel kind of word. Is it a person who talks a lot or a flighty person or... Or is it like thing of a jig? You are very good, Chris. It is a very chatty or flighty.

Oh, okay. Person. Or in olden days, it's also referred to as like gossip. So there we go, flannel mouth, flap doodle, and flibbertie gibbet. So, time for our general. Trivia segment, Pop Quiz Hot Shot. And here I have a random Trivial Pursuit card and you guys

have your barnyard buzzers, so let's start answering some questions. Blue Wedge Geography. How many letters are in the Hawaiian alphabet? And multiple choice. Colin just knows. I think it's 12. Correct.

The choices were 12, 17, or 28, and it is 12. Pink Wedge for pop culture. What common breakfast item was Alfred Hitchcock said to be afraid of weird afraid of what he was afraid

of a common breakfast item sausage no I don't know honey bunches of oats honey bunches of oats what is it? It is eggs Dave is right I was like because of birds I don't know

I went into I thought about that that just seemed to it's weird I don't know the first answer that jumped my head was croissant. Because it looks like a gun. At least he understood what other people were afraid of and that it wasn't what he was afraid. That's true. That's more to the point.

All of his movies weren't just like shots of eggs in various poses. The sequel to birds or the prequel. All right, yellow wedge. What former White House employee did John Goodman impersonate on S&L Saturday Night Live after she serptitiously taped phone calls with Monica Lerensky, Chris Culler? I believe that was Linda Tripp. Yes. Oh, yeah.

Very. Not a flattering person. No, nor was it meant to be. Yeah, no. Purple wedge, what does the Latin phrase, tempest fugit mean? Time flies. Yes. Very good.

Green wedge for science. What mineral do bananas have in abundance? Potassium? Correct. Potassium. And lastly, orange wedge. By what name? name are coriander leaves more commonly known.

And we had this at the point of trivia before. We got it wrong. Cilentro. Yes. Cilantro. Slandro and coriander, same plant. Good job, everybody. Let's jump into today's episode.

And in previous shows, we talked a lot about food. In more than one episode, yes. Many episodes, almost every episode. Of course, we've had a lot of music segments as well. And we tackled the subject of sight and colors earlier. So this week, we're going to dedicate today's episode to one of our most interesting face organs, and that is the nose and the wondrous sense of smell.

We're living life at the speed of smell. I like the term face organs. Yeah, me too. So smell and the way that humans perceive smell and what smell does when it hits your brain is really, really fascinating. You all know this. Like you get the whiff of some smell and instantly transport you back to some memory.

And you'll immediately start thinking of it. For example, my fiancé Regina just got her car cleaned. The first time I got into the car, and they do the car in the inside and out. The first time I got into the car, the air freshener that they had used was like, whoa, what is that smell? But you remember it. There's something specific going on here, and I just had to sit there and think about it, think about it, think about it. I'm not getting out of the car until I remember, honey. Until I realized that it was, it's the scent that they use on, like, coach buses.

Probably the first time I ever rode a coach bus, like, you know, riding a bus from Connecticut to New York. York, you know, on a school field trip or whatever, in a fancy, fancy bus. Like, that must be the air freshener they use because it's like, oh, that's exactly what that smells like to me. We have a candle right now, this Christmas candle. We're burning it in the house and it smells like nothing to me, but the inside of the, it's a small world ride. It is that is exactly what it smells like to me.

It's not just that these are such deep associations, but they can be the hardest to break. You know what I mean? It's like, you're never going to start thinking of that smell as the candle smell. So here's the thing. And so I start wondering about this, like, what is it about us smelling things that causes this? Why is it so hard to break? As it turns out, a lot of this has to do with the brain, which scientists don't fully understand. So there's a whole lot of, like, theories that are out there about why this happened.

So here's some of the predominant kind of theories right now. When we hear things or when we see things, what happens is we perceive them as waves, right? either light waves or sound waves. And then those waves go to our thalamus in our brain. And from there, they're routed to the parts of the brain that figure out what that is. Apparently, there is no middleman with sense. It goes from the receptors in your nose, straight back to the olfactory region in your brain, has a lot of links to the hippocampus, the amygdala. In other words, like the pleasure center of the brain, the things that, because it's so closely linked to that, it immediately creates this sort of this link up in your brain to these things so fast because it's going

just immediately, directly, nose right to the brain and right linked up the pleasure, pain, flight or fight, real, like, primitive kind of stuff that's going on there. Subconsciously, you're thinking about it before you even realize that you're thinking about it. That's why smells can sometimes put you in a good mood, even if you're not consciously thinking about being in a good mood. The hippocampus pretty much believe that it's about, like, forming memories. And so very quickly, the olfactory senses is very just linked up with associations. Really, the sense of smell, since a living creature has existed, kind of acts as some sort of alert system. It's an alarm.

It's to tell you, hey, this smells bad. I shouldn't put this in my body. I should not eat it. A lot of warning signals. Whoa, that's rotten. Don't eat it. Whoa, there's a fire. I have to get out, right?

Like, that's you. Or the scent of a predator or the scent of someone that you want to meet with. Fair of arms. Exactly. So that it's, it just immediately, it's supposed to create a really fast, subconscious response of, whoa. We can smell, as it turns out, about 10,000 different smells. And the way that it works is really, really crazy. We have, I think, about a thousand they figure, different receptors up in the nose area. Okay, so what is a smell? They're molecules. They're molecules. They're pieces of the thing. They need to attach to the receptors. They do. So they attach to the receptors, and it's basically like, we can make any word in the English language with 26 letters. They attach to different. receptors and so you only have a thousand receptors but in that is so many different combinations that basically those receptors just grab onto the molecules and depending on what receptors grab onto them that's the smell that you smell now also back there there's things that are sensitive to pain so if you smell something that's caustic like if you smell ammonia something that it would really hurt you to keep inhaling you got some pain receptors back there

that tell you hey whoa whoa really get away from this because this is going to be painful for you. Have you ever noticed we don't have names for smells? Like we have names for the book. We have names for sounds, but we don't have names for smells. Yeah, well, they're named after the things. The thing that it smells like, oh, this smells like pizza, exactly, but there's no word that means it is as if we called red apple. You know? Oh, this is apple color. Which we do sometimes, but it's like, right, orange. Like, sometimes there is that crossover, but we don't really name it because we don't have to. We don't have to describe what something smells like. It's just instinctual. It's like, oh, man, this

smells good or this smells bad and I am going to react. Yeah, yeah. Interestingly enough, we're not born with this catalog of smells in our head. As it turns out, the first time that we smell a new smell, our brain links it up. That's why all of these connections between the memories, you know, it links it up to what we're doing at the time. And so when we smell something and it's like, oh my God, this scent is exactly like my grandmother's cookies when I was five years old. You're not nostalgic thinking back on an older, you know, a happier time in your life. Your brain has linked those two things together to tell you this is what this smell is. And that's how you categorize smells.

You actually, your brain links them back to those memories. That's the cataloging system. It's not anything special about childhood. It's just the first time you ever smelled that smell. There's this idea that animals are way better at us at smelling. And, you know, to an extent that can be true. But actually, we're really good at it. We just don't use it.

And when they've done studies where they actually blindfold people and have them track sense, you know, like bloodhounds, people get better at it. They're actually pretty good at it. And then if they repeat it, they actually get a lot better. Yeah, as you say, it's just the way we live our lives. We don't need it as much. That sounds cool. Yeah, let's do. Let's train up.

Like a superpower, right? Yeah, that would be fun. So do you guys know what smell-alikes are? Smell-a-like. Like, not a look-alike. A smell alike. The smell alike is sort of the industry term for imitation perfumes and knockoff scents, you know. That's such a more diplomatic word than knockoff.

Knockoff perfume. Where you see the box and it says Chanel and then you get really closer and it says like compare to. This is channel number seven. I'm so close, but. Inspired by. You know, they're the cheap discount things. And a lot of them will get in trouble sometimes for packaging looking too close to what they're or marketing too similar to the original product.

But that's just by look, right? That's just by the logo. One thing they cannot get in trouble for is the smell because you cannot trademark a scent. No. It's really, really fascinating. When you talk about smells, you start getting into an area of what they call non-conventional trademarks. So, you know, we all know conventional trademarks.

Like, I can't come out with my own computer line and put an Apple logo on it. You know, Apple owns that. Yeah. So you get into some that are non-conventional, like sounds. You know, so for example, like the NBC chime, you know, Bing, Bing, Bing. That's trademarkable, but it's not a visual experience. You know, we tend to think most trademarks are visual. You can do shapes.

Toblerone has a trademark on triangular chocolate. Okay. So, you know, they offer protection to things that aren't necessarily in the formula, but how it's presented. Right. Another good one. Something that is not endemic to the thing itself. You don't have to make the chocolate triangle shape.

I got a trademark like Pentagon. chocolate. I was just thinking, like, what have you had a pentagonal chocolate and then you divided it into triangles? Is that trademark? Anyway, sorry. Pentablerone. I was going down a nerdy road by myself. I was like, how can I get away from? Can I get around this? But no, Chris actually hit pretty much on the distinction is it's not something that's characteristic or functional. And they have a distinction between functional and non-functional. Just another example of something that's sort of a little weird is like color. So you guys know, at least here in the U.S., there are the Fiskers scissors. They have the orange hands.

They're allowed to make that, and other scissor companies are not allowed to have orange handles because they, Fiskers can establish this is really closely tied to us. All right. So now, it seems like a perfume is nothing but a scent. How could I not say that this scent is tied to what I do? And so that's where trademark law gets into non-functional. So the orange handle on the scissors has nothing to do with the function. The shape of the Toblerone has nothing to do with the composition of the chocolate. and the smell of a perfume is functional.

That is the brand. That is the brand. That's the formula. So they go after you for the box, but not the smell. They can go after you for things like that. So it's really interesting. And so perfume companies have tried to go to court around the world. And time and again, it comes down to a few things.

Like, one is the problem is it's really hard to objectively document a scent. You know what I mean? Like you can't submit a drawing or a diagram or a schematic. So getting down to what is the scent of Chanel number. number five. Or how do you, how do you describe this in a way that can be objectively defended is really tough? Yeah. So there are some sense that are allowed to be trademark. So I'll give you an example of non-functional scents that have been allowed to go through. So there's a sewing thread that was awarded a trademark for scenting all of the thread like plumeria blossoms.

In the UK, there was a tennis ball manufacturer was awarded protection for the smell of fresh cut grass with the tennis balls. Right. Because it's not functional to the purpose of the tennis ball or the thread that it smell like a particular thing. But a perfume is just a smell. Yeah. It is a smell. That's right. It's not scenting something else.

The trademark is not a right. It's a privilege. The government's setting something up that's just like, okay, we're going to protect certain things that are not protectable via copyright so that people can run a business and advertise their business and prove to customers that like, this is our product. Right. And not have competitors come in and fool people into thinking that they're buying somebody else's

The other term they use in legal you know yeah trademark is a shield not a sword it's to protect you not to

attack other people there we go I know that in the world they're probably I think I believe seven main

companies and they're dedicated to like very very lucrative and very top secret companies that would turn out

sense for almost everything that is made in the world that includes perfumes that includes tide detergent

that includes you know any cleaning products or or books or anything And all the people who are working there are very advanced chemists, biochemists, bio physicists, trying to come up every year with a new molecule, you know, hoping that molecules will generate a new scent. Yeah, or analyzing things and figuring out, all right, what is it that makes, you know, for example, cut grass, smell like cut grass, right?

And it's a fascinating industry. Well, so you're hitting something here. I mean, I should mention that, you know, you might be thinking, well, can't you trademark the composition? And in fact, so you can. So this is where it gets even further muddied is I can trademark or get a copyright, really, patent on the composition of a perfume, but not the effect it produces. Right. So there was actually a case where a perfume maker took an imitator to court, and they did essentially

like a gas chromatograph, spectrometer, I might be making something the wrong term, analysis of the chemicals. And they found that the infringer was using 24 out of 25 compounds in common. And that is where you start getting into trouble. Now, they did have it slightly different, but cannot copy someone's formula, but you can copy the result. Like Coca-Cola, right? You can make a bunch of things that kind of taste like Coke. Yeah, that's a good example, with taste instead of smell.

Now, then again, if you were to go to court to start defending this formula, you'd have to take the formula and enter it into the public records. So it's no longer a secret formula anyone who would know about it. And the problem is you might even win the judgment, but then everybody would know your formula. So now you're hunting down perfect imitators constantly. And if you hunt them all down in one country, they're all popping up in another country. So it's better to just keep the secret secret, which is why they would have trouble going to court and arguing about the scent without being able to say, well, this is the exact composition because then it's a matter of public record. Yep. Yeah, I mean, with like copyright law, you cannot go in and say, oh, well, yes, 99% of this work is similar.

It's the same as this other guy's, but see, I changed this one letter. It's not, it doesn't work that. way. So if it's 24 and 25, then what would be interesting is you'd have expert witnesses come in to say, we can recreate this scent using different compounds. Which they would absolutely be allowed to do. Right. And have the resources to. Sure. And that would be very, that would be really bad evidence against the smell like people because they'd be like, okay, well, if you can recreate this smell with all these different compounds, why did you use the exact ones from this other guy's thing? Yeah. So speaking of perfume, makeup, and composition, I want to share

some unusual perfume ingredients derived from nature, or once was derived from nature, I thought was very interesting. And obviously, nowadays, a lot of this stuff is synthesized, mostly because it's probably a little bit cheaper, or maybe the raw materials from what they used to gather aren't there anymore or whatnot. This wouldn't be an episode of Good Job Brain if I didn't talk about a common recurring theme, which is a animal secretion. So, of course, Musk. We always hear about musk and we hear about perfumes and colognes having a musk smell in language you know we describe any kind of carnal or manly or natural scent as musk but what exactly is musk let's start with the word what does musk mean do we know oh you mean the etymology of the word yeah i don't know that's a

good one musk comes from a sanskrit word actually just means testicle oh okay traditionally back in the old days, musk was obtained from male deers. Right, like a gland. So people would harvest the substance from the musk deer glands and would tincture and dilute it with alcohol. The odor starts to become more pleasant, but it takes a lot of super dilution for that musky smell to come out. Again, this is one of those times where I'm like, who was the first one to think, you know what I bet would be good? This year. Stay with me here. That was a little. That was a little. That was a a moment we're hit his balls. It smells so good.

No other natural substance in the world has such a complex aroma. It is usually described as animalistic or earthy or woody or very, you know, naturey. And throughout history, other animals have been used for musk as well. So like musk rats, right? The name is funnier now. And also musk ducks. musk ducks musk ducks

but of course obtaining natural musk is very expensive and also not very nice yeah well I was just going to say nowadays musk trading is heavily regulated and also illegal

in some parts of the world because it's basically poaching so I mean there must be like synthetics now right yeah so so white musk is a synthetic compound that is used now and you know I think I prefer

the chemical substance more so than the real actual Have you smelled the real stuff, though? No. I'm curious. I'm curious. I'm kind of curious.

I'm kind of curious. Yeah. Let's not do it ourselves. How about that? I believe we find someone else. Can we your intrepid spirit? We have some Kickstarter fun. I know.

I know a good dear guy. That's kickstart finding musk. Some musk. So another ingredient is called Hiracium. And it's also known as Africa's stone. And Hiracium is the fossilized P and P. and poo of the rock hyrax and rock hyrax is a very very cute animal that lives in southern africa and it looks kind of like a you know a capybara yeah yeah like a giant rat in a fat

corgi body that's what it looks all they're really short legs and they're kind of fat um and they're very cute so hyrassium is harvested from the ground because they're just pee and poo on the ground and then you can go dig it up so this actually doesn't harm the animal at all right you don't have to cut off anything or no Emotionally, if they seem to do it, they're going to be a little messed up. They'd be like, wait a minute. And the smell is described as being very complex and animalistic, heady and smoky, kind of like musk and tobacco.

Funnily enough, some of these other traditionally used perfume ingredients kind of read like a good job brain, greatest hits of animal cameos. There you go. Ambergris. I've talked about ambergris before, which is the fatty intestinal secretion from sperm whales. They're lipid and they look gross. And great on toast. Yes, very buttery, very fatty.

Very rare and hard to find because they float in oceans. And it takes them, God, years and years for it to oxidize and actually reach to a state where you actually want to use it. And, of course, the civet. Do we remember? Oh, yeah. The coffee, the coffee beans. Yeah, yeah.

The world's most expensive coffee is made by having these civets, like these raccoon animals, eat the coffee berries and then poop it out. So it turns out the civet, also has glands in their nether region that used to be harvested for musky smell. Wow, that was like a Swiss army knife of animals. And finally, of course, here we are again, the beaver. This noble and humble creature shows up yet again for its famed genitals. Kestorian, the substance from the beaver's caster sacks in its butt.

area was also quite the popular ingredient in perfumes. So ice cream and perfume. Everything. It's just, it's strange that, like, I'm reading this. I was like, wait a minute. I've talked about all of these animals before. It's like some sort of, like, weird, reverse, I mean, animal alchemy where only just the most foul substances can be turned into these great smelling things.

These useful things that people enjoy eating and or putting on their body. You know, but I want to say, like, sure, I'm always talking about. gross stuff. But I think in this case, it isn't really an accident that all of these perfume ingredients come from sprays or secretions from animals. I mean, smell has always been heavily

intertwined with like hormones and mating and animal and ritual behavior. So it's not like, oh, I'm just taking raw pee or poo from Pyrax. It has to oxidize. Well, it also makes sense that these are all things that have, that are really concentrated, you know, so like a little

can be made into a tincture and go a long way. Yep, and very complex in terms of, like, the chemical structure, right, with all these different things going on. Organic chemistry behind all of these things is just so complex. And, of course, you know, so is the sense of smell. So, yeah, there we go. Greatest hits list. Our favorite animals. Our favorite animals together.

So I have a quiz. It's about celebrity perfumes. Oh. It comes up in trivia for us from time to time. Actually, it does. And we never know to notice what the names are. All right. Well, it seems like there are more and more of these these days, too.

Get ready. Oh, okay. Let's do this. It's going to be embarrassing. It won't be. I put some clues in the questions for you guys. Okay. What singing husband-wife duo released a perfume called Soul to Soul?

Singing husband-wife duo. I can't Tina Turner. No. There's got to be more recent. I can't be like sunny and shit. You want to hit? You want to hit? Oh, whoa.

She got it. Let's see. Tim McGrath? Yes. And Faith Hill. Yes. Yes. Wow.

So is it like a his and hers, like a cologne and a perfume? Yes. What rapper and TV personality released Pink Friday, a fragrance that contains sense of Wazenberry, lotus, Italian, Mandarin, starfruit, and vanilla. Is it Nikki Minaj? It is. Oh, what is it called? Pink Friday. Pink Friday.

Oh. What pop star released six perfumes, including glow, still, de Seo, Love, Glamour, and Someday Jennifer Lopez Yes. Oh my God. She has six perfumes. She did six. Take a smell. I think other than Elizabeth Taylor, I mean, Jennifer Lopez kind of revived current celebrity scent trend. What hip-hop mogul released

Unforgivable, a clone that features Sicilian lemon, Virginat, and Champagne. Is that Sean Combe slash P. Diddy? Slash Puffet, what was it, Unforgivable? Unforgivable, which I think is the most hilarious name for a smell. You smell unforgivable. What Socialite released eight perfumes, including ERIS, Ferry Dust, and Siren. Paris Hilton.

Yes. What Popstar released two fragrances, including Meow and Pur. Oh. And you might get this if you also know the name of her cat. And I want to know the name of her cat. Katie Perry. Yeah. Oh, we had this.

I know her cat's name. Isn't her cat's name Kitty Perry? Yes. Why do you know that? I don't know why I know. I'm so proud. I wish I could use those brain cells for something else. This American Idol winner released a fragrance called Because of You, which is interesting

because another American Idol winner had that as a hit song. Bobice. No. American Idol. So, she released a perfume. Oh, it's a she. I'll give you a hit. Jordan Sparks.

Yes. Oh. Kelly Clarkson released a song also called Because of you. What Pop Star has a whopping 11 perfumes, including believe, curious heart, and circus fantasy. And if you're curious what a circus fantasy smells like, it's raspberry, apricot blossom, peony, lotus, orchid, vanilla, musk, and candy. That's a circus fantasy. Britney Spears. It's Britney Spears.

What does smell like popcorn? That's what I thought, like, crying children, clowns. This is her circus fantasy. Elephant poop. Just fruit and candy. Hey. Yeah, it does smell like poo. Despair.

What actress who was recently portrayed by Lindsay Lohan had released her signature perfume in 1991, the actress's name and the name of her perfume? Oh, okay. So it was... It was Elizabeth Taylor, and was it Violet? Violets? No. White diamonds.

Yes. White diamonds. White diamonds. Let's take a quick break. A word from our sponsors. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at

IKEA.ca.com. No frills, delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. Welcome back to Good Job Brain. Let's jump back into some nose-knob. Talking about perfumes, a good example, that smells are obviously big business. And another area where smells were worked into business plans was in the movies. Of course. You know, we've talked in the past about a lot of the gimmicks sort of came along in the 50s, 60s. We talked about 3D.

We've talked about Cinerama. One of my personal favorites and just most absurd is introduction of smells and movies. There are really sort of the two biggest names in this world were smello vision and aromarama. When you watch cooking shows, they're like, oh, don't you wish you have smell of vision? I was like, oh, ha, ha. Yes, yes, exactly. Emerald, you know, talks. That was actually a thing.

I always thought that it was just sort of one of these really gimmicky theater tricks, but it does sort of have a little bit more of a dignified history the more I looked into it. Some theaters, even as far back as the 20s, 30s, 40s would sort of take it upon themselves to introduce aromas into performances sometimes, you know, so you might have perfume or an outdoorsy scent for a lavish production. But this was really low-tech and kind of done in a sort of ham-fisted way. And one of the biggest problems was you'd bring perfume in a theater, and then it can take hours for the smell to clear, you know. I read that Walt Disney apparently toyed with the idea of having scents as part of Fantasia.

You know, so this obviously was really before the Donna TV even. And you can see, like, you know, just him trying to think, all right, how can I make this just the most amazing multi-sensory experience possible? I guess he eventually abandoned it. It was just too complicated. So, in 1960, there was a film release called Scent of Mystery. Really laid it on. Yes, exactly.

And this was the first thing. So this was high concept. And so, scent of mystery has the distinction of being the first and last movie to be produced with the smell ovation process. There's a producer named Mike Todd Jr. and he sort of hit on the idea of bringing in the novelty of odors into movies. So he basically adopted a process that had already existed called CentoVision, and he renamed it SmeloVision. You can see, just the great crazy leap he was taking here.

So he renamed it SmeloVision and developed a movie around it to sort of show off this technology. No, which I think is the way to do it. It's like a tech demo. So the process is pretty amazing. So imagine like a belt, sort of a loop belt that has little container. of vials of perfumes on them and various odors, and they're really concentrated. And so what the technology did is there were cues on the film, and when you would reach certain points in the movie, it would trigger the capsule be pierced, and it would pipe the aroma

through fan-powered vents under each person's seat. Oh, so it's kind of automated. It was automated. And it was synced to the movie. Right, exactly, like the sound. And they used them to sort of cue elements of the story. So, as I say, it was called scent of mystery. And it was kind of a tongue-in-cheek, sort of comedy mystery caper.

The villain might have the smell of tobacco associated with him, or the femme fatal, you smell her perfume. And I guess just using them to sort of, as you're watching, trying to figure out clues to the mystery that's unraveling before you. That's kind of interesting, actually. That could be a fun game. Yeah, like a whodunit. Yeah. You're just smelling. And those are clues.

Right, right, right, exactly. So as you're watching it, it's another element that isn't shown on screen. They had 30 different scents in the movie, you know, everything from roses to bread to wine, train smoke, all these kind of things. What did the people say about scent of mystery? Do they like it even though? So it's funny. There is an article, a review from Variety at the time that I was reading about. They said there were a few problems.

It was sort of hard to control the spread. Like they said, some people who were up in the balconies, maybe not near one of the vents, they wouldn't catch the odor until a few seconds after it had passed on screen. The biggest problem, honestly, was it was outrageously. expensive to retrofit a theater for this whole system, you know, up to hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. And to plan and produce all these little capsules and these belts to sync with the movie. Yeah, and to have them feel natural. You know, people said that some of the scents were a lot more believable than others and

some just smelled fake. As you know, you said, you can't always get everything perfectly. And so a cult director, John Waters, you know, who's done films like hairspray and others, when he came out with his film polyester in 1982, he wanted to sort of bring back some of this idea. And he did it in a clever way. So he invented what he called odorama, which was basically a set of scratch and sniff cards that they would hand out to you as you were going into the theater. And they were numbered. And that would cue until what was going on in the movie. And they've had some similar experiments over the years. It's just hard to have it be

believable. The best example of smelling experiences probably, there's a Disney ride called soaring over California or just soaring. On the ride, you're pretending you're on a hand glider and you're gliding through the different landscapes of California. And so, of course, when you're in the forest, it smells like the forest. And when you're at, like, the orange groves, it smells like orange. And the context is you're flying around and there's wind against your face and you can smell, you know, the wind. But it's not, I'm not just sitting there.

Right. You're like, oh, I smell bread. And they can also cover it a little bit more with the wind. It doesn't seem so weird that's blowing at you. And actually, so the Disney Imagineer, who came up with the idea at Disney of having sense on rides very quickly. after that, actually left Disney, found scent air, which is the big dog in the big business of pumping artificial scents into places to make you feel certain things.

So I got to tell you, Smelovision may have been a catastrophic failure, but believe you me, taking synthetic smells and pumping them through vents, you are being hit with this every day whether you know it or not, and it is big, big business and a big deal. Like Fabriz? No, no, no, I mean like the action. actual sense of things in retail stores. You might be thinking you're smelling the products. Like you might be in a clothing store and smelling, oh, oh, such fresh, clean clothing.

No, it's the scent of crisp linens that's being pumped through the air vents in the store to make you smell that and make you feel like, oh, I love the scent of clean clothing. They're faking it. And importantly, it's not just about, let's just take a nice, scent and put a nice scent in the air. One study I read, again, showed that they would take Christmas scents and put it into a store. If they were also playing Christmas music, people had a positive reaction to the same.

They're just manipulating people. Right. But if there was no Christmas music, then the scent wasn't tied to anything, and people found it cloying or annoying and actually disliked it. It's funny. So the scent has got to be connected to something. Like what you were saying before, because you make that association when you first smell something. And it has nothing to attach to, you're like, wait, this doesn't make sense.

Why is this smell in here? So the business that has long understood this, even if they really didn't quite nail it down, were real estate agents. Right. Because you would have cookies baking in a home. Yeah, I've always heard that trick of like you put the cookies in the oven. Yeah. Or you have a pie cooling on the windowsill or whatever. But, yeah, you put the cookies in the oven.

And so when people come into the home, they smell the fresh aroma of baking cookies throughout the home. And that makes them feel very nostalgic. And they want to spend a bunch of money to buy this homey, you know, because what are they in the market for? Man, people are dumb. Well, I mean, again, you don't even think about it. And so, again, they've moved on from, you can't just, like, buy cookies every time you show a home. Right. So now they just sent the home.

That cookie spray. So another example. So cynical. So when you go into Hard Rock Hotel in Orlando, Florida, there is actually an ice cream and cookie shop in the lobby of the hotel, or it's actually down a flight of stairs. So as soon as you come in, you are hit with the smell of the warm, fresh baking cookies. If you go down the stairs towards the bottom of the stairs, you start smelling waffle cones. And then you're in front of the ice cream and cookie shop. Those scents are fake.

They're not from the shop. They're not from the shop. It's not, they are not baking cookies and even pumping the baking cookies sent up into the lobby. It's just fake synthetic baking cookie smell. So they always have a baseline smell. Yes, and they call this specific thing an aroma billboard. They are advertising an actual product that you can actually buy by putting the scent of the product into the air. Also, if you go into the lobby of this hotel, it's ocean scent.

So that's not the ocean, the Florida ocean, that you're smelling in the lobby. It's fake ocean, even though the ocean is right up the door. They call it. What a world we live in. Yeah. This is, so cynical. Another fascinating example. So Bloomingdale's, in a big Bloomingdale's department store, depending on where you are in the store,

they will put different smells in there. If you are in the infant department, baby powder. Yes. That's not because there's all the babies in there. It's fake smell of baby powder. in the infant department. If you go into the intimate apparel department, it's lilac.

If you go into the swimsuit department, what does it smell like? Fluorine. No. Good guess. The beach. The ocean. Coconut.

Also, the scent they use in Mandalay Bay Casino. They just pump coconut smell throughout the whole thing. Some will go even further. They will create their own signature scent. So when you go into Hugo Boss, you smell this sort of like a woody, kind of outdoorsy, cedary kind of smell.

That is the Hugo Boss signature scent that was created for them by this company, scent air, and they will work with you. You pay them a whole lot of money, and then they will actually create a scent that smells like nothing else. So what happens? People associate that particular smell

only with Hugo Boss. Singapore Airlines created a signature scent. When you get a hot towel on Singapore Airlines, it is scented with a smell that you only smell on a Singapore Airlines aircraft. Now that this is in my mind, in my head now, I'm going to every store and smell and see if, you know, what does the Apple store smell?

Maybe they put a fake set in there and just smells like clean products. It smells like nerds. And it gets you to do. So there's still a lot of studying to be done on this, but apparently this is where it gets really, really weird. When people smell the smell of Apple, it makes them think the room they're in

is larger than it really is. What? Conversely, when people smell barbecue smoke, they perceive the room as being smaller. Interesting. This is Jen and Jenny from Ancient History Fan Girl,

and we're here to tell you about Jenny's scorching historical romantasy based on Alarica of the Biscogh's enemy of my dreams. Amanda Boucher, best-selling author of The Kingmaker Chronicle, says, quote, this book has everything, high stakes action, grit, ferocity, and blazing passion.

Julia and Alaric are colliding storms against a backdrop of the brutal dangers of ancient Rome. They'll do anything to carve their peace out of this treacherous world and not just survive, but rule. Enemy of my dreams is available wherever books are sold. Man, well, we talk about smelling a lot of things. I want to talk about the lack of smelling, which is anosmia, the inability to perceive odors. And some people are born without the sense of smell. Or it can be caused by trauma or an accident or a virus or anything that might kill your nerves, basically. We've talked about having scents connected with memories.

A lot of people who suffer anosmia at the midpoints of their life, where they used to be able to smell. Like from a trauma or something. Yeah, they actually get really depressed. Because a lot of the things that they associate with, they can't experience anymore. But the main thing is eating or tasting foods is just completely different. And, you know, when we talk about taste, a lot of what we think the taste of food is is from smell. Because really our tongues can only perceive taste, like six sensations, right? It was like salty, sweet, bitter, umami or whatnot.

You know, you're chewing it on a steak and you're like, well, it's salty. and that's it. Yeah, and it's also, I mean, again, you know, we go back to, like, evolutionary reasons why smell is so impactful, so immediately. When you have an osmia, you have to make absolutely sure all the time to write the expiration dates down on every piece of food by the end of the house. You don't know. You have no idea. Got to make absolutely sure that you don't eat rotten food because the smell is what prevents you from eating rotten food.

That's it. Well, it's the double hit, too. You can't smell it before you put it in your mouth, and it interferes your ability to They'll taste it afterward, yeah, yeah. And, of course, it's kind of dangerous because you can't smell rotten food, but you can't smell if you have a fire in your house. Or a gas leak. I mean, they add the odorant to gas specifically for that reason. And here I have a list of famous anasmic individuals that you probably didn't know.

And this one blew my mind. Ben Cohen, Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry's ice cream has anosmia while they were setting up Ben and Jerry's ice cream back in Vermont, he already had anosmia. It led to their distinctive style of ice cream formulas, because to compensate for Ben Cohen's anosmia, they added, you know, larger chunks of things to their ice cream to compensate but to satisfy, yeah, the texture of food. So it works on multiple levels, right, yeah, multiple sensory inputs. So is that weird?

That's really fascinating. One of the grandfathers of modern day ice cream cannot smell nor taste, to a degree. And also actor Cynthia Nixon from Sex and the City. Bill Pullman, a lone star from Space Balls or ID4, also cannot smell. And this I just confirmed this morning, Scott Kurtz, if you're a video game nerd and read webcomic, very famous. He wrote PVP. He actually was born with anosmia. Interesting.

Yeah. So there we go. That is our very nose-heavy episode. That was some good. Smelly facts. Amazing stuff in there. And Colin, you have a last question. quiz segment for us? I do indeed. We're going to go a little highbrow. This is a literature

quiz. I'm going to read for you guys first lines of famous novels. And I'll even give you a little bit of an extra clue here. Every novel I read is going to be either a sci-fi dystopic future novel or a period romantic novel with strong female characters. Guess which one's which? Is this Netflix or something? It is Netflix. Based on your preference. All right. So I'm going to read the first line. tell me the novel. It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking 13. Chris. That is 1984.

By George Orwell. Very famous romantic novel. Here we go. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. I think that's Karen. Pride and Prejudice. Yes, correct. By Jane Austen.

Here we go, next one. The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. Oh, Karen. Neuromancer, William Gibson. Correct, correct. Next one. Happy families are all alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

I know. Is it... It's Dostoevsky. You're close. You're in the right. You're in the right genital, yes, yes. What is it? Erin Caramina.

Anna by Tolstoy, yes. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. That's a great one. All right, here we go. Next one. It was a pleasure to burn. Karen. Fahrenheit 451, Lady Bradbury.

Yes, correct and correct. Here we go. Next one. Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents, Grumbled Joe, lying on the rug. Karen again. Little women? Indeed, little women by Louisa May Alcott.

Look, you'd jump the gun. We did. I believe that you knew that one, too, Chris. Yeah. Here we go. Getting a little trickier with these last couple here. All this happened, more or less. Oh, God.

Karen. A clockwork orange? No. Karen. In Lissies, James Joyce? No, no. It's about a character unstuck in time. Oh.

Chris. Slaughterhouse five. Correct. Slaughterhouse five. That's right. Kurt Vonnegut. All right. Last one.

Here we go. 1801. I have just returned from a visit to my landlord, the solitary neighbor that I shall be troubled with. Karen. Jane Eyre. Close. Weathering Heights. Yes.

Close familiarly. Yes. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Well, good job, guys. Wow. But you guys knocked that one out, especially Karen. Yeah, indeed. All right.

Well, well, well, well done. That was my half-sci-fi dystopic. You are, Karen. You're great. That's very specific. All right, great. And that was our show. Thank you guys for joining me.

And thank you guys, listeners, for listening in. Hope you learn a lot about smells and manipulation, which is insane. Smelly in theater, celebrity fragrances, and, of course, animal secretions. Very important to me. You can find us on Zoom Marketplace, on iTunes. on Stitcher and also on our website good job, brain.com, and check out our sponsors at bonobos.com

and we'll see you guys next week. Bye. Bye. Peace. comes the Minute Earth podcast. Every episode of the show dives deep into a science question you might not even know you had, but once you hear the answer, you'll want to share it with everyone you know. Why do Rivers curve?

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