Good Job, Brain! - 49: LOL

Episode Date: February 12, 2013

Prepare to get your funnybone/ulner nerve tickled! We take a closer look at the things that make us laugh: the rich surprise history of "That's What She Said" jokes, the invention of the Laugh Track, how MAD magazine came to be, comedy duos, and what actually makes hyenas laugh so much. ALSO: Wachamacallit Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Welcome, Tootty-Fruity but never snooty beauties and cutities, possibly from Djibouti. This is good job, Brain. Your weekly quiz show and off-beet trivia podcast. Today's show is episode 49. And, of course, I'm your humble host, Karen. And we are your procession of proactive, prolific pros, providing pros about prostate. What?

Sometimes. I'm Colin. I'm Dana. And I'm Chris. And today's episode is brought to you by Bonobos, the online destination for awesome men's wear. And fellas, if you're like our own Chris Coulor, who's planning on getting married this year, Bonobos just recently unveiled their wedding shop. So affordable, sharp, and versatile suit options for your big day and beyond. Yeah.

I can't wait until Bonobos tells us who you're going to be marrying. Good job, brain listeners and customers can get 20% off using the code smarty pants. Or you can actually work it into your wedding vows if you want. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you know, like, Regina, I'm crazy for you. Just like you'd be crazy not to take advantage of this deal at Bonobos. Baby, I just want to say You saved me

Just like you can save 20% on fashionable menswear At Bonobos See me at the reception for more Please don't Alright, let's jump into our general Trivia segment Pop Quiz Hot Shot

I got a random Trivial Pursuit card And you guys have your Barnyard Buzzers ready Here we go Blue Wedge for Geography What snack is called a Cachoro Quente in Portugal and a Pareto Caliente in Spain? A hot dog.

Oh, goodness. Good job, yeah. All right, Pink Wedge for pop culture. What athlete smooched with Enrique Iglesias in his escape video? Dana again. Anna Kornikova? Anna Kornikova. And not just smooch.

It's a pretty heavy makeout session. Yeah. Well, that was one of the things they did. That was all they could show in the video. It was on a list. They're going to do it. All right, yellow wedge. What European Auto Company was the first to equip its cars with standard seatbelts in 1959?

Oh, this is a good trivia question. I'm going to guess Mercedes. Incorrect. I have a second guess. Not German, actually. Yeah, I was like, yes. Chris? Ferrari.

Incorrect. Is it Volvo? Yes, it is Volvo. Those are kind of like the one and two in terms of car safety innovations, I think. Greenwich for science. What's the three-letter abbreviation for glutamic acid separated from its protein source? Colin. Is it MSG?

Yes, it is MSG. Monosodium glutamate. Yep. All right. Last question. an orange wedge, what was the first team in NBA history to go through the playoffs without a road loss? Without a road loss.

Get it before Colin. The Bulls. Yeah, that's probably. It is not the Bulls. The L.A. Lakers? Correct. Lakers' Bulls are Celtics. It's going to be one of those.

Los Angeles Lakers. Good job. Brains. So this week, we'll be talking about something we all love to do, which is laugh. Make them laugh. Don't you know? Oh, everyone wants to laugh. Ah, ha!

My dad said be an actor, my son. But be a comical one. They'll be standing in lines for those old hunky-talk monkey shines. You could study Shakespeare and be quite elite. And you could charm the critics and have nothing to eat. Just slip on a banana feel the world at your feet. Make them laugh, make them laugh, make them laugh. All right. Well, talking about humor and comedy, at least in the U.S., so much of comedy has its roots in vaudeville. It's hard to describe just what a phenomenon vaudeville was at the time.

I'm not even too sure what vaudeville is. Is it theater? Yeah, I mean, you may have, well, I know it's sort of old-timey theater, right? Yeah, you imagine like two guys up on stage, like throwing pies in each other's faces. And you would absolutely see those things in a vaudeville performance, right? A lot of hacky humor and a lot of physical comedy was part of it. But yeah, so vaudeville, it refers to. to the theater performances, a lot of which were touring performances, from about the 1880s until the 1930s in America. And it was like clean. It was like the whole goal of it was clean, family friendly, just middle class, not crass and crude or overtly sexual or dirty or anything like that. But the term itself sounds French, right? Vaud de view. So I want to talk just a little bit about some of the vaudeville terms. There's a little debate about where the word itself comes from, but it definitely is French.

Some people say it comes from vaudevier, a style of satire songs. Some people say it may come from voir de vie, voice of the city or songs of the city. The vaudeville style had a very specific meaning in France and Europe and has really no connection to its meaning in America.

So the first use of vaudeville in America, this, you know, we can agree on, goes back to 1871. And so one of the touring companies was Sargent's great vaudeville company of Kentucky. It generally seems to be that he really kind of just picked the name because it sounds fancy and sort of upper class and a little more refined than the saloon style humor. So it just sort of lent a little bit of air of refinement to it.

Now, that said, there was what we would call a lot of lowbrow humor in it today. You know, just slapstick humor and fighting and pies in the face. But it wasn't just comedy. I mean, it would be like a variety act. There were singers and dancers and jugglers. It was like theater for the common man essentially, right? Like it wasn't super high bra, it was an opera, you know. It wasn't highbrow, but it wasn't lowbrow.

It was definitely just middle class, middle brow. They would come through, you know. It was like sitcoms. It was like having to go to a theater to watch a sitcom. Yeah, yeah. And it was, you know, or like any of these numerous variety shows on TV that we have now. So I'm imagining kind of like Saturday Night Live, but on tour. You know, it's less like Saturday Night Live.

It's more like, you know, America's Got Talent or I think there's the Britain's got talent as well, where it's about the variety. You know, you really would have comedy act right up against a juggler, right up against me, you know, some drama or some melodrama. But they would have skits, you know, and they would have stock character types that you would see from different shows. Even though it was all about variety, I think it says a lot that when you look at the most famous names to come out of vaudeville, they're almost all comedians now, like the Marks Brothers and the Three Stooges and Milton Burrell and George Burns, Burns and Allen, you know, Bob Hope, WC Fields.

I mean, on and on and on, all these like classics that we associate with like film and TV now, they really got their start in vaudeville. So there's a lot of, awesome terminology that comes out of the vaudeville era. So I just want to sort of focus on this for a little bit. Even if they didn't originate directly in vaudeville, this is really where they got their prominence. Yeah, yeah, at least in America. And some of these I think we've talked about on the show before. So you guys know what a Pratt fall is, right? We've talked about the Pratt fall before. Right. Yeah. The butt. Pratt was just a word for butt. So Pratfall is, you fall on your butt. That would be, again, just a staple of vaudeville comedy performance.

Because it's got to be big and broad and it's got to, you know, play to the back of the house. And it's short. Slapstick. The term slapstick directly comes from American vaudeville. And do you guys know what a slap stick is? Is it a stick you slap someone with? Oh, oh. Is it like a sound effect if you're hitting someone and some dude will slap a couple sticks so it sounds like fighting? Wow, that is awesome. You guys together, you nailed it. Yeah. Yeah. It is, I mean, in its simplest term, it's just like two big flat sticks. They're kind of fastened together. So when you smack it, it makes a big just smack. sound. But in addition to just being used to hit people, it got a lot of use as an offstage sound effect. As you said, Karen, so like somebody would do a pratfall and somebody off on the side of stage would whack the slapstick. So it really kind of just accentuates and hits the note.

You guys know what a ham is? You talk about someone being a ham. Yeah, like an overactor. Yeah, like an overactor or, you know, a really bad actor. And everyone can agree that it comes from the word a ham fatter. That guy is such a ham fatter. And it has the same connotation it does today like he's a hack or he's kind of just overdoing it kind of cheesy so there are two explanations for ham fatter and one explanation now again the more dubious they are the less likely they are so the first explanation i read for ham and oh ham comes from ham fatter because the lower tier actors couldn't afford cold cream so they had to use ham fat to remove their stage makeup that's weird yeah it's a little weird so i looked into this a little a little more it seems a lot

more likely that there was an old minstrel show song called the ham fat man and the speculation is that it may kind of just come to be associated with like if you're someone saying in the ham fat man it's kind of a hacky thing to do that seems to be a lot more likely to me since it predates than the spread pork fat all over their face well soap is made out of fat though yeah I bet it does I bet it I bet it works I bet it would work pretty well when we talk about comedians doing blue material you guys know what that means right yeah no Ronchy yeah I've never heard We don't work blue on good job, right? Yeah, we get the explicit tag.

I've never heard of this expression before. Yeah, yeah, you're working a little blue. Yeah, it's, you know, either just outright cursing or sex jokes or, you know, just toilet humor. Well, so it's a really good question. So, we've talked before on the show, I think, about blue laws. And there is, there is an old term blue laws, really, you know, about vice laws or public decency. Public decency laws, yeah, exactly. And there is an explanation like, oh, they used to be printed on blue tinted paper.

And that's, they're really, there really. really is no evidence for that. What there is, though, is there evidence that in the days of vaudeville, and we know this for a fact from memoirs of vaudeville actors and actresses, that if they would perform and cross the line, they would receive blue envelopes, basically scolding them and or finding them. You know, the whole goal of vaudeville was clean, family-friendly, and if you cross the line and started working a little too ribald or raunchy or sexy, you would essentially get a blue envelope, and inside would be your punishment for whatever your transgression was. That's like a sister of pink slip, you know, the idea of the pink slip.

All right. And then finally, the last, you know, we talk about in showbiz in general, it's like, all right, made it, made the big time. That's, I always just assumed it's like, okay, just metaphorical. It makes total sense. Like, big time actually had a very specific meaning in vaudeville. If you were on the vaudeville circuit, you would talk about there were the three tiers. There was the small time, which is you've got the lowest contract you can get and you've

got to play a lot more shows and not the most attractive theaters. There was the medium time, which is, you know, a little bit better wages, no more than a couple performances a day. And then there's the big time, which is the maximum possible pay level in the biggest theaters, like, you know, in New York or Boston. Like, that's the big time. And it had a very specific meaning that has kind of just carried through the rest of showbiz. And I... It's like headlining. Yeah. Or prime time. Yeah. And I didn't know that it had that direct route in vaudeville. Yeah. So not just the comedy styling itself, but a lot of the language comes from the era of vaudeville. That's cool. So my sense of humor started with Mad Magazine.

Yeah. I found... We're at a flea market when I was like, I don't know, I must have been like six or seven years old. I saw mad magazines, and I thought that they were like dirty humor magazines. You know what I mean? Like, I shouldn't be reading them because they were like adult. I started reading them, obviously. My dad came up. Abusted.

Caught reading these adult magazines. And my dad was like, oh, do you want me to buy you those? And I'm just like, I won't tell mom if you don't. I know, yeah, exactly. And, I mean, then I realized that they were appropriate for me. They were really cynical and they were really funny. and what Mad Magazine was black and white newsprint comedy magazine that was by and large it was illustrations it was an illustrated cartoon magazine each issue back in the day would be bookended by

like movie parodies so they do like these these really lengthy you know five to six page parodies of popular movies and then just fill it in with everything under the sun you know whether it was like funny poetry with illustrations it was a parody satire magazine that satirized the world around us. And so the history of Mad Magazine or the way that Mad Magazine came to be is really fascinating. I'm going to start us off with Max Gaines. Max Gaines, he was a salesperson at a printing company in the 1920s, 1930s. Whoa, that long ago? Yeah, yeah. But Max Gaines was one of the guys at this printing company who essentially they created the first American comic book. There had been some people who had taken newspaper comics and, like, reprinted them into what today you would

point to on a half-sheet newsprint, folded over, stapled with a color cover, the size and dimensions of what we would consider an American comic book, but they would put this in the newspaper. Essentially, what gains and other people at this printing company had done was they realized, oh, man, we can take material and print it up like this in this format and actually sell it. And so they had created famous funnies, a carnival of comics, which is considered to be the first American comic book that was sold by itself as that product. And it's not based on any existing franchise at all. It was, it was. It actually reprinted popular newsprint comic strips and things like that. But the key point here was that they were selling it by itself, not just

including it for free with a newspaper. And Max Gaines founded EC Comics. Or early on, I think it was educational comics and then it was entertaining comics and what EC Comics by the 1950s was very very popular for doing is EC Comics did Tales from the Crip and all of those great old classic horror comics the really pulpy horror ones that were super popular and hated by religious groups and eventually the government so the government basically you know had kind of started looking at comic books as like potentially corrupting children which is why they established the Comics Code Authority, which was actually overseen by a judge. Like, it was this really kind of weird quasi-governmental, not really organization.

And a lot of the major comics companies, they lined up behind it. And they were like, oh, we're going to clean up our act. We're not going to sell horror and gore and grotesque sort of things to kids. Well, I mean, they were kind of cowed into it. I mean, they were bullied into it. Yeah. It wasn't that they necessarily believed in the mission, but they didn't want sort of puritanical rights police.

Yeah. What a different world back then. Yeah. But what ended up happening is this basically killed E.C. comics because the other comic publishers were like, okay, fine, you win. We'll sanitize everything. We'll do superheroes. But E.C. didn't want to do that. E.C. ended up getting out of comics. So one of the other comics that E.C. was producing in the 50s was mad. It was a humor comic. And it was, at that point, it was parodies of comics. Right. And so they did like. So meta. Right. So they did like Bat Boy and Rubin and, you know, things of that nature. you know. I mean, it's really funny if you go back and read those old ones. They eventually stopped producing comics altogether. And what they did with Mad, it was a win-win situation because the editor of Mad,

Harvey Kurtzman, he's the guy who kind of created and wrote most of the first issue. By 23 issues of it, he had a job offer to go work at a humor magazine and he wanted to. So they said, no, no, no, stay here. We'll change Mad to a magazine so you can do a humor magazine because that's what he really wanted to do. Wow. Yeah. And also, Mad then escaped. the Comics Code Authority because it wasn't a comic anymore. It was a magazine. When again, it's so arbitrary. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And so obviously, I mean, Mad Number 1 is worth a great

deal of money and so is Mad Number 24, the first, you know, magazine. That is essentially the origin story of how Mad Magazine came into existence. A giant loophole. Yeah, yeah. Well, not loophole, a loophole and an odd set of circumstances. I remember, like, reading about comics history and a lot of the early comics guys, they really talk about Gaines and Kurtzman about being heroes for not giving in, they really still talk about them as like, wow, I mean, these guys stood up and they weren't going to be sort of pushed around. So by the time it was the Comics Code Authority issue, we're talking about Max's son, Bill Gaines, William Gaines, who really was sort of the driving.

Yeah, and he was the publisher. The memories are like flooding back in. Now I'm starting to remember all of this stuff from Mad Magazine. I love the back cover, folding the back cover. Yes. The fold ins. Yeah, the fold ins. Yeah, speaking about the fold ins, that's done by Al Jaffey, who.

has been writing for Mads since 1955. Amazing. He created the fold-in in 64, and it has run in nearly every single issue of the magazine, always done by him since then. He's 91 now.

That's incredible. Last I heard, it's still working. I mean, not to curse him, but I feel like his tombstone should be a folding. Oh, that's brilliant. He's probably always sketched it. Yeah, that's brilliant.

The story he tells is that he went to Bill Gaines and was just like, yeah, I've got this, I've got this idea, but the problem is it mutilates the magazine. He's like, what do you mean? He's like, well, you know, you showed him, you know, you fold the picture. So the fold in, we should explain because a lot of younger people don't read Mad Magazine anymore. Basically, it was a picture, a drawn picture on the back page that presents a question. And then when you fold the picture upon itself, it's a different picture that the left and right hand

sides meet to show a totally different image. And it's really cool. So anyway, he went to him and it's like, well, it's going to ruin the magazine. So he explained what a fold in. was, as the story goes, Bill Gaines was like, this is perfect. I love it to buy two copies of the magazine, one to save and one to fold. Here's the thing about Al Jaffe. The folding thing might not be the most interesting thing about him because, well, a lot of people

point out about him, because he did a lot of other features for the magazine. He did snappy answers to stupid questions. He also did a series about products we're going to use in the future, making fun of, you know, the advancement of technology and things like that and like how decadent things are going to get. But in so doing, he actually predicted a whole lot of real products. Yeah. So here's a list of things that appeared first as an Al Jaffe parody in Mad Magazine before becoming real snowboarding. He predicted that people would take surfboards and surf down mountains, having to avoid trees and rocks and people.

Wow. Yeah. He came up with the idea of multi-blade razors. Before there were multi-blade razors sounded really dumb, like, you know, a whole line full of razors that you shaved your face. self-adhesive stamps before there were self-adhesive stamps. For people who were too lazy to lick the stamps. That's right, yes.

He came up with what he called the idiot-proof typewriter, which had a bunch of memory tapes attached to it that contained all of the words in the English language and common grammatical formulations so that when you were typing, it would automatically correct your spelling and your grammar.

I love how, like, his take on all of these is just cynical, whereas opposed to you actually invent them it's like, I'm making humanity better. Right, right, right. Last, not finally, but the last one I have on my list is he came up with the idea for the mute button on television. It was like, wouldn't it be great if you had like a remote control that you could just press one button and it would stop the TV from being so, so noisy. I love it.

That's great. Wow. Yep. Yeah, before I close out on my mad magazine rant, I also did want to point out another long time contributor who was Antonio Prohias who was, he was a famous cartoonist in Cuba pre-Castro. Like, he had gotten a lot of notoriety. in Cuba, but he was not a fan of Castro and left Cuba. And spy versus spy, the story of two spies. Black spy and white spies. Yeah, and they're planting bombs and trying to blow each other up and, you know, things of that nature. That was an anti-Castro cartoon. Just about the futility

of espionage. Yep. So I have a comedy quiz. It's called funny buddies. And so these are famous comedic duos. All of the answers are duos. And I'll ask you for either their names or what group they're in. Oh, I think I have a feeling from one of them. I'll start with the one. I'm going to give you the answer. It is Flight of the Concord. Germain and Brett.

Brett McKenzie and Germain. There we go. The question was, these two are New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based Digi Bongo, Acapella, Rap, Funk, Comedy, Folk Duo. I like that it is fourth most popular. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's out of the way now. Just got to get out of my system. So speaking of Vodvel, this singing duo got their start in a series of road films.

Oh. Road? That's Hope and Crosby. Yes. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. Yes. All the on the road to whatever movies. Oh. Yeah, on the road to Singapore, on the road to Bali.

Yeah. This husband and wife duo starred in the most watched TV show in the U.S. for four of its six seasons. Chris. Oh, is it George Burns and Grace Allen? No. Oh. Lucille Ball and Desirenes? Yes.

Yeah, I love Lucy. This comedy duo starred in a mid-90s HBO sketch show, which featured a number of notable alternative comics, including Sarah Silverman, Jack Black, and Tom Kinney. That's Bob O'Donkirk and David Cross. Yeah, and the show was called Mr. Show. Yeah, Mr. Show with Bob and David. This comedy rock band.

has songs including tribute and the metal. Name the band and the members. That is Tenacious D. Yes. Jack Black and Kyle Gass. Yes, very good. What comedic duo made famous the Who's on First sketch? That is, of course, Abbott and Costello.

Yes. Who's on second? What? I don't know. It's on third. Who's a short stop? I don't give a damn. Yeah.

Wow. You're going to get a blue envelope tomorrow, Christ. All right. So the Wayans family is a sprawling comedic. Oh, man. Yeah, you need, like, note cards to keep track of all the Wayans. So which Wayans brothers start in white chicks? Which ones is that?

That's Sean and Marlin. Yes. Yes. My Wayans trivia is Supreme. Good job. Okay. This duo made its debut as the musical guest on April. April 22nd, 1978 on an episode of Saturday Night Live.

Is it the Blues Brothers? It is the Blues. And who are the Blues Brothers? Dan Aykroyd and John Volusci. Yes. This duo is known for performing folk songs, which usually lead to arguments between the two siblings in the band. Oh. Who are they?

Is that the Smothers Brothers? Oh, of course, yes. And what instruments did they play? Oh, I think it was Dick and Tommy Smothers. I think it was guitar and banjure. Is that right? No. One of them is a banjo, right?

No. Dang. Guitar and... Mandelaide. Nope. Ucalae? Nope. Yo-yo?

Is it the yo-yo? It's the string bass. Oh, like the big bass. Stand-up bass. Yeah. Oh, okay. This duo has written songs including My Wish for Cuba. I've got some apples and all-American profit.

Chris. This is Trey Parker and Matt Stone. It is. That's right. Oh, I got some apples. It's from South Park. Yeah. I got some apples.

Right. Right. Right. Right. It was all American prophet that got it for me, though. Yeah. Oh, Book of Mormon. Yeah. Cool. Good job, you guys. Oh, good.

Hey, Chris. Hey, Karen. Did you get a haircut? No, I got them all cut. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Chris. Oh, man. Well, love it or hate it, the laugh track is indeed a landmark invention in the history of entertainment. Well, specifically TV entertainment. And I know, Colin, you are not.

fan of the laugh track. I would say hate it for me. Yeah. Yeah. There's no love it. It just seems like the laziest device for storytelling. If you need to actually tell people when they're supposed to be laughing. The laugh track is essentially a separate soundtrack that contains pre-recorded laughs or ahs and ooze and oh, you know, that kind of stuff. And it's added in post-production. Like to simulate the live audience. Exactly. And of course, some people like Colin have very negative things to say about shows that use laugh track. you know one being well I don't need the show to tell me what's funny if the writing is good enough and it's funny then I'll naturally laugh some feel like the laughs are too exaggerated or cheesy

or definitely some say that it sounds really fake right and it is it is fake sometimes it's confusing I'm like why are they laughing that's that wasn't very funny I don't get in the 50s when TV comedies became popular there were a couple of issues so TV shows recorded and front of a live audience suffered from inconsistency. You can't control the audience reaction all the time. And so sometimes the audience would laugh way too long. And the people who are performing have to wait until they're done laughing. Or maybe there was kind of like a joke that was kind of a dudge. It just doesn't land. And they just don't really laugh or like it's very sparse. Or maybe it's funny, but like they had to do like six or seven takes because they have having technical

problems. And the audience isn't laughing at the joke anymore. Right. Or of course, there's that one guy who just has like a really loud or annoying laugh. So in the 1950s, a man named Charlie Douglas, who is a sound engineer for CBS, started fixing some of these problems that I just described. He would fade out the long laughs and then he would mute that one guy and he would add more laughs to the dud jokes. And this technique was appropriately called sweetening. Sweetness. Sweetney. Yeah, a little juice.

But again, it would be starting with a show that was in front of an audience, and he's kind of just gooseing it a little bit, right? And now, not all TV shows are recorded in front of a live studio audience. Some TV shows were filmed single camera style, kind of like movies, so there isn't even an audience. It's just the crew and the actors. So what Charlie Douglas did, he would record laughs and or save some of the last from The other shows, he's sweetening, and he started to build like a little library of these audience sounds.

Different types of laughs, different types of like, ah, or oh, or yay, or clapping. Mm-hmm. And he would use his bank of sounds to create a separate soundtrack for the single camera shows. And so this was the first laugh track. He simulated the feeling of a live audience. And this was big business. Huge business. And from the 50s up to the 70s, he was the only dude who did this, who knew how to do it,

who had the bank of sounds. And so almost every show that had a laugh track, he worked on. He had a monopoly on this. So by extension, then, it's safe to assume that you would hear the same laughs at across multiple shows. And he was a really secretive dude. What he did was essentially he built an invention that helped him make the last. laugh track. It's kind of a cross between like a piano or a like a typewriter.

So it's this box and it has different buttons and levers and pedals as he's mixing sounds or providing the making the laugh track, he kind of looks like a one-man band. Got it. So you can sort of semi-randomize it. Yeah. And also you know, maybe some jokes are a little bit more tender and some jokes are like

guffaws. And he knew exactly how to operate this weird machine that he called the laugh box. Painting a soundscape. Yeah. And you're right for 20 years, a lot of the TV shows had the same, not the same laugh track, but definitely the same ingredients, right? The thing is, his laugh box invention used tapes. And after 20 years, these tapes are starting to wear out. Towards the end, you can hear hisses because it's not in perfect condition.

What is then he replaced them? So Charlie Douglas was not a man who liked change. And so during the 70s, the sound technology was kind of advancing. You went from mono to stereo. And, also keep in mind the taste of American comedy was also shifting right you know we're going from the honeymooners to ha ha ha to something you know to comedies that are a little bit more realistic or you know comedy's a little bit more subtle competition finally arose when carol pratt and his brother got into the game and their laugh track was recorded in stereo so already kind of ahead of the game and the laughs the noises were more subdued and more realistic and and the perfect example of this is MASH. So the medical comedy, where does it take place? Korean War, right? I wouldn't

say it's like, it's not dark humor. It's more, it was just more than a, it was not just humor is the thing. It had, you know, anti-war commentary and had heavy issues as well. And drama. Sure. And so it's not like belly laughs and like, har, har, har, har, har, har. A lot of the shows at that time were favoring the Pratt Brothers laugh track over Charlie Douglas's old laugh box. Yeah. I mean, I definitely associate it with, bad 80s sitcoms. But it's funny, as you mentioned, I think about it, yeah, there are some of the shows. I mean, obviously, Mashed throughout and filming outside, there's not going to have a studio audience there. Right, right, right.

There was a distinction, I think, between some of those more believable ones in the 70s. Yeah. I don't like it as a device, but I absolutely know that it is a real psychological phenomenon that you will find things funnier if other people around you are laughing. Yeah. And you will, your reactions are heightened by those around you. So I believe that it has. It's contagious. It is.

It is. It is. And that is a real phenomenon. It would be cool. if they had DVDs of old TV shows and you could take the laugh track out. I didn't like the laugh track on it. It was weird to me.

Like, who are the people watching it with me? You're in the middle of a war zone. You're outside. Of course, now we have a variety of shows that have laugh tracks like Big Bang Theory or how I met your mother. And you have shows that absolutely don't have a laugh track and still work like 30 Rock or The Office.

I mean, the office was kind of lauded as a really good comedy that doesn't use a laugh track to heighten its writing. So next time you watch a show that has a laugh track, just think about how much history and thought was put into it. And there is also, I should say, the third group, too, of shows that are proudly filmed in front of a live studio audience. Oh, yeah. And they'll go out of their way to make sure you know that. And let's take a break, a word from our sponsor.

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. first five orders. Shop now at no-frails.ca. History never says goodbye. It just says, see you later. Edward Galliano was right when he said that. Events keep happening over and over again, in some form. And that's the reason I produced the podcast, My History Can Beat Up Your Politics. What is it? We take it.

stories of history and apply them to the events of today to help you perhaps understand them better. We are also part of Airwave Media Network. I've been doing the program since 2006. That's a long time and the show has a long name. My history can beat up your politics. Find me wherever you get podcasts. So, Karen, speaking of the old sitcom business, one of the things that producers of sitcoms found was a pretty lucrative way to, you know, reduce some of the risk associated with putting on a brand new television show, was to create spin-offs of popular TV shows. And a spinoff is when they take a character that's appeared on one show and build out an entire new sitcom, basically. surround that character. Are there a lot of them?

Oh, yeah. Sometimes it will happen, there are a ton of them. And in fact, you're probably watching spin-offs right now that you don't even know are spin-offs. There are frequently, I won't give any examples because I think I might smell where you're going. But there are somewhere the spin-offs are more famous than the original. You smell a quiz coming up? Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, very true. And in fact, sometimes you have what's called a back-door pilot. So, for example, married with children, had a little-known spinoff called Top of the Heat, which starred Matt LeBlunk. Really? Yeah, from TV's friends. And basically what they did was like in season five of married with children, they did a whole show about Charlie and Vinnie Verducci, who were these two characters, Friends of the Bundys. I remember those.

Yeah. And this was a practically Bundy-less episode of the show. And the idea was they would then take this and use it as the pilot for its own series. That sounds sneaky. Yeah, it is. It's like you say, if you ever see like old shows and syndication and there would be like a whole episode devoted to characters entirely separate, that usually was a backdoor pilot that may or may not have succeeded. That sounds manipulative. So anyway, it's a spin-off quiz time.

Love it. So here we go. Starting with one of the most famous American sitcoms, and you guys can all work together on this, Happy Days was itself a spinoff of an anthology comedy program called Love American Style. Wow. There were five shows that were direct spinoffs of Happy Days. Five. I'm going to give you two.

All right. Okay. Two of them were, one was out of the blue, and the other one was Blanksy's beauties. I remember that. Okay. All right. You're giving us the hard ones. I'm giving the two hard ones. Now there's three left. I can name. Joni Laverne and Shirley. I love this one. This is great trivia. Mork and Mindy was a spin-off of Happy Days.

They had Mork come down like as an alien. Yes, it sounds so bad and so out of the fabric of the show. But yeah. What popular sitcom was spun off of All in the Family? Colin? The most popular was the Jeffersons. Indeed. Yes, it was the Jeffersons. In fact, the, the, The character of Lionel Jefferson, the son, appears in the first episode of all of the family before Archie Bunker is even on screen. The show A Different World was spun off of what sitcom?

I'm going to go with Dana. The Cosby Show. It was spun off of the Cosby Show, yes. Lisa Bonay's character, Denise Huxstable. I was going to ask if you knew which character was. I even know where you went to school. It was Denise Huxstable going off to college. At Hillman.

At Hillman, hanging out with Dwayne Wayne. Where did the Simpsons spin off from? Karen. The Tracy Olman show. Yes, the Simpsons were short, animated shorts on the live action Tracy Olman show. What popular television show was spun off from the popular sitcom Perfect Strangers? Oh, look. Cousin Larry and Cousin Balkie living in Chicago and the show was spun off. It was Steve Urkel.

It's a family. Family matters. Family matters. Good group effort on that. Yes. Carl Winslow, wasn't he the security guard in the newspaper? I think that's right. He worked out of agency.

Standing tall on the wings of my dreams. From what sitcom was Fraser spun off? Karen again? Cheers. Cheers. Yes. So there was a very, very short-lived. I think it was only one episode called Jack A.

Oh. Sorry. 2-27. 227. Oh. Jack-Kay was also in. Ladybugs. T. N. Tamara.

Yeah. Her sister. But her jacket phenomenon. Self-titled. Took a little while to get going. And finally, what sitcom spawned the, again, short-lived spin-off? The Golden Palace, Colin. That was what Golden Girls evolved into.

Yes. Yes. In which all of them, except B. Arthur, ran a hotel. Yes. Of their sort. And jumped sharks. I got a question. for you guys.

All right. Uh, do you guys know who Shenzhi, bonzai, and Ed are? I think only Chris would know. Who are they? They're characters from a movie.

They are, of course, uh, the amazing troupe of, uh, hyena comedians from the Lion King. Yes. Not only are they hyenas, they are specifically spotted hyenas.

And spotted hyenas are very weird animals, very unique, actually. So we all kind of grew up, associating hyenas with laughter. Yeah, laughing hyenas. They're the laughing animals. Kind of both silly and also kind of terrifying because they're aggressive animals. I was never really clear, like, is a laughing hyena a type of hyena or are the spotted

hyena? Uh-huh. They're often called the laughing hyenas because only the spotted hyenas have that laugh. I mean, they're interesting because spotted hyenas are special in the way that they emit about a dozen of distinct. vocalizations and they really have an impressive range you know from like really low bellows to really high-pitched yips you know lots of different sounds for specific functions calling the clan together or signaling anger or danger and zoologists actually have separate names for all of these different sounds and my favorite is called a squitter a squitter is the sound

cubs make when they're hungry and they're ready to be nursed and apparently it's sounds like a awful nails on chalkboard, a screech. So that is called a squitter. Of course, one of the many noises that spotted hyena makes is the laugh or the giggle. And it does kind of sound like a human laughing or giggling or snickering. That would be so freaky to hear that for the first time. It is very freaky, kind of sinister. What do you have planned for me?

But growing up, knowing this, and after watching like the lion came like a bejillion times. Like, I actually really believed, yes, hyenas are so funny. They really just laugh. And, like, they're telling awesome hyena jokes to each other. I want to hang out with those guys. Yeah. Well, obviously,

that is not the case. I mean, I wish. I wish it was true. I wish they were telling each other hyena jokes. The giggling is their way to express frustration. Hmm. Oh. Which is really, like, kind of the opposite. So, especially when there's, like, internal social conflict or especially when they're competing,

for food. Maybe hyena A pulled off a large chunk of flesh and hyena B is like, wait, put that down. I want some too. And he'd start giggling. Oh, nervous laughter. Like awkward nervous laughter. Like, ha ha ha ha, I really want more meat. You can help me. And that's the other thing about hyena speaking of eating meat and stuff. We've also been taught that they're really great scavengers. Right. That's right. Like vultures or carrion birds that kind of like eat whatever animal carcasses are are left. Whatever the lions leave behind. Yeah, exactly.

Like from the movie. Everything I know about nature comes from the lion tank. That is not necessarily true, though. I mean, they do scavenge, but they actually hunt and kill a large percent of what they eat. The reason why maybe people think they're only scavengers is because their digestive system is really amazing. They can eat bones and break it down. Oh, really? So that's why, you know, after the lions leave, they leave all the bones and skin that, you know, the lions don't eat.

the hyenas are able to process that in their body so they can eat that too. I mean, in addition to hunting. Oh, and that's why they're kind of pictured as like scavengers and Lion King because they're just efficient. Yeah. And as you guys know, I love learning about weird animal behavior. So one of the common facts I stumble across about hyenas, and I don't know if you guys ever read this before, but I see it all the time is that they're like, did you know hyenas are hermaphroditic? Have you guys ever heard that? No, I haven't.

People believe that hyenas can be both male and female, which is crazy because you think hermaphrodite animals, you think like earthworms or snails or reptiles or at the, yeah. Never like a like mammal. And so, yeah, the belief is that they can morph from one gender to another when necessary. This is not true, but there is evidence that could explain why people thought this. So hyenas exist in a system that favors aggression and they're really competitive. Now, the hyena cubs, because they're smaller and their babies, they can't compete for food because they're small. Okay. And so they rely entirely on their mom.

So they're actually nursed for a really long time by animal standards because they have to grow big enough so that... Fend for themselves. Exactly. And so this is a lot of pressure for the mama hyena. She has to nurse her cubs and provide milk and feed herself in this hyper-aggressive hyena society. And so what happens is she'll start producing a lot of male hormones that makes her tougher. And the hormones will pass on to her babies to make them tough too. But because of the male hormones in her body, she'll start developing male characteristics, like her build and the fur.

And the weirdest thing is that her genitals will start to look like male genitalia. Really? And she looks like she has a wiener. Just from the influx of the hormones Wow So yeah, I'm going to end the segment with that visual That's it Well, that is or is not a laughing matter

I suppose depending on what you're looking for In the hyena dating scene Laugh track So I want to paint a little scenario for you guys Let's say I'm helping one of you move Or we're going at IKEA doing some furniture shopping And I'm helping you load something in the back of your car And if I were to say something like, it won't fit in there.

It's longer than I thought it would be. You might say. That's what she said. Thank you. I knew I could count on you guys. I was going to say. I'm asking them in the trunk or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You should lower the front seat. No, pack the trunk. Oh, yeah. That's what she said is actually, despite what you may think, has a long, rich history in the history of comedy. I believe you. You know, I might not have believed it either until I started doing some research into this. I mean, and, you know, I remember as a kid, even. I mean, it's not, this is certainly not a new type of joke.

And, I mean, I remember, you know, even in the 90s, like on Wayne's World, on Saturday Night Live, that would be a very Wayne and Garth type joke. That's what she said. I think we can all agree, though, that nobody, real or fictional, has done more to popularize. That's what she said jokes than the character of Michael Scott on the American show, The Office. I would agree. Yes. And this is not just my opinion. I mean, if you do even just a cursory bit of research or news, you can hardly read about that's what she said without the author mentioning Michael Scott.

That is what has caused its resurgence in modern times, yes. As you guys probably know, the office was an import from a British sitcom of the same name, famously created by Ricky Jervais and Stephen Merchant. So they brought over a lot from the show. I mean, the setting, they're both in paper companies and even a lot of the character. So the Michael Scott character is really an Americanized version of David Brent, who was Ricky Jerva. his character on the office. One of the things that you may not realize they brought over was the That's What She Said joke.

That's from England. However, if you were David Brent, the David Brent, the British version is, as the actress said to the bishop. Yes. Oh. And that's, that's all right. That's what's super old. That's like Shakespearean or?

Well, it's, it's not quite that old. Okay. But it is, it is at least 100 years old. It is well over 100 years old. I'd say it's not a snap. as the actress said to the bishop. It's more British. It's more British. It really is. I like the best parallel that David Brent character is attributed with reviving the popularity of as the actress said to the bishop in the UK. Wonderful. Because it's just such a hacky joke and

it is a stock humor format now. And there are people who collect dozens and dozens of samples of these. The reference I mean of what it meaning, you know, as the actor said to the bishop, there are some people that, well, you know, in the early days of theater, actresses might have to supplement their income through less savory means and then later confess their sins. It's very colorful. I don't even know that you need to have that history for it to work. No one's sure exactly the first use of it, but the earliest known recording of this type of joke is from 1929 by none other than Alfred Hitchcock. There is a piece of footage of him doing a sound test for a movie called Blackmail.

And to make a somewhat long story short, the leading lady debating whether to dub in her lines because she had a very heavy accent. So they were doing sound tests with her. There's a snippet of footage where Hitchcock is making her laugh and she keeps turning away from the camera. And Hitchcock says, come here, stand in your place. Otherwise, it will not come out right, as the girl said to the soldier. Obviously, a little bit of a variant, as the girl said to the soldier. Yeah, wow. This is clearly the same joke format.

So the esteemed Alfred Hitchcock, no less, was making. He still did it in a classy way. Even Alfred Hitchcock did it in a very classy way. Yeah. So this type of joke is a particular interest to people who study language, really, especially people doing like artificial intelligence or computer programs because computer programs have a really hard time with humor and sarcasm and double meanings. So this sounds like the coolest research job ever.

There are two researchers at University of Washington who have actually developed a computer program with the goal of teaching it to understand that's what she said, Joe. They're interested in natural language processing, and so they feed it this huge library of source material, and then they go through the researchers. They assign sexiness values to words. They have noun sexiness and verb sexiness. Yeah. Verb sexiness would be, you know, words like, you know, thrust would have a higher

sexiness rating than a verb like walk, you know, and you can imagine. You're making a really annoying 13-year-old. So the name of their computer program is deviant, which stands for double entendre via noun transfer. It's like Elvis. It is like Elvis. It is our spiritual cousin to Elvis. And they say that they finish training it to the point they could have a little bit over 70% success rate. So it could correctly identify 70% of the time, things that are here.

human would say, yeah, that's a good, that's what she said joke. I think people use it incorrectly, maybe 30% of the time, so maybe it's right on par with real humans. So that is the wealthy, rich history of that's what she said slash as the actress said to the bishop. Book club on Monday. Jim on Tuesday. Date night on Wednesday.

Out on the town on Thursday. Quiet night in on Friday. It's good to have a routine. And it's good for your eyes, too. Because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers, you'll know just how healthy they are. Visit Spexavers.cavers.cai to book your next eye exam. Eye exams provided by independent optometrists.

All right. And we have one final quiz segment, Colin? Yeah, this quiz is called Whatcha ma call it? The quiz is going to be about names for common or everyday or frequently seen things that you may not know the name of. I think as Trivian earns, I'll like these. A little twist for you here. Like the word Watchamacall it itself, every answer

has a double letter. So hopefully that's a little bit more of a hint for you. So every answer, correct answer, we'll have a double letter in it. So I'll try and clue it for you. All right. What do you call the thingy and a bell that strikes against the inside and actually produces the bell

sound? Dana. The clapper. It is the clapper. I believe we may have referred to this one on a previous episode. What do you call the little dots over lowercase letter eyes and jays? I think that was Karen. Tittles. Tittles. Yes, as mentioned by Chris in a previous episode, I think. What do you call the dry outer husk on grains like rice or wheat? Chris. Chef. It is chaff. Chaff. Yes. As in the expression, separate the wheat from the chaff. How do you spell it? C-H-A-F-F. What do you call the little.

paper thingies that you stick on the ends of cooked turkey legs or pork chops. Oh, no. There's a name for that. There is an official culinary name for that. Flaggies. Don't overthink it. Just describe them. How would you describe them?

It's a double L. They are called frills. But it's if you, turkey frills and chop frills, yeah. And this is what I like, actually. I did a little more research. Another term for these in French is, Papiote, but that also has a double L. So I'm right, I'm right whether you want to go English or English.

Oh, good. Oh, great. Yeah. They don't use those anymore. They do use them. Oh, absolutely. They use them in fancy restaurants. All right. He's saying you're not fancy.

Yeah, no. Maybe you've got to go to some fancy restaurants, Karen. What do you call the loop on a belt right next to the buckle that you run the excess belt through? There's a name. There is an official name for that. I remember, double letters in all of these. They're not super tricky. Just think, what does it do?

Chris, what does it do? It's function. A loop secure. It's not a loop. It is the keeper. That is the official belt term for us. That little loop is the keeper. It is also a loop, Dana.

You are right. It is a loop. All right. Last one. We'll close this out. What do you call the fleshy part around a turkey's neck? Other birds and lizards sometimes have this as well. Chris.

The waddle. It is the wattle, W-T-T-L-E. And again, in doing a little bit of I found out there is another name for this that also has a double letter. It is the snood. Snewed. Snewed. Yes.

Like the video game, the same word. There's also like a piece of clothing that you can call a snood. But yeah, so the waddle or the snood, there you go. Whatchaum call it? Nice. Very good. And that's our show. Thank you guys for joining me.

Thank you guys, listeners for listening in. I hope you learn a lot about, man, we talked about a lot of stuff. We did. about hyena, Janetalia, and Mad Magazine, vaudeville, that's what she said,

comedy duos. You can find us on iTunes, on Stitcher, and on SoundCloud, and also on our website, good jobbrain.com, and check out our sponsors at bonobos.com,

and we'll see you guys next week. Bye. Bye. Have you ever wondered how inbred the Habsburgs really were, what women in the past used for birth control, or what Queen Victoria's nine children got up to? On the History Tea Time podcast, I profile remarkable queens and LGBTQ plus royals, explore royal family trees, and delve into women's medical history and other fascinating topics. Join me every Tuesday for History Tea Time, wherever fine podcasts are enjoyed.