Good Job, Brain! - 93: BEST OF 2013

Episode Date: January 1, 2014

It's our KING SIZE year-end episode! With the help of our listeners, we've curated some of the best quizzes, stories, facts, nightmare animals, and music rounds from 2013. Thanks to you guys, dear listeners, for a fantastic year! May your new year be brainy and bright. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. In the good job brain system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups, the quizzers who pose questions, and the brave men and women who answer them. These are their stories. Hello, Positively Perkins. quirky podcast pals, welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and Offbeat Trivia podcast. This is episode 93 and I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your sassy suspects, sussing out science and suspense. I'm Colin. I'm Dana. And I'm Chris.

So today is our best of 2013 show celebrating, featuring, and highlighting the best, the weirdest, the silliest, the funniest, the funniest, the funniest, And the grossest moments from Good Job Brain. It's a clip show. Yay. Like real television. We are just four pub trivia and trivia nerds who are nuts about weird facts, secret histories. And we're so glad we get to share our passion with the world. And before we start the show, I want to quickly thank our listeners and fans for all of your support and feedback.

It's really touching when you guys write us and then tweet us and Facebook post us. Absolutely. Thank you guys for all of your support and welcoming us every week into your ears, into your earhole. Right on in there. We're just a little independent hobby podcast. So you guys keep us going and we appreciate it a lot, a lot, a lot. Colin's nodding emphatically at the microphone. They can't see you. So today's show is all about celebrating the greatest 2013 moments. And we had got 40-plus episodes, more than 400 different segments, ranging from quizzes, silly to challenging, to mind-blowing facts.

We've enlisted the help of our listeners on Facebook and Twitter to help us curate some of our coolest moments this past year. So if you're a good job, brain listener, we invite you to travel back in time and laugh with us and laugh at us. And if you're a new listener, welcome. and you are sure in for a surprise. So what kind of trivia podcast will we be without quizzes? Yeah. Fun, weird. Bad one.

You're right. That was a question. You got it right. Thank you. But you did not buzz in. Bad. Bad. That's my favorite part of this podcast is making quizzes for you guys and answering the quizzes

that you all make for me, for us. And here are some of our memorable quizzes. Okay, I have a kind of a short quiz for you guys about processed foods. Our favorite kind. Yeah. As I was writing it, I was like, oh, these are things I would put in the bunker in the 50s, maybe, or something like that. All right, we'll start out with the king of processed food spam. Yeah.

The original name for spam was what? Oh. Karen. Is it not spiced ham? Yes, Hormel spiced ham. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. I knew it was.

And it was renamed to spam, and the guy. who suggests to spam combined spiced and ham. What's the official reason Hormel gave her naming it spam? What does that spam say for? So it fits on the tin. No, no, no. Did they say it stands for something? Something that's not spiced ham.

They named it something else. Like S-P-A-S. Super, super processed ass meat. No, the last, you almost had it. Oh, almost. What, a shoulder? Process of pork. Shoulder pork and ham.

Oh, shoulder pork. shoulder pork and ham okay it doesn't stand for that and we spa who suggested ass meat on the survey why did we wrote it in such a large how much did we pay for the survey all right tang the orange

flavored drink powder was Tang invented in the 40s 50s or 60s Colin I will say 60s because I know it's associated with the space program I thought it was made for the astronaut So, no, that is not true. I thought so, too.

Amitted in 1957, and it was marketed in 1959, so, like, right there. But it was popularized by the astronauts. Which astronaut is most closely associated with Teng? Yes. Done. Neil Armstrong. Nope. Another one.

Louis Armstrong. Nope. Virgil Gus Grissom. Nope. Is that the actual? No. Close? It is.

Yeah, it is. John Glenn. Oh, okay. John Glenn. But Tang was developed just because it's a low-cost orange drink, right? It wasn't developed for the space. It was not developed for, but it's... It's not like astronaut ice cream or something.

It's not astronaut juice. It's... That's something else entirely. It contains very little astronaut these guys. You don't have to squeeze too many astronauts. The cost, I mean, in the 50s, they didn't have astronauts. There's no juice in Tang. There's no juice.

Oh, I don't think so. It's powdered. like a powder, then perhaps is a juice flavor. But it is powder. There may be beaver secretions. They're all there. Various other secretions.

Okay, Ovaltine. Uh-huh. It originated in what European country? Oh. Switzerland. Yes. Yes. I have a fate.

I don't know if this is right, but my association is Nestle made ovaltine and Nestle is as a Swiss company. Yeah, okay. Sorry, I got it right for the wrong reason. Okay. We can find out really fast.

Yeah. Wait, don't look. I'll look because I have more. There's more, there's more Ovalteen. More Ovalteen. Don't look up facts about Oval Tene or else it's worth it. Whoa, it's made from blood. Yo, I can see that.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Iron. No, Oval Tine is a registered trademark of Associated British Foods. Nestle acquired the rights later. Oh, okay. So they're connected. Right for the wrong reason.

That's fine. Yeah. I'm still right. Ovalteen. Its original name was Oval Maltine, a combo of two of its main ingredients. What were they? Oh. Eggs, I'm guessing.

Uh-huh. Oh, like, oboes. Malted milk. Yes. Wow. There's eggs in there? They were like, oh, it's a food replacement or a meal replacement kind of drink. I always wonder where the oval.

Huh. Yeah. Oval. Latin for egg, yeah. It's kind of. Here now. Whatever, man. I'm still going to drink it.

It's good. It's good. In the 1930s and 40s, two famous U.S. children's radio shows were sponsored by Oval Tee. One was Captain Midnight. The other was, what? Little Orphan Annie. Yes. Oh, yes.

That's the decoder ring thing. From a Christmas story, yep. Yeah. And then, do you know what their code usually ended up being? Be sure to drink your Ovalteen. If you rearrange the letters in Ovalteen, it also spells Vital One. Vital one Yeah

All right Some conspiracy Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah No they used it in their hands Kids are like

What Mom I think I'm the vital one I need some oval team now Other anagrams of Oval team Okay Oh A violent

Not alive Funny they didn't Focus on that one No Because vital one and not alive are antonym. Yeah. Close it out with a delicious, delicious product that has a lot of preservatives in it. All right.

We've done tang. We've done ovaltine. We've done spam. What could be the last processed food? The cheese whiz. Cheese whiz. It's a quintessential process food. Spray cheese.

Yep, you're right. Oh, man. Well, cheese whiz is the jarred stuff. You're thinking easy squeeze, or easy cheese. They also had squeeze cheese. Squeeze cheese. Which is really, yeah. Wait, so what?

Cheese is a very rhymable word. Yeah, believe it or not, yeah. So cheese was originated in 1952, and it's a, you know, it's a delicious cheese product. It's described as a cheese product. It certainly is the color of cheese. Yeah. Sure. Yeah.

It's a cheese sauce, right? Yeah. A liquid cheese. So besides being a food product, you could also use it. You disinfect foods to grease the skids on your yacht. For other purposes. Should I have you guests or should I just tell you? Wow.

I can't. Go for it. Personal lubricant. You know what? Probably. It's not on this list, but condition leather. Anti-freeze. No, I wouldn't put that in the car.

I probably wouldn't. I think that would be a mistake. Floor wax. Preventing corrosion on tools. You know what? Maybe. So, a stain remover, you can remove grease stains from and wash clothes as usual with Cheese Whiz. What?

Okay. No. Yeah. All right. A hair conditioner. You can rub it into your hair. Leave it out for half an hour and then shampoo and rinse thoroughly. And it does something with your hair.

Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's cheese. I'll never tell. Did we have, Colin had that stigma. A couple of episodes A touch of yogurt A look of buttermilk shampoo Cheese whiz

Maybe she's pouring with it Honey, you look fantastic You want to get some nachos? Yeah I just want to Stand still Just wait a moment And then finally

You can use cheese whiz If you run out of shaving cream But why were you putting shaving cream on your nachos in the first place. To shave. These are pro tips. These are pro tips.

These are pro tips. Yeah, absolutely guarantee you that if you're using cheesewoods to shave, you are a single dude. You are a single dude. But you know what? At least you're shaving. Yeah. You're trying. Yeah, maybe you'll meet some lovely girl who conditions her hair with it.

And you guys can just really save on your grooming product. Just live it up Yeah One big jar In the bathroom Why is there cheese In your bathroom Oh it's a family

Don't worry Family size For whatever Um Ow My face hurts There you go All right

My turn And I have a music round A little bit bit of a twist. So I was listening to some Chinese pop music the other day and was just kind of reliving, you know, my childhood and teenage years. And then I was like, oh my God, this would be a great quiz segment. So, and I didn't know this growing up, but a lot of the pop songs in Asia, there are songs in Chinese, you know, Cantonese or Mandarin. But the song itself is actually a foreign language song. And they did this a lot. Do they write new words to the military? Yeah, they would just write in the native language and then an existing song. But the thing is, I didn't know that. So it wasn't until I moved here, I'd be like, oh.

And you would hear the original. I would hear the original English version and be like, I had no idea that growing up, this other song was a cover version. Okay. So my music round is, I like it already. Is, um, how do I describe it? It is international foreign language covers. I love it. of English language songs.

But the difference is it's not just, you know, someone covering some of their song. This is released as a whole different title and released as a whole different single. Right. But the melody and parts of the song is. So it's not released as like, oh, the localized version of such and such song. It's just you would know, you have no idea of the connection. Yeah. Unless you look at like the songwriting credits or something.

Right. All right. So I'm going to play clips of these foreign language songs. and before I'll tell you what language and maybe the title of the song even though that doesn't really help and listen and see if you can identify the English language song

and identify the artist the original artist of the song All right, how's that? All right, cool. It's a little complicated, but... No, it sounds fun. Okay, let's do it. And for the first one,

I'm going to play the song that I was actually listening to that inspired me to make this quiz. You yo, see, Martin, um, beauting, be it'sy, beauting.

I know the I love you, I know that's I know that song. Oh, man, what is it? Is the song, is it silent all these years? Yes, Colin, yes. Silent all these years.

these years. Who sings Silent All These Years? Big, big hit. Oh, who was Silent All These Year? Who was that? It wasn't Suzanne Vega. Was it Kate Bush? Was it? Later. Later. It was it. Sir McGlock. Torrey. Yes. Yes. Yes. Of course. I was like, I know this song, but her singing is messing it. I can't hear what it is. Well, and number of times I've heard the Chinese cover of Silent All These Years, one, The number of times I've heard actual silent all these ears.

Zero. Oh, okay. Really? So that was Fay Wong, very, very famous Asian superstar, and the title of the song is Cold War, but based on silent all these years. That's great. All right. Next one. This is sung in Greek by, oh, God, okay, pardon my pronunciation.

Al-Qistis proto-salti. Okay, that's pretty good. Yeah, not bad. A Greek pop star. I don't speak Greek or whatever. No way of judging now. It sounded good to me, yeah. And the song title is All That I Fear.

Okay. Well, translated from Greek. All right. Oh, God. Data. Is it nickel back? Yes. Wow.

Your face. What song? I could sing probably the chorus, but I don't. I've been down to the bottom of the... That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Wow, you remind me.

Wow. That's great. big, first big hit for nickelback. Good job. That's great. This is one that is not a direct cover, but you can tell by the song is there, but the melody is a little bit different. And this is Japanese. This is from Japan by Dragon Ash, and the title is Grateful Days. Here's a song. See if you can recognize the, what's being sampled. All right.

I'm coming to you Yeah. Oh, what is... Oh, Dana. Smashing Pumpkins Today. Today by Smashing Pumpkins, that little loop. Yeah, an old car intro.

Great. Awesome song. I love this Japanese. Rap Bruton. All right, here is an oldie, and this is by Adriano Celentano in Italian. Italian translation of the title is, I Will Pray. That is Stand By Me By Ben E King

Yes For the long time I thought it was Benny King Like Ben Benny Hill It's Ben E King Very good Alright another Asian language one This is by Big Bang from Korea Also another hip hop kind of rap thing

See if you can identify the background song Okay I knew it like two chords in us I can name that foreign song and two notes All right So this last one is a little bit of a twist So there is a big hit in America In all in English language countries I'd say

In 1994 And this is an R&B song It was really popular And this song was actually based on a foreign language song So it's kind of reversed What I'm going to do is play the original foreign language song and see if you can identify the 1994 song and the artist. That was a cover.

That was an English language cover. And the original version is Japanese. Okay. So the song itself is called Sukiyaki. Correct. Yeah. What else do you want to know about it? What artists or what group sang that song?

In 1994, that made a very big hit. Oh. Right. It was actually covered a couple times. It was covered in 19th. It was from the 60s or 70s? Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, was that? Was that like Jodacy or somebody like that? Oh, for one. No. Who was it? Four piece. M. 4 a.m. sang the song, and let me play a little clip of it. I didn't know. That was a cover.

Oh, yeah, yeah. That song has a really weird history. It became popular in the U.S. With the title, Sukkiaki, which has nothing to do with the original lyrics. Yeah. No, no, no way. Covered in 1981, and they just called it Sukkiaki because it's, It's like, well, that's a Japanese term. Right, right, yeah, that's basically it, yeah, yep. Very good job. Very enlightening. International music round.

Very neat. Long time, listeners to Good Job Brain might remember a segment that we did a few episodes back called Did Chris Get It Right? In which I asked my fiancé to ask me some questions that things that girls would immediately know, but that boys may not know. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask Colin questions that. Regina and some of her friends asked me. We'll see if you can figure it out, but then you guys all have to guess as to whether or not I was able to get it when the question was posed to me. And these are girly questions.

These are girly. These are girly questions. Cover the spectrum from makeup to clothing, to television shows, to books, to things, to middle school things, actually. And so, yeah, we went, it went all over the place this time. We'll get this one started off. So, what was the name, Colin, of Sabrina the Teenage Witch's Cat? Oh, man.

Oh, gosh. No, yes, it's supposed to be easy for you, Ken. It was something like Dexter or Felix or... Dexter or something. I'm a close. I don't remember. Karen? Salem.

It was Salem. Oh, of course. Something witchy related. Right. Now, did I get this right? Sabrina the Teenage Witch. It was a comic, too. I'm going to say yes.

I'm going to say that you got. I did. I did know that one. Okay. That's a good question. That's a really good question. And just the most terrible cat puppet, right? It was just awful. What is Raggedy Ann's boyfriend's name? Or, you know, Paramore or whatever. I didn't know if they were related or not. Oh, or brother. I thought they were brother-ins. It's Raggedy Andy, right?

Yes, yes, it is. I always thought Raggedy and Raggedy Andy were brothers. That's what I thought. I thought. I thought they were like, you know. Oh, together. An adulterist couple living. sin i don't know because it's not like their last names are the same just their first name raggedy i know well they are the last two of their kind oh yeah just to ensure the survival of the species maybe they're all of the above we don't know let's not judge um but did i know that

yes yeah i did know that it's pretty yeah it's pretty good what are coolots colats oh colats they're like they're not quite a skirt they're not quite pants they're not quite shorts. That's the worst answer. That is, that is true. Yeah. That's what they are. I thought they're like cut pants with wide legs that looks like. That is how it was explained to me was that they're, they're shorts, but they're very wide in the legs. So they look like sort of, yeah, they sort of look like a skirt. Now, did I know that? Probably. Yeah. It's been around for a while. Yeah. I'll say no. You're right. I didn't. I mistook them for caprice. I said, are they the pants that go about. three quarters down your leg? Okay. No. Now, what are Spanx? Spanx are...

You watch the 30 rocks. Spanx are a body-shaping undergarment. Yeah. Yeah, that's what they are. I don't think you knew. I think you did. I think you did. I did know what spanks are.

I said, yeah, you know, they squish your fat in. I tried to put a much more delicate term. Yeah, to which Regina said, they're called shapeware. End of quiz In conversation So moving on What is a cootie catcher Oh

See, a cootie catcher It's the little Isn't the little thing you would do Like we've with their hands Like a Jacob's ladder kind of No No it is not No it's not a cat's cradle or anything like that

Yeah no I mean I feel like my sister I know this but I feel like our two co-host know what this is So what is a cooey catcher It's like an origami little piece of paper that's folded up, and you can bend it different ways. It's that fortune teller or origami. The fortune teller one, back and forth, back and forth.

That is one of its many names. Now, did I know that? I would think so. You went to elementary school in America. I'll say no. You're right, Colin. I did not know what that was. No, I mean, I knew the origami fortune tellery thing that the girls played with.

I didn't know that they had a name for. Yeah, exactly. Also, back in middle school, one of Regina's friends asked me, do you know what the pencil test is? Yeah. We'll see if Collin knows what the pencil test is. What is the pencil? I do know what the pencil test is.

What? Oh, this is about bras, right? It is? Yeah. So the pencil test is, am I actually going to say what this is on the air? Yeah. The pencil test is you lift up your boob and you put a pencil under it. And if the pencil falls to the ground, you don't need a bra.

Right? Wasn't that it is? That is what the pencil test is. What? Americans are weird. If the pencil falls, you don't need a problem. Right, right, because there's not enough mood to overhang and to necessitate containment support, rather. Wow.

I don't think you knew this. I'll say yes. I'll say no. I had no idea. What was the pencil test? Oh, my God. Wow. You're in a little boy bubble.

You just didn't know what's going on. So you grew up with a brother, too. Right, yeah, exactly. We did. Finally, what a boy band was Nick Lechay in? I always get these mixed up. That's why it's difficult. He was in sync?

No. No. Not what? Right. All right. Backstreet boys? No. You're crazy.

Like a lower tier than those? Yeah. It's a number. Oh, 98, was it 98 degrees? Yes. That's it. I did. I did.

Did I get that right? No. Yes. I'll say yes. I did. I got it right. Wow. I didn't know.

I sort of guessed. It was like 98 degrees. degree because I figured it wasn't one of the other, the big, the, the big guns of boy bands. Very good. So I did, I did okay, I guess. I don't know. Open my eyes in some of those things. I think we did guys pretty well.

Yeah. So do people want to ace? What's acing the pencil test? Is that when? I don't think it's, it's not like a pencil exam. It's more like a, like a litmus test. Yes, yes, yes. That's good.

I'm so excited to share. this segment with you guys. I've been hyping it up this whole morning. I don't know if that means we should be nervous or not. Maybe you're too excited. Well, I'm nervous for you. I hope it works. No. Okay. So this quiz segment is called William Shakespeare goes to a house party. So stay with me. Imagine William Shakespeare. You invite him. him to a house party you're throwing. And, you know, at house parties, you play a dance hits, like, popular songs. Sure.

So basically what I have are clips of William Shakespeare or someone pretending to be William Shakespeare, reciting famous party song lyrics, but in Elizabethan Shakespearean English. And I need you guys to tell me exactly what line of lyric he's actually interpreting. Okay. Okay. All right. Here we go.

Oh, number one. Not any betrothed maidens. Not any betrothed maidens. Presently, uplift thine palms. And I can recite it to, but myself. No, I believe the line is, all the single ladies put your hands up. Yes.

Now you guys know the flavor. Oh, excuse me, all the single ladies. What's your hands up? By Beyonce. I guess... Bardiance. Beyonce. Am I right?

Am I right? I actually had a lot of alternate titles for naming this segment. I just went with William Shakespeare Goes to a House Party. But another one was William shakes his rear. And who wants to party? Just terrible. Get out. Shakespeare, your boo day.

All right. Number two. I will snare relinquish. thee. I wilt ne'er causeth thee dismay. I wilt ne'er diverteth and forsaketh thee. Uh, Colin. I was never going to let you down.

Never going to give you up? No, I'm sorry. It's never going to give you up. Oh, sorry. Never going to let you down. I'm terrible. Oh, never going to run around and desert you. By the estimable sir, Richard Astley. Is he sir? No. No.

Yeah, yeah. All right, next one. Allow hoofs to be fancy free and wandering. Disrobe thine mules dawned on the Lord's Day. Oh. The line is, I will read it. Allow hoofs to be fancy free and wandering. Disrobe thine mules dawned on the Lord's Day.

And mules is not the animal. Your shoes? Your shoes off? On your Sunday shoes. Your Sunday shoes. Get foot loose. Yeah. Oh, put on your Sunday shoes.

Take off your Sunday shoes. What's the first line, though? Just foot loose. Oh, okay. All right, all right. I was trying to back into it after getting burned on the Rick Aspley, yeah. Good job. Bye Kenny Loggins.

Foot loose. All right. Next one. Haltz. Rally. Hark. The frosted knave half return it. modish forging

All right, stop Collaborate and listen Ice is back with a brand new invention Yes, good God So more to my brain has hung on to that lyric By Vanilla Ice Of course

Raleigh, Park Last one How? I bade you What games to have a emancipated mine hounds. What gamester? What gamester? What gamester?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. I did it. Dana. Who let the dogs out by Bahamans? Yes. The line is, who let the dogs out? Who? Who?

Who? That's it. Thank you guys for participation. Many thanks to William Fakespeare. Yeah. Did archaeologists discover Noah's Ark? Is the rapture coming as soon as the Euphrates river dries up? Does the Bible condemn abortion?

Don't you wish you had a trustworthy academic resource to help make sense of all of this? Well, I'm Dan Beecher, and he's award-winning Bible scholar and TikTok sensation, Dr. Dan McClellan. and we want to invite you to the Data Over Dogma podcast, where our mission is to increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion and also to combat the spread of misinformation about the same. But, you know, in a fun way. Every week we tackle fascinating topics. We go back to source materials in their original languages.

And we interview top scholars in the field. So whether you're a devout believer, or you're just interested in a clear-eyed, deeply informed look at one of the most influential books of all time. We think you're going to love the Data Over Dogma podcast. Wherever you subscribe to awesome shows. Steve Cubine and Man McNamara's

podcast from Beneath the Hollywood Sign. Mary Astor has been keeping a diary. Mary writes everything down. And so this torrid affair with George's Kaufman is chronicled on a daily basis. In great detail. And Ipe pulls out a box and

gives McAllister a ring, saying, here's something to remember me by. This article caused Daryl Zanick to hit the roof. Actress Ruth Roman followed that up with playing a foil to Betty Davis in Beyond the Force. I mean, if you can stand toe to toe with her, boy. And she does because she plays the daughter of the man that Betty Davis kills out in the hunting trip. And it's directed by King Vidor, so he's no slouch. How do you go wrong with that? Speaking of the Oscars, talking about what I call.

all beginner's luck. It's all about the actors and actresses who won an Oscar on their very first film. Get your fix of old Hollywood from Stephen Ann on the podcast from Beneath the Hollywood Sign. So maybe my favorite part of Good Job Brain is the segments when I get to actually prepare things and come in and actually know all of the answers to the things. You know, when we just bring it a whole bunch of bizarre facts, maybe grouped around a theme, maybe we're telling a story. Like, that's what, I think that's what I'm most thankful for. This is our Thanksgiving episode, right? No. Oh, okay.

Anyway, here's some of our most memorable segments and facts and all that kind of good stuff. So if I have one takeaway from that segment, it's don't drink mercury. No, definitely not. I talked about it before. We have talked about it before. Yeah, but I mean, it's important enough to hit over and over again. Yeah, public service announcement. We've specifically talked about it before, Karen.

We talked about Emperor of China, Chin Chihuan, right? And he was Emperor from 259 to 210 BC, and he was kind of a big deal. He was sort of the first emperor that really kind of unified. all of China. And what's funny to me about him is we've talked how he died before. So let's just cut to the end very quickly. He died by ingesting mercury as part of a way of finding an elixir of life. You know, this was just an obsession of his was I, you know, I want to be immortal. I want to see my rule never end. The irony is that over the course of his rule, he survived a lot of assassination attempts and coups. And what brought him down was his own doctors and his own

alchemists and his own physicians. Irony. Irony. Mercury. I was reading a little bit more about his story about specifically the circumstances of his death. He was out away from court when he actually died. He was out and he took some mercury pills that his team of physicians had prepared for him, got gravely ill and died in no short order. For anticlimatic. Yeah. And they're like, oh, crap, he died. Oops. So now what happened next was a weekend at Bernie's level of farce to cover up the dead emperor. So now, as I said, he had survived a lot assassination attempts and, you know, he was a unifier. There were a lot of people who would have been seeking to take his place as soon as they found out that he was dead. So I mentioned they were on the road. They were away from the seat of power. So all of his advisors, you know, and his right-hand men, they didn't want word to get out that the emperor had died because they were afraid of what was going to happen in this power vacuum. So they continued their tour out in the countryside. So, you know, they're carrying the emperor in the little box, you know, with the servants. They would dress him up in new clothes. They would prop him up so that you could sort of look through the window and see that there was somebody in the carriage.

But they wouldn't let you get too close. And no one could. I mean, nobody except the most trusted advisors, right? Because as they're traveling through the villages, it wasn't out of the ordinary. Right, that's true. Yeah, it's not like commoners in a village or running up to the carriage. Yeah, high-fiving. But so, I mean, this is in the middle of summer.

He died. They're traveling around, and it started to smell really bad. And it did. Really bad. So this is the solution they came up with. As they're traveling around, they, they up. Apparently, yeah, they wrapped him in dryer sheets. They apparently, the account goes, they got a cart full of rotting fish.

Two carts, two carts full of rotting fish. Yes. And had one cart ahead of the emperor's carriage, one cart behind the emperor's carriage to, you know, do their best to mask the odor of decay. No, because if you, no, because then if you saw, you would see the carts of rotting fish and you'd be like, oh, well, that's just the rotting fish. But no one would question why is he sandwiched by two carts of rotting fish. I mean, because he's the emperor, man. Amperer's whims. He would bring meals up to his carriage and, you know, take away plates and things like that.

So that even people in the retinue wouldn't necessarily catch on. They would stage fake meetings, you know, where the advisor would come up and pretend to be talking with him and, you know, go away afterward. This went on for two months. Wow. That is so long. Until they got back to a seat of power where they felt comfortable enough to kind of of announced, okay, yes, the emperor died. I don't know if they said that it was their fault for giving him mercury or not. I don't think they can trace it back then. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, you know, I'm sure. Yeah. Well, also, they didn't know it was harmful. They thought it was going to help him. They thought he died in spite of him. And also, he's been ingesting mercury all this time, too. Like, it wasn't just those two pills made him die. During his reign, while he was alive, he would take a lot of mercury and it just builds up. And I mean, it was. It was just totally magical and mystical. And I can believe it. it. I mean, it's metal. It's liquid at room temperature. Maybe I'll drink it and live forever. I think that's why we have to keep reiterating. You're not supposed to drink it because it's so pretty and you want to put it in your mouth. Yeah, it's like you want to. And, you know, if the emperor tells you who wants to drink it, you're going to let him drink it. Right. So I would like to tell you the story of a product that was actually quite successful. But had something happened to it, was it just a fatal blow that it never could have expected and could never recover from. Beginning in 1930. and going very strong until the early to mid-1980s,

there was actually a certain dietary supplement. And what this thing was, it was a candy. Yeah, basically you would eat the candy and it would act as an appetite suppressant. So you just have a piece of it before meals and there was a drug inside of it that acted to suppress your appetite. It was quite popular. It worked.

It was so popular that it had, like, many, many television commercials and radio commercials for this product. And I'll play you one now. I've tried bad diets, powders, pills, still my weight's been up and down like a yo-yo until the AIDS plan taught me how to take off weight and help keep it off. AIDS may taste like a candy, but AIDS contains one of the most effective appetites of presents you can buy. Let the AIDS plan teach you how to take off weight and help keep it off. Try peanut butter eggs.

Yeah. I've never heard of this stuff. Yeah, that's going to be a problem. Peanut butter. peanut butter rates. Try peanut butter ice. Um,

yes, so the name of this wonder drug was AIDS. It was A-Y-D-S, as in it AIDS. You know, you can help you lose weight. AIDS you're losing weight.

Yeah. So, um, what was in AIDS was, it was an oral anesthetic that you guys have maybe used at some point in your life. It's called benzokane. It's the name of the oral anesthetic. Oh, yeah.

And it numbs your mouth. Like, like, cough spray. Yeah. So if you have a cough, if you have a cough, if you have a canker sores or whatever you need to numb something in your mouth you might use it's over-the-counter

benzocaine and they would put it in chocolates then you would eat one of these chocolates with a hot drink and you would essentially numb your mouth what this would do is when you then sat down to eat a couple minutes later food would not taste as good so you'd eat less of it they did clinical trials you will just eat less food and you'll lose weight you can I think by them I mean not the AIDS brand which is long gone but they sell things like slim mince today like, you know, that do basically the same thing. But it's kind of fallen out of favor as a diet plan because it's tricking yourself. Today, what we try to do with diets is we actually try to get people eating the right kinds of thing.

Right, right, rather than just, yeah. But, and so this is a very unfortunate thing for autoimmune deficiency syndrome to come along. Take this product that it had this name since 1937 and suddenly, as you turn that perfectly normal, totally inoffensive commercial into something incredibly offensive and or hilarious, depending on who you are. Possibly both. For that to come along and do that, and that was just something unfortunate. But here's the fail in all of this.

It was made by a company called Jeffrey Martin Incorporated. They told Time magazine in 1985 when Time was writing about this product with its unfortunate name, what they said was, the product has been named AIDS for more than 45 years. Let the

disease change its name. They doubled that. They did. They doubled down. They're like, we are not going to change our name. You can change the name of the disease. Oh, no. Take that.

The company, yeah, the company was soon sold, and the new CEO of the parent group, when asked, said, obviously with a name like AIDS, we'll have to do some remarketing. Following this up with, obviously, our product does not give anyone AIDS. I just want to go on the record. So this new executive now realizes, okay, clearly we should, you know, do something with the marketing and the naming of this product now. Now it's like 1987. The, I believe it was the New York Times ends up talking to like a branding expert who suggested she said, oh, they should change it. They should come up with a new name that also incorporates the old name.

So she said they should call it Skinny from the makers of AIDS. So they still didn't quite get it. Even though it was purchased by a new company, they went over it and over it, and they finally, in 1988, introduced, they were like, we've renamed it, everybody. After all this work, they renamed it to, I am not making this up, diet AIDS. Yes. They get it. Because they get it. Because they get it.

That's why. This whole thing, it was just a. slow motion train wreck of marketing. Somebody was, like, really digging in. No, this has been around a long time. It was, it was a failure to realize what was going to happen and, yes. Yeah. Well, you know what it is?

We may have talked about this in the show before, but it's the sunk cost fallacy. The idea that, oh, but I've spent so much money in this case, marketing and building this brand name since 1937, we've invested millions and millions of dollars into it. We can't just dump it all and start over again. It's a fallacy. Like you can't just look at all the money You've thrown after something You have to make the right decision

So fellow listeners You'll be as impressed as I was When you find out that Karen this morning Actually ran a marathon Before coming into record the show Thank you. It was a half marathon But still, I'm very proud of them I'm only half impressed

I'm very achy So I want to talk to you guys In the vein of cheating About one of my favorite all-time cheating stories And you know If you play enough trivia if you go to enough pub quizzes, eventually you're going to be asked a question about Rosie Ruiz.

Rosie Ruiz. Rosie Ruiz. All right. So I'm glad it sounds like maybe you haven't heard of her, so I can enjoy a little bit of the story here. Chris seems to be nodding appreciably. The topic of the show is cheating. So let me just cut right to the chase here.

And she may have been a cheater. So, you know, Karen, in the world of marathons, the Boston Marathon is, I mean, if not, it's one of the most, if not the most prestigious marathon. Right, right. And I mean, you had told me this a while ago. I mean, it's a big deal. You have to qualify. You know, you can't just, I'm going to go sign up and race this year. Right. You have to have post a good enough time, right, to get in. You have to have a time within your age range and your gender. There is a qualifying time. You have to make that or faster in order to even get, not even a spot, but just to enter the race. If you're racing the Boston Marathon, you are a good runner. You know, you know what you're doing. So in 1980, let's go back. many years here in the way back machine to 1980, uh, Rosie Ruiz crossed the finish line with the clock at two hours, 31 minutes, 56 seconds. Yeah. Now that's a, some context for those of us who are not Karen and don't run marathon. Yeah. So Karen's reaction should put that into

context. Yeah. Now this, yeah, for a little bit more context, that would have been the fastest time a woman had ever run at the Boston Marathon. Okay. It would have been the third fastest time ever run by a woman anywhere in a marathon. So it's not a good time. That's a great, great time. Right from the start, people were a little suspicious of her time across the line. Why, just because it was super fast. Well, no one had ever heard of her. Right. For one thing, exactly. Like, no one ever heard of her. And a lot of these people know each other. You'll have frequent winners, you know, two or three years in a row sometimes. Or they're Olympian sometimes, too. Sure. There were other, um, more obvious signs that perhaps something was amiss. Uh, she didn't

really seem to be out of breath at all. Um, she, she wasn't even really sweating all that much, you know, her shirt was really comparatively dry. People were sort of really eyeballing her like, what is going on here? The second and third place women were like, no, she didn't pass us. We didn't see her. We don't know who she is. We did not see her on the course. And then on top of all of this, right now, as I say, you had to qualify to run the marathon. So she had run in the New York marathon earlier that year, which is also a fairly big deal marathon. The time that she posted was 25 minutes slower. So to make an improvement of 25 minutes in six months is a big deal.

So nothing was adding up. People were really, really suspicious of Rosa Ruiz. But she was good enough to qualify. And that's the thing. She's still good. That's the thing. And so for a lot of people's minds, it's like, all right, well, how did she trim this time off her race?

What was she doing? She must at least have some running skill. But what's her angle? So over the course of the next few days, there was also some other information that came forward that was really damning to Rosie Ruiz's case. There were a couple students, friends, who had come out to watch the race, and they said, oh, we saw her burst out of the crowd of spectators, like half a mile from the finish, and kind of just barge her way onto the race course. And at the time, they remember thinking, like, who is this lady? What is she doing? They didn't think much of it. And then when they saw, you know, later in the news reports, they're like, that's the lady we saw.

The Rosie Ruiz, we saw her kind of just come out of the crowd half a mile from the finish. So it seems to be, I have to say. This is what year, by the way? This was 1980. This is 1980. So no cell phone cameras, very few people doing. Crazy lady came out of the crowd at half mile mark. There might not be a lot of actual physical evidence.

And before the times of, you know, smartphones and stuff, every runner nowadays have a bib, right? That has their number, but also built into the bib, or actually they give you a little tag that you put on your shoe as RFID, like tracker, basically, for each personal runner. So as you're running through, say, the 5K split, there's something built on the ground that will communicate with your RFID tag and then puts it in the system that was their split time. That RFID thing. Do you remember there was a celebrity who gave their personal trainer? Like somebody was running with two. Oh, no. They're like, clock my time for me.

Unfortunately, that happens. Some people will run with multiple bibs. Yeah, right. The time is really recording the time of the RFID tag crossing the finish line. That's really that person. But the most damaging story that came out was from a woman named Susan Morrow. And Susan Morrow was watching news reports, and she lives in New York, and she recognized Rosie Ruiz. She's like, I know this woman.

I ran into her the day of the New York City Marathon. So Susan Morrow was on her way to watch a friend running the marathon. She was heading to the finish line, and she was taking the subway. On the subway, she sees a woman on the train, wearing running. gear and looking kind of down. She went over and she sat down next to her. They got to talking. Turns out this is Rosie Ruiz. And Rosie told Susan Morrow that she had dropped out of the race of the New York City Marathon, you know, a little bit before the halfway mark. She had hurt her ankle. But, you know, we're going to the same place. We're going to the finish line together.

Oh my gosh. She's taking the subway to her. She turned the subway to the finish. They took the train. They went to the finish line of the New York City Marathon. And together they walked. And because Rosie Ruiz had her runners gear on, they were getting waved through barricades. They were getting through without anybody really questioning because she looked like she was limping along. She was an injured runner. They got to the finish line. And at that point, they separated and Rosie Ruiz went over and declared, I'm an injured runner. They pulled her in. They recorded her time. And that was her registered time in the New York City Marathon. So she got a fraudulent time that she then used to qualify for the Boston Marathon six months later. So Susan Morrow came forward with her

story. And to this day, Rosie Ruiz maintains that she ran the race. She has not fessed up. So does she still hold the title as like the third? No, they stripped her time and they awarded, they moved all the prizes down to the other women. No asterisk. Yeah. It was and she, she never really had any plausible story for how, you know, her best story was I was just feeling really energetic this morning when I got up. And it is because of, Rosie Ruiz, Karen, that they started instituting measures like RFID tags. So when did they introduce RFIDs? Was it, did they have the technology like 1981?

They started within just a couple of years. Oh, wow. Yeah. And it's so easy because it's like you don't, no one has to really keep a time. It's all automatic. And then you can go online and check your time right when it happens. Oh, yeah, of course. It's all posted for the web today.

I checked my time like a minute after or across the finish line because I was like, I don't know what time I happens. Oh, right there on the website. I didn't even think about that. But of course they would have it. Yeah. So we're talking about fakes and decoys and bluffs. And so I'm going to tell you a crazy-pants story I found about this guy who faked his own death.

Oh, I love these. I love these. So the person is Lord Timothy Dexter, and he was born in Massachusetts in 1748. Whoa, that long ago. Yeah. And he was like kind of a self-made man. He was poor. But he was an author and he was a go-getter.

And he wrote a book, and it had tons of typos. and typos. It had tons of punctuation and grammatical errors. So he had to give it away for free. And then it went into eight printings. And he was kind of a jokester. And people criticized him on the punctuation in the book. So when he reprinted it, he had a page in the back that was just full of commas and periods.

So like punctuation works. What a jerk. That's good. I like that. Make your own. Yeah. He wrote on it, place it as you please. So that's who we're dealing with.

That's the guy that the story revolves around. So he did the oldest, the oldest trick in the book. It comes up on sitcoms. It comes up in movies. It's so corny now. But maybe he invented it. He wanted to know what people thought of him. So he fakes his own death.

And this is the 1700s. So it's not to like escape. Why mean you're really in a jam. He just wanted to hear what people say about him when he's out of the room. Yeah. So he faked his own death. 3,000 people came to his funeral. Now, what did he do?

How did he fake his own death? He just told people that he died. Like, but I didn't believe him. Hey, so I die. He was a self-styled lord, so he was like, Lord Timothy Dexter die, you know? He sent out, like, his own fake announcements, basically. Yeah, he did. And he tried to get as many people as he could to go to his funeral.

3,000 people showed up. Well, huge. And then his wife was there, and she wasn't crying as hard as he thought she should be crying. Oh, he didn't. tell his wife. No. Oh, my God. He wanted to know what she thought. Wow. Yeah, he was a piece of work. You set yourself up there for some really potentially embarrassing, hurtful things, yeah. She wasn't really reacting the way he thought she should react when such a great person died. So he came out and he beat her at the funeral.

What's going on in the story? It's crazy. I imagine him, like, hiding the bag dress like a little old lady or something. and then just ripping off a wig and I shouldn't joke about it, but I mean, she's attacking his wife at his own funeral. I wish there were more first person accounts, but it was just like, this guy was crazy. And you're right, it is. I have absolutely seen that plot on sitcoms.

Yeah, it's such a trope. And I was like, was he the first? Well, I just, you know, it's just such a simpler time. It was so much easier to fake your death back then. Yeah, right. You could just send out an announcement. Oh, he's dead. Well, as our constant listeners know, I was out sick last week for the sleeping episode.

However, this did not mean that it didn't do my research for the sleeping episode. And far be it, I definitely do not want to let this go to waste because when I thought about sleeping, I was like, okay, I want to answer a very important question. Do dogs dream? We always see, it was recently like I was sitting at my computer probably thinking about good job brain and I heard like Yelps from the other room. Now I heard a little dog, Ricky, going like, which are noises that he doesn't make, you know. And I'm just like, oh, my God, he's, oh, he's just dreaming. He's like, on his side, his paws are kicking. Yeah.

That's so funny. And that's what we say. We say, oh, you know, just imagine he's chasing something. Like, yeah, we said, oh, yeah, he's chasing rabbits or whatever. Like dream hunting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but then again, it's like, well, is that really happening or not? There actually is an answer, so let's go in.

You know, typically when I research good job brain subjects, I'm like doing it with the utter dispassionate attitude of a scientist like, okay, all right, I'm going to research something, and I want to see if it's true or false. I'll see what the back's taking me. This one I was really pulling for it to be true. I really, really wanted dogs to dream. So let's find out.

This all starts, as all great experiments do, with rats running in a maze. So a researcher at MIT a few years ago measured the brain signals of rats as they were running around on a track. And then it measured the brain signals of rats, but little, you know, tiny little electrodes, as they slept that night

and found that the signals that were coming out of the rat's brains during REM sleep, during the rapid eye movement portion of sleep where you dream were basically identical to the signals that he was getting when they were running around in the track.

They were so similar that he could essentially point the data and say, I'm pretty sure that at this point the rat is dreaming about being in this particular part of the track and whether or not the rat is moving or standing still.

So at that point, the scientists who were looking at this were like, these rats are dreaming about running around in the maze. They're rehashing the day's activity because it's so close. It's so similar. So, dogs' brains being much awesomer than rat brains. That's a scientific time. If the rats can do it, clearly we imagine that the dogs might. Okay.

So if you want more proof than that, fine. There's a part of your brain stem, which is, oh, by the way, I'm going to go back into the brain. which is always really tricky for us on the show because I always screw something. As it turns out, the brain, kind of complicated. So I apologize to any neuroscientist listening in and please leave comments on the website, if I'm wrong. There's a part of the brainstem called the Pons. And the Pons releases a chemical that not only does it put you into REM sleep, but it paralyzes you while you're sleeping.

I know you guys talk about sleep paralysis, right? You actually want to be paralyzed when you are sleeping because if you're not paralyzed while you're sleeping. They're just walking around doing... Weird stuff. You will like sleepwalking disorders. Exactly. Well, so the comedian that we like, Mike Barbiglia, right, has rapid eye movement behavior disorder. Right.

He doesn't get paralyzed when he goes to sleep. So he gets up and acts out his dreams, which might involve jumping out a window and almost killing himself. So if you want to know what your dog is dreaming about, you can just take the ponds out of your dog's brain. Now, they don't do this anymore. But they did. But they did. They took the pond. Hans out of some brains of

some dogs. Guess what happened? They did stuff. They did stuff. The dog would go to sleep and then go into REM sleep and then just get up and start acting out all the stuff they did during the day. Just like taking out the inhibitor. If you had a hunting dog, the hunting

dog would flush out imaginary birds out of imaginary bushes and and they would go on point. You know how dogs would go on point. They would do that in their sleep. 100% No question

dogs are dreaming about activities that they are doing Yeah But don't take out parts of your dog's brain Don't do that Don't do that Yeah I'm sure Ricky was happy to hear

That was not on your agenda I let him know that I was not about to do that Oh Yeah Dear dogs I would not take parts of your brain out Just to see what you're dreaming about It's made to perform in the toughest conditions

it's more than a compact machine it's a cat get the work done get a cat visit toramontcat.com slash compact to discover our compact machine lineup all right so listeners of the show I think if you've listened to all the past episodes of this year you might you for me you might notice a theme that a lot of my segments revolve around it's going to be either body excrement Or one of my favorite things to talk about are animals, specifically nightmare animals, animals that do weird, crazy things and will haunt your dreams. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So here are some of our most nightmarish animals that we, that I've talked about on the show. Sweet dreams.

So there are a lot of species of hermit crabs. Some of the hermit crabs don't even need a shell, especially one particular species I'd like to talk about. And it's called the coconut crab. Oh. You might have heard of it. I remember Colin having a very negative reaction to a picture. This is a nightmare creature. You said, you saw a picture of this.

You're like, I would cramp my pants. I'll cry my pants. They actually don't have a shell because what happens is their abnaments actually start. are growing harder. So actually they don't need a shell for protection. Also, they're huge. They're the largest land-living arthropod in the world. How big are they?

They're like bigger than your head. Yeah. I saw a photo of one covering a trash can lid. Yeah. Can you match, take me out of your trash? And you're like, oh, my God. I'm not touching that. Yeah.

In sci-fi. I came out the morning and they were like, on my car, I would just sell the car. I mean, you know what? The crabs have it now. Even after it left, she could never get back in that car. You know, in video games or science fiction, you read about head crabs, right? Attaching your face and attacking your face. It looks like that.

It totally looks like that. It's huge. And they do develop a tough exoskeleton so they don't have to carry a shell anymore. When they're smaller, they would. But they grow so big that they don't really have any predators anymore. Yeah, they're just kind of just walking down the street. They're like, what? But you talk about the trash can, Colin.

They have amazing sense of smell, these crabs. And they eat almost like, they eat a lot of things. They eat, you know, fruit. They actually do eat coconuts. So that's why they're called coconut crabs. They smell trash and they feed on carry and stuff sometimes. And so they would hang out in trash cans. They're like tropical raccoons.

They are. No thanks. No thanks. Oh, man. Colin didn't tell you, bud. We have a coconut crab here today. He's backstage. He's been listening to the show.

Let's bring it on. Let's bring them out. So they do eat coconuts. They're so smart. They know how to basically prepare a coconut. Like a coconut falls on the ground. They know how to strip away the husk with their claws. And then they would climb the coconut tree with coconut in its claw, drop the coconut

so it would break. Isn't that crazy? That's amazing. And that's just adaptive behavior. They just know. Dude, they just totally know. I just wait until they did that, and I run and steal the coconut in the red oil.

Thanks for opening it, suckers. That's the hardest part. Suckers. We sweet coconut. Yeah, you come out the next morning and there's 40 coconut crabs in your driveway. We hear you got something of ours. Dead silence, only the clicking of 40 balls. So scary.

One more. Last scary tidbit. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, known as TIGHAR. Great acronym. This group has approximated the whereabouts of where Emilia Earhart could have crashed and landed or ended up. They said that she probably most likely died on an inhabited tropical island in the Karibati area. Some users wrote us and said that Kiribati is supposed to be pronounced Kiribati. Right.

I think after we talked about it on the show, someone said Kiribat or Kiribati. Yeah, so I double-checked. You can say it both on Kierbodies slash Kierboss. Anyways, they're guessing that Amelia Earhart probably ended up there. And one of the theories why they can't find her full remains

is because coconut crabs probably ate her bones and her flesh. I was so much better off not knowing that. Tropical raccoons, man. They get in there. Nightmare fuel for everybody. Wow, thanks.

Yeah, cool. Oh, wow. Coconut crabs. All right, guys, it's time to dip into Karen's stash of nightmare animals. Oh, no. I want to introduce you guys to the Bombardier Beetle. Oh. Okay.

Okay. Have you heard of that? I think I've seen these on the Nature Channel before. Now, the Bombardier Beetle is just for, like, size, it's tiny. It's like half an inch, one centimeter. long, right? Kind of like a big ant. And they're found in most places in the world, probably more common in the southern half of the globe, but not Antarctica. This creature has one of the most unbelievable but awesome defense mechanism in the animal kingdom. And so what happens is when

the bug is threatened, the beetle will, number one, make a loud popping sound. And number two, it will fire a noxious boiling hot liquid from its butt. Where does it get the boiling hot liquid? And it doesn't stop there. Their butt is like a gun turret. It can rotate and swivel in any direction. And it has a wide range. So if a predator is coming from the side, even in front of the bug.

It can shoot things in front of it. Yes. Between its legs. Wow. It's crazy. And it actually has a really good aim. Like, the accuracy is pretty good. And serving up boiling spray.

When I say boiling, it's near boiling. The temperature is near 100 degrees Celsius, the boiling point of water. And we've come across, you know, lots of, lots of animals out there, especially with insects and bugs that they will secrete some sort of liquid. Right, right. It's smelling or it's foamy or it's sticky, whatever. But this is almost boiling hot. So the fluid itself is a mixture of two main things, hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide. So these fluids are naturally occurring for the bug, and the fluids are stored separately in two different chambers in the beetle's body.

It's like a little epoxy tube. It's like, yeah, it is. It's like a reserve. So when the beetle is threatened, the muscles contract and causes both chambers to open. Oh. So then there's a third chamber, the mixing chamber, that these. two liquids flow in. Now, when these two fluids come together, the reaction is super intense. It's a super exothermic reaction. That's where the heat. That it hurts. Yeah. And, you know,

like a baking zoda volcano kind of thing. Yeah. So the reaction gives off a buttload of energy, if you will, e.g. Quite literally. And what happens is that the liquid, A, because of exothermic, heats up and then the pressure and gas builds up and the whole thing just explodes out from the butt valve and emitting a popping sound and the sound is part of the reaction as well it really explodes out of its butt yeah it explodes inside its butt and then fraction of a second so I think this is where I think I had remember seeing it was on someone had done like a super high speed film study of this beetle and that was all I knew is they were studying like how fast it releases. I had no idea that it was

boiling hot, noxious fluid. There's videos of it, and you can see how hot it is, because you see kind of like steam or gas that comes out as the bug sprays. Does the bug die? No, it doesn't. Because what happens is the bug is structured so that the chambers where all these fluids are, they're padded, or they're lying with something.

So their organs are safe from... It's got a fireball. I'm so disappointed Why? In the human butt. I know. We evolved all this stuff, but we don't have multidirectional explosive butts. How many times on this show have we talked about awesome things that come out from animal butts?

Right. Wow. Sounds kind of like a monster. No, he sounds great. No frills, delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15. and PC optimum points on your first five orders.

Shop now at no-frails.ca. Well, perhaps unintentionally, another theme that came along this year was backward audio. It was not coordinated or planned. No, it was just a hit. Yeah, if you thought this was the year of the rooster, you're wrong. I don't think it's the year of the rooster anyway. So you're doubly wrong because this was the year of backward audio for good job rain.

So one of my favorite Beatles songs is Rain. You guys know the song, Rain? Nope. It was a single. It was an advanced single off of Revolver. So it came out in 1966. And you know, this was a period in time when the Beatles were feeling particularly

experimental with a lot of their music. And John Lennon in particular, out of the Beatles, was really interested in just new, funky ways of recording. And one of the claims to fame for Rain, the song, is that it is considered generally one of the first rock songs to use

backmasking. And do you guys know what back masking is? According something and then playing it backwards? Yeah, more or less. But yeah, it's essentially recording something and then adding it on to a track backward. So that when you play the track, it's... Like the Missy Elliott song.

Exactly. That's a very well-known example is the Missy Elliott song. So John Lennon, the story goes, by his own telling. It was at the end of a day, he was listening to some of the recording sessions, and he put the loop from Rain in, and either accidentally or maybe semi-on-purpose, played it backwards, and it was just really enthralled with the way it sounded. He's like, this is just great, it's funky, it's something new. So let me just play a little snippet of the song here for you. So this is the last few seconds

of Rain. Interesting. It sounds like there's a little bit of, now I'm going to find me. I'm interesting. It sounds like they're singing in English. It doesn't sound backwards. Right, right. It just sounds weird, but it doesn't sound like... No, I've gone ahead and reversed it, by which I mean, played it forward. Do you guys like to hear that?

Yeah. All right. So that was pretty much it. Kind of just a little throwaway fun effect, but is considered the first example of a rock song putting back masking it. I've heard of this trick before, but I didn't know that it was this song. It was the first one. People, you know, certainly avant-garde artists had sort of experimented with music and things,

but this is sort of the first pop rock song. Right. So flashed forward a couple years. And if you're a Beatles fan or a trivia fan, you may be aware of the Paul is Dead conspiracy theory, which was an idea that got in the heads of some fans that Paul McCartney had been killed in a car accident and it was replaced by a fake Paul and a posture Paul. And more specifically, the theory was that the Beatles' friends, were dropping hints about this in their songs.

And album artwork and, yeah, everywhere. Right, right, right. The fact that Paul is not wearing shoes walking across the street on the cover of Abbey Road. Right, or that he's the only one turned away from you on Sergeant Pepper's and all that kind of stuff. Right. And one of the really strong pieces of evidence that people latched on to is that off of Revolution 9, you can hear backmasking versions of Turn Me on Dead Man, Turn Me on Dead Man, which is supposed to be John Lennon's, you know, sort of admission.

to the listeners that Paul is dead and you can go find this sample and I think it's a great example of if you want to hear it you can hear it right and the Beatles of course Paul was not dead they denied this so this was sort of one of the first examples though of people starting to look

for sort of nefarious messaging in records satanic messages satanic messaging so that's what I would like to talk to you guys about oh yay the I don't know if yeah if that isn't even the right word but the mania that

hysteria. Hysteria, thank you. The hysteria over hidden satanic messages that swept America in the late 70s and early 80s. This is, you know, moving into the late 70s now, this was some people started really getting interested in subliminal advertising, okay?

You know, and particularly there's a guy named Brian Key, and he's the guy you've probably seen who was convinced that the word sex appeared in ads everywhere. You know, his idea is that if you put the word sex hidden in an ad for soda or crackers,

that people will form a subliminal association and they'll want to buy that brand. No one legitimately really believes this who's actually studied it. They've not been able to show any connection between subliminal messaging, whether it is or isn't there. But it is a good example of you see what you want to see.

In the 70s, there were a lot of conservative Christian groups and conservative parents groups that were starting to get concerned of hidden evil messages and rock music. And in particular, there was a DJ named Michael Mills. And he went on a crusade. to convince people that stairway to heaven, okay? The famous Led Zeppelin classic song.

This was his sort of his token great example of hidden satanic messages. That stairway to heaven, if you played it backwards, there was a patch that said, here's to my sweet Satan. And let me play this for you guys very quickly. And here's the segment in question played forward. Yes, there are too bad you can go back. But in the long run, there's still time to change the road. Oh, that's my favorite part of the song.

Yeah, perfectly normal, right? All right. So here's that segment reversed. Here's my sweet save. So in his ears, in his ears, it is as clear as day that they're saying, and here's to my sweet safe. Sure. And when you combine it with what the words are that it's intended to be,

you will hear that because of the power of suggestion of the words, being there. Right, right. It's like by chance. I don't know. Well, so Michael Mills, and there was another big figure there was Pastor Gary Greenwald of California, and they basically took up the torch for spreading the message that rock music, this insidious message is getting inside our children's heads, and they would go on tours and speaking tours. Pastor Greenwald would hold record burnings. You know, you have just like a mass record burning and come out and just trash those evil satanic records. This wasn't just sort of a fringe bowl. belief. I mean, this really bubbled up.

It's bad. I wish it were true because it would be awesome to embed secret codes and music. Like, if you could say words forwards and backwards and they had different meanings, but it's not completely impossible to actually do that. If we could design language again, maybe we would have done that where you could say

one thing backwards and would say one thing forward. It was like an auditory talent. That's creature came back. No, no, no, no. No one had really done any serious research on the two things of like, one, can your brain actually understand something that's being said backward? Right. And then two, if your brain does understand it, can it influence behavior? Right, right, exactly. In the 1980s, they undertook an actual study of this phenomenon. Can we play backward and coded messages for people and are they intelligible? And what they found is no. It's, they, they did find that it's just a very

human phenomenon to want to make things intelligible. And as you say, you can, can kind of hear some words in there. What they also found, though, is that people would only hear the supposed satanic messages if they were primed ahead of time. They would only hear them if they said, all right, we want you to listen and see if you can hear this. But basically, it was no better than chance otherwise if they heard anything. And then secondarily, they found no influence of hearing these messages on your actual behavior. Here's where it gets just crazy for me. Now, I want to remind you, all right? This is 1980s, okay? The state legislative legislature of California

passed a bill that stated distributing material that contains backward messages without public notice is an invasion of privacy and opened up the distributor to lawsuits. This is the state of California

legislature passed this bill. So I know Prince has a song, darling Nikki, and at the end of it there's a section he's singing backwards. Did they have to put out a notice saying that there's backwards music? I guess he would have been arrested in By all the research I can do, it seems that there were actually no teeth to any of these various pieces of legislation. But, you know, I mean, like a lot of politicians, you want a grandstand and pass them. But still, the state of Arkansas, all right, this is this one, this one goes even further. In Arkansas, they passed a bill. And now this is verbatim. They had to place stickers on records and tapes that say, warning, this record contains backward masking, which may be perceptible at a subliminal level when the record. is played forward. That makes me want to buy it. Yeah. I think like a lot of things, like, if all you're going to do is just, yeah, if you make something to seem forbidden, kids are going to

want to have it more. In the one like happy little twist to this story again, so this was passed by the Arkansas legislature. It went to the governor's desk for approval, and it was vetoed and sent back by Governor Bill Clinton. Oh, wow. Yeah, so the moment of clarity. So thank you, Bill, at a 30-year remove. You know, it's funny is Gore's wife was responsible for... Yes, that's right. The tipper sticker.

The Parents Resource Music Council, which started in 1985 and was very, very heavily born out of this hysteria. Like, they came into being and one of their first goals was seeing, are there really hidden satanic messages

in our rock music? Man, people are bored. You know, people are bored and maybe a little... They want to help you, protect you. It died down for a bit. They said one of the reasons that the hysteria died down was because as people moved away from records into CDs, it wasn't as easy to play things backward.

And there are people out there who still really, really believe that the Church of Satan is actively working with rock bands to put their messages in their songs. I wonder how much that sponsorship is. Yeah. No. Yeah. For the backwards. Satan advertising.

Yeah, in the pocket of big Satan. So the moral of the story is, You hear what you want to hear. That's true. That's true. Are there any words or phrases that are auditory palindromes where it's not that they're spelled the same way forwards and backwards? It's that when you say it, it sounds the same forward and backwards.

Right, right. I found some. Oh, cool. Great. So each one of you guys, including me, have a piece of paper with a weird phrase on it. I want you to say it normally. and I'm going to play it backwards to see if it really does work. Oh, okay, all right.

Well, Dana, since you're a fan of Twilight, thanks for calling me out. I gave you the phrase, New Moon. Okay, let's play it backwards to see if it actually works. No, that's where the devil live. Oh, wow. I'm a little scared right now.

That's a beautiful language. Kind of. New a moon. I like fake backwards I kept doing that the last episode I'm like it's surprisingly easy to do and then Colin I gave you a phrase

ominous cinema All right let's play it back with Umanus cinema Oh That was scary That was really close That was close. All right.

And I have work crew. Here it is backwards. Oh, no. Wow. Omnis Cinema is the winner. I wonder if it's because it was longer, maybe? Like, both of your guys were two syllables. Where did you find those?

So I was just scouring the internet looking for good ones. Oh, cool. Well, anyways, so my music round, prepare yourself. I pick some of... Oh, no. The biggest hits, from oldies to even hits today, big hits, and I've reversed it. So I'm going to play it backwards, and I want you guys to guess what song. Buzz in and tell me who is the artist and what song.

Here are some tips that I've learned while I was editing. The tone of the artist kind of remains the same. So that's a good clue if you can figure out the voice, even though they're speaking backwards gibberish. And then the other thing is like the bass. line or the drum line sounds kind of familiar because they're always in repetition so you can get a feel of it. So those are my two tips. Well, we'll see. We'll see how this goes. All right. Here you go. Number one. Dana.

Oh, is Carly Ray Jepson? Call me maybe? Yes, call me maybe. You can kind of hear it. Yeah, that was really weird. Totally. As you said, it was like, it was the beat and the quality of her voice. Mm-hmm.

Okay, number two. No. yeah queen and david bowie under pressure yes that's great especially at the end there wow man freddy mercury forward backward that guy can sing yeah all right number three That little ending is definitely the trick. Oh, sugar pie honey bunch? Yes. Oh, I can't help myself.

Yeah. Oh, I can't help. By, I always forget. Is it the temptations? It's not the temptation. You're not tempted by the sugar. But you are. Four tops.

Yeah. Four tops. Yeah. All right. Next one. That is there Says me And running on and on and on And they must have had an auditory

And the on on on on on Yeah, it sounded just like pretty dead All right, next one All right, next one That sounds like Frenchmen. That was gin and juice. That was gin and juice, snoop dogs. Wow.

That was good. That was like French Snoop. I mean, I really like this. I like that a lot. Music backwards. It's good. Dana. It's Robin Thick Blurred Lines.

Very good. Blurred lines by Robin Thick. Good. Well, that was very fun. That was fun. Good job. And now we know there are auditory palindromes. You just have to try them out.

But ominous cinema. On and on and on and on. On and on and on and on. Well, that was a good stroll down on memory lane. And thank you guys for joining me. And thank you guys, listeners, for listening in to this episode to last week's episode, the weeks before, just throughout the year. We really appreciate it. You know, there are so many moments in my everyday life that I'm always reminded by something we talked about on the show.

Oh, sure. When I was running, you know, half marathons, I always think about. Rosie Ruiz, you know, cheating. And sometimes I'd be like, oh, I can just kind of double book and cut a little bit and cut a little bit, but I can't. Well, hopefully you have those moments, too, listeners, minded how cool this world is and how interesting and weird it is. And since this is our final episode for 2013, we would like to say that we will see you all in the new year. Yeah. The future.

And you can find us on iTunes, on Stitcher, on SoundCloud, and also on our website, good job. brain.com and that's our show. See you guys. 2014. Bye. Happy new year. minutes with stories about impending hurricanes, winter storms, or even what not to miss in the night sky. So listen and subscribe to Accuether Daily, wherever you get your podcasts. That's AccuWeather Daily, wherever you get your podcasts.