Good Job, Brain! - 96: Chillin' Like A Villain

Episode Date: January 29, 2014

Bust out your monacle, twirl up that 'stache, and stroke your reaky hairless cat because it's time to get evil. This week, we're headed to our secret island lair to celebrate trivia about villains. Wh...ere did the word come from? And we all know that the butler did it, but who was the first butler to actually do it? Colin discovers the real Goldfinger behind James Bond lore, and Dana makes us do impressions for her villain catchphrase quiz. Karen keeps the bat at bay with a quiz about ridiculous Batman villains. ALSO: E.L.V.I.S. is back!, Lobetrotter trivia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, man of very valiant and vivacious bone vivant. Welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your seminar of semi-accom. aquatic and semi-sweet semi-prose who semi-talk about semi-colons and seminephorous tubules. I'm Colin. I'm Dana. How often do we talk about some meniferous tubules?
Starting point is 00:00:42 At least once. Nice to be with something. We have before. We have before. Yeah. No Chris this week, he has a pretty good excuse. He is on his honeymoon. Belated honeymoon.
Starting point is 00:00:53 I guess that's okay. Yeah. An excuse. An excuse. And he is in the beautiful Hawaii. Do you guys know the summer? state fish of Hawaii. Humahumu-humu-nuku-nuku-a-pua. Yes.
Starting point is 00:01:04 That is the state fish of Hawaii. What is the actual common name of Humu-Humu-Nuku-Nuku-A? Oh, yeah, I actually don't know. Yeah. What is it? A lot of people know the super long name. It's just called the Reef Triggerfish. Oh, okay.
Starting point is 00:01:17 I think I have heard that. The Humu-Humu long name actually means trigger fish with snout like a pig. Because it does it. It is very pig-like. And you get in trouble if you catch those, right? Like, they're protected, I think. I think there's, I think any. state icon you get in trouble.
Starting point is 00:01:32 Like supposedly, in California, you're not supposed to cut poppies because that's the state flower. Anyways, so no Chris this week, and hopefully he's having a grand old time. And don't forget, we are calling for audio submissions for our upcoming 100th episode. You can record your lovely voice using your computer or voice recorder or your smartphone, and you can tell us your favorite moments, why you like a job brain, let us know how you listen to the show. So you can send us a, I don't know, your dogs barking or a jingle or a poem or a, I don't know, a fake ad, I don't know. World is your oyster. State your name and what city you're from and you can email us the audio file at jb.podcast at gmail.com or you can call into our happy hundred hotline.
Starting point is 00:02:19 A listener, Ben, helped us set us a U.S. phone number where you can call and just leave a voice message and we'll receive it as an audio file. And the number is 678-820-6264, and that is area code 678-8-2-6-6-4. Nice. We've been getting a lot of these. I bet. Oh, Sinjore's in, and I've been crying. Oh, I was like, it's because you're rubbing Swedish candy in your eyes. Oh, yeah, that's right.
Starting point is 00:02:49 For listeners who listened to our last episode, which was the all-quiz, you may have remembered. You probably remember that segment where Dana brought back some Swedish prank candy. Well, no, they're real. It's sincere. It was real candy. And it tastes pretty weird. And we posted a video, an actual video of while we were tasting it on our Facebook page. So check out Colin, like almost dying. I felt like my face was going to turn inside out. All right. And without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment, Pop Quiz, Hot Shot. And here I have a random trivial pursuit card. Dana and Colin have their barnyard buzzers and listeners join in.
Starting point is 00:03:31 Here we go. First question. Blue Wedge for Geography. What sinking building was reopened to visitors in 2001 after engineers spent over a decade stabilizing it? I have no idea. Colin? I'm pretty sure it's the leaning tower of Pisa. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:03:50 Engineers say the building will be my guess. stable for another 200 years. Good job. All right, Pink Wedge for pop culture. What cast member has held the longest tenure on Saturday Night Live? Oh. Interesting. Huh.
Starting point is 00:04:04 So, well, can I ask for a semi-hant? Was that person current, you think, at the time that card was written? Or is this of all time? I guess. Seth Myers? Incorrect. I was going to guess Daryl Hammond. Yes, it's Daryl Hammond.
Starting point is 00:04:18 So, Darryl Hammond. I'm not sure if it's still true. Or if someone's passed him since it. Because he's no longer on the show, so... Because Seth Myers had a pretty good run. Yellow Wedge, what carmaker did Swatch team up with to manufacture the first smart car in 1994? I didn't even know it was a Swatch collaboration. Automotive, the first...
Starting point is 00:04:40 Mercedes? Yes, Mercedes-Benz. All right, Purple Wedge. What is the longest book in the Harry Potter series? Oh, that is a good question. Oh. Is it the last one in the series? No.
Starting point is 00:04:57 Is it the Order of the Phoenix? Yes, it is. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which was book five. All right, Greenwich Forest Science. What TV characters Mac is in the Smithsonian Collection? Not Big Mac, like Mac Computer Mac. Oh, okay. I'm going to guess Jerry Seinfeld, because I know he used to have one prominently featured in the background.
Starting point is 00:05:17 Incorrect. Is it? Houser? Oh, that's a good guess. That's a good guess. Yeah, I didn't think about that. No. No, no, no, no.
Starting point is 00:05:27 Hmm. More. The characters Mac. Modern. More modern. Oh, oh, Carrie from Sex and the City. Ah. Carrie Bradshaw.
Starting point is 00:05:35 Orange Wedge, last question. What actress graced the cover of her best-selling video in leg warmers and a red and black striped t-shirt? Colin. Uh, Jane Fonda? Yes, and the video was Jane Fonda's workout. Good job, Brains. That was a grab-back card, huh? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:05:53 So this week, I want to start off our topic, our theme, with this Roger Ebert quote. And he says, each film is only as good as its villain. Since the heroes and the gimmicks tend to repeat from film to film, only a great villain can transform a good try into a triumph. Nice. That was a really nice quote. This week's theme, inspired by video games, stories, books, TV movies. We're going to talk about villains. Dun-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-ha-n-na-ha-n-ha-n-n-law.
Starting point is 00:06:26 He waved us in and we randomly met the Mr. Hannibal Lecter. He was handling records in the DJ booth asking which was the best selection to make an impression on the wicked witch of the Westin. The witch was booty dancing with Manson and Gannon right next to side show Bobby shot from Blackbeard's cannon. That's when I know. New that's the night I'd be chilling up in the dance club party and with all these villains. I can't keep partying around. Bad guys, scoundrels, villains. Well, I'll start us off with a little bit of a word nerd fun here.
Starting point is 00:07:08 Sure, word nerd. It sounds like, what's a fun. So villain. Let's talk about the word itself. Villain. Villain, it means more than just someone who does bad things. Like it has like a literary or a character component to it. You've got to set up somebody else to triumph over you.
Starting point is 00:07:26 You have to be the obstacle for someone to overcome. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of nuanced in that way. Villain, the word, is actually a pretty old word in English. It goes back to at least 1,300. And, you know, like a lot of older words in English and in other languages, the meaning has changed over time.
Starting point is 00:07:42 So, I mean, so you guys could probably guess at least like the derivation, at least like maybe what language we might get the word villain. from Francaid. It is indeed French. It sounds French. It looks French the way it's spelled. And it has shared roots with the word village and villa. So villain we get from French, which comes from Latin villainous, which meant farmhand. And this is where it's connected to sort of the towny sense of the word villa. So villa means country house. Yeah. Villain was a lowborn rustic person or a country peasant. Got it. And so they sort of of charted the change in the meaning over the centuries, sort of from a farm dweller to a
Starting point is 00:08:25 peasant, to sort of a low-class boor, to kind of a knave, to kind of a scoundrel. And so that's sort of how the definition of the word changed over time. The first recorded use of villain in our modern sense, it only goes back to 1822. It's only a couple hundred years old. I figured that would set us up for a good discussion about all types of villains. So it's so interesting that the farmhand or the person who's working at the villa is the villainous one here. When you think about murder mysteries, you know, the classic who done it or it takes place in a big mansion and there's all this, these rich people, a grab bag of characters, who did it? Who murdered the old patron? The butler did it.
Starting point is 00:09:10 The butler did it, right? So I wonder if there's something to do with class. Like a service class, yeah. I was curious. about why, why did the butler do it? Why is the butler did it a thing? Right. Where did it come from?
Starting point is 00:09:24 What story was the one where it was like, oh, this is the moment that the origin of a trope? Yeah, the first, the first butler to do it. I don't know. Okay, so I mean, if I had to guess, I would guess like Agatha Christie or somebody like of that era writing. I don't know. To be an era where they're butlers.
Starting point is 00:09:43 Right, right. Have you ever heard of Mary Roberts Reinhart? Yes. But I don't know what she did. She's a classic author. She's known as the American Ageth at Christi. She's written over 50 books, and she was super prolific. She wrote a lot of hits.
Starting point is 00:09:59 It was her story, The Door, where Spoiler, The Butler did it, that really shocked the world. It was a huge hit. And after that, everybody was like, oh, that's perfect. The Butler did it. It makes total sense why the Butler did it. Like, I mean, the Butler is everywhere. The Butler. Knows all the secrets.
Starting point is 00:10:18 There's all the secrets. Nobody pays attention to the butler. So when the butler did it, it's like, oh, that's a perfect answer to a murder mystery and a house. Someone had to be the first one. Yeah. I mean, there were a couple stories that came before her, but they weren't blockbuster. Like, maybe the closest was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote one of his short stories.
Starting point is 00:10:37 The butler was guilty of stealing from the master, but then they died and they weren't the main culprit. Yeah. So it was like, okay, so here is the twist that blew my mom. find. I thought this was the craziest story. I have to share it with you guys. So she got to be really rich. She had, you know, a bunch of stories. She had a summer house and her personal chef. She passed him up to be her butler and he tried to murder her. Oh, my God. Yeah. It's a crazy, crazy story. No, so it was 1947. She had a summer house in Bar Harbor, Maine. Yeah. And she had this personal
Starting point is 00:11:14 chef for decades. And he wanted to be the butler and she decided to hire somebody else to be the butler. Somebody knew. He was snubbed. Yeah. So she's sitting in the library. He comes in in his regular shirt, not without his coat on. He's like, oh, where's your uniform? Because all the men had to wear the coats. And he's like, it's right here. And he pulls out his gun. And he tries to shoot her, point blank range tries to shoot her. The gun jams. She like screams or burns out of the library. He's chasing her, trying to get the gun to work again. I think it was the The chauffeur tackles him and holds them down. She has, like, heart problems, and one of her maids goes to get their heart medicine.
Starting point is 00:11:51 She's calling the police to report it. He breaks free of the chauffeur. Comes at her with knives. And then I think the gardener hears it, and he comes in. It's a good thing she has such a big staff. I know. I mean, she had so many services. And, like, then they tackle him.
Starting point is 00:12:08 She saved. And the butler she hired, like, ran away at the beginning of this. Like ran back to town. He was like. He was not. at all. I was like, I'm out of here. The would be Butler. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. So it was like, well, maybe, maybe that's why Butler did it in her story. She doesn't treat people super well. She's picking up on the tension. She's projecting,
Starting point is 00:12:28 yeah. Oh, my God. Wow. Well, kudos and congratulations for surviving, Mary Reinhardt. That's a good trivia question. And from the story, the door. Yeah. Okay. That is a good one. That is a good trivia question. For sure. So this wasn't planned in any, And you way, it just kind of happened earlier today. You know, I prepped the segment and I was watching TV and I was watching this movie that kind of related to my segment. I was like, oh, what a coincidence? And I want to start off by asking you, what movie is this?
Starting point is 00:12:59 Because I was watching this. It's horrible. It's a horrible movie. And the last line, see if you can identify the movie from its last line. All right, okay. The last line is, we're going to need a bigger cave. We're going to need a bigger cave. It's a play on so many other
Starting point is 00:13:18 We're going to need a bigger blank It's a bad movie Is it one of the Batman movies? Which one? Oh goodness Batman Oh Is it the one with Batgirl in it?
Starting point is 00:13:31 Yes Is it the one where the Bat suit has nipples on it? I think half of them have the nipples. I mean, I lost track of which one is which. Is it Batman Forever? So Batman Forever, that's the one with Val Kilmer as Batman And then it had
Starting point is 00:13:46 Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face Oh, right And then Jim Carrey as Edward Nigma E-Nigma The Riddler And then this movie
Starting point is 00:13:55 I'm referring to We're going to need A Bigger Cave Is so bad And it starred George Clooney as Batman Chris O'Donnell was Robin
Starting point is 00:14:05 The movie was Batman and Robin Alicia Silverstone was Batgirl And there was Uma Thurman As Poison Ivy And Arnold
Starting point is 00:14:13 Trotsenegger as Mr. Freeze with all the like the ice puns Terrible ice to meet you. Yeah, yeah, it is. What killed the dinosaur? The ice age. Like it's just so bad. And at the end, it was Alfred who said,
Starting point is 00:14:28 we're going to need a bigger cave because now we have Robin and we have Batgirl. And it was just, oh my goodness. It was so funny because it was such a coincidence because I prepared a segment on Batman villains. And that this was on TV. I was like, oh, but why can it be one of the? good movies. Bad Batman. You probably just came in on the tail end of a marathon. I guess today's
Starting point is 00:14:48 show, a lot of my segments are inspired by video games. I think one of the best video games in the past five years was Batman Arkham City. I've always had a fascination with Batman because he's a regular guy. I mean, I guess he's not regular because he's super, super rich, but he doesn't have Superman's power. He's no powers. Yeah. He's just a regular physique dude who got buff and knows how to fight and has gadgets and has money to make his bat cave. It's so funny you're talking about Batman because Mary Roberts Reinhardt wrote a play called The Bat and it was about a villain who dressed up as a bat. So like a Batman and that's what inspired or one of the inspirations for Bob Keene to write.
Starting point is 00:15:27 Batman. Wow! That's cool. Yes. These villains have the dumbest names. And when you have no context, when you hear about the Joker or the Rither, you're like, That sounds kind of dumb. Who would be scared of that?
Starting point is 00:15:42 Yeah, it's not scary. But then it's, you know, with good writers and good actors or good, you know, artists and comic book writers, they really make the character. Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker, has been voicing Joker in the animated series back in the 90s. Also did voice acting for Arkham City and Arkham Asylum, the Batman games. And just superchilling. Chilling and it's scary. And that's the weird thing about it is like these villains sounds so dumb. But they're so scary.
Starting point is 00:16:12 Yeah. Or Heath Ledger's performance as Joe Ben. I mean, just legitimately scary. But then you watch like the old 60s Batman with Adam West and you have like, what was some Caesar Romero? Yeah. Where they just paint white makeup over his mustache? Yeah. So that's the interesting thing, how something can sound dumb.
Starting point is 00:16:30 They can still be dumb or some of these villains are written or portrayed in a really great way. So here I have kind of, it's kind of a quiz, but kind of more like a brainstorm. talk through, where I picked some just ridiculous villains. Some are actually really, really scary, and some are really, really dumb. So here we go. And I'm going to say their name. And I want you guys to talk out what you think this villain's schick is. They all have a schick.
Starting point is 00:16:56 Yeah, yeah. Of course, we have, like, Two-Faces, very self-explanatory. Joker is kind of self-explanatory. These are also kind of self-explanatory. Let's start with a punny one. KG Beast. KG. Okay.
Starting point is 00:17:10 So a Russian... Yeah. Like a bear-like Russian Soviet-era-villian. Pretty much. K-G-Beast. K-G-Beast. Assassin, Russian, his name is Anatoly Knazzev, was written in the late 80s, and his mission in the comic was to assassinate Ronald Reagan.
Starting point is 00:17:33 So this was kind of like... Too soon. All right. Grant Morrison, very famous comic book writer. he cooked up some crazy villains Flamingo Where's all pink Yeah
Starting point is 00:17:45 Correct Yes Flamingo's power is Outrageous flamboyance Actually, yes So Flamingo Like a lot of Batman villains They're all crazy They're like psychotic
Starting point is 00:17:58 Or where they're sociopaths right So Flamigio was a hitman And what happened was he was Lobotomized brainwashed by the mob And eight people's faces What? Like flamingos, too?
Starting point is 00:18:11 What? Why he's called Flamingo is he is in all pink. He has like a pink velvety coat with epaulets and a frilly shirt. And if you look at the comic book cover that he's in, he looks exactly. And, you know, it's not a coincidence. This is an homage to Prince from Purple Rain. He's got a super pink motorcycle that he's posing very flamboyant with his frilly shirt and his pink coat. and his lovely mustache.
Starting point is 00:18:40 But he also eats people's faces, which sounds really scary. The first time you see a flamingo eats someone's face, it's jarring. It's jarring. That's why they're pink, right? It's a keratinoid in the victims. All right, here's another one.
Starting point is 00:18:55 Great white shark. Probably worried. It can't just be that he's like water bound, because then it's Aquaman's problem. Then Batman's like, you handle it. Like a shark skin suit. Oh, that could be. I was thinking something with the teeth, like really sharp teeth, like Jaws and James Bond.
Starting point is 00:19:12 All kind of right. I'm telling you. It's a pretty straightforward. Originally, his name is Warren White. He worked in finance and was a crook, and he stole a lot of money. A shark, if you will. Yeah, yes, exactly. And when he got locked into Arkham Asylum, the Gotham City jail or psychiatric.
Starting point is 00:19:31 It's like the villain factory, really. It is. It is like they would notice that this is not. rehabilitation at all. It's like finishing school for supervillains. Yeah, it is. They get angrier. They get crazier.
Starting point is 00:19:45 They get crazier. They get blamboient and weird. They keep getting funded, though, year after year. Yeah. He also had an encounter with Mr. Freeze, and Mr. Freeze basically, you know, tortured him so that Warren White, he lost his hair, his nose, his ears, and his lips. Oh. So he kind of looks like a shark face.
Starting point is 00:20:06 And also, Killer Croc, slashed him on the. the throat, so he had things that look like gills. And so he started crafting the persona of great white shark, and he even sharpened his teeth to look like fangs. He owns it. He, you know, just accept who you are, own it. And if you're curious what he looks like, he kind of looks like Voldemort from the Harry Potter movies.
Starting point is 00:20:27 Weird looking. Automatopoeia. He makes animal noises. Yeah. He looks like what he sounds like. I don't even, I can't, something with poetry, he writes deadly poems, and I don't know. This one is a little hard. He's Greek or something.
Starting point is 00:20:47 What is onomatopoeia, like, in general? It's the phenomenon of a word that is named after what it sounds like, boom, or buzz, yeah, or hiss. Yep, he earned his name because he mimics the noises around him. What? Like, like, like, a. How does this help him mimic crimes? Like gunshots, birds chirping or dripping faucets and stuff like that. So that's his skill.
Starting point is 00:21:12 And he was really famous for, in the comics, gaining Batman's trust disguise as someone else. Because basically he's a mimic. He's a really good mimic. To a point where Batman almost told him his real identity. Wow. I really trusted him. Okay, now we're getting to the actually just dumb ones. All right.
Starting point is 00:21:29 You might remember this. This only showed up in the old 60s TV show, Egghead. Oh, yeah. Egghead. Yeah, he was just really super smart, right? He was played by Vincent Price. Ah, interesting. Oh, I do remember him. You're right. He's super smart. The world's smartest criminal.
Starting point is 00:21:49 He really liked using eggs as a theme for his crimes. And he would use puns, like, that was egg-solent. Of course he did. Yeah, I mean, exactly. Yeah. Just Vincent Price, just chewing the scenery. Yeah, yeah. Making me wear that and say that.
Starting point is 00:22:09 Oh, man. Let's do this. Egghead. Crazy quilt. What do you think crazy quilts did? Well, probably crazy. His outfit was stitched together. Oh, maybe some sort of chameleon ability.
Starting point is 00:22:26 Like, maybe he can make his outfit match any background. I don't know. That would actually be cool. He can not as cool. He matches bedspreads. He can lay on any bed and disappear, yeah. He was one of the older villains in the Batman history who first appeared in 1946, and he used to be a painter and was also a thief.
Starting point is 00:22:51 And somehow he got blinded during a botched robbery. And while in prison, he volunteered for, of course, an experimental procedure that would restore his vision because he was an artist. was a side effect. He can see, but he can see crazy colors and disorienting colors. And it basically drove him insane. And his outfit is just like a mosaic of colors. I wonder how he went to action. It's kind of lame. I'm just going to say that. It's kind of lame. It's not very scary. Yeah. Crazy quilts. Yeah. So like what makes you different is all internal to his head. It's not like it manifests outwardly anyway. Except for his outfit. Yeah. Yeah. Here's,
Starting point is 00:23:34 Another vision-based one. Okay. The ten-eyed man. Is he like a fly? He can, like, see in multiple directions at once, maybe? He does have ten eyes, but they're not on his face. This was in the 70s. His real name was Philip Reardon, and he was...
Starting point is 00:23:51 His rear eyes. He has eyes on his butt. Eyes on his butt. Yeah. Ten butt eyes. That's how that saying goes, right? You have eyes on the back of your butt. It's like he's got eyes in the back of his butt.
Starting point is 00:24:04 But butts don't have backs. And unfortunately, he's wearing pants. So all he can see is the inside of his pants. It's very scratchy on his curtains. He was a Vietnam vet, and he got blinded from an explosion. So, of course, he had surgery done to restore his vision. Let me guess. Something went wrong.
Starting point is 00:24:27 His retinas got burnout. So basically, the doctor reconnected his vision nerves onto. his fingertips. Sure. Because that's how that works. They do that, they do that procedure all the time, all the time. It's such a fallback procedure.
Starting point is 00:24:43 So he can see from his fingertips and he has ten of them. That's just patently absurd. You can never use your hands for anything again. Oh, you can't. Oh, man. Imagine typing. Yeah, every single key just coming up to you. I think it might be helpful if you're,
Starting point is 00:25:04 You're a burglar or something that you can reach? Yeah, it's like having like little periscope fingers or like, you know, they do that little snake cam, like in the spy movies. It's like you've just got that on your finger. I wonder if it's hard to like see 10 things at once. Have you tried the Google Glass? Have you tried that? No. So I tried it the other day.
Starting point is 00:25:23 Like I can only look at that screen. I cannot like my eyes are looking forward, but I'm not looking at anything else. So I can imagine, I cannot imagine driving with that on because you're only focusing in one. eye at the little screen. Yeah. Not at anything you can't do. Imagine 10 of them. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:38 How are you? Anyway. And lastly, another more old timing. This was a 1947 where maybe that this actually did make sense, but it doesn't make sense now. His name is Penny Plunderer. Penny Plunderer. He likes pennies.
Starting point is 00:25:56 He's a banker of some sort. Maybe I'm imagining Scrooge McDuck. Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe like he steals pennies out of like suburb. turnstiles or something. Oh, maybe it's a girl. Penny.
Starting point is 00:26:06 Oh, Penny. Oh, that's a boy. Oh, third. Either Scrooge McDock or, yeah. That's pretty much it. Really likes pennies. Like, as in the coin. His name is Joe Coyne.
Starting point is 00:26:18 A thief obsessed with pennies. He can have them. He doesn't even have to steal him. I'll just give it to him. He started out as a newsie, as a newsboy. So basically, that's his shick is stealing pennies. And somehow he ended up in an electric chair. You got to steal a lot of pennies, man, even in Gotham City.
Starting point is 00:26:38 Maybe he killed people with pennies. Well, there's no. He was throwing pennies at people as a weapon. And, you know, and the people were really shot. They're like, oh, no. Penny is in my face. He tripped Batman and Robin with pennies on the ground. And they're like, whoa.
Starting point is 00:26:55 Maybe a roll of pennies. A roll of pennies. Yeah. That's so ridiculous. Penny plunder. Of course, Joe Corn. Joe Coyne. Yeah, he was really destined for a life of coin crime. There you go. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:27:10 All right, let's take a quick break. A word from our sponsor. Hello, this is Matt from the Explorers podcast. I want to invite you to join me on the voyages and journeys of the most famous explorers in the history of the world. At the Explores podcast, we plunge into jungles and deserts, across mighty oceans and frigid ice caps, over and to the top of Great Mountains, and even into outer space. These are the thrilling and captivating stories of Magellan,
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Starting point is 00:28:09 even know you had, but once you hear the answer, you'll want to share it with everyone you know. Why do rivers curve? Why did the T-Rex have such tiny arms? And why do so many more kids need glasses now than they used to? Spoiler alert, it isn't screen time. Our team of scientists digs into the research and breaks it down into a short, entertaining explanation, jam-packed with science facts and terrible puns. Subscribe to Minute Earth wherever you like to listen. Well, for me, the best villains are over-the-top villains. I love them over-the-top.
Starting point is 00:28:39 And, I mean, I have to say out... Like the flamingo? Yes, like the flamingo. Outside of comic books and Batman, maybe, for me, nobody does over-the-top villains better than James Bond. Oh, yeah. And especially those, like, the really classic, earlier James Bond, just over the top, in both in the novels and in the movies.
Starting point is 00:29:00 They're kind of Batman-esque. Like the scope of their crimes. The scope of their crimes. Also, their names are kind of, you know, punish. But, yeah, Dana, I think, like, what you're talking about is just, like, sort of the classic big three of the Bond villains, right? I mean, we could probably name them. I mean, two of them had the books named after them.
Starting point is 00:29:19 There's... Dr. No. Dr. No, of course. Which is like Dr. Evil. Right. Well, I mean, it's funny, the Dr. Evil elements come from a few different places. Yeah, Dr. No, it was the first James Bond movie, even though it was actually the sixth book. There's Blofeld, who is what Dr. Evil is directly modeled on.
Starting point is 00:29:35 I mean, if you look up a picture of the classic Blofeld, it's, oh, that's Dr. Evil. I mean, everything, just the cat in the lap and the bald head, the scar on the face. And not only Dr. Evil based on Blowfeld, but also Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget. Oh, yeah. Oh. Again, with the cat in the lab. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:29:56 Is this where the villainous cats come from? It is. That comes from the Blofeld character in the James Bond books and movies. Yeah. And then sort of, for me, rounding out the classic big three would be Goldfinger. Yeah. Oric Goldfinger. Again, the bad pun name.
Starting point is 00:30:13 Oric, meaning golden or gold-like. Yes, Oric. A-U-R-I-C. That was his first name. Oh, man. I mean, it makes sense now thinking about that these villains, we've seen derivations of them throughout the years. I really never made the connection that their homages or their tributes to these classic
Starting point is 00:30:32 Yeah, yeah, and so many of the things they seem just wrote now. I mean, like Dr. No, I mean, he's the mad scientist. He's got metal hands. He's the one with the private island, you know, I mean, all these things. Yeah, the private island. Of course, yeah. As you do. As ever, you know.
Starting point is 00:30:48 So, but I want to talk a little bit about Goldfinger. particular because there's just some awesome trivia bundled up in Goldfinger so in case you haven't seen the movie or read the book okay all I know I don't think I've ever yeah tell me what do you know about Goldfinger I know there was a girl who was almost naked and she was painted in gold yes yes he loves gold finger really really really really likes gold like as much as penny plunderer like pennies loves gold gold this gold that great paints his girlfriend's gold so he can make love to gold I he likes gold. Now, and you might think that the name Goldfinger was kind of a cheeky invention by
Starting point is 00:31:27 Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond novels, of course. No, Oric Goldfinger was named after a real-life person, a real-life architect named Erno Goldfinger. And it was not really done in a complimentary way. So, and as an aside, I should say, you know, that it isn't, it's pretty common for authors to name characters after people in their real lives or names they may know. And, you know, Ian Fleming even did this as well. Blofeld apparently was named after someone that he went to school with. Yeah. He just took, he liked the last name. Blofeld thought it would work. It's kind of fake names. Yeah. Sometimes it's more believable to use names. Back to Erno Goldfinger. No, he was, he was a well-known architect in the UK. He was a modernist. Despite being a very talented man,
Starting point is 00:32:13 it sounds like he was capable of being kind of a jerk, to say, to put it mildly. He had reputation for being utterly humorless. Yeah, not what you call the warm and fuzzy type, but again, a very accomplished architect. One of the projects that Goldfinger, Erno Goldfinger was working on in the Hampstead neighborhood of London, was a row of three modernist-style concrete houses. That required demolition of a bunch of cottages that had been there for years and years and years before. And a lot of the Hampstead neighborhood residents were pissed off. They were not happy about this. and they were demonstrating and kind of protesting against him.
Starting point is 00:32:52 And one of these locals living in Hampstead was none other than Ian Fleming. So it's funny. The character is based on a gold mining magnet named Charles Englehard, who was a friend of Ian Fleming's, and he loved it. Like, he was just delighted. He was delighted that you model your villain after me. Yeah. Because he had a sense of humor.
Starting point is 00:33:13 Yeah. So Goldfinger, the novel, comes out in 1959. and Erno Goldfinger finds out that he unwittingly has become sort of the namesake of the title character. But there are plenty of people whose last names are Goldfinger. There are not a whole lot of people. There are some, but there are very few who are named Goldfinger and had pissed off Ian Fleming. So he really saw the connection. He saw the connection.
Starting point is 00:33:37 He threatened to sue. He was threatening to sue Ian Fleming and the publishing company. And I love this. Like Ian Fleming just, his response was like, oh, okay. yeah, I'll change the name. I can rename the character Goldprick. Eventually, Erno Goldfinger agreed to drop the lawsuit. They dropped the suit.
Starting point is 00:33:58 Ian Fleming and his publishing house, they agreed to pay his legal costs. And I love this. So to make it go away, they paid his legal costs, and they also sent him six free copies of Goldfinger. And then it got made into a movie. And then, way to go, Ian Fleming. All right, we're going to take a quick break from all this bad guy talk. And we have a new segment. It is our lobe-trotter segment.
Starting point is 00:34:28 Loeb-trotters are our official fan club members. They're people who purchased a fan club package back when we opened up the store last year. And one of the things in these membership packages is that lobe-trotter fans get to share their favorite facts on the show. So here I have two very cool trivia tidbits. This is from Winter. Hi, good job, Brain. Thanks for an awesome podcast. My trivia tidbit is about the Boy Scouts.
Starting point is 00:34:56 My brother wasn't scouting and he traversed through the different levels. The wolf, the bear, the bobcat, and the weebelo. And Winter says, I had no idea what a weebelo was, but thought it was some sort of musk rat slash wolf hybrid or something. Which I Before reading this I had no idea What a weble I thought it was like a weevil
Starting point is 00:35:18 Like a bull weevil It's a portmanteau word Isn't it? But then it was like We and below Like they are little Below Oh okay
Starting point is 00:35:24 Go ahead I think you're I think you're getting So Winter says It stands for We be loyal And Winter says We be disappointed
Starting point is 00:35:34 When I got down If that shows up in Pub trivia Which it might That totally good We'd be loyal We be We below
Starting point is 00:35:43 All right have another lobe-trotter fact from Lohen from Arizona and says here, I'm so excited to be part of the lobetrotters. My favorite piece of Arizona trivia is that in my fair state of Arizona, it is illegal to refuse someone a glass of water. Oh. Yeah, that's good. I wonder what happened that they had to make this law. So hot there is the desert. Oh, so it's like, so it's good hydration tip. Yeah. I mean, even in this day and age, people still die when it gets too hot there. Yeah. Wow. Here you go. Well, thank you, Lowen, and Winter for these tidbits. And we're going to start sharing some of these in future shows from all the Loeb-trotter effects. And thank you
Starting point is 00:36:26 for writing in. Yeah, those are great. Thanks, guys. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. So a few weeks ago, you had us do voices, impressions, impersonations of celebrities.
Starting point is 00:37:03 So turnabout is fair play, my friend. I'm caught in the crossfire. Do it twice. Colin has to do it. twice. But you're Robert De Niro. That episode was really good. Yeah. It was really good. And you're Christopher Walking, even though that wasn't a question. It's always very good. I always find a way to squeeze in if I can. So, um, this is an episode about villains and villains often have the best lines in the movie. Okay. Her and their show. All right. Get ready. So we have to act out.
Starting point is 00:37:31 You have to act out their catchphrase. All right. Here we go, Karen. That's fun. We'll start easy. Daleks. The Daleks from Dr. Who. Exterminate. Yes, exterminate. Good job. Joker. The Joker.
Starting point is 00:37:48 Oh, the Joker. This catchphrase, the Joker. I'll say, let's do the newest Joker. Oh, okay. Karen. Why? He's so serious. That was good.
Starting point is 00:37:59 That was pretty good. How about General Zod? Oh, General Zod. I don't even know what's this from. From Superman. man oh i i'm opting out of this one man i i've seen that one so many times i can wait which one is it he was the one two or three they're they're from the negative zone they're like the three he has like a black pirate's boss on my hair can't stamp i believe played him man
Starting point is 00:38:24 i can't i i i'm blanking on what his touchphrase kneel before zah oh of course neal before zad yes good thank you i'm glad that you still did the impersonation i feel like I owed it to you. Yeah. How about Mr. Burns? Colin. Excellent. We do it again.
Starting point is 00:38:45 Excellent. Wow. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck. You have to tent the fingers when you do it, of course. Smithers, release the hounds. Wow. The Wicked Witch of the West. Colin.
Starting point is 00:38:59 And your little dog, too. Yeah. There's something that comes right before it, too. Well, I was thinking, like, oh you know when she's I'm melting oh what a world you know
Starting point is 00:39:12 I'll get you in your little dog oh yeah okay I'll get you my pretty oh get you my pretty and your little dog too how about the Borg oh oh um
Starting point is 00:39:25 prepare what is it prepare to be assimilated prepare for assimilation something like that Resistance is futile Yes That was the one I was thinking of
Starting point is 00:39:40 But I was like Oh the simulation I don't know how I do an impression though Because I think of Jerry I think of like a hot A hot Borg Hot Borg Wasn't Jerry Ryan a Borg?
Starting point is 00:39:51 She was a hot lady She was a hot lady Borg I don't know I really don't know She's talking about I might have made me No she's talking about Borg Yeah
Starting point is 00:39:59 On the big cube Borg ship Yeah Yeah you're right Resistance is futile is there Yeah yeah How about Tony Montana? Say hello to my little friend. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:40:18 Nice. Wow. From Starface, right? Yes, of course, yes, yes. How about Jack Torrance? Do you recognize that name? Jack Torrance. Jack Torrance.
Starting point is 00:40:31 Uh-huh. Sounds familiar. Give us a hint It's a Kubrick Oh Oh Here's Johnny What was that movie?
Starting point is 00:40:47 I just know it was the shining Okay that's right Jack Nicholson How about Oh that's scary Oh my God It gives me good I should have started with this one
Starting point is 00:40:56 This is the easy one How about the Gallum Together I think of a good one Okay My fresh You guys Thieveses
Starting point is 00:41:07 So That's that one It makes my Like It makes the back of my What else does he say? Hobbitses Filthy
Starting point is 00:41:18 Filty Hobbitses No That's pretty good That was pretty good Good gallum Your inner gallum You're in our mirror That's a long time
Starting point is 00:41:27 Okay last one How about Audrey 2 Feed me Seymour Yeah That, oh wait, hold on Let me backwards figure out who that is Okay Oh, it's the plant from
Starting point is 00:41:43 Little Shop of Horrors, right? Yes He's like a venous flytrap or something Yep, yep, yep, yep And I got like a soulful voice Is he a singing plant? Yeah, yeah It was more groovy
Starting point is 00:41:54 Was he a two? His girl, his good, the love interest She was Audrey So he named the plant Audrey too Oh, oh. Yeah, that's a can of worms there. Name your plant after your girlfriend. Yeah, do your own Freudian analysis.
Starting point is 00:42:08 Your evil plant. Yes, your man-eating plant. It was not evil when he named it after Audrey. It's true. Good job, you guys. Yeah. Nice impersonation. That was fun.
Starting point is 00:42:17 That was fun. And we're close to the end, but we have one more quiz segment. Colin, you got a quiz for us. Is it a villain related? It's not villain related, unless you can say. Elvis, a villain. Oh, he's not a villain. He's our hero.
Starting point is 00:42:35 Yeah. It is time again for the return of Elvis, the electronic, lyrical vocalization interface system. Sure. Our 1980s era, computerized voice, who will read out for you with no soul, no intonation, no melody, opening lines from famous songs.
Starting point is 00:42:54 Ah. Your job, as always, is to identify the song and the performer. And I will tell you that there is a theme connecting all of the songs. I've got six tracks I will play for you. So some of them may be easy, some of them may be a little tricky.
Starting point is 00:43:11 They all have something in common, aside from all being number one hits. These are all very well-known songs. Or they have words, yeah. Yeah, all right. Here we go. Take it away, Elvis, with our first track. I can show you the world,
Starting point is 00:43:25 shiny, simmering, splendid. Tell me, princess, now when did you last let your heart decide? I had some emotion. I was actually really impressed by the inflection. Oh, really? Because it's like, he's asking a question. It sounded like a question. He can do rising intonation, even if he can't do emotion.
Starting point is 00:43:49 That is a whole new world. Yep. Original pop version, non-movie version, the actual release version, was Peebo Bryson and Regina Bell. Correct. And in the movie, it was Brad Kane and Leah Salonga as the singing voices. She is showing off now. Dropping the mic. These are expensive mics, Karen.
Starting point is 00:44:16 Yes, that is correct. A whole new world. All right, well done. From the movie Aladdin. From the movie Aladdin, of course. Yes. All right, here we go. Next track.
Starting point is 00:44:25 I used to rule the world. Seas would rise when I gave the word. Now in the morning I sleep alone. Sleep the streets I used to own. Dana. That's Coldplay. Yes. That's the La Vita.
Starting point is 00:44:43 Not Lovita Loca. You're so close. Oh, hold on. Viva. Viva La Vita. Yes. Yes. That is Coldplay's Viva La Viva.
Starting point is 00:44:52 Vita. Correct. All right. And remember, there's a theme for all of these. Here we go. Next track. There used to be a gray tower alone on the sea. You became the light on the dark side of me. Dana. This is Kiss from a Rose. It is. By Seal. That is correct. Kiss from a Rose performed by Seal. Wow. Wait, what was the line again? Can you play it again? Sure. there used to be a graying tower alone on the sea you became the light on the dark side of me my power my pain so are they kind of all about explaining the world
Starting point is 00:45:35 or like okay so I used to roam the world there used to be a graying tower well kiss from Rose wasn't the Batman Forever soundtrack it was it was it was a Batman forever yeah oh okay because I was also you two It wasn't just Batman. All right, well, let's keep going here. Maybe we'll flesh out as we progress.
Starting point is 00:45:55 All right, next track. There's a fire starting in my heart. Reaching a fever pitch. It's ringing me out of the dark. Ah, what is it? This is Adele rolling in the deep. It is, Adele rolling in the deep. Kind of piece it together.
Starting point is 00:46:13 I can hear your guys gears turning. All right, just two more here. Next track. and I never thought I'd feel this way and as far as I'm concerned I'm glad I got the chance to say that I do believe I love you Oh that's so vague
Starting point is 00:46:31 One more time Here we go And I never thought I'd feel this way And as far as I'm concerned I'm glad I got the chance to say that I do believe I love you That's a jerky thing to say Yeah.
Starting point is 00:46:49 This is, uh, that's what friends are for. Oh, yeah, yeah. By Dionne Warwick and Friends is how it's built. It's built as Dionne Warwick and Friends. What, how does the song go? For good times and bad times. Do you guys know who the friends are? This is like some sub-trivia, by the way.
Starting point is 00:47:08 No, no. Who? Monica and Chandler. No, these are all some heavyweights. It's Dionne Warwick, uh, Gladys Knight. Whoa. Stevie Wonder and Elton John. Wow.
Starting point is 00:47:17 crap yeah that was a hit all right last one here give me a second i need to get my story straight my friends are in the bathroom getting higher than the empire state oh um is it uh cana karen kana that's our celebrity yeah her couple name yeah um beastie boys no just because of the new york party No, this is a song from last year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it fun? It is. Oh, fun period?
Starting point is 00:47:53 Fun dot. Oh, that's how the song starts? It's kind of talk singing at the beginning there, but yeah, that's how the song starts. Yeah, you could not escape that song seemingly in 2013. So here, let's run this down again. So we've got a whole new world, Viva La Vita, Kiss from a Rose, Rolling in the Deep. That's what friends are for, and we are young. What do these songs all have in common, aside from being number one hits?
Starting point is 00:48:20 These songs all came out in different years. Their Grammy Award winning songs? Yeah. Oh, wait, really? These are all songs that won Song of the Year at the Grammys. And it's very timely because as we are recording, the Grammys are going on in Los Angeles. Kiss from a Rose was song of the year. That's a good sign.
Starting point is 00:48:40 It is, it is. It is. It's a good bit of trivia on that one, too. It was actually, so the song originally came out on Seale's album in 94. It got repurposed into. And it got re-released for the Batman soundtrack. And so it won in the year that it was re-released. They can do that?
Starting point is 00:48:59 As long as it is released as a single in the year that they're giving out awards for. Well, good. Thank you, Elvis. Thanks, Elvis. Keeping track of all those winners. All right. And that is our show. Thank you guys for joining me.
Starting point is 00:49:15 Thank you guys, listeners, for listening in. And I hope you learn a lot about just bad guys in general, a crazy quilt. We got The Butler, we got a goldfinger who turned out to be in a hole and other dastardly scoundrel stuff. You can find us on iTunes, on Stitcher, on SoundCloud, and also on our website, goodjobbrain.com. Check us out on Twitter and on Facebook. That's at Good JobBraid and slash Good Job Brain. and we have a lot of fun. We post videos and just crazy links and stuff like that.
Starting point is 00:49:48 And, of course, the video of Colin eating the crazy candy from the last episode. I'm sorry, I didn't even ask you. I was like, I'm just going to upload this. I'd have the world to see. That's fine. That's fine. I need some new stalkers. It was so funny.
Starting point is 00:50:03 And I guess we'll see you guys next week. Bye. If you like this podcast, can we recommend another one? It's called Big Picture Science. You can hear it wherever you get your podcast, and its name tells part of the story. The big picture questions and the most interesting research in science. Seth and I are the host. Seth is a scientist.
Starting point is 00:50:37 I am Molly, and I'm a science journalist. And we talk to people smarter than us, and we have fun along the way. The show is called Big Picture Science, and And as Seth said, you can hear it wherever you get your podcasts.

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