How To Do Everything - Mascots, Cheerleaders and Beethoven

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

This week, Mike and Ian help a caller who's curious about mascot races – with the help of a talking sausage. A police inspector in Finland reveals his creative hack for keeping beaches safe. And a high school cheerleading squad saves the day.You can email your burning questions to [e-mail] To Do Everything is available without sponsor messages for supporters of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me+, who also get bonus episodes of Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! featuring exclusive games, behind-the-scenes content, and more. Sign up and support NPR at plus.npr.org.How To Do Everything is hosted by Mike Danforth and Ian Chillag. It is produced by Heena Srivastava. Technical direction from Lorna White.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. About 10 years ago, the town of Espo, Finland, had a problem with thousands of young people gathering on the beaches and committing crimes, some of them very serious crimes. Inspector Hannu Vananen had an idea to stop it. Can you tell us about that? Yes. In Finland, in central Finland, they had used classical music in a shopping mall. The youth didn't like the classical music, so they evaded it. And then I'm a little odd in this police station. I suggested to the superiors that should we try to play the classical music at the beach? And we played it the youth usually they gather there around

6 p.m or 7 p.m until the 1 a.m the whole night and we started the music at 4 or 5 p.m so there was you wasn't youth already there and and the youth they did come in small groups, but they started to move one by one, one step, two steps, three steps away from the music. It wasn't loud. They could talk, but I'm not sure what's the problem with the classical music. But they did move. It sounds like you just kind of changed the vibe of the beach to a place they didn't think was cool anymore. Yes, something like that. Am I right that the vibe there, that the scene at the beach with the classical music would almost make it perfect for a romantic picnic?

Well, yeah, if you like Bach or Mozart or pan flute music, then it's okay. And the people, some of the older people came and they enjoyed like a pizza and wine or something with the classical music. I guess that would be a danger that you would, by playing the classical music, you could be attracting too many old people. Well, they warned us about that. My superiors also warned me about that. But that's not the case yet. Do you, in your

private personal life, do you listen to classical music? Not much. Sorry about that. So it kind of had the same effect on you, didn't it? Well, it might have. It might have. This is How to Do Everything. I'm Ian.

And I'm Mike. On today's show, how to fix the net at your basketball game. But first... We got an email from Brian, which he sent from his seat at a minor league baseball game. He said he needed some help. Brian, what can we help you with? Yeah, so right when I was watching a mascot race at the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs baseball game here in Allentown, Pennsylvania, they do a mascot race in the middle of one of their innings. I just thoroughly enjoyed it, and I was like,

how can I do this, and how hard are these costumes to run in? What are the mascots that are racing? So it's all pork-based characters. My favorite is Crispy Bacon, P period bacon. That's a slice of bacon. Diggity is a hot dog. Hambone is a slice of ham. Hambone always loses.

There's Barbecue, that's a pulled pork sandwich. And then they added somebody recently, Ribby, it's a pulled pork sandwich. And then they added somebody recently, ribby, it's a rack of ribs. So there are five. Well, that actually raises a question that I have, Brian. So for ham bone, what is the shape of ham bone? If ham bone always loses, is that an issue because aerodynamically ham bone has more surface area? That's a good point. I mean, ham bone is kind of what you would think is like a hock of ham. Harder to move in that than, say, like a vertical hot dog.

Although, I mean, you could argue that the hot dog could be hard because it could be very top-heavy. I've always wondered if it's rigged. Like if somebody at the top of the organization Says you know Today it's you Crispy Bacon Really? Like to what end do you think though? Is it just like to give Crispy Bacon his due Or her due? Yeah you all think that it's a real fair contest

I think there are occasions When it's fair But now that you say it I mean with the rise in sports gambling You have to wonder if there's like an underbelly here. Well, Brian, I think we have somebody who can help us here. The most treasured of all the mascot races is the Johnsonville famous racing sausages race at Milwaukee Brewers Games. Online with us now is their Italian sausage. And we've been told, I'm being completely serious,

in no uncertain terms, we've been told not to reveal the human identity of this sausage. So, Italian sausage. How long have you been doing the sausage race? Ooh, I've been doing it for close to 15 years. So, I've lost track of how many races I've run. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I mean, I'm typically the Italian. I'm partial to the Italian. It's the costume I won my first race in. But we switch it up. Sometimes we'll hop into the bratwurst or the hot dog. We also have the Polish and the chorizo. So it's always you you and is it the same three or four other people in the other sausage costumes no so we actually have um anywhere from 30 to 50 people uh that do it yeah i mean it would be crazy to to commit to every every home game

like that yeah yeah but no we do mix it up know, one of the most common questions we get is, well, is it fixed? Is the race predetermined? And I can tell you that absolutely not. We try. It is legit. It gets competitive. We are out there racing our butts off, and it's exhausting. I don't know how long it is, but we go from the opposing dugout to all the way past the home dugout and the camera well, well into the outfield. And it's, yeah, in the summer months, it is hot, it is sweaty, it is a physically demanding experience.

Italian sausage, which of the sausages has an advantage? Generally, we would say the four that are not chorizo. Because the chorizo has the sombrero. Oh. That adds some extra weight and some aerodynamic implications that you have to factor in. Sure. If you had the power to animate, I'm sorry, if you had the power,

Italian sausage, to animate all five sausages, you were given the gift, which of the five sausages, real sausages, would win a race? I would have to say hot dog because it's the most slender, not a lot of extra, you know,

weight to it. Now our, we, Mike, a second ago accidentally said your name, which we've bleeped out. And it was very clear as we were setting up this interview that we were only to refer to you as Italian sausage.

We are to protect your identity, which we're happy. We're happy to do. I am curious why though, why that's important. Are they afraid that somebody is going to try and influence the sausage race by finding you in your human life? I think it goes back to just sort of mascot code in general. You go to Disney parks and they're always in character. That's sort of how we look at it do you do you have a rival either a rival sausage or a rival human inside of the sausage costume like is there is there somebody you always want

to beat yeah there have been some rivalries i i had a run-in with with the chorizo once so it was the gosh 20th anniversary of the sausage race or something it was it was it was a landmark day it was a big deal and tried to take an aggressive turn around around home and chorizo is he's kind of in the same line and we bump and i fall and still managed to get back on my feet and finish third but i happened to make it on sports centers not top 10 for for this how'd that feel you know it felt like something i wanted to share with everyone like it didn't matter you know it's like and i asked people like okay i'm the not top 10 do i want to be higher or i was number eight oh yeah if i'm going to be on the not top 10 don't

i want to just go all the way for number one right like yeah yeah additionally they had me fill out an injury report because i scraped my knee a little bit so i had to fill out this injury report for you know the club policy yeah and and there are these this questionnaire it's like uh you know was another employee involved in the incident? And I said, yes, incidental contact with Chorizo. I mean, I have to just, I have to ask, how can Mike and I get in a sausage race? How do we do it? We will be there at the drop of a hat. Yeah. You guys just say the word and we'll get you booked. I got to be honest.

I didn't think that last part was going to work, but we are going to Milwaukee to be sausages. You'll know we're there when we start speaking in hushed tones. All right, we're at American Family Field where the Milwaukee Brewers play baseball. We're starting out at the tailgate. And I should say we invited Peter Sagal to join us here in Milwaukee. He is, of course, usually our taste tester. I figure climbing into a sausage costume that has been worn by countless hot, sweaty

people running as fast as they can, that counts as a taste test. There will be a flavor within. It's definitely a sensory experience. You're going to sense things and smell things, probably. Maybe even taste things, depending on what you're doing in there. I am

extremely excited about this. In fact, I'm so excited about it, it's almost like a weird thing that you invited me to do it. Because usually my attitude is dread, but I'm very excited. You think we're going to trick you at some point? Oh, yes. I mean, it can't be this great. I mean, there has to be a catch. Okay.

We'll find a way to meet your dread, I think. Okay. So we're about to go back there. We've sat through three innings of this game. Looking at the field on which we're about to run, what are you all feeling about it? Growing anxiety. You feel nervous.

Well, yeah, not just because of the game. There are a lot of people here. And you'll note that during every sort of interstitial moment, everybody's paying a lot of attention. Like they had that, you know, find the coin or whatever, the ball under the baseball hat animation. Everybody was playing. Everybody was shouting out their answer.

They're going to be watching us. But here's the thing, and if you didn't know this already, they're not going to know it's us. Oh, I'm well aware of that. But you still might fall down. That's exactly it. What if I, as whatever sausage I end up being, fall down? People will be telling for years.

They'll say, oh, did you see that night? The Polish fell down. I was there that night. What do you guys think? I'm not nervous. I have no expectation. I just want to finish. Nina, how are you feeling?

Yeah, growing anxiety. I'm just like dancing in my chair a little bit more than I used to be. There are a ton of people here. The sausages also are like everywhere. What sausage do you want to be? Not chorizo. Anything but chorizo. What do you want to be? Not chorizo. Anything but chorizo.

What do you want to be? Anything but chorizo, which probably means I'm going to end up being the chorizo. Peter, would you like to be the chorizo? I would not like to be the chorizo. Well, I'm sorry. We can edit out where he said not. We have some bad news, Peter. Well, I figured.

Let me show you a text that I sent to my friends. I was told to avoid the chorizo because you can't see them from under the hat, so I'll probably get the chorizo. Okay, let's get to it. They take Hina, Mike, Peter, and me. They take us all down beneath the stadium to get our costumes on. And this guy gives us this big spiel about the rules. A lot of it has to do with the mascot code. Yeah, apparently, and I hadn't really thought about this in retrospect, thinking back about my encounters with mascots, it makes a lot of sense. The thing they're most concerned about

is breaking the illusion that the, in this case, the sausage is in fact a sausage rather than a person in a sausage suit. Well, I think we should reveal. So we were about to go out on the field here and actually do this race and see which of us triumphs. It's the four of us and somebody from the Mets who was he took the role of hot dog. I was Italian sausage. Ian, you were bratwurst. I was Polish. And that means there's only one person left to be chorizo.

Can we let the can we let the listeners guess who that was? Just for a moment? Should we do that? All right, fans. Time now for the Johnsonville Famous Racing Sausage Race. Wearing number one, it's the Johnsonville Bratwurst. Number two, we have the Johnsonville Polish Sausage. Wearing number three, the Johnsonville Italian Sausage. Wearing number three, the Johnsonville Italian Sausage.

Wearing number four, the Johnsonville Hot Dog. And number five, it's the Johnsonville Chorizo. All right, sausages, on your mark, get set, go. They're off and racing the hot dog, taking an early lead with the chorizo to the inside in second. It's the Polish in third. The Bratwurst moving up now with the Italian trailing the field. They make the turn, and they're heading down the stretch. At least the hot dog is.

He's all by himself tonight. It's the hot dog all alone at the wire. Obviously, the hot dog, the one of us that was not, the one person who was not one of us jumped out to a huge lead. If you're watching it on the Jumbotron, after about five seconds, none of us were even visible because he was so far ahead of us. I was like, is that a false start? Did I miss the start? Because it just seemed so unlikely.

Yeah. You saw him too? Oh, yeah. I saw him running so quickly that I was like, there's just simply no way that they actually said go. You know why I don't think I saw anybody? Because I was in last place. I just saw you guys. All I saw was Hina, and I just knew that I had to beat.

I couldn't be last. Ultimately, that's where the drama for the crowd was. Was who was going to be last between Mike and Hina. Because it was neck and neck for the bottom. And I think I've seen video, and I do think we tied. The hot dog guy smoked us.

Completely. We were smoked sausages. Hey, if you have any questions you want us to answer, you can send them to us at howtoatnpr.org. That's our email address. And we promise we look at every email we receive. If your question is that you are currently stuck inside of a bratwurst costume, I'll just tell you right now, just bend both of your elbows the other way, unlock your hips, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. Wait, wait, don't tell me. Fresh Air, Up First, NPR News Now, Planet Money, TED Radio Hour, ThruLine,

the NPR Politics Podcast, Code Switch, Embedded, Books We Love, Wildcard, are just some of the podcasts you can enjoy sponsor-free with NPR+. Get all sorts of perks across more than 20 podcasts with the bundle option. Learn more at plus.npr.org. Anxious? This October, Shortwave is helping wrangle that fear. And the trick may have to do with horror movies. I feel more alive when I am in situations like this.

Learn the surprising science to conquering fear when you subscribe now to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR. Hey, we got some listener mail, some correspondence from you all that we would like to acknowledge. First up, we got something from Madeline. Just wanted to report back that I have never seen the movie The Champ. And when I heard the short snippet from the movie you played in the archive episode, I didn't cry. But when I heard Mike start crying, I unexpectedly started crying with full tears. I also have young kids, so maybe that's it. Madeline, I feel your pain. I inspired your pain. You caused, caused your pain. I caused your pain. I caused your pain with my pain. I have not watched The Champ in the years since we recorded that episode. Have you,

Ian? Well, no, I haven't. But I'll say, listening back to our podcast episode, in which I did not cry, in which I was completely stone-hearted, I cried when I heard you cry. Did you really? I did. I have kids. I didn't have them when we recorded that episode. Yeah. But you also caused my pain. Oh, well, you're welcome.

Here's another one. This is from Oliver. He's responding to our recent episode about things that are world famous. He's writing from Australia. He says, I will preface that I'm from the East Coast of Australia, but here we call the event of a hot dog sale, a sausage sizzle. And we call a hot dog itself a snag. Okay, I don't think I would ever do that. I don't think I'd be comfortable ordering a Chicago style snag. I can say that I was just moments ago completely humiliated by a very fast snag. Yeah, see, when you said that, I wasn't sure if we needed to mark this episode explicit or not. Oh, we also want to point out one of our reviews on Apple Podcasts. This is from Hydro Flask Water Bottle who asks, Do you guys actually read these?

I think the answer is obviously yes. We are currently doing so. Hydro Fl water bottle. The Cocoa Beach High School basketball team was playing a game and the net went up through the hoop and got stuck. The players kept jumping up to try and knock it down, but nothing was working. The game was stopped. The game could not go on. So Bella Haley Jatana from the Cocoa Beach High high school cheerleading squad can you tell us what you did well we were just sort of cheering like we would normally do and then the game just sort of stops it's like we were just watching them struggle for

like a fat minute until we sort of realized like wait when we do pep rallies and stuff, my head goes past the rim. So we decided to, you know, show off one of our skills and solve the problem at the same time. You know, it was easy peasy. Okay. For Mike and I, who don't know a lot about cheering, can you describe what you did? So there was three of us. We had a backspot and two side bases. Okay. That's fresh vocabulary for us here. Backspot, side bases. So the girl that is the backspot, she is behind holding the ankle. Okay. So basically what they're describing here, none of the boys on the basketball team could fix the net. So the cheerleaders did, you know, we've all seen it, kind of a basic cheerleading pyramid with one of them way up in the air and she untangled the net. Yeah, it looks awesome.

It was like actually tangled up in there, but they got me high enough. So I was able to clearly be able to untangle it. How did the crowd react? Because it, you know, it looks like you're just kind of doing your thing. I think for a second they didn't like some of them didn't really realize what was going on. And then you heard one kid from the other side go like, oh! And then people started clapping and stuff. So we were like, oh, wow, this is fun.

Did the boys on the team, did you sense that you had bruised any egos when they were unable to help and you were i mean they just sort of went back into their game and sort of just let it go yeah sweep it under the rug like it never happened yeah there you go a funny piece of information is bella's brother is actually on the basketball team so his sister had to come out for the rescue. He was just standing there helplessly. Bella, does your brother feel bad that you can probably dunk better than he can? I don't think so. He's actually, he's pretty close to dunking right now. So I think he's fine with it. How many side bases does it take for him to dunk? Maybe one or two. There you go. There you go. Have you all any other time in your life when you're not at a game cheerleading?

Have you used your cheerleading skills to help out in other ways? I actually use it sometimes at work. Instead of there being like, you know, three bases, it's just me and the person that needs to, you know, grab something from the top shelf. I just kind of make the same hand motion and just like lift them up a little bit. Wow. It still works like to help them up. Awesome. Well, this has been so much fun. Thank you guys. Thank you guys for having us.

Thank you. Well, that does it for this week's show. What'd you learn, Ian? I learned that the mascot code is very real and people take it very seriously. Did you, let me just ask you, was there ever a point when we were on the field, we're giving high fives or we're doing our best to give high fives? Because the fact is, because we have no peripheral vision and because I didn't feel comfortable turning, I couldn't actually turn to look at the people I was giving high fives in the stands. So there were a lot of, it was like, there were a lot of phantom high fives. I, there, you know, all the fans are leaning through the netting that is up to catch foul balls.

I was giving every high five I could. I got very nervous that my costume was going to become entangled in the netting. I saw it all happening. That then it would tear the costume from my body as my human self fell to the ground. Children everywhere. The mascot code would be broken. Children would see that there was a man within. There would just be tears. That's not a real bratwurst.

That's what people, you think that's what people would say. He's not the bratwurst we thought he was. How to Do Everything is produced by Polish sausage Hina Szywastowa. Technical direction from Lorna White. Our intern this week is the hot dog that beat us in the sausage race. Congratulations

hot dog. Get us your questions at howtoatnpr.org I'm Ian. And Itoatnpr.org. I'm Ian. And I'm Mike. Thanks. Thanks. So did you watch the sausage race?

Yes. What'd you think? It was pretty funny. Yeah. Who was your favorite sausage? The chorizo has always been my favorite. So this guy right here was the chorizo. Oh, really?

Yeah. What happened? What happened? You're asking me what happened? I came in third. Look, I won my age group. This message comes from Grammarly. Back and forth communication at work is costly. That's why over 70,000 teams and 30 million people use Grammarly's AI to make their points clear the first time.

Better writing, better results. Learn more at Grammarly.com slash enterprise. Election seasons are tough on everyone. So Pop Culture Happy Hour is there to serve you recommendations and commentary on everything in the pop cultural universe while helping you snap out of that doom-scrolling mindset. It's important to stay informed, but you also need to take care of yourself. So treat yourself to a new episode about the pop culture you love on Pop Culture Happy Hour, only from NPR.