How To Do Everything - The Champ

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

Every other week on How To Do Everything, we're giving you the best stuff from our first life. Today, from the archives, how to make your friends cry and how to keep your fries warm.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.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. Hey there, it's Ian and Mike. We want to speak directly to Bark Meow Ketchup. Bark Meow Ketchup, recently you left us a review on Apple Podcasts, and we would like to thank you for this kind review. But Bark Meow Ketchup, you say, and I quote, you lost a star for me for not having access to older episodes in Apple Podcasts anymore. And Bark Meow Ketchup, we don't know why they're gone either. Yeah, it's a mystery to us as well, Bark Meow Ketchup, we don't know why they're gone either. Yeah, it's a mystery to us as well, Bark Meow Ketchup. It might be because we no longer have

the license for the music in them. We never did. It might be because in almost all of those episodes, we made fun of NPR One, and NPR didn't like that. So we don't know. The good news is we are reissuing old episodes here with new music every other week. And here's today's. One small thing. You're going to hear the voices and names of our former producers, Nadia Wilson and Candice Mattel-Kahn. Don't be confused, but that's who that is. It's Nadia and Candice, our old producers.

I don't think you would be confused, but we're telling you that. So don't run screaming from the podcast when you hear the voice of someone named Nadia or Candace. But I thought it was Mike and Ian. Noam Sobel is a neurobiologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. And a few years back, he wanted to research what tears were good for. Did they have a purpose? For example, did they have a chemical signal in them? It's a difficult thing to study for a few reasons.

I should point out here that our initial study at least suffered from a really unfortunate gender bias and and this happened because you know we started off by publishing just putting up posters in our campus and in a neighboring campus saying that we we need volunteers who can cry with ease because we needed to obtain tears for our research and this this led to, you know, about like 70 women volunteers and one man basically, right? And this, it's just a cultural thing. And, you know, men don't very readily admit to crying and, you know, typically will not come to a lab and cry for an experiment and women will. And so we ended up with, you know,

with women tears. And that's what we were working with for a long time. When you made the call for volunteers and you had just the one male respond, did you do anything with that guy or did you just let him go? Yeah, he failed. He couldn't cry. He couldn't? Not in the way we need, right? So he couldn't generate tears for us in any quantity. So they kept this bias in mind and they got the tears they could from their volunteers

and they found something pretty interesting. To our surprise, we found that exposure to these odorless tears, so just merely sniffing them, rather radically reduced levels of testosterone. So if you sniff this thing, within about half an hour, you'll have about a 20% reduction in testosterone, which is kind of dramatic. Yeah. Do you have an interpretation of what the advantage of that is, that female tears would lower testosterone? tears are carrying is a sort of stop aggression signal. And this is consistent with what, in fact, has since been discovered in rodents. So if you expose male, adult male mice to juvenile mouse tears, they reduce their sexual aggression towards the juvenile mice. Can I just say, I had no idea that rodents cried, that mice cried. If I can use sort of, you know, the way I like to think about this, tears serve as sort of like a chemical blanket protecting the animal against aggression.

So you're doing this research where you're required to get tears from people. From donors, yeah. How do you make them cry? Typically what we do is we ask these volunteers, okay, you know, do you have any sort of film segment that you know that makes you cry? And typically people who are really good criers, they'll have that, right? They'll tell you, oh, yeah, sure, there's this scene in, you know, so-and-so where I always cry like crazy, right? And so we're the neurobiology lab with probably the largest collection of sad films in the world. And the volunteers watch these films in isolation and hopefully cry and then collect their tears. And so that's basically how it worked.

But now we're shifting to toddler tears, and there we're using a whole different approach. What's the approach? Well, so we've entered into a collaboration with this national system where basically we approach mothers in the waiting room and offer them to participate and return for a toy for their child. And basically, we just go into the room with them when they go to be vaccinated. And if they cry, assuming they cry, we wipe their cheek, simplistically, with a special sort of cloth that goes into a special sort of device and goes right into liquid nitrogen. And with this, we're building a tear bank. Based on your research, Noam, is there one scene that is particularly cry-worthy?

Yeah, the scene in the movie Champ. So this is a bit of a spoiler alert here, but this is for a movie that was made in 1979. I feel like we can go forward comfortably. The scene in the movie Champ, where Champ dies in the hands of his four-year-old son who's crying, is very effective. It's used by many labs who study emotion, by the way, not only by us. Really? Yeah. I think that that movie gets more views

in labs than in theaters. Okay, none of us here have seen The Champ, but I feel like we should give this a try. In order to do that, we're going to also bring in our official taste tester, Peter Sagal. He's going to join us as we watch this scene from The Champ. And Nadia's going to join us too.

So this is the end of the movie. Jon Voight plays this boxer who's made this comeback. He's about to die. He's a single dad. He fights to earn money for his kid. He's just won a fight. And now he looks terrible. Yeah. And here

it goes. Oh, no. Oh, that's little Ricky Schroeder. Is that John Voight? Yeah, he looks terrible. Well, he has just been beaten up. Presumably a young John Voight would look something like Angelina Jolie, right? And you can see it.

Did you see that? Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. Wake him up! Wake him! We're all here, sir. Please wake him up! Wake him! Please wake him up! Ah, jeez. No, no! I don't want to! I want you!

Jeez, jeez. Give him an iPad or something to distract him. Is that the end of the movie? That's how it ends? That's the end of the movie. That was basically roll credits at this point. Okay, so did anybody cry? I did.

Yeah, Danford's wiping something away from his face. Yeah, your eyes are red. Oh, yeah. So did you get close to crying? No. Nadia? I think I got a little misty. Oh, yeah. So did you get close to crying? No. Nadia? I think I got a little misty after he had been saying champ for maybe a minute and a half. It does go on a bit.

It really does. It felt like it was beating me down. Yeah. Yeah. I might have, maybe I would have had an emotional reaction had I seen the whole movie if I'd known who these people were. Because that's just generic child sad over death of birth. I can't handle that, though.

Yeah, I know. Child in peril, it's too much. Yeah, see, actually, here's the thing, and this might be relevant. How old are your kids? I don't think I can answer that. Right, now you don't know. Because I'm going to start crying.

Oh. Is that right? Mike's children are younger than, your oldest is like 12 now? Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah, look at him. Look at him go. Oh, shit.

And when you're – I'm going to speak sort of clinically about Mike as he weeps. I know this from experience. When your children are young, you cannot tolerate – it's like you cannot tolerate any depictions of children in peril or children in pain. It cannot be done. It cannot be done. I have never seen you like this. That's not true.

Seeing Mike upset is making me more upset than the movie. I didn't know he had a heart. Did you know? Too much. I've seen it once, but I've never seen it quite like this. Because this is at work. Wow. It's terrible. You have a tear. You this is at work. Wow. It's terrible.

You have a tear. You actually have a tear. He does. He does. Well. I guess it works. Since there's four of us here, only one of us wept, can we say it has a success rate of 25%?

I think that. Yeah, sure. We went from like pop culture happy hour to story core. We were talking about who was in the movie and then one of us cried. I cried every time during pop culture happy hour. Yeah. It's very affecting. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies.

Send, spend, or receive money internationally, 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. This Hispanic Heritage Month, Code Switch sits down with Mexican-Cuban-American journalist and author Paula Ramos to discuss the rise of U.S. Latinos to the far right. It's a small but growing shift in American politics. Paula Ramos thinks she knows what's behind it. Listen on the Code Switch podcast from NPR.

All this month, Shortwave is serving up tricks and treats. From ghost wolf DNA and the science of death to the relationship between anxiety and horror movies. With a slate of Halloween episodes to get you in the spirit. This October, subscribe to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR. Hey, Latoya, what can we help you with? So the other day I was in the car and I spend a lot of time in my car. And so when I need a quick snack, I always, my go-to snack is French fries. And sometimes I want to save them for when I get home. But how do you keep your French fries crispy and fresh and warm without eating them immediately in the car? This, I believe, is one of the great struggles of modern life. Yes. They get soggy or cold and hard, and you can't eat them anymore. I can't think of a food that has a greater chasm between

its fresh form and its later form. Right. And it only takes me five minutes sometimes to get home, but they're always ruined. Wow. What kind of fries do you get? I get the Chick-fil-A waffle fries. Okay. And waffle fries, I feel like, I don't know, I feel like those are especially bad after a certain, that once that window closes, it feels like there's just no going back with those fries. It's true. All right, Latoya, we're going to look into this. It's a serious problem. It is.

I think a lot of people could benefit from this answer. You know, I feel like if we solve this, our work as a show is done. You know? That is the everything that four years ago we set out to figure out. Just lights out, production down, curtains closed.

Okay, Latoya, I think we have somebody who can help you. On the line with us now is Dan Souza from America's Test Kitchen. So Dan, everybody has faced this problem. Is there a way to solve it? All right. So I think it's a really interesting question because normally as soon as I get the french fries in the car from the drive-thru, I'm eating them. So I don't usually run into that problem, but I have a couple ideas.

One is a way to maintain proper texture during the drive home, and the other is once you get home, if you haven't done that, how to fix it. So on the ride home, your biggest enemies with French fries is that they cool down and all the starch in there kind of traps the water, and they end up being not creamy and they're not crispy really at that point. And the second enemy is moisture. So if you wrap them up really tight to keep them warm, you trap all that steam and that's going to sog out your crust. So in the car, the solution, so if you've got that nice, you know, cardboard

sleeve from McDonald's or whatever, what I would do is I'd punch some holes in the bottom of the container, maybe five or six holes in the bottom of the container. And then I would hold the open part to the car vent and just turn the heat up as high as possible, the fan as high as possible. And I would just hold it there during the entire ride home. So what you're doing there is you're blasting them with hot air, which is going to keep the moisture at bay. It's going to wick that away. And it's also going to keep them hot so they won't cool down. So I haven't tested this out, but I'm pretty confident that that would keep them in kind of ideal shape if you have a long ride home. That sounds promising. I also like the idea that it

would, I think that's the best way to spread the delicious smell of french fries throughout your vehicle. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I really originally got the idea as just an air freshener move, but you have the benefit of the fries being really good too. So that's my best bet. If you live in Miami and you're doing this in the summer, you have to really love French fries to want to do it, but in Chicago in the winter, that's going to be a nice thing anyway. So that's my solution for en route.

If you get home and you haven't done that and they're cold or you forgot about them, it's actually really pretty simple to get them back to their former glory. You don't have to heat up your oven. You don't have to get a ton of oil going. For a large McDonald's French fries, about six ounces of fries. So if you have a 12-inch nonstick skillet, just lick it with about a tablespoon of oil and bring it up until it's really hot, like almost smoking. Throw all the fries in in a single layer and cook them for about two to three minutes, just kind of tossing it

every now and then. And then onto paper towel, blot some of that oil, season with salt again if you want, and then you're eating. So like five minutes or so, and you can be back to French fry glory at that point. And you've tried this method? Yes. This is a test kitchen approved method, believe it or not. Wow. Okay. Yeah. That was some testing that actually went on here. We finally solved the big French fry reheating issue.

So Dan, LaToya, I think, prefers waffle fries. Oh boy. How does that change things? Waffle fries. Man, I haven't had waffle fries in a long time. I never get them out, I don't think. So I think in the car, same solution. I think you should be fine.

And I actually think in the skillet, it's probably going to be even easier because you're going to have less waffle fries for the same kind of weight or the same package size. So even just like flipping those one by one probably wouldn't be a big deal. They may not toss as well in the skillet as like shoestrings. But yeah, I would say you'd still be able to use that method, though. I don't think we tested with waffle fries.

That's kind of out there. That's the wild card right there is the waffle fries. Well, Dan, thanks so much for helping out LaToya. Hey, I'm happy to help her out. I hope it works well for her. You can check out Dan's new website, cooksscience.com. That's cooksscience.com. All right, I think we should test out this method with the heater.

So we're going to get some McDonald's french fries and go to Mike's car. You'll know we're there when we start speaking in hushed tones. Okay, here we go. I'm turning into the rock and roll McDonald's. Oh, drive-thru. Oh, wait. No, wait. Wait, what is this?

Oh, that's the parking? How does that make sense? This segment's really about the french fries, not about how the parking lot is designed. Alright, so. I think you should get two large fries so that we can have a control fry and a test fry. Two large fries. Anything, do you want anything else? Jalapeno mcchicken do you want to hear a joke yeah uh why did the jalapeno put on a sweater because it was a little chilly okay but i do feel like we're here you know we might as well get something yeah you don't yeah you don't see

a lot of mcdonald's so it's kind of a rare chance to try their food. Do you want to try a pumpkin spice latte? No. No, me neither. The line here at the drive-thru has made this segment already longer than I was expecting. It's unfortunate. Hi, can I get two large french fries? What size? Coke? And a small die coke. Yeah, that's it. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Okay. Alright, thanks. So, okay, so the thing to do, we're going to poke the holes as instructed and then turn

on the heater. Okay, we're a few minutes in now. This is, I am suffering. This is terrible. It's really hot in here. Plus, I think we're in the wrong lane. Okay. Oh my god, that is so hot. I can see it. Here, you have heated seats. I'm going to go ahead and turn them on too. It's feel though, so you can see I have, as instructed, I have the container right up against the vent.

You can feel the holes in the bottom, see if you feel the heat coming through. Yeah, it's very hot. Definitely, it's very hot there. Oh yeah. Oh, look, look at me. Look at my face. I'm dripping sweat. Oh, what happened? So, there are two questions I realized that we're going to answer. One, does this work? Two, if it works, is it worth the human cost? I don't think it is.

I mean, if you're really hungry, then yes, it is. It is worth it. But I just think, oh, this is, look at this. I am now rubbing my eyes because I am covered in sweat. I'm not... I'm not crying. I'm just sweaty. We really...

We've had sweat and tears so far in this episode. Yeah. I guess we need to cut somebody. We need blood. We should go get Peter. Well, the next segment is somebody asked, how do I stab? Okay. Mike just went right through a crosswalk just to get us out of this car sooner. I think no, really no jury would convict us. I think that's the thing to remember. Like,

whenever you're frustrated by the driver in front of you doing something erratic, it could be that they're just trying to keep their fries fresh and that they're just boiling inside their car, that it's 100 degrees and they have one hand holding hot french fries up to an air vent. Okay, so Candice and Nadia should be here somewhere. There they are. So let's do this. The freshest possible french fries.

Okay, it's so hot in here. Okay. Here, hold the mic. Oh my god, it's so hot. Okay, so those are the treated ones. Okay. Go. Oh, they're really good. Yeah.

Yeah. I think they taste like they should. They taste like fresh out of the McDonald's fryer. Yeah. Okay, now here are the ones that were just sitting in the bag. Oh, I can already feel the soggy. They're soggier. Yeah? Yeah, they actually are.

Oh, I'm so glad because this has been a nightmare being in this car. They're also harder. I mean, they're still really good. Yeah? But, yeah, they're soggier and a little more, if it's possible, also cardboardier. They're a little, yeah, they feel harder, not as, I'm going to go for crispy and fresh. Yeah, I much prefer the treated ones. The treated ones have kept the grease as well.

You can taste the grease. The ones using the method are definitely crispier than the ones that were just left in the bag. So I think Latoya has got to try this. I don't think it's going to make for safe driving though. No. No, you need a partner and a high tolerance for pain.

I think if you have like cold, some kind of clothing that will keep you cool. Snap yourself an ice pack. Like an ice pack, exactly. If you have an ice pack you can sit on, that will make this bearable. But yeah, those fries, it works. Well, that does it for this week's show.

What'd you learn, Ian? I learned that we are not alone in crying, that actually mice and other animals cry too. Yeah. Do you think Mickey Mouse cries? I'm sure. Yeah. Do you think so?

What we see is just the positive, just the fun stuff, the adventures. That's like Mickey's Facebook page. It's just the good stuff. Yeah. There's a world of pain there that he goes through. Things are not good with Minnie. I'm wondering if there's a little bit of overcompensation.

It's like, I just want to say 10 years ago I made the greatest decision ever when I married my best friend. He's like, okay, that's... You're overselling it, Mickey. Your friends are what? You have a dog, a duck, you don't know anybody who's like you, you're all alone, Mickey. Yeah, yeah. Your friends are what? You have a dog, a duck. Yeah.

You don't know anybody who's like you. You're all alone. There's nobody that can understand you. He's a germaphobe. Yeah, yeah. He's got gloves on. Yeah. I don't shake.

I just do fist bumps. How to Do Everything is produced by Nadia Wilson and Candice Mattel. Hey, Candice. Our intern this week is Tyler. Tyler came in and he diagnosed all our diseased plants. Turns out we're not very good at plants. Sorry about that, Tyler. Get us your questions at howtoatnpr.org.

And you can visit our website, howtodoeverything.org. I'm Ian. And I'm Mike. Thanks. Thank you. truly one of the best gifts you can give your family. For additional information, visit DignityMemorial.com. 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.