Hyperfixed - PREMIUM UNLOCKED: The Passion of the Fruit

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Our most popular bonus episode ever, now unlocked for you. Sometimes, we bite off more than we can chew here at Hyperfixed. This is one of those times. Hope you enjoy it! If you like this episode and would like to hear more like it, as well as join our discord and get discounts on merch, you can support us by going to https://www.hyperfixedpod.com/join. We're trying to sign up 1500 new premium members so I can give our producers raises and pay them healthcare. Currently, and we only need 1440 more! You can help us reach our goal!  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for Skeptoid. That's S-K-E-P-T-O-I-D. Or visit Skeptoid.com for full transcripts of the entire catalog. Skeptoid, critical analysis of pop phenomena. Hey, this is Alex. You're about to hear an unlocked bonus episode from the beginning of this year that honestly, we really love, and we want more people to hear it.

Because, first of all, the story isn't finished, and we are simply not ready to let go of it yet. And second of all, this episode was perhaps one of, if not the most talked about from either our main feed or our premium feed on the Hyperfix Discord. So here it is. If you like it and you want to hear more stories like this one, you can sign up to be a premium member at hyperfixedpod.com slash join and enjoy. Hey, this is Alex and you are listening to a Hyperfixed Premium episode. and this episode is interesting because it was actually begun before the show ever started. Sort of. Let me explain.

So when we launched Hyperfix back in 2024, I had some very lofty goals for the show, primarily just surviving because the marketplace is in contraction, shows are getting canceled, people are getting laid off. The stuff that's getting greenlit is mostly celebrity chat shows. So the fact that we're doing a narrative show independently and not folding, I mean, we're doing it. And it's all because of you guys, mostly. If you are listening to this, you are keeping the show afloat.

So thank you very much. But with all that being said, with all of the confidence that has come from making the show independently for a year, I have been very humbled in the process of making this show. For one thing, I learned that the entire premise of this show, like the very idea that I would be able to solve all of your problems, especially for a show that's four people and we're putting out an episode once a week was so much harder than I ever could have imagined.

But in the very beginning, I was so confident and I was like ready to take on anything. And so what I originally thought was going to be our pilot episode is what we are discussing today. In fact, I was so confident we were going to make this episode, I included it in the launch trailer for the show. And while we haven't been able to solve this problem, yet, you'll see why it's just a little bit out of our reach.

Maybe I was biting off a bit more than I could chew, but I have been thinking about it ever since. I can't let this one go. And so this is, oh, it's a great start to the day. And that's mostly because of Lee, the guy who brought us the problem in the first place. My name's Lee, as you can probably guess from my accent. I didn't grow up in Austin, Texas, where I live. I'm from Australia.

Okay, so you live in Austin. How did you end up in Austin? It's a great question. I moved to San Francisco originally. I work in tech, and that seemed like the logical place to find the tech job when I moved over here. But I also quickly realized that I didn't enjoy sitting my wallet on the fire when I paid rent every month. So as much as I love that city, it was a short-term situation. And randomly, some of the other folks I was decent friends within the U.S.

for in Texas. So I came over here. We did a bit of a road trip around and it seemed like an interesting enough place and I love hot weather that we'd tick all the boxes. So here I am. Lee is an Aussie. He moved to the US about six years ago. And while he didn't reach out to us about the affordability crisis in San Francisco, I think even he realized that I'm not capable of fixing that. I do think if the story pans out, he could become a very rich man. But anyway, Lee was reaching out to us about a different problem. One that I imagine many expats face, which is when you move across the world,

you leave things behind. Like little things that you never thought twice about until suddenly they're just not available anymore. Can you tell me a little bit about sort of like moving to the U.S. and what the big culture shock aspects of living here were, aside from the obvious one that we were here to discuss, rather? Yeah, so nobody seems to know how the size, my name over here. So we're on from L-E-I-G-H. It's just as common as L-E-E, and people here,

they send that name L-E-L-E, but over here I've got a running list of all the different names I've had, just struggling to communicate. It was a much bigger deal than I thought. I've been here on vacation, but it's like drive-through orders. It is a total no-go unless there's like an app I can order on. So what do people call you instead of Lee? I get lag a lot, Link. So I'm going to point now where, like, if I have to engage with someone in a customer service experience, I have to give my name. My year default name is Barry Explosion, because if I'm going to pick a name, it's going to be a good one. Okay, so you reached out to me for a specific reason, and this one struck me in a way that many questions haven't, and I'm not entirely sure why. So I would like to start by asking this, what is a passion fruit?

Imagine a kiwi fruit out of yoke. That's a good place to start. I'm not doing a good job of selling it. Yeah, that sounds truly disgusting, but please, tell me more. So it's a staple fruit in the show, right? It's like you think tropical fruits like passion fruit and mango. So Passion Fruit is Tier 1. It's right up there.

And you'll see it in all sorts of things like in yogurts, in fruit salad. But then you've got the whole other side of the equation, which is the artificial passion fruit candy flavour, which also does not seem to exist in the US. So I would describe it as, it comes to so many taste spectrums. It's got a lot of tartness, but it's got a bit of sweetness to it. There's some crunchy seeds in the middle and have their own flavour. There's a whole lot going on there, and it's a delightful mess to wait.

Tell me what your problem is. This started very early on. I was experiencing my first Thanksgiving, and being confronted with my friends with all these treats like putting tiny marshmallows and something called salad. All these new culinary experiences that were brand new to me. So I thought, I can come to the table, and I can bring an Australian dessert, and that can be my contribution. So we have a very classic dessert called a Pablo, which I'm actually pretty sure we stole from New Zealand, but we do that a lot. And it's like a meringue, and you get all this lovely whipped cream, and then you put all this delicious, fresh tropical fruit on it as well.

And Passion Fruit is a core key part of this dessert. So instantly, I went off looking just at my local grocery store for Passion Fruit, thinking they'd be in the fruit and vegetable section. They wouldn't cost very much. I couldn't think. I couldn't think. found anything. And I started Asker out when I was surprised how many people had not heard of passion fruit when I just thought it was a staple everywhere in the world. And I realized at this point our hard was to get passion fruit in the US. I think some of the high-end groceries, like whole foods, I think they get it in seasoning. But then they cost like, I'm not even kidding, like 15 or 16 bucks each, which I'm embarrassed enough to sell I and paid. Because I was that

desperate. I tried to grow my own passion fruit in my yard and everything I'll, every time I'll look at turns to dust. So that's been, uh, not such a great adventure. But here, I've just been baffled at how hard of this to find. You can maybe find frozen pulp, but I have spared too much money on acquiring passion fruit into this tantrum. Um, when I've been desperate for a taste from home. I've imported Kansas passion fruit flavored soda. Um, mostly to print the colleagues how good it is and even that didn't work because they were out for a few days when I saw this can in my fridge the days of end I just couldn't stop staring at it but I just drank it so it didn't get to taste it but I spent way too much money trying to get passion fruit into this country

and I feel like you're all missing out I think that this is what about meets is about the US the US needs passion true can you tell me like some of your favorite products that you miss aside from like a Pavlova what are some amazing things that you miss either made with passion fruit or like passion fruit flavored. Pavlova is obviously out there. That's a classic. It's almost the default option if you're having like Greek yogurt, for example. You can stir in the passion fruit pulp and you get all those lovely gooey passion fruit tastes, but also all the lovely seeds that are in there, which are quite sweet when you bite into them.

But the passion fruit soda, there is a civil war raging in Australia over the superior passion fruit soda. You have to pick one and stand with your choice. So you're either team Pasciona or team Pacito. And the correct choice is Pasciano. Well, I got a cop to having just looked at Passion Fruit for the first time while we're doing this interview and feeling like it looks a little gross. No, no, no. That's the mistake. You're seeing three different amazing taste experiences all in one delightful package from nature.

How can you sell that to that? The seeds really make it. It's so unique. they're really kind of crunchy and sweet and the overall texture of a passion fruit is amazing

but I've tried to explain this to people and a colleague has accused me of they don't want to try this fruit because they feel like it's selling itself

too hard in its name like it's like I'm so passion I'm full of passion I'm delicious try me and that's their objection that it's trying too hard with its name

so I don't know maybe you need to rebranding I don't know what we need to do but I really feel like this country's missing out before talking to Lee I didn't really

feel like there was a fruit in the world that I was missing out on. Partially because when it comes to fruit, I am basic as hell. I am like an apples, bananas, grapes guy. But also, I didn't feel like I was missing out because I didn't really know that Passion Fruit existed as anything beyond like a candy flavor. I'd never been like walking through the grocery store and seeing a Passion Fruit and been like, oh my God, I got to try that. I don't think I'd ever even noticed a Passion Fruit if there was one in the grocery store, which did feel strange until I looked up a little more about it. You see, Passion Fruit is a tropical fruit. It needs heat and humidity to survive. It originated in South America, and it's mostly grown in Brazil. And I've only ever lived in the Midwest and the

northeast. So maybe that explains it. But, you know, not really, because I also learned that there are some passion fruit growers in the U.S., in Puerto Rico, in southern Florida, in Southern California, and in Hawaii. And that only confused me more because, you know, the same thing can be said of fruits like Kiwis and mangoes. And you can find both of those basically anywhere. So my question is, like, why do you think this is happening? Because there are places in the United States where it can grow, California, Florida.

Why do you think that passion fruit and passion fruit flavored products are so hard to get here? I've asked this question, too. It seems like I believe it grows really well in Mexico, so I thought that there would have been a lot of activity there. I could be wrong, but maybe it's much more profitable to grow avocados in the same region. I don't know. But I'm really confused. I don't know why this has missed everyone. It's really something you're all missing out on.

I don't know if there's like no passion fruit industry board. It's like eat passion fruit trying to push it on the country. Maybe that doesn't exist and it does for other fruits. I have no idea. I wonder if it's just a palette difference where it's a very part of fruit. There's sweetness to it, but there's definitely elements of like the Kiwi fruit-style tartness, for example, like that's in there. Every grocery store in America sells grapefruit juice. Like, we're okay with certain levels and certain kinds of tartness. So I wouldn't say it's that.

Slomato juice. That's something that was new to me. If you're selling that and not passion fruits, the priorities are in their own place. Would you be willing to relocate if it held the promise of consistent passion fruit consumption? I mean, it's a fact that I live in Texas and this entire state could go insane at any moment. So it's good to have a plan B. And if that's influenced by tropical fruit, I'm here for it. Okay, so what would the ideal solution to this problem be for you? I think a good place to start is we need a main source.

extreme snack brand of some sort to wrap their arms around this. And we're not talking about where your company is introduced new flavors, that maybe have something a little bit too exotic in it? Have you noticed that a pair it with like a safe comforting flavor? So it's never just passion fruit. It's like passion fruit, but also pineapple, you know, so you don't have to be too scared. We need to embrace this wholeheartedly.

We need to wrap our arms around passion fruit on its own in all its glory. This needs to happen. And hopefully the fruit kind of comes to the demand. the fruit follows through. What would feel like an ideal solution to you? Would it be like, okay, I can get passion fruit at the grocery store, and also I can get Passion Fruit flavored soda? That would be lovely.

That's a great place to start. Maybe we need to make Passion Fruit edgy. Has it got an image problem? Like, I think maybe this, like, your reaction to both seeing and hearing about passion fruit was quite visceral, and maybe it's an education campaign that, I'm not. Maybe this looks like nature's attempt at a cabaret cramagnet. It's actually delicious. If I do find the passion fruit growers of the United States, and they're like,

you know, we would really like Lee to be our spokesperson. Because honestly, your fervor, I don't want to say passion, your fervor for this particular fruit is huge. You know why I didn't realize so I started talking to you, honestly? All right. Well, look, I can't guarantee I'm going to be able to solve this problem. That's one of the things I need to let everybody know as I'm making the show. I'm going to look into this and see what I can find out. But Lee, thank you so much for taking the time to talk.

I really appreciate it. It's been a delight and wonderful. Once I hung up with Lee, I was determined to understand why the U.S. was a passion fruit desert. I had caught Lee's passion fruit fever, even though I'd never tasted one before. And so, in order to furiously dig into the research, I went to the grocery store in search of a taste. Protecile. Uh, where do I find a passionate fruit? Which, you know, no surprise, turned out to be kind of difficult.

Excuse me, do you all have passion fruit? I think it's over there next to the paramed. Okay. Right by the bananas. Right by the bananas. Thank you. Also, what the fuck is a parsimmon? I found them.

So they're very squishy. They feel a little like rotten avocados. Is that a good sign? Whatever. I found them. I'm going to purchase them now. Holy shit. Holy shit. It's $3.50 a piece. Those things are tiny. They're about the size of an egg.

All right. I'm doing it. And then I got the Passion Fruit's home, and of course, recorded myself trying them for the first time. This thing's hard to cut open. Hold on. All right. Uh, looks a little crazy inside. It kind of reminds me of the underside of the facehugger from the sequel to Alien. Oh my god. This is so good. How do I even describe what this tastes like? In America, we have been conditioned to like a certain kind of flavor that's called tropical, tropical flavor. That's what this tastes like. It's like very juicy and it's got crunchy seed, didn't it?

And it's insanely delicious and also insanely expensive. Fucking 350 a piece. And there's not a lot inside each one. But the Alex Goldman review is taste tropical. Citrassy, kind of tart, but with a little bit of sweetness, way sweeter than, say, a grapefruit. I give this an 8 out of 10. Maybe an 8.5 out of 10. I do hasten to add, though, that there's, like, weird little nubs

that stick out of the inside of the skin. All say as they make me uneasy. I make me uneasy. So at this point, like, I am fully on board team passion fruit. My passion is peaked. I am team Lee. Passion fruit is awesome. The U.S. is seriously missing out.

But I still don't really understand why. So I reached out to someone who could help me understand a little bit more about this fruit. My name is Eric Stephanie. I'm an extension and research professor at Mississippi State University. I study fruit crops, primarily small fruit crops, which, includes things like blueberries, blackberries, grapes, musketines. In 2022, Eric and some other Passion Fruit researchers conducted a survey of dozens of passion fruit growers in the U.S.

And their goal was to map out where Passion Fruit is actually being grown, how people are growing it, and most importantly, what problems those growers are running into. Their hope was to fix those issues and maybe finally give the U.S. a real passion fruit industry? The reason I really started working on because of climate change that we're going to need something else that can be growing here,

potentially a specialty crop or something to make money on, what can we possibly grow that's different than what we do next. And as I went through this process, I kind of found out that, boy, the passion fruit industry in the United States is small, and it's not very coordinated.

There seem to be U.S. climates where Passion Fruit is viable. I don't understand why there's so little of it. So South Florida is where most of it is grown, but there are also places in California. Of course, like Hawaii, or Rico or Guam, places like that also, Doreldom. The other thing is it's expensive. There's a lot of hand labor. The market is not as developed as probably it could be. And so the competition is, you know, especially for process,

it is very difficult. So almost all the fruit that's grown in the U.S. is fresh fruit. and, you know, the markets just really aren't that developed. You know, you might be able to find it in New York City, but I can't find it in any of the grocery stores where I do it. It's really an high price because there's a lot of inputs into it and a lot of hand labor, so it's expensive. After surveying these dozens of passion fruit growers in the U.S.,

Eric and his colleagues found that the main thing standing in the way of their market penetration was labor availability. Managing Passion Fruit is highly dependent on intense manual labor. It needs to be planted in a very certain way. The vine's standing upright so that gets a lot of sun. And it's also very fragile, which means that farmers need to actually hand pick it frequently so that it doesn't get damaged. Meaning, unlike, for example, citrus fruits, it can't just be mechanically harvested. The other part is that there's a lot of disease problems.

virus is a huge problem, meaning that the vines do not live exceedingly long, so they had to be replaced over time. One of the things that I read is that Brazil is the biggest, like, producer of passion fruit, but then it also says that the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service doesn't allow imports of Passion Fruit from Brazil. Yeah, that's true. There's only certain countries that are allowed. on to import passion group. And one of the reasons for that is because of the pests that exist in those places, we may not have them here. So they're trying to keep those pests out. So it's extremely limited places that can send it to the United States right now.

So it seems like there are a lot of things that keep it from finding like real purchase in the U.S. do you think that at least part of that is just like demand is not super high? Does the passion fruit need like some kind of advertising campaign to make it more popular in the United States? Yeah, I think a large portion of the U.S. population has no idea of what a passion fruit is,

what it tastes like, what it even looks like. Now, I think that's changing because of some of the marketing around it, but also we're having a higher percentage of Latino population. And Hispanics are very familiar with this fruit. Okay. So to summarize, it feels like there's two prongs to this.

One is there's not much passion fruit grown in the U.S. because there is not a ton of land where it can be grown. And the other thing is that the reason that there are not more passion fruit growers is because there's just not enough demand for it. I think both of those things are true. I mean, the other thing is like, you know, there's a market component to it too, because if they were cheaper, more people would be buying them, thereby increasing demand. Yeah. But because the demand is low, it's like the self-perpetuating situation, right?

Yeah. So, you know, if we could figure out ways to do mechanization, mechanized harvest, you know, reduce the labor inputs, increase the yields. all those sort of things would cause the price to become lower. We're already seeing different fruits that, you know, just years ago we never saw dragon fruit, you know. That's something that exists now in almost that regression score where, you know, five years ago we never saw. And so that is also another one that's on the ride. So yeah, I think the model is there.

It'll take some coordination, you know, between all of the growers that already exist. And right now, it's just like the Wild West. I mean, in the thing, it says that you only got something like 43 complete surveys. I found it kind of shocking. Like, I didn't realize that the industry would be that small. I mean, the other thing that I immediately thought to do when I was working on the story is to be like, Oh, I should probably find like the American Passion Fruit Growers Association. There is not one that I know.

No, it doesn't exist. Yeah, and we had a really difficult time finding growers. And, you know, I think it will take as a grower organization. And that has been the case for a lot of different crops and big, big crops. You know, that has just been more of a recent thing, like blueberries. You know, blueberries are a huge prop now. worldwide, but really it's only in the last few years that it's become coordinated in terms of market. Another one is pecans. So, you know, getting pecans on plates throughout the U.S. and

throughout the world. So growers give a certain percentage of their crop sales to a marketing court. And then somebody who has smarts about marketing takes that and, you know, they'll do, they'll go overseas and they'll, you know, do different programs to, to sell it to, you know, different countries and they'll do podcasts and they'll do, you know, all kinds of different things to get the word out. Especially since there's not even like a growers association. Right. I feel like I feel like Passion Fruit needs a good

PR person. I don't know. Maybe we can get Samuel L. Jackson to be the spokesperson for that was the first name that came to mind. Maybe they just need a good someone to do some Passion Fruit advertisements. So great news, everyone.

That's exactly what we did. We called Samuel L. Jackson and had him become the first Passion Fruit spokesperson. We didn't do that. If we had, we wouldn't have held onto the story for a year and a half. But I did and do really believe that what Passion Fruit needs is a good marketing campaign in the U.S. Its own, you know, got milk moment. If you don't remember that campaign, it was funded in part by dairy farmers in the 90s, and it was on every

billboard and bus stop with people like Michael Jordan with a milk mustache, and it reached something like 80% of Americans on any given day. Can you imagine if 80% of Americans saw passion fruit every day. But since there's no Passion Fruit Growers Association in the U.S. to advocate for that, I want to be the guy who makes that happen. So I reached out to the best marketing guy I know to figure out how we could make passion fruit

as ubiquitous as milk in the 90s. My name is Matt Nevins, and I am a group creative director at an ad agency. You are in a very cluttered room right now. Is that a basement? Yeah. Or a spare room? It sure is.

That's my basement gamer dungeon. You know, this is where my wife keeps me. Yeah. Look, it's far be it for me to tell anybody how to live, but you need to tidy up in there. Look, just because a guy has a messy basement doesn't mean he can't have an incredible list of bona fides when it comes to being a creative director. And that's exactly what Matt has. The pieces of business that I work on are... Pepsi and

Ladis, which is Godiva and flips chocolate-covered pretzels, that sort of stuff. So I'm responsible for managing a team that brings creative ideas to life. So the reason I'm coming to you today is we have a problem.

And the problem is there's this guy named Lee. He lived in Australia and moved to the United States. and what he discovered was one of his favorite things, which is incredibly plentiful there, was absent to the United States, and that is passion fruit. And I have been looking a lot into this, and I think a lot of it is because the demand is not super high.

And so we were thinking like, okay, let's figure out a way to raise demand. How do we advertise for passion fruit? what are some ideas we can come up with? And I would say that right now, the hyper-fixed checking account has about $4,000 in it. So I don't think we can do anything quite that fancy. Honestly, you could probably do a lot with $4,000 if you spend it in the right way. I mean, I think for something like this, specifically with produce and stuff like that, you look at avocados, for example, like, avocados are one of those things that

like everyone likes to believe that avocados exploded a couple years ago. Avocados have obviously been around forever, but like they became the hipster thing of avocado toast and, you know, millennials could buy houses if they weren't spending $28 on an avocado toast. But avocados were one of those things that became trendy, right? Like, and part of what made it trendy was certain restaurants serving them. Part of what made avocados trendy was the social conversation that happened around avocados. So honestly, for my money, to raise awareness of like an actual piece of produce using social and social influencers and stuff like that.

Like, getting other people to do the work for you is always the best, the best way of getting a message out there because, you know, the stakes are pretty low. And, you know, the pressure is kind of off of you. You think that we should, we should just get influencers to talk about passion fruit. I do. I think that that's, if you have a small budget, that's the way to maximize bang for your buck. a couple of them are going to stick. And the ones that stick, they're going to get a crazy number of impressions for. So, like, granted, $4,000 is obviously not a big budget.

But if it's weird enough and it catches fire, then that's kind of all you need. At the end of the day, if you are not Pepsi and you do not have a nearly infinite budget, Is it just like throwing stuff at the wall and hoping stuff will stick? Not necessarily, but I believe that the riskier brands are the ones that are actually at the end of the day playing it a little bit safer than the big brands because they're not going to lose a couple million dollars if one of these stunts goes wrong. They might lose a little bit of brand love if people really hate it. But the upside outweighs any negative effects, in my opinion. Like, I think you should, with passion fruit, you should, like, just go hard at, like, Virginia. Like, instead of Virginia's for lovers, like, Virginia's for, I don't know, some weird passion shit.

Or, like, make it do a pop-up hedonism somewhere. is a pop-up hedonism? What are you talking about? You don't remember hedonism from when we were like that it was those weird like tropical sex clubs that people would go to? No. You don't remember this? What? What? I mean, I say it like, I never went to one, obviously, but like it was a thing. If you look up hedonism travel, I would be willing to bet it still exists. All inclusive adults only resorts? that that's exactly right. Hmm.

I don't think that I'm going to do that. I mean, just think of all the passion, though. Yes. Passion is a fun word. And I feel like it could be used in a lot of different ways to come up with, like, great ideas. How do you feel about jingles? I'm very curious about this. Are you like, are you like lukewarm on them?

Are you bullish on them? I, I would say I'm lukewarm on jingles. Yeah. What would the passion for jingle be? Difficult to eat but delicious and sweet. Oh, man. See, now, see, this is why you get paid the big bucks because I'm totally stumped here.

Okay. Difficult to eat but delicious and sweet. Open your eyes. Cut it in half for a surprise. Yeah. What rhymes with goo? Shoe, flu, true.

I'm trying to think. It's like, it's like, don't eat the skin. Like, the, yeah, don't eat the skin.

Cut right in. Yeah. Just dig right in. Scoop out the goo. Dig right in. It'll be great for you. It'll taste great to you. I think we have an act.

Like, my goal is just to be like, if we can increase the demand on this thing, there's more people saying I want passion fruit. You want passion fruit domination to be part of your legacy. Yeah, all I want to do is like five years from now, go to the store and have passion fruit be 50 cents apiece and it will be because of me. And how hard would that be? With $4,000. I love that for you. When I finished our interview with Matt, I was gung ho on spinning up our own marketing agency to become the de facto promoters of passion fruit in the United States. And then I realized that it would take pretty much all of our time and quite a bit more than fourth.

thousand dollars. So I found myself kicking this story down the road further and further and eventually just admitting that we just don't have the resources to throw at this story. But even though Matt was pretty lukewarm on the whole jingle idea, I thought we came up with some pretty good lyrics during our conversation and I didn't want that to go to waste. So what I decided to do was create the very first passion fruit jingle, at least in the United States. You're about to hear it here first. And then who knows. Maybe we'll start a clandestine ad campaign. We'll throw it in the main feed episodes and the ad breaks. Maybe we'll put it on the internet somewhere. And you know, you can help us turn the tide in the United States on the passion fruit. And look, I know this sounds ridiculous, but I follow a woman on

TikTok who goes by the name Romeo. And she made up a jingle for Dr. Pepper just before Christmas. I have a theme song for Dr. Pepper and it goes like this. Dr. Pepper, baby, is good and nice. As of this recording, this video is less than two weeks old, and it already has 20.3 million views. On TikTok alone, people are remixing it, coming up with their own versions, filming their own ads for Dr. Pepper with this song overlaid on top.

If my jingle is one-one-thousth as good as Romeo's Dr. Pepper jingle, then I will have done my job. So here it is. Difficult to eat, but delicious and sweet. Open your eyes, cutting out for a surprise. Scoop of the goo, it's great for you. It's passion free. Not bad.

Hyperfixed is produced by Emma Cortland, Saras Offer Sukkenek, and Amor Yates. The show is engineered by Tony Williams. The music is by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder and me. Fun fact this week is that the reason that the comics code existed, which is like, you know, the Hays Code for film, but for comics, is because in the 50s there was this guy named Frederick Wortham who wrote a book called Seduction of the Innocent

that basically argued that comics were turning kids on to sex and violence and that superheroes like Batman and Robin were clandestinely in homosexual relationships. But those rules didn't apply to magazines, which is why one comic publisher, who had previously done a lot of horror comics, decided to start calling one of their comics a magazine. And that comic turned magazine was Mad Magazine. It was a huge deal, though.

There were congressional hearings and everything. If you want to learn more about Frederick Wortham and Sedu There's a great book about this period of history called The Tencent Plague by David Heidu. All right, see you next week. RadioTopia.