Judge John Hodgman - Oops! All Jello! JJHo Holiday Party 2025

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

Happy Holidays from the JJHo team! It’s the MOST, wonderful tiiiime of the year: when Judge John Hodgman, Bailiff Jesse Thorn, and Producer Jennifer Marmor try your…favorite? Classic? UNREPEATABLE, jiggly family holiday recipes! We’ll answer all your burning questions like: is Pretzel Salad a side dish or a dessert? What does cottage cheese blended into lime jello taste like? And what REALLY happened on Anne’s grandmother’s life-changing trip to Japan? We’ll answer all those questions, plus settle your holiday disputes, in this very special Holiday Office Party, JELLO edition!San Francisco area litigants, join us LIVE at San Francisco Sketchfest on Sunday, January 18th for a very special road court episode of Judge John Hodgman. Don’t wait – get your tickets now here! Judge John Hodgman is member-supported! Become a member to unlock special bonus episodes, discounts on our merch, and more by joining us at: maximumfun.org/join!

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm bailiff, Jesse Thorne. And guess what? It's the holiday time of year. And that means it's time for the annual Judge John Hodgman holiday party. With me, as always, my friend and yours, Judge John Hodgman. Hi, John. Hi, my friend, Jesse Thorne, my bailiff, O'Bailiff.

Good yule to you, friend. Good yule to you. And bien saturnalia to you all, the new maximum funding. headquarters there in downtown Los Angeles. I see you're seated with our wonderful producer, Jennifer Marmer. Yeah. She's raising the roof. Now she's doing the Arsenio whoop-woo.

Yeah. I heard the last bit of renovation needed to do at the Max 1 HQ was to raise the roof. Yeah, it did need to be raised. Right on time, right, right before the turn of the new year, I'm here at Technica House in New York City, where we last met with Nick Offerman. Today wouldn't be an office holiday party without some office. guest. I'm here with Jacob Derwin of Technica House, who is waving at a camera that can't see him. And our old friend Natalina Lopez, Natty Lopez, is here too, helping me out with our special

delights. Now, if you haven't seen or heard this kind of episode before, we have an office holiday party every year. It started four years ago when a listener named Pam in Seattle suggested, well, she sent us this specific challenge. Forget Eggnog and Sprite. The answer. Forget everything you thought you knew about eggnog and sprite. Which already wasn't a lot. Yeah, right. But we had listeners who had written in saying, my friend likes to combine eggnog and

Sprite, and it's disgusting. And I agreed it's not the best. But Pam had written in saying the answer is not Eggnog and Sprite. The answer is eggnog and orange soda. What they don't teach you in school about combining eggnog. with other drinks. That's right. This one hack drives doctors crazy.

They don't know. I know this trick. That's right. And we did. We tried it eggnog and orange soda. And year over year, it has only gotten more creamsically delicious. I believe it was Monty who referred to it as a Fanta Claus. I don't know if that's the official title.

You know what? I'm on board for that. I usually, usually, as you know, you know, usually Monty's puns just make me angry. I love the guy. He's a wonderful guy. But those puns just make me angry, but in the naming of a cocktail or beverage, I think a pun is appropriate. Fanta Claus is pretty rock solid.

Monty's puns make me happy, I should just say. So they're a net neutral in the universe. Well, we are fans of Fanta Claus here. We enjoy it every year. And in fact, we're going to have a little different variation on it later in the episode. But that experiment kicked off. our annual holiday office party, where we send out a call to you, the listeners,

for your favorite or at least favorite, traditional family holiday interesting foods, whether it's appetizers, main courses, actually you never do a main course, beverage, whatever it is, usually starters. We've had cocktail weaners braised in grape jelly and yellow mustard. We've rolled cream cheese into slices of ham, And indeed, we've even eaten moon poop, which was sent in by our listener, Randall, in Kentucky.

That was a family favorite of his. He had never even tried it because it looked so disgusting. It's a five-cup salad. Let me see if I can remember what's in it. It's one cup of crushed pineapple, one cup of Mandarin orange slices, one cup of multicolored mini marshmallows, one cup of shredded and I think probably sweetened coconut, and then one cup of sour cream. let it refrigerate for 17 days. It only gets better. America does amazing work with cream cheese and sour cream, don't we?

Yeah, yeah, cool whip. We've done some amazing work with all of those ingredients today, but that was moon poop I actually kind of liked. It was more sugar than I had eaten in a year. And I'm going to repeat the process here because while we have had at least one gelatinized treat in the past, Will's family favorite tomatoes. soup salad, which is you put some tomato soup with some unflavored gelatin, some bell peppers, and some onions into a ring mold chill, and then cut it up. And if you're in Will's family,

fight each other to eat the last morsel of it. In my family, we just drop it into a UPS bag and drop it off at UPS to be sent to any place. Get away from us. Send it to Abu Dhabi with Nirmal. We have never, we have never, for all, of the, for all of the moon poops and tomato soup salad, we haven't really broached the very popular, typically Midwestern jello-based salad. Until today, we're going to shut our pie holes and open our jello bellies. Oops. It's all jellos. And Natty's here going to help me

serve up the jellos. I'm going to take, we've already taken some video, but I'll take some quick video of the jello before it's ruined. There's Natty's. Maddie. And there are four salads. What are they all about? Jesse's about to explain to you starting now. What's our salad number one, Jesse? People, watch your tummies. Horses, watch your hooves. It's an all jello edition. Oh, no. That's right. Before I tell you this first salad, can I tell you how I celebrated the holiday food-wise? sure my own Los Angeles adventure in holiday food eating I've been taking the bus to work shout it to the number 81 bus the new max fun office is in downtown Los Angeles very easy to access by bus I was on the bus sort of towards the back the other day and uh you know there's

people on the bus that are maintaining a chatter I also heard that the people on the bus go up and down. That's a great point about the people on the bus. But you know, like, when you're playing infield in baseball, you're supposed to maintain a chatter. You know, you say, hey, badda, bad, bad, bad, bad, ba, hey, badda. Hum baby. Right? I saw Ferris Bueller's day off. Routabaker, Routabaker. Yeah, that's it. I was like, what's the one? Yeah. Anyway, there was a guy across the bus aisle from me who was maintaining a chatter. He had a dialogue going with most people on the bus. Welcome or unwelcome. Sure.

Not hostile. Right. But enthusiastic. Okay. Anyway, I'm sitting there. I'm wearing my headphones. I'm looking dead ahead. Then I see his arm reach out towards me.

And he goes, want an orange? Whoa. Oh, wow. So I said, no, thank you. I'm fine. You know, I didn't, I don't even, I don't even really like oranges, to be honest with you. I'm not against them, but. And he goes, take the orange.

And I'm like, all right, I'll take the orange. Thank you. Got off the bus. It was right. It was just before my stop. So I took the orange. Got off the bus, looked at it, brought it back to my office, put it on my desk. Next day, I thought to myself, I'm going to eat the orange.

Whoa. I ate the orange. And it was okay. And I lived to tell the tale. Wow. Thank you, guy on the bus. I'm very glad. I'm very glad that it was a delicious.

What would you say? A naval orange? This was a naval orange. And then I was watching an All Creatures Great and Small Holiday special, as I want to do. Yeah. And Tristan, I believe, was dressed as Santa Claus and was handing out oranges to the village children. That's right. At least it was a naval.

I'm glad it was a naval orange and not a Rufi Satsuma. You know what I mean? absolutely you know maybe maybe as a special holiday treat i'll tell you the story of later about how my wife was a whole human being in our own right ordered uh valium from karachi off of an email that she got okay here's a food here's this is great this is a great episode already already pretty good here's a food from katie in baltimore maryland it's called pretzel salad salad we've talked about this this is an interesting one it's got a crust on the bottom made of

pretzels on top of that is a cream mixture containing cream cheese cool whip and sugar i love that this is two of these uh white midwestern ingredients yeah uh then on top of that layer is strawberry jello mixed with chopped strawberries katie's family eats this every Christmas Eve. She notes it is a side dish. It goes on the plate with turkey, potatoes, and gravy. In other words, it is not a dessert. So this is... No, to be clear, none of these are desserts. These are all side dishes. Thank you very much for pointing that out, Katie. So this is pretzels, then a layer of cream cheese, cool whip, and sugar, then a layer of strawberry jello mixed with chopped strawberries.

Now, look, I halved this recipe. I'll tell you one is, look, on the bottom layer, and I just took a photo of the strata, which you can see on our show page, social media is maybe right here on YouTube. On the bottom layer, it's crushed up pretzels mixed with equal amounts of butter and brown sugar, baked for 10 minutes at 350, allowed to cool. then the second layer is the cool whip what is it cool whip and sugar and cream cheese cool whip is sugar like yeah i mean i i had i halved the recipe and i added a half a cup of granulated sugar just to make that second layer and then the strawberry jello on top and actually

it turns out we've tried this before right jennifer or i have you two have yeah i didn't for some reason i think i was whatever it doesn't matter you two have i have i don't matter you two have i don't remember eating at all. I'm looking at it on the plate right now. It is not in strata, particularly because of the serving process. Yeah, I was very sad when I went to serve it, because it looked nicer in the dish that I prepared it in. It looked like a little trifle in the dish, but now it just kind of looks like a little mush. It does look like a little mush. My initial guess, though, is that while I would not want to eat this with my turkey, I would want to eat this. That's my guess.

My guess is that I will want to eat this. Actually, Jesse, I was reminded by a listener, Kate in Minneapolis, that indeed, I tried this at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota earlier this year, there was a dispute between Marin and her husband, Mike, it says here, about what to bring to their neighborhood block party. And she brought some pretzels out. I had no memory of this because my mind was still blown by the baby kangaroos that were. Yeah, I haven't. I haven't literally remembered anything since the time I held a baby kangaroo, other than that I held a baby kangaroo. Yeah, it was the best. That one, though, was made with raspberry jello.

This one is strawberry jello. I remember liking it. Are you ready to take a test, taste test, test? Yeah. Ready to take a taste is what I wanted to say. Jello on my script. Who? Jello on my script.

Alert. Trying to get a little bit of everything. Hmm. Here we go. I wish that I had thought to have the recipe because then I would have leftover cool. whip. And every time I have to make something for one of these episodes with Cool Whip, which is, you know, once a year, I'm like, oh, I love this stuff. Don't worry, Jennifer. When you, when you bought my supplies and had them sent to me,

I think you accidentally bought the industrial-sized Cool Whip. So I've got plenty. And I could probably send that to you via book rate mail and it would still be good by the time I reached you. Look at this. I'm automatically having an extra bite here. I don't need to. This is really good. That's good. This is really good. I'm a big fan. This is 10,000 percent of dessert, by the way.

Right. This does not belong. No. If you believe in honoring dessert in any way, look, many cultures don't eat dessert at the end of a meal. Mm-hmm. If in your family, you eat dessert in the middle of the meal and cheese at the end or whatever, good for you. I support that. Yeah.

But if you believe in the existence of a meal. of dessert. If you are not a dessert denialist, this is a dessert. This is not like cranberry sauce. Like cranberry sauce, this is not, this is not like, you know, eating apples with pork or something like that. It's not a relish. It's not a chutney. Yes, Virginia, there is a dessert and it's called pretzel salad. Natta, you want to bite of this pretzel salad? Do you have an extra spoon over there? It's also not a pretzel based food. This is not a pretzel salad. This is a strawberry jello salad. Hang on, Natty's going to eat it

right out of the container. Oh, yeah. It's really good. Yeah. Natalina confirms. Thank you very much. I'll hold on to my spoon for later. And I think the cream cheese, which is the ingredient that is in these things that

I feel like I am probably least likely to use at home for that purpose, um, does help. give some substance to that creamy layer and also keep that creamy layer from exclusively being sweet. Yeah. Which is important because you're eating it with jello, which is exclusively sweet.

I don't think, and I would be curious to try it without the half cup of sugar blended into the cool whip and cream cheese, or maybe a quarter cup. I don't think it needs to be as sweet as it is in the middle. And I'll say this. I'm not a fan of strawberry. I like strawberry ice cream from time to time. But unless a strawberry is perfect, it's garbage, as far as I'm concerned, like most berries. And I don't love strawberry-flavored stuff, but this all works really nicely together. It's good. Good job, Katie.

Katie mentioned that in her family, if, like, somebody is making it and they want to take a shortcut, sometimes they'll do frozen strawberries. Jennifer, I have the letter here. Oh, good. I forgot. She said specifically, as we got older, whichever aunt was in charge of making this would sometimes take shortcuts like using frozen strawberries. Bad idea. They added too much water and the whole thing was a runny mess. Everyone ate it anyway. It's also a bad idea to try to use real whipped cream. You really need the synthetic texture to hold the middle together. That I was really struck by last night, or yesterday afternoon, when I was chopping the strawberries and realized

it's December. Even here in California and Southern California where you can get all kinds of produce almost year round, it is hard to find a good strawberry.

No. And I was like, good thing these are just going into jello. The strawberries that I received, and this is not a comment on your ordering, there was nothing you could do,

Jennifer. Strawberries I received were trash. Trashberries. Right. I mean, same. It's more of a comment on why Los Angeles

is a better city than New York. Well, I did an order for pickup at a local-ish chain grocer. So the strawberries that were picked out for me as well, also trash here in Los Angeles. Yeah, but you don't need good strawberries to chop for this Jello situation. It all worked out great. Yeah, I wondered if that's why somebody might opt for frozen, in which case, let them defrost before you put them in. And you know what I can I add something to that?

Sure. If you're going to defrost them, why not defrost them in a sieve or in a colander over a bowl? let the juices drip down into the bowl, use the juices to make the strawberry jello. I don't want to spoil anything, but that's an interesting thought that you have. Yeah, there's something that might come up soon in that regard. That gelatin hack might just come up again. But first, I think we have a dispute, a holiday-themed dispute to hear. Yeah, this is from Vanessa in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Man, that salad, I put it at arm's length that I keep wanting to go back in. I know. I keep wanting to eat it. And I'm like, wait, I'm on camera. I need to stop just, like, shoving food down my belly. You can eat throughout. You don't have to stop. Enjoy all your cellos. I need to save room for the rest. Yeah. But there's plenty in the fridge downstairs, Jesse, because I didn't have the recipe. I made the whole thing. There's a lot of jello space down here and Daddy's Tom Tom. Yeah. As we move forward, you're going to be glad you didn't save room. Trust me. You're going to have a real bowl full of jelly down here. One, one, okay. One bite of some of these is you're going to be happy. enough. I, yes. Okay, Vanessa in Fort Collins, Colorado. My husband wants to buy a new snow globe every year for Christmas. He says, it's festive. The kids love it. I think they're tacky.

I don't want to put up 20 snow globes that require outlets all around the house. We, that require outlets. Yeah, I don't know what that means. We have five so far. Where does it And, well, can I just say, can I just say on my way to work, coincidentally, I was listening to the Camron song, Kill a Cam. Yeah. And in that song, he says, I would say, ladies, say I'm tacky, range look like laughy-taffy. And then he says, you unhappy, scrappy? I got Pataki at me Cameron's amazing rapper

I got George Pataki the former of governor of New York Yeah wow He was he was after Cameron Kill a Cam If you think Jesse Thorne's the only one Is going to be reciting certain rap lyrics On this episode Stick around

Wow I got something I got something loaded up for you all John I think you're you're keeping computers Putin To quote Kill a Cam Well I am a personal computer Another great thing Oh, of course.

That was good. Wink. If you know, you know. Yeah. Vanessa, I got to say Vanessa in Fort Collins must be a relatively new listener to the podcast. Thank you very much for discovering the podcast. The reason I say that is because not too, too long ago, I think it was episode 194. It was pretty long ago.

Our famous episode, Do You Want to Horde some snow globes? We talked about this very topic. I think it was two husbands, one of whom wanted to get. an untold number of snow globes themed to the movie Frozen. And that was where we first coalesced around the settled law, the difference between a horde and a collection is a display case. Are they all piled up in the corner or are they displayed nicely? I mean, I got to say, these got to be displayed nicely because apparently they light up or something.

Like, why do you need outlets for a snow globe? For some reason, I immediately thought of them shooting Zapparay. Oh. Zaffraise. Yeah. I just imagined that if you plugged in a snow globe, it would shoot Zapprais. I don't know why. Do you remember that thing? I don't remember the scientific principle.

The plasma ball? Yeah, the plasma ball. And you touch it, and it goes, and a little line of energy goes up to your finger tip. Let's just talk about products you can buy at the Nature Company in Berkeley. Oh, I would see those at Spencer's gifts. Hmm. This is the difference in our childhood life. style. This is also a different podcast. Well, I think it's like Hellman's mayonnaise and best foods on

different sides of the Mississippi. It's Spencer's gifts over here. In this case, it's different sides of like roughly San Luis Obispo. Yeah, probably. Well, I would first of all order Vanessa that you listen to that episode of the podcast and see if you lean any wisdom there. Second, I would order you get 20 plasma balls because those are cool and your kids will love them. Oh, yeah. Third of all, I mean, are there kids in this household? I don't know. It doesn't say here, right? Yeah, no, the kids love it.

They're kids there. The kids love it. Before you start bah humbuging these snow globes, bear in mind that if you said you don't want 20 of them, right? And if your husband gets one every year, by the time the 20th is acquired, those kids will be grownups and out of the house. And the snow globes will be all that you have left of them. Those will be your final memories. Oh, my. I would say, I would say, I mean, they'll still have that sled that says rosebud.

I would say that a new snow globe every year will become a little unbearable. Once you get to 12, then it's one in and one out. 12 for each day of Christmas is what I say. That's more of a curse than a ruling for you, Vanessa, but I had to come up with something. Here's the thing. I am less opposed to these snow globes if they are specific holiday decor that goes up at a certain time and gets put away at a certain time. That was the impression that I got from the letter. Yeah.

Like I can imagine having 20 snow globes because you've acquired one every year. If you are putting them up on December 1st and taking them down either. January 1st or on the final day of Christmas if you celebrate all the days of Christmas because you are Catholic or something or just old-fashioned. However, if there's any risk of these bleeding into like November, late January, then I say throw them all. Jesse, you raise a good point, which is that I had the number wrong. You shouldn't get 12 snow globes for the 12 days of Christmas.

you should get 25 of them. For Advent? Yeah, use them as an Advent calendar. Sorry, Vanessa. That's fine. I just don't think the one piece, the one thing that I'm concerned about here is that apparently all of the ones

they've bought so far are electric. Right. And also, why is Vanessa having to, like, find the outlets? You know what? The other thing I imagined, besides the Zapreys, was possibly that the Virgin Mary

was inside them and she was lit from behind. Well, that sounds beautiful. It does sound. That sounds gorgeous. I don't think that you should get any more electric ones. I'll say that. That seems excessive to me. Five electric ladies. Five electric snow globes. And 20 more that aren't electric. And a partridge and a pear tree. That's it. Jennifer, ladies think I'm tacky. Range looks like laffy taffy.

So that's my ruling. That's my gavel on Vanessa. I forgot to rule on the jello. Where's the pretzel salad again? You still have it? And as far as this jello is concerned, it's good. Oh, no. John Hodgman just gaveled the jello. You don't need to tell them what happened. Go over on YouTube.

You can see a close-up. I just filmed it. Did I say John Hodgeman? I meant Gallagher 3. Welcome to the splash zone. We better take a break to clean up here. It's not that messy. It's going to get worse.

The splash zone. John Hodgman's got an orca over there. Okay. We'll be back in just a second on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast as we celebrate the holidays with our annual holiday party this year, wall-to-wall jello. Okay. This one is also a strawberry-lavored jello salad. All of our jello salads are in festive hues of red and green.

And none of them are salads. Well, we'll decide. Well, we voted the last one was a dessert, not a salad, despite what Cheney said. Who brings us this dessert? And Natty Lopez, you might serve it up now. This one is from Elizabeth in Bellingham, Washington. She says, my mom got this recipe from a neighbor, Debbie. You think it was my aunt Debbie?

Probably. Oh, your aunt Debbie. Probably, probably Debbie, right? Yeah, seems likely. This realtor specializing in lifestyle transitions in Northern Virginia. Debbie Miller, look her up. She always served it at fancy dinners with holiday foods. However, my Jehovah's Witness family did not officially celebrate holidays.

So these dinners were held after Thanksgiving or Christmas. We technically were not celebrating anything. That's how God likes it. Technical. Technical. Yeah. You fool. him.

Okay, so as I look at my plate here, John, I see a cream layer and I see a jello layer, but I also have some concerns about a Pyrex that has been brought to us. Can you tell me what's going on here? That's right, Natty, would you mind garner? There's something missing from this one. It's a little garnish that was recommended. It is some grated cheddar cheese. Look at that.

Freshly grated cheddar cheese. Thank you very much. is a two-star podcast studio, by the way. Let me go ahead and take a little video of this. Natty is grading live in the like... I'll take as much cheese as you'll give me. Thank you very much. It's like at a restaurant when they do the Parmesan.

Yeah. And then you tell them when. And I'm always like, is it okay if I keep not saying when? That's right. Go on. At what point does it get weird? So this is a combo of... When you hit the wrong.

I don't eat the rind, I don't care. So this is a combo of strawberry jello and cherry jello. That's right. With, I have the recipe. So for me, it was half a can of cherry pie filling mixed in. And then again, we have a cream cheese and cool whipped, whipped blended topping, but without the extra half cup of granulated sugar. and then it is topped with some grated cheddar cheese is the recommendation, which kind of evokes.

Do you guys ever have an apple pie with a slice of cheddar cheese over there in the West? It's not something we have, but it's something I'm familiar with. Yeah. I mean, like, I'm sure there are places where you can have that, but it's not like a common thing the way it is in some parts of the Midwest.

Jacob or Natty Lopez, you ever hear of that, slice of cheddar cheese with your apple pie? I feel like it's like an upstate New York thing, maybe. I don't know. Let us know in the comments if you ever enjoy cheese with your pie. All right, now I'm going to eat this. I started just by eating some cheese just to kind of cleanse the palate. Prepare the palate, a moose bouche.

Load up with some protein, you know. Okay, first of all, I just want to say, I was absolutely right. The cream cheese, cool, whip mixture does not need added sugar. It tastes delicious in my mind. I'm trying to get it all together I will say that Katie with regard to the pretzel salad was right that the cool whip with the sugar and the cream cheese does hold its shape more

I'm trying to get one bite all together here it goes that's a lot better than I expected it's better than I expected too and I keep going in for more but there's something about the texture with the cheese the grated cheddar that I don't love But the taste isn't bad.

It's just the like. Yeah, I mean, I'm not opposed. I'm really working this out. I'm not, I don't like sweet cheese, but I'm not opposed to eating cheddar, like a slice of cheddar with an apple slice. I'm mostly getting texture from this cheese. Yeah. I think that if you wanted to really amp it up, you would do like a red lester, but a much stronger cheddar. This is good, though.

I don't mind it. Yeah. I went with just like the regular store brand. sharp cheddar because I figure I'm sure that's what they use that's what I'm yeah I was like in this circumstance like with these dishes I think that's what is the

common ingredient I'll say this to me it tastes like a pretty good cherry pie but I'm missing some crust sorry Elizabeth in Bellingham Washington I think anything is better if you add

pastry to it I love love a pastry crust. But I'm 100% with you, John, on the mixture of cool whip and cream cheese, which is sweet but not profoundly sweet. It's really good. Yeah. I really like that. And the cheese flavor just mostly adds roundness to the overall profile. Like it's a little bit of saltiness. It isn't, it doesn't taste. super cheesy as you eat it, although I have had some bites where the finish is cheesy. Yeah. Where I am, as the sort of more liquidy ingredients strain through my teeth and down my gullet.

Or you don't have a baleen? No, I'm a too. You're liquid well. The cheese flavor remains, but I actually don't mind that either. And again, like, I'm somebody, like, if you told me, if you told me that you were serving me, you know, panacotta or something, something sweet cheesy. That's not really what I love. Do you guys know that sweet cheese is my nickname?

Sweet cheese. That's what they called you at Camp Toonga or whatever. A little panacotta on a little panacana in the cool, it might be interesting for this one. I'll tell you this. I like it. Thank you, Elizabeth from Bellingham, Washington. I'm not, I don't like it so much that I'm going to insist that Nadi Lopez eat some.

You're welcome to. But I think you get the idea. I bet this would be better. You know what? I'm prepared to say that in future, I'll be putting a layer of pretzels at the bottom of this. Yeah. And calling that both of the other things. The pretzels on the bottom is a really amazing innovation.

We have another little dispute before we make a final ruling on this jello salad. What's going on in Joshua Tree, California, Jesse? This is from, just taking a stab at this one, L-A-D-E, L-O-D-I-E, in Joshua Tree, California. Around this time of year, whenever I knock on a friend or family member's door, I pretend I'm a Christmas caroler. I think this joke is delightful. But my partner hates it. He says, I'm holding people hostage with my songs. Please order him to join my whimsy.

He's a very good singer. What is pretending to be a Christmas carol? How is that different from just being Christmas caroler? Like, she's got to be singing a song. Yeah, she's singing. And then when the friend or family member opens the door, they're like, Ah, Haldi, it's just you, not alone, caroler. Well, no, she's not alone.

Elity's probably there with her partner who is, you know, but he's silent. Melting into a pool of bah humbug and anger. Yeah, but he's quiet. Yeah, he's quiet. So until they open the door, they're thinking there's just one person there. Have you guys seen the Muppet Family Christmas? Not in years and years.

With John Denver? No, this is not the John Denver special. Oh, that's the one. That's the good stuff. That's the present salad of it all. The Muppet Family Christmas is the only Muppet media that features a full crossover between the Disney, now Disney Muppets, the Sesame Street Muppets, and the

Fragles. Whoa. All of them are featured in this special. And there's a point at which the classic Muppets, you know, the Muppet movie Muppets, Muppet Show Muppets, are hold up in this country cottage in a snowstorm, as is traditional. And then

all the Sesame Street Muppets come caroling. I don't like it. to their door. And I am not going to lie, I almost started crying. I understand. It was so sweet. I know. I know.

Because it's so sweet. Jennifer, were you at the office the day that Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird came to visit us? Yeah. I think so. Carol Spinney, the performer who performed as Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird, was on Bullseye once. Yeah. and he brought Oscar the Grouch.

And we, like, took pictures with Oscar the Grouch. He, like, he suggested it. Amazing. And he was the, he's passed away, the sweetest man I have ever met in my life. And I now, I'm just like when I see Big Bird, I just start crying. Yeah. Of course. Of course, they're all wonderful.

But I'll tell you what, I don't like the Sesame Street Muppets caroling. the Muppet Show Muppets House. First of all, Muppets show, Muppets don't all live together. Maybe they're on a trip together. They're on a trip together, John. They're professional colleagues. That's why I like them. They're not a family.

They're a work family. Well, maybe they're on like a, they're touring. We've stayed in a house together. Now, John, what are we? Look, I had the pleasure of performing a live reading of the Muppets. Sorry, I think there's a problem down the line. What are we, John? what's that I just heard static point is I go ahead tell your story we're a work family I mean I would love to have a work family like the Muppets have the work family I love that's part of the reason why I love the Muppet show but I had the great pleasure of performing in a live staged reading of the Muppets take Manhattan the guy named Matt Wilkie does he staged readings of these Muppet movies in Los Angeles mostly but he came to New York with Mark Evan Jackson performing as Kermit

Paul F. Tompkins is Fossey and the amazing Nina West as Ms. Piggy. I was so happy to be performing with these wonderful people, but I hate that movie. I hate it. Muppets Take Manhattan. You ever see it? No, anybody? You hate the Muppets Take Manhattan? Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I mean, it's just, it's fine. It's a B plus and best. Because it's not as good as the Muppet movie? Well, nothing in the world is. But I'll say this. The Muppets movie at least acknowledged the falsity. of the idea that they all met on this road trip together.

This made me very nervous when I saw the Muppet movie as a child because it was like, that's not how they met. Like, Scooter, I remember when Scooter met Kermit at the Muppet show, he said his uncle owned the theater and that was the moment they met. Not before. And at least at the beginning of the Muppet movie, Robin says to Kermit says, is this really how we met? And Kermit says, well, sort of.

So he acknowledges it's a fictional retelling. The Muppet, the Muppet, Great Muppet, Kaper, amazing. movie. And I only was able to accept the Muppets were in this new context where they were not on the Muppet show, right? They were like living in London as newspaper reporters, which is, again, they're not actors. It's just when the reality of their, it's just hard for me. We should probably cut all of this. Is it possible that it's like an extended sketch? Is it possible? Let me ask you this, John. Is it possible that you are my neurodivergent children and all your concerns with media are what is and isn't canon based.

I mean, there is something there. It's not just that it was canon. It's just like I loved that they all came to work together in the theater and then went home. And these other realities are hard for me to, it's hard for me to suspend my disbelief because I love their working. It's just like I love the working relationship of Star Trek the next generation where they're all just like highly professional colleagues who get along and don't bother each of. other. I love that. I was like, I gave Great Muppet Caper a pass because I don't love that Kermit and Fawsey are supposed to be siblings, but the joke that they are identical twins is the best joke in cinema as far as I'm concerned. But I'll tell you one thing about the great, I mean, the Muppets take Manhattan. No way did they all go to college together? No, that's not what happened. No way. Were they babies together? No. And they met as adults. they're babies together

in the Muppet family Christmas so I can't recommend that you Yeah, I can't handle it. They're also babies together in Muppet babies. I don't even know what you're... Again, I'm just getting static when you say that.

And Piggie and Kermit certainly do not get married because their relationship is beyond a romantic relationship. It is supposed to be will they, won't they, for the rest of their lives. The Christmas caroler.

Oh yeah, we're still talking about this person I forgot about it. Pretend caroler. I'll tell you what. I grew up in a somewhat of a restrained Bah-Humbug household. I mean, we loved Christmas. We celebrated Christmas. Both of my parents were lapsed Catholics.

We didn't have a lot of big Christmas traditions, but then the Rosenmeyers move next door. And the Rosenmeyers, I think I may have mentioned on this, they, they, the father was Danish by birth. And they brought a lot of old world you. to the party. They lit their Christmas tree with legit candles. Like, it was an incredible fire hazard. It was so exciting to watch that, that tree tried to burn the house down. And they went caroling, legit, unapologetic, door-to-door, multivocal caroling. And Peter Rosenmeier, their son, who was and is my good friend, who's older than me by a few years. But boy, did that kid have some pipes, and we would be, and he roped me into it.

And I went door to door singing Dona nobles pachem. And it was, it was, no, no, no, bes, potchem, potchum, don't we don't, no, no, that was John's part. That was, oh, that was me? Why was that me? Okay. That was you. Well, it wasn't Peter Rosenbaum or whatever.

Peter Rosenmeier. Peter Rosenmeier was, had a, as a beautiful, not, what do you call a male tenor? A male tenor voice. Yeah. Really beautiful tenor voice. I was on the lower end. Do, da. I was doing it like Tom White.

Do, duh. Anyway, beautiful song. People in Burkline, Massachusetts, had never seen anything like this before. And it was so wonderful. And yeah, I mean, El-D and your husband, you both got the wrong idea. One, don't be embarrassed if your wife wants to sing at the door of a friend or a family at the holiday time. Two, El-D. don't make it meta. Don't make it meta.

Just go ahead and do it. What's the best Christmas, Carol? I mean, Carol Spinney is one of the best. I like Jonah and Obie's Pontcham. I'll tell you what. But I remember when we were going door to door in Brookline, Good King, Good King Wenseless, that was a banger. People really, that rocked. People got into that one. Carol Kane is Jewish, but a classic Christmas Carol, given her role in Scrooge. That's correct.

Good point. Good point. Anyway, that's my ruling. Go ahead next year, or no, this year. Well, it depends on when you hear this. Oh, no, this is coming out on New Year's Eve, looks like to me. Happy New Year. Well, if you're listening to this at 11.30 or waiting for the ball to drop on New Year's Eve, Elity and husband and Joshua Tree, California, get out there and do some New Year's Eve caroling, but not if you've been drinking. All right, that's what I rule there. And as far as this goes, this is definitely a dessert, and it's pretty good. Sorry, Technology House.

Thank you for your hospitality. Jacob, let me explain what happened there. When I did the first one, I was like, that didn't go too bad at all. And then that really went farther than I wanted. We'll make sure that it all gets cleaned up. Maybe let's take a little break. And we're back here at our last visit in New York City. where I just smashed a strawberry cheesecake jello surprise.

Surprise! It smashed real good. It went further than the other, than the pretzel salad, I have to say. So I'll give it an extra grade for that. Did it get on the Audio Technico brand sushi making machine? Yeah, that's right. Jesse, what do we got coming up next?

Okay, we're done with strawberry jello. It's time for lime jelly. Oh, nice. This is from Joanne. in Oakfield, New York. It's called lime cottage salad. This is what she says. My grandma always made this side dish for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. Now my mom adds Maraschino cherries on top for Christmas colors. I genuinely like this recipe even though I don't like cottage cheese. But to be fair, if I hadn't grown up with it, I wouldn't even touch it. Now, you can probably see that

Nanny Lopez has put it on a couple of leaves of romaine lettuce and is topping it with some probably six-year-old maraschino cherries that I found in the back of my refrigerator. You could also put cherries on top for Mexican Independence Day. Like Chula San Nogata. It has, what do you kind of want to say? Persimins. What's the fruit with all the red seeds inside of it?

Pomergranate. I'll tell you. If you want something to look a little festive, pomegranate seeds are your friends. They're like little red jewels. And they're beautiful. And they're beautiful. And we put them on top of the chicken ruby,

which is the chicken tega masala I make out of the DeSum cookbook. It's so, so beautiful. This is in honor of Jennifer in Williamsburg, Virginia, who suggested a different jello salad that we might do next time. an equally green one that her grandmother would always serve on a leaf of iceberg and she called it very fancy.

What's something, I'm going to give this a try, but while you're eating it, think of this. It looks horrific. Okay, yeah. So, to be clear, this is lime jello mixed with cottage cheese

and drained pineapple chunks from a can. And this is the case, Jesse, where we used, upon the instructions of the recipe, the liquid from the can of pineapple to make the jello. That's right. And in the preparation for this, it was a real tough one for me. And then I had the idea to use a candy cane silicone thing or mold. I don't know how it ended up in my home.

Who gave it to me what I was supposed to do with it? But I was like, oh, I'll put this jello in here. and it came out really easily. We'll put a photo up that we have. But it didn't look like a candy cane because it's just the shape of a candy cane, but then I realized it looked like a J for J squad. There you go.

Oh, that's nice. Nice. It looks like an alien's brain. Yeah. I mean, we had moon poop last year. This is like moon barf. when we look at this I don't want to eat it

shiny wet and mint green the pineapple chunks are not particularly visually evident although if you look closely they just look like

sickly discolorations in the green yeah the white chunks of cottage cheese are very apparent and very distasteful in their appearance I'm not sure I blended the cottage cheese into mine as well as I could have. Well, that's what I kept thinking was going on with mine.

But then I looked at the link that Joanne sent and like all of the photos of similar line cottage salads. And like they look a little chunky. Okay. I guess I never knew how much I did not want to see cottage cheese glisten. I'll tell you, I'm going to just give it a little video, just a little jiggle test. It jiggles and then it oozes. I think that it may have been out of the fridge for a little bit too long. That said, enough talk.

We got to eat this thing. Spoonful. I'm going to take my spoonful. Joanne, I just automatically had a second spoonful. I don't hate it. I'm so happy that somebody doesn't hate it. I'm not getting anywhere near these cherries. Natty Lopez just confirmed they expired in 2023.

Jennifer, I just want to say as I put this plate back down on the coffee table in front of us, I'm really grateful for the hard work that you put in making all this food. And this isn't a rejection of you in any way. This is a rejection of Joanne in Oakfield, New York. No. And her entire family. Her grandmother in particular. Joanne, I don't mind it at all.

Nanny Lopez, you don't want to have a bite, do you? Now, some of you may recall Nanny Lopez was our social media specialist for a long time. and then moved on to obviously greater things. She's eating jello professionally now. But over there at MaxFun HQ, we have the wonderful Megan Rosati who has just stepped in to the role and is killing it as our current social media specialist.

My current, that means it suggests like, it was like saying, yeah, this is my current wife. That's not what I mean. Our very welcome new social media specialist. That's right. And she's listening in to the recording downstairs, getting plates ready as we need. them, bringing them up. She's really, you know, doing a great job down there. So thanks, Megan.

Our studio here at the New Maximum Fun HQ is in essentially a castle spire. Yes, it is. So she's really getting her steps in. She is. Every time I come up here, I'm like, it's like a J-Lo workout. And when you leave those comments for us on the YouTube or on the Instagram or on the Facebook or wherever you're leave in your comments or whatever. Megan is watching and listening. And if you've got disputes that you don't feel like filling out that form, just put them in the comments. She'll get them to us. Here's a case from Greg in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. I always make pizza on Christmas Day. I use a different world flag each year as the inspiration for the toppings. In the past, my kids have

had good suggestions. We've done the Welsh flag, which was red sauce dragon on a field of white cheese and green pesto, and the Maryland state flag. But lately they keep suggesting flags with blue Guatemalan flag, for example. Sure. There are no blue foods. My children are being Grinches, order them to stop. There's no blue foods. Tell that to the avatar menu at the burger restaurant that I recently saw.

Oh, my God. Yeah, you could make an avatar pizza for sure. So it came with a, it came with an ocean blue aoli. Well, it's just, it's, it's, it's meant to inspire, inspire you to think of the blood of the avatars. I've, you know, I've never once seen a single avatar. Crushed avatar. If you put the avatars in a press, you get that aole. I'm waiting until they all, I'm waiting until they all come out on Delta seatbacks so I can see them the way they were meant to be seen.

But I will say, I will make this order to Greg in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. Your kids can't be Grinch's. They're asking for blue foods. Grinch love green. They're being blue meanies all the same. Oh. You can do it. You can do it.

And indeed, I order you to do it. Use some blue food coloring and figure out a way to make some a blue, like a blue white pie. And if I got to eat this green salad, you got to eat that blue pizza. And I'm going to very gently, gently, gently, Jacob, very gently gavel on this disgusting fancy salad. Sorry, I actually don't hate it as much as those guys do. I rule that Greg's got to make blue pizza, and I rule the salad is dunzo. I have bad news for all assembled. We're going to a break.

When we come back, we're going to have to eat a savory lime jello salad. Oh, boy. I cannot wait. Maybe this will actually be a salad, because this was a dessert for sure. Judge John Hodgeman, we're taking a quick. holiday break. We hope everyone is having a wonderful new year. We, of course, are headed to San Francisco in the new year. Get your tickets at maximum fun.org slash events. That is going to be a great time. And we've got some more travel on the horizon. We're not announcing it quite yet, but get ready

because we're about to announce some shows in another major population center. A major population center in the United States. That's right. Yeah, that's right. If you thought it was Jakarta, Indonesia, you're wrong. That's right, Jesse, another major population center in the United States and more to come. But hey, speaking of San Francisco Sketch Fest, yes, we are very excited to be returning on the 18th to Marines Memorial Theater. Perform for you. We do need your disputes for that show. Please send in your San Francisco, Oakland, and otherwise Bay Area disputes to Maximumfund.org slash JJHO and let us know if you're going to be at the show

or if you want to be at the show and don't otherwise have tickets. If we hear your case on stage, maybe we can help you out. Also, I'll be doing e-pluribus motto with Janet Varney, the podcast that Janet and I co-host on the subject of state mottos, state birds, state mammals, monsters, and more with special guest Adam Savage

that very same weekend. And the next weekend, I'll be doing riff tracks with our friend Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett and Mike Nelson as well as Janet Varney, I believe. So there's a lot going on at San Francisco SketchFest. We love them and we love to see you there. It's better when you are there. So please go to maximum fund.org slash events and get your tickets to our show, please. We also had a wonderful holiday season to put this on shop.

Thank you so much to everybody who shopped with us. So many Judge John Hodgman listeners bought beautiful things and left little notes and stuff. I really appreciate it. We are in the midst of the post-holiday sale season, and I decided for Judge John Hodgman listeners, a special 25% discount on everything in the store with the code. Wow. January justice.

Only this month, January justice, use that code at put this on shop.com. Let's get back to the holiday party. Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman holiday party. it's oops all jello this time around and we have a former litigant and friend of the court named Afton Cyrus the senior recipes editor at Simply Recipes. Can you imagine how quickly

we would turn away a freaking junior recipes editor? Okay. Afton sent us a recipe that she received as a pitch from her colleague Anne Wolfe. They worked together at America's Test Kitchen, so it's probably legit. I mean, in what sense? And that it's probably actually a recipe?

Like, it probably contains a list of ingredients in a way to prepare them. Oh, you're going to find out for sure. This one came from Anne's Ma-Maw. It's called Cucumber Jell-Mold. Yeah, mold. Mold is the operative word. Anne says,

My grandma clipped this recipe from a magazine in the 1960s. the first time my mom made it for a holiday dinner, my brother and I couldn't stop laughing about this wobbly mint green vegetable dessert. To my surprise, my brother loved it. It became his must-have holiday dish, one that he would request, even after he moved away for graduate school.

All right, let's played up this lime mold. We discovered it held its shape quite nicely. Let's see if it still does. Yep. Wow. Mine looks like a brick, a brick of green. I have video that I did before we started recording that we'll post on social media of my many attempts to unmold this one. And in the end, I just took a picture while I was speaking, but in the end it was a mess.

It was liquidy and soupy, although what Megan has served us, doesn't. It doesn't look as runny as I was expecting it to look based on how it, the final form on the serving dish. Martian Nightmare, Grinch Bile. I'm looking at this, I'm looking at this food. I've nosed it. It smells of cucumber. Mm-hmm. And I don't want to eat it.

Cucumber law. All right, here's what's in this. Lime Jello, cream cheese. Super secret ingredient. A little bit of Hodgeman love called mayonnaise. Horse radish. lemon juice, diced cucumber, minced onion. I will say I left out the minced onion from ours because it's a migraine trigger for Jesse.

Thank you, Jennifer. It also, as disgusting as the other elements are, and as much as I generally like onions, frankly, though I can't have raw ones particularly, it is the most nightmarish element of this, even more so to me than the horseradish, the diced onion. If this were in a ring mold, it might look somewhat more festive and less like a colon stoppage. But all right, I'm going to try it now. John, yours on camera looks like a cheap special effect. This is one that I should like because I do prefer savory to sweet.

And I can see a world. in the 60s and 70s, this would be considered sophisticated and refreshing and probably the closest thing we have to a genuine salad among all these quote unquote jealous salads. And I don't want it anywhere near me or my mouth, that's the answer. I think I'm good with it. I'm so grateful to Afton for sending it. well look afton and i presume her colleague or former colleague anne wolf is like afton which is to say the best and uh you know afton i saw afton on the porch of the blue hill wine shop in maine she lives up in main there with her wonderful sister hannah now uh we heard them their case about uh whether hannah

should have a working cell phone or not in maine when we were in at the now uh departed portland Music Hall in Portland, Maine. Love Afton. I don't like that she had anything to do with this food being in my mouth. That's one, my one dispute with Afton. You know what? I didn't like it. Mm-hmm.

He likes it. And I think it's bad. Yeah. I found it dramatically more tolerable than I anticipated. Yeah. And I can imagine a world where I like it. If I didn't have a palette that had developed to not like something like this. right yeah there would be a 30% chance that I would be like I guess this is what food tastes like

I like it right yeah I yeah that's kind of what I mean in terms of like in the 70s when you're already surrounded by crimda menth and grasshoppers this green pallor would not seem too unusual to you and if you're used to eating a lot of gelled entrees and things in Aspic and jelly salads like this, which were more popular than, I don't think this would seem particularly out of the ordinary. But this, this minty death color that it's got is not quite for me. I don't know. I kind of love the color. The color might be my favorite part of it. I like the color. It does look nice. The color. And the scent of cucumber made me think that I might like it because I do really love cucumber and how it smells.

But this one was not for me. To me, this looks like the color of Queen Haleen face mask, which my mom wore every night. I don't know if that's so fun. You know what? Even little John Hodgman gave it a try from time to time. That's so fun. I would do that at like sleepover parties and just be like, ooh, we're so fancy and maybe put slices of cucumber over our eyes. Anne said her grandmother started to substitute wasabi for horseradish in the dish after she took a life-changing trip to Japan in the 19th.

She probably redesigned her entire house in Japanese May, wouldn't you say? As it turns out, though, most of the wasabi we have in the United States is horseradish that has been dyed green. Right. Then there's a final sentence in this paragraph, John. Uh-huh. Sometimes it also has mustard. Of course. Of course.

I think what would make this taste even better is if you brazed some cocktail weaners. in grape jelly and mustard and then inserted them into the middle of it as a little surprise. That would be surprising. I did too. Have you guys ever?

I would like, I would try this with wasabi, whether it's real wasabi or, you know, cheap-o-tube wasabi. Because even though it's, you know, it's a high-grade horse radish that's been dyed green,

it has a specific kick that I think might be interesting in this. But what I really want to know more about is Anne's grandmother's trip to Japan or life-changing trip to Japan in the 70s. And I'm asking you this. You made me eat this jello.

Now you have to do me a favor. Go find your grandmother's journal from her trip to Japan. I want to read it. I want to hear about what happened in that life-changing trip to Japan in the 70s. You know what? I need to cleanse my palazzo. We near the end of the year. Let's celebrate with a toast.

Our listener, Marcus, has been inviting us for years to try something that he calls a Tom and Jerry. There's a very old pre-prohibition cocktail called the Tom and Jerry, but this Tom and Jerry, and they might share some DNA with this. I don't know. But this Tom and Jerry is often sold. It's an eggnog type drink. It's an eggy, sugary batter that they sell in jars in the Midwest, that you then heat up with water and combine with rum and brandy. I believe that's what we have, right? Would you mind getting a Tom and Jerry ready? Thank you very much, Natalina Lopez. And we're going to do a little, we're going to do a little time lapse while the Tom and Jerry's get ready.

And we're back through the magic of editing. Time has passed. I have here the Tom and Jerry in front of me. I could have used that time to clean off this gavel, but why? We'll just have that there roasting you out in the background. If you can't see what I'm talking about. There's a remembrance of things past. If you can't see what I'm talking about, please go back to,

please go over to Judge John Hodgman Pod on YouTube and subscribe, if you will. Now, Jennifer, you sent me a jar of Tom and Jerry mix or what they call disgustingly batter. The Collins brand. There's also a Trader Vicks brand that's circulating around. You can get this online or if you don't see it at your local store. I believe it's very common in the Midwest. And my understanding is that it's sugar, pasteurized eggs, and spices. Do we have the jar somewhere?

Jennifer's holding the jar, and it looks like a jar that like a fancy mustard would come in. That's right. Like a mustard that you, the kind of fancy mustard you put into a lime jelly salad. That's what we're talking about. I can't picture it. You know. Yeah. What does it say on the ingredients there on that Collins brand, Tom and Jerry batter?

Powdered sugar, dextrose. Mediwestern nightmares. Yes, eggs, powdered milk, water, starch, spices, vanilla. And the deal with the Tom and Jerry is you take the batter, you boil or heat up some water, about two tablespoons per cup of water. Or milk, you could use hot milk, and then you glug in what do we do about, an ounce of cheap brandy, right? and an ounce of Gosling's Dark Rum and this is a

holiday tipple from Marcus in the Midwest. Gosling's dark rum, by the way, made of real Goslings. Mm-hmm. Oh, that's terrific. Jennifer has mixed... It tastes like eggnog to me.

Jennifer has mixed some of the paste. A little behind the scenes. Hey, Megan, I could use some napkins or paper towels, maybe of one of them a little damp, please. What happened over there at Max 1HQ? Collins batter ended up on my hands somehow. How? Unclear.

Yeah. That batter gets everywhere. Were you scooping it out with your fingers like a bear eating honey out of a hive? Was I not supposed to? You can also make it with milk or cream. This was with water and it's fine. But I would up the ante with some milk, I think. Thank you, ma'am.

And it tastes very festive, I would say. You can top it with a little. what you might call it, Cool Whip? I don't want to top it with Cool Whip though, Natty Lopez. We don't need to get the Cool Whip again. I think that's already wending its way to Jennifer Marmer via bookmail.

We didn't have, we don't have alcohol in ours because it is too early in the day for me. Jesse doesn't drink. Jesse doesn't drink. So we're just, you know, and this isn't normal. I will say that drinking it without booze, I want it to be made. from milk.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it needs that. I think it does. I think it needs that body. I think so too. And the Collins jar tells you you can make it with milk. Mm-hmm. And the Collins jar also tells you to add it with,

specifically as we have done, brandy and room, which is a combo that I never would have thought of. But I think works nicely in this. And I would say I will often drink eggnog plain. I enjoy the taste of eggnog quite a bit. And there are people in my family who will add alcohol to the eggnog. I rarely ever do because I just love it.

I mean, it's a kind of drinkable mayonnaise for me. I love eggnog too. I'm often disappointed with grocery store eggnog in that it is insufficiently spiced. And it is a little hard to spice effectively at home because when you add spice to it, the spice will often clump. Yeah. So, I mean, I would like to say that I make eggnog a lot. I don't.

Occasionally, I do make eggnog, and I am reminded that I like that a lot better than grocery store eggnog. What I find is often the case with grocery store eggnog is not enough orange fanta in it. Oh, here we go. Now we're ready. The party's about to start, baby. And while you have not added alcohol, you do have the option to add some orange soda. Natty Lopez, we have some orange.

soda here, don't we? Yeah, we got a Fanta here. Now, the appropriate way to serve this is to shake it up and spray it all over the podcasting studio that you happen to be in, but because I've already overstayed my welcome here at Technica House, I'm going to just pour it in gently. Wait, so we're putting this into our... Well, I mean, why not? You've made... This is an egg-noggy adjacent beverage. Yeah. Why not see how it goes with orange soda? Maybe this is a Mrs. Fanta Claus? Yeah, Mrs. Fanta Claus. That's a good idea. I like that a lot.

Oh, thank you. Now, Hey, Lopez coming through with the single chopstick used as a swizzle stick. Absolutely necessary holiday gear. I just topped it off and let's see how this goes. Okay, that's a no for me, dog. I'll tell you why. If this had milk in it, then you, even though there's eggs in this, if it had milk in it, then you might hit that same creamsicle flavor combo that the true Fanta Claus has.

And if it had milk in it, it might be better. But the problem is, I don't know. It's a hot orange soda. Yeah, it's not very good. It tastes very bad. There is one hot mold drink that we have enjoyed before. here at the holiday office party, and that's Mold Dr. Pepper, hot Dr. Pepper, right, Jesse? Yeah, what you do is you, speaking as the former president of the San Francisco School of

the Arts Dr. Pepper Club, you let your Dr. Pepper go flat. It was horrible how you were impeached. You didn't deserve that. That's true. I may be president for life. If I went back there, they would put my robe back on me. I you let this is a product this is something that was advertised by the dr pepper company for many decades you let your dr pepper go flat that helps a lot and then you warm it in a sauce pan it's important not to boil it and then you add fresh lemon because then you kill all the nutrients exactly and you you add a squeeze of fresh lemon as though you were having you know hot water with lemon or

or hot tea with lemon. Right. Like an elderly man at a diner. And it's very good. Well, Chris in Camus, Washington, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Camus, I hope I'm pronouncing Chris correctly. Washington, pretty sure I got it. But Chris wrote in suggesting that we try eggnog with, instead of orange soda,

a blackberry Dr. Pepper this year. We're not doing eggnog, but Nanny Lopez found some blackberry Dr. Pepper. I don't know. Do you have some there out there in maximum fun land? We do. I haven't had this. Can you pour me a little bit just by itself? I want to give this a taste.

A separate taste? As it stands. Dr. Pepper is, of course, the soda that was designed to taste the way that an old-fashioned pharmacy smells. So that's why it is a mix of fruit flavors with some creamy and cola flavors and a little bit of a medicinal flavor. I'm sorry, Mr. President of the Dr. Pepper fan club, but that sounds like that. like fake news to me. What? That is 100% real. The way a old-timey pharmacy smells. Yeah, because

a soda shop was where a pharmacy was where you went for your soda pop. Yeah. I mean, it was a, it was a form of medicine. Coca-Cola was cola nut and cocaine. No, exactly. And Dr. Pepper was not the inventor of the drink, but the pharmacist at the pharmacy where it was invented. It was named in tribute to Dr. Pepper. It's nice. Not an actual real doctor. But obviously, it's a, it's a, it's a mix of many flavors. It is like the original, uh, we called this when I was a kid of suicide where you would go get, you drink, add everything together. Um, it is the original that. Like, if you imagine that, but with like birch beer and, uh, you know, a weird medicinal bitterness from a tonic of some kind. Well, this is a new flavor of D. Pepp that I've never tried. I mean,

I don't know if it's new, but it's new to me, the Blackberry. Have you ever had it before, Jesse? You mentioned you didn't. No. Are we going to try it on its own first? I'm trying it on its own. And I'm saying that there's not a lot of forward blackberry flavor, but there's a lot of backward. Backward. Back end.

There's a lot of blackberry on the back end. A lot of backwash blackberry. And it is that kind of, it tastes like haribou berries. Ooh, yeah. It is that kind of candy blackberry flavor. It doesn't have a lot to do with actual blackberries. Right. I love those Harribo berries, frankly.

That's one of my favorite candies. This, I could take her leave. I've had cherry Dr. Pepper. I prefer that, I think. But I think I like regular Dr. Pepper best. I'm going to take a little sip, then I'm going to add some to the second Tom and Jerry that was so nicely prepared for me by Natty.

Well, that's a strike one on Eggnog and Tom and Jerry beverage. Strike 2 on Black. Barry, Dr. Pepper, and Tom and Jerry beverage. I would say the count is two and one. There's one block because thanks to the brandy and the rum, I am now ambling towards first base and no one can stop me. There wasn't a lot in there, and I've only had a couple of sips, but I don't know, it's holiday time.

Suddenly that lime jello on the end of my gavels looking good to me. John is a very creative interpretation. of the rules of baseball, by the way. It all made perfect sense to me. I don't know what you're talking about. Two strikes and one walk is a two-in-one count. Yeah, I don't know. I'm doing my best to learn them.

We had one other great idea. I think Jennifer Marmer, this was your great idea, and I bought it crashing down to the ground. Well, you know, this is a all-whoops, all-gello episode. These things are liquid. But with a little, just a little imagination and some unflavored gelatin, you could make a jello shot out of the Tom and Jerry mixed beverage. Wait a minute. And it seems so great.

Hold on. We're making jello shots out of this stuff? Making, made. Made. Yeah. Holy cow. Can I make a suggestion? Uh-huh.

Yes. Do you know who invented the jello shot? Yeah. Well, no, Jesse. I don't. The jello shot. was invented by my former professor of American musical theater at UC Santa Cruz, Tom Laird, who was a professor emeritus of mathematics, but taught a musical,

co-taught a musical theater class at Santa Cruz. He is, of course, one of the greatest musical comedians and greatest musical satirists of the 20th century, or was, and he also is a guy who, did I already share on Judge John Hodgman the email that I sent to him? I'm sure you did, but please remind us. Okay, so basically I was doing a 25th anniversary show, planning a 25th anniversary show of Bullseye in Santa Cruz, where I started the show.

Right. And I had in Professor Lairor's musical theater class been the guy that, like, raises his hand and plugs his improv show or the upcoming guests on his radio program in the Sound of Young America. And so I emailed Weird Al Yanker, sure and said i know that you know tom lair uh do you have his email address now do i know why i have weird al yankevick's email no i do not did he remember me maybe because he's the nicest guy ever he like looked through his emails and remembered figured out who i was i did used to get a

christmas card from him once in a while yeah um weird owl knows uh very very nice man but I haven't, like, seen him in real life in 10 years. But I sent him an email and said, do you have Tom Lehrer's email address? And he emailed me back and said, yes, here it is. You didn't get it from me. And just so you know, last time I emailed him, he didn't email me back. So I was like, it's okay. The man's 90-something years old.

Right. If he doesn't email me back, it's fine. I emailed him and said, you may remember me from your class. I'm coming to Santa Cruz to do a show. I know that this, you don't do a lot of media or anything, but I wondered if you might consent to being a guest on the show. And he emailed me back and said, you know, this is me paraphrasing from memory. He said, I have no evidence in my records that you were a student in my class as you claim, but I choose to believe you. And then he said, well, I remain lucky enough to be in a

vertical position. Yeah. You may be aware that I have spent the last several decades avoiding obligations exactly such as this one. That's a good line. Thank you for the invitation. So he passed away a few months after that. And I will always be grateful that I got to be in a class with the grumpiest, funniest guy

who said that there were no good songwriters since Jerome Kern other than Stephen Sondheim and Randy Newman. Fair assessment. I got to see Tom Lehrer perform in Cambridge when I was maybe 12 or 13. I put on my best tweet jacket and I went to go hear some sophisticated satirical music. And boy, oh boy, I love one incredible legacy. If you haven't ever listened to the music of Tom Lehrer, this is a great time to do it. And, of course, he had passed away earlier this year.

And I thought, and we, you know, you and I communed privately about that, Jesse. And it is reputed that he invented the jello shot around the time that he was. was in the army. And I think that we left a voicemail message, Jesse, you and I for him, maybe after we had had a few Tom and Jerry's, if you know what I mean. Yeah, we did. Asking him if he could verify that he invented the jello shot, did not call back. No, he did not. Let the mystery be, as Iris Dement says. But yes, so the idea was that we would prep these Tom and Jerry jello shots, or as Jennifer Marmer called them Tom and Jellos, fantastic. And she did, and I did. But of all the stuff,

stuff that I remembered to bring here to Technica House in order to smash it with my gavel. I left my Tom and Jello behind. So I will enjoy it separately later today when I get home on mic and on camera. And you will get to see that I did what I promised I would do. But in the meantime, I'll just have to sit here and and hear what it's like from you people. Well, I'll say, I'll say that there's, I couldn't find a recipe for a Tom and Jerry Jello shot. All of my internet searching led me to Tom Lairor says he invented the Jello shot. And so, you know, I don't know these holiday beverages very well. So I was like, well, I can just sub out, you know, like an egg knock jello shot is a thing. So I'll just adapt that. And it

is a jello shot, but the, it has a vulgar appearance. It's separated in a way that is not nice looking. Oh. I don't know if that's what happened with you, John. It sounds like maybe not. Do ours have rum and brandy in them? No, no, no, no. I feel like I would be more comfortable eating this if I knew that it had rum and

brandy in it as even as a non-drinker. Yeah. I do not like the idea of eating this without booze in it. I don't. Can I tell you guys something? I've never done a jello shop before. I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. I'm just eating a little bit with a spoon.

Would you like some whipped cream? Yeah, I would like some. You're supposed to just toss it down the hatch, right? I think so. I've always been my... I don't know that I've ever done a Jello shot. Well, if you'd like to see me try my Tom and Jello shop, which I left at my home in Brooklyn, New York,

to come here to Technica House, that'll be our post-credit surprise scene. And in the meantime, I think what, when you said one in five, Daniel Spear, were you talking about the rankings of our foods today? I was thinking about how many y'all actually enjoyed. Let's knock it down. We liked the desserts at the beginning. Right. So there's two of them that you like.

And it was all downhill. The pretzel salad was in baseball terms, home run to the scorehole. The one after that, the cherry pie one was cherry pie without a crust, not so good. Fancy lime and cottage cheese on lettuce leaves was divisive, to say the least, polarizing. They hated it. I thought it was okay. The genuine salad, which was the lime, lime and cucumber mustard. mold, as it was called.

Yeah. I mean, you're not really advertising that food very well to call it a mold. I get what they were talking about. It's served in a mold, but whatever. Felt very weirdly 1970s fancy, but not something I wanted in my mouth and really belongs smashed on the end of my gabble. But an extraordinary success given what's involved in it on a piece of paper. That's right.

But, I mean, you know, look, this is not about the destination. It was about the friends we jelled along the way. Indeed. It's the holidays. And may I simply say what a delight it is to spend time with you, my friends, Jesse Thorne and Jennifer Marmer and, of course, Daniel Spear and Megan Rosati over there, A.J. McKeehan, way out there in Austin, Texas editing. It's great to see you again, Jacob here at Technica House. I'm sorry about the spilled jello. Great to see you again, Natty Lopez.

It's been too long. And great to spend time with you all the listeners. viewers of Judge John Hodgman, I wish you happy and marry in peace where you can get it at the end of this year. And look, I had a little bit of brandy and rum. It's true. So let me tell you the story about the time my wife bought Valium over the internet. Yeah. And I came home one day and there's this package from Karachi and I'm opening it up and it's all it's all these blister packs of a medicine. And I look up what it says in in Pakistanian. It says Valium. So I said to my wife was a holy, mean, right? What happened? She said, yeah, I had a little too much

Tom and Jerry mix, if you know what I mean. And about 2 a.m. I got online and I, uh, I, I'd received an email saying, we want to sell you some Valium and I gave them my credit card information. And it works? We canceled the card. And then we took the Valium. And you know what? It was a, it was an end of year, a holiday miracle. It actually calmed us. write down and did not poison us. It was not a Rufi Setsuma. It was genuine Pakistani Valium. So every now and then, it doesn't seem like much these days, but everyone now and then,

things work out. And I'm so glad that we were able to work this out and to be here again with you at the end of the year. The end of my rambling. No more Tom and Jerry mixed for me. Our thanks to folks who sent in their recipes that we didn't use. And maybe we can post these on the maximum. on subreddit our slash maximum fun, something like that.

Allison and her family had lush mush. Maggie and her family had Polynesian ginger dip. Vernie's secret cheese dip came from Amelia, the spinach thing from Kelsey, hot pineapple casserole from Meeb, Grandma Erhard's mini pizzas from Bridget, stuffed pepper and chini peppers from Caitlin and Baganol from Terry. That's it for another episode of Judge John Hoddle.

Judge John Hodgman, created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman. Our social media specialist is Megan Rosati. The podcast is edited by A.J. McKeon. Daniel Spear is our video producer. The show is produced by Jennifer Marmer. Photos from the show posted on our Instagram account at Instagram.com slash Judge John Hodgman. You can watch this whole episode on YouTube if you would like to at Judge John Hodgman Pod.

We are also on TikTok. So follow us there at Judge John Hodgman Pod. And we always need your. disputes. Yeah, as we begin a new year, I wonder if there are any disputes out there about beginnings. We often get this dispute about whether the week begins on a Monday or a Sunday, depending on what part of the world you're in. This is a divisive argument. But what about other beginning disputes? What's the best opening line of a novel or the worst? What about is what's the best starter at a restaurant talking about some of those chips and dips we talked about earlier? What is the worst first season of a TV show that ended up being a pretty good TV show? Looking at you, Parks and Recreation. No offense to anybody working on the show. Just that was a show that sort of didn't find its footing until season two or three.

We need your disputes, anecdotes, comments, whatever you have for us, please send them in at maximumfund.org or email me directly at John, excuse me, not John, just Hodgman at maximum fund.org. No matter what your dispute is, submitted to us at maximum fund.org slash JJHO. We need it. And we'll talk you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Greetings, everyone. It is Judge John Hodgman. I am back home where I have rendezvoused with my Tom Angelou shot. If you're watching on YouTube or maybe social media, you can see I had it ready to go in this beautiful little container all set. It's a little container that I found, perfect for one or two, Tom Lehrer-inspired Tom and Jello shots, but I forgot. So now I'm going to enjoy it. I'm opening it up.

Well, I'm predicting I'm going to enjoy it. This I did make with a little bit of cream in comparison. And if you're watching, this is it on the video. I'm going to attempt to unmold it onto my genuine made-in salad plate. I really have this stuff. Let's see if I can unmold it. It does not want to come out. Since I forgot to grab a spoon, I'm just going to use my fingers,

and I'm going to deslime it. There we go. That's probably enough. I don't want to get any on my computer. And this is the sound. of me eating half. I'm going to try a big bite of it. Hmm.

I know you're not supposed to bite a jello shot, but I didn't want all of it because I just remember that it does have rum and brandy in it. And I will say that I made about a cup of the Tom and Jerry mix. I included one quarter ounce packet of unflavored gelatin, and I put a little nutmeg and cinnamon in there. And this worked out pretty nicely.

I mean, it looks gross, right? But it's a jello shot. It's an opaque jello shot. And I am feeling already the brandy and the rum work its way into me. So there it is holiday cheer to you all. And I'm sorry I left it behind, but I am also not sorry I left it behind. Okay, thus ends the episode. Goodbye and see you in the future.

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