Judge John Hodgman - Opening the Mailbag Fall 2026

Episode Date: October 14, 2026

We have been having a rollicking, good time in the Members Only Mailbag! As an early Halloween treat, we want to share some of our favorite letters on the main feed. Nostalgia for local tv commercials, Hearst Castle, the origins of a catch phrase, and much more! PLUS a never-before-heard chat with past guest Jamie Loftus about vegan hot dogs!And if you want to hear more of these gems, we have over two years of Membo Mailbag episodes to catch up on. Just join Maximum Fun at maximumfun.org/joinjjho! ---Judge John Hodgman is member-supported! Become a member to unlock special bonus episodes and more. Memberships start at just $5 a month. Just tap here!

It is the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Welcome. I am bail of Jesse Thorne with me, Judge John Hodgman. You know, we do this podcast. We cast these judgments, but I think you understand. I think you get the subtext that Jesse and I were pals. We're pals and we love paling around and bringing you along for the pal around as well. We call it the members only mailbag. We've been having a capital B blast with members only mailbag episodes this year. These are episodes where we not only hear disputes you might. might have, maybe disputes that are a little too spicy for the regular feed, but we also answer any question you might have and endure any complaint that you might wish to provide us, and we've gotten a few. As an early Halloween surprise, we want to share some of the most rollicking letters from the past few months with the entire audience. It's all treats, no tricks, no poisoned apples for you. It's a member's only mailbag now for everyone. Speaking of treats, by the way, we even have a little bit extra from our hot dog episode with Jamie Loftus that we cut for time, but we really loved

and wanted you to hear. If you're not already a member, this is some of the stuff that you have been missing. You can join us anytime. It is so fast. I mean, it takes like literally now 90 seconds. If you go to maximum fun.org slash join JJ Ho. Maximumfund.org slash join JJ Ho. When you are a member, you get access not only to every new monthly memo, mailbag, you also get access to our almost 15-year backlog, monumental library of member-only bonus content. So that's maximum fun.org slash join JJ Ho. Yeah, come and hang out with us, your friends.

And, you know, you never know where the mailbag is going to go. Recently, we had a question about nostalgia and its relative toxicity. And basically, we just talked about our favorite commercials growing up. It was a lot of fun. Let's get into the mailbag in those commercials. Here's a question from Josh. I have a question about nostalgia being the most toxic impulse. Is there ever an exception?

I hope so because I am nostalgic for the commercial for Grand Prospect Hall. That owner wanted to make all our dreams come true, and I think we all need that. Are you familiar with the Grand Prospect Hall? I've never heard of the Grand Prospect Hall. What is it? The Grand Prospect Hall was a function hall here in Brooklyn, right near the Prospect Expressway. And they used to advertise on television all the time, encouraging you to come there and have your events, usually weddings. I think we have the YouTube.

Are we going to share it? I want to see that. By the way, Jennifer Marmer out on leave, she's on assignment this Membo mailbag. We've got Ragu Manavalin on the production. side. Hi, Ragu, how are you? I'm doing great. How are you guys doing? We're doing great. Ragu, you have done some digging and found

this commercial for the Grand Prospect Hall. Indeed, shall we pull it up? Indeed. Unless, shall we? Yes. Indeed, yes, indeed. You dreamed about it. It's been carefully planned, and here is the most important day of your life. Eight good dreams come through.

The Grand Prospect Hall. 7187-8-0-7-7-7. Wow. I, okay. I think we all have a time in our lives when local television commercials suggest nostalgia to us. I suppose that younger members of Gen Z and below will never have that because they're not watching local television.

And so if they have any nostalgia, it will be for non-shared experiences like algorithmic advertisements on YouTube. That's right. However, we all have our own time period. That was a later time period than I anticipated. That did include a web address. Yeah, I mean, I'm looking for when it finally closed down. The aesthetic of that place was not what I anticipated.

It was much more grand, dare I say? It's like a laser show on that. the ceiling. Yeah, Jesse, apparently it closed down in 2021. The last time I was in there was in 2008 when I did some phone banking for a presidential candidate that I was supporting at the time. Rand Paul, obviously. Ron Paul?

Ron Paul, right? I was one of the polls. You were supporting a young optometrist named Rand Paul. It was Jake Paul. I apologize. My mistake. My memory, you know what? I'm nostalgic. I'm nostalgic for that evening of in-person phone banking when, you know, I've done some phone banking since. But this was at a time in the ancient past young children of members, when you actually had to go to a grand function hall to sit at rows and rows of tables and you were provided a telephone to dial and a script to read. And it was the first time I had ever done any meaningful phone banking. And I'll tell you what, it was absolutely terrified. But I nostalgic for it because it was a very good feeling. And when I say that nostalgia is a toxic impulse,

I do not mean capturing a good feeling from your past and dwelling on it and thinking to myself, or yourself, I usually think on your behalf. So I often think to myself, but in this case, for yourself. Oh, yeah, that was really nice. It was nice that there was this ad for this this beautiful ornate rococo laser beamed function hall where your dreams could come true. That's a nice feeling every now and then. All I'm talking about when I say nostalgia is a toxic impulse is that let's not build a political movement based on nostalgia. Many, many a political movement has been based on the idea that we could make one place or another great again, the twin fallacy that life was better before.

I'm sure in some ways it was. In some ways it wasn't. Certainly not for everybody. And then the other part of the fallacy is that you could actually go back to it because time could move backwards, which is obviously not true. That's all I mean by that. But yes, I enjoyed watching that TV ad again, not merely because it was a TV ad. Not merely because I remember that place and a time in my life when things were, I mean, better. I'll say it in this case.

Yeah, in many ways significantly and meaningfully and substantively better than where we're at right now in this very moment of this recording. But also just for the idea of TV ads, right? Jesse, do you have a TV ad that you're nostalgic for? I've been feeling nostalgic lately for certain radio ads. Yeah. Because I, as a child, listened to a lot of baseball games, a lot of San Francisco Giants games on NBR 68, these sports. later. Yeah. And there are certain, like, little spots that they had. And actually, Sam Miller, used to be the co-host of my favorite baseball podcast, effectively wild, and is a long-time

baseball writer, has a wonderful baseball substack. A great, great podcast titler, I would say, as well. Yeah. He's a man of many wanderings. But he is from the San Francisco Bay Area and grew up a Giants fan. I think now he's a grown-up non-fan, a journalist, you know. Yeah. But he was dismayed to tune into a Giants game and find that when it was time for a change, it was no longer time to think of speedy oil change and tune-up, your oil change, tune-up, and smog experts, which it had been for, I'm going to say, at least 30 years. Yeah. Now it's time for Comcast business or something. I can't even remember. But like the MLB app gives me the radio feed for the Giants and all the other teams.

I listen to other games occasionally as well. And they sold the advertising rights to a podcasting company, podcasting and radio company. And so I started getting poorly inserted, digitally inserted ads that would like cut off the outroes from from from from innings and it was terrible but the worst part was that what I really wanted to hear was ads for the Shane company this diamond store yeah and in the peninsula somewhere uh-huh uh-huh open Saturday and Sunday till a Monday through Friday till 8 and Saturday and Sunday till 5 but the TV commercial that I mean on the actual subject at The television commercial that I feel most strongly about is this guy called Paul from the Diamond Center.

The Diamond Center, I think, was like a jewelry store where you could buy jewelry on credit. And he starred in a long series of commercials, a very cheerful, mustachioed man with sort of grand, almost like, hair in the tradition of like a George Jones or something like that. Like 80s equivalent.

It wasn't quite as shellact as a George Jones. Maybe a Larry Sanders kind of hair, Gary Shandling, you know, some really grand hair. And he would be like a cowboy in one commercial or, you know, this kind of thing. But there was one where he did an entire version of the song, Soul Man, but it was Credit Man. Uh-huh. And they like, he had like dancers, like beautiful lady dancers carrying him as, you know, as he like lay in a prone position but up in the air because he's being carried. You know, like with his hand on his cheek, like leaning, you know, like, oh, ain't I cute kind of position? Sure, ain't I cute.

And, yeah, if you search Paul from the Diamond Center on YouTube, which I just did, there's probably 40 different diamond. I mean, he did this for a long time. But the thing about him is he's so cheerful. Yeah. He's got a real pleasant quality to him. That's who I voted for for president in 2008, by the way. I want to give a shout out to Bay underscore area underscore nostalgia. That poster finds incredible old footage and puts it in an incredible context that is often

somewhat cattily leftist, much to the dismay of. The grumpy old people that follow that kind of Instagram account. Yeah, I mean, it's a not so guilty pleasure. And I think to get back to Josh's letter, our friend Chuck Bryant from stuff you should know once took me to task for this idea that nostalgia is toxic impulse. Because he pointed out, like, scientific studies that show when you watch something you remember fondly from youth, like all kinds of hormones get and get deployed. in your body and they make you feel good and reduce stress. And for that reason alone, I think the nostalgia is actually pretty good, you know, again, as long as you're not creating a political movement of it, but instead doing what I do,

which is staying up too late watching commercial ad breaks from, you know, a screening of roots the next generation or whatever, or watching, I caught myself watching some Battle of the Network stars from 1978 with an interview with Jimmy J.J. Walker, which I actually, I actually was incredibly thoughtful and interesting. That sounds dynamite. It was dinomite, exactly. And I've recently, and thanks to our Judge John Hodgman listener, Grayson, I've been getting deep into so you think you know Maine.

Oh, wow, yeah. The main PBS show where a rotating cast of bearded hosts asks a rotating cast of bearded men, incredibly hard trivia questions about Maine, like beyond trivia, like pointless questions about Maine. And what I thought was a one-off when we've screened it, portions of it for our regular show. It turns out it is routine that the audience is almost entirely made up of either Girl Scouts or Cubs Cets. And they are not happy to be there. Here's another ice cream thing. This is a letter from Jim in Pittsburgh. I understand that language evolves and I try not to be pedantic, but seeing a commercial business refer to something as homemade bothers the heck out of me.

For example, a local ice cream chain called Millies calls their ice cream homemade simply because it was originally made at home. Today, it's made in a factory. Lies, I say, lies. I believe the word homemade should be reserved for goods that are literally made where you lay your head at night. I guess that means you make ice cream in your pillow case. Unrelated and stand by for a swear word. Hurst Castle, Jesse. Wow.

He and Randolph Hearst was a P-O-S. And his castle is a monument to wealth without conscience. Eat the rich. Give me the cookies. That's Jennifer Marmer's favorite, famous catchphrase. Just throwing in cash phrases. I love it. He's going toe to toe with you on this episode, Jennifer, in terms of citing the lore.

Yeah. That's cool. I'll take reaction to the last part first. Jesse Thorne, dare you defend William Randolph Hearst, who was indeed a P-O-S and his castle? Yeah, the reason I like Hurst Castle is because William Randolph-Hurst, who's been dead for a hundred years or whatever, is a good guy. That's why I like it there.

That's why I enjoyed visiting because it's a symbol of what a good guy, William Randolph-Hirst is. It belongs to the state. of California. It's a public good. Yeah. But his entire legacy is defined by what a shitty guy he is. That doesn't mean that like Julia Morgan, the greatest California architect,

didn't design an extraordinary building. It doesn't mean that that building is not full of, some of the greatest accomplishments of human art. Yeah. It doesn't mean that it's not spectacular to look at. or visit or learn about,

it doesn't mean that it's not an incredible, natural place where you can meet real elephant seals. You can't, like, shake hands with them. They don't have hands, and they would trample and gore you. Yeah. You can get some of that seal oil

for your Inuit ice cream if you want. Yeah. Baked Alaska. That's the official ice cream of Alaska, as far as I'm concerned. Baked Alaska is so good. I just want to quote, Soviet Premier,

Lannad Bresnev, who had it served to him in the Nixon White House. Everybody drink again, Brezhnev again. 1972. Look, you're only supposed to drink when I mentioned Gramsci. When I mentioned Antonio Gramsci or the idea of the organic intellectual, that's when you're supposed to drink. Okay. Sorry, I misunderstood the rules.

What do you think I am? I'm a culture studies major, not a tangy. Okay, here we go. Brezhnev, when he was served, baked Alaska, said, Ice cream on fire. America, truly the land of miracles. So good. I'll say this. Hearst Castle, America, truly the land of miracles. He must have been so hungry for it because as a Russian, he could see baked Alaska from his house.

Oh, no. How about that for a dad joke? I learned from the New York Times crossword recently that baked Alaska was invented in New York City. New York City. Sure. Of course it was. Probably at a hotel. Also, Jim, I appreciate you using a catchphrase that I started,

Give Me the Cookies on the show. Here's a new one. Both things can be true. Both Hearst could be a POS and Hurst Castle is a really cool place to visit. Yeah. What do you think about this homemade controversy vis-a-vis this ice cream that I'm somehow expected to buzz market. I guess Millie's was originally made in the, in the, in the founders home.

Yes. 100%. If you're not making it at a home, it's not homemade. Right. And that includes things made in restaurants, by the way. I support housemaid. Right. But I'm opposed to homemade in restaurants. Yeah.

That's a house, not a home. None of it's homemade, though, unless it's made in a home. I agree with you there, Jim. It sounds like a nice pud. Let's take a break to hear from. our sponsors. When we come back, we'll have more letters from the Membo Mailbag to share. It's the Judge John Hodgman podcast. We're opening the members-only mailbag to everybody. If you're not a member of Maximum Fun yet, great news. We have two plus years of members-only

mailbag episodes that you can catch up on, plus another decade-plus of member exclusive content. It's easy to join now at Maximumfund.org slash join J.J. Ho. It only takes a couple of minutes. letter we're about to share really puts my well-documented love of mayonnaise to the test. Our member letter writer asked, is mayonnaise a beverage? And Jesse, in the parliance of social media, P-O-V-me, my head exploding. Let's listen to my head explode. Let's hear the explosion and enjoy the aftermath. Welcome back to the Membo Mailbag. All right. Here's a letter from Leanna. I recently heard the question, is mayonnaise a beverage? And I immediately thought of Judge John Hodgman.

I've never been more flattered and seen. Well, urine is this of that expert. Yeah. Whether you like it or not, John. And you're also basically the King of Mayo. What if I were? I got some fresh mayo I just made in my refrigerator.

I've been thinking about all the different stuff I can put mayonnaise on. Okay. It looks like you're fighting John for the King of Mayo title. I'm the I'm the Prince of Mayo. Okay. I'll say this. I know, Jesse, you love to make mayonnaise at home, Angie Lopez-Alt style, using a stick blender.

And I'm sure it's delicious and I'm sure it's very satisfying to whip up that colloidal goodness in your own home. I just love commercial mayonnaise too much. To me, to me, that's what mayonnaise is. You want that jug experience. You can imagine in New England, we have an, something of an embarrassment of riches, which is to say we mostly have

Helmonds the best. Sorry other mayonnaisees. I will say that Duke's mayonnaise, a favorite commercial brand mayonnaise from the South, which is a little bit more lemony and tangy is also delicious. And you know, Joel,

the Haniford giveth and the Haniford taketh away. You know that. Yes, I do. You know. When the Haniford came into Maine, to our town here in Maine and took over for the other place,

they took away my completely miraculous and anomalous frozen bricks of scrapple that they kept in the freezer for some unknown customer who ordered it once. And it was, you know, that's a mid-Atlantic treat that I can't even get in New York. And then they took that away, but they did start stocking Duke's mayonnaise. And I do like Duke's mayonnaise pretty good, too. Hellman's and Duke's. When I'm talking, when I'm remembering and telling the story about how I asked my mom as an 11-year-old,

Is it okay if I eat a bowl of mayonnaise? And she said, no. We weren't talking about Jesse's homemade mayonnaise. We were talking about Helmand's mayonnaise, also known as Best Foods mayonnaise, west of the Mississippi. I love that they, that's correct.

I love that they can't keep their territory straight. Okay. Bring out the best foods and bring out the best. Bring out the best foods, but only in the West. That's what that. There was a little punch up on that jingle. I wish I were the king of mayonnaise. Oh, boy.

I'm off from my services. Wait, okay. What? I haven't even read the question. Oh, sorry. Sorry. I work for a local environmental nonprofit. We're working to pass a bottle deposit bill in Maryland, just like the bills in Maine and Massachusetts.

As part of our campaign, we've been holding stream cleanups where we count the number of beverage containers we collect. This will help make the case to our legislature. At a recent cleanup, someone shouted, Hey, is mayonnaise a beverage? while holding up an empty Helmans jar. And again, to clarify for those West of the Rockies, that's a best foods jar.

Given it was 98 degrees and full sun, at which point even Helmins would become a liquid, I said yes, and we counted it toward our total. Which bag would you have put it in? Also, John, I'm an avid e-pluribus motto listener. I would have written in for the Maryland episode. I was busy giving birth. I'm one of those obnoxious children who lobbied for a state thing.

In our case, it was a third grade project to make the Maryland state dinosaur, the Astrodon John Stoney. Yeah. This is way cooler than a state muffin. I credit that experience with a lot of my interest in legislative advocacy now. Thanks for all you do for my heart, sanity, and especially as a new parent. All right. So thank you, first of all, for listening to EPLUrubus motto, Leanna.

or Leanna, I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing it. I'm sorry that you didn't get to write in about nominating a state dinosaur because you were busy giving birth. Frankly, I'm tired of your excuses. But thank you for getting your letter in eventually. I'll take the first topic first, Jesse, is mayonnaise a beverage? First of all, I'm grateful that you and your crew are cleaning up the streams and waterways of Maryland. I'm surprised to learn that Maryland doesn't have a bottle deposit bill. and I hope that you're successful

in getting the legislature to approve one because that will help. I'm equally surprised and charmed that whether or not mayonnaise is a beverage, someone's going down to the stream of an afternoon to hang around in the bucolic setting and just eat a jar of mayonnaise

and then drop it. That person, I feel you. I feel you. Or it could have been some kind of mountain creature upstream and then it floated downstream. I'm saying like maybe a raccoon stole a jar of Helmonds, ate it, and then dropped it in the stream. Yeah, or one of these kind of whatever a Maryland Sasquatch is called.

You know, John, Sasquatches love baloney sandwiches. Jennifer, can you imagine a Sasquatch making a grilled cheese sandwich with butter? No. No way. They want that even browning on the outside. You know, the Sasquatch really doesn't care about the delicious flavor of butter. No. John, did you name an official cryptid of Maryland?

Because if not, can I make a nomination? Jesse, there are many cryptids in Maryland, many undiscovered creatures. There is, of course, the Blue Dog of Port Tobacco. There's Chessie of the Chesapeake Bay. There's a demon cat of D.C. And then peeping Tom, the Flickergeist, many of them. The swallie gaster, the goat man. I thought this walking wolf was called the DeMayo, but it's actually the DeWio.

But none of them are official. Do you have a suggestion for the official state cryptid of Maryland? The mountain mayo squatch? That's the one that's eaten all the mayo jars and dumping them in the stream. And then they go downstream until eventually they're collected by do-gooters. They're collected by do-gooters. That's the folklore of Maryland. Yeah, I would say that I hope that this passes because as exciting as it is that there may be a mayo squatch in Maryland.

The waterways of Maryland do need to be cleaned up. And I think that this bill will help. But is mayonnaise a beverage? No. Even if it is liquefied at 98 degrees, then it's just a poison. Colloid cannot be a beverage. Please, please do not conflate your delicious beverages with my delicious semi-solids. I love mayonnaise too much to have it be confused for anything other than what it is.

It's essential, it's essential, wiggliness must be. preserved and understood. And I'm sorry to take one of the jars off your tally to undermine your efforts, but let's keep a commitment to honesty as we're lobbying for our state legislatures for improvement here. You don't want to undermine your cause by slipping through some false beverages like mayonnaise. As for the state fossil, hooray and congratulations to you. I'm sorry that we didn't hear from you. I'm glad, I guess, that you have a happy, healthy child. But that is a, that's the astrodon, Jesse, is what we used to call in the Flintstone Zero a brontosaurus, right? That's what it's, that's what we're talking about a sauropod. Usually 66 feet in length,

about 30 feet high, and weighing 20 metric tons, and wearing usually nothing. Usually they were nude. And it was called Astrodon, because when it was first identified by its teeth, and they found a couple of teeth in November 1858 in Prince George's County, Maryland. And the finder, Philip Thomas Tyson, gave them to a local dentist named Christopher Johnston, a professor at Baltimore Dental College to study the teeth. And he cut them in half and the cavity inside the tooth was shaped like a star. So he named it Astrodon and then they named it after him. Astrodon John Stoney, which is a pretty cool nickname. I like it. So good job. Good job getting a dinosaur named the official state dinosaur of Maryland. Leanna, I appreciate you. And I appreciate your child. And I hope that

you named your child, Astrodon, Judge John Ojman Stoney. Because that's a cool name. John, have you ever had an interaction, or Jennifer, have you ever had an interaction with your legislators, especially as a child or adolescent? Yeah, what Leanna or Leanna is referring to there is the fact that a lot of the sort of state insignia birds and animals and snacks and stuff are the result of local elementary schools, civic lessons.

So a teacher will say, we're going to lobby the state legislature to name an official muffin of Massachusetts. And that's when my old buddy, Ben Lurch's younger sister, Kate, got up there and suggested that the corn muffin be named the state muffin

of Massachusetts. And they went, it was a brutal fight between Brookline's 8th grade class and an eighth grade class from the Cape, Joel, who wanted it to be the cranberry muffin. Cranberry, blueberry, Maine? Blueberry would be Maine.

Yeah, absolutely. But in Massachusetts, it was cranberry versus corn, and corn prevailed. But many eighth graders were lost in the Great Muffin Wars of 1988. And very soon after that, I believe it was the state legislature of Massachusetts, which followed up with another decree, which is no more eighth-year-old. graders suggesting state stuff. Truly. Like, genuinely, they made that illegal. But I bought you as much time as I could, Jennifer.

Did you ever engage with any of your state legislators? I don't think so. Okay. I really, I don't think so, sadly. When I was in high school, I was in junior state of America, which is like a debate club, basically. And I need to be frank. You know, you just go to Sacramento and make out.

that's what that was for. But it had highlights and low lights. I would say one of the low lights is one time I like signed up to speak. You know, you'd be like there'd be like featured speakers on each side of an issue. And then you could sign up to do an additional thing. Yeah. And I would just go up there and be an additional one.

I wasn't really a signer upper. But, you know, I'd go up and do an additional one. And then they'd give me my medal and I'd leave. But one time I went. I went up and spoke just because no one was going up to speak on behalf of legal gambling. And I'm personally not a gambler to this day, and I don't feel great about it in general. But, you know, it's a rhetoric thing.

Like you're supposed to be able to argue for either side. Everyone knows, Jesse, you'll argue any position, no matter how staunchly you're against it, just because you love to debate. And I went up there, and I made a speech about, you know, a three-minute speech or whatever about, about, about. why gambling should be legal, tax revenue, whatever, right? And then I'm like, oh, no, this girl that spoke on behalf of making gambling criminal is in the audience in tears. Needless to say, my speech was somewhat glib. And I'm like, what happened?

Oh, her father was a gambling addict. Oh, no. I've never felt worse in my life. than when I won the medal, too. I felt so horrible. But anyway, one time in junior state of America, it was like a regional one. Like sometimes it would be a state one

and sometimes it would be a regional one. And like the Northern California one, not that active. So we had this meeting and there was probably eight people at this thing or something, at least at this sub-meeting. And Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren showed up. Zolofkin, I believe, is still in Congress.

She was, at least until very recently. I know she was getting towards retirement, but she represented some part of the peninsula, I think, of Silicon Valley. And she came, and there were, again, non-voting age. There were no adults present, except for maybe like one chaperone or whatever. And she, like, hung out with the, like, eight of us for, I'm going to say an hour and a half. just chatting and being nice. And it made me believe in government for the rest of my life.

I was like, this is just a regular lady who's nice. And, you know, whether I agreed with every single one of her positions forever, I was like, man, isn't it great that there's this Congress lady that like spent an hour and a half hanging out us because she thought she wanted to know what we thought about things and wanted to share her experiences of why she decided to try and become a Congressperson. I was like, this is amazing.

So, anyway, it was just a nice experience I had with a legislator when I was a kid. Jesse, according to this, Zoe Lofgren continues to serve as a member of Congress, a U.S. representative from California. It is her 16th term, having been first elected in 1994. I'm obviously reading the Wikipedia page, and as I scroll down, it says, once visited junior state representatives in Sacramento and made out with Jesse Thorn. Interesting. Yeah, well, you know. Sacramento is not just the capital of California.

It's the makeout capital of Western United States. Oh, you know it. You know about the sack then. Yeah, absolutely. You go to the sack to do some huggin' and kissing. That's what you want to do. Delightful. We're going to take another break.

It's the perfect time to become a member so you don't miss future mailbag episodes. The URL, maximum fun.org slash join JJ Ho. When we come back, we will have the origins of a new catchphrase on the Judge John Hodgman podcast, plus a little chat with Jamie Loftus about vegan hot dogs that we are releasing from our vault. Judge John Hodgman, we're taking a quick break. from the mailbag. Yeah. Judge Hachman, what's going on with you?

Well, Jesse, you know what I say. Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable. It's not just something that Jesse and I say in unison before recording Judge John Hodgman. In a kind of pregame cheer. That phrase also happens to be the official state motto of North Dakota, which you would know if you were a listener

to E. Pluribus Motto. The Members Only Mailbag is not our only side quest. You may know, or maybe you don't. The Janet Varnie, the wonderful actor, performer, podcaster, personality, voice of Legend of Cora is also my co-host in a podcast all about state and Commonwealth trivia called E. Pluribus Motto. We do a virtual road trip from state to state and also the four Commonwealth's. One of the districts, there's only one in Soon Territories discussing their state mottos, their state insects, there's state mammals, there's state munchies, their state monsters, and more. It's a lot of fun. And if you haven't listened, we just finished our most recent season with North Dakota.

We also covered Michigan, Ohio, Washington State, Nebraska, Florida, Alabama, New Hampshire. Coming up in our new season, yes, the state of Maine will be making appearance. So I'm huge, if true. I hope that you will, I hope that you will subscribe and take a listen. And if you like it, share it with somebody because we're having a good time over there. Jesse Thorne, what's going on in your world? On my NPR interview show, Bullseye with Jesse Thorne, we have two wonderful guests this week. One of the absolute greatest.

Now, you know what? The absolute greatest, Maria Bamford. Yeah. She is the subject of a new documentary, which is also wonderful and is out on streaming. I believe this week, but an in-depth conversation with my friend hero, Maria Bamford, as well as another friend hero of mine, Greg Proops on our second episode for the week. One of the nicest, funniest guys there is. And Greg does this segment we have on the show called The Craziest Day in my entire blanking career.

And he does it about how he ended up being one of the announcers for the pod race in, Star Wars the Phantom Menace, which I love that he's that. I love it for him, as they say. So go, go hit subscribe on Bullseye with Jesse Thorn or hit subscribe on YouTube or in your podcast app, wherever you are.

And John, I have a rare, I have a rare reverse plug on this, on this segment. A backwards plug. I want to unplug something. Oh, let's unplug. What's going on? Well, occasionally I will search a bad social media website to make sure that things are safe for me and my family. And someone who was unsafe for my family was on there talking about my family.

Oh, no. Which, you know, it happens once in a while. That's why I have to search every once in a while. Everything's fine. Totally, totally fine. Everything's totally fine. But someone replied to them and said, Yeah, I listen to his podcast and I can't stand how he's always talking about transgender rights.

Wow. And so, and I figured out, I, from context, was able to figure out which podcast it was that this person listens to. I don't know their gender. And I'm just going to say, if you're listening to this right now and you were responding to a creepo who creeped on my family on Twitter and talking about how you listen to this show, stop listening to this show. That's my first ever. I have a 20 plus year career, John. My first ever reverse plug. Stop listening to my show if you're that person.

Everyone else, please continue listening to the show. Tell your friends about the show. If you're that person, though, stop. It's fine. You can just stop. Go listen to a bad podcast. There are a few of them out there. Yeah, there's some bad.

It's available. They're available to you. That's all. Just good. That's my first ever reverse plug. And I'm happy to do it. I'm happy to let that person off the hook. I think it's probably just that one person.

Be they, that guy or that lady. So just later for you. And welcome everyone else. Well, in the meantime, Jesse, we have perfect weather today for the Bonta Classic, the most hazardous of all podcasts. So maybe we should get back to our episode. Let's get back in there. I could have done that job, Greg Proops.

It's the Judge John Hodgman podcast. We're opening the members-only mailbag to everyone. It's a special treat. We're sharing some of our favorite letters from the past several months. We have a discussion on deck with Jamie Loftus about vegan hot dogs. But first, let's get back into the mailbag with this letter from Karen. So this started as a genuine attempt to resolve a genuine dispute between Karen and her friend Carl. But it ended with our producer receiving cookies mailed to her at the office.

yes, they gimmied her the cookies. Yeah, they gimmed her. They gimmee the cookies, said Jennifer, and she got gimmee. Why don't we take a listen? This letter's from Karen. I have something of a philosophical dispute with a friend of mine who we will call Carl. All right. Karen says, during a long car trip last fall, I kept seeing U-Haul vans with marketing on the back

that said, because their loading decks were lower, moving was one-third less work, exclamation. point. I understand the basis of this claim, but I suggested that maybe there was an emotional aspect to moving that was being overlooked. Carl looked at me like I had two heads and said, it's just one-thirds easier. It's science. You know about science, right, Jesse? You don't need two U-hawls. It's just science. We went back and forth for a while before he got so frustrated that he stopped talking to me for two hours. Wow. This is another road trip dispute. They're in a car, though, not on a tandem bike. I'd really love to hear the J-squads take on this.

That's us. Does my point make any sense? If I'm wrong, I'm prepared to bake apology cookies. For us? Thank you. Yeah, I'll take a- No need to apologize. Just send cookies.

Give me to cookies. Jennifer sounds like you just found a new catchphrase. Say that again, Jennifer. Say it again. Give me to cookies. Give me to cookies. Eagle-eared listeners can hear that the dog in the garden downstairs also enjoys it very much and is barking its pleasure to you. Give me to cookies.

All right. Should Karen give Carl and Jennifer to cookies? Big question. Me? Yes. Carl, no. I think that I am. Karen wrote, so obviously, so these U-Hauls, they have lower loading decks.

but Karen suggested that maybe there was an emotional aspect that was being overlooked. What do you think that means? I confess I'm a little confused by that. It means, you know, like maybe whoever's moving is maybe feeling a little sluggish that day or it's harder for them to lift. Like there's other parts of moving that could make moving challenging that's not boiled down to how high the loading deck is. Well, the emotional, you know, sadness and excitement of a major life transatlantic. of closing one chapter and opening another chapter. I see that point, yeah.

Oh, she's seeing a more holistic approach to moving versus science. It sounds like Karen is simply suggesting that the work of moving is much more than simply lifting boxes into a U-Haul and out of a U-Haul. I have to say, even if you leave aside the emotional work of moving, there's no way you're saving one-third of the work of moving by altering. the height of the U-Haul. That is not, there's no way that you could, you could have a hole that you just throw the boxes into

and they come out wherever you moved. And that would not save you a third of the work of moving. The work of moving is carrying the boxes. It's filling and emptying the boxes. It is not putting the boxes in the truck once you get to the truck. I'm not saying that's no work, but that's like 10% of the work. there's no way you could get to a third of the work saved by just altering the height. So you're saying that even if we set aside the emotional component completely, which Carl

obviously wants to do because he is a creature of pure logic and hates emotion. Yeah. Lowering the loading deck of the, of the U-Haul van, it does make it somewhat easier, right? because you're running that dolly or whatever up a less inclined ramp. That is somewhat less work, but not even a third of the physical work is eased by that ramp because there's still hauling stuff up and downstairs in the house. Right. Like at best, like, would you say a 16th?

Yeah. A 32nd of the work is less? Yeah. At best. I'm going to put it at 5% at best. Maybe they just, I mean, I'm sure that they would argue they're saying it's one third less work to get the boxes into the truck. One third less box getting into truck work.

Yeah. I'm going to say even that I'm not sure about it. Because once you've lifted the box, you've done the work, you know what I mean? Like lifting it to chest height, lifting it to tummy height, whatever, you've done the work by leaning down and getting it up off the ground, basically. You really have to turn into a real specific physical physics definition of what work is in order to even get to a third, even if you were only talking about the act of putting it into the truck. Well, I haven't taken physics since high school, but I did just look it up because I remembered

that there is a very specific definition of the term work in physics. and it's the transfer of energy to an object by applying a force that causes the object to move. And I would ask any member listener out there, if you know your physics cold, go and examine either online or in person the height of the loading deck of a U-Haul

and do some calculations because it's a triangle, right? It's like the ramp comes off the U-Haul that forms a triangle with the back of the U-Haul and the ground. And if that triangle is closer to the ground, I agree that that's probably less work to move something up there. But is it one-third? I would like a listener to go who knows something about physics to corroborate

or uncorroborate that. So we could get an answer finally for Carl one way or another about the mere physical work of loading boxes into the truck. Is it one third the work? But in the meantime, Karen is absolutely right. There are many, many different forms of work, including the emotional work that goes into moving that is not alleviated meaningfully by a shallower ramp. So my ruling is, give me to cookies. But speaking of personal connection to hot dogs, we have a letter from someone who's got a very personal connection to hot dogs. Jesse, Do you want to read this one?

Okay. Yeah, this one's from Leanna. In my single girl days, I would regularly make myself a dinner consisting of sauteed, shredded red cabbage, and pennies of vegan hot dogs. Plus garlic powder, soy sauce, bam, done. Now I have a husband and a child, and I miss my special dinner. I want to make it sometimes for our family. It's cheap, easy, and reasonably balanced. My husband says, this is a struggle food.

and should stay in the past, who is right? Wow. Oh. I mean, a vegan hot dog is, I try and avoid meat substitutes. I like, I like really like tofu. I really like beans. I like plenty of vegetarian protein sources. I think you're missing out.

You're missing. Vegan hot dogs have made leaps and bounds in the last five years. And this is the thing that I want to say. Like, I think that the same thing that makes all hot dogs taste roughly the same to me is a real boon to the vegan hot dog because a hot dog is so intensely flavored with so much sort of garlic, salt, MSG, smoke, and whatever the acid is in hot dogs. Sure. that ultimately the slurry that you're flavoring is almost irrelevant. Yeah, yeah, I mean, because even in vegan or most popular vegan hot dogs, there's some chemicals in there that you wouldn't be stoked about.

They just don't come from animals. They're not naturally occurring, so they're sort of safe game. I was thinking, another thing I wish I'd gotten into the book that I got so into, Do you guys remember there was a huge, like 50-foot hot dog in Times Square for a period of time? This is a couple years ago. And then they brought it back this year. Oh. It really took advantage of, yeah, my friends Paul and Jen made it.

They were like an incredible, their incredible sculptors is a 50-foot hot dog. And every day at noon in Times Square, it would angle up and it would, confetti would come out of the tip. And people would cheer. I had to tell you, Jimmy. I'm not sure if that was a hot dog. It is incredible to me that they got away with it. Incredible. That rule so hard.

People are just like frolicking in the, you know, it came out of a whole. Say that stuff for the meat seat, if you know what I mean. It is very meat seat coated. But they brought a bunch of hot dog folks. The hot dog, hot dog celebs out to talk at the hot dog. And so I met this amazing woman named Carol Adams. who is a vegan feminist who wrote this great book called The Sexual Politics of Meat and About how sexualized images of women and how meat is sold to us are very similar.

And I wish I'd heard of it when I was writing the book because I feel like I was working around similar ideas, but just I'm not as smart as her. And she was really schooling me on vegan hot dogs. We were talking about hot dogs as an idea and a concept instead of something with specific and And then she gave me a recipe for like a carrot dog that I don't know if I feel it is a hot dog, but in the moment with all of the seasonings and the bits and the bobs with it, she, she, I was locked in. I was sold. Do you mean it was a hot dog, like a fake sausage made out of ground up carrot or just you put a carrot on a bun and you top it with stuff? It was a it was a sculpted, roasted, uh, grilled carrot. Whoa. Yeah.

That sounds cool. Yeah. I want to take this opportunity to say, you know, Jamie, you expressed that it's a hot dog if you're willing to die for it. Yeah. And first of all, I want to express to all the people who have chosen to eat less meat or who are vegetarians who are listening to this, that you are right. That that is better for the world. If you're eating a balanced diet, it's better for you. and also that that is particularly true in the case of hot dogs.

Sure. Because, I mean, I'm a meat eater. I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the chewing of my cold hot dog. I probably won't ever stop eating meat in the same way that some people just are like, I'm just going to be a cigarette smoker and die of cancer because I do really like eating meat. But there is like there's plenty of evidence that you can have a, balanced and healthy diet that includes meat. Like, you have to do a little extra work if you want to be vegan or vegetarian to have a

balanced and healthy diet. And, you know, if meat is a small part of a balanced and healthy diet, then that is actually sort of what your body is expecting. However, there is a lot of evidence that cured meats cause cancer. And they don't know why or how. but it like cured meat and processed meat are actually processed meat specifically. They don't know how they do it. It's very difficult to pull the strands of correlation and causation that like maybe

people who are more likely to eat hot dogs are more likely to have unhealthy lifestyles in general. But like the evidence is actually really strong. So I just want to acknowledge that that maybe a, hot dog can be a sometime thing if you don't want to get colon cancer. Sure, sure. I mean, and we're all praying for Joey Chestnut every night before bed for that reason. World-famous hot dog is for those who don't. Yes. But what about the question of struggle food? Yeah, Jamie, what do you think about this vegan hot dog pennies with with sauteed cabbage,

garlic powder, soy sauce, bam, done? Sounds good to me. I was like, it sounds good to me. It sounds thought out. That's more ingredients than I'm willing to commit to most things. I think bring girl dinner to the family. See how they like it. I feel like, you know, there's going back to my mom's taco salad, which certainly will give me colon cancer on a long enough timeline, that ingredients included a bag of Doritos, a bottle of salad, a pack a pound of hamburger, and a bag of three cheese. Mexican, you know, it's like this sounds like a perfectly serviceable dinner. I think, honestly, let the kids decide. If the kids say it's gross, then she still wins, I think, because then it's her private meal. Yeah. And then if the whole family knows we don't like it, then she's like, okay, well, this is for me. This is where I come alive with my V. And I just like when hot dogs are kind of a supporting player in a meal. It doesn't happen very often. Unless you're like a kid that puts, you know, cut up hot dogs and macaroni or something like that. They bring a lot of flavor to the

table. They do. They do. They're a great canvas for other tastes. So I'm, I'm with her. And Leanna, if you're listening, and I hope you are, what's your husband's name? Oh, good. You didn't name him. Good. Because he doesn't deserve one. It doesn't deserve a whole identity. He's not a whole human being in his own right until he stops being a big snob. And if it helps to desnobify him, You can explain that in Alsatian cuisine, there's something called chakrout, which is nothing, if not sauteed cabbage and sausages. And that is what you are making, essentially. Your own riff on a classic Alsatian chakrout. And maybe if you say chakrute enough, he'll shut up and let you eat what you want.

This is the sound of a hot dog. I rule in favor of Leanna. That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman. Judge John Hodgman, created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman. Megan Rosati runs our social media. The podcast is edited by A.J. McKin. Our video editor is Daniel Spear. Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

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