Judge John Hodgman - The Fight to Remain Silent

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

Does miming make for good podcasting? Walter thinks it might! Eileen is happy for any silence from Walter. She says he talks too much! Walter's talking can be so overwhelming for Eileen that she feels like her brain is going to explode. She challenged Walter to 3 minutes of silence, but she says he made mouth sounds. So he lost the challenge. Walter says the mouth sounds were a loophole, since he didn't actually speak. Who's right? Who's wrong? And, more importantly, what is a mime doing in the studio? We are on TikTok and YouTube! Follow us on both @judgejohnhodgmanpod! Follow us on Instagram @judgejohnhodgman!Thanks to reddit user u/Fukui_San86 for naming this week’s case! To suggest a title for a future episode, keep an eye on the Maximum Fun subreddit at reddit.com/r/maximumfun! 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. This week, the fight to remain silent. Eileen brings the case against her friend Walter. Eileen says Walter talks too much. Recently, she asked him to remain silent for three minutes. But after one minute passed, Walter made mouth noises to capture Eileen's attention. Eileen says that he failed her challenge. Walter says that because he didn't speak, he technically passed the test. Who's right, who's wrong, only one can decide, please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom

and presents the obscure cultural reference. Everywhere that you go, no matter where you are at, I said you talk about this and you talk about that. When the cat took your tongue, I say you took it right back. Your mouth is so big, one bite will kill a big Mac. May Ile of Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in.

Walter Eileen, please rise and raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God, or whatever? Yes. I do. Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he intends to talk and make mouth noises through the duration of this recording? Yes. Yes, I do.

Judge Hodgman, you may be. proceed. I mean, I'm going to eat a whole wad of fruit leather just to really thrill the misophonics in the audience. But before I do, Walter and Eileen, you may be metaphorically seated for an immediate summary judgment in

one of yours favors. Can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered this courtroom? Eileen, you're bringing the case against Walter. Why don't you go first? What's your guess? I'm going to write it down on this piece of paper that I have right here. It would, could be Dr. Seuss, except I don't think they had big Macs.

when he was around. Interesting question. They did. Were there Big Macs around when Dr. Seuss was alive? I'm going to write down Dr. Seuss Big Mac question mark. And you can see right on YouTube that I've absolutely written that down. All right. Now, Walter, what's your guess?

Can you put Ogden Nash next to that too? Because I don't think he had Big Macs either. Did Ogden Nash have Big Macs? Tap, tap the ketchup bottle. None will come and then a lottle. I think that's an Ogden Nash. It is now. Or that may be just something that my father-in-law likes to say.

Something by Ogden Nash, or were you trying to sneak in an extra guess? That was sneaky. Let me think about this. Yeah, I'm drawing a blank. Can you use it in a sentence? Yeah, I'll use it in these four sentences. Everywhere that you go, no matter where you are at, I said you talk about this and you talk about that. When the cat took your tongue, I said you took it right back.

Your mouth is so big, one bite could kill a Big Mac. That is the, that is the entirety of the quote. Is it a comedian? Is it a comedian? Name a comedian and we'll find out. Certainly not me. I am a humorist. Chris Rock.

Chris Rock. I've written that down. Anyone watching us on Judge John Hodgman Pod at YouTube? We'll see. Written it down. All guesses are wrong. I'm sorry to say, oh, wait a minute. Jesse, would you like to take a guess?

I couldn't tell you whether that is DMC or the Reverend Run. But it is certainly off the album, King of Rock, by Run DMC. You Talk Too Much is the name of the song. Yeah, you talk too much. You talk too much. You never shut up. I said, you talk too much. Homeboy, you never shut up.

That's from, of course, you talk too much by Run DMC, 1985 album King of Rock. I'm the King of Rock. There is none to hire. You know this one, Walter. Sing along with me. Sucker emcees will call me. Sire.

To rock my kingdom, you must use fire. I won't stop rocking until I retire, which, by my calendar, who's in about two years? So there you go. Then I will stop rocking. That was 1985. I had small children at that time, so I was culturally inert. Excuse me.

No, you weren't playing run DMC for your little kids. Look, if one of you had. had gotten that right, we wouldn't be able to have a nice conversation about what's bothering each of you because you would have automatically won the case. But as it is, we're going to hear the case. And the case is being brought, I believe, Walter, by your friend, Eileen. Is that correct, Eileen? Yes. You are friends with Walter, correct? Yes. And how long have you two been friends, would you say? I would say about 10 years. And you both live there in the Boston area, correct. Eileen, where are you in the Boston world?

I live in Arlington, but I was born in West Roxbury, so I am officially part of the Boston world. I appreciate the cultural microclimates of Boston. I accept you as a Bostonian. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. What about you, Walter? Do you accept Eileen as a Bostonian? Yes or no.

Yes. You are a Bostonian yourself? Yes. and the microclimate I'm from is Dorchester, but I live in Arlington now. And you join us from my old stomping grounds of Alston, Massachusetts. The podcast garage at PRX.

Nice to see you again, podcast garage. In the meantime, you have become friends individually and you go on walks together. Is that right, Eileen? Yeah, we do different things. We go in walks. We go out for coffee. Well, it actually helps me a lot.

So if there's, you know, speaking of being a kind person, if there's anything that needs to be done at my house, I need the water turned on or off, Walter's right there. That's very kind. And yet, for all of his kindness, the guy talks too much, right, Eileen? That's the problem here. He's very loquacious. Very loquacious, Walter. Do you agree or disagree? I'd have to agree, but I think of it more as being silence, challenged.

Go on. Uh-huh. Yeah. You know, in certain contexts, it's welcome, but in other contexts, like when Eileen's head is exploding, it's not. Well, now, wait a minute. Iileen's head seems to be fine right now. What does that mean, Eileen? Well, sometimes Walter, he's not just loquacious, but he jumps from topic to topic to topic. And so when he does that, it feels like my brain is ready to explode, so I tell him. And he tries to

be quiet then, and it lasts long, like, 20 seconds. I don't time. But he's trying. He's trying, yes. Well, speaking of timing it, in fact, this is specifically about a silence challenge. Eileen,

did you challenge Walter to be silent for a certain period of time? Yes, I did. And how long was the challenge? It was three minutes. What precipitated the challenge? Well, let's see.

We were sitting at the cafe, and Walter was chatting, chatting, chatting, and I think I mentioned it to him. And so he said, okay, I can be quiet for three minutes. Though there was some disagreement about whether we contracted for him to be quiet or whether be contracted for him not to talk. Eileen says here that you're not here because Walter talks too much, though. Tell me about this challenge. The challenge was that we had different opinions that I felt that Walter was rather

loquacious, and I told him that sometimes I couldn't follow the discussion because he changed topics so much. So Walter then suggested that he would be quiet. or not talk, which is a matter of some dispute. But he said he could do that for three minutes. However, he made noises and pointed to a bird, which I feel is speaking. But Walter, you disagree. It's just noises.

Correct. Not speaking. But how do you feel about Eileen thinking that you dominate the conversation? Is it accurate? Is it inaccurate? What do you think about that? That might be accurate. You know, on our walks, occasionally they're supposed to be walking meditations,

but I see them as talking meditations. Something of a difference. Classic genre. But I respond very well to shut up. That's one of the things. I grew up in a big family. Oh, yeah? Half Italian.

And, you know, that was just, so I expect people to tell me to shut up. Now, the challenge was different than that. I'm very good. at being quiet, too, when forced to be. I'm silenced challenged as the way I like to think of it. Walter, why did Eileen have to see this bird? Well, one was the proximity. It was about two feet behind her

as it was looking for scraps on the ground. You were concerned for her safety, Walter. No, I thought maybe she had never been that close to a sparrow before, and it might be kind of a cool thing. that's all that's all you got walter there was a very normal bird relatively but not extraordinarily close i wish it had been one of the bald eagles that lives uh you know along the mystic lakes but at this particular time it just happened to be a sparrow that i wanted to share iileen it seems that walter's opinion is he found a loophole to the challenge is this pretty

typical for walter it's very typical would you like me to give an example Yes. Okay. So when we also go to this cafe, sometimes one of us buys the coffee and tea, sometimes the other. But when I buy it, I will also buy a muffin or something like that. So Walter does not buy a muffin when he does it because he knows he can just take half of my muffin. Oh, no.

Is that a loophole or is it muffin theft? Did you genuinely think that the challenge was it's okay to grunt so long as you don't say words? Or is that a loophole that you came up with after that? No, I considered that in the spirit of the agreement, which is why I remained silent after my indication that there was a bird perilously close to Eileen. You didn't write down the terms of the challenge, I presume. It's all hearsay at this point. It is. Exactly.

And there was some dispute about the. Dispute, yes. Eileen, could you imitate the noises that he made? That's an approximation. Walter, was that accurate? Let's hear your version of it. Pretend I'm a sparrow. The most interesting bird in the world.

I was very careful to keep my mouth shut, which I thought was the point. Yeah. So you kept your mouth shut, but you did make a, I did, I did. Like a Tin Woodsman in the original Wizard of Oz. Wilkin. Exactly. Walt, does anyone else in your life agree with Eileen about your gift of gab?

A few people. Who? Well, I should list the, it's a shorter list if I say who doesn't. People who haven't met you. Even my dog thinks Walter talks too much. No, come on. What is your dog's name, Eileen? Astra.

Like, astronomical. I got you. It's a great name for a dog. What evidence do you have that Astra thinks Walter talks too much? I hope that Astra doesn't talk to you. She goes over to me and goes, Ah! Are you sure there's not a sparrow behind you?

No. Usually there aren't enough crumbs on the ground, and she wants more crumbs. Eileen, Walter mentioned that these were meditation walks. Tell me about that. Oh, well, this was a different walk, but once we were walking from the park back to my house, and Walter may have been gabbing a bit much. And so I let him know, and he said, okay, let's meditate. Let's meditate for five minutes. I said, sure. But the whole time he talked about meditation. That's meta-meditating. That's what I was. Yeah.

Do you practice meditation, Walter? You know, I've taken, it's hard. I've taken classes. I've been to, there's classes in Cambridge that Eileen's brother, Paul has recommended. I've been there. It's torture. Because, uh, are you uncomfortable with silence, would you say? So it's not uncomfortable with silence.

When you say that, I think of like Patrick Mahomes. Is he uncomfortable with 20 yards between him and the end zone? I don't know. Ask Jesse Thorne. Jesse? I mean, Patrick Mahomes believes he can do anything because he's a star football quarterback. But he's not uncomfortable when he sees that space, and that's very akin to what empty airtime sounds like to me or looks like to me. You go for it.

Oh, you see it as an opportunity to fill up the vacuum. No, to achieve. To do what I do best. Which is talk. Right. So, Walter, you suggested the three-minute silent challenge. Why that figure? Why three minutes?

So initially, Eileen recalled it as one minute, and that would be way too easy. I like a challenge, like Patrick Mahomes. Oh, so while Eileen suggested one minute, you said triple it. Yeah, yeah, let's go for this. We're going to do it. We're going to do it big. And from your point of view, you succeeded at the challenge. I believe so.

Yes, I must say that when I made these noises that I was careful, as I said, to keep my mouth shut. But then I respected the rest of the one minute, I think. And as soon it was over, I expressed my disappointment that Eileen had to in the middle of this thing gesticulate that I, aha, you've lost. Was the challenge that Walter could keep his mouth shut? For three minutes, yes or no? No. Okay. The challenge was that he could, whether or not he could be quiet and not speak for three minutes?

Yes. And from your point of view, he failed the challenge because he made mouth noises and gestured to point out birds. Absolutely. If he had just gestured without mouth noises, would he have succeeded? I would say yes. Right. And, Walter, from your point of view, you kept your mouth shut, but you did vocalize, and yet you still won the challenge from your point of view? I believe so.

And what possible argument could you make? Well, do, let's say other primates speak, let's say a chimpanzee, has a chimpanzee ever been known to speak? They certainly make communicative sounds. Sure. But if you had a chimpanzee that could speak, I'm not sure you'd be on this show right now. I think you'd be in the circus or? If we had a chimpanzee who could speak, we might not be making this podcast, but we would be the most famous podcast on Earth. What if we had a talking chimpanzee and we became the top podcast and then the talking chimpanzee is like, I just want to, I just want to interview some people about vaccines.

Three minutes. Does I feel like a long time to you, Walter? Or does that seem like just about enough? It's all context-dependent. In that case, it feels like it was manageable, but in other case, it could feel like in an eternity, like at a meditation class. Right.

Eileen, does the same question, three minutes, feel like a long time to you, or not very long? I could be silent all day. But Walter, it seems like a long period of time. Well, we're about to find out I'm setting my clock for three minutes. This is going to be three minutes of total silence.

This is the challenge, Walter. There are no birds, I presume, in the podcast garage. I don't see any. Well, I'm sure if there are any, Walter will point them out to you. Walter's not even talking now. Walter, get something out of your system because I haven't started the clock yet. It's going to be podcast history, three minutes of silence. Wow.

This would be a good time for cat to can make some of her expert testimony. when he cat the mime for hire. Okay. You just said the words, cat the mime for hire. This is a reference to your expert witness? Yes, yes. I've been studying mime jurisprudence

over the last week. Why did you bring a mime to the courtroom? Before we introduce cat and bring them on. At first, it might seem like a bad strategy, a podcast, and having a mime. But, you know, where this is going to be on YouTube, there's a shot that you could, could see that you can communicate very well without speaking. And that's one, that's,

that's, that's, that's a cat's thing. I understand that you're trying to improve our podcast by adding a mime to it and it should be an interesting experiment. But what does it have to do with your case? Why is, why is cat a witness in your defense? Well, they did bring a squeaky toy. I believe that's to demonstrate a point as well. That's cat's squeaky toy. Oh, I see. I bought it for her. Oh, cat has her own, oh, wait, that's cat's sweetly toy that you bought for. I did. And cat's a human, not a cat, right? Right, cat is a human.

Most mimes, the art is not making sound. But, okay, we'll go to chat, GPT. If you, if you were to ask, if you were to ask, No, we won't. All right. Do you have access to Google right now? Would that be okay? I do.

I don't want to brag, but I do have access to Google. So if you said, are mimes allowed to speak? speak. Our minds allowed. Wait, wait, wait, wait, to grunt. Let's say grunt or bark or whistle or gesticulate. Wait a minute. Okay.

I'm going to do our minds aloud to speak first and see where we get there. That's that was a, I misspoke. Here are the two resources that are offered. One, of course, is the AI overview. Forget that. Which I've just, which we've just besmirched. And the other is. an answer from five months ago on the on the reddit subreddit no stupid questions are my

mimes allowed in this case our mimes allowed to speak sign language they're allowed to do whatever they want but the whole point of a mime is to mime you know who i believe wikipedia wikipedia i'm going to look up mime a mime artist is a person who uses mime, the acting out of a story through body motions without the use of speech as a theatrical medium or performance art. Now, are mimes allowed to grunt? In traditional mime performance are expected to be completely silent. This is the traditional definition. It's not to say that mimes, you know, going back to the suburb, they can do whatever they want. And I guess if you want to grunt or whistle or use a sound effect as a mime, you can.

Would it be fair to say the point you're trying to make before we go to the mime is that even a mime is allowed to grunt when a sparrow comes by? Is that the point? That's a paraphrase of what, you know, that's getting closer. Okay. Let's run the experiment. I would like to go three minutes. And look, this is really one of the times when I would urge the audience to go over to Judge Jen Hodgman Pod over at YouTube to see what's happening because you're not going to hear anything unless this mime uses a squeaky toy or a whistle that was supplied for them by Walter.

And if you are listening in an audio only format, feel free to skip this. Can we invite Cat the Mime? Obviously, Cat does not need to be miced. No. Cat is waiting outside. She has looked in the window a few times, in the real window, actually. Right. It seems like there's a strong wind blowing against her so that she can't get into the studio. Hold on. She's got a glass cutter. I think she's going to. We are now joined by Cat the Mime for hire. Thank you, Walter. Walter, will you please relate to Kat? We're very glad that she's here. we're very glad you're here uh all right cat uh walter ileen we're going to have uh i think fair to say an unprecedented podcast challenge for three minutes we're going to see if walter can be completely silent and we're going to join him in support by being completely silent this will require you cat to fill up the time and space of three minutes with mime do you feel comfortable doing that

It's already begun, apparently. I don't think she can hear us. I think she's behind a wall of some kind. You know what I think it is? I think it's transparent aluminum, Jesse. Hello, computer. Hello, computer. All right.

Walter, you're allowed to talk to her. Well, you're trying to trick me, Jesse. No. We haven't started the timer. There we go. Okay, we're going to do the three-minute challenge. We're all going to try to stay silent. You're going to.

Keep us entertained. Wait, do I have to stay silent? Yes, you do. We all have to stay silent. Sorry, Eileen. Or, alternately, if you wanted Eileen, and this is, I've never offered this to any of our litigants, you could leave the studio there in Alston and not come back. If you've had enough of this, I wouldn't blame you. It's tempting except it's really cold out here in Boston.

Yeah, of course. Yeah, just stick around. We'll see exactly how long three minutes is if you're trying to be silent. I'm setting the timer and we'll go three, two, one, one eternity later. And that's time. Let's hear it audibly for Kat the Mime. That was incredible and it occurred to me, Kat, this is Judge John Hodgman. Please do not respond in any way other than Mime.

I just wanted to tell you that was wonderful. I'm so grateful to you for being game enough to come and perform mime in a radio studio that was even more exciting when I asked Dick Cavett to do radio close-up magic on WNYC those years ago in any case

especially challenging because I would imagine that as a mime even though you are silent you are counting on an audience to react and laugh and be happy and we were being challenged to be silent So forgive us because I really enjoyed your performance a lot. Thank you very much.

How did it feel to be completely silent that entire time? It felt like a long time when the timer went up and said 58 seconds. I thought that that must be wrong. But did you notice that there were some mouth noises while we were eating? I'm not going to say who did them. What I saw during the act was that Cat, our mime friend. Thank you, Jesse. Serfed some food to Walter, which he enjoyed eating.

and then cat serves some food to Eileen, which Eileen ignored you silently. Eileen just totally iced out, Kat. Too spicy. She doesn't like spicy food. Well, let's get into your case here just for a second. It says here that if I were to rule in your favor, you want me to order that Eileen watch a movie with you

during which time you can ask as many questions as you would like. Is that what you would like me to order? I think so. And why? Well, one of the times that I find challenging to be quiet, not in a theater, but in the comfort of a living room is to be, you know, maybe not paying attention for a little bit and then trying to catch up on certain things in a movie. So, you know, I'll get shushed during that. So I figured if I could get a whole movie and without being shushed and maybe, you know, I only don't. Eileen only speaks when spoken to.

You know, I have the floor. Whoa, that's two different rulings. There's one thing to say that you can ask as many questions as you feel you need to, but also that Eileen has to stay silent for the entire time. That was piling on. Okay. It doesn't have to be that. Okay.

So the first thing that I thought of as we watched Catherine's performance silently was, of course, we can all silently watch a performance. And I thought, what does we? Walter talk when he's watching a movie? Well, he talks when he's meditating. Eileen, you just said that he talks when he meditates. Tell me what you mean. Yes.

Well, I don't think he could be silent at all during a movie. But fortunately, there'd be a pause button there during which I could walk out of the room. Not to answer the question or give him room to ask a question, but simply to leave. Why do you think that Walter feels the need to talk and interject so much, Eileen? Negative attention? Ooh. That hurt. Go on.

He doesn't get a lot of positive attention, poor Walter. And so the only way he can get attention is with negative attention. That is a theory, but I would be willing to dispute that. I'm sure you would. You're welcome to try. There's always a truth, you know, a segment of truth to observations. I'm open-minded. I don't think it's a primary motivator, but that can be her opinion.

You said you grew up, how many, the four of you in your family? Yes. Where are you in the birth order in the siblings? Third. Girl, girl, boy, boy. Girl, girl, boy. So you're not the baby and you're not the eldest. You're not even the middle child.

Well, I hate to say, put it this way, Walter, but there's nothing special about you at all. Did you need to fight to get attention in your house? I wouldn't call it that, but, you know, there was kind of only so much hair time. Right. And what about you, Eileen? What's your sibling sitch? So I'm the second oldest of seven siblings. Seven.

Well, it sounds like you got Walter beat then. Yeah, we had to compete for the food, not just. the floor. Did you feel like you had to fight to get attention in your family? Absolutely. And yet you don't seem to be constantly interrupting or telling stories or pointing at birds the way Walter is. Not here and now.

So what's the difference? Well, there are a lot of talkers in the family. And especially I would say, I know this sounds a little bit sexist, but the boys were louder. I mean, look, we've observed many data points on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. in terms of disputes between couples and of all kinds. And it does seem to be that the boys tend to talk more. One thing I've asked Walter about, I'm going to check my notes, 700 times is why this mime is here.

Do you, Eileen, can you explain why you think this helps Walter's case or what his line of thinking is here or what his line of unconscious thinking is here? So Walter write a mime in order to end. entertain us and also to try to make his point that he could be silent and bring entertainment. So he has something to watch him because he's very, very bent on winning this dispute. Walter, was your point that you could remain quiet when something entertaining was happening? Is that what you brought a mind? That was not my point. Why did you bring a mime? To make my closing statement.

Okay. We understand that you brought the mind for impact. What is the, I mean, like, as you're describing it, if I was on trial for murder at the end, my attorney should just bring out a lion tamer for, you know, I didn't remember my closing. I got a lion tamer. You were impressed? I think they would be less likely to, you know, sentence you to, let's say, the death

penalty if you had, like, a mind. What is the specific point you were trying to? trying to make. So I think that the entertainment thing, you know, Judge John was looking for a little deeper angle, and I don't think it's so much negative attention as it is. A lot of my speech, I think, is intended to entertain. And I couldn't think of a better way to expound on being silent than by bringing a mime. I thought you were going to say you couldn't think of a better way to entertain than a mime.

And I don't want it. I'm not here to, you know, it's not my place. Not you're just majestic. I got you. Did you bring a mime to somehow make the point that you were remaining silent even though you were making mouth noises? Bingo. Okay.

Tell me how this illustrates your point. So if Kat could have a word here, she would point out that there's different types of mimes. Now, technically, she is a very silent mime, but there's different levels of, you know, this vow of silence. And there is a form of mime that will you do what you can without saying words to convey your meaning. So if you want to be a dog, you bark. I'll remind you, sir, that this may be the one place on earth

where the art form of mime is not on trial. but I would like I'd like you to ask cat to respond in mime and Jesse will interpret for the listeners at home who are not watching the YouTube ask cat

does is there barking in mime cat John Judge John would like to know if there's barking in mime oh come on She tried to bark and no sound came out. Now, if I were to rule in your favor, Eileen, you want Walter to drive you to Logan Airport. Is that correct?

Yeah, so three in the morning. Three in the morning is your flight? No, my flight's around five in the morning, but they say to get there early. This is just sheer punishment for Walter for failing the challenge and failing to acknowledge. that he has failed the challenge. Absolutely. All right, I'm going to go a walk through the wind to my chambers.

I'll be back a moment with my verdict. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom. Eileen, how are you feeling right now about your chances of winning this thing? I'm feeling really optimistic. I mean, it's obvious that Walter feels pretty insecure about this for a reason because he felt he had to bring a mime,

whereas I have no expert witness. And so I'm confident that I will win the challenge. Walter, how do you feel? Maybe a little less confident than Eileen. There was a lot of, you know, cross-examination regarding my choice of an expert witness. We'll see what Judge John Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a moment. We're taking a quick break from the Judge John Hodgman podcast. and we have some great news about a friend of our program.

That's right. You've heard us mention him many a time on the podcast. It's Elliot Kalin, one third of the wonderful Max Twin podcast, The Flop House and my former co-worker over there at The Daily Show. Indeed, he was the head writer at the Daily Show, winner of four Emmys, a Peabody, and two WGA Awards. He has now written a book called Joke Farming, How to Write Comedy, and Other Nonsense.

And it's really wonderful, you know, thoughtful, and funny book about comedy writing and how it works. If it's something that you've been interested in trying your hand at, but you just feel intimidated, Elliot really demystifies the whole thing for you. And in a way that's not only entertaining, but also, you know, kind and informed and funny. I think what is special about Elliot's book is it does not give you some amazing secret magical power to be funny. But what it does do is demystify the process of the actual work involved in being a professional comedy writer. So not just like, oh, you need to order this at lunch, but rather the ways that you can systemize the writing of comedy so that you can do it every day rather than just when you're walking down the street and a funny joke occurs to you. like it is it is remarkable that elliott has built a system to as you know the reason it's called joke farming

because he has built a system to farm jokes rather than catch them as they pass by your hut you know what i mean yeah so you know through observation and training and little exercises you develop a technique to sort of build joke observation into your everyday life you like and then harvest them when the when the right time comes indeed it's a it's a wonderful book and you will be able to catch Elliot Kalin discussing the book on Bullseye with Jesse Thorne in the coming weeks. You know, you also get to see Elliot Kalin in one of his increasingly rare live appearances with the Flop House at Sketchfest where we're going to, right, Jesse? If you're in the Bay Area, we'll see you there, sfsketchfest.com or maximum fun.org slash events. It's going to be a heck of a

good time. And no matter where you are, we just ran the annual Best Comedy of the Year special on Bullseye with Chessie Thorne. So go subscribe to Bullseye. And our staff here at Maximum Fun listened to so many comedy albums to prepare for that special every year. So go subscribe to Bullseye and listen to that episode. It's always one of our most popular of the year. Let's get back to the case. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict. Walter and Eileen, you may be seated, cat the mime for hire. You may pretend to be seated. In fact, actually, Walter, what I would ask you to do right now, if you don't mind, in fact, is to take your headphones off and offer them to Kat. Hi, Kat. It's me, Judge John Hodgman

again. I'm going to deliver my verdict. Eileen can hear it, as can the audience, but I would like you to act out the verdict and see if Walter can get the gist of what I'm saying. Does that sound fair to you? Thumbs up. One of the great mine things. Walter, first of all, you're a delight, and we're so grateful that you've been here. Now, you are one of a large family, and I don't know whether that means that you've had to seek negative attention in your life, as Eileen suggested. Although I do wonder if that's part of your psychology, because if you wanted to seek negative attention, what better way than to surprise me with a mime?

No offense to you, Cat Mime for Hire. I admire your artwork, and I appreciate you very much. But very few people are ready to be surprised with a mime at any moment. And for that reason, I am very much biased against you, Walter. No offense. That said, even though I was initially surprised by your Mime Gambit, and I do not know still after asking you, you many times what it's supposed to prove or why you're doing this to me, it is still an

expression of your basic charmingness and adorable eccentricity. I don't know whether you have had to fight for attention in your life, but I do think you are genuinely a kind of person who, when they see a sparrow, they want to point and grunt at it. It's just who you are. I'm glad that Eileen feels confident that if she says that her brain is exploding, then you know to shut up at that point. And I would encourage you to become more comfortable with silence. I'm getting the picture here. I do think that it's a three minutes is a long time.

And if you had allowed me to, run my experiment on my own podcast, co-created and co-hosted by Jesse Thorne, the podcast that bears my name, the way I wanted to do it, pure silence without a mime, it would have been a more boring and unbearable, I grant you. What it would have, I think, proved that three minutes is a long time to remain silent. But learning to be silent for three minutes, learning to let your not only, the sparrows in real life pass by without comment, but to let the chirping thoughts in your brain make their tweets and sounds and bird calls and let them pass by you without comment

inside. I mean, that's the purpose of meditation. And that is, I think, a valuable discipline. So you might actually, even though it's a challenge for you, and because it is a challenge, you might enjoy exploring a little bit more. And don't bring a mime into it to try to distract yourself and everyone else. Speaking of challenges, a challenge was offered by Eileen of one minute of silent. You have no one to blame but yourself, Walter, for upping the ante to three minutes of silence. I guess because you had such confidence in yourself, but you let yourself down. Silence is an obvious word. You don't need to ask chat GBT about it.

You don't need to ask a talking chimpanzee about it. You know what silence is. You're looking at it right now. It's a mime. If there was one piece of evidence that moved me the most in this trial, it was when And Cat, the Mime for Hire, acknowledged, mimes don't bark. Cat has many ways of being a dog that does not involve barking. Because silence is silence.

And you failed to win the challenge. So on the basis of that criterion alone, I am obliged to find in favor. of Eileen, and you, sir, are obliged to drive Eileen to Logan Airport at 3 a.m. Thank you, Judge. You're welcome. And to indicate the finality of my verdict, I will now ask Cat to break the laws of of mime to grab that squeaky toy that has been sitting on the mantelpiece like a Chekhov's gun as Jesse pointed out.

And when the time comes to squeak the squeaky toy, when I say, this is the sound of a squeaky toy, Judge John Hodgman rules that is all. All right. Walter, what would you say was the verdict in this case? Yeah, if you had to guess, Walter, I forgot. You didn't hear it. It didn't look good from my side.

It looks like I'm getting up at 3 a.m. Eileen, how would you characterize the verdict for Walter's sake? Well, I would say that Walter did not make a good enough case. He will probably appeal. You'll be hearing from us again. But I feel it was a fair verdict. How do you feel about it, Walter? Disappointed, I must say, but I understand.

It is, yeah. Well, now he's really at a loss for words. Walter, Eileen, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books. We're going to have swift justice in just a second. First, our thanks to Redator Fukuysan 86 for naming this week's episode, The Fight to Remain

Silent. You can join us on. on Reddit at R slash Maximum Fun. We ask for title suggestions there, too, so keep an eye out for those. Evidence and photos from the show posted on our Instagram account at Instagram.com slash Judge John Hodgman.

We're also on TikTok and YouTube at Judge John Hodgman Pod. Follow and subscribe to see our episodes and to see video-only content. And speaking of YouTube, our YouTube comment of the week. This week comes from YouTube user Shoe the Squirrel,

excuse me, original underscore chew the squirrel, thank you. Except our limitations. That's right. Thank you for listening and commenting. Original underscore chew the squirrel commented on our recent live episode from San Francisco. This was the one from last January, not the one coming up this January. You can still go to tickets at maximum fun.org such events. We always have a wonderful time in San Francisco, and this time we had a great time talking about Jimmy Buffett trivia.

And my obscure cultural reference, I made a quote that original underscore chew the squirrel took issue with. And they wrote, Oh, my sweet summer Judge John Hodgman, you got the lyrics to incommunicado a bit wrong.

That's a Jimmy Buffett song. Travis McGee is indeed still in Cedar Key, as the song goes. But the lyric is, that's what old John McDonald said. Not John D. McDonald. And all right,

you're absolutely right, original underscore, The Squirrel. I did say John D. McDonald, the author. And the lyrics do just say John McDonald. You got me there. I was wrong, but I got a shout out to user Amy Radford 2215, who I presume is my friend from high school Amy Radford and still my dear friend. And birthday pal, he's sure the same birthday. Amy came in

to remind original underscore to the squirrel, there's no E. and Hodgman. Ah, what goes around, comes around in the pet, in the pet, in the pet ant ant-and-purcles. But thank you so much, original underscore to the squirrel for that comment. And I was wrong and I appreciate the correction. If you've got a comment or a correction, please leave it for us underneath our YouTube videos. Maybe you'll end up the YouTube comment of the week. And while you're over there and YouTube, please like, share, and subscribe. It really helps the show. Judge John Hodgman was created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman. This episode engineered by Chris Kalfarski at PRX Podcast Garage in Boston, Massachusetts. Megan Rizotti runs our social media, the podcast edited by A.J. McKeon,

our video editor, Daniel Spear, our producer, Jennifer Marmer. All right, swift justice from ain't, ain't a word on the MaxFund subreddit. How many times can I use aluminum foil on a baking pan before I have to throw it away? How many times can I use aluminum foil on a baking pan before I throw it away. Let's see. A one, a two, a three, two times is the answer. Two times. Two times. I would say for everyday aluminum foil, two times. With heavy duty, maybe you can get away with three times. Did we just meet a new character? Is that the fancy counting guy? No, that's from the how many looks does it take to get to the center of one to three, Crunch.

Tell you what, though, don't crunch that aluminum foil. It doesn't taste very good. And don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think this fancy counting guy character's got legs. Well, all right, I'll do this fancy counting guy for this pitch for disputes. Valentine's Day is about one a month away. Make your dinner reservations now and send us your cases. We need at least three.

Oh, no, but truly, if you've got some Valentine's Day disputes, do you love Valentine's Day and your partner hates it? Are conversation hearts a good candy or just trash? What about Ferraro Rochay? Is that any good? I was in the drugstore again. And I was like, I've never had one of those in my life. Is that a good candy? What about those chewy sour conversation arts? Those are pretty good. Oh, I've never had any of those. Yeah, they're like a little chewy and a little sour. Regular conversation arts. I mean, you're basically eating classroom chalk. But I mean, you know, some of us enjoy a little chalky snack. I mean, as long as it says like, me, me, six, seven, or whatever. Send us your valentine state cases and any cases about love to maximum fun.org

slash jj. And you know what, John? I love disputes on any topic at maximum fund.org slash J.J.H. So go there and submit your cases. Maximumfund.org slash J.J.H.O. Big or small. We judge them all. We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hoddman podcast. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artists-owned shows. Supported directly by you.