Klein/Ally Show: The Podcast - The Greatest American Inventions

Episode Date: July 1, 2026

About to get into a brand new episode of Klein Alley Show, but first let's tell you about our good friends at the finest airport that ever was and ever will be. The San Bernardino International Airport. Especially when there's summer travel plans, it can get expensive at these airports. That's why you got to go to this airport where parking is just five bucks a day. Plus you got those easy trips, San Francisco or Provo, Utah. Maybe you didn't plan anything this summer. See how easy it is. Don't be one of those people who has to pack your patience. Go to San Bernardino International Airport. Okay, enough shilling. Now it's time to get into a brand new episode of Klein Alley Show. Hey, Rock Klein Alley Show. If you're feeling extra patriotic this time of year, it makes sense.

We're in the month of July. America is still, at least right now, in the World Cup. And we've got a big birthday to celebrate, 250th anniversary. It's funny you play that clip, Ali, Omar, because there's been a request for the Audio Sniper to get everyone in the patriotic feels of the month ahead. And I don't know, we don't do song requests a lot of times on the show. But here is a request to kick off the month of July, and that was one of the three sounds that was requested. So here we go.

Let's see if the Audio Sniper can deliver. Hey, this message is for the Audio Sniper, DJ Omar Khan. Can I get some alley clips to celebrate the 250th birthday of America? Can I get a America followed by a English? Do you speak it? Fire away. That guy has got a very special request from the audio sniper for a back-to-back-to-back American trilogy of sound effects

provided by our very own Allie Johnson. Whenever you're ready, audio sniper. I have so much. Fire away. Fire away. Son of a bitch. Yeah, that sucks, huh? Not going to help you.

You just played one of them. I know, but I can't find the Miracle one, the one he wanted me to start with. I can't find Alice in America. How did you spell Marica? That's the question. The problem is that the program I use does not have a search feature, which is what I'm moving. Yeah, yeah.

How do you find anything? Yeah, how the hell do you find it if you can't search for it? Oh, just memory. What? Jesus Christ. Yeah, because I know where the... I know where that is. And I have about 20 different pages open here.

And I know where the other one, the... English? Do you speak? Okay. Two out of three. Yeah, but the Marica... I'm not sure exactly where that is. Well, you'll have this entire segment to find it

because we're going to talk right now about the greatest contributions that this country has ever made to the world. And I know that the argument is that I understand why people don't like America, the same way people don't like the Dodgers if you're not in L.A., because you go, it's not fair. They've got all the best stuff and the best players and the best budgets, etc., and it's ruining baseball. And some people feel that way about this country,

and there's plenty of things to not like about America. But consider some of the many other options out there. I think that in some ways we're lucky. There it is. Hi. I'm with that woman right there. So they've decided over our 250 years on this planet as a country, these are the greatest contributions. And let me know if you agree with this list or not.

This is according to one of those polls, a CBS News poll, Allie. The airplane was at fifth place. Four percent of people feel that the airplane, which we get credit for. Thank you, Wright Brothers. is an American contribution. And if you've flown by airplane recently, you know it's not that great anymore. Yeah, kind of like I can see at the time that it's pretty incredible. And, yes, we do fly.

People fly all over the world every single day, millions of people. But still, eh. Right, the experience. If they took it away, it wouldn't be that revolutionary. I mean, I think it was a great contribution when everyone was wearing a three-piece suit and smoking a cigarette, having like a nice carved lamb chop and coach. That was cool. Everyone was so excited and surprised when they made it.

And they'd all clap. Wait, you're telling me, Allie, if they took away the planes, you wouldn't have a strong reaction to it? You'd be like, whatever? I'd go back to ships. Really? I've gone on ships. It takes so long to get them. It takes like three weeks to get somewhere.

You get to Missouri. Allie's a ship person. Allie's a ship person. I'm a shipper. She's a shipper. Just above that was the telephone. The introduction, the invention of the telephone. Get out of here.

Alexander Graham Bell, American. That was a 5%. We feel like that was our strongest contribution to the world. I think it's so much more irrelevant now. How often are we even on the phone anymore? Because of texting and stuff? Right. And because even customer service now, it's all chatbots.

There's really no... I mean, that's a good point. The amount of time that I'm on the phone. Are you even on the phone once a week anymore? Not on purpose. Not talking to humans. The only phone calls I get are from spam. Just above telephone is our greatest contribution in the history of this country is the automobile.

Now, let's be honest. Donate it. Ships, only ships. Automobile, great contribution. Ship to work every morning. I think there's something about that one. The car is important. Maybe the most important thing.

I mean, people, yes, could you get places by horseback before? Sure. I mean, that was so fun. Are hipsters still doing that? Horse and buggy. Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of horses riding. Jake, you live right by that neighborhood in Burbank where everyone rides horses in the street, right? Oh, yeah, Rancho.

Yeah, I mean, there's still a world where that exists. But even if you had horse and carriage, I mean, think about Oregon Trail and playing that game and how many little things could really set off that entire mission. But plus, I mean, how much stuff could you really get at Costco if your only option was horse to bring it back? I guess you'd have to get the cart, fill the cart up. Less parking, too. Terrible. So big. And at number two, and I don't know how this was not the winner of the whole thing, because when I tell you the top one, you're going to say this is BS.

But at number two, they said the Internet. Now, the Internet. Oh, yeah. Without the Internet, I mean, the Internet. That's the best one. It's good and bad, though. Double-edged sword, right? Think of all the good things that happen on there, the porn, et cetera, and then the bad things, the cyberbullying, the, I would imagine there's other bad things that happen there, the romance scams.

If you could go back to a world without Internet, would you? I would totally do that, 100%. I feel like the world's kind of better without the Internet. There was something more fun. Oh, man, Omar, I don't need no Internet. But this is why I think we're getting dumber is that we don't try to think about the answers to anything ourselves anymore. We immediately search for what is the answer. I'm so dependent on it.

I think it's the beginning of the deterioration of the human species. But also, that being said, I mean, porn guys, come on. Who's with me? I know. Being able to search for that actor on a show and then find out who it is. No, but going into the video store and picking it out or exchanging tapes with your friends. That sucked. That was the best.

Dude, that was the worst. Going to Blockbuster, the movie you wanted, it's always out. It sucked. Yeah, how would you find music that you really liked but, like, the record store didn't have it? What would you do? Someone with a friend of a friend of a friend would have a tape, dude. Exactly. You just borrow it and make a mixtape.

You tell everyone, you've got to hear this band. You find porn in the woods. Yeah, there's all sorts of stuff that you'd figure out. Everyone used to hide their porn in the woods. Everyone knows that. No, it's too easy, man. Everything's too readily accessible. I need that sticky porn.

You don't have to work for anything. The number one contribution that people have decided, this is 14% of the vote, have decided the greatest contribution that America has made to the world in our 250 years is something that has done me no good, and that is the light bulb. Oh. The light bulb. You mean the thousands of them that are shining in our faces right now and sucking my soul? I mean, if you look like we look, light bulbs are our enemies.

I know. We're much better by candlelight. Yeah, this is the worst. Yeah, candlelight. I'm like a candlelight six or seven. I'm a light bulb four. But I understand why it's higher up than the internet, because without electricity, you wouldn't have internet electricity.

They didn't say electricity, though. They said the light bulb, specifically. So it's the introduction of the light bulb, which, to me... Didn't they discover electricity in the United States, or no? Who knows? Thomas Edison, yeah. Yeah. In America.

Yeah, well, okay. I mean, electricity was a game changer. Electricity is not the number one. A light bulb is number one. And then, of course, they also... Who cares about the light bulb? In a much more important contribution list, they talked about the greatest foods we've contributed to the world.

Oh, barbecue. And barbecue is number two, Allie. What? And below that is apple pie. No way. I also think when you look into stuff and you start trying to historically look into it, you find out like apple pie is one of those stupid trivial pursuit questions. were like apple pie

was actually invented in Germany in the 1600s. Would you like some apple pie? Right, it's like one of those things. Electricity was discovered

thousands of years ago. Thank you, Jake. That's a guy who buries his porn in the woods. He's still doing that. Hey, when it works,

when it works, it works. On this list, they have it at the, and I don't believe, once again, pizza is on the list of the best foods

that America has contributed. So yeah, if you think about Americanized foods. Americanized foods. No, there's some that have been made in America that are genuine to this country that are just, like, world-shaking. Panda Express is American, too. Well, fast food in general.

Listen, on the list is pizza at five, hot dogs at four. That's American. But hot dogs really, I think, is based on, you know, German sausages that have been around forever. Yeah, I mean, it's just, and I think German sausages are better than hot dogs. Apple pie at three. Barbecue is in the number two spot. And number one, give it up for hamburgers. Dude, why is fried chicken not on there?

Fried chicken is the best food ever created by America. Chicken wings? Yeah, chicken wings. Thank you, Vanessa. Just when I forgot about your nickname. I like chicken a normal amount. No, I like that it's chicken and it's made in America or discovered in America. It's teriyaki chicken.

Okay. I'm here, chicken. All right, relax, Vanessa. Calm down. What do you believe is missing, Allie? What do you think is the greatest contribution this country has made to the world? Without a doubt, the tramp stamp. Ah, the tramp stamp tattoo.

Yeah, that's a... Did that start in America? Is that an American thing? It had to have started here. I feel like with NASCAR came tramp stamps. Oh, NASCAR comes... What about strippers? Did we create strippers?

I doubt it. That's been around for a long time. Because think about like the Moulin Rouge of old school. Oh, right. Amsterdam red light. Yeah. What do you think the greatest... Jake, in your mind, the greatest contribution America's made to the world, 250 years?

I think it's either fast food drive-thrus or skateboarding. Oh. That's interesting. Yeah, drive-thrus, a pretty strong contribution. But I don't think the rest of the world has really embraced drive-thrus in the way that we have. It's a great contribution for us. McDonald's, I mean, McDonald's is worldwide now. Getting fatter.

Yeah, but even when I've been to McDonald's in other countries, they don't really have drive-thrus. Everybody's going in, yeah. Yeah, everyone's walking because they walk there. Omar, do you have a contribution that we've made to the world that should have been on this list? I mean, GTL, Jim Tan Laundry, I think that's a great contribution. Man, Jersey Shore, nothing more. Jim Tan Laundry. That's great.

I was going to say The Rock. Dwayne The Rock Johnson? Yeah. I believe they created him first in other countries. They had their own version. Much smaller version. I think the seatbelt extender is one of our greatest contributions. When we were so fat that we had to come up with new ways to reinvent the seatbelt.

We have a thing, and it's still so stretchy, but there's people that we've outgrown this thing. What about those little scooters at the supermarkets? Oh, those are great, too. Oh, man, that was one of my nominees, too. The hover around things? Yeah. Those are cool. We're lazy people.

Yeah, those are good, too. Yeah, so we created airplanes and then got too fat for the airplanes. Right. So we had to make some built-in standards. Yeah, we're getting good at this. Johnny, what do you think is the greatest contribution we've made? Well, I was going to say Walmart because also added on to Omar's point, where else can you get fat people scooters? Tramp stamps.

Tramp stamps. Yeah, all these things are right there. You could buy car stuff there. You could buy food there. It's Walmart. It's the best. Yeah, what about meth? That's a great American invention.

Do we get credit for that? I don't know. I feel like we came up with that here. I feel like Bakersfield gets credit for that one. Vanessa, as someone who came to this country at a very young age, what is the greatest contribution you think that we've made? I was going to say drive-thrus, but my second is carpool lanes. Wow, that's so specific. Because if you go to another country, their traffic is out of control.

Here, there's traffic, but we're organized about it. But I don't know if America created that. Carpools? Carpooling? I think maybe we created the freeway, didn't we? The greatest thing that we've created. What about the Autobahn in Germany? Isn't that like the first freeway?

Commercials. That's what we do better than anyone. So we give you those right now. Welcome, America.