Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Doorknobs

Episode Date: February 28, 2022

Alex Schmidt is joined by author/comedian/jurist John Hodgman ('Dicktown' on FXX/Hulu, 'Judge John Hodgman' podcast) for a look at why doorknobs are secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

Doorknobs. Known for being twisty. Famous for being knobby. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why doorknobs are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. John Hodgman is my guest today. Yeah, John Hodgman. He's one of my favorite authors.

His most recent book is sort of a memoir and essays and travelogue and more. It's called Medallion Status, True Stories from Secret Rooms. John's also the host of the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Over on Maximum Fun, he and bailiff Jesse Thorne the host of the Judge John Hodgman podcast over on Maximum Fun. He and bailiff Jesse Thorne, friend of the show, they adjudicate disputes. I also got to see a live episode of that once in Durham, North Carolina. It was one of the best live podcasts I have ever seen. Just period. It's a really electric room. It's awesome. And breaking news, thrilling project that was secret until very

recently. John Hodgman is the co-creator, along with David Reese, of a very funny animated show. It's called Dicktown. That's short for Richardsville. Dicktown is on the FXX channel. It's also on Hulu. Whole first season is on Hulu, and then the second season premieres on FXX March 3rd. Highly recommend if you want to see something funny. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that John and I each recorded this on the traditional land of the Canarsie and Lenape peoples, and acknowledge that in all of our locations, native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode. And today's episode is about doorknobs.

Doorknobs are a patron chosen topic for this month. Many thanks to patron DeltaFoxTrot2 for that topic suggestion. And let me tell you, this topic, it was a very fascinating research experience because it was fun to research. And also the topic bleeds into basically every other way to open a door. So we cover all those other things, too. And it's one of the murkier topics I've ever tackled on this show. Like much of the actual solid sourcing you can get is pretty vague on a lot of especially the history of doorknobs.

So you will hear us grapple with that, roll with that. And thanks to John's investigative abilities, along with me playing along, I think we find some theories about it too. And that's all the setup you could need. So please sit back or creak open the door of the place you are mystery solving in. Much like the characters on dicktown season 2 march 3rd fxx either way here's this episode of secretly incredibly fascinating with john hodgman i'll be back after we wrap up talk to you then John Hodgman, thank you so much for being here.

And I always start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it and lightly interrupting them sometimes. I'm sorry. No, I just wanted to say thank you for having me. But then I was interrupting you, so I apologize. This is a real kooky mess up it's like it's like two characters in a sitcom who open two doors at the same time and they bump into each other i can't remember what sitcom opening that is but it's the sort of thing that would happen doorknobs or like it's the scooby-doo hallway and they're both running away from each other somehow

like oh geez they go boink and they run into running away from each other somehow. Like, oh, geez. And then they go boink and they run into each other. And then there's a secret door and someone falls into a well or whatever. Doorknobs. It turns out in Scooby-Doo, sometimes doorknobs are not doorknobs. They are candelabra on the side of the wall. And all of a sudden you pull it down and a door of books opens i wish i could say i had that here in my office oh my goodness i don't get it i don't know why

there aren't more secret rooms right you would think like this this world which is rapidly falling apart part of the rapid part of the rapid fall apartness of this world is the wild increase in economic inequality. I'm just saying that there are some people who've got a lot of cuckoo money, bananas money. You know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah.

And you would think they would all have secret doors. They would all have secret doors and secret rooms. And now I'm thinking of medallion status. But also, I left it off the research because it's just so visual. But I was reading an article about the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, which is apparently full of secret passages and secret doorways into things. And I think we've lost that. Nobody's doing that now. I think we've lost that.

Nobody's doing that now. Yeah. I'm not talking about like panic rooms or safe rooms where, where scaredy cat, uh, plutocrats can, can go scurry to when they're afraid of a home invasion or whatever. Right. I'm talking about legit, like turn the bust of William Shakespeare around five times. And you know, all of a sudden there's a the the grandfather clock opens and there's a bat pole down to a secret layer some some theatrics to it the biltmore estate i'll have to check that out how much does it cost should i buy it okay i didn't do a price check

though i'll check zillow i don't know maybe Maybe. I mean, the market's kind of bonkers right now, but okay. I'll consider it. Sounds fun. Oh, my relationship to doorknobs, you asked. Oh, yeah. Or did I even allow you to ask it? I think fans know where it was going. Yeah, relationship to them or opinion of them.

But I feel like from your response, you have not had anything stranger than doorknobs in homes. I was thinking about mine. I think I've only had doorknobs or like a sliding door for a patio or something. That's about it. Yeah. My relationship with doorknobs, while they are the doorknobs in my life are wildly mundane. Cool. I still have a very wary relationship with them because I, because many have broken in my life and many broke before there was,

you know, I'm not a handy person. If you are not someone who has some skill in replacing a doorknob or tightening a doorknob or fixing a doorknob that has come loose or come out, I've never found it to be self-explanatory how to make a doorknob that isn't working properly work. And so I've never found it to be self-explanatory how to make a doorknob that isn't working properly work. And so I've, there have been some times when I've been locked into a room because something fell out on the other side, the little, the little privacy lock fell out or something, or I don't know what I was in this very office. I was, I was locked out of the bathroom.

Oh no. Yeah. The bathroom door closed in the locked position. And I couldn't get into it. And this was not an emergency in the short term, but over a long period of time would be a problem. Yeah. And it was a great afternoon for me to call over my teenage son and say, get over here. I need you to help me break a door down. And we didn't break anything down because he's strong. I'm very weak and very

nervous about not following the rules. But we did take that doorknob apart and finally, finally push out the little pin that was causing the mechanism to lock. And I was so mad at that doorknob. And I'll tell you, when you get into the guts of a doorknob, I don't know, it's just not as simple as it should be, it feels like to me. There are a lot of little pieces in there. It's like the inner ear. You know what I mean? A lot of little bones.

And one of evolution's greatest mistakes. The ear and the doorknob both of them forget it well i mean i'm glad that there are doorknobs but i mean i feel like you know what i'm talking about when you come to it yeah or you come to a doorknob and you pull on it and it just the knob just pops off in your hand why is that happening yeah i think i trust a doorknob with a lock built into it less because i think it's going to break first for that reason because it's much more complicated than it needs to be it's going to break for sure those little privacy lock doodads yeah do not care for them yeah and before your people write me letters yes i know if there's a privacy lock is closed in the lock position, there's usually a little hole that you can stick a stick, maybe an eyeglasses screwdriver into.

Yeah, the tiny one. De-trigger the lock. I tried that. I tried it. I stuck everything into that hole. Nothing was working. I had to take it all apart. Anyway.

to take it all apart. Anyway, I think you're pointing out a real thing that could definitely happen, which is people getting invested in this broken doorknob that is already solved, right? Like they just want to retroactively be the person to think of the fix. We all do. We hear these things and we're like, I could have been the solution years ago. It's true. But you know, so I, I, I, and, and having been locked out of places, a couple of bad times being locked out of a apartment in which I was house sitting and having nowhere to go and there was no way to get back in. I am fairly paranoid about doors locking behind me. That's cause that's like putting your hand on a hot stove. You never forget it. When you do a dumb thing and just step outside and you hear that clunk and you're like oh no i have my keys right nope that's not doorknobs that are causing the problem that's that's more

the the lock but i still blame doorknobs even now the door now i think about the doorknob tube our apartment door is it's it's like it hurts to use it it's it's one of those um it's not a it's not a knob right it's a it's a lever what would you call that you know what i mean oh like a lever handle like like a lever handle yeah like it kinds of the uh velociraptors learned how to use in jurassic park yep they couldn't use see that's the thing what were you doing jurassic park yep they couldn't use see that's the thing what were you doing jurassic park designers why'd you put lever handles wow make them knobs i bet the i bet velociraptors can't figure out a regular round knob but but a lever sure just push it down dummies anyone can do that not anyway we have one of those

we have one of those and you know over time it's just got gummed up and like to open the door it's like i have to shove it down with both hands and then it digs into my hand doorknobs i'm very hit or miss is what i say i i agree i will end up talking a lot about how they could be better mainly by being replaced by most other systems, including lever handles. Most systems would just be better than the knob, it turns out. So what do you got to tell me? That's my relationship with doorknobs. Why do we have them?

Why do we have doorknobs? You know, I think from here, I'm going to rearrange the order structure a little bit. We're going to go straight into one of the two main takeaways for the episode about doorknobs. Here we go into takeaway number one. From a design perspective, doorknobs might be the worst interface for a door. It turns out there's at least four ways that they are worse than most other systems that we use to operate doors okay what are the other ways we use kicking them open like private eyes yeah oh uh shooting a laser beam at the lock and then it springs open right then back in olden times puritan times you would

just have a little a little a little wrought iron lever that goes through the door. And you trigger a little latch on the other side. Yeah. There's that. A key that way or something, yeah. And then what else? How do we settle on this thing if it's so bad? What are the four ways in which it's the worst?

Yeah, we'll start with that. And there's a few sources here. One of them is a book called The Design of Everyday Things by a designer and cognitive scientist named Don Norman. And also a PBS interview with designer Bruce Hanna of the Pratt Institute. And then more stuff from popular science, the Atlantic Mental Floss. But there's just many ways these ubiquitous things are not great. And the simplest one is that a doorknob, unlike a lot of other handles, interfaces for doors, it doesn't tell you which way the door opens. Oh, right.

When you approach a doorknob, you don't have any information yet. You have to fully manipulate it and test unless you're also eyeballing the hinges very carefully. Oh, you got to eyeball the hinges. You're not doing that? You got to check your corners. Alex, you got to check your corners. Yeah. Check the hinges, check the jam. You got to know which way that, but no, you're right. I mean, most people going about their, their day to day are just going to grab a knob and then they got to try both ways, right? Push pull. Yeah. And you just see, you just do it and then

it goes or doesn't go. And you're like, okay, now I have the information from like basically banging my hand into this thing. But what kind of opening mechanism, what kind of interfaces you would say tells you which way the door goes? Don Norman in his book spends like a lot of time thinking about this. He says that every door interface can give you signal and the clearest possible signal is a wide bar across the door, especially if it's one of those panic bars where you just push it. So push doors, that's like a push door. Of course. Wonderful. You just forget about push doors. Yeah. From like a hundred feet away, you know how the door works. You're like, great. Yeah,

exactly. Yeah. But if you replace all of your doors in your house with push doors, people are going to have some questions for you. Fairly industrial in look and design. I was reading, there's this great website defector.com and they do a series on interesting Zillow listings. And one of the Zillow listings was a former public school. And I wish I could remember the doors, but I'll bet there were a bunch of like push bar doors in the quote unquote house. You know, that sounds fun. Do you ever dream of living in a decommissioned post office or something? Oh, no.

I mean, it's like, you know, like the Ghostbusters living in that in that the firehouse firehouse. That's pretty cool. There's something very I don a there's something very i don't know something very attractive about that repurposing old municipal buildings as living remember how lex luthor lex luthor lived in an abandoned terminal of grand central station in metropolis made it into a swimming pool and superman the movie like that's incredible oh i remember the pool but i forgot the context yeah wow yeah yeah well yeah anyway this isn't about this isn't about living spaces about doors

okay no indication of which way you're going through that door doorknobs are silent on that they're mute they're not giving you any help what's another way that they are bad another thing with this this one problem here is not only do you not know which way to go, but also apparently people who look at interface design, especially objects, they're tactile. Norman says that there's a phenomenon across all that where people don't just try a thing and then do the other thing. They usually try pushing the pull door, and then their second step is to try harder right when most people try a thing they not if they're wrong they not only do the wrong

step but then like hit kind of bang or hit the thing a little bit like doing it harder and then the third step is the right way and so we're also like slowly damaging doorknob doors a little bit all the time well maybe that's why they're falling apart all the time because you're you're you're you have to really mess with them in order to because you're you're abusing them every time you use them by pulling or pushing the wrong way yeah that's right and the other the other side of that is if people aren't persistent and they give up after the two times wrong i guess they're not going to the bathroom that day. It's like they give up.

I don't know. I pushed it twice. I don't know any other option. I guess I'm not going in there. I don't have time for this. Yeah. I think I've got another reason why they're bad. Oh, yeah.

Well, compared to a push bar, you need to have at least one functioning hand. Exactly right. You have to grasp a doorknob and turn it, which for some people with mobility issues or other issues is not going to be particularly easy. Or if you're just carrying groceries, you can open a door, a push door with your butt. Yeah. But you can't. Yeah, it makes it easier a little bit and even the the velociraptor stuff we we kind of found talking about earlier is part of this yeah

like like every lever handle base door is far more accessible for everybody like in jurassic park's case you're in the weird use case where you want to keep people out of rooms but every other room we're trying to let people in and it's good it's good to do that you're definitely trying to keep dinosaurs out of rooms that's why you want to knob those doors and not lever handle them anyway i know lots of raptors they're clever girls they'll find the way in no matter what all right so it doesn't give you the right information about pushing or pulling it causes wear and tear upon itself because people are dumb and they take a long time figuring out the pushing or pulling it's less accessible uh to it's less accessible to everyone

including velociraptors it seems like there's a fourth one alex what is it and those first two are actually kind of baked together so i've got like a couple more yeah bonus i love hearing facts about how doorknobs are bad because i'm not sure i like them they're all they're always there just like saying no you gotta use me i'm the best i love hearing anti-doorknob facts. Hit me with a couple, however many you got. And I had like never, ever thought about them until a patron said, please research this. And I also partly thought of you because of your new show, Dicktown, where it's like mystery solving is one element. And I feel like. Thank you for the plug.

Oh, for sure. It's great. And I feel like detective stuff makes doors fun oh for sure it's great and i feel like uh detective stuff makes doors fun in a way that they are otherwise not like a doorknob is exciting if there's a mystery behind it but otherwise you know forget it i we do have in our show so just you know always be plugging dicktown is the animated show that i co-created with my friend and uh writing partner david reese he and i play detectives in a town called richardsville north carolina aka dicktown to the locals private dicks of course are private detectives yeah that's

why we named our show dicktown still hard for me to say i'm a good boy i don't like to say dicktown a lot but there it is it's's memorable anyway. It stands out. And that's why I'm not bleeping the word dick. Cause that's not the version we're getting. No, it's not. It's not a, it's not a naughty word. Yeah. It's just a nickname for a fictional town called Richardsville.

But I do play a detective in this animated show. I play a version of myself who is named john hunchman who was a very famous boy detective when he was a teenager in dicktown but now my character is in middle age and kind of sad and lonely and not famous and uh and season one was almost exclusively still working for teenagers it was very depressing and probably not legal. Season one is all available on Hulu now at bit.ly slash Dicktown, D-I-C-K-T-O-W-N. And season two premieres on FXX on March the 3rd at 10 p.m. And we do have secret rooms in our show.

We have secret passages that are triggered by wall sconces that you pull down on because it's a mystery show you have to have that yeah i now i'm forgetting if the houseboat has doorknobs but otherwise many many doors and latches and ways you got to be able to latch a houseboat door i mean come on yeah you're on the high seas you can't have those things flap and open of course they're doorknob i mean but are flap and open. Of course they're a doorknob. I mean, but are they on a boat? You would not have a doorknob. I'm thinking now of all the boats that I've ever been on. Yeah.

You're going to have latches of some kind. Which makes the sea better. It's a better place to be. It is a better place to be. Sometimes. Unless there's a terrible storm. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a great show. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great show. I hope people check it out. And, uh, thank you. I hope you will. Thank you for letting me talk about it. And, uh, and with the other like doorknob design flaws, one of them is that not only

are people doing a very specific hand maneuver, which popular science describes as pronating and supinating your wrists. Like it's actually ergonomically bad. That's not just the way popular science describes it. I mean, I have to say it to myself every time I approach a door. Pronate, supinate. Pronate, supinate. Pronate, supinate. Don't remember how to do it.

That will actually make me like doorknobs, that little game. It sounds pretty good. Remember, remember, pronate, supinate, pronate. You got this. You can open this door and go to the bathroom. Yeah, it's a complicated maneuver, isn't it? Yeah. And that maneuver, you're getting your hands, your hand is like all over the knob, right?

Like you're just touching it, rubbing it every way possible. And so the third problem here is that doorknobs have always been a huge vector for germs. Just a constant problem of germ transmission of people touching their face, touching the knob. Yeah. Could that be topical in several senses of that word these days? topical in several senses of that word these days i topical in terms of current event and also topical in terms of touching yourself in surface surface areas huh yeah you're right yeah if you open if you open a push bar with your butt you're not touching it right well you're touching it with your butt but your butt is covered.

And if your butt is like my butt, it's encased in hypoallergenic plastic at all times. No one's going to get sick from my butt, I'll tell you what. Well, why did we invent these dumb things? They're terrible then. I mean, it's worse than I thought, Alex. Yeah, it seems to be just a thing some people decided they like especially because it's a relatively compact system that all can contain a latch for a door but like well i've got a question for you yeah because that answer is not satisfactory i agree let me be more pointed who invented the doorknob and when or if we don't

know for sure when did they start showing up in homes and should i guess that they are wealthier homes because if you're living in a doddle a waddle and daub hut yeah you know you're not you're not they seem relatively modern and they seem relatively fancy-pantsy. And if you were living in a hut or whatever, you might just have a little latch or something, right? You know, I think I like the flow of this. And so along with a couple of big takeaways, each main episode has a set of stats and numbers. And so I'm going to hop to the stats and numbers where we've got that. That sounds great.

I'm sorry if I'm ruining your flow. No, you're asking the questions that I'm going to hop to the stats and numbers where we've got that. That sounds great. I'm sorry if I'm ruining your flow. No, you're asking the questions that I'm sure the audience is. It's perfect. Yeah. Okay, great. Because you're a private eye in a show, but also kind of real life. Yeah, I see a situation and I got to make order out of chaos. Well, and the set of stats and numbers always has a new name for the segment every week.

And this week, that name of the segment is mean, median, standard deviation. In this spreadsheet, stats mean everything. You can divide or you might multiply. All these numbers add up to everything wow dexy's midnight runners oh i'm sorry are you finished somebody was just taking a breath john i had 12 more minutes of song 12 more standard deviation and the spreadsheet standard deviation columns and rows columns and rows oh boom boom boom boom it's a really hot song it's a great one probably probably the pinnacle of overall rock of the early

1980s the oshkosh bagosh rock they were all wearing overalls denim overalls Oshkosh bagosh rock. They were all wearing overalls. Denim overalls. Here's an interesting fact. Did you know that Dexys Midnight Runners is not apostrophized? Apostrophized. Oh. It's not Dexy apostrophe S Midnight Runners.

Look it up. Feels like an error. It's true. It's true. It's true. It's true. Hey, do you enjoy the music of blue-eyed soul pop duo Hall & Oates? They're all right.

No, just say yes. Yes. No, you don't. Because they're not called Hall & Oates. They're called Daryl Hall & John Oates. I'm telling you, look back at every album they've ever released they have never referred to themselves as hall and oats and when people refer to them as hall notes to their face they say no the name of the band is daryl hall and john oats that i'm glad the nation has continued to argue with them about it good like good Like, good job, everyone.

I think, unfortunately, I think Hall & Oates have lost the argument, but. Yeah. I love that introduction to this segment. Stats and figures. And that name was submitted by Toby Dyson. Toby, John loves it. And we have a new name for this every week. Dyson's Midnight Runners.

Yeah. No apostrophe. Please make him as silly and wacky and bad as possible. These submissions submit to SifPod on Twitter or to SifPod at gmail.com. Because the first number here is like the closest answer to that question of when did we start getting doorknobs? Because the number is 1878. Whoa. 1878 and 1878 is the year when an inventor named Osborne Dorsey filed a U.S. patent for like improvements on a doorknob style device. And some corners of the Internet have reported that as doorknobs were invented in 1878.

That's not really true. It's just like the first documentation of something kind of like a modern doorknob being patented and schematicked and laid out. But we had doorknobs before that sometime. And just to be clear, by doorknobs, we are talking about round knobs. Yeah. Right. But you have to twist. Pronate and supinate. Yeah. Pronate, supinate. Yeah. Still, that's fairly late so all right let me think now

1878 what kind of what kind of door opening interfaces do they have say in buckingham palace or the palace of versailles the great houses of europe yeah you don't have knobs i guess and there's another thing which there's no solid numbers for, but Europe is more into door handles than doorknobs in general. Yeah, I guess that's all I can picture when I think of my past life as Louis XVIII, the Sun King, living in Versailles. I remember handles, not knobs. Yeah. All knobs. Yeah. All right. Yeah.

So, yeah. The French revolutionaries were coming and the knob was broken. You and your son were trying to fix it. Your son, Louis XIX, obviously. My son, Louis XIX. And we both were beheaded. Yeah. I don't know.

I hope it's Louis XVIII as the Sun King. I'm working really hard to remember my 10th grade history class. It was an even number. I don't know why I hope it's Louis XVIII as the Sun King. I'm working really hard to remember my 10th grade history class. It was an even number. I don't know why I feel like that's accurate. It was Louis XIV. XIV, okay. Le Roi Soleil. Come on.

Favorite door interface. It says here, handle. Oh, good. Thank you, Wikipedia. Yeah. And I'm also going to link an article from Apollo Arts Magazine, where they have a bunch of pictures of door handles and knobs. And one picture of a knob is from the 1830s. So before the US Civil War, there's at least knob shaped handles, some of them turning before this patent. And it's sort of murky. We don't know exactly when it started. Interesting. Yeah.

So why are we stuck with these dumb doorknobs? I mean, are they cheaper than handles? Who liked them? They're incredibly common, especially in the U.S. And I don't I couldn't find anything where somebody was like a champion of them i think we just came up with that as a system maybe it doesn't take as much wide space like a handle does it's i i don't have great answers for how they took over i just know that's relatively recent and annoying yeah that's interesting yeah yeah i mean i get because i have so well here's a thing a handle does have to be fitted a certain way right yeah true and maybe there's a situation where just and i'm probably not thinking this correctly spatially but maybe it's a situation that doorknobs are just more interchangeable

if you're if you're banging up a tenement uh in the early 20th century it could be uh doorknobs you can just slap doorknobs on really easily maybe they're easier to install i mean they're they're they're hard to take apart but i can see like you just slide them through slide them through a hole put cap cap it off the other end, and you're all knobbed up. Yeah. I don't know. That's my speculation. Too bad we don't have a podcast to dig into this kind of stuff.

Yeah. I also feel like a lot of the issues with them, which we can go back to, it's like relatively modern thinking to be frustrated with them. Like thinking about industrial design is kind of modern and being fixated on germs is kind of modern. And the like fourth problem beyond the germs, the fourth problem is it's one of the least fire safe ways to operate a door. Like that panic bar that a crowd can just bonk into when the door flies open is the most safe but every other way where you don't have to think about it as much as a doorknob it's also safer but fire safety is like basically a 20th century invention everything was just burning down terribly all the time before that right of course no one cared yeah so the shirt

wastes are a little bit late that that month because the factory burned down it's horrible horrible reduction of human tragedy humans didn't humans didn't count for anything even less than they do now that's true of course with the with the push bar escape door that only works in one direction because you got a handle on the other side right yeah yeah you got to have a handle probably with a little thumb latch you pull that open on the other side that's what i would think yeah yeah you just try to set it up so you're going outward and then you can escape yeah right right and and then with other dangers of it with the the germ risk i feel like early

in the pandemic we were super concerned about COVID on surfaces. But before the pandemic, people were concerned about all other diseases also on surfaces. And in particular, there was some work in hospitals, but also just overall to make doorknobs out of copper, because copper is naturally antimicrobial for a lot of situations oh but very expensive i would think i think a copper doorknob is a little bit more expensive than a washcloth would be my guess oh yeah and also a lot of hospitals and medical situations they have like you know a handle you can move with your elbow or it's one of those foot pedals that operates the door which you really only see in specialty situations.

Now we're talking. I mean, that's got to be one of the best foot pedals is going to be one of the best door interfaces. Yeah. And, you know, you know what happens? Like, it's just a button you step on and the door opens for you. Great. Right. Right.

Easy. Right. Right. Easy. Or if you're going through an automatic door that is set up for people in wheelchairs or otherwise disabled people, you can just bonk that that steel button with your elbow and it'll it'll open up for you. I'm a fan of automatic doors. Another way better solution. Yeah great although as i've grown like we have an we have an automatic door which has a motion sensor much like at a supermarket or whatever right a sliding glass door that opens automatically when you approach it from from the inside the outside is locked you have to turn a key and it opens but this is the lobby of our apartment building oh sure yeah and as and as i've grown older especially in that limbo when we weren't sure if we were going to get a season two of dicktown and i just didn't know

what my whole life or career was going to be in 2021 and 22 i developed a fear that the motion sensor would stop recognizing me as human and the door wouldn't open but i'd just be standing in front of it and the door would be like no you're a ghost dude go back go back you don't get to go outside go back and haunt your apartment you're a ghost no way don't see you when a when a tv show does not proceed forward does everyone involved turn into a specter? Just haunt the studio? Yeah, we all become wraiths. Except for Will Arnett.

They give him another chance every time. And you should have one. It's wonderful. I think that guy's had 19 primetime shows starring him. They never last more than a season, and there is no consequence. It's like, no, we've got to give Will Arnett a show. Come on.

We all know we're going to give Will Arnett another show, right? Okay, good. It's weird. I have a friend I was talking to, and my friend claimed that the ultimate person for that is david spade david spade is always doing something all of the time and i i feel warmly toward will arnett not toward david spade so much yeah i'm very fond of well and it should have another show i was just saying yeah way into it yeah yeah david never met him i don't know anyway very very funny very nice guy.

Just saying that occasionally, this may surprise you, occasionally in entertainment, people get one chance at starring at a show. Yes. Occasionally people in entertainment, when a show gets canceled, that affects someone's career negatively. You know what I'm saying? Right. But sometimes not.

Sometimes not. Off of that, we are going to a short break, followed by a whole new takeaway. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes. I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty.

This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, one you have no choice but to embrace, because yes, listening is mandatory.

The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. Well, and I'm glad doors will always work for you. And with the knobs and germs,'s a weird it's a chemistry medical etc thing where so copper in studies is good at killing germs and viruses and bacteria but there

are some super bugs like MRSA which is especially common like spreading through a hospital that's been shown to survive on copper and so there have been experiments to coat doorknobs with salt to try to fight it there have been experiments where they coat a doorknob in titanium dioxide and then activate that with ultraviolet light it's all very complicated it would be easier to just use a better just wash your hands yeah wash your hands or better latches and systems yeah it's a hospital they don't know how to wash their hands apparently not wash their hands and disinfect stuff routinely i feel like this is like one hospital facilities manager one superintendent who's just got he's got this dream i'm gonna

create the ultimate doorknob coating yeah titanium titanium he's gonna spray titanium on the doorknobs it was a it was 2015 it was two teenagers in china did an experiment with titanium dioxide and i don't really know what that is but they put it on a door oxide yeah right and then used ultraviolet light to activate that and then that somehow fights germs just wash your hands everybody haven't we learned this by now it's 2022 how many colds have you had it's been since march of 2020 i've had none and i in like mid-pandemic i caught uh gastroenteritis like stomach flu oh i'm sorry that it was like so stunning i was like i don't do anything i'm not in contact like it's me and my partner and our cats how do i have stomach flu from something crazy yeah i was really i was i was really ripped off feeling

you know you're you're missing the obvious uh weakness in your security system. The cats. Cats. The cats. My cat opens the door like, what's he saying about me? And then closes the door down again. Cats sneak out at night and they get little samples. Gastroenteritis samples. They're always up to something, those cats.

Scheming, yeah. Scheming cats. But yeah, those are, those are the four, many, many doorknob, uh,

flaws. And so I just, uh, like we said, we don't know, or really, I don't know exactly how it became such a popular mechanism for doors, but it's not very good that we could do better in so many ways.

So many situations. We could do better. We could do better. And I, i just think it has to be i don't know i'd be curious to find out i i would imagine like the reason behind most everything is that it is somehow cost effective yeah maybe they're easy to put in a box like a box of 20 doorknobs to mail somewhere it could be anything like that yeah or just at this point our our wonderful global supply chain and at least in the united states is just set up to produce them more easily and more cheaply than handles yeah i wonder if i hang on look i'm gonna go to a popular retailer i'm not gonna name it i'm gonna get a cost of a doorknob. Oh. Because I bought these fixtures before, right?

Doorknobs can be very expensive if you go to a fancy pants place. Huh. Wow. Okay. A single popular retailer basics bedroom bathroom doorknob with lock and satin nickel. 17. I should have asked you what you thought this would cost do you want to guess something yeah what's that you said 17 is 1700 is that isn't that amazing

i'll do i'll do you one better here we go copper creek brand this is the bk2030ss ball knob with a come on ball knob geez with a privacy function one count satin stainless finish okay what's your guess in this copper creek bk that's bk2030ss no cheating don't look it up it's on sale i'm gonna say 1999 forget about it 985 whoa that's a steel nine yeah that is a steel it's it's satin stainless steel frankly all right but by comparison yeah well these guys are only coming in an eight pack, so I have to do a little quick calculation here using a calculator. I feel like that already speaks to the U.S. not being into door handles. You can only get a pack of eight because it's like you must be some weirdo who needs a bunch of other things. Right, right.

Yeah, so the eight pack privacy door levers. i always go back and forth between levers and levers keyless door lock set handle set right left see see how complicated this is keyless yeah right left handed reversible because they have handedness don't they i mean that's the thing true yeah that's not interchangeable right they have handedness okay so anyway eight pack privacy door levers keyless door lock set handle set right slash left handed reversible in satin nickel about 14.25 it's still more expensive if you get eight wow well yeah then you got seven you don't need it's more expensive if you get eight. Wow. Well, yeah, then you got seven you don't need. It's more expensive.

There you go. Yeah. It must just be trying to save truly a couple of dollars per door. Well, I mean, but if you're building an apartment building. Right. Yeah. You know what I mean? But these door knobs did come up. It's like 1878.

Okay. This tracks. This tracks with the time when a whole bunch of tenements were built very very cheaply in new york and all kinds of other cities to house disposable labor where people could live before they were burned in a factory fire inevitably or mangled by a piece of machinery sure and you're gonna if you're gonna bang up those tenement buildings, you're going to want to use the cheapest thing possible

and you want to use the most modular thing possible. And you certainly don't care about the physical health, the microbiome of the tenants, and you don't care about whether or not they can get into or out of a fire. I think we cracked the case. Mystery solved. That's my hypothesis.

And I bet we're right. That adds up. Yeah, it adds up. The numbers. Yeah. Holy moly. Oddly, this brings us, we're talking about a bunch of numbers, but there's two more numbers for the number stat section. And one of them kind of fits.

The next number is 2013. The year 2013. What happened? That's when the city of Vancouver, Canada banned doorknobs in new construction. Wow. They passed a law said, you know, everything that is already a doorknob is grandfathered in, but anything new you build in Vancouver, doorknobs are not allowed for all the reasons. That's super cool. Yeah. Good for you, Vancouver. Have you ever been? I've never been.

I hear the Japanese food is amazing. It's a great city. It's a fun city. You should go. Cool. I'm trying to remember. Oh, I was there. I was there for the TV show Battlestar Galactica.

Oh. They didn't have doorknobs on that ship. Oh. Battlestar Galactica. That's where they shot it. That's why I went there. I went there twice. Once to write about the TV show Battlestar Galactica. That's where they shot it. That's why I went there. I went there twice. Once to write about the TV show Battlestar Galactica when I was a magazine writer for the New York Times Magazine.

And then a couple of years later, when I got accidentally kidnapped by television, I was offered a guest role on it. So I came back to be on the show. Wow. And it was a very, very surreal experience for all the reasons you can imagine. But also like when I was there, it was the beginning of their second season and they thought they were going to, I mean, it was a very, very highly acclaimed show and all the actors were so excited to be a part of it. And when I came back, they were filming the last season and all the actors were like, um, yeah, I got to get out of here. I cannot wait to leave. I cannot wait to leave this job but the first time i went

after i went after i was right i visited i visited the set and the publicist was i was interviewing people because i was writing about it yeah and the publicist lana kim said do you want to do you want to go over to meet some of the actors from stargate Atlantis. I'm like, well, sure. We walked across the studio or the studio lot and met up with two actors from Stargate Atlantis. They were having a cigarette out there. Only years later did I realize I've met Jason Momoa. Oh. Because he was one of the Atlanteans.

He was on that show. Cool. cool yeah he was the nicest guy as you can imagine sure when he started hitting it big i'm like why why do i know that gigantic hairy man where have i seen him before i was like stargate atlantis cigarette break anyway i i wish it was because he was like also writing at the new york times magazine Atlantis cigarette break. Anyway. I wish it was because he was like also writing at the New York Times magazine. Like he was just an obvious Clark Kent hanging out. Scoop Momolo, we called him. That's fantastic. Anyway, just a little Hollywood story.

Vancouver. And the point is Vancouver's outlawed doorknobs that's a very good that's a good good idea and i i've had a couple vancouver guests recently they're great i'm very warm toward vancouver right now feels good like it's a good thing yeah yeah that's right i think you know they don't have any of those truckers oh god trucker free trucker free since 93 maybe this last number can unite america and canada because i have the fahrenheit and the celsius so that's very good okay that sounds great this last number the fahrenheit is 1000 degrees and the celsius is over 537 degrees. But 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit is the approximate temperature

that a metal doorknob would have to reach in order to glow a reddish color like that doorknob in Home Alone. People on the Internet have calculated this. That's very exciting. Oh, my goodness. Wow. You don't want to do that oh my alex do you know what i just saw here what i i went to this uh upscale uh home home supply and decor website to check

out some of the doorknobs of this upscale okay fancy pants freeport large door set with portsmouth knob satin nickel what's what's your guess how much this costs single knob single knob boy i feel like bringing in both freeport and portsmouth just feels very english and wealthy to me uh i'm gonna say like 40 dollars uh higher no 60 quid higher oh no look this is the top of the line this is a keyed large backplate door set incredible it locks with single cylinder deadbolt it's really for for exterior doors it's a front door okay now now so you know what i mean like this is a big let me let me drop down to the mansion front yeah to the regular interior door so we're talking about something it's you know this is your standard door privacy non-keyed large backplate

door set locks with a privacy pin that's what got me into trouble with my bathroom the privacy pin malfunctioned primarily used on bedroom and bathroom doors. What's your guess? And it's more than 60 quid. And changing currencies. You're not going to escape this quiz. I know the conversion rates for everything. Is it like $120?

It's $229. No. For a knob. Crushing. For a knob crushing for a knob not okay those are large baton now but the leap the levers are the same price it's interesting i guess once you're into this fancy fancy world it's gonna be it's gonna it doesn't matter anymore right you just want to spend your money once you have enough yeah yeah right yeah okay and the Yeah. Okay. And the, I also, I remember watching Home Alone and thinking they were wealthy because they had a really large

Chicago suburbs house. But in Home Alone, the source for this is the YouTube channel Vsauce. They did calculations on their end, but there's a scene where Macaulay Culkin makes a doorknob very hot and then it burns Robert Joee pesci's hand to the point where it brands a letter m into his hand because there's an m on the doorknob it's a comedy movie well yeah no i would say that if you have a if you have a monogrammed doorknob on your house yeah you you're pretty well off pretty well well off, yeah. And you have terrible taste. That was a big, lovely house. Regular people couldn't afford a house like that today.

Maybe in the 80s, the dad worked in finance or something in Chicago, right? But that was the height of wealthy suburbia. That's right. Now it's just out of reach, I think. Yeah, it's very aspirational. And yeah, they calculated that to make the doorknob so hot, it's all right now it's just out of reach i think yeah it's very aspirational and yeah and they calculated that to make the doorknob so hot it's glowing red it would need to be about a thousand degrees and they also believe that since it's a knob on a wooden door like before you got to a thousand degrees the door would catch on fire and then then there's no point it's a little bit of poetic license yeah i searched up world's

most expensive doorknob thank you i should have that's great and and it's very exciting and i as far as i can tell this is the one of the all the ones that come up in the you know as the for sale in the shopping section of my search engine, world's most expensive doorknob. This one is featured at myknobs.com. Myknobs.com. Okay, I'm bleeping that, obviously. Very dirty.

No, it's true. It's listed as door hardware privacy Sanzio doorknob set in polished gold vicenza hardware it's got concealed screws it's solid brass i guess it's gold plated what's your guess on how much this doorknob costs um 1200 wow 1112 dollars man now if you're okay $1,200. Wow. $1,112. Man. Now, if you're okay with the polished nickel, I can get that for you for $1,060. So I save $52. Perfect.

Great. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. The polished gold is not the one the polished gold is not the world's most expensive doorknob if i bump it up to antique gold 1135 dollars that's the check out my knobs.com largest collection of decorative hardware don't know why we're giving them free free advertising but there you go. Well, it's pretty quick, but there's one other takeaway for the main episode. I'd love to hear it.

Let's take it away. Number two. Patients and doctors both grapple with what's called the doorknob phenomenon. What's that? Yeah, the doorknob phenomenon. What's that? It's a, yeah, the doorknob phenomenon is a psychological situation and it's good for everybody to know about. Sources here, CBS News, the New York Times and the American Academy of Family Physicians, because the doorknob phenomenon, it's referring to the moment at the end of a doctor's appointment where the doctor is leaving the exam room and

they're reaching for the doorknob. And that's often a time when the patient says, you know, oh, by the way, and then says something super important that they should have been talking about the whole time. Oh, right. And probably something that they find a little embarrassing. Exactly. Yeah. That's one of the main reasons people do this. Like, oh, everything's fine with me, doc. No, just a regular checkup. Thanks. Okay. Well, you know, you should take your vitamin E and everything else. Reach for the doorknob. Oh, and also, I have a snake lost inside of me somewhere.

I feel like the way this phenomenon goes, I feel like the doctor would be like, at least he directly said it at the doorknob time. I didn't still have to get it out of him, you know? Right. Maybe the grass, the doorknob. Oh, one other thing. My feet fell off. Right. Anyway.

Yeah, that's apparently, and this is across like physicians and therapy and all kinds of different things. And the one other main driver of this is that doctors are rushed and they're in a hurry and they're busy. And so sometimes they're just kind of like, you know, running through the appointment too fast and then the patient has to flag them down. Let's blame the patient. I know that's what's appointment too fast. And then the patient has to flag them down. Let's blame the patient. I know that's what's going on here. Yeah. It's the, oh, I have a snake, by the way. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like the patient has to talk about some butt stuff or something. They don't want to, and they got to bring it up. Yeah. Yeah. It probably also makes it feel like the problem is smaller in the patient's head. Like they're presenting to the doctor like, as you know, I'm mainly these normal things. Oh, yeah. By the way, this other thing.

Yeah, this other thing. Yeah. I went blind in one eye three years ago. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. And the doorknob phenomenon, it also causes kind of two issues. Because one is that it's

just harder for a doctor to find out what's actually going on. But also the other is it tends to put doctors behind schedule. So often when your doctor is like slow to get around to you, it can be because, you know, they were on track with their appointment schedule and then someone doorknob phenomenon to them and made it take 20 more minutes and then they're behind i think i understand now why my doctor just carries a doorknob around with him all the time he's always got one in his hand just as he's talking twisting it in front of your face like are you sure that's right yeahs it snappy. Folks, that is the main episode for this week.

My thanks to John Hodgman for doing this at all. Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. E if you support this show on Patreon.com. Patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is the Cork door handle scandal. And that's Cork as in Cork the city in Ireland. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of almost seven dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring doorknobs with us. Here's one more run through the big

takeaways. Takeaway number one, from a design perspective, doorknobs might be the worst interface for a door in at least four ways. Takeaway number two, patients and doctors both grapple with what's called the doorknob phenomenon. And then tons of stats, numbers, Dexys, Halls, Oates, all kinds of other things mingled into the rest of the episode. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guest. He's great. John Hodgman's TV show, along with David Reese. It's called Dicktown.

That is short for Richardsville. And Dicktown premieres on the FXX channel with its second season on Thursday, March 3rd. That's the Thursday after this podcast episode comes out. And in between seeing John guest and act and do things on every television show, I hope you'll check out the Judge John Hodgman podcast. That's also with Bailiff Jesse Thorne, who you might remember from the Murr episode of this podcast. Just one of the best shows around. It's on Maximum Fun, one of the best networks around. Great thing. Check it out. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. A book called The Design of Everyday

Things that's by designer and cognitive scientist Don Norman. Also a PBS interview with designer Bruce Hanna, who is a department chair at the Pratt Institute. Also online resources from the American Academy of Family Physicians. Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is unbroken, unshaven by the Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show.

And thank you to all our listeners. I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then.