Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - The Color Orange

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedians/podcasters Adam Tod Brown (‘Unpopular Opinion’ podcast network) and Jeff May (‘Jeff Has Cool Friends’ podcast) for a look at why the color orange is secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

The Color Orange. Known for being bright. Famous for being fruit. Nobody thinks much about it. Orange you glad we will? Let's find out why the Color Orange is 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. Adam Todd Brown and Jeff May are my guests. I'm so excited they're back. Adam Todd Brown is the creator, host, proprietor, all-knowing, all-seeing leader of the Unpopular

Opinion Podcast Network. Jeff May is a frequent guest and sometimes host on that network. He has his own wonderful podcast called Jeff Has Cool Friends, and you may know them from multiple episodes of this podcast, in particular about colors such as gray and blue and beige. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Canarsie and Lenape peoples. Acknowledge Adam recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Ortongva and Keech peoples. Acknowledge Jeff recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Ortongva and Keech and Chumash and Fernandinho-Taraviam 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 the color orange. Self-explanatory, joyful, involves the fruit. Let's get to it. So please sit back or keep driving to the town in France formerly called Arasio because you really want to be on theme. Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Adam Todd Brown and Jeff May. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Adam, Jeff, we're back at it. Very exciting.

And of course, I always ask the guest's relationship for the topic or opinion of it. Either we can start. How do you feel about the color orange? It is my second favorite color behind yellow. Behind yellow? Yeah, my top four, yellow, orange, black, and pink in your area. I'm a Chicago Bears fan, and orange is one of their colors. I've always been way into orange. I like a weird color.

I like a color that people don't typically like. I feel like orange gets frowned on in all capacities, candy, clothing. There's no orange stoplight. It's just excluded. It's a fringe color and I like it. It's warm, though. It's a nice warm color. Makes me think of the summer.

Yeah. Make you think of the summer, Alex? It makes me think of mainly sports. And I think it's partly a Bears thing. But then, like, I went to Syracuse for school and then i got way into the world cup when i was a kid and the dutch are big on that and like like it's been a sports thing throughout my life and then also construction sites do you like how alex like to just casually drop that he knows how to read yeah he went to school oh his majesty went to orange school. Oh, yeah. Orange is fine.

As somebody who grew up and was in high school in the late 90s, yellow and orange, prominent clothing colors at the time. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing an orange visor on some dipshit. Yeah, the 90s were neon as shit. Yeah, a lot of people buying yellow and orange cars in 1999. And let me tell you. Wow. Mistake. Yeah.

Yeah, there was a yellow Hummer in our neighborhood in the early 2000s. Yeah, there was. That was really going on. I think no personally owned vehicle has done more of a heel turn than the Hummer. Where if somebody had a Hummer in 1999, you're like, that guy's awesome. And now if you see it, you're like, what an absolute piece of trash. I've only been in a Hummer once

and it had a shocking lack of leg room in the back. Like I figured I'd be able to get back there and take a nap. And it was a nightmare. It was like being in the back of a truck, like in the back seats of a truck, not in the back part of a truck well yeah where else you're gonna put your your minigun yeah well i mean there were several guns in there too that

might have been part of the problem yeah i have not a huge opinion about orange as a color every i've tried orange shirts and then every time i wear it i'm like nope i have one of those wmba hoodies the orange one and i break it out in very very limited situations because it's still an orange hoodie that like i have to wear something over it otherwise it's too halloween looking yeah that's the that's the other thing too is i think orange becomes the official color of halloween right which means like if you wear it and I wear a lot of black too, cause you know, angst and people. So every time you,

if you wear orange and you have anything else black, somebody's like, Ooh, someone's feeling spooky today. Yeah. That's kind of the problem. Yeah. I wore that WNBA hoodie to an NBA game and that's kind of the only place I've broken it out.

It's good, though. I want to support, and it's a cool hoodie. I like orange food. Yeah. Oh, I like orange fruits. Most of it's good, yeah. I like a tangerine. I like a good, like a Golden King tangerine.

Yeah, a tangerine, any of those tiny oranges that peel really easy. Love them. Oh, yeah, where they have like ugly skin that's falling off of them oh i love it delish i think the last unpops i heard you guys were talking about french dressing and like man what a dressing oh man most orange sauces are incredible yeah oh yeah orange chicken is great chicken is great because it's like how do you make something that's already tan somehow more tan ish and orange yeah i like this i gotta be and here's the most controversial opinion i like a circus peanut oh i do too what i love a circus peanut huge fan of a circus peanut you don't like those alex you're the first two people i've ever met who like those in my entire life they're so good i hate a candy corn but i like me a circus peanut yeah candy corn can go back to hell where it came from but circus peanuts oof that's tasty

it's a tasty tree we are gonna have to divide our halloweens i'm way into candy corn i think it's great oh no oh no. Oh, this is. Is this what they teach you at fancy school, boy? Yeah, I think we have enough huge conflicts brewing in the world right now without you adding another one to it, Alex. I will also add that. And I know this isn't necessarily color based, but my favorite holiday treat is a chocolate orange. Pass. You lost me there.

What's a chocolate orange? It is a chocolate ball that is orange and chocolate flavored. You can get them in either milk or dark chocolate. So it's a synthesis of the two flavors. And you get it. It's the thing you take it and you whack it onto the table and then you open it up and they look like little segments of orange, but're candy that sounds pretty good it's just a little candy a delight an absolute delight the chocolate orange is the superior holiday treat i put it above peppermint bark and i put the bark shots fired alex hit the air horn please hey. Hey, I own William Sonoma, buddy.

Okay, so that's my livelihood you're bagging on. I'm sure they've got a chocolate orange going around there. Orange is such a like, I feel like it's the most technicolor common nature color. Like it's such a wild, bright shade. And also it's all over nature all the time in the foods and the animals and everything sometimes the animals are the foods orange chicken for example yeah that's why orange chicken is so good it's the rarest chicken it's the hardest one to find yeah they come like that yeah they come with that salt that is the blood

of an orange chicken on orange chicken. People don't realize that. I like a blood orange, too. Blood orange chicken. Blood orange is good. Blood orange is tasty. Messy, but tasty. Those are good, too. Yeah.

But they're also not orange inside. They're traitors. Also great. Blood chicken. Blood chicken. I love it. We'll end this episode this week. It's two big takeaways, and then the stats and numbers at the end.

It's flipped around. Alex, what? So we'll get to that later. Can I be honest with you? I did not sign up for this. Yeah. Dude, you have. Guys, come back.

Come back. You have changed. All right. Bye, Alex. Yeah. I told my mom I wouldn't do this. No. But yeah, we can jump from here into takeaway number one

the orange fruit gave us the name of the color and kind of the concept of it that's the the name of the color orange comes from the fruit and also before it reached europe in particular europeans didn't really think of orange as its own color. They didn't have autumn? Yeah, they just called that shade yellow-red or another thing. It took a while for that concept to be a super common Crayola color to Europeans. Could you imagine taking an old European into a Benjamin Moore store like the like a benjamin moore store and just showing him the difference between like eggshell yeah and cream this is periwinkle this is periwinkle here this color no this is gray blue

those are much more accurate depictions other than like sea breeze yeah it really is orange does orange even deserve its own word isn't it orange is just a compound of red and yellow right so i don't like that these compound colors have unrhymable names it's a it's a it's a move if i can be 100 honest that they were just like we'll create this it's a beautiful color for poetry, and we'll call it purple. Nothing rhymes with it. Okay, what about the orange? Sure, why not?

Could have at least made orange and purple rhyme. Yeah. They fixed it with green, by the way. But that's because green was everywhere. You get green in grass. You don't have to mash up seashells like you have to do to get purple idiot color well with this color uh this is the the orange is the origin of it i accidentally said orange instead of origin more like the orange and orange boy more like the orangina oh we all really loudly pop the tops of Oranginas into the mics.

Like, ah, that's the word. Yeah, we're French now. When I was a kid, I had an uncle who was an RC Cola distributor. And as a result, we had a ton of Orangina around the house all the time. And at one point, my sister had a friend over and this friend had never heard of Orangina or seen it. And my sister was like, it's booze. Let's get drunk. And they both drank two Oranginas and my sister's friend was acting like she was so hammered. And it's not alcohol. And we arrested her. Yeah, we killed her. Yeah, she's dead now. Well, and the key sources here, one of them is a book from many of these color episodes.

It's called The Secret Lives of Color by Cassia St. Clair. Amazing book. Everybody should get it. And another book here called Oranges by New Yorker writer John McPhee. And then an article for Atlas Obscura by Annie Eubank. Because the orange fruit is where we get the name of the color and the whole thing. And orange fruits could be a whole separate episode, but they've been cultivated by people for thousands of years first in southeast asia and then the first written record of it is in a chinese text called the five classics written around 500 bc

and edited by confucius the person as opposed to confucius, the hot dog. Or the monster truck. Yeah. Come see Confucius jump 15 buses. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, Confucius. $10 for the whole seat, but you only need the edge. Just watching him do philosophy. Just misogynistic philosophy the whole time yeah the and then the orange fruit first cultivated in southeast asia and then just

trade and also agricultural exchange slowly brings it west like through asia and east africa and eventually up through the Mediterranean into Europe. And as it moved around, it also had a pretty consistent name across languages. One of the earliest is a Sanskrit word, which is Naranga. It's spelled N-A-R-A-N-G-A. And then it became a similar word in Persian and in Arabic. We also got Naranja in Spanish. A lot of languages keep it similar. Yeah. I worked at Steak and Shake once. I'm sure you all know where this is going. And I had a coworker named Griot. She was a Mexican girl. And I learned from her that media Naranja is like an expression of love. And it just means medium size orange,

but it's also like a weird expression of love. And it just means medium size orange. But it's also like a weird expression of love in Spanish. Like my little cabbage in French. Yeah. Either that or she was just f***ing with me. And I have taken this knowledge public. And I'm going to be ripped to shreds on the internet. But it's fine. I have my mentions turned off.

Welcome to the Gringo Hour on secretly incredibly fascinating let me explain all the stupid things we were told as a joke man now i'm just thinking about steak and shake too it's a great restaurant it's not where i live so good so good with this color you have to pick water burger yeah yeah now i'm thinking about another great restaurant not near me it's very good So good. With this color, you have to pick Whataburger. Yeah. Yeah. Now I'm thinking about another great restaurant not near me. It's very good. You're going to call that a restaurant?

Is that the word you're going to use to describe it? Yeah. If you're going to describe a real restaurant that's colored orange, it's going to be Little Caesars, obviously. Not bad. Or Popeyes. Popeyes. Oh, yeah. Popeyes is good.

Spoiler alert. I don't know because we don't get information ahead of time. Are you going to talk about how so many fast food places are orange? No. Yeah, I'm not going to get into it. Wow. I guess you have no take. How about a third takeaway?

Yeah. It sounds like we just delivered the first takeaway here. First takeaway is Alex ain't doing his job. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, welcome back to Secretly Incredibly Fascinating, everybody. I'm Adam Todd Brown here with my co-host Jeff May, our special guest Alex Schmid. I just slowly fade away like that back to the future picture.

I'm just not here anymore. All that's left is an orange. Yeah. Also the name of all of your state's worst counties. Yes. Wow. Yeah. I lived near Orange County, New York at one point for about six months.

And, you know, it's like living with a community full of retired cops because that's what it is. It is a community. I also had no idea that Orange County Choppers is in New York. Like I thought I thought that was a California thing that whole time. Oh, it's in New York? Yeah. At one point I drove past it and was like, what the, is that the Orange County they mean? Sure is.

Yeah. Because they look like cops. Yeah. Well, because Orange County, California is not as coppy, but I just assumed it was still that kind of guy, you know? Man, wow. Yeah, no. Orange County, California is cop worship.

Yes. Yes. They're role playing. They're cosplaying as cops. They like calling the cops in Orange County. Right. California. In New York, they like being cops.

And in L.A., we call the cops d**ks. Hey-ho! Hey! Ooh, traffic cones are orange cops oh hey traffic cones are orange yeah traffic cones are orange i like to think that we could turn this into a kindergarten class and you're just like yeah traffic cones are orange yeah anybody else cream anything orange cream sickles just banana boat banana boat boat sunblock. Children's Tylenol. Man, I loved the children's Tylenol when I was a kid. I love it as an adult.

The delicious taste. Take it down with a couple of Oranginas. Hell yeah. Get my buzz going. But you're not supposed to mix it with alcohol, so. Bad idea. Yeah. And with the word here, there is one change that happens because you have all these words for the fruit that start with N. And Atlas Obscura writes about a weird linguistic thing where many words have lost the N on the front when they go into French.

Apparently, then that has a knock-on effect on English, too. The word nuncle eventually became English uncle, but you still hear nuncle in Shakespeare sometimes and stuff. Then the word napron became apron. You drop the N as this linguistic change happens. And so naranga became orange in French, and then French orange became English orange. That's how we got it. Orange. Yeah, I think we're doing it the best. We don't need that extra N. We're nailing it. We also land with that

solid G. In the French it's like a G. Orange. Commit, France. We're like orange. They put an extra U in that? Is it O-U-R-A-N-G? I i bet it's o-r-e-n-g-e that's also what adam uh says to his wife he goes oh you are ang correct yeah that's a good job

can i be honest yeah that's the most clever thing i've ever said and three people understood that joke it's probably the best joke you've ever written, yeah. I think so. That and the cancer bit. Call back to the Pops episode. Sometimes I make good jokes about bad, bad things that I can never tell again. Mostly about oranges. Wow.

Angie's great. But yeah, and this fruit and the word for it, that shows up in Europe, and then especially in England, the color idea kind of comes after. Cassius Sinclair says the color name orange first appeared in English in 1502. It was a note between English royals about a piece of clothing being orange-colored. piece of clothing being orange colored and before that english speakers used the portmanteau yellow red and the fanciest version was to call it giallo reed which is like i think an italian influenced it's spelled g-i-o-l-u-r-e-a-d-e it's like a fancy word for it's a band is what that is yeah yeah that is the model g teamed up with lou reed yeah yeah giallo reed yeah that's a band name yeah before the 1500s english speakers were like oh look at

that giallo reed you know chicago bears jersey or whatever like it was silly uh it doesn't make any sense yeah well you know the bears before they went to chicago they played in the 1500s and that's where bear baiting comes from correct you would actually just tie up refrigerator perry and have him fight a bunch of pit bulls bear down yes definitely shakespearean era uh sporting references here only the only the highest brow of comedy here on secretly incredibly fascinating everybody now that we know that alex went to school we have to up our comedy game and uh and yeah and so then from there we'll talk a little later especially about how like europe kind of got into orange as a concept for this color.

But also in some other places outside Europe, the humongously popular shades of orange are named after other stuff. The biggest example might be in South Asia, because the holy men and monks in Buddhism and also in Hinduism, many of them wear various shades of an orange color, but it's usually described as saffron because that's a color and a spice and a real thing that they're thinking of when they see that color. Like the colors on the flag of India are officially green and white and saffron. It's not officially orange.

It's weird how they're wrong about that. It's weird. It's orange. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. They're wrong about that. It's weird. It's orange. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. They should call it turmeric. Yeah, you got that too.

Yeah. But yeah, so in the English language, our color orange, the name and the idea is coming from the fruit. That it's also now counties and a bunch of other stuff. And then we could also get straight from here into takeaway number two the color orange's name and concept got a huge separate boost from a dutch revolution named after a small french village orange county choppers in the netherlands is it orange boom what's orange boom a beer a dutch beer oh you can buy it it's probably named after it yeah very good and a good valued cans are huge yeah it turns out so there's this trend where orange fruits and the name kind of give us the color in europe but then separately for separate reasons there is a royal house of orange that became the royal

house of the netherlands and then kind of adopted that color as their branding i mean that's the house of orange that caused some trouble in ireland yeah right with the william good old william good old billy orange good old billy it's true yeah a bunch of the guys are named william like the current king of the n is Willem Alexander. They're way, way into Williams. It's actually the current king of the Netherlands is actually Will. I am. And he's that's, which is why you haven't seen a lot of him lately.

People are like, what happened to the black eyed peas? It's like, sorry, duty first, you know? Yeah. They're the orange eyed peas now. Update your records. That's why Fergie sounds like a British royal. She's a Dutch royal. What happened to Fergie, by the way? Are we sure she's okay? She's gone. Fergie disappeared. Oh, she's Fergulicious. Yeah. Well, she was, and I think someone ate her. She's gone.

Oh no. She's gone. Fergie disappeared. Oh no. Has she gone 2000 and late? Seems like it. Yeah. It seems like it, yeah. So there's a really weird, basically, coincidence in European history where orange fruits and the name make their way over from Asia. And then separately, there's accidentally a village in France where the word that's the name kind of sounds like the word orange. I know that's a little bit confusing. But the Royal House of Orange is the royal family in the Netherlands today. And they have their origins in a town in southeastern France that was originally called Arasio. It's A-R-A-U-S-I-O. It was founded by Gallic people and named after a Gallic water god. And then like the Romans take that over and then the Visigoths

and then the Holy Roman Empire. And as language changed over, the name of the town went from Arasio to a word that is either orange or something that sounds just like it. And so totally by coincidence, the royal family that comes out of that town has the same name as a fruit from Asia. I would like to add that there are no words that sound just like orange. There are no rhymes for it. Do your research, Alex. No. Yeah.

This is embarrassing. Sounds like you got got, my friend. I'm realizing the poetry segment of this week's episode is not going to hold together. You are orange with embarrassment, aren't you? Yeah. Orange, you ashamed. Oh. Yeah. episode it's not gonna hold together uh okay orange with embarrassment aren't you yeah orange you ashamed oh yeah when i signed up to go to syracuse one of my relatives just the first thing they said was orange you glad you went to syracuse i know it's a school okay school the joke that me and jeff were wailing over was orange you glad you went to Syracuse by the way

I heard it if no one else did we were laughing so hard it was just Naran ha ha ha ha hey boom nailed it huge crowds all

over Spain and Latin America just going nuts like they won the World Cup. Yeah, like they scored one goal in a game that doesn't matter. Yes. And then this town of Aracio that kind of became named Orange later. In the 1100s, the noble house of Nassau built a castle there. They changed their name to the House of Orange Nassau and then acquired a bunch of land all over Europe, in particular in the Netherlands, and then jumped from the 1100s to the 1500s. leader is William Prince of Orange, who is nicknamed William the Silent. But yeah, that guy from this royal house, like finds himself being the leader of a Dutch revolt. You know why he's silent is because he couldn't come up with a good rhyme for his name.

Yeah, that'll do it. It's gonna quiet anyone down. But yeah, and so William the Silent leads a successful revolt that ends up being a war across Europe. And from there, that founds a Dutch state. And they're doing this mid-1500s revolt right when the fruit and the word and the color orange are starting to become popular in Europe. And so as part of this revolt, William sees what Cassius St. Clair describes as a branding opportunity. And from there, this house that was named after a tiny town in France starts adopting a color and fruit from Asia. And the House of Orange starts emphasizing various shades of orange in their clothes and all their stuff is orange. And to this day, orange is the Dutch trademark color.

Like their sports teams are all in bright orange jerseys. It's a bummer to me that we missed out on the time when just the concept of a new fruit is going to like sweep the nation. Yeah. Like, I guess the best thing is when we started eating the garnishes from buffets and salads again, when we were just like kale. Hell yeah, let's do that there was a new apple that came out recently the cosmic crisp they spent years developing that thing i love it it has divided the apple eating community but i find it to be a treat it is cosmically crisp i'm an envy apple guy i know you're jealous uh i like an envy apple and uh it's divided in the household

yeah i mean we're not here to start wars i'm just telling you that there was a new apple recently we don't have to get into all the specifics because okay well first off shut up it's gonna get uh that you that how about you take your envy apple and stick it up your yeah yeah but there's no like there's no new kind of fruit that comes out and every and it sweeps the nation that doesn't happen anymore and that's a bummer we're gonna bring it back maybe it's because we were talking about fast food before i feel like the new version is new fast food items like the pope's chicken sandwich is the thing that we all freak out about and build a royal house around, you know? Yeah, if we could, yeah.

Ye royal in-and-out mediocre burger. Yeah, that Popeye's chicken sandwich is going to start some wars someday. I think it's a little overrated. I'm going to be honest, I think all chicken sandwiches are pretty overrated because it's just a chicken sandwich. Yeah, I mean, there's good ones, but I think people chicken sandwiches are pretty overrated because it's just a chicken sandwich. Yeah, I mean, there's good ones, but I think people are just in general too up in arms about chicken sandwiches.

It's just calm down. It's chicken sandwich. Same thing with bacon. People were all crazy. Oh, Mr. Bacon, shut up. Kevin Bacon is Mr. Bacon. You're an accountant. Yeah, you're an accountant that makes that makes uncomfortable

cupcakes that brings into the office you're like look they have bacon on them they're baking on a donut idiot stupid stupid you know what i like though an orange donut orange cake donut is my favorite donut those are great i know that we've stopped on on tours several times we've stopped at places to get orange donuts the best orange cake donut is my favorite donut. Those are great. I know that. We've stopped on tours several times. We've stopped at places to get orange donuts. The best orange cake donut I've ever had was from a gas station in Arizona when we were driving to Albuquerque for a show in Albuquerque. Find yourself an orange cake donut if you can. I think that's the big takeaway from this episode. I think we can all

agree when to end the color orange as a dutch thing they also spread it a few ways from there as a country one of them is colonialism is terrible but also uh it partly stuck and became famous because in 1584 William the Silent gets assassinated and he's also believed to be the first head of state ever killed with a handgun because he was shot like in the chest by an assassin

but so from there Orange and more like William the Silent there we go because he got shot and killed and now he's silent for real did he get shot with did the guy also invent the silencer william the silencer in a sense he became william the silenced is what he was but and uh and then from there like as a tribute like sort of like how jfk was killed and a bunch of jf stuff was everywhere. As a tribute to this guy, it was like, well, orange, we're going to put it places.

Remember this guy. This guy. So we're going to put up an orange flag so we can remember a guy violently dying by being shot by a gun. Yeah. Classic. I don't know if you're planning to talk about it, but there's an orange tie-in with Ukraine also. There was an incident that happened in Ukraine called the Orange Revolution, which is one of the things that really kicked off the situation that's happening now. That's a perfect segue.

Yeah, because from here we can get into our final fascinating thing, which is a whole set of fascinating numbers and statistics. This week that's in a segment called Nowadays. Everybody wants some stats like they got something to count, but nothing comes out when Alex moves his lips. Just a bunch of gibberish. They're fascinating stats, but they forgot about Schmidt. Wow. Is that okay? That was good.

That was good. Is that from something or did you come up with that? You just came up with that yourself. It was a good melody. It was good flow. You should put that in a song. He's like the Will.i.am of this podcast. The other day I was in Detroit with my difficult family and I just had a bunch of ideas.

And you were walking by with a Walkman on and you saw a guy. You an awkward eye? That name was submitted by Israel Medina Sanchez. Thank you, Israel. We have a new name every week. Please make it as silly and wacky as possible. Submit to SifPod on Twitter or to SifPod at gmail.com. Let it be known that we here at Sif love Israel.

Isolate that. Put it out on the internet. isolate that put it out on the internet just uh and this is probably the most political numbers section ever they're mostly years and the first one is a whole different conflict also it's not a breaking news podcast it'll be a few weeks till this out so we won't be on top of the latest but the number is 2004 because 2004 is the start date of a series of ukrainian protests called the orange revolution and it's a lot of the background of the conflict today or at least the the political situation in ukraine then they they went to 2008 and then to 2000 and late man music is really prominent in this one tell you what

you don't even like music. Well, that song was about Ukraine. People don't realize that. And the color orange. Yeah. But the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, there was an incumbent candidate, Viktor Yanukovych. He was accused of massive electoral fraud when the results said he won. And he and his side were also accused of poisoning

opposition candidate victor yushchenko who was definitely poisoned by somebody and survived it yeah was the poison orange uh no and i don't understand where this is going yeah sorry here's how crazy ukraine is that guy who was accused of poisoning his rival ran again a few years later and won. Ukraine, you crazy. Yeah. Like the next election. Yeah. Yeah. And so Yanukovych accused of rigging the election and poisoning his opponent, but he tried to

just stay in power. And then there were mass protests and the color of the campaign by the opponent, Yushchenko, was orange. That was their campaign color. So, Yushchenko, was orange. That was their campaign color. So the protesters wore orange. It was called the Orange Revolution. And that forced a new election won by Yushchenko that, you know, temporarily for six years or so pushed out Yanukovych. Right.

And then he campaigned again promising to orient Ukraine a little more toward the European Union. So people were like, OK, fine, we'll elect you. And then as soon as he was elected, he was like, psych, we're moving toward Russia again. And the U.S. traditionally loves those kind of antics. And we definitely had nothing to do with the ensuing coup that happened a couple of years later. Yeah. Yeah. I did that. Sorry. do with the ensuing coup that happened a couple of years later yeah yeah it's uh this is like sorry it was me when i and until researching i hadn't remembered or i guess known that orange was involved at all like it was the color of this pro-european side of ukrainian politics and pro

not poisoning your opponents not rigging elections so much uh side of it so yeah that's that's the roots of it here yunukovych's party used blue also so you had blue and orange in that classic color wheel opposition that you see in a lot of sports jerseys is there a college is is there a college that uses those colors adam uh alex blue there's none i don't think there are. Kind of all of them, too. Like, sometimes Syracuse would play another school that wears orange, and it was really hard to look at.

It was a really difficult game. Oh, did you go to Syracuse? Wow. Also, can we just say more like Yablukovic? Hey. Because his campaign colors were blue. Thanks. I'm going to take take off that took him out

of power that did it yeah out of here but yeah and apparently when yunukovic ran again and when his party ran again they called their opponents policies orange leadership like until until basically now where people are just waving the uk flag for Ukraine, you know, orange was kind of the color of the pro-European side of it. You're the pro-European side of it. Nailed him. You just got orange. That was a good one. That was a good one.

Thank you. Next thing here is a big trumpet sound for a big takeaway. Before that, we're going to take a little break. We'll be right back. 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 allison 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.

Pretty orange, yeah. Well, and next number here, this is the other most political number ever on the show because it is 2019, the year 2019. Uh-oh. That is the year when the White House gave an official statement on why President Donald Trump's skin coloration is orange.

They were asked about it and they said something about it. And the answer was? He's a piece of s***. You took down the Cheeto man. Cheeto man bad, baby. Yeah, like, Cheeto Man bad, baby. Like, it is, I was thinking, I think there's only been one other show ever where I planned on talking about Donald Trump. He really doesn't come up much.

But, like, he's very famous for the orange skin thing. We got to, like, mention it, I think. It seems relevant. Yeah, what did they say in terms of why he's orange? And I guess it was news like in 2019 the new york times tried to investigate it because especially if you look at photos of him from like the early 2000s he's not orange yet and then he starts becoming orange over time and the time suggested it could be a combination of tanning beds and like bronzers and other skin products and a white is the answer though right like yeah i think the question is why he wears all that right and we don't have a definite answer that it's tanning and skin

products even though it's got to be but a white house official denied that it was those things and they said that the orange skin is because of quote good genes oh sure sure sure okay i like a yellow skin that's that's a but again my favorite color so when i see someone with yellow skin i'm like your liver is not working but you look great right like the condition jaundice like that yellow skin yeah yeah that's what i meant jaundice a lot of clarification in that statement i could see alex get a little uh like frog in his throat real quick oh jaundice yeah okay yeah yeah yeah i wasn't being playfully racist there no yeah he got there too yeah yeah yeah yeah the thing that's who washington should have changed their football team's name to jachi the thing or the rumor I've heard about why Trump uses all that Tanner or

tanning and bronzer stuff is that he got way into that silver alkaloid stuff that was going around silver, the internet. Yeah. Colloidal silver. And that turns your skin blue. And I have heard that the reason he does it is because his skin is actually kind of blue from all the silver.

So maybe it's that crossover that's so dumb here we go yeah yeah now we're gonna do one called orange because officially technically we do not know why he started turning orange about 20 years ago. There's no official, official explanation. It could be the colloidal blue stuff. It could be he just likes bronzers and stuff. There's also, I'm going to link a Mother Jones article where they basically say it's because a close friend of his got into the tanning and tanning bed business. into the tanning and tanning bed business. There's a guy named Steve Hilbert, who is a conservative businessman in Indiana. And apparently in 2006, he bought a company called New Sunshine

that does both tanning beds and also skin bronzer type products. And that company became a key sponsor of the TV show The Apprentice. That company also made a deal to create a whole line of products with Melania Trump as the face of it, and then ended up in court because that never came together. But the speculation from Mother Jones is that, you know, 2006 is around when Donald Trump starts turning orange. And so maybe he like got way into his buddy's stuff, either for business purposes or just because he likes it. That was his war paint. So he could be racist to Obama.

That makes sense. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's got to put on an orange face. Yeah. They also say New Sunshine was a current sponsor when Trump started the birther stuff about Obama.

And New Sunshine like put out a statement saying we are fully firmly behind trump like he's a wonderful guy we don't care like they they rode that out this is how close of a relationship this is and trump and hilbert have been like collaborating on real estate deals since the 90s it's an old friendship they're doing a collab yep yes dm for collab trump trump x hilbert they're street they're gonna have a streetwear design company on fairfax and the other thing is like because donald trump became the president his straight his skin color is like newsworthy right like maybe it indicates a health condition it's it's something that orgs are allowed to investigate and so there's no definite answer here but a bunch of places have looked into this

box.com thinks he used a swiss makeup company called bronx colors like there's a bunch of theories bronx is in new york you idiot yeah yeah uh and to to come back to what you said i don't know if you know this about the president before trump, but skin color also a part of the news. True. Yeah. Did they ever explain that? That's a fun joke. I took a sip of water when you said that, and I almost spit it over everything I own.

Yeah, that was a. Well, and there's one more number here. Also, I am going to drop a picture in the chat i realize there's a picture for it it is uh 69 whoa alex this is vulgar my god download orange you glad i sent you that picture hey here we go here we go thanks for the work alex couldn't you just texted me this thing? Yeah. I mean, this holy smokes thing. I have to download it. You made me put this on my computer.

Thanks for the virus. When the last number here is 1874, the year 1874. That is when artist Claude Monet unveiled a painting called Impression Sunrise. And we'll picture link picture linked for people too. It's a small painting and it depicts a port in France. So it's mostly like blue sea and sky, but then it's an orange dot of sun, orange reflection on the water.

Like orange is kind of the middle of it. You know what painting this, you know what this painting reminds me of with this color scheme? Syracuse College University. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. Yeah. Anyone ever been?

Anyone ever been? Carrier dome? Travel there? Anyone listen to the carrier? Anyone like the carrier dome? It's going to collapse someday. Yeah. There's a carrier dome.

Did they ever fix that roof? That thing's going to fall. It's great. I thought you just knew about it from like sports fandom, but you know about it from structural upcoming issues. From infrastructure. Yeah. It's one of the only stadiums left that still has that like balloon roof, like the one at

the Metrodome that collapsed. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, what's the worst thing that's going to happen? A bunch of Syracuse fans get taken out? Oh, no. I mean, that would actually be pretty bad, I think. Yeah, it would be awful.

Yeah, it would be a tragedy. I don't want that. You know what else is a tragedy? This Monet painting. I could do this. Yeah. Yeah, it's all blurry. Come on.

Come on. Draw a line. You ever see Monet's up close? You ever been to the Monet exhibits? They had a bunch at the art institute of chicago but it was like it was one room where it's five different paintings of the same haystack on different days you know so as a kid we were taught like this is actually important that he did this that's infuriating that is if i went to that exhibit and that was what i saw i would lose my mind yeah i'd be pretty shoplift from the gift shop. So hard. When I went there,

I'd be like, I so much space ice cream would be in my backpack. Yeah. I should have shoplifted from the Reagan library. I went there not too long ago to see the FBI exhibit. And I went to the gift shop. I should have stolen. What's wrong with me?

Yeah. I would have served him. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And then you should have, uh, installed a crack epidemic with them among the employees.

Yeah. Yeah. Cause a big migration crisis and then demonize people for it. Yeah. The only thing I bought was a collector's edition magazine about the assassination of Bobby Kennedy that came out the day after Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. And boy, does it have some details for being released about 24 hours after he was killed. It's crazy. You know what you should do is you should sell arms to a rival.

Museum. Yeah. Well, I would only do that if I needed money to fund another initiative that was going on somewhere else in the world. Another museum, yeah. Yeah, yeah. another initiative that was going on somewhere else in another museum yeah yeah like something like i maybe sell arms to a museum in the middle east so i can fund museum efforts in central america yeah i think we can all agree that that is

great yeah but five haystack paintings uh-uh no i'd be we saw the the monique exhibit traveled and i got to see it when i was in high school oh yeah and i got there and you know it was all the the hits were there you know there was some sunflowers there was a bridge yeah and when i got there and i was like it's fine yeah i feel like stuff like that you can just see it on the internet. You know what's the cooler art? The X-Men. I might see Monet paint the X-Men. Can't do that.

Or how about art Alexakis from Everclear? That's a cool art right there. Yeah. Well, he'll tell you everything is wonderful now. Yeah. I bet that guy can point you to all the best coffee shops in Portland. No doubt. No doubt. Yeah. You know who can't do that? the best coffee shops in Portland. No doubt. No doubt.

Yeah. You know who can't do that? Claude Monet. Claude Monet, yeah. Claude. Doesn't even know one. Boring idiot. Name one coffee shop in Portland, Claude, if you're so talented. You sing me a song about Santa Monica if you're so good.

Do nothing, yeah. How about you front several mid-tiertier alt rock hits from the 90s clode or you're just gonna what you were gonna do paint a paint a haystack five times yeah tell me that when you can draw spider-man like art adams ain't happening what uh with his actual art uh cassia Sinclair says that this one painting centering on orange is the key landmark of the entire impressionist movement

it was shown in 1874 the show kind of kicked it all off and it got its name from the painting because it's called Impression Sunrise people said all of these blurry paintings they feel like impressionism like Impression Sunrise so a

painting with a big orange dot in the middle that started the whole thing impression sunrise does sound like an everclear song yes or an everclear album yeah they're probably still doing that who knows i saw everclear in concert a few years ago i bet it was was great. It wasn't. It wasn't. I'm a big, I'm actually a big fan of Everclear, but they are awful live. They're terrible. They'll tell you everything's not wonderful now.

There's too much going on and the way he sings, he almost kind of talks when he sings. You can't have that many guitars on stage and a guy, like,

talk singing. He always looked like he hosted a Dutch children's show. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard he's a huge sex creep so there's that too oh then i hope he doesn't host a children's show that's what i think let's take a firm stand controversial alex come on political again oh boy Political again. Oh, boy. Folks, that is the main episode for this week. My thanks to Adam Todd Brown and Jeff May for uniting with me about orange donuts. What a food.

What a thing. I'm going to go have one. for uniting with me about orange donuts. What a food. What a thing. I'm going to go have one. Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now.

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 four famous things and how people turned them orange. Visit sifpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than seven dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring The Color Orange with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways.

Takeaway number one, the orange fruit gave us the name of the color and gave us the concept. Takeaway number two, The Color Orange's name and concept got a huge separate boost from a Dutch Revolution and a small French village and its coincidental name. Plus, bring it up, the rear this episode, a slew of numbers for years which gets into the political and cultural meanings of orange, and there's a bunch more of that out in the bonus. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great. Check out the Unpopular Opinion Podcast Network. It's one of my favorite podcasting things, period. Brings you so much Adam Todd Brown. Jeff May is there, also on Gamefully Unemployed as co-host of Tom and Jeff Watch Batman. Also hosts his own podcast entitled Jeff Has Cool Friends, featuring guests such as Adam Todd Brown. Jeff also has a show called Ugh Fine with the great

Kim Krall. Wonderful audio things from both these guys, and I really, really hope you check it out because, you know, they've been great friends of this show, and I think it's a good, you know, universe we got going on. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. Always excited to turn back to the book The Secret Lives of Color by Kasia St. Clair. She's a cultural historian and design journalist, and we just did the very, very tip of the iceberg of what she has to share about orange and Dutch orange and a bunch of other shades of it, too. This episode leaned on another book, too. It's called Oranges. It's by John McPhee. He's a New Yorker writer writing about the fruit, but there were a lot of interesting, you know, elements for the color here, there.

Find those books and many more sources, such as the New York Times and the New Yorker, 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 the four separate amazing stories in 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.