Stuff You Should Know - How the Autobahn Works

Episode Date: November 1, 2011

The autobahn has an international reputation, and people around the world love the notion of driving on a road with no speed limits -- but how true is this reputation? Join Josh and Chuck as they tell you everything you need to know about the autobahn. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner. The residue-free, fast drying solution is specially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like Stone, Tile, Laminate, Vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call,

like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Rumor Zoom Zoom, Chuck. I was getting psyched in the car park. I was getting scared, Chuck. I was hoping you busted out a lot of German. Still coming.

We are going to do an episode on the Autobahn, as you probably noticed when you clicked play. We're going to get to the bottom of the age old question, who's zooming who? Chuck or me? Who was that? Aretha Franklin. Yes. One of her late career pop songs. She also did the Free Way of Love. That's interesting. She took up like a highway theme later in her career, although who's zooming who had nothing to do with the Autobahn, did it? No. I think you could make a case that had to do with SEX. Maybe. Interesting. Didn't every song in the 80s have to do with that? Or cocaine? No. Get out of my dreams. Get into my car.

What do you think the car is, of course? Get in the Fastlane Bay Bay? Yeah. See, this one's already better than you thought it was going to be. Let's begin. The Autobahn. Chuck. Faden, Faden, Faden on the Autobahn. So we'll get to that in a second. As a matter of fact, let's just get to it now. Who is that, Chuck? That's Kraftwerk. Or Kraftwerk. Kraftwerk. They are German. I actually saw them at the Coachella Festival. Wow. And I'm not a fan, so I wasn't that big of a deal to me. I understand their place. Yeah. It's like the biggest German band. They used to build their own instruments.

No, trust me. They were so ahead of their time they had to build their own instruments. Yeah. The early 70s. Yeah. They were doing techno music, sort of. But yeah, I'm just not a fan of that kind of music, so I didn't dig it. But I get it. They're great guys. Yeah. They seem like it. Nice dudes. And they had a song called Autobahn. Yeah. Which was eight in the Big Lebowski. Oh, yeah. By the Nihilists? No. Well, they were Nihilists, but they were the name of the band, and the Big Lebowski was Autobahn. The name of their album was Nagelbet, which I looked up today.

That is the Perion Perioncium, which is the tissue surrounding the fingernail and toenail. And that was the name of their album, which eight Kraftwerks album cover the man machine. Oh, there's some kid whose head just exploded. Yeah, exactly. Also, Kraftwerk has a place since the Simpsons Pantheon. They made an appearance verbally in the Fighting Hellfish episode. Oh, yeah. Remember the German heir shows up to claim the artwork, and he tells the farm boys to get a room. He tells everybody to hurry up because he has to go see Kraftwerk in Stuttgart. We should just end it, wrap it up right here. Yeah. All right. Thank you, everybody. Chuck, let's begin. All right.

You know my brother Bill? I don't know if you've ever met him or not. No. Okay. Well, Bill got into Porsches for a little while. So did my dad. And he got himself a brand new 9-11 Carrera in like the late 90s. It was sweet. It was silver. The moment it hit 55, a spoiler automatically came up. It was just nice. It's such sweet cars. And it had like a little sticker on the front, and it had like a guy's signature on it. And it was like a pen and hand signature. It was a real thing. And basically, it was like, I've driven this car and this thing is A-OK. And he said, you see that? That's a German race car driver's signature. This car had like 15 miles on it when I got it

because they'd taken it out on the Autobahn. They do that to every single one. So I did a little research. This is the late 90s. And from say 1996 to today, I thought that Porsche did that with every car. Doing a little research, I figured out that that's not the case. Bill may have been mistaken. It's a myth. Or he could have just gotten lucky and just happened to get the car that somebody test drove on the Autobahn. I think I've heard that before, actually. That Porsche does every single one? Or yeah. Or that they test, you know, test drive their fleet. Yeah. Maybe not all of them. But I didn't see any evidence whatsoever that they do anything, but they do use the Autobahn. This is the cool part to road test

like new models. Oh, really? Or they'll say, Hey, you're an auto journalist. Why don't you come on over to Germany and drive this thing? And they use it be like us taking a car out on I-85 or I-75, or probably more appropriately, 285 and just go in as fast as we can and then going home and writing about it. I just read an article, like you said, the auto writers. It was a car and driver. I think some dude got a Lamborghini Aventador and drove and wrote an article about driving 200 miles an hour on there's a stretch outside of Garmisch. Oh, yes, Garmisch. 45 miles of awesome roadway. And it's not like flat and straight. It's curvy and mountainous. And apparently, that's like one of the great places to go drive fast. Garmisch. Yes. Okay. We'll look for stuff

you should know quiz in the future with the answer of Garmisch. Oh, really? Yeah. All right. I've been coming up with questions in my head. Are you going to write these? Well, yeah. Okay. No, I'm going to telepathically beam the quiz to everybody who listens to stuff you should know. I was writing those quizzes for a while. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about that. I'm a little testy about this one. I'm not a car guy. You've seen my car. I'm not a car guy either. So I drive a truck. That's true. So are you a truck guy? No, I mean, it's just handy. Okay. You drive really fast though in your old, old beater. Yeah. So I thought you might appreciate this. Yeah. No, I'm not like a break a hundred miles an hour kind of guy at all. You're just a break

80 within neighborhoods of Atlanta kind of guy. No, I've slowed down quite a bit in my old age, in residential areas. But yeah, no, I still like to get from point A to point B. Like being on the highway to me is not a luxury. It's not like a great experience. It's like a, okay, now I can get there as fast as I possibly can. Sure. Because that's like an interruption of life, having to drive from one place to another. Yeah. Teleportation to me would be one of the greatest inventions of all time. I could dig that. Yeah. So you mentioned the myth that Porsche does that. There's another myth was that Adolf Hitler invented the Autobahn. Yeah. It's not really true. No, he gets a little credit for that. And oh, by the way, we should say to anybody who isn't from Germany or America,

or any other country in the world, if you don't know what the Autobahn is, it is the German federal highway system, the Boons Autobahn, right? Boondes. Boondes. Yes. Thanks. That means in English federal highway, motor, federal motorway, right? That's it. Yeah. And bond means track. So federal motor track is Boondes Autobahn. Yeah, sure. Okay. Strictly translated. And so, yeah, Adolf Hitler gets the lion's share of the credit as the father of the Autobahn, but it's not correct, right? No. I mean, the rise of the Nazi war machine definitely had a lot to do with the rise of the Autobahn and how extensive it became. But it began construction in 1929. And I think the first stretch between Cohn, Cologne, and Bonn was in 1932. Yeah. But he apparently also gets credit as

like the father of the highway system in general. Sure. You know, the US highway system is modeled after the Autobahn. Most highway, most federal interstate systems are. And Hitler gets the credit. But really, if you go back even further to, I think, 1913, there was this high, this experimental highway called the AVUS, AVUS highway in Berlin. Right? So that was like arguably the world's first highway. Because, you know, Germans were the world's first auto manufacturers. Sure. So they're the first ones to need a highway. And they do it right still. And then also, there is the Autostrada in Italy that was built in the 20s that linked Milan to the lakes in northern Italy. So, Hitler may have been inspired to get this plan out the door. But he didn't even come up with

the plan. There was another guy who was the PR head for the Berlin. I think it was Berlin. Or maybe just Germany as a whole, the German Chamber of Commerce. And he coined the term Autobahn in like 1920, 1921. Really? And the German Chamber of Commerce came up with this plan for this whole thing. And then the Nazis stole it. So he had another reason to hate the Nazis. That's if we needed it anymore. Yeah. So that is true, Josh. The initial first sections from Frankfurt to Darmstadt was very straight. And they did test Grand Prix racing cars way back when on the stretch of road. Yeah. That is true. Right. Because one dude died, Barron Rosemeyer, died in 1938 after setting the very brief record, 268.432. His little buddy Rudolph

Karakeola. That's miles per hour. Yeah. 432 kilometers per hour. Yeah. Right after that, Rudolph Karakeola jumped in his car and went 268.8. Yeah. And then Berndt said, oh, yeah. Let me try that again. And he got in and he died. Yeah. His car lifted off the ground. He got caught in a crosswind and was killed. That's very sad. What's interesting is those two speeds you just mentioned are still the fastest speeds ever clocked on the Autobahn. Yeah, these old cars. Yeah, 1938 in one day. And the first guy, Berndt Rosemeyer, he was driving an Auto Union V16, which a V16. Yeah. In Auto Union, eventually became Audi. And then Karateola, he was driving a Mercedes, a V12 Mercedes W125. And he beat Rosemeyer by like four hundreds of a second

or four tenths of a second. Did you see those cars? Yeah. I mean, they look sort of like smaller versions of Chitty Chitty Bank Bank. Yeah, kind of. And they're going 260 something miles an hour. Yeah. They look like old timey race cars driven by like old timey race car drivers. Yeah. Who died. The guy died that day. Is that weird? It's weirdly sad. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I was being charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime

example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's Chuck Wicks from Love Country. Talk to Chuck where we bring you what's really happening in the country music family. We also, if you love country, here's the

deal. If you love country music, you can be on the podcast. So if you're a fan of country music, what you can call in anytime. Like, oh, I wouldn't talk about this. Hall Cogan called in season one. He's like, Chuck Volkster. I love your podcast. I mean, Jason Aldean, Jimmy Allen, Carly Pierce, Lauren Elena, so many huge stars have been on Love Country. Talk to Chuck season two. It's going to get even better. Going to have the same big giant huge stars, but I think it's time bring some people in the studio right off the street. You love country music? Fine. Come talk to Chuck. That's how cool we are. I'm just saying it. I'm saying it out loud. Listen to new episodes of Love Country. Talk to Chuck every Monday and Thursday on the Nashville podcast network

available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. So Hitler, again, father of the auto bond, in some respect, he definitely, he took road building to new heights or to new extremes. Apparently, you know, the cologne bond stretch from 1932. That was the first stretch of highway in Germany. Supposedly the first real one. Six years later, under Nazi rule, 1,860 miles of roadway had been completed. So they were like road making machines. Well, they were and that kind of, well, it didn't really backfire, but it went into a disrepair in a lot of places after the war because the German citizens weren't in such great shape financially after the war. No, and they didn't

even get used during the war, which is the whole reason Hitler was building and was for military transport. But a lot of the roads were like too steep, too mountainous, so they didn't use them. So they fell in disrepair and took a long time. You know, some points were even impassable. It took a long time before they really got on a campaign to reconstruct them and build them back up to the great road. Yes. Great road. That's the mother road. This is our second. Holy cow. Wow. That's shameful. We both just realized that at the same exact moment. Two podcasts on a road. Yeah. Okay. I think this will be the last. Yeah, Chuck, it wasn't until the 90s after East Germany and West Germany got back together that the Autobahn really started to take the legendary form,

I think, that we have now, that we have of it now. Which is now, see, I got the fourth largest behind America, China, and India. Oh, is that right? But it says the third, but I'm not sure which one is more recent. Or maybe there may have to do with how that had to do with how India counts the road. They counted all twice. Well, if it's like a major expressway or what, because India's is way bigger than any of them, I think, but they might Germans might say like, no, no, no, we're talking highways only. Well, let's, how about some stats, man? It's your time to shine. How big is this thing? I have as of 2010. That's pretty recent. 1813 clicks. Wow, really? Yeah. That's a kilometers. Okay. It's actually decreased in size, then, because this article has it as

12,875 kilometers. But when was that? Maybe that's newer. Or else it's shrinking. It might be, actually. It's shrinking in its age. It's got sarcopenia. And we should say for our American friends, that's 8,000 miles of right roadway. Very nice. There'll be more stats. We'll scatter them out. Okay. Keeps this thing exciting. What's another myth, Josh? You can just drive as fast as you want on this thing all over the place, right? Well, no, you can't. You can. But the Germans are very sensible people. They're very efficient. They're very re, sensible is a really good word. Yeah. To describe the German people. What might even say rigid? You could say that. And they are well aware that you should not be driving unfettered speed limit wise through

congested areas, like through a city or something like that. Sure. So in a lot of parts of the Autobahn, you're going to find speed limits, which are called tempo limits in German tempo limits, tempo limit. I think that which is of course one word. Yeah, sure. So congested areas, areas where like the terrain is really rough. Yeah. During certain types of weather. There's a lot of factors that go into it, but it's not unlimited. For about three quarters of the 8,000 miles, you'll find speed limits. But then there's about 2,000 miles of Autobahn, about a quarter of the whole thing, where there really isn't any speed limit. Not bad. You can drive as fast as you want. But there is a suggested speed limit of, I believe, 130 kilometers per hour, which is 80 miles an hour.

But that's suggested. Nobody's going to pull you over for that. Right. There is a minimum speed limit of 37 miles per hour, which is about 60 kilometers per hour. And that just keeps the riff-raff off the road that will get blown away. Including mopeds and stuff like that. And? Well, horses. Horses, which were banned outright from the beginning. Yeah, they knew. From German highways. Early on, that they wanted this thing to cook. Yeah. Or at least it seems like. But even if it is unlimited, they still can, you can still get a fine if you're driving too fast for, you know, like weather conditions. You can. Also, I mean, if you're going to pass an Autobahn cop, which are called the Autobahnpolize, again, one long word. Pull its eye.

You don't want to taunt him, especially if you're holding like a Big Mac. Yeah. Because the Germans consider driving while eating or drinking as a distracted driver state, and they will pull you over in a heartbeat and find you. And they do it routinely. Yeah. Can I just go ahead and take my hat off to the German people for their sensible and common sense rules when it comes to driving? Sure, Chuck. Because that is one. All of these rules, to me, should be worldwide because they just make sense. Okay. For instance, the two second rule. If you don't follow the two second rule, which means you give yourself two seconds worth of stopping time for the car in front of you, then you can get a ticket and a suspended license.

Yeah. Very important. We should explain that to our younger listeners, maybe once you don't drive yet, say you're following a car and a car passes a street lamp, right? If you should be able to count off two seconds before you pass that street lamp, that means there's two seconds of space between two seconds of reaction time between you and the car in front of you. That's the two second rule. Yeah. That's a great way to do it. Nice suggestion. Thanks. Another rule, Josh, which should be adhered here in the United States. Travel fast in the left lane only. Pass on the right only. Yeah. It just makes sense. Well, so apparently the Germans are extremely well instructed in the art of passing and respecting the passing lane. So I've met so many people on

the highway that I really genuinely wanted to take the lives of. You've met them. I met them by making eye contact, really angry, vicious eye contact. Waiting at them. Yeah. On the road, because they just not only won't get over, they maybe slow down a little bit when you try to pass them in the left lane. They're going too slow. Apparently the Germans do not have this problem. No. If you are not getting over, if you're in the left lane and you don't get over for a faster driver, you can be fined because they consider that coercion. You are coercing a driver who drives faster than you to drive slower and that is messed up. Yeah. And not only that, but if you're going 120 miles an hour in that left lane in your Mercedes and Gunther behind you

is in his Porsche and he wants to go 190, you got to get over. Yeah. Because you're the slower driver and also whether it's you or Gunther in the left lane, you're not supposed to be in there unless you're passing. Right. The right lanes are for traveling. The left lane is for passing and you don't drive in the left lane. Yeah. And you can get a fine for that. You're allowed to flash your lights and honk your horn at somebody who's going slower to basically say, hey, I don't want to use up my brakes. Get over. Well, yeah. If they don't get over, they can get a ticket. If you do it excessively, supposedly, that's coercion as well. So you can both get a ticket if you find a grumpy autopolize. That's right. Autosponpolize.

I think anytime you're not sure, just like do it quietly. And you mentioned the left lane is for passing. You can also be stopped and fine if you pass on the right if your excuse was, but hey, the guy wouldn't get over. They can say, I'm sorry, you're still getting a ticket, but we'll give him a ticket too if we happen to see that. You're both going to get tickets. Right. Which is like, can it be any more fair than that? And women have to get a license to wear lipstick. What else, Chuck? The emergency lane is for emergencies only here in the United States when traffic backs up in certain places like LA. People will drive in the emergency lane because they can't wait. Yeah. That's, that makes me want to kill too. But they said, I love this part,

even if you run out of gas, that's no excuse because that's an avoidable thing. So that's very sensible as well. I get the feeling you're, it's very shameful as well in Germany to run out of gas because they're just so like on top of everything. Yeah. They're like, you know, if you run out of gas, you're, you're not worthy of being on the road. Like they have like page eight of the local papers, just like mugshots of people who ran out of gas in the emergency. Should we talk about some of these fines? That's kind of the least interesting part. Yeah. How about this? This will, this will drive people to the website after this. If you want to see some fines, some, some infractions and the corresponding fines in euros, look up Autobahn

on howstuffworks.com. We'll remind you again later at the end of this episode. Another cool thing I like about the system, Josh, it is, it's all consistent with how they letter and number everything. Uh, everything on the Autobahn system has a capital A followed by a number. Yeah. Even numbers go east west odd numbers go north south. Same exact thing in the US. Is that right? Yes. 75 north south, 85 north south, 95 north south, 20, 40, 60, 80, all east west. Same thing is it was modeled on the Autobahn. Eisenhower was like, I love these Nazis. I don't think they're all like that though. Are they? Yep. Seems like California had some for interstate it for federal highways only. Yeah. So what about rings? I don't know. Um,

285 is that's our loop probably larger. I want, I don't know this, but I would suspect that at the larger orientation, whether it's east west or north south would guide the people naming it, giving it a name. So like I'll bet 285, it has longer stretches going east and west or north and south than east and west, which is why it has an odd number, but it's not a perfect circle. That's for sure. I tend to make stuff up and that could be an example of it. You would think that because of the excessive speeds that the Autobahn would be a death trap. I would. And for a while there, it was pretty unsafe. Like 1970, I think was the all time high when they had more than 21,000 deaths that year, which is staggering.

It is, but it's less than the United States standard of about 40,000 a year. Yeah, but we have a lot more highway. We do. In 2008 though, that number fell to fewer than 4500 because of a few things, better engineering of the cars, safety, obviously. Better engineering of the roadway. Very much. My dad taught me this. My dad's a mechanical engineer, but engineers, any type of engineer appreciates the work of any other type of engineer. Oh, sure. Sure. And he taught me to really appreciate a curve where you don't have to move your steering wheel. You just tilt it slightly and then you just hold it in place for the whole curve. Yeah. You don't have to turn it to stay into the curve. It's a perfectly engineered and

perfectly constructed curve. I have driven on a race track and that's how it is. But if you pay attention, you'll find that some curves on some highways are better than others. Oh, yeah, for sure. And when you're looking out for it, you really appreciate that one curve where you just pull into it. You're like, that's off to you guys. Way to go. This is a perfect curve. Yeah. When I did Atlanta Motor Speedway, I actually got the feeling that I didn't even need to turn my wheel because the bank, it felt like the car just kind of turned itself. Yeah. I'm sure that's not the case, but I'll bet it is. It was pretty cool. Yeah. What were you doing on Atlanta Motor Speedway? We did a commercial shoot there years ago,

and I had to go the day before to get some paper signed from someone. And the guy that worked there said, he literally said, hey, man, you want to take a lap? I went, heck yeah, I do. He's like, you got any money? It was unfortunately, I was in a production vehicle. So it was like a GMC Yukon SUV going like 90 and it felt on that track. It felt like I was going about 30. Really? So it wasn't actually a thrill. It was just like, oh, this is neat. But the banks, man, those are scary. I thought it was going to tip over. That's how steep it was. I would imagine so, especially in like an SUV, especially in a big SUV. Yeah. Well, it's very fun though. So yeah, the Autobahn's one of the safest roadways in the world. Yeah, now it is. It's the United States,

but it's not. It's in Germany. That's right. Don't try and fool me. There's been talking recent years, Josh, about imposing some speed limits because of environmental factors more than safety. Yeah. Apparently, if you propose putting speed limits on the Autobahn for safety reasons, you're just chided and derided and abraded by everyone. Like, oh, shut up. You don't know what you're talking about. You clearly just moved here from Spain or something like that. It's all about environment though. And in fact, there's three cities in Germany, Bonn, Cologne, and I think Berlin, who've instituted what are called umlaut zones. No. I don't think they're umlaut zones. Umwelt zones, which is an environment zone.

And basically, it's like you have to have a sticker that shows that your car was inspected and meets approved emission standards to be able to drive in this environment zone. So if you drive a nasty diesel car, you can't drive in certain sections of Bonn or Cologne or I think Berlin. Well, speaking of stickers, too, you have to have a tire rated for speed as well, which is another great rule. Well, yeah, you can't. If you have a really fast car, you can't have really cheap tires. Like your tire has to be rated for your car's top speed, or you can be pulled over for that, too. Right. But they do allow exceptions, I think, for certain kind of winter tires, which you need the sticker for, though, to show the cop,

the bullet side that you're like, I can have these winter tires. Yeah. Back off. So obviously, they're going to post speed limits all over the Autobahn for carbon emissions, right? Sure. Wrong. Chancellor Angela Merkel. In this country, you would call her Angela Merkel. She said in 2007 that she would not support any speed limit measures for the Autobahn. I love that. Instead, she said, automakers, why don't you just go make the cars more efficient? Yeah. With fewer emissions. That's what I love. She's like, no, change your cars. Yeah. And apparently, she's a standard bearer for the rest of the country as far as the Autobahn goes.

The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for

what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil asset for it. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's Chuck Wicks from Love Country. Talk to Chuck where we bring you what's really happening in the country music family. We also, if you love country, here's the deal. If you love country music, you can be on the podcast. So if you're a fan country music, well, you can call in anytime. Like, oh, I wouldn't talk about this. Hulk Hogan called in season one. He's like, Chuck Larkster. I love your podcast. I mean, Jason Aldean, Jimmy Allen, Carly Pierce, Lauren Elena, so many huge stars have been on Love Country.

Talk to Chuck season two is going to get even better. Going to have the same big giant huge stars, but I think it's time. Bring some people in the studio right off the street. You love country music. Fine. Come talk to Chuck. That's how cool we are. I'm just saying it. I'm saying it out loud. Listen to new episodes of Love Country. Talk to Chuck every Monday and Thursday on the Nashville podcast network available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcast. You got anything else? No, I don't have anything else. Really? I got I have one thing and this this makes sense. During the Cold War, obviously the the roads were neglected more in East Germany than West Germany. And so that was sort of in a state of disarray, lots of potholes, impassable

places, major obstacles, and a lot of these roads were just used for military traffic for a little while. But since the end of the Cold War, since the wall fell, I think they've tried to help out East Germany a little bit there. Yeah, make the roads a little better so they can be a Germany united in road and spirit. Yes. And they are. Yes, they are. So there you have it, the Autobahn. It's our companion piece to Route 66. I remember when I was a kid, it was, did you just heard a lot about the Autobahn? It was like, I don't know, maybe that was the big when cars were really going fast because I just remember the Autobahn. Well, yeah, but that was also the same age where you were, you know, eight to nine times likelier to have a poster of a

Lamborghini on the back of your bedroom door. Yeah, with a girl and a bikini holding a beer mug. Yeah, I remember this. I remember that Garfield one where it was like a real shot of a mansion and like a Lamborghini and all this, a boat and all that, but Garfield like super imposed over it. It was like, whoever dies with the most toys wins. Can you imagine a more 80s motto than that? Yeah. Materialistic. What are you doing? You've gone astray. He's back though, everybody. And he's dead. If you don't know what I'm talking about, look up, is Garfield actually dead? It'll bring up some pretty cool stuff. It's a great way to end. If you want to know more about the Autobahn, including some other traffic infractions and their corresponding fines in euros, you want

to type in Autobahn, A-U-T-O-B-A-H-N in the search bar, howstuffworks.com. And since I said search bar in there somewhere, that means it's time for not listener mail. Sometimes it means it's time for Facebook questions. That's right. And this week, Josh, it's a very special edition of Facebook Questions because these aren't questions about us for a change. We're not going to sit here and talk about each other, which we love to do. I find it off-putting when we do that. Really? Yeah, it's intrusive. Oh, I love it. These are Facebook questions for our special guest who is here in the studio at this. Actually, it's me, John Hodgman, everyone. Yeah, I'm here again, but actually, guys, I gotta tell you, I'm not actually here. What do you mean? You're sitting right here?

No, I'm currently a hologram. Yeah, John Hodgman actual is currently in Brooklyn, New York. So Jerry busted you out. How did that go? She busted you out of the safe room. Oh, that went fine. Okay. And I was able to make it back home. You just left. And John Hodgman actual is in Brooklyn, New York right now promoting, well, actually at the bellhouse tonight. We know the bellhouse. Getting ready to present the launch of his new book, That Is All, which I guess came out today. It came out today, November 1, 2011. Wow. So John Hodgman actual had to be in Brooklyn to begin his book tour. And so he sent me his holographic representation. So should we congratulate you or can you send us a can you send a message to I can convey a message to Hodgman actual?

Okay, so we had breakfast this morning. Was that you or was that the actual John Hodgman? That was me the hologram. Oh, okay. I could the hologram really puts away the sausage links. Wow. Well, you know, when you're a hologram, you can eat whatever you want. Okay. Wow. So are you prerecorded or I'm an interactive program that responds to stimulus in a very similar way. Wow. And yet I see for me Chuck is moving his hand through your head right now. So it's neat. Oh, you look totally solid, but obviously you're not. I am an interactive program that responds to stimulus in a very similar way. I thought I detected odors, John Hodgman odors, but that must just be in my head. I am an interactive program that responds to various stimulus and a in I forget what I was

going to say. Well, you know, I guess that's good enough for Facebook questions. Well, I, yes, I have a question. Can you feel love? There we go. All right. Hello, I am a holographic John Hodgman. How may I be of service? Well, John, holographic John, we had some fans right in of yours. Good. On Facebook. Yes, we said, Hey, John, the hologram is going to be in the office. That's great because John Hodgman usually uses a robot to answer his email. Perfect then. So this works perfectly. And they responded in kind. And we're, you don't know these questions. This is not pre prepared. And even if Hodgman actual did, I don't believe Hodgman virtual would be preloaded with these. And they're in its

yeah, there's no way that these could be predicted. They're too random. I'm looking forward to hearing the questions from the millions of fake accounts and offshore banks that are registered at your website. Well, we will, we will ask it now. All right, very well. Josh, do you want me to kick off? Sure. Are we going to, are we going to call out the people who asked the questions? I think we should. Oh yeah, we always do. So John, John, the hologram. Yes. I don't know if you know this, but John, the actual loves the podcast, loves stuff you should know. He always talks about it's almost to an embarrassing degree. I am aware of his affection for the podcast. I choose not to comment on it. Okay, that's fine. That's fine. But you can, you basically have access to all of

John, the actual thoughts and feelings about certain things. Yes. Okay, so we did a podcast, an episode on the Muppets. It's a much beloved episode. I am aware. So this question, I think pertains to that. This is from Josh Bailey, and he asks, which Muppet is your favorite? There can be no question that John Hodgman's favorite Muppet is Kermit. He is an incredible character in American fiction that I adore. And also John Hodgman does too. Okay. It's convenient. There is, for the most part, a consensus on the internet that I resemble Benson, Bunsen, Honeydew. Yeah, now that you mentioned that. There's a very famous picture of you with said Muppet. Is there? There is. I've seen it. On my phone? I have. Well, I cannot,

as a hologram, I cannot confirm whether or not that picture exists. That's pretty dope. You are speaking of something that falls under a non-disclosure agreement. That you signed, Chuck? Pertaining to the new Muppets movie, of which John Hodgman has no part except visiting a table read. Gotcha. There's a lot of information. But that is, that's, yes, I think probably the Muppet movie is one of the sort of most overlooked great film of the 70s. Agreed. You know what I mean? Of the great films of the 70s, and I'm including 1980. So we're talking, you know, the Godfather and Chinatown and, you know, those great hard,

weird, complex, unsparing. French connection. French connection, you know, adult, sophisticated. And I don't mean an adult in a story of a sort of way. Yeah, right. Empire Strikes Back obviously falls in that category as well. Sort of morally nebulous and dark. The Muppet movie is equally that. It is a movie about puppets that go on a journey to Hollywood to make a movie about puppets. And at the end of the movie, all of the puppets sing about how life is a movie while they're surrounded by fake props that are imitating the fake props from the earlier part of the movie. And then the theater, the ceiling of the theater smashes and a real rainbow comes in and touches them all and then Kermit looks directly into the camera, breaks the fourth wall

and says to you, the viewer, life is a movie. Write your own ending. Spoiler alert. Well, this is, as you know, this is the only movie on which the literary critic Roland Barth was given a screenplay credit. Yeah, I think Brooklyn Sisters would call that meta. It's so intensely meta and beautiful and yet also emotionally very affecting. I love Kermit the Frog. I love Beaker too. I'll put Beaker down. Kermit and Beaker. Sure. Josh Bailey. All right, this is from Joshua Charles Knowles. Right. Favorite board game, favorite cartoon, and favorite Pulitzer recipient. Favorite board game obviously is Scrabble. Of course. Favorite cartoon, animated or strip cartoon, comic strip or cartoon. Let's go with television. Our flip book. Favorite cartoon,

Watership Down. Okay. Favorite fun, hysterical. Yeah, it's Slavstick. Rabbits are funny. Favorite, Emma was the last part. Pulitzer prize recipient. David Lindsay Abair. The Pulitzer prize-winning playwright, David Lindsay Abair. All right. Whom I made fun of two podcasts ago. That's right. That's from Joshua Knowles. Thank you, Joshua. Who is the next Joshua to ask me a question? The next Joshua to ask you a question is Bridget Reef Shopbell. She's got three names. Well, Joshua Bridget. She likes to flaunt them, I guess. Her question is as follows. Is Judge John Hodgman, which is a podcast. It is. Ever going to be a regular weekly or more podcast? I asked that question because it's a question and a bit of a dig. Yeah, I get it. Okay, Joshua Bridget.

I feel that. That hurts. You've probably heard a lot of that lately. Yeah. You know what? Here's some things that happened in my life. I work for The Daily Show. With John Stuart. With John Stuart from time to time. I wrote a book that I'm publishing called That Is All That Comes Out Today. I have human children. I have a cat that needs feeding and tending. Mm-hmm. And I do a podcast that I love very much called Judge John Hodgman, where people call in and they tell me their disputes and I tell them who's right and who's wrong. And Jesse Thorne, the bailiff, Jesse. The producer of the podcast. Jesse Thorne, excuse me, had a baby recently. And he recently had a baby. So you know what?

He's been busy. And also I'm a deranged millionaire and I took two months off over the summer. Sue me. To sit around and work on my inventions. Right. So here's the thing. I was a little busy. We fell off our regular weekly thing. It's hard to get good disputes. It's hard to get disputes where people aren't simply buzz marketing Facebook all the time like we're doing today. We will put that thing out as often as we can and I hope it will be weekly. But it will never, ever, ever be twice a week because we all know that's podcast death. Especially after three years. Yes. So that was Joshua Bridget. Any other Josh was out there? Yeah, this is from Joshua Gendersnap Dragon. Oh.

And he or she writing from Second Life. Should we eliminate pennies in our currency system? No. No. Pennies are delightful. Great. If there were not pennies, there would not be the great Paul F. Tompkins routine smashed pennies available on his CD, Freak Wharf. You're a good friend. No. He is a good comedian. You ready? Yeah. This one comes from lightning round. I'll be fast. Well, we have a lot of people want to know stuff. Oh, I'm happy to tell them. From you. There are a lot of people who asked questions about your mustache. Some of them are stupid questions like, what's up with the mustache? Or what mustache do you look up to the most is on my list? It's okay. It's better than what's up with the mustache. But I'm choosing this one

from Joshua J. McCracken, who has Bullwinkle as his avatar. Is your mustache a tribute to Stanley Tucci's epic performance in The Lovely Bones? That is not the case. Doc Holiday played by Val Kilmer. Oh, I see it now. I totally see it now. Yeah, the dying alcoholic. I'm your huckleberry. That was brilliant, John. There was a time in my life in the 90s when I loved that performance so much that I was like, maybe I should get tuberculosis. Maybe I should sweat and drink all the time starting at 9am and cough because I'm already asthmatic, so I'm halfway there. Yeah, sure. And look what it's done for you. Look, I grew a mustache because that is the only facial hair I could grow. And I wanted to grow some facial hair. And this is what every

hair you see on my face. That is the only hair that I could grow. Like you're trying to grow a beard right now as we speak in heaven for months. Yeah, that's why I see some stuff down there. No, no, no, no. You don't want to see. I spend a lot of time this summer when I went away as a deranged millionaire experimenting with the beard. Yeah, because truly, if I really want to be a deranged millionaire, I got to go full Howard Hughes. Do you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. Mustache and wider soul patches. I mean, Doc Holiday's soul patches. I'm going to do it. But it's just not in me, guys. It's still a part of me that's not deranged and not millionaire enough to do it. So that's the answer. Yeah, that's a lot of people want to know that, John. Where

do you go? You know, it's like sometimes you wear a different shirt. Can a guy grow a mustache? Yeah, people just want to know why the guy's wearing the shirt. The concern that people have, and here's another perfectly true answer. You notice that the mustache that I'm wearing looks fake because it is so much darker than my regular top hat. That is true. My whiskers are very dark and my skin is very pale and pale and much like Doc Holiday's. And I got a little tired as this happened once where someone came up to me and said, I really like that you're growing a mustache. And it was 11 o'clock in the morning and I had shaved that day because when my whiskers would come in, they'd be very dark. It always looked like I was growing a mustache. Right. So I decided

to give nature what it wanted. Nice. All right. So that's your answer. Thank you, Josh. Josh. Boring, boring, boring. Oh, mean to Facebook. This is from John Rydium. How do you feel about Asian carp? That's not the snakehead fish, is it? I don't know. No, you're thinking of the worm face. Is Asian carp a predatory species? Is that the issue here? Not predatory. I think you're thinking invasive. Invasive. Thank you. Yeah, you really have lightened up a lot. I don't know how to answer that question. They're huge carp and generally I'm a fan of all. Well, that's a little like Getty Lee's famous words. If you choose not to decide you still made a choice, John Hodgman, refusing to answer, is your answer. But here's what I'm going to say.

Neil Pert's famous words. And speaking of giant freshwater fish, there is a long section in this book that I've written that comes out today entitled That Is All on the third in the series, the third in the series of complete world knowledge, including information on wine and sports in the world. There's a long section in this book that follows the path of a semi-professional noodler who meets an unhappy end, noodling, of course, being the sport of sticking your hand down a catfish's mouth and catching it and yanking it out. And then he later comes to face the ancient and unspeakable one, the giant catfish that is the entire Mississippi River. That's another story. But that whole section is an homage to the first episode of Stuff You Should Know I

Ever Listen To. Oh, that was the first, huh? It was. That is very thrilling. And you know what, John, when I was reading your book, I noticed that there were some stuff you should know threads. Oh, really? Well, well, just a couple of things I noticed, like the Mayan calendar and prohibition, prison wine, the Hadron Collider, cannibalism, taste, sinkhole, zombies, fluoride, toxoplasmosis, HP love crowds, rogue taxidermy, odd town festivals, spontaneous human combustion, crystal skulls, the mini-world theory, near-death experiences. Do we get any money for this book, John? Look, there's obviously a kinship in the way we look at and think about the world. We're both trying to explain everything. Give me the list and I'll tell you where it came from.

You're not getting this list. No, read it. Read it. This doesn't even have to be in the podcast. Prison wine. Prison wine first revealed to me at the offices of Twitter in 2008. Hadron Collider. First came to my attention when I was writing an article for Wired Magazine in 2007. Toxoplasmosis. Toxoplasmosis. I have a human child. I have a wife who is pregnant. Of course, I know that. Toxoplasmosis. Wait a minute. You hadn't heard about prison wine until 2008? Yeah, that's right. Crystal skulls? I did spend a night in jail, but it wasn't long enough to make prison wine. Crystal skulls. Go back to my first book, 2005, Secrets of Yale University, where I talk about the rumor that the whiff and poofs gave the skull of Benjamin Franklin

to Dick Cavett on his TV show, and it's not true. It was a crystal skull. That goes back to the World Book of the Strange that I read in 2004, writing the first book. Does that have trepanation in it? Of course it does. Trepanation I got from the Golden Compass. Give me more. Come on. I'm not letting this stand. Sinkholes? That's for me. Odd Town Festivals. That's for me. You actually gave us a thank you for that and for noodling. Yeah, we're cited as experts. Yeah, even a thank you like experts. Yeah, yeah, keep going. Really? Yeah. Odd Town Festivals. That one's yours. Not that I wasn't aware of a lot of those Odd Town Festivals. Zombies. Zombies. I know we didn't invent it. Yeah. No, you didn't. Let me give you a little history lesson.

Right? Zombies have been around for a long time. Check out Serpent in the Rainbow, dum-dum. Next. I saw that in the theater. Rogue taxidermy, bartering. Rogue taxidermy was probably you. Bartering, though. Bartering? We didn't do bartering. House swapping, you mean? No, we talked about bartering, didn't we? I'm sure we did in house swapping. Oh, also conjunctions. We use a lot of conjunctions. Bartering goes back to my first year of college when I would tell other freshmen who were from out of state. I went to college Yale University in Connecticut and I would just tell people that Connecticut is the only state in the union where barter is still a legal form of payment. And that you can go into any

like wah-wah or convenience store and try to buy things with shiny shells. And if they accept it, it's legal. How would you like to be on the hall with an 18-year-old John Hodgman in Yale? He'd be like, shut up, nerd. Well, so we'll release this separately on the internet. Look, I think I stand my ground on this, right? All right. I guess that's about all the time we have for questions, though. Yeah. Oh boy, oh boy. That was beautiful. If any of you have questions for me or you doubt or you think that I've ripped off stuff you should know on other subjects and are not willing to just accept that we think about the same things a lot. Well, my point is I like your show. We're both trying to explain everything, so there's bound to be some overlap.

Yeah, but I've been at it since 2005. Exactly. And I also don't care about facts. But if any of you have questions for me or, for that matter, accusations for me, won't you please come and see me? I am now on BookTour, at least Hodgman Actual is now on BookTour. Good dates. Yeah. All right. So this is November 1st, right? Yes. So November 1st, I am in Brooklyn at the bell house. November 2nd, I am in Chicago at the Second City ETC stage. November 3rd, I am in St. Louis, Missouri. Well, you're really getting around. How will you be getting from place to place in such a short amount of time? I bought, I traded Nick Mangold my burning zeppelin for his penny farthing motorcycle. Oh, yeah. That seems even, because the zeppelin is burning. Yeah, yeah,

it's fantastic. On November 3rd, I'll be in St. Louis, Missouri at the Mad Art Gallery. November 4th, I'll be in Los Angeles, California with Mr. Paul F. Tompkins and Mr. John Roderick. Wow. November 6th, I'll be in Portland, Oregon. I believe Roderick will be there. And I know that it'll be in Seattle at Town Hall on November 7th. Is Roderick playing or anything? Or is he just playing? Yeah, he'll be playing. I thought he would shadow you. He's going to be standing there, his answer is honest. Yeah, right. Then I go down to Austin, Texas. Great. A site of your live stuff you should know podcasts. On what? UFOs. Nice. Which you mentioned in your books. I had a good point. Oh, you got me. You got me. Ancient astronauts. Yeah, you got me. You got me.

November 8th at Book People, one of the great independent bookstores of all time. Then Durham, North Carolina at the Durham Armory, November 9th with the regulator at the regulator bookshop with son of North Carolina David Reese. And then in Asheville, North Carolina, the college hometown of famous Tracy. Yeah. And then that'll be on the 11th. Just a few hours drive from year Atlanta, by the way. You're not swinging back through though. No, I can't unfortunately. I feel very bad about it. But I'm here now. Yeah, sure. Then I'm back in New York, November 14th at the Barnes and Noble in the November 15th at the Coolidge Corner Theater, my hometown of Brookline, Massachusetts. And then November 16th at Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, an extra special episode

of WITS, a public radio show hosted by John Moe, starring me and special guest John Darniel of the Mountain Goats, one of my favorites. I love this guy. Boy, oh boy, if you want. That is a crazy couple of weeks. That's a crazy cuckoo tour. Yeah, I really hope that people will come out. You have to buy tickets, but you get a copy of the book with the ticket. Wow. And I will sign every book that comes there and I will talk to you all and I'll answer your questions and I'll respond to your accusations. Yes. And I will and I will and I will not be holographic. I will be Hodgman actual. That's great. So thank you very much for letting me come by again, guys. Of course. Boy, it sounds like I'm saying goodbye, but I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to come back the

next one. Are you serious? Yeah. Sorry. We're doing another one. Yeah. All right. Well, until then, what? Today's Tuesday? Yeah, I'll see you. Well, the holograph will reemerge. So we have to do with the holograph again. You're making us do a fourth one of these and you're not even coming down here. Right. Because when are you on again? Thursday the third. Right. So you'll be where? I'll be in St. Louis. Okay. Gateway to the West. All right. Well, we'll see Hodgman's hologram again in a minute. So will you. I guess in a couple of days, right? I'm going to power down now if you don't mind. Okay. We'll see you in a little bit. If you have a question for John or for us or you just want to say hi or you want to say please bring back listener mail or anything but this,

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