Stuff You Should Know - SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: How Play-Doh Works

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

Do you love Play-Doh? Chuck and Josh certainly love to talk about it, from its interesting history as a wall cleaner, to its more scientific chemical properties. It's everything you ever wanted to know about the pliable children's toy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, Harry Potter fans. Huge news. Harry Potter, the full cast audio editions, are all being released on Audible, on a monthly basis, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

is already out. You have never experienced the wizarding world like this before. They've taken it to another level. The cast is perfect. Hugh Lorry is Dumbledore, Matthew McFaddy and is Baltimore, Riz Ahmed is Snape,

and Cush Jumbo as the narrator. And there are too many others to name. There's even a brand new musical score, and the sound design, you'll feel like you're right there. Footsteps echoing down the halls of Hogwarts, a golden snitch flying past your ear. The Hogwarts Express rumbling out of platform 9 and 3 quarters, and it's all in Dolby Atmos, which makes the wizardry even more magical. Plus, these are the unabridged versions, even more awesomeness. As I mentioned, the first book is out, and the next installments in the series will be released

every month until all seven are out. Go to audible.ca slash HP1 and start listening now. Your time and energy are precious. And the people you date should honor that. That's why everyone loves Bumble, today's sponsor. It's built for intentional dating, helping you connect with people who genuinely respect your boundaries and your heart. And because so many of us want to feel safer when meeting someone new,

Bumbo gives you peace of mind with options like photo and ID verification. So you know the person you're talking to is who they say they are. If you've been thinking about dating again, take this as your sign. Start your love story on Bumble. I know he has a reputation, but it's going to catch up to him. Gabe Ortiz is a cop. His brother Larry, a mystery Gabe didn't want to solve until it was too late. He was the head of this gang.

You're going to push that line for the cause. Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it. When Larry's killed, Gabe must untangle the dangerous past, one that could destroy everything he thought he knew. Listen to the Brothers Ortiz on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ho, ho, ho, everybody. Santa Chuck here, continuing on with our 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist. I'm going to stop doing that silly voice because I'm not Santa Claus and just Chuck.

And I am here to introduce it smells good. It tastes good. I just hope it sounds good. That salty goodness of Play-Doh, how Plato, works. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from How StuffWorks.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And this is the first of two Stuff You Should Know is that we're recording today. My voice

already sounds weird to me. What do you mean? It doesn't sound a little weird. You know, like when we get toward the end of the second one. It gets a little Like worn out or something Yeah Like it's been extruded through a Play-Doh fun factory Was all that is set up Or do you really feel that way

That was off the cuff, baby Okay No, it doesn't sound weird to me Your voice never sounds weird unless you're sick Jerry, Judge McCall Yeah, Jerry broke the tie She sided with me Well Jerry wears headphones

But you and I fight the Broadcasting business By being the only people That don't wear headphones Or cans I never get it I'm like you're two feet from me Why do I need headphones?

I know, and I don't want to hear myself anyway. I don't want to hear myself better. No. It's terrible. It sounds like torture. How about this for a new S-Y-S-K-T shirt? No more cans. Okay.

Just have a little X through some headphones. I think when you make a stuff, you should know, decree from now, we should have like a fairy wand sound effect. Yeah. Or you're just like, here's this for a new t-shirt. I decree it be made into existence. Yeah, we're going to, by the way, since I mentioned it, we're going to have some new shirts coming soon.

Yeah. Some good, like some fan designs even. Yep. Pretty exciting. Yeah. And we do have some now that people can go by if you want. I like those first designs we had. And, well, let's just have this out on the air.

It's not an argument. Let's have this discussion. Are we going to retire the original six from the contest? Or should we just let them keep going in perpetuity? Oh, unless there's a reason. I think perpetuity is the way to go. Because someone might like the dancing. I don't know what we call that.

The skeleton woodcut. Yeah, parade of dancing skeletons. The macab parade, that's what I would call it. Yeah. All six of them were excellent. The baby with the fly on its forehead. It's still my all-time favorite. Yeah, it's good stuff.

If you don't know what we're talking about, go to stuff you should know.com, our venerable website. And in the top navigation, there's a store button, and it will take your store, and you can see with your own very eyes what the heck we're talking about. Yeah. Yeah.

That was off the cuff. Yeah, it was. I wasn't like, ooh, we've got to plug the t-shirts. No, no, no. You very rarely say things as fretfully as that. Okay. Chuck, yes. You want to talk about Plato?

Yeah, we promised to do this recently, and here we are. Yeah. In my defense, it was already on the list. Oh, wow. So it's not like, you know, I'm at the beck and call of anybody's like, do Plato, do this, do that, no. It was already on the list. Dance, monkey. Great.

Did you play with Plato a lot when you were a kid? Oh, I played with it. I ate it. I don't recall eating it. I do specifically recall eating the paste that was an off-brand that had a purple pirate on it. Oh. He was a pirate wearing a purple hat,

and I think maybe he had an orange parrot. Yeah, was the paste, did it have a, on the inside of the lid, did it have a applicator attached to it? Yeah. I totally ate that paste. That was the best tasting paste on the planet. As a matter of fact,

I think that paste might have been manufactured, in part to eat. Like its gruel served to it. to, like, kids, some bad kids. Yeah, actually, I want to revise my statement. I licked and tasted Plato. I don't remember, like, swallowing it. But I remember, like, you know, tasting it

and then maybe even put it in my mouth and spitting it back out. But I don't think I didn't swallow. I got you. Yeah. I never, I don't think I ever ate Plato in any form or fashion, but the scent of it, it's unmistakable.

Unmistakable. It's so unmistakable, in fact, that apparently back in two, In 2006, Plato, or Hasbro, through a year-long celebration for Plato, which it owns, which it bought off of Kenner. Yeah. Which Kenner bought from a dude named Joe McVickers.

Actually, they bought it from Tonka. Tonka bought it from Kenner. Oh, yeah. How'd I forget Tonka? Exactly. And for this 50th birthday party, they had a scent, a Play-Doh perfume released, that smelled just like Play-Doh.

Can you buy that, I wonder? I looked, and I think you can get it, but I don't think as easy as you could back in 2006. Yeah, I wouldn't want to wear it. I was just curious. I think, yeah. Nostalgia of my, like, I would like to smell it, but don't spray that stuff on me.

I don't think you're supposed to wear it. Oh, is it just like, yeah, one of those things? It's a mood stabilizer. Okay. You know what I mean? Yeah. Spray in front of your face, and you just go, oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, like rose water.

Maybe I should put this lead pipe down and rethink things. Right. Remember when I was a kid and less violent? Right. Somebody gave me some pace to eat. They should do that. Well, back when you were a kid, did you know much about the origin of Plato?

Oh, no, not at all. I didn't either. Until today or yesterday when I started researching this. Plato, everyone, and in this article by Tracy Wilson, who hosts Stuff You Missed in History Class, she says that it's lore, but I've seen it all over the place. And from what I understand, it's the truth.

I think it's the truth. There was a dude named Joe McVickers who had, a company and his company produced, from what I understand, McVicker's invention, which was wallpaper cleaner. Yeah, his father and uncle started it, and they were called Kutol products, and it was a soap company, but their big seller was this wall cleaner because when we heated our homes with coal, your house would get coal sit on the walls, which is really weird to think of now. Yeah, but it's true, and your wallpaper can still get dirty, grease,

from cooking things, food fights, whatever. Yeah. Your wallpaper can get dirty. Let's just face facts, everybody. And McVickers Company had this putty. It was kind of a pliable, gooey putty, that you slapped up against the wallpaper and rolled up and down,

and it just took that soot or that grease or that spaghetti sauce clean off. And it was wallpaper cleaner. Yeah. And it was doing okay, I guess. It did great. I don't think they were like, necessarily, but Joe was married to a woman

or was his sister-in-law was a teacher? Yeah, it was, in Cincinnati. Yeah, they sold a lot of this stuff for a while, but then natural gas came around, and so they fell upon hard times. But Joe took over from Cleo, was his father, and his sister-in-law, Kzu Fall of New Jersey, read about kids

that were making Christmas ornaments, out of that stuff. And she said, out of the wallpaper cleaner. Yeah, and much like kids do today with Play-Doh. And she said, hey, we're hurting, why don't we try and turn this stuff into a toy? And they did so. And in 1950, he made a non-toxic version,

added some almond scent, and you had your first little off-white Play-Doh. Yeah, kind of exactly what you would think of when you think of a gummy colored dough. Yeah. off white, khaki almost. Yeah. And McVicker was a pretty smart dude as far as business goes.

He donated a bunch of cans to the Cincinnati City School system. Yeah, very smart. And so got these little kids hooked on Plato. It was a huge hit, but it might have just been a regional hit if he hadn't have approached a dude named Captain Kangaroo. Yeah. He went to, what is Captain Kangaroo's name? Bob.

Bob Keishon, I think. Bob Kisham, nice memory, Chuck. I pulled that out from, I don't know how many years ago was the last time I heard that name. He, well, did you watch Captain Kangaroo? Oh, yeah. Me too. Huge fan.

Loved Captain Kangaroo. I like Captain Kangaroo more than Mr. Rogers. I liked them both. But yeah, I think I might have been, yeah, Captain Kangaroo a little bit more. It was a haircut. And I was Electric Company over Sesame Street, Amen. Yeah, I like both, but I liked Electric Company more. Yeah.

But I like Pinwheel most. I didn't watch that. It was for real little kids. Oh, okay. Anyway, Captain Kangaroo had a show, and Joe McVicker somehow got in contact with Captain Kangaroo and said, hey, I have a little deal for you. Yeah.

We've got this awesome stuff. The kids in Cincinnati are crazy for it. We're calling it Play-Doh. Right now, it's in off-white, or it used to be, but now we have four colors. Red, blue, yellow, and white. Those are the four original colors of Plato, by the way. Yeah.

And he gave someone to Captain Can-Cangar, room, said, I will give you 2% of gross sales if you mention this on your show two times a week. Yeah. He played with it. Bob Keishan was a money grubber. That's what we all know. I think he believed in this product. Yeah, and he's a smart guy.

He is. And he believed in it so much that he up the number of mentions without any additional compensation from two times a week to as many as three times a week. Yeah. He would play with Play-Doh on TV, and it just took off like a rocket from there. That was his additional compensation. Did he got free Play-Doh? No, he had a percentage, so...

Oh, yeah, you're right. You know what I'm saying? You're right. But it suggests that he believed in it. That's right. He did believe in it. Man, do not shatter my image of Captain Kangaroo. I'm not saying he just wanted to make more money.

Of course not. Isn't that the show that Mr. Green Jeans was on? Yeah. Big fan of that guy, too. They formed the Rainbow Crafts Company. You know, they wanted to take it out from under the Kutol Products banner. and got famous wildlife artist John Ruthven to design that first package with,

originally it was very briefly, it was an elf. Yeah. And those I think are probably, if you have a can of that, you probably, it's probably in a museum or something. Yeah. That wasn't around long. No.

And then they went to Plato Pete, the kid with the smock and the beret. Yeah. Because all little kids wore berets and smocks back then. Or you wore your dad's dress shirt like backwards. Oh yeah? That made a good smock, too. Yeah, the one he didn't want anymore.

Yeah. Or that you thought he didn't want anymore, but he really got mad at, you know, because he got paint on it. That's my good short-sleeved dress shirt. And finally, it took all the way until 2002. Did the herbal Elvis wear short-sleeved dress shirts? Oh, man. Really? With slacks and ties.

Yeah, my dad usually as a principal wore a coat. But when you take off the jacket and you've got the short sleeve on it, that's something else. the blue felt tip pin, a red felt tip pin, and a green felt tip pin in his pocket, front pocket. That was your dad? Yeah, he's a mechanical engineer. Oh, so each one had a different use? Yeah.

Interesting. Plus, I think he also just thought they were pretty. Yeah. Like they made his shirt pocket pop. That's where you get it, your shirt pocket thing. Right. All right. It took until 2002 for that beret to become a baseball cap.

And then now he's just gone. Yeah, I was looking. He's not around anymore at all, is he? Not at all. Now it's a can with arms, and the lids kind of pulled back and in between the rim of the can and the top of the lid are a couple of eyes.

It looks a bit like a garbage can, but it's obviously a Play-Doh can, but just kind of, I don't like it. Yeah. I like Plato Pete, the kid with the beret. Yeah, me too. He was great. That's what we grew up with, it's nostalgia.

Yeah, but he was around for a really long time And now they just do away with him, like he's nothing. That's another shirt, bring back Plato Pete. Yeah. And we'll get sued. Yes. Although I didn't get the impression that they were too terribly litigious. Well, plus we could tell him, we sold nine t-shirts.

Here's your $73. Here's your 2%. So Play-Doh, we all played with it. It was fun for modeling, but it was not like you, if you were like me, your hopes were dashed a bit when you model. you modeled something and left it out overnight because you thought it would make it into a permanent exhibit. Yeah.

But it would really just kind of break apart. It's not like you can't cure it like you do modeling clay. No, I was on Plato's site, and they readily admit that? Yeah. As a matter of fact, they say, if you want a permanent thing, go get you some modeling clay. Yeah, get some sculpy. I don't want to buzz market, but sculpy is a lot of fun. Okay.

We're talking about Plato, though. Yeah, but Sculpey's fun. But they say modeling clay. They don't say Sculpey, but they say, if you want to make a permanent thing, go get some modeling clay. It's not what Plato's for.

No, it's for being in the moment, making fun things, and then smashing those, and then putting it back in the can. Right. Doing it all over again every day. And driving your mom crazy because she can't stand colors to be mixed together

so she sits there and, like, picks them apart or whatever. Or it's in the orange shag carpet. Which, again, Hasbro has some helpful, suggestions for how to clean this stuff up. Sure. Number one, and you will understand eventually by the end of this podcast, why, do

not use warm water when you're cleaning up Plato from the carpet. Yeah. It will make everything a million times worse. What they say, if possible, if you have the patience of Job, just go ahead and let this thing dry, turn brittle, use a stiff

brush, and just kind of brush it out of the carpeting, vacuum it up, boom. Yeah, or do the reasonable thing and get hardwood floors. All right. We'll discuss that very soon after this message. Stuff you should know. Hey, Harry Potter fans.

Huge news. Harry Potter, the full cast audio editions are all being released on Audible on a monthly basis. And Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is already out. You have never experienced the wizarding world like this before. They've taken it to another level. The cast is perfect. Hugh Lorry is Dumbledore, Matthew McFaddy and is Baltimore, Riz Ahmed as Snape, and Cush Jumbo as the narrator.

And there are too many others to name. There's even a brand new musical score. And the sound design, you'll feel like you're right there. Footsteps echoing down the halls of Hogwarts, a golden snitch flying past your ear. The Hogwarts Express rumbling out of platform nine and three quarters, and it's all in Dolby Atmos, which makes the wizardry even more magical. Plus, these are the unabridged versions, even more awesomeness. As I mentioned, the first book is out, and the next installments in the series will be released every month until all seven are out.

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Stuff you should grow. All right, so Play-Doh is fun enough on its own. Like when I was a kid, I had zero accoutreement to go along with my Play-Doh. I don't recall having anything but just the Play-Doh, too. All I had was the Play-Doh in my imagination. And in 1960, I said, you know what? Let's get a couple of engineers from General Electric to design what's going to be called the Fun Factory. That's like, that was it.

That was it. Then you could put Plato into various forms and molds and press it and have it come out like sausage or spaghetti or just whatever they decided to design. Like, have you been to the site recently? Yeah. There are hundreds of different things that you can buy now with your Play-Doh, of course. Yes, for sure. And different types of Play-Doh, too, to make different-looking things as well. Yeah.

But the original Fun Factory thing is basically just a hand-pushed lever. Yeah. That shoved the Play-Doh inside through a hole. It was a sausage grinder. And then, basically. Yeah. And then in front of the hole, you had just kind of, like, different shapes that you could make this thing into. Yep.

What did you say spaghetti? Yeah, like spaghetti. a big thick rope. Oh, yeah. And the rope, speaking of the rope, all of these are basically what it is an extruder.

Yeah. This is a Plato extruder is what these guys came up with. And I guarantee they had colored felt tip pens in the fronts of their pockets too when they designed this thing. But this,

if you took all the Play-Doh, by the way, here's a Plato fun fact. If you took all the Plato ever created and rained it through the Fun Factory and extruded it into one long rope,

it would wrap around the Earth 3,000 times. How many Big Macs is that? No, I'm sorry. It will wrap around the Earth 300 times. Let's not go crazy. Oh, only 300? Yeah, and you could go to the moon and back 10 times with that rope.

You could make a pretty good little bridge that would be kind of crumbly by the next day. Yeah. But it'd be colorful. That's right. That's a lot of Play-Doh, man. Yeah, they've sold 950 million pounds of this stuff. More than 2 billion cans since 1956.

Yeah. and they apparently make about 100 million cans every year. What I find heartening is those are current statistics. They're not rated for inflation? No. But this article that Tracy wrote was apparently written in 2006. Yeah. She said that they make 95 million cans.

So they've upped their production by 5 million cans a year, which means Plato's not going anywhere. That's right. I'm pretty psyched about that. Yeah, and all the stuff they have now, like they've got all sorts of licensing deals. They have the Play-Doh Disney Princess set and you can make dresses for your Disney Princess out of Plato. And they have a long-standing tradition, too, of making fake food.

Oh, yeah. Like I was watching some, I wouldn't really call it a documentary. It's almost just a compilation of Play-Doh ads over the years. Yeah. And there's one from the 80s where you could make Pizza Hut pizzas out of Play-Doh. I think I remember that. Nowadays they have like kind of a sweet shop, I think is the name of the line. And like I said, they have different types of Play-Doh.

Some are squishier and thinner and more pliable, so you can use those to make the frosting. You can use regular Play-Doh to make the actual cupcake. That's because the cupcake craze, I bet. Yeah, probably. It's filtered down to kids. And with the gluten-free craze, on your website, it says contains gluten.

Yeah, it has wheat. Yeah, but they have to advertise that now because your child will want to eat the Play-Doh. And if you have your kid off gluten, they can't eat the Play-Doh. No. And mommy has to explain that, or daddy. But if your kid has a peanut allergy

or a milk allergy, you're fine. That's right. Water, salt, and flour is the general, I mean, it's a very proprietary recipe, obviously. Right, it's US patent number 671-3-624. But if you look that up, you're not gonna find the ingredients. No, like you said, it's proprietary.

They do give kind of like a general ingredient list somewhere, I guess, in the patent itself. Yeah. But yeah, they're not going to tell you, like, how to make it. But we'll list those really quickly, and then we're going to talk about chemistry. Yeah, we're going to get to the chemical molecular basis of Play-Doh itself. But in broad terms, it is water. You've got a starch-based binder. You have a retrogradation inhibitor

because you have to inhibit that retrogradation. Sure. Salt, no, there's salt in there. In fact, at one point, it was too salty and they had to get a new chemist to remove some of the salt. Is that right? Yeah, but you remember how salty it tasted.

No, I didn't. I never tasted it. Oh, you didn't? No, I thought you said you tasted it. No, I said I never did. I ate the paste. Oh, okay. I'd never tasted it, but the smell.

Was the paste salty? No. No? No, it had a weird sweet taste to it. It wasn't overly sweet, but of all of the tastes. Just sweet enough to get a kid to eat it. Salt, you got your lubricant, and all this will make sense in a bit. A surfactant, a preservative, a hardener, a humectant, a fragrance, of course, and color.

I know he used almond for the first fragrance, but I wonder if it's still an offshoot of that. Does it smell like almond? From what I saw, they've admitted to vanilla. Oh, really? That's all I've seen. Okay. And they're saying, like, that doesn't tell us anything. That's all they admitted to?

Yeah. Under questioning. Yeah. But the colors, we should also say Chuckers. They originally had red, yellow, and blue, the primary colors. Then they added white, and this is all in the 50s. And those were the only colors until the 80s. Wow.

And then they added a couple more, and they had eight colors total. And then now today it's like a whole rainbow. A whole galaxy of different colors. I never got the white because it just looked dirty so quickly. Yeah. I never really understood the purpose of the white. I liked it. I thought it was a nice juxtaposition with the primary colors.

Yeah. You were an artiste. No, I was just a connoisseur. All right, so now the rest of the show, we're going to talk about chemistry. You're not happy about this, are you? Well... What did you think about this article? I thought it was good, you know, because that's what How StuffWorks does,

is they tell the story behind things. Like, we can't just talk about surfing. We have to talk about the physics of a wave. Right. I get that. But, yeah, chemistry was not my bag, baby. This one, kissing and roller coasters, you were kind of like,

you had a little bit of protest going on. Like, come on, this is fun stuff. Yeah, when you're talking about kissing, you want to talk about, you know. Remember the title of it was a rigid, sterile look at kissing. Well, I don't know if the title for this will end up being what I wanted, but it was going to be taking the fun out of Plato.

No. Let's call how Plato it works. All right. But you heard it here. That was my vote. That was the working title. Yeah. All right.

Well, I will kick the chemistry off and maybe I will spark your interest. You ready? Yes. Do you have your beret and your smock on? This isn't even the fun chemistry. You get to burn things. No, this is the chemistry of compounds.

You're just adding them together. There's a little heat involved, as we'll see. So, you could start that flame. Okay. Okay. So the whole basis of Plato, it turns out, is an interaction between starch and water. That's right.

And starches are, they're polysaccharides, which are sugar molecules. And there's basically two varieties or two types that combine. There's amylose and there's amylopectin. That's right. And amylose is like a string. Amelopectin is branched. And when they get together, they form a starburst shape. They form a molecule in a starburst shape.

And it's arranged around a central area, a hollow, called a Heilem, H-I-L-U-M. I don't know with the Hylam. And it's all held together thanks to hydrogen bonds. And then you have all that, these polysaccharide chains all mixed together with hydrogen bonds forming a starburst. And my friend, you have a starch molecule. And when you have that starch molecule, you have one of the two bases. of Pallito. Yeah, and this article

does have some pretty handy illustrations. If hearing this doesn't make as much sense you can follow along on your own computer. Look at the illustrations. If you add cold water to starch,

the granules are going to absorb some, but when things really get interesting, is when you add warm water, or when you heat up that cold water to be warm water. You can mix it ahead of time, and then warm it up.

up. And basically what you're doing is making a gelatin. Just like when you make jello, it's got to be warm water. Right. Like if you've ever had like corn starch or flour or whatever, um, and you add cold water to it, they just kind of separate, right? Yeah, it's really untoward. It doesn't do much. It's almost like the starch protects itself against the cold. It's like burr. Yeah. You stay over there cold water. But when you use warm water or a mechanical action of mixing together, it forms like you said, it gelatinizes. That's right. And now you're starting to to get the basis of Play-Doh. But the problem is, when you just add warm water

and the starch, in this case, it's wheat starch that they use, right? Because they have to warn against gluten. When you add those two things, they mix together well. They form a nice gelatinous goo. But as it dries, you've got the problem of retrogradation. That's right. And that's trouble.

Yeah, because it really depends on the breakdown of amylose to amylopectin is the key. If you have a lot of amylose, it's gonna take more swelling to gelatinase. Right, but you get a nice, robust gel. Yeah. When you have a lot of amylose, but the problem is that excess amylose

separates some from the water, binds to itself, and then you have something that's not a full compound anymore. It's basically like a couple of, it's like you've got that gel and then some extra amylose and it's dry and brittle, and it's not good. Well, yeah, and in the case of making a product for kids to play with, it's too firm.

Like, they had to get this recipe just right to make it firm, but still pliable. Right. And a lot of work went into this, I'm sure. Yeah, because any time, like, they started with a starch in a water, put it together, fantastic. But then that created this problem.

Yep. And then when they went to solve this problem, it created this problem. So then they had to solve it with this problem. And then after adding, like, seven things, they finally have this, like, precarious, balanced compound. That's perfect.

That's perfect. But it's pretty neat. It's really complicated, and it's self-complicating, which I find very interesting. It is. And what they ended up settling with, as far as percentages go, for that wheat starch, was 25% amylose and 75% amylopectin. They found that to be the secret sauce, as our buddy Chad likes to say. And the reason they have the amelopectin is because the amelopectin is a waxy starch,

and it keeps the amylose from binding to it. itself. So you have, you've prevented that retrogradation problem, right, where the amylose separates from the water and just binds to itself. The problem is, now that you have this extra amylopectin, the amylopectin, it keeps the whole thing together, but it does it too much. And now you have a sticky, tacky compound. Yeah, you don't want it sticky. No, and anybody's ever play with Plato and tried to make something. You can't make it sticky. You'll stick to your hands or it'll stick to itself. It's not going to make a cheeseburger like that. that. No. No. So, they added something else, a lubricant. That's right. In this case,

I don't know if that's part of the secret or not, but it's probably some sort of a vegetable oil or mineral oil. Well, they think possibly it's a mineral oil which is derived from petroleum, which is why, it's non-toxic, but you still shouldn't eat it. Yeah, I did see that there was petroleum. I bet you they're going to come out with a gluten-free plato. I'm surprised they haven't already. But that would almost be like admitting your child is eating this or can't eat it. Well, some of that new stuff,

like the sweet shop stuff, yeah. I'm actually, I would be very surprised if they hadn't done some R&D of different flavored Play-Doh. Right. You know? Because they have the different colors and this is supposed to look like this frosting,

this supposed to look like this frosting. So I wonder if they were like, well, we can make this taste like vanilla or, you know, cotton candy or whatever. Whatever, but yeah, and then they kind of shook their heads off and we're like, wait, wait, wait, we can't have kids eating this stuff. Or I wonder if they've done R&D on how much of it you can eat before it makes you sick.

Surely. Like, if they're making something that looks like a cupcake. Yeah. Some kid is probably going to eat that entire thing at some point. And like we said, they've pretty much always been like, you can make fake food with this. Yeah. Pizza Hut gave us money to do this.

But don't eat it. Right. It's a weird mixed message. It is a totally mixed message. But you were saying they used the petroleum oil food. for as a lubricant. Yeah, and that keeps it from being all sticky. So if you've ever played with it, you know it,

like it's very pliable and moist, but it's not gonna stick to your fingers, which is the key. Right, so you have added the mineral oil or some sort of lubricant to prevent the extra amylopectin from making it sticky. And the whole reason you added amylopectin was because too much amylose can cause retrogradation. So you've got all these solutions,

and you've got the lubricant solution. The problem is, you can't just put, like, you can't just drop it into lubricant and expect it to stick. The lubricant won't bind within this compound. Yeah. So you have to add yet another thing. The surfactant. Yeah, surfactants, you'll see in a lot of household cleansing products if you use that chemical junk to clean your house. But a surface active agent is another name for it. And it basically, they're artificially manufactured. their molecules, but it's going to suspend something in water. It's the whole key to being a surfactant.

Imagine a surfactant has two ends, and one end is hydrophilic, which means it attracts water and is attracted to water, and the other is hydrophobic, which means it repels water, and it's actually attracted to fats, lipids, right? Yeah, or afraid of it even. The cool thing about a surfactant is that if you take it and you throw it into a solution of water and oil, fats and waters, right? Yeah. One end will attract the fat molecules and another end will attract the water molecules.

And the end result of all of this is that you can basically suspend fats in water or water in fats so that you have effectively, molecularly speaking, a compound that's all mixed together. It's not going to separate like oil and water because the whole thing's being held together by surfactants. That's right. That's pretty amazing. Yeah, it actually binds to the molecules of the lubricant. Right.

The chemical reaction is taking place. And keeps them all mixed together. It won't allow them to separate. So we've got the lubricant in there. Yeah. The whole thing's being held in place by their surfactant. All lubed up, ready to go. We've got a little extra water, Chuck.

What are we going to do? Well, I don't think we mentioned earlier. The reason it dries out to begin with if you leave it out overnight is just because evaporation. Right. And Hasbro recommends that if this happens, you take your Play-O modeling clay. Yeah. and you wrap it in like a damp paper towel,

put it back in the can, put the cover on it, leave it overnight, should be good as new. Yeah, and I've seen you can also add a little water to it as well. But I've never tried that. So that, my friend, it's a very fine-tuned mixture. Like you said, they had to, I'm sure it took a lot of work over the years to get it just exactly right. And we're going to learn how you can make your own right after this break.

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building a fort out of your clean laundry and you're staring at a half-empty fridge and thinking, what are we even going to eat tonight? Or you could just hello fresh it. With over 80 recipes to choose from every week, including kid-friendly ones, even for picky eaters, you'll get fresh ingredients and easy step-by-step recipes delivered right to your door. No last-minute grocery runs. No, what do we even have fridge staring? And the best part, you're in total control. Skip a week, pause any time, pick what works for you. It's dinner on your terms. The kids can even help you cook. Yeah, it's going to be messy. But somehow, they tend to eat the vegetables they made themselves. Try HelloFresh today and get 50% off the first box with free shipping. Go to

hellofresh.c.c.com and use promo code Dinner50. That's hellofresh.ca.com.com Code Dinner 50, HelloFresh.C.A. HelloFresh. Canada's number one meal kit delivery service. So, Chuck, we should have said there's a couple other things that they add. Like you get excess water. Yeah. So they added a little salt.

Yeah, sure. And apparently for the excess salt, they brought in a new chemist. Yeah. So it's just perfectly fine-tuned stuff. And you've got to color it, of course, and give it its scent. Yeah. And then possibly make it. it taste in the future? Who knows? I'm betting on that. Yeah. And, you know, the salt also adds

a little antimicrobial element to it. Right. Which is nice. So it acts as a preservative as well. And to make Play-Doh, you just put all this stuff in these, in the right measurements, and apply heat to it and mix it together and package it. And that's Plato. Yeah, and it's got to have that shelf life. Like, this is, it's really hard to come up with a product like this that meets all those needs and we'll still like you know I'm sure there were times early on we're like oh this stuff's two weeks old on the shelf it's like a brick back to the drawing board yeah put on your beret yeah and your smock remember in our how twinkies works episode they dealt with that initially oh the shelf life yeah right so they just made it infinity man that was such a good episode that was good one of my

all-time favorites agreed we still get emails from people that are like I found the banana Twinkies. Yeah, they have them in, like, limited release from once in a while. Yeah. I have yet to try one. I remember trying one years ago, but it wasn't my bag. I don't like banana-flavored things, but I like bananas. You're a very complex man, Chuck.

Well, they don't quite get it right, I don't think, ever. I've never tasted a banana-flavored thing that got it right. Gotcha. I'm hard to please. So, man, you just totally threw me off. What were we talking about? I think we were to the point where we're going to make our own, right? Right.

So it's very tough to make until you come upon the recipe. But apparently, a lot of people, even though it's a proprietary recipe, a lot of people have come up with their own recipes for Play-Doh. Sure, and it's fun to do with your kid, you know. Like if they like playing with it, then you can teach them a little chemistry along the way. Right. Make it a learning moment. If you want to save some money or you don't want to feed the corporate beast. That too.

Or, yeah, you just want to do something with your kid and make it. You can do all this. It just takes a little elbow grease and work. And there's recipes all over the internet. There's some for like glow in the dark Play-Doh. Oh, really? There's some for glittery Play-Doh. There's a couple of recipes in this article

on how stuff works. But basically, you're doing the same thing. You're adding starch to water. You're adding some sort of lubricant to it, something to hold the whole thing together. In this recipe, it's a cream of tartar. Yes. Which stiffens eggs and gives Play-Doh, homemade Plato,

play plato it's firmness but there's a lot of recipes online that if you want to not only just play with plato with your kid but make it that's a great chemistry teaching experience i think agreed and you can explain you know what each ingredient is doing and then at the very end you're going to have plato and your kid's going to say this plato stinks it's not nearly as good as the real thing unless it's the peanut butter variety then i'll bet you're like oh this is tasty plato Do they have that? Yeah, there's a recipe for it in this article. So peanut butter is one of the ingredients?

Yes. Interesting. Yeah. Or, you know what? You could make it with your kid while you listen to us stumble through the explanation. Yeah. And to everybody who's doing that right now, hello. Hello, everyone.

And your kid's going to say, who are these jerks and why does my Play-Doh not work? Can we just go to the store and buy some Play-Doh, please? Yep. Yeah. Well, we're portable. We go around on MP3 players, so we can go to the store with you, too. Exactly. What else you got?

And then you can listen to our episode on temper tantrums on the way to the store. That was a good one, too. It was. What else you got? I've got nothing else. I got plenty more. Oh, well, please. Mr. Bill, remember him from Saturday Night Live?

Of course. He was made a Play-Doh. Yeah. They made the first Mr. Bill short for 20 bucks. That's pretty good stuff. What else you got? Fun facts? Play-to fun facts?

There's a, there's not just one, but two, at least, Plato 3D printers on the market right now. Really? Yeah, it's pretty awesome. So you put a hunk of it in there? Different hunks in there. Oh, no, no, no. And I was about to say a hunk in there and then it whittles it down,

but that's the opposite of 3D printer. No, no, it extrudes it, it builds up. Yeah, that's crazy. There's one on ThinkGeek for like 50 bucks that plugs into your iPad, so that's where your schematics are and it tells it what to do. and it makes pretty cool little 3D Play-D Play-D stuff. That's kind of fun. It is.

At the same time, it's kind of like, you know. I mean, you're really building a little geek there, but the imagination and the hands-on thing's kind of taken out of it a little bit. Well, I think that's the new imagination, my friend. I guess so. To follow forms and schematics to have a T. Maybe so. It would be cool as if you could design your own schematic and then...

Which I'm sure you can. Yeah. And then Plato has one called the Do Vinci. I saw that. And that's a 3D printer too. And then one other thing I found, we were talking about Plato ads earlier. There is a series of band Play-D-LadO ads that were published in Singapore a couple years back. Oh, band is in, I thought you meant like bands recorded music.

No, no, like B-A-N-N-N-E-D, taboo Play-D ads that are very adult centric. Really? Yeah. Can you say what? What? How about this? Yeah.

I made a slideshow of them on our site. Ah. You can go check them out. They're pretty crazy. Okay. They're not like naked or not adult in that way, but like kind of violent and a little dark that this ad agency made basically without the approval of Hasbro. Yeah.

Clearly. And the Hasbro came in and like denounced it and everything, but they're pretty great. So if you go to stuff you should know. and search band Play-Doh ads. It will come up. And Hasbro had a news release. It says, we don't endorse this use of Plato brand moldable clay. They just kept working the name in there. Yeah. Well, it's pretty crazy. I learned all about something called scam ads where advertising agencies basically create ad campaigns based around brand names without the brand names permission simply to submit them for awards consideration to expand their prestige.

Interesting. Well, and if you want to be a TV commercial director, you have probably made some spec or fake ads yourself just to have on your reel. Like, you know, I'm going to make a Doritos. Well, Doritos is that contest every year. Right. So this is that same thing, but sometimes they really run afoul of like the spirit of the brand. Sure. And there's, yeah, scam ads. Yeah, They're like European commercials, which are always way better. Yeah. And risque and, like, funny. Yeah.

Get with it, America. So if you want to learn more about Play-Doh, including a few Play-Doh recipes, you can type Play-Doh into the search bar at How StuffWorks.com. And since I said, search bar, it's time for a listener mail. I'm going to call this another M-P-A called the Golden F-Bomb. Hey, guys, I discovered your show. And he says hello to Jerry and spelled her name right, too. Oh, that was nice.

Which doesn't happen often. No. The spelling, that is. I discovered your podcast while looking for something interesting to listen to while I worked on my organic farm in Kauai. Nice. I heard the MPA show, and I just had to write in. Growing up, my friends and I were always looking for a way to sneak into movie theaters. He had the exit door, having an older friend or parent buy his tickets, using a ticket single ticket stub, pass back through to get in on the same ticket, et cetera.

He had all sorts of ways of stealing. our goal was to get into an R-rated movie underage with NC17 being the ultimate prize PG-13 always felt like we had failed or were settling so to make it fun we would count how many expletives were we heard and compare notes after the movie

he really took things to a different level yeah it must have been a time when movies weren't as good as they are today in the theaters no movies have never been this bad I know man it is really out of control That's terrible. One pattern we soon realized was that PG-13 movies are allotted one F-bomb.

Listening for that one-f bomb became the looked-for moment, making the PG-13 movie experience a tad more interesting. Something I look out for to this day still. There are some real classics, including Ron Burgundy's and Anchorman. Most recently in Skyfall, when Judy Dench uses that naughty word. She did. I don't remember that. Judy. The first one in the Bond series, he claims.

Judy, Judy, Judy, Judy, Judy. Oh, I just saw Philomena, by the way, finally. What did you think? It was fantastic. Was that just an amazing change of pace for her? She always plays like the sharp pulled together like boss lady. And like in this one, she was just kind of working class. God, that was a good movie.

It was really good. Love that movie. Highly recommended. And then I notice the rating rule is not ironclad, however, because recent examples of Lincoln and Philomena, hey, how about that, had two of those naughty words apiece. Lincoln had it in there, huh? So that Spielberg gets away with anything.

Well, he's the one that had the whole thing changed. Oh, yeah, he was the one that created it, didn't he? PG-13, yeah. And then he ran afoul of it. Jeez. Anyway, my absolute favorite PG-13, golden goal, naughty word, not mention anywhere else that I've researched, was the one that got me out of my seat cheering.

Like, the President's Speech and Independence Day is from Oblivion. Tom Cruise's character waits to the very end of the movie. to deliver the perfectly timed line to his enemy. That movie stunk. Did it? Yeah. I heard the other one was pretty good, though. Edge of tomorrow? Yeah, that was really good. Oblivion stunk. And he closes by saying

Mahalo, Nui Loa. Thank you very much for all you do to Infotainus. And that is Evans on Kauai. Yeah, sorry, Evans. Oblivion was no good. He said he liked it a lot. But, you know, to each their own, I'm not going to poopoo his taste. Good for you, Chuck. Thanks for your game and your thievery

If you want to talk to me and Chuck about movies We are always down for that We love talking about movies We should just like do an episode Where we just say Have you seen this movie? Oh yeah, I love that one For like a half hour

There'll be a couple of people out there They're like oh this is a good episode There are podcasts like exactly like that You know that What was I just saying? Oh yeah if you want to get in touch with this For whatever reason, movies or otherwise, you can tweet to us at SYSK podcast. You can join us on Facebook.com slash stuff you should know.

You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at howstuffWorks.com. And you can join us at our home on the web, stuff you should know.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works.com. I know he has a reputation, but it's going to catch up to him. Gabe Ortiz is a cop. His brother Larry, a mystery Gabe didn't want to solve until it was too late. He was the head of this gang. You're going to push that line for the cause?

Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it. When Larry's killed, Gabe must untangle a dangerous past, one that could destroy everything he thought he knew. Listen to the brothers Ortiz on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast. or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of, you know, developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different.

Visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com or your nearest total wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit Gentleman's Cut Bourbon. Bourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Hey there, Dr. Jesse Mills here. I'm the director of the men's clinic at UCLA, and I want to tell you about my new podcast called The Mail Room. And I'm Jordan, the show's producer. And like most guys, I haven't been to the doctor in way too long. I'll be asking the questions

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