Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - Everyone & Giant Puzzles

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

Comedian Maeve Higgins and Emma build the world's largest puzzle.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi everyone, I'm Emma Choi and welcome to Everyone and Their Mom from Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. This week we're talking about the hottest new thing in puzzles with Wait Wait panelist, comedian, and a woman who I think, and I cannot stress this enough, should never operate a forklift. It's Maeve Higgins. Hi Maeve. Beep, Emma. Don't. That was me reversing. That was me reversing into the studio on my forklift. Well, that's the sound I'm going to hear in my nightmares. Thank you so much. But Maeve, this week I'm coming to you with some huge news from the puzzle world. Great. You can now buy a 60,000 piece puzzle. The future is now. Wait, that's like, how many pieces did you say?

60,000? I think the most I might have ever done is 600. Okay, you might have some trouble. Let me tell you a little bit more about this puzzle. Okay. So, I mean, first of all, who doesn't love a good jigsaw puzzle, right? It's meditative. It's tactile.

And buying one is the perfect way to show the world, hey, I'm a little lonely. And I can say that because I love jigsaw puzzles. And yeah, maybe I am a little lonely. So you can imagine my excitement when I found out that Costco is now selling a 60,000 piece puzzle. Hubba. Hubba. Yes. Is that an old lady propensity, or is it, like, actually just a thing that you've done all your life? I think that it is something I've done my whole life.

Okay, well, so something we've been talking about is that puzzles are, you're either a puzzle person, like, you love puzzles, or you just, you've never been into them. Which one are you? You know, I don't think I think probably I could. I love doing things that involve just like sitting extremely still, almost pretending I don't have a body and just moving the very tops of my fingers. That's why, like I write a lot, like I knit a lot. I just text on the phone.

So I think I could do puzzles, but they seem a bit too physical for me. This is more it's not just fingers, it's arms. Arms, you have to reach. Pretty sedentary lifestyle. Yeah, it's just a little bit too, I'm not like an athlete in that way. Sure, sure. You're not doing that way. And I respect that.

But I mean, if you were, if it just meant that I could just kind of like glance over and say to you like, Emma, over there, you know, left, left, left, left, something like that. If I could guide you towards it. Or if I had a little clipper, you know, like a little tongs in my hand that I could pick the pieces up. But if I had to be standing up, reaching across the city back down. You know who you would like is my grandfather. Because the way he does puzzles. Okay, one hand, tweezers.

Other hand, red wine. Legend. And he puts them one by one and he calls me sometimes and he's like Eunju, this puzzle came with only not all the pieces. Like they gave me the wrong puzzle. So I go over there and I look and he's taking the tweezers and smoosh

the pieces into the places to make sure they fit, not remotely the same color. So I go, Epi, are you colorblind? Two, this is not how you do puzzles. So he's like, another malfunctioning piece. He's never the problem to himself. I love that compliment.

himself. I love that compliment. Last time you did a puzzle, right? What's your process? The last time I did a puzzle it was with a six-year-old and it was a Disney princess puzzle. So I was like

all the redhead one together. Okay you sort yeah I do yeah me too I'm trying to think when I did the puzzle with the six-year-old I beat her so no to be honest she did win that one but my you know because she was I guess racing like she was like I'm gonna get you know yeah this is Ariel you know and this is Belle and I wasn't totally familiar I was like is she from Frozen and she was like what you know so I was at a disadvantage because I'm not a six-year-old myself yeah and also I think she had done that puzzle before a number of times she just seemed to be very fast so we fell out over that we did you know and I haven't really been in touch with her yeah and I that's that's hard

I'm sorry I'm sorry for her yeah who do we think this puzzle is for yeah you know like yeah what prince what what nerd prince has like a casual 600 to drop on a puzzle, right? And I don't know, but I want to be that nerd Prince so bad. Yeah. It sounds so cool. Yeah. It's a real like, you know, commitment, you know? Yeah. Like some people, they're like, I'm going to have a child or like, I'm going to buy my mom a house.

Yeah. But this is more like, it's less like that i suppose a little bit maybe apparently if you buy the sucker at costco if you buy two you can save a whopping ten dollars so are we doing this are you allowed to buy two or is it like you can buy two like somehow sometimes like if something's very precious you're only allowed one per customer no i mean they're offering a deal so i really think we should jump on this. I got the email from the mailroom to say it was here. And I immediately knew which package it was.

We, of course, sent this puzzle to my dorm room. And it is one heavy boy. It says 100 pounds. On the box, it says two-person lift required, 100 pounds. Will you open the door for me? Yes, I'll open the door. I'm here with producer and newly minted lighthouse expert, Wilder Fleming. We're going to gather the puzzling community of Boston and just, you know what, build this freaking puzzle together. Just, it's truly the size of the backseat. I know. Okay, I'm out of breath. Okay, so the puzzle's in the car and we're heading to the meeting spot. Basically what I've done is put up flyers, message people on Facebook, harass all my friends, get everyone I can think of together so we can build this thing.

When it was all said and done, we got like 25 people to come. That's more friends than I've ever had. Wait, wait, don't tell me it's a puzzle thing. It sure is. Hi, welcome. All right, so we're in this event hall right now, and people are coming in. Puzzlers are very nice, so everyone's helping us set up. We've got about 15 big round tables, kind of like Knights of the Round Table vibes.

And people are coming in, parka after parka, and everyone wants to get their hands on this baby. Does everyone want to conven their hands on this baby Thank you everyone for coming today, we're doing the 60,000 piece puzzle from Dowdle puzzles It's 60 individually wrapped 1000 piece puzzles. So it's a lot Let's do it 1000 piece puzzle, so it's a lot. Let's do it! Yay! Oh my god. Wow, the world's largest puzzle and it's gonna be 8 feet by 29 feet. Whoa! Yay!

Whoo! Okay, I guess before we start, our general strategy is that we're gonna sort, and then we're just gonna go ham. Good strategy? Great. So inside of this box are puzzles 1 to 20, 2 to 21, 1 to 40, and 41 to 60? Okay, so... Cool. 1 to 1. 1! 2! 1 to 2. 60? Okay, so cool. Who wants one? One! Two! Who wants two?

Yeah, two. Nice! Who wants three? Okay, eight. Yeah, I'm Griffin Andres. I'm a lifelong puzzler. My aunt would always have this nook in her house where there would always be a puzzle ongoing. It's a very wintry, sort of homely, comfortable activity.

I jumped at the chance, especially I've never understood a puzzle of this magnitude. So it's exciting just to see. Griffin, can you describe the energy in the room right now? Definitely very intently focused. People here are serious puzzles, puzzlers it seems. I'm pretty intimidated if I were to be completely honest. If there were 60 people here, piece of cake. I'm Linda Chin, C-H-I-N, and I'm from Cambridge, and I often do 500 piece puzzles because I like to finish them in a sitting.

So if my husband's been watching a show and I don't particularly like it but I want to be in the same room I'll be doing my puzzle and then I'll look up occasionally and say there's a lot of sex in Game of Thrones you know okay but I like to complete things that's why people like puzzles. I'm told refreshments also is extra. Yeah, so we're on our way to go order pizzas. It is a much bigger puzzle than I originally anticipated, but there's one family particularly that I feel like has a lot of potential, the Borgards. I noticed you guys were really going at it.

Are you guys a puzzle family? Yeah. Yeah, I'd say so. We're pretty intense, I guess, when we do dance, Are you guys a puzzle family? Yeah. Yeah. We're pretty intense, I guess, when we do that. We don't do that many, but we're kind of full-bodied when we do. Yeah, there's a hardness in your eyes right now. Do you think we're going to finish today? No.

How much do you think we're going to get done? We're going to get done maybe two panels. Okay. Well, good luck you guys. Basically, we didn't really get close to finishing at all. I think we're probably like 1.18 the way there. So I'm looking at this room and it kind of feels like that point in the movie where like all the Avengers are dead and there's like one kid waiting on the street to be rescued. So the vibe is a little defeated. So I decided that I had to

inspire and reassure them one more time. Hey everyone, it's 5 53. So we got seven minutes, which I know we're going to finish the puzzle in. Yeah. So before we end, we have a couple of questions for you guys. What do you, I mean, I don't know what to do with this guy now. Do you have any suggestions of where it should go? Please help me. Would you be willing to ship it to someone? Maybe.

I'm part of a group called the USA J-Sauce Puzzle Association. If anyone's interested, it's like $50 a year, and they host one of the events. But they have a Facebook page. If you post it in there, someone might take it. Interesting. Interesting. Would I be feeding Big Puzzle Corporation America, though? No, they're a non-profit organization.

Interesting. Okay, it's on the list. My only worry is that now that I am the owner of this puzzle, it feels like a curse upon my family. And I'm afraid of transferring it on to another innocent person. Yeah, it is a burden. And I'm afraid of transferring it on to another innocent person. Yeah. Yeah, it is a burden. Can you find a person you don't like? An enemy? Yeah. That was the perfect idea. So, you know what? This baby's going out to Elon Musk.

Let's see you try to solve this, money boy. And now it's time for the most puzzling part of the podcast, the credits. This show was brought to you by Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. This episode was produced by Haley Fager and Oja Lopez, with help from Wilder Fleming, Lyd Robertson, Lillian King, Sophie Hernandez-Simeone This, Olivia Oldham, Chris Danforth, and Timothy Chalamet. Our supervising producer is Kelly Wessinger, and our male feminist is Mike Danforth. So brave!

Once again, Lorna White, you are our sound wizard. We worship you. Thank you. Thanks to Dowdle Puzzles for creating the most cursed thing I now own. And to the Fellowship of the Puzzle, thank you for spending six hours of your lives working on this monster with me. I love you all like brothers, and now we share a traumatic experience. Thank you to my co-host, comedian, Wait Wait panelist, and yarn heiress, Maeve Higgins. Her new album, A Very Special Woman, is now on Bandcamp. I'm Emma Choi and you can find me at WaitWaitMPR and deep in the Mojave Desert, digging a shallow grave to finally lay this puzzle to rest far from any wandering witness's eyes. Okay, that's it. This is NPR.