Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - Everyone & The Dew

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

Comedian Vinny Thomas joins Emma to discuss Hard Mountain Dew—but is it any good? We ask an expert. Plus we talk to the mother son duo behind a beloved bathroom staple.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Coming up, Mountain Dew, the little Tupperware that could, and a modern-day Albert Einstein. I'm Emma Choi, and this is Everyone and Their Mom. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Everyone and Their Mom, a weekly show from Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. I'm Emma Choi. This is a show where we dig deeper into wait wait stories we love. It's a magical world where anything can happen and I'm talking anything. Each week I'll be joined by a different panelist and meet a bunch of new friends as we go. Today my co-host is comedian and total famous person on Twitter and he's also one of my friends and also one of our writers behind the scenes on Wait, Don't Tell Me. It's Vinny Thomas. Hi, Vinny. Hi, Emma. Wow, what an introduction. How robust. I loved it. Vinny, before we start, just to practice yapping off,

how's your snake doing today? Oh, she's doing great. I have a snake named Mrs. Gutierrez. She ate a mouse yesterday, Emma. Pop off, Mrs. Gutierrez. It was her first mouse of the season. So she's just into it, man. She's, you know, she's full. Oh, I love it. Let's get into it, Vinny. We are gathered here today because the food and beverage industry was disrupted with a huge announcement. Mountain Dew dropped a new alcoholic version of its drink, Mountain Dew dropped a new alcoholic version of its drink, Hard Mountain Dew. And if we don't talk about it, I'm going to die. The Machine Gun Kelly of drinks has now landed.

Oh my gosh. The notorious sugary soft drink Mountain Dew now comes in an alcoholic version, which is just one more reason why my mom will not let me drink it. The coming of Hard Mountain Dew has been prophesied for generations. The new alcoholic drink is made through a partnership with Pepsi and Boston Beer Company. So far, it's only been released in Florida, Tennessee, and Iowa. There's no word yet on when it'll be available. It comes in original dew, watermelon, black cherry, and Baja Blast, which are really just four variants of the same flavor, which is regret.

Apparently it's delicious. Okay. According to a journalist who like tried it for Mashable, it doesn't even taste like alcohol at all. And I am so scared of this drink, Vinny. How are you doing? How are you processing this news? I love this news. I think this is delicious news.

I think this is delicious news. I think this is fantastic news. First and foremost, I didn't know Mountain Dew had a flavor besides just like the lemony Mountain Dew flavor. Me neither. I didn't know it existed beyond that. You know the one that tastes like lemon pledge or whatever? I thought that was it. But there's a whole world. You're right, Vinny. It is a whole world of flavor. But what exactly is that flavor? The flavor of hard Mountain Dew? We found someone who might be able to help. Can we start by having you introduce yourself?

My name is TJ Douglas, and I'm the CEO and co-founder of The Urban Grape in Boston, Massachusetts. So you're a sommelier, right? Which is a wine expert. It's a wine steward, someone who pours people like you wine. We'll call ourselves that. Yeah. So you're a wine steward, and we're hoping that you can use your expert taste buds to try this new hard Mountain Dew and explain how it tastes to our listeners. I'm a little nervous. I have really nice glassware and I don't know if I need it or not. So we're here to taste the original Mountain Dew flavor of Hard Mountain Dew. So let's do the Dew. First, I'm going to smell it. Oh my God, this smells like green popsicle.

It's pretty enticing though. It's very tropical. It has like this kiwi and almost like candied lime smell to it. And you know what? I'm actually going to pour it in the glass. The color is actually kind of crazy. That color is unreal. How do you make that? I'm not sure what color plutonium is, but. It looks like radioactive juice. Oh my God. But it's, yeah, that popsicle smell. So what I'm doing for all you listeners, I actually put it in a wine glass and I'm swirling it. And what I'm doing, I'm increasing surface area.

So I actually get to smell more of the liquid in there. So I'm going to, I'm going to drink this like, I guess, wine. Let's try it. Let's see. Wow. So it's try it. Let's see. Wow. So it's very dry. And dry actually means not sweet. Interesting.

What would you pair with this food-wise? I don't know. If you want to get fancy, do like a prosciutto and melon salad, right? Because this has like a lot of like, at least mine has a lot of like melon zones to it. Yeah. Right? Right. Because this has like a lot of like at least mine has a lot of like melon zones to it. Yeah. Right. What I would also eat with this would be like beef jerky in a golf cart in the summertime looking for my ball in the woods. Yeah. OK, TJ, my last big question. OK. Is hard Mountain Dew good? Oh, God. You know, here's the thing. If something tastes good to you, it's a good product, right?

Yeah. Who am I to say this is good or you should like this, right? Is this something that I'm going to drink? Probably not. But you never know. Vinny, Mountain Dew is famous for being the absolute most of what it is. So we made a game called Make It Extreme. Vinny, I'm going to say a product and you tell me an extreme tagline for that product to make it more exciting. Okay?

Amazing. Yep. Milk. Make it exciting. Shake that cow. Drink it frothy. Shih Tzus. Tagline the small dog. Shih Tzus. We took a wolf and compressed it. Oatmeal, Vinny, make it awesome. Grain, for the people. Athlete's foot cream, make it cool.

Oh, fungus? Clean it up, you dirty freaks. Lava lamp, make me excited. Finally, goop you can sleep next to. Wow, that's so extreme. Vinny, that was great. You know, I'm thinking about this moment of invention. When someone has created something and they know that they're about to change humanity.

That aha moment, you know? What do you think that moment is like? I think it's a beautiful moment like I would I would honestly compare you know the inventor of Mountain Dew to um like Albert Einstein or someone like that who like just made an incredible discovery and it was probably like wow because in your hands you have this responsibility to like escort this through the world and be it's in many ways its parent. So I think it's a big deal for sure. And I think it's a burden. But I also think it's wildly exciting. To start off, will you guys introduce yourselves to us?

Go ahead, Mom. I'm Judy Edwards, and I'm one of the co-founders of the Squatty Potty, along with my son. I'm the son, Bobby Edwards. So you and your family are the inventors of the Squatty Potty, a wildly popular bathroom accessory, right? So if there's anyone out there who isn't familiar, can you explain the Squatty Potty to us? So it's like a U-shaped stool. It fits around your toilet, the base of your toilet, and you pull it out and put your feet up and you'll have a lot better bowel movement because of it. One should be squatting when you eliminate and the squatty

potty helps you achieve that. So is eliminate, eliminate like the corporate word you use to make it sound kind of more like scientific and fancy? Oh, yeah, we could sure say poop. But you know, a lot of people don't like that word. Squatting to go to the bathroom isn't new, right? Yeah, we didn't invent the idea. It has been done all over the world. In fact, a third or more of the world still squats. The problem was is talking about it, a subject no one likes to talk about. And so, you know, we had a few things to overcome at the beginning. Was there a moment where it was like a eureka moment where you first came up with the idea? I think we both kind of had different moments there. But it really was

around our kitchen table one day when Bobby said, we were talking about the importance of getting our knees up. I had heard it from a therapist and he had had some friends that were squatting. They were telling him about the benefits. And we just built, Bobby looked at me, he says, mom, let's design a stool that is for the task. Was this like during dinner? It was like one of our, we used to have lunch together. Yeah. And so it was like an early dinner or late lunch. I know it was like two or three in the afternoon, I remember. How does it feel to be like the modern Vaughn Trapp family singers,

but your thing is like bathroom stuff instead of singing? It's kind of great. We did sing as a family. Really? We did sing and clog. Yeah, we clogged. We sang and clogged. Oh my God. Your, we clogged. We sing and clog. Oh, my God.

Your family lore is crazy. Do you think this has brought your family closer together, like making this business? Yeah. My parents are Mormon and I'm gay. And then it was hard for us to find common ground, really something to talk about and discuss. You know, we can't talk politics. We can't talk religion. What are we going to talk about?

And that business gave us something to bond. And I think that I definitely personally became closer to my mom and dad during that period, of course. It's great, like, the power of your invention to, like, bring all kinds of people together because everyone poops. Everybody poops. Do you get less reading done since you're not spending as much time on the toilet now? That's the biggest complaint on Amazon. I can't read anymore. I'm done in two minutes or a minute.

Yeah, that's the biggest complaint. Thank you so much, guys. I feel like I've learned so much. And I love hearing about your invention. So thanks for stopping by. Well, thank you. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thanks so much.

I wish I was the inventor of something like really mundane that everyone uses and it could become my whole personality. Like the top of a coffee cup. My name is Alexander Cardboard Box. You know who my father is? Edward Cardboard Box. The inventor of the cardboard box. I'm Amelia Tupperware. No relation. Oh, Amelia Tupperware. I love her already.

So do I. That's like a children's book waiting to happen. Amelia Tupperware by Dina Hashem. Amelia Tupperware by Dina Hashem There once was a girl named Amelia who lived in a quaint little, poor, filthy, frankly a shithole of a town with her mom and dad. Their house was much smaller than everyone else's, and they didn't have much. Truly nothing. Zilch, nada, even mice wouldn't deign to visit them. The mice hated them, but they were rich with love and worked hard every day. One night, Amelia's mom prepared dinner for Amelia and her father. Three whole breadcrumbs. They ate 1.5 breadcrumbs that night so they could save the rest for breakfast. But the next morning, there was but one crumb left. Clearly the mice had

overcome their bitter loathing and come inside for a bite. And the only crumb left was stale. If only there was a way to better store and protect food, they thought. That thought gave the family the idea to invent Tupperware. And that is the 100% real and unexaggerated account of how the honest, self-made, completely deserved Tupperware fortune was made and inherited by me, billionaire Amelia Tupperware XIV. Here's the best part of the podcast. This show is brought to you by Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. This episode was produced by Haley Fager, Zola Ray, Lillian King, Nancy Seichow, and that one kid in lecture who was always looking at real estate on his computer. Why do you do this?

Our supervising producer is Jennifer Mills, and our second favorite Danforth brother is Mike Danforth. Once again, Lorna White is our goddess of sound, and we owe everything to her. Thank you, Lorna! Remember the news clip? It came from CNN. Thanks, CNN News. Special thanks to Dina Hashem for her original writing and performance of the saddest story on Earth, Amelia Tupperware. Live and let die. Live and let die.

Find more from Dina at DinaHashem underscore. That's D-I-N-A-H-A-S-H-E-M and then underscore. And check out our YouTube channel at Dina Hashem Comedy. Thanks to TJ Douglas from the Urban Grape in Boston for helping us taste hard Mountain Dew. We're Dew Brothers now, TJ, and that's a bomb that could never be broken.

We're drinking Mountain Dew together. Judy and Bobby Edwards, thank you for inventing the Squatty Potty and telling us all about it. They did such a wonderful job. Thank you to my co-host, comedian, Twitter boy, and Wait Wait writer, Vinny Thomas.

Emma, this is so embarrassing. You can see more from Vinny on Twitter at V-I-N-N underscore A-Y-Y. I'm Emma Choi, and you can find me at WaitWaitNPR and in the basement of an opera house wearing a sassy little white mask trying to get the girl upstairs to love me

through any means necessary. Okay, I'm done. This is MBR. Pardon me. This is... All right. Don't like this one. You know when you have too much sugar and it makes your teeth feel like chalk? That's Baja Blast right there. Cheers, TJ, to the worst drink I've ever tasted. The first one was like, oh, it's fine. This one is not good.