February 1, 2018 • 15 mins
Why was FDR so obsessed with mysteries? What's hiding in KFC's super secret Spice Mix vault? And what was the murder rate in the town from Murder She Wrote? (Pretty darn high!) Will and Mango put on their Sherlock Holmes hats and try to solve some cases.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what, mango? What's that? Well? All right, so you
know that game Clue, and I think you know this fact,
but you know it came from the game Cludo in England, right, Yeah? Actually,
I think my cousins in India told me it's a
pun on the word ludo, which was an old Roman
game or something. Yeah, that's right. So they changed the
name in the US because nobody here plays ludo. But
that isn't the only thing they changed. It was kind
(00:21):
of interesting to look at the list. So did you
know that in the British version, the murder weapons include
a fireplace poker, a syringe, an axe, and even a bomb,
which is insane. I mean doesn't feel like things you
have around the house. I mean, except for the fireplace poker,
you don't have a lot of syringes or bombs around
the house. But also the characters are different. There's a
Doctor Black, a Mr Gold, and a Colonel Yellow instead
(00:44):
of Mustard for some reason that makes no sense. I mean,
Colonel Mustard is definitely a better name, but why change
it from yellow? Like Americans know what yellow? I feel
like Americans know what yellow is. But that's just another
mystery for players to solve, which is perfect for today
a show because it's all about mysteries. So let's dive in. Hey,
(01:24):
their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend
Man Guesh Ticketer and sitting behind the soundproof glass dusting
office collection of Hardy Boys Mysteries. That's our good pal
and producer Tristan McNeil. So. I don't know if you
feel this way, but every time I hear the word
hardy boys, now I think of that Dirty Rock episode
where Jack Donneghe orders like a wine sprinter from the bartender.
(01:47):
You know what I'm talking about, Yes, I do. I
love it so much because like he gets the drink
and the fartenders like here's your Nancy Drew and Jack
donneghe goes for men. It's a hearty boy. So were
you in the mysteries the same way? I was this
a kid? I mean, I like them, but hearing you
talk about how much you were into them, I definitely
wasn't Sherlock Holmes for three straight halloweens like you were.
(02:10):
So so why were you so obsessed with I don't know,
I mean I think I liked the idea of being
my neighborhood Encyclopedia Brown And actually my mom got me
these abridged classics as a kid. I don't know, did
you ever have those? Yeah? Definitely. Yeah, Like I remember
reading like Charles Dickens and Jules Verne and whatever. But
I really got hooked on the Sherlock Holmes one and
(02:31):
so much so that I actually started reading all the
Sherlock Holmes books in third grade. I mean I read
Shlock Holmes, I read uh acta Christie and all the
Miss Marbles and all that stuff. But I was just
totally obsessed. So how long did this obsession last? I mean,
I feel like, you're not that into mystery stuff now,
are you? No? Not not just hiding. I mean I
(02:51):
do remember trying to solve little mysteries around my neighborhood.
And so there was this kid who was just a
total liar, and uh when he first came into the neighborhood,
we'd all pull up in front of his house like
on our bikes to greet him, and he immediately set
off telling everyone he was like the second grade kids
world boxing champion, which I don't think it's a thing,
(03:13):
but you know. I mean, he was tough looking but
clearly lying, and I just looked at him. It was like,
you don't have any tan lines. If you're you're the
world boxing champion, you'd have tan from like being around
the world. And uh, I'm pretty sure I read something
like that in Encyclopedia Brown. But you know, all the
kids around me were like, yeah, he's a liar, right right,
So he was claiming to be the second grade world
(03:35):
boxing champion. I love that. I also love that you
just wanted to take him down so much, but like
count box him. Good for you for cracking that case. Now,
of course, today we're talking about mystery, so I'm guessing
you've got some other good stuff up your sleeve. So
do you do you have a first fact for us? Yeah?
I mean I actually like the fact that you started
with Clue, because I've got a Clue fact of my own.
But this is actually about Clue the movie, and you
(03:57):
saw their doing a remake, right, Yeah, I'm super scited
about it. I mean, if you look at the line up,
there's so many movies that are up my alley right now,
Like there's a Clue movie coming out, there's a there's
a Muppets mystery for adults that's coming out, and then
to Mr Rogers Movies. I know, actually I saw they
got Tom Hanks to play him, and it was based
on that Tom's you know Esquire article. It was a
ton of fun having Tom on the show not too
(04:18):
long ago. But anyway, you were saying, yeah, so clue
the movie. Uh. The funny thing about that movie was
that it bombed in theaters. And you know how when
we watched as kids, it had all three endings together
at the end of the film. Well, when you actually
saw in theaters, you only got to see one of
the endings. So why did they do it that way?
It was a gimmick to get people to get to
(04:38):
see the movie more times, Like if you want to
see all three endings, you actually have to pay for
three different tickets. Wow, which I'm guessing was very confusing
to the audience. And I also can't imagine the movie
would be as good without those three endings together. Yeah, exactly.
So critics mostly panned whatever version they saw, like the
fun really isn't seeing all the endings together, And I
guess newspapers eventually tried to give a lift by you know,
(05:01):
revealing what ending you were going to see. They said, uh,
in the listings that will be ending A B or C.
But but no one really caught on and it actually
only became a hit once it came out on video.
Al Right, well here's another fact for you. So did
you know that Sherlott Colmes was almost named Sharing Ford. No,
it actually sounds like you're just making up a name
on the spot and you couldn't quite come up with
(05:22):
something with. According to Conan Doyle's original note, he was
leaning towards either sharing Ford Holmes or Sharon Ford Homes,
either a real name. But this was all until he
played a game of cricket. I mean I did know
that Conon Doyle was a super into cricket. Actually I
read this book. Um, he played on Jam Barry's team
(05:46):
who wrote Peter Penn and uh and the team was
filled with all these British literary all stars like people
I love like H. G. Wells, a million, Richard Kipling, P. G.
Woodhouse was on one team. Yeah, and they were supposed
to be super fun to hang out with but also
aggressively mediocre as player. Well, I guess he got inspired
(06:08):
on the pitch because as he puts it, quote, years ago,
I made thirty runs against the bowler by the name
of Sherlock, and I always had a kindly feeling for
that name. Well, I mean, Sherlock Holmes is so much
of a better name than Sharing for It's kind of
how like Google would be so much less popular if
it went by the name of BackRub Original. Yeah, I
(06:29):
remember that, alright, So so what else you got? Okay,
So here's a fun one about murder, she wrote. According
to the BBC four, when reporters crunched the numbers, they
found that Cabot Cove, which I'm not sure if you remember,
but that's the queen idyllic town where Angela lands for
his characters from uh, it would actually be the murder
capital of the world. Really. Apparently two percent of the
(06:50):
town's residents died over the course of the show's twelve
which already feels a little high, but the murder rate
for visitors was even higher. And if you tab it
all up, it would be the murder capital of the
world right now, and it puts the current murder capital
to shame. I love that they actually took the time
to to calculate the all right, well, here's a mystery
(07:11):
that's a little less murdery than that one. It's the
secret to dumb, dumb lollipops mystery flavor. So I always
love the mystery flavor, and I'd assume they just picked
one flavor a month and wrap them up in a
mystery wrapper, which actually has a much more interesting story.
So basically, the mystery flavor is really just a smart
way for the manufacturer to not have to throw out
any candy or even spend too much time cleaning the machine.
(07:34):
So according to our pal caracovalchick over at Mental Floss,
it's the flavor that mingles together when one flavor rolls
off the assembly line and another one comes on. That's
really cool. So the mystery flavor is always changing. I
guess yeah, that's right now. If your taste buds are
really sophisticated, you might be able to solve the mystery
and figure out what two flavors are in the next
there lollipop con Well, we've got four more facts to
(07:57):
go and a trophy to wrestle over, But why don't
we pause for a little break. Welcome back to Part
Time Genius nine Things, where today we're talking about mysteries
(08:19):
that man go. We'll get back to the facts in
a minute. But what do you think about all this
recent analysis of Sherlock Holmes. I mean, some versions think
that he might be gay. There are people who think
he displays classic signs of Asperger's or maybe that he's
even a sociopath. I know, I'm actually in two minds
about this. Like I have such a fondness for homes
from when I was a kid that I kind of
just wanted to be like the character I imagined. But
(08:42):
I kind of love those lists that analyze fictional characters now,
like I saw Aerial from The Little Mermaid has been
labeled a hoarder because you can't get rid of forks
and things, or that you know your is a depressive,
which I never thought about as a kid because I
just thought he was like bumbling and slow. But you know,
it's it's a serious type. I want you to think
about that great Jeff Reuben interview with Dr Batman now, listeners,
(09:05):
if we haven't talked about it before. Our pal Jeff
has a great show called The Jeff Reuben Jeff Reuben Show,
and he interviews really interesting people. But one of the
people he talked to was this guy who has a
doctorate degree in Batman. How weird is that? Well, part
of the interview was about how Batman is actually a
number of characters. Now. He's campy to some people, like
fans of the old TV show, He's more of a
(09:27):
detective to some, and more dark and brooding and some
of them. Yeah, I mean, he's allowed to be all
these things in parallel universes. And I guess that's kind
of the same with Holmes and all these different interpretations
of him. Yeah, that's a good point. So I watched
the new Ericio Poirot movie and in the first scene
I'm really not giving away, but he sets this physical
(09:47):
trap for someone, and I was like, why does every
detective now have to be an action hero? Like why
can't he just settle for being really, really smart? Yeah?
All right, Well, speaking of really smart, what's what's your
next fact? Mag So here's one that kind of builds
off your dumb dumb story. Did you know that the
recipe for chartruss is a highly kept secret. It's kind
of like Coca Cola or KFC And the story is
(10:09):
pretty cool. So apparently it's a blend of a hundred
thirty herbs, plants and flowers that go into it. Yeah,
and the recipe was given to monks in sixteen oh
five by an officer in Henry the Fourth's court, and
for some reason it's been treated as a secret ever since.
Only a few months at anytime. I actually know the recipe,
and you know, a monk's not going to tell the secret.
(10:30):
But here's the cool thing about it. The color Charterers
actually gets its name from the color of the liqueur,
which itself gets its name from the Grand Chartreuse Monastery,
which is where the alcohol is brewed. It's just a
long chain of it gets its name from. That's very good.
All right. Well, since you mentioned KFC, I do have
to tell you one fact about that, and I'm gonna
bump off one of my other mystery facts I had
(10:51):
and I'll save it for the future. But in two
thousand sixteen, Colonel Sanders Nephew claimed to have found a
copy of the famous chicken recipe in an old scrap book,
and he even allowed the Chicago Tribune to give it
a try. I mean, how much of a jerk is
this guy? We're doing as a family secret man. But
here are the ingredients, so salt, thyme, basil, oregano, sell
re salt, black pepper, dried mustard, paprika, garlic, salt, ground ginger,
(11:16):
and white pepper. I mean for being such a secret,
like none of it's that surprising. It's not like they
had like oric acid, and and that's what gave it
the tang that the reveal was a little anticlimactic. But
when they tried it out, apparently it was indistinguishable from
KFC seasoning. Alright, well, let's get back to some real mystery.
So what's your last fact of the day. Mego, So,
(11:38):
this is an amazing story I read about on Reddit
and then followed a link to a newspaper. But it's
from two thousand and eight, and this crime is genius.
So a guy wearing a yellow safety vest, safety goggles,
a blue shirt, and a respirator mask and a respirator
mask walked up to a guard at a bank in Monroe, Washington.
Apparently Munroe is about thirty miles north of Seattle and
(11:59):
it's on a river, And as money is being taken
off the truck, he sprays the guard with mace, then
grabs a bundle of cash and braces off But here's
what's interesting about it. When the cops come, there are
dozens of people wearing the same uniform that this guy
was wearing all around. He'd actually posted a job ad
on Craigslist for construction workers, and he told them to
(12:19):
show up at a particular time and wear the same outfit,
and he promised wages of twenty nine dollars an hour
to them. Enough that there was like this huge crowd
of them, and so he disappears into this crowd. But
this is the funniest part. Instead of using a getaway car,
he'd gotten an inner tube and tubed down the river
and that was near to the bank and made this
clean escape, but not a quick escape. But did they
(12:41):
find him? I know, it feels so relaxed. Yeah, I mean,
I guess they didn't, because the last article I found
was a journalist trying to track down Craig from Craigslist
to see if he had any clues. Wow, that's pretty good. Okay,
Well I've got a pretty good mystery to close this.
So have you heard about the President's mystery? I don't
think I have what is it? And I don't know
how I hadn't either, But it was fun looking this
up for this episode. So Franklin Roosevelt was apparently obsessed
(13:04):
with mysteries, and he didn't think there were that many
good ones out there, so he started to write his own. Now,
he came up with an idea. So there's this guy,
Jim Blake, who doesn't really love his life. He's in
a bad marriage, dead end job. So he decided to
try to scam five million dollars and then disappear without
being traced. But the thing is, Roosevelt couldn't quite figure
(13:24):
out how Blake would get away with it. So he'd
come up with an idea, then figure out a solution
for finding him, and so he decided to take his
problem to an author that he liked, Bolton or Sler,
And then this is where we get political. They decided
to solve it by committee. So they recruited five or
six other top mystery writers at the time, and each
of them took a chapter within the story. They'd have
(13:46):
Blake run, then leave him in this bad situation for
the next person to figure out. And it was really good.
So the story gets serialized in a magazine and it's
called The President's Mystery. Then it was published into a
book and even turned into a movie in nine teen
thirty six, which gave Roosevelt a movie writing credit as
a sitting president. But the coolest thing about it, no
(14:07):
one actually solved FDR's original problem, at least not until
nineteen sixty seven, when Earl Stanley Gardner wrote a final
final chapter and had his hero Perry Mason closed the case.
Actually had a fact about Roosevelt's son, Elliott, who was
a mystery writer and uh based his lead detective on
his mom Eleanor Roosevelt. But even though I'm a homes fan,
(14:29):
and even though I had an Eleanor Roosevelt fact, I
think I'm gonna let you walk away with this week's
fact Off Trophy. Thank you. I'm honored. Actually, before we go,
we just wanted to say we got a note on
Twitter from one of our listeners, Nicole, and she had
a difficult thing happened to her recently and asked for
a light episode this week. So Nicole, we hope this
did the trick. Thank you guys for listening. Se
Guess what, mango? What's that? Well? All right, so you
know that game Clue, and I think you know this fact,
but you know it came from the game Cludo in England, right, Yeah? Actually,
I think my cousins in India told me it's a
pun on the word ludo, which was an old Roman
game or something. Yeah, that's right. So they changed the
name in the US because nobody here plays ludo. But
that isn't the only thing they changed. It was kind
(00:21):
of interesting to look at the list. So did you
know that in the British version, the murder weapons include
a fireplace poker, a syringe, an axe, and even a bomb,
which is insane. I mean doesn't feel like things you
have around the house. I mean, except for the fireplace poker,
you don't have a lot of syringes or bombs around
the house. But also the characters are different. There's a
Doctor Black, a Mr Gold, and a Colonel Yellow instead
(00:44):
of Mustard for some reason that makes no sense. I mean,
Colonel Mustard is definitely a better name, but why change
it from yellow? Like Americans know what yellow? I feel
like Americans know what yellow is. But that's just another
mystery for players to solve, which is perfect for today
a show because it's all about mysteries. So let's dive in. Hey,
(01:24):
their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend
Man Guesh Ticketer and sitting behind the soundproof glass dusting
office collection of Hardy Boys Mysteries. That's our good pal
and producer Tristan McNeil. So. I don't know if you
feel this way, but every time I hear the word
hardy boys, now I think of that Dirty Rock episode
where Jack Donneghe orders like a wine sprinter from the bartender.
(01:47):
You know what I'm talking about, Yes, I do. I
love it so much because like he gets the drink
and the fartenders like here's your Nancy Drew and Jack
donneghe goes for men. It's a hearty boy. So were
you in the mysteries the same way? I was this
a kid? I mean, I like them, but hearing you
talk about how much you were into them, I definitely
wasn't Sherlock Holmes for three straight halloweens like you were.
(02:10):
So so why were you so obsessed with I don't know,
I mean I think I liked the idea of being
my neighborhood Encyclopedia Brown And actually my mom got me
these abridged classics as a kid. I don't know, did
you ever have those? Yeah? Definitely. Yeah, Like I remember
reading like Charles Dickens and Jules Verne and whatever. But
I really got hooked on the Sherlock Holmes one and
(02:31):
so much so that I actually started reading all the
Sherlock Holmes books in third grade. I mean I read
Shlock Holmes, I read uh acta Christie and all the
Miss Marbles and all that stuff. But I was just
totally obsessed. So how long did this obsession last? I mean,
I feel like, you're not that into mystery stuff now,
are you? No? Not not just hiding. I mean I
(02:51):
do remember trying to solve little mysteries around my neighborhood.
And so there was this kid who was just a
total liar, and uh when he first came into the neighborhood,
we'd all pull up in front of his house like
on our bikes to greet him, and he immediately set
off telling everyone he was like the second grade kids
world boxing champion, which I don't think it's a thing,
(03:13):
but you know. I mean, he was tough looking but
clearly lying, and I just looked at him. It was like,
you don't have any tan lines. If you're you're the
world boxing champion, you'd have tan from like being around
the world. And uh, I'm pretty sure I read something
like that in Encyclopedia Brown. But you know, all the
kids around me were like, yeah, he's a liar, right right,
So he was claiming to be the second grade world
(03:35):
boxing champion. I love that. I also love that you
just wanted to take him down so much, but like
count box him. Good for you for cracking that case. Now,
of course, today we're talking about mystery, so I'm guessing
you've got some other good stuff up your sleeve. So
do you do you have a first fact for us? Yeah?
I mean I actually like the fact that you started
with Clue, because I've got a Clue fact of my own.
But this is actually about Clue the movie, and you
(03:57):
saw their doing a remake, right, Yeah, I'm super scited
about it. I mean, if you look at the line up,
there's so many movies that are up my alley right now,
Like there's a Clue movie coming out, there's a there's
a Muppets mystery for adults that's coming out, and then
to Mr Rogers Movies. I know, actually I saw they
got Tom Hanks to play him, and it was based
on that Tom's you know Esquire article. It was a
ton of fun having Tom on the show not too
(04:18):
long ago. But anyway, you were saying, yeah, so clue
the movie. Uh. The funny thing about that movie was
that it bombed in theaters. And you know how when
we watched as kids, it had all three endings together
at the end of the film. Well, when you actually
saw in theaters, you only got to see one of
the endings. So why did they do it that way?
It was a gimmick to get people to get to
(04:38):
see the movie more times, Like if you want to
see all three endings, you actually have to pay for
three different tickets. Wow, which I'm guessing was very confusing
to the audience. And I also can't imagine the movie
would be as good without those three endings together. Yeah, exactly.
So critics mostly panned whatever version they saw, like the
fun really isn't seeing all the endings together, And I
guess newspapers eventually tried to give a lift by you know,
(05:01):
revealing what ending you were going to see. They said, uh,
in the listings that will be ending A B or C.
But but no one really caught on and it actually
only became a hit once it came out on video.
Al Right, well here's another fact for you. So did
you know that Sherlott Colmes was almost named Sharing Ford. No,
it actually sounds like you're just making up a name
on the spot and you couldn't quite come up with
(05:22):
something with. According to Conan Doyle's original note, he was
leaning towards either sharing Ford Holmes or Sharon Ford Homes,
either a real name. But this was all until he
played a game of cricket. I mean I did know
that Conon Doyle was a super into cricket. Actually I
read this book. Um, he played on Jam Barry's team
(05:46):
who wrote Peter Penn and uh and the team was
filled with all these British literary all stars like people
I love like H. G. Wells, a million, Richard Kipling, P. G.
Woodhouse was on one team. Yeah, and they were supposed
to be super fun to hang out with but also
aggressively mediocre as player. Well, I guess he got inspired
(06:08):
on the pitch because as he puts it, quote, years ago,
I made thirty runs against the bowler by the name
of Sherlock, and I always had a kindly feeling for
that name. Well, I mean, Sherlock Holmes is so much
of a better name than Sharing for It's kind of
how like Google would be so much less popular if
it went by the name of BackRub Original. Yeah, I
(06:29):
remember that, alright, So so what else you got? Okay,
So here's a fun one about murder, she wrote. According
to the BBC four, when reporters crunched the numbers, they
found that Cabot Cove, which I'm not sure if you remember,
but that's the queen idyllic town where Angela lands for
his characters from uh, it would actually be the murder
capital of the world. Really. Apparently two percent of the
(06:50):
town's residents died over the course of the show's twelve
which already feels a little high, but the murder rate
for visitors was even higher. And if you tab it
all up, it would be the murder capital of the
world right now, and it puts the current murder capital
to shame. I love that they actually took the time
to to calculate the all right, well, here's a mystery
(07:11):
that's a little less murdery than that one. It's the
secret to dumb, dumb lollipops mystery flavor. So I always
love the mystery flavor, and I'd assume they just picked
one flavor a month and wrap them up in a
mystery wrapper, which actually has a much more interesting story.
So basically, the mystery flavor is really just a smart
way for the manufacturer to not have to throw out
any candy or even spend too much time cleaning the machine.
(07:34):
So according to our pal caracovalchick over at Mental Floss,
it's the flavor that mingles together when one flavor rolls
off the assembly line and another one comes on. That's
really cool. So the mystery flavor is always changing. I
guess yeah, that's right now. If your taste buds are
really sophisticated, you might be able to solve the mystery
and figure out what two flavors are in the next
there lollipop con Well, we've got four more facts to
(07:57):
go and a trophy to wrestle over, But why don't
we pause for a little break. Welcome back to Part
Time Genius nine Things, where today we're talking about mysteries
(08:19):
that man go. We'll get back to the facts in
a minute. But what do you think about all this
recent analysis of Sherlock Holmes. I mean, some versions think
that he might be gay. There are people who think
he displays classic signs of Asperger's or maybe that he's
even a sociopath. I know, I'm actually in two minds
about this. Like I have such a fondness for homes
from when I was a kid that I kind of
just wanted to be like the character I imagined. But
(08:42):
I kind of love those lists that analyze fictional characters now,
like I saw Aerial from The Little Mermaid has been
labeled a hoarder because you can't get rid of forks
and things, or that you know your is a depressive,
which I never thought about as a kid because I
just thought he was like bumbling and slow. But you know,
it's it's a serious type. I want you to think
about that great Jeff Reuben interview with Dr Batman now, listeners,
(09:05):
if we haven't talked about it before. Our pal Jeff
has a great show called The Jeff Reuben Jeff Reuben Show,
and he interviews really interesting people. But one of the
people he talked to was this guy who has a
doctorate degree in Batman. How weird is that? Well, part
of the interview was about how Batman is actually a
number of characters. Now. He's campy to some people, like
fans of the old TV show, He's more of a
(09:27):
detective to some, and more dark and brooding and some
of them. Yeah, I mean, he's allowed to be all
these things in parallel universes. And I guess that's kind
of the same with Holmes and all these different interpretations
of him. Yeah, that's a good point. So I watched
the new Ericio Poirot movie and in the first scene
I'm really not giving away, but he sets this physical
(09:47):
trap for someone, and I was like, why does every
detective now have to be an action hero? Like why
can't he just settle for being really, really smart? Yeah?
All right, Well, speaking of really smart, what's what's your
next fact? Mag So here's one that kind of builds
off your dumb dumb story. Did you know that the
recipe for chartruss is a highly kept secret. It's kind
of like Coca Cola or KFC And the story is
(10:09):
pretty cool. So apparently it's a blend of a hundred
thirty herbs, plants and flowers that go into it. Yeah,
and the recipe was given to monks in sixteen oh
five by an officer in Henry the Fourth's court, and
for some reason it's been treated as a secret ever since.
Only a few months at anytime. I actually know the recipe,
and you know, a monk's not going to tell the secret.
(10:30):
But here's the cool thing about it. The color Charterers
actually gets its name from the color of the liqueur,
which itself gets its name from the Grand Chartreuse Monastery,
which is where the alcohol is brewed. It's just a
long chain of it gets its name from. That's very good.
All right. Well, since you mentioned KFC, I do have
to tell you one fact about that, and I'm gonna
bump off one of my other mystery facts I had
(10:51):
and I'll save it for the future. But in two
thousand sixteen, Colonel Sanders Nephew claimed to have found a
copy of the famous chicken recipe in an old scrap book,
and he even allowed the Chicago Tribune to give it
a try. I mean, how much of a jerk is
this guy? We're doing as a family secret man. But
here are the ingredients, so salt, thyme, basil, oregano, sell
re salt, black pepper, dried mustard, paprika, garlic, salt, ground ginger,
(11:16):
and white pepper. I mean for being such a secret,
like none of it's that surprising. It's not like they
had like oric acid, and and that's what gave it
the tang that the reveal was a little anticlimactic. But
when they tried it out, apparently it was indistinguishable from
KFC seasoning. Alright, well, let's get back to some real mystery.
So what's your last fact of the day. Mego, So,
(11:38):
this is an amazing story I read about on Reddit
and then followed a link to a newspaper. But it's
from two thousand and eight, and this crime is genius.
So a guy wearing a yellow safety vest, safety goggles,
a blue shirt, and a respirator mask and a respirator
mask walked up to a guard at a bank in Monroe, Washington.
Apparently Munroe is about thirty miles north of Seattle and
(11:59):
it's on a river, And as money is being taken
off the truck, he sprays the guard with mace, then
grabs a bundle of cash and braces off But here's
what's interesting about it. When the cops come, there are
dozens of people wearing the same uniform that this guy
was wearing all around. He'd actually posted a job ad
on Craigslist for construction workers, and he told them to
(12:19):
show up at a particular time and wear the same outfit,
and he promised wages of twenty nine dollars an hour
to them. Enough that there was like this huge crowd
of them, and so he disappears into this crowd. But
this is the funniest part. Instead of using a getaway car,
he'd gotten an inner tube and tubed down the river
and that was near to the bank and made this
clean escape, but not a quick escape. But did they
(12:41):
find him? I know, it feels so relaxed. Yeah, I mean,
I guess they didn't, because the last article I found
was a journalist trying to track down Craig from Craigslist
to see if he had any clues. Wow, that's pretty good. Okay,
Well I've got a pretty good mystery to close this.
So have you heard about the President's mystery? I don't
think I have what is it? And I don't know
how I hadn't either, But it was fun looking this
up for this episode. So Franklin Roosevelt was apparently obsessed
(13:04):
with mysteries, and he didn't think there were that many
good ones out there, so he started to write his own. Now,
he came up with an idea. So there's this guy,
Jim Blake, who doesn't really love his life. He's in
a bad marriage, dead end job. So he decided to
try to scam five million dollars and then disappear without
being traced. But the thing is, Roosevelt couldn't quite figure
(13:24):
out how Blake would get away with it. So he'd
come up with an idea, then figure out a solution
for finding him, and so he decided to take his
problem to an author that he liked, Bolton or Sler,
And then this is where we get political. They decided
to solve it by committee. So they recruited five or
six other top mystery writers at the time, and each
of them took a chapter within the story. They'd have
(13:46):
Blake run, then leave him in this bad situation for
the next person to figure out. And it was really good.
So the story gets serialized in a magazine and it's
called The President's Mystery. Then it was published into a
book and even turned into a movie in nine teen
thirty six, which gave Roosevelt a movie writing credit as
a sitting president. But the coolest thing about it, no
(14:07):
one actually solved FDR's original problem, at least not until
nineteen sixty seven, when Earl Stanley Gardner wrote a final
final chapter and had his hero Perry Mason closed the case.
Actually had a fact about Roosevelt's son, Elliott, who was
a mystery writer and uh based his lead detective on
his mom Eleanor Roosevelt. But even though I'm a homes fan,
(14:29):
and even though I had an Eleanor Roosevelt fact, I
think I'm gonna let you walk away with this week's
fact Off Trophy. Thank you. I'm honored. Actually, before we go,
we just wanted to say we got a note on
Twitter from one of our listeners, Nicole, and she had
a difficult thing happened to her recently and asked for
a light episode this week. So Nicole, we hope this
did the trick. Thank you guys for listening. Se
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.