September 12, 2025 • 34 mins
Everyone says money is the root of all evil... but are you 100% certain it isn’t pizza? Will and Mango take a deep dive into a shallow dish (more of a pan, really) to discuss pizza wars, mafia ties, and why the proper term for a pizza rat in Australia is a Charlie Cheese. Featuring Scott Weiner from Scott’s Pizza Tours.
This episode originally aired on August 30, 2017.
Got a question you’d like us to answer? A rabbit hole you think we should explore? Email higeniuses@gmail.com or leave us a message at (302) 405-5925.
Follow us on Instagram @parttimegenius and Bluesky @parttimegenius.bsky.social!
Photo by Sylwia Pietruszka via Unsplash. Thanks, Sylwia!
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? Will? All right?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
So I have something I need to get off my chest.
But before I do, let me ask you this. Did
you grow up around show biz or Chuck E Cheese?
Speaker 1 (00:08):
I think we actually had both in Delaware. They were
both pretty popular for birthdays. Seriously, you had both? All right?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, we only had Showbiz near us. And there's only
one thing I actually really remember from going to show biz,
you know, as like a five or six year old,
and it was the Rock of Fire Explosion Band.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Do you remember these guys? Of course, Mitzi, Mazzarella, Fasceronimo
and the Keys. How can you forget?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well, I certainly won't ever forget them, nor will I
ever forget where I used to stand when I watch
them perform.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
You know, show Biz had this huge.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Arcade room, but then you'd walk around the corner into
this dark room where this weird animatronic band was playing.
And I don't think I've ever been more simultaneously terrified
and yet completely mesmerized as I was when I watched
the Rock a Fire Explosion perform.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah. My guess is you weren't alone in that feeling.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well, so I'd stand in the doorway, and I'd watched
them because for some reason I couldn't get enough of
these guys. And you know, as you mentioned, you had
Fat s Geronimo, the gorilla and the keys. He was
always arguing with the guy Rolf de Wolf, the you know,
the weird Ventrilocus wolf, you remember this. And then there
was Billy Bob who fortunately he was the brown bear
that would usually keep the peace among the band.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
And then you had that was his name.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
He was beach Bear, who always seemed high and he
was on the guitar. And then Duke LaRue, the wannabe astronaut,
this idiot mud who always missed his cue on the drums.
Of course you mentioned Mitzi Mozzarella, the cheerleader who shared
my love with Michael Jackson songs. There's one more why
I'm not forgetting this embarrassing Who was the other one?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah? But wasn't there like a drunk bird?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Oh right?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
How can I forget Looney Bird, the alcoholic bird who
hung out in that barrel of gas a hall.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
What a crew. I know, you look back on it
and it's so weird, Like what in the world were
they thinking with that band?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I don't know, but I loved them, and I was
so scared of them. And you know, I don't know
what it is about dark and weird things that draw
us in. And the thing is, I had no idea
there was an even darker and weirder story playing out
for Showbiz at the time. This was near the end
of the show Biz versus Chuck e Cheese pizza war,
which is such a strange story and it's just one
(02:09):
of the stories that's made us ask the question does
pizza bring out the worst in people?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So that's what we're gonna be talking about today. Let's
get started.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mengesh hot Ticketter and on the other side of
that soundproof glass is the man with the most angelic
voice you've never heard, our brilliant producer, Tristan McNeil.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
You ready to talk about pizza Mango? I am, And
I know we've been talking about doing a pizza themed
episode for a while now and both of us are
huge pizza lovers. I mean, who's not a pizza lover?
Which is a good point. But it was wild as
we started digging into the research, we just found so
many stories about the dark history of pizza, like pizza
wars and organized crime, so we decided to focus on those.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
We'll take a little break, at least from the dark
side to talk to one of our favorite pizza geniuses.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah, that's right. We'll be talking to Scott Wiener, the
founder of Scott's Pizza Tours, and he's actually the world
record holder for the largest collection of pizza boxes. He's
super interesting and he knows more about pizza history than
anyone I know. He's definitely a pizza genius.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
All right, Well, let's dive into our topic. And we
opened the show by talking about show biz and the
fact that I had no idea that by walking into
one of these I was unknowingly participating in one of
the greatest pizza wars of all time and probably would
have made it that much more exciting. So why don't
we start with that one.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, that's a good one. I mean, it doesn't get
that much juicier than a battle between the creator of
Pong and the inventor of Whack a Mole. No, it
definitely doesn't.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
All right, Well, why don't you give us some of
the background on how both Chuck E.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Cheese and Showbiz got started. Cheese was first, and in
fact the first one opened in San Jose, a couple
of years before either of us was born. This was
way back in nineteen seventy seven, and it was actually
started by Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari. He's also
the creator of Pong. He came up with the idea
for the restaurant because he was spending so much of
(04:18):
his time selling Atari consoles like to arcades. He thought
there might be more money on the other side of
the business, on the arcade end, so he dreamed up
this idea for what would become Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza
Time Theater. Well, and I thought it was interesting. I mean,
I think both the animatronic.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Performers and the pizza were part of this concept from
the very beginning. So why don't you talk about those
for just a minute. Yeah, they were, and both were
kind of brilliant.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
What's more appetizing than an animatronic rat? Right, Well, I'm
not sure why he chose a rat exactly, but it
is interesting to hear his thinking on the animatronics. So
he knew parents probably wouldn't be excited to bring their
families to a typical arcade. So he was looking for
a way to bring in some entertainment and make it
ask much about the environment as it was the arcade games.
(05:03):
Bushnell did a really interesting interview with The Atlantic a
few years ago, and in it he says this, the
reason for doing the animals was not for the kids.
It was meant to be a headfake for the parents, right.
And so then he also goes on to talk about
the pizza and he explains there aren't too many ways
to screw it up. If the dough is good, the
cheese is good, and the sauce is good, the pizza
(05:23):
is good. I didn't have any preconceived idea that I
knew how to run a restaurant, but I knew simple
was better.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Both seems smart, I mean, it makes sense, all right.
So what happens next, Well, Bushnell.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Feels he's onto something and he wants to expand, so
he starts looking for investors and enter Bob Brock, who's
chairman of the Brock Hotel Corporation and a very successful
franchise e of holiday inns. So the two of them
started working together on a deal to rapidly expand the business,
and Bushnell's job was really to figure out how to
improve the animatronics so these things could be in restaurants
(05:53):
all over the country if the rollout went well. All right,
So this is this is around nineteen seventy eight, seventy nine,
is that right? Yeah, And this is actually where the
drama starts. It was right after these big discussions that
Brock meets this young inventor, Aaron Fector, who's also the
inventor of the Whack a Mole, And in weird timing,
in Fector has been working on this animatronic band he
(06:13):
called the wolf Pack five, and Brock felt they were
much better than what Bushnell was doing.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
All right, So Brock gets nervous about this, and he's
kind of uncertain, I guess, about the quality of the
animatronics in Chuck E Cheese.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Exactly, so much so that he actually decides to cancel
his deal with Bushnell, and then he strikes a deal
with Vector to make pretty much the same concept, and
in nineteen eighty the first show his pizza opened in
Kansas City.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
That's such a bold move, that's crazy, and you know,
it's weird that they just kept the pizza element as well,
like they didn't seem to try to make it that
much different.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah, but if you think back to the Bushnell quote
about why pizza earlier, it's a simple food. So it
made it easier for them to move quickly.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
And I guess that's where a rock of fire explosion
was born, right from the very beginning there. And you know,
at that time, I had no eye idea was watching
such a knockoff act. But if you look at I mean, they.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Kind of just look shady, right they do.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And I'm guessing it didn't take long for the lawsuits
to come after.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
That, right, So first Chuck E Cheese suit Showbiz, and
then Showbiz filed a countersuit, and it ultimately settled in
nineteen eighty two, with Showbiz agreeing to pay Chuck E
Cheese a portion of their profits for something like fourteen
or fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Well, and you know, this is an interesting time to
be in this business because we talked about this in
our Weird Summer Travel Guide episode. This was around the
time that the video game market experienced a pretty big crash,
so it was obviously not good for either of these chains.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, not at all, And In fact, it hit Chuck
E Cheese so hard that Bushnell eventually had to file
for bankruptcy. And you know, after he was forced out
of the company, Chuck E Cheese was acquired by Showviz.
So I guess ultimately mister whackamole won the war here. Yeah,
so it's fair to say he won the battle. But
in the end, they both.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Lost the war.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
And how is that? Well, Showviz wasn't exactly thriving, and
in their efforts to improve the company. Per foremance Fector
lost out and he left with the Rock and Fire Bend,
And so that was the last we saw them in showbiz.
Then in nineteen ninety eight, the whole company rebranded as
CEC Entertainment.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Well, and now I see there are more than five
hundred Chuck E Cheese locations around the country.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, it's still a big deal.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
It definitely is. Well, that's such a weird but interesting story.
All right, Well, let's talk about another battle where I
found some of the trash talking pretty funny. That was
the result of McDonald's attempt to enter the pizza market,
something I didn't really remember, and this was back in
the late eighties.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yeah, it's a good one. So why don't you take
this one? All right?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Well, just a little bit of background on this one.
And by the way, there's a great mental flaw story
on this from Jake Rosen, one of our favorite writers there.
So let's go back to the early nineteen eighties. McDonald's
is an absolute giant, and as Jake pointed out, they
owned nearly forty percent of what was then a forty
eight billion.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Dollar burger market, so incredible.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Well, and they were looking for ways to keep growing
from there, and because they were looking to break into
the dinner game and a much big way, and the
idea of taking over a meal time was not foreign
to them, and they'd done this in the early seventies
when they introduced the egg McMuffin. You know, despite being
mocked by critics, the McMuffin was a.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Huge success, a crush.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Well, their customers would have disagreed. Their customers were really
digging them.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Well, I mean, I guess so you're saying they had
their eyes on dinner though.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, you know, they'd conquered lunch and breakfast, and next
was figuring out how to get people into their locations
at night because for one reason or another, people saw
burgers and their other offerings as more of a lunch thing,
and that's when they started looking at this rapidly growing
pizza market. And so you look at the late nineteen eighties,
they decided it was time to make a move. So
what they do well, It is important to note that,
(09:43):
unlike the McMuffin introduction, that this was not going to
be an easy transition when it came to the layout
of their stores and their kitchen specifically. And this was
honestly something I'd not really thought about. So first they
had to develop this super quick cook oven and it
wasn't exactly and so you know, in order to include
the oven and other equipment related to it, they had
(10:04):
to remodel their restaurants. And that wasn't actually the only
space problem. Again, something I had not really thought much
about until doing our research here. It was the windows
and their drive through. So think about trying to fit
a full pizza through one of those tiny windows. So
in order to serve the pizza, they'd have to go
back and expand all of them.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
But this didn't stop them from trying, oh not at all,
not at all.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I mean, it might have slowed down the rate at
which they'd try to do some of their early testing.
But in nineteen eighty nine they began testing in a
couple dozen locations in Indiana and Kentucky.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
And this is where the trash talking started. Because I
really want to get to the trashoar.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
A, right, we'll get to the trash talking. So enter
Pizza Hut. So you know, they had to be at
least a little bit nervous. I mean, they were the
giant in the pizza business, but nobody was bigger than McDonald's,
so this was definitely a threat.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And they had to be ready with some good trash talking.
So would they say, Well, if you look.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Back at one of the regional ads, they warned peaeople,
don't make a mixed steak to get it.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
They were really warning people about that.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
And then they started talking about their competition's mic frozen dough.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
That's such a low blow. I kind of like, how
whenever you want to make fun of McDonald's to go
to is just to add mick in front of anything exactly.
That's why it's so ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
I mean, I actually, for some reason started thinking about
a brainstorming session at the Pizza Hut headquarters where they
were just like, all right, what should we put Mick
in front of to show.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Those guys who's boss. It'd be like the one genius.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
He just rattles off like, hey, don't make a mixed
steak by eating a mcfrozen pizza because it's the mic worst.
And they were all like, that's brilliant. You don't mess
with the hut.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, that's why they'd hit in the big box. So
you can tell I've thought about this a little little
too much. So was it the trash talking that ultimately
can the pizza for them?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Well, I doubt that had that much to do with it,
despite how brilliant those micklines were. But I mean it's
not like McDonald's isn't used to some portion of the
population mocking their food. And ultimately there were bigger factors
beyond the restructuring of the restaurants that I mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
So think about prep time. I mean this was a
big factor.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Imagine pulling up to a window and ordering a couple
burgers for one person and pizza for another. So they've
got the quick burger thing down to a science. I mean,
those suckers are ready in a minute and they're waiting
for you at the window right as you pull up.
But a pizza, even if it's quick, even if it
only takes five minutes, I mean, that feels like an
eternity for people who are used to an almost instant
(12:30):
drive through service. You know. Plus the rest of their
order is just sitting there getting cold as they're waiting
on the pizza.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yeah, you can see why that'd be a problem. Well,
and the other issue was price.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
I mean, it's not like pizzas are expensive in the
broader food market, but when customers are used to spending
a buck or two parade and mmcdonald's, an eight ninety
nine item feels expensive. The psychology of this, you know,
the pricing of things. It's weird, but it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah, So how did it all play out?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Well, by the early nineteen nineties, pizzas were being served
in I think about a third of their locations, but
it just wasn't working, and so they disappeared as quickly
as they came.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I mean you might say they were mick history. I've
been practicing. Yeah, I think I need a little break
after that joke. So why don't we get our pizza
genius on the line.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
All right, Well, Mago, I know we've been talking about
pizza wars, and later on in the episode it's going
to get even a little bit darker. So I thought
we should take a break and talk about some of
the fun pizza stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
We're both huge pizza.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Fans, and there's obviously plenty of reasons to celebrate pizza.
In fact, I think we'll do another episode in the
not too distant future about all the fun facts about pizza.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
But today we've got.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Scott Wiener on the program. Scott's an insane pizza connoisseur.
He's the owner of Scott's Pizza Tours. He also consults
on pizza park, writes a column for Pizza Today magazine,
sounds qualified all the pizza references.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
He judges international.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Pizza competition and holds the Guinness Book record for the
largest collection of pizza boxes.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So, Scott, welcome to part time Genius.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Hey, so so, one of the first things I heard
about you was that you loved pizza so much you
decided to turn that into a career. How do you
go about making pizza your career? And were people skeptical
when you told them that's what you were doing.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
You know, I had no idea what it was going
to be like in the beginning. I just thought, Hey,
wouldn't it be great if I could eat pizza for
a living? You know, I don't know what is it,
but I you know, I was like, well, I can't
do a book. Nobody knows who the heck I am,
and I don't know much, and I can't write a
blog because actually at the time I had no internet
where I lived. And I figured, well, what if we
(14:49):
did something live action? And there's nothing better than live
action doing a tour. So I figured, Oh, take people
around the cool pizza rias, show them the ovens, shows
them the kitchen, we'll eat pizza. I'll explain what's going
on in the kitchen, and it'll be like a live
action food TV show. And that was that.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Oh that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
I remember you telling us you kind of have a
strict count of how many pizza slices you allow yourself
every week because you're such a pizza fanatic, So what
do you limit yourself to?
Speaker 4 (15:17):
So my limit is fifteen slices per week. It begins
Monday mornings loo one am and Sunday night and you
know what, it's really hard to keep to that low
of a limit because I'm exposed to somewhere between four
and ten pizzeri is every day, and so to you
have to say to eight pizzeri is a day. No,
(15:38):
I can't eat the slice right now. It's really tough.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
That's pretty incredible, and you never get sick of it.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
I haven't gotten sick of it yet, but I'm always
nervous about it. And that's why I have this limit.
It's just so I don't lose that edge. I want
to stay interested in pizza. And I'm worried that what
if I go overboard one week and you know when
you're a kid and you ate too many jelly beans
and then he's like candy jelly beans anymore. I don't
want to live that life.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
That's pretty great. So I just moved to Atlanta, and
it's not like New York where you can get slices
on every block. And so I was wondering, how do
you plan the perfect pizza crawl in a city you
don't know.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
So if I'm planning a pizza crawl in a city
I haven't been to before, I always start by putting
up a post on Twitter on Facebook, Hey, anybody have
ideas for pizzerias? And then I sort of I call
together a list based on the most suggestions I get.
I cross reference that with recommendations people have given me
on my pizza tours, which of course I keep a
(16:36):
long spreadsheet about that, and you know, I kind of
narrow it down to what days of the week are
these pizzerias open, what times are they open? And I
kind of carve out a little route that makes sense.
And I mean, I just got back from a trip
to Detroit last week where all I did for three
days was hit the pizza scene. And I mean I
hit a ton of pizza a short amount of time,
(16:59):
and it couldn't without intensive preparation.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And Detroit's like a hot scene for pizza right now.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
Right So, only in the past few years has it
really become obvious to everyone outside of Detroit that they've
got their own pizza thing going. You know, if you
ask anybody ten years ago, where do you get pizza
in America? They say, well, it's New York and it's Chicago.
And the people who knew a little bit better would say, oh,
and New Haven, Connecticut. But now we're starting to see
(17:26):
that all these little regional variations are at least as significant.
And I got to say, having just eaten myself, Detroit
definitely has it going on.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I know you've been a judge at the World Pizza Cup,
which I have to be honest, isn't something I was
that familiar with. So can you tell our listeners a
little about the World Cup? And also how do you taste,
test or judge a pizza?
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Wow, there are serious pizza competitions. I mean there's that
Pizza World Cup is in Parma, Italy, and then there's
one called the International Pizza Challenge, which is part of
the International Pizza Expo in Las AGAs every year. And
judging is tough because, as you can probably imagine, the
more slices you eat, the more they start to taste
the same. So you really have to you really have
(18:10):
to stay sharp. Like I always bring some palate cleansers,
like an apple, I bring some lemon rind. I always
try to have some bubbly water on hand, coffee beans
to you know, clear my nasal passages. You know, just
to give a whiff and kind of reset by all
fuctory senses and you know you stay at that and
you can have you can sample twenty or thirty slices
(18:33):
of one day and still be able to tell the difference.
You know, when you're when you're given a slice of pizza,
you have to be given the whole slice, so you
can choose your own adventure with how you bite that.
I do. I always do a bite of the tip
and a bite of the lift, so I'm getting a
bite of the center of the pie and I'm also
getting some of the edge crust. And after those two bites,
(18:54):
you know, if I need to go back for more
information and more more reconnaissance, I can choose my own
bite for where I go next. But bite of the
tip and a bite of the lip is the best.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Way to start. I love that. Start using that phrase
a lot.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
See what people say, Well, let's talk about this pizza
box collection you have.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
As we mentioned, you're the world record holder.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
So what's your obsession with pizza boxes and and what
are some of the smartest design ones you have in
your collection?
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Well, when I started doing these tours in two thousand
and eight, I was so interested in learning as much
as I could about every angle of the pizza world
because it's subjective. You like a different pizza than I like,
and neither of us is wrong or right, you know.
So I figured, well, let me, let me dive into
some of these things that that are that are more objective.
(19:42):
Let's let's look at pizza box part. And I was
fascinated by the fact that we have different generic box
designs in different parts of the country and different parts
of the world to draw their most mustachio demand a
little differently than the others. So I just thought that
that was it was really striking. And then I started
getting more into the technology behind the box, and I found,
(20:05):
you know, there's a great box in Italy that's lined
with this reflective polyester fabric so that it keeps the
pizza hotter on the inside of the box. It prevents
the grease from soaking into the box itself, which would
render it unrecyclable in some municipalities. So it's a cool box.
(20:26):
And then there's one in India that is unbelievable. It's
a breathable box. It has indirect ventilation that uses the
fluting of a corrugated cardboard box set up to the
advantage of getting rid of steam while maintaining heat and
the inside of the box so cool.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
All right, Well, before we play a little quiz, I
want to make sure our listeners know about Slice out Hunger.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Can you tell us a little bit about this?
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Yeah, Slice Out Hunger is a nonprofit that I started
right when I started the pizza to our company, where
we do fundraising for hunger relief organizations all around the country,
and we do it through the pizza community. So we
have an annual event that happens in New York where
we have sixty pizzerias in one location, all serving slices
for a buck a pop, and all the money that
(21:13):
we raise gets matched by corporate sponsors and then donated
to local hunger relief organizations. We also have these nationwide
campaigns where your local pizzeria might have a little sign
and then we know that says Slice out Hunger this
month with our you know whatever it is our specialty
pizza of the months, or we're working on a project
(21:33):
coming up for National Pizza Day on February ninth, which
we'll have a simultaneous delivery of pizza in every state
in the United States to a local hunger relief organization,
charity after school program Senior Center, Food Bank, food pantry.
It's going to be crazy.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Well, thank you for doing all of that incredible work,
and is our way of saying thanks.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
We thought we would give you a really horrible quiz.
You don't mind, So what I'm prepared?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
All right?
Speaker 1 (22:03):
So what's our quiz called today?
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Mango?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
We're going to play a game called Our Cheesiest Quiz Ever.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Okay, so we're going to give Scott four cheesy statements
and he's going to tell us whether they're true or false.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
You ready, Scott?
Speaker 4 (22:16):
I guess I'm ready. I got no choice?
Speaker 1 (22:18):
All right? Well, question number one.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
When Pizza Hut introduced the Insider Pizza in two thousand,
it became the world's largest user of cheese.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Each pie required about one pound of cheese. Truer false,
I'll say true.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
At the time, Pizza Hut was using more than three
hundred million pounds of cheese each year and purchasing three
percent of all the cheese produced in the US. All right,
one for one. Number two.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Moose cheese costs about four hundred and twenty dollars per
pound because milking of moose takes two hours and must
be done in complete silence.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Tru or false.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
I love this, but I'm gonna say it's false.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Oh, it's actually true. Moo. Yeah, they're notoriously moody and
they'll go dry if they're even slightly deserved.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
So I didn't think that was true either when I
saw this quiz when Mango brought it in this morning,
So that one stumped me as well.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
All right.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Question number three. Frankie Easy Cheese Jenkins was a New
York City graffiti artist in the nineteen seventies before he
patented and sold his idea for putting cheese in an
aerosol can. True or false.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Ooh, this is a tough one. I feel like I
really want it to be true, and it could be,
but I'm going to say. I'm going to say it's
too good to be true. It's false.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah, you're right. So. Originally known as Snackmate, the product
was invented in nineteen sixty five in a Nibisco lab.
All right, so Scott's two for three. This is for
the big prize here. Number four.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Wisconsin has started using provolone and mozzarella to d ice
roads as a way to keep cost of rock salt down.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
True. Or faults.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Oho, this is another one that feels like it's too
good to be true. But all right, I'm gonna go
with my heart on this one, and I'm gonna give
you the answer that I want it to be, even
though it might not be correct. I'm gonna say that
that is true.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah, absolutely right. So the cheese Brian is a cheaper
and greener way to keep traffic safe and it comes
with the added perk of making town smell faintly like mazzarella. Wow. Oh,
all right, so what Scott won today? Yeah, so Scott
went impressive three or four And in addition to our
total admiration, Scott's going to get a copy of The
Jetsons the Great Pizza Hunt Book, which is the only
(24:37):
book about the Jetsons and pizza with a five star
rating on Goodreads.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
All right, well, Scott, thanks so much for joining us
on Part Time Genius.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
Thanks for having me, guys, welcome back to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Before the break, we talked about a couple of the
pizza wars from the past few decades, first one with
Chuck E Cheese and Showbiz, and then the trash talking
one between McDonald's and Pizza hut. But now it's time
to tackle a much more serious topic. We don't get
all that serious very often here at Part Time Genius,
but this is a fascinating case.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, I know, we wanted to talk about the Pizza
Connection trial, right.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Right, So let me just share a few of the
basics and the numbers involved here. So this was March
of nineteen eighty seven, and there were seventeen people found
guilty of building a massive international drug ring. It was
all orchestrated by the mafia, and it was managed through
this network of neighborhood pizzerias all.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Over the country.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
So it started with thirty five defendants, nineteen of them
ended up standing trial, and the street value of the
heroin they moved was worth an estimated one point sixty
five billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Wow, which is no small operation.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
No, it definitely wasn't. And it gets more complex from there.
This network was insane. There were two primary organized crime
groups behind this. You have the Sicilian mafia and then
you have the Banano crime family in New York. And
the arrests were not just made in New York and Italy,
but in Switzerland, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
I mean It's crazy how wide this was. Yeah, and
so I'm guessing a case this complex isn't fast to
prosecute and investigate, right, No, not at all.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I mean, there was this series of raids of pizzerias
and homes all over the country. This was one morning
in nineteen eighty four, and this happened after four years
of an FBI investigation. Then you have this seventeen month trial.
Seventeen months, I mean, it's one of the longest trials
in American history, and it was at the end of
that that these seventeen people were found guilty.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
I was on grand jury for seven months once. I
remember that forever. Seventeen months just feels impossible.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, I can't imagine. But in this case, it's not
just because it took forever. I mean, you know, think
about the jurors. They were scared for their lives. It
actually ended up being an eleven member jury because one
of the was excused after getting these threatening phone calls.
Even the judge admitted to being worried for his safety. Yeah,
and of course they were the only ones who had
to fear for their lives. I remember reading that one
(27:10):
of the suspects was found dead in a garbage bag
before the trial ended, and another defendant was shot a
few times and ended up pleading guilty from his hospital bed.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
And there are two really interesting articles in Vice, or
rather there was one on the Vice website and it
was called how Mafia pizzeria drug fronts inspired one of
the most complex criminal trials ever, Yeah, exactly by a
guy named John Serico, and another on their Munchie site
called The Dark Side of Pie by Nick Rose. And
I would recommend reading both of them.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
They were both very interesting. So it's just so wild
that it was called the pizza connection and that it
was largely managed through a huge network of pizzerias. So
want to tell our listeners why, Well, you know.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
In the article I mentioned by Nick Rose, he interviews
a few experts on this connection between organized crime and pizza.
And one of the experts he spoke to was a
guy named Antonio Nika, and he's written several books on
organized crime and when he was asked why pizzerias, here's
what he said. You can do this with any kind
of restaurant, but at the time, it was just easier
(28:10):
to buy a pizzeria and it was a great opportunity
to make money and sell heroin out of the back door.
He then goes on to say a pizzeria can.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Be a good way to launder money. At the end
of the day.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
You can produce fake receipts because it's mostly a cash business.
If you have two hundred clients in a given day,
a bookkeeper can punch the receipts so that it says
five hundred customers. And the money that you don't make
from selling pizza, you can put in the cash by
selling heroin or drugs and pay taxes.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Which is so crazy. And I guess another advantage of
pizza places is their whole delivery network, right, Yeah, that's
exactly right.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
And so they've got this distribution system that's already in place.
You've got people out delivering pizzas all over the country,
you know, so why not have them deliver heroin? I mean,
I know why they shouldn't deliver heroines, So don't answer that.
But that was their line of thinking. So eventually this
pizza connection spanned all over the country. It even went
up into Canada over time, and they built what was
(29:06):
essentially a monopoly on heroin there.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
And as a side note, I noticed that the US
attorney who was prosecuting the cases a name we'd eventually
all know. That's right.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
It was none other than future in New York City
mayor and presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
And he was known for being a tough prosecutor. Yeah,
that's right. So this trial happens, and does it slow
down the trafficking of heroin and the connection with Pizza,
Well not really.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I mean, just seven years later, famous original raised Pizza
in the heart of Manhattan was busted for being this
big organizing spot for another major drug ring. And these
bus take an enormous amount of human power and time,
and this one specifically, it took three years and more
than two hundred agents involved in this thing. Yeah, it's crazy.
And then fast forward to twenty eleven, John Porcello, known
(29:51):
as Johnny Pizza, was arrested in what the FBI reports
as the biggest mob raid in its history.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
But I mean, if I remember correctly, the actual pizzerias
weren't discovered to be a part of the racketeering.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
No, But I mean still, I mean, the guy was
known as Johnny Pizza. There's some connection there. But by
the way, I know there's not much funny about these cases,
but when the La Times reported on this bust I
did enjoy this line. It said many had nicknames that
just read like a Hollywood script. Lumpy, Johnny, Pizza, the Bull, Baby,
Fat Mush, Jello.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
And meat Ball among them. Lumpy and Mush. I know,
I love those. Well, it's all really strange, and I'd say,
while the show biz and McDonald's stories are pretty crazy,
they aren't quite as heavy as all this pizza connection stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
No agreed, but things are about to get heavier because
you know what time it is?
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Yeah, backt off time, all right, I'll go first.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
So we were talking about the pizza wars in the
first half of the show. Well, the founder of Domino's,
Tom Monaghan, he may not have been in many all
out wars, but he wasn't a to rough up some
of his earliest customers if they tried to skip out
on paying. As he said in his autobiography quote, if
someone refused to pay a driver for an order, I
didn't call the police. I just went and demanded the money. Usually,
(31:13):
the culprits were a bunch of college guys who decided
to have a party at my expense, and I didn't
hesitate to swing a punch to persuade them to pay up.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
That's crazy. So here's a quick one. Ever wondered where
tombstone pizza got its name. It's because it was first
made in a bar that was across the street from
the cemetery.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
You know, I actually have wondered that, but I've never
looked at up. So that's interesting to know. All right, Well,
I'm not done. Quoting Domino's founder Tom Onahan, he also said,
from time to time, we'd have a rash of pizza
thefts from parked vehicles while drivers were busy with customers.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
I'd hide in the.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Back of the car, and the next time it went
to that neighborhood, I'd wait for them to try it again.
I'd carry a meat tenderizing mallet or a pop bottle
as a persuader, and that approach, Yeah, always solved the problem.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
It's just the problem. That's as simple, is that, Okay.
So on a slightly lesson sane note, In the nineteen eighties,
Chuck E. Cheese decided to expand to Australia, but instead
decided to be called Charlie Cheese's Pizza playhouse. And that's
because the word chuck is even more strongly associated with
throwing up there than it is here.
Speaker 5 (32:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Okay, you know, actually I think I might try to
get that term Charlie cheese to catch on for throwing
somebody Charlie cheese everywhere.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Okay, all right?
Speaker 2 (32:24):
So did you know back in the nineteen sixties there
was a US Army intelligence unit that would use fake
pizza deliveries to spy on people, namely reporters and politicians.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
That's weird. So want to know who holds the Guinness
World Record for the most expensive pizza commercially available. It's
in my old home of New York City at Industry Kitchen.
The pizza, which takes two days to make, includes black
squid incto, stilton cheese from the UK, French truffles, two
types of caviar foi gras, and of course a twenty
four carrot gold leaf. Wow, it goes for two thousand dollars.
(32:54):
All right, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Of all the things we've talked about today, that is
the most offensive by far. So that shouldn't be classified
as a pizza at that price. Actually, maga, have you
got me so riled up, I'm gonna have to give
you the fact off trophy today.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Well, while while will storms off, I'd like to thank
you for listening today, and if you want to share
any favorite pizza facts, hit us up at part Time
Genius at HowStuffWorks dot com, where find us on Facebook
or Twitter, or call our twenty four to seven fact hotline.
It's one eight four four pt Genius. We'll see you
next time.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several
brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even
begin to understand.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Tristan McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the
theme song and does the mixy mixy sound thing. Jerry
Roland does the exec producer thing.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Gabe Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the
research army including off Then Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas
Adams and Eves.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Jeffcok gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Good review for us. Do we forget Jason? Jason who
Guess what, mango? What's that? Will? All right?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
So I have something I need to get off my chest.
But before I do, let me ask you this. Did
you grow up around show biz or Chuck E Cheese?
Speaker 1 (00:08):
I think we actually had both in Delaware. They were
both pretty popular for birthdays. Seriously, you had both? All right?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, we only had Showbiz near us. And there's only
one thing I actually really remember from going to show biz,
you know, as like a five or six year old,
and it was the Rock of Fire Explosion Band.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Do you remember these guys? Of course, Mitzi, Mazzarella, Fasceronimo
and the Keys. How can you forget?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well, I certainly won't ever forget them, nor will I
ever forget where I used to stand when I watch
them perform.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
You know, show Biz had this huge.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Arcade room, but then you'd walk around the corner into
this dark room where this weird animatronic band was playing.
And I don't think I've ever been more simultaneously terrified
and yet completely mesmerized as I was when I watched
the Rock a Fire Explosion perform.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah. My guess is you weren't alone in that feeling.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well, so I'd stand in the doorway, and I'd watched
them because for some reason I couldn't get enough of
these guys. And you know, as you mentioned, you had
Fat s Geronimo, the gorilla and the keys. He was
always arguing with the guy Rolf de Wolf, the you know,
the weird Ventrilocus wolf, you remember this. And then there
was Billy Bob who fortunately he was the brown bear
that would usually keep the peace among the band.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
And then you had that was his name.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
He was beach Bear, who always seemed high and he
was on the guitar. And then Duke LaRue, the wannabe astronaut,
this idiot mud who always missed his cue on the drums.
Of course you mentioned Mitzi Mozzarella, the cheerleader who shared
my love with Michael Jackson songs. There's one more why
I'm not forgetting this embarrassing Who was the other one?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah? But wasn't there like a drunk bird?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Oh right?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
How can I forget Looney Bird, the alcoholic bird who
hung out in that barrel of gas a hall.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
What a crew. I know, you look back on it
and it's so weird, Like what in the world were
they thinking with that band?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I don't know, but I loved them, and I was
so scared of them. And you know, I don't know
what it is about dark and weird things that draw
us in. And the thing is, I had no idea
there was an even darker and weirder story playing out
for Showbiz at the time. This was near the end
of the show Biz versus Chuck e Cheese pizza war,
which is such a strange story and it's just one
(02:09):
of the stories that's made us ask the question does
pizza bring out the worst in people?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So that's what we're gonna be talking about today. Let's
get started.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mengesh hot Ticketter and on the other side of
that soundproof glass is the man with the most angelic
voice you've never heard, our brilliant producer, Tristan McNeil.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
You ready to talk about pizza Mango? I am, And
I know we've been talking about doing a pizza themed
episode for a while now and both of us are
huge pizza lovers. I mean, who's not a pizza lover?
Which is a good point. But it was wild as
we started digging into the research, we just found so
many stories about the dark history of pizza, like pizza
wars and organized crime, so we decided to focus on those.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
We'll take a little break, at least from the dark
side to talk to one of our favorite pizza geniuses.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah, that's right. We'll be talking to Scott Wiener, the
founder of Scott's Pizza Tours, and he's actually the world
record holder for the largest collection of pizza boxes. He's
super interesting and he knows more about pizza history than
anyone I know. He's definitely a pizza genius.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
All right, Well, let's dive into our topic. And we
opened the show by talking about show biz and the
fact that I had no idea that by walking into
one of these I was unknowingly participating in one of
the greatest pizza wars of all time and probably would
have made it that much more exciting. So why don't
we start with that one.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, that's a good one. I mean, it doesn't get
that much juicier than a battle between the creator of
Pong and the inventor of Whack a Mole. No, it
definitely doesn't.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
All right, Well, why don't you give us some of
the background on how both Chuck E.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Cheese and Showbiz got started. Cheese was first, and in
fact the first one opened in San Jose, a couple
of years before either of us was born. This was
way back in nineteen seventy seven, and it was actually
started by Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari. He's also
the creator of Pong. He came up with the idea
for the restaurant because he was spending so much of
(04:18):
his time selling Atari consoles like to arcades. He thought
there might be more money on the other side of
the business, on the arcade end, so he dreamed up
this idea for what would become Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza
Time Theater. Well, and I thought it was interesting. I mean,
I think both the animatronic.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Performers and the pizza were part of this concept from
the very beginning. So why don't you talk about those
for just a minute. Yeah, they were, and both were
kind of brilliant.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
What's more appetizing than an animatronic rat? Right, Well, I'm
not sure why he chose a rat exactly, but it
is interesting to hear his thinking on the animatronics. So
he knew parents probably wouldn't be excited to bring their
families to a typical arcade. So he was looking for
a way to bring in some entertainment and make it
ask much about the environment as it was the arcade games.
(05:03):
Bushnell did a really interesting interview with The Atlantic a
few years ago, and in it he says this, the
reason for doing the animals was not for the kids.
It was meant to be a headfake for the parents, right.
And so then he also goes on to talk about
the pizza and he explains there aren't too many ways
to screw it up. If the dough is good, the
cheese is good, and the sauce is good, the pizza
(05:23):
is good. I didn't have any preconceived idea that I
knew how to run a restaurant, but I knew simple
was better.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Both seems smart, I mean, it makes sense, all right.
So what happens next, Well, Bushnell.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Feels he's onto something and he wants to expand, so
he starts looking for investors and enter Bob Brock, who's
chairman of the Brock Hotel Corporation and a very successful
franchise e of holiday inns. So the two of them
started working together on a deal to rapidly expand the business,
and Bushnell's job was really to figure out how to
improve the animatronics so these things could be in restaurants
(05:53):
all over the country if the rollout went well. All right,
So this is this is around nineteen seventy eight, seventy nine,
is that right? Yeah, And this is actually where the
drama starts. It was right after these big discussions that
Brock meets this young inventor, Aaron Fector, who's also the
inventor of the Whack a Mole, And in weird timing,
in Fector has been working on this animatronic band he
(06:13):
called the wolf Pack five, and Brock felt they were
much better than what Bushnell was doing.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
All right, So Brock gets nervous about this, and he's
kind of uncertain, I guess, about the quality of the
animatronics in Chuck E Cheese.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Exactly, so much so that he actually decides to cancel
his deal with Bushnell, and then he strikes a deal
with Vector to make pretty much the same concept, and
in nineteen eighty the first show his pizza opened in
Kansas City.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
That's such a bold move, that's crazy, and you know,
it's weird that they just kept the pizza element as well,
like they didn't seem to try to make it that
much different.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah, but if you think back to the Bushnell quote
about why pizza earlier, it's a simple food. So it
made it easier for them to move quickly.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
And I guess that's where a rock of fire explosion
was born, right from the very beginning there. And you know,
at that time, I had no eye idea was watching
such a knockoff act. But if you look at I mean, they.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Kind of just look shady, right they do.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And I'm guessing it didn't take long for the lawsuits
to come after.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
That, right, So first Chuck E Cheese suit Showbiz, and
then Showbiz filed a countersuit, and it ultimately settled in
nineteen eighty two, with Showbiz agreeing to pay Chuck E
Cheese a portion of their profits for something like fourteen
or fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Well, and you know, this is an interesting time to
be in this business because we talked about this in
our Weird Summer Travel Guide episode. This was around the
time that the video game market experienced a pretty big crash,
so it was obviously not good for either of these chains.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, not at all, And In fact, it hit Chuck
E Cheese so hard that Bushnell eventually had to file
for bankruptcy. And you know, after he was forced out
of the company, Chuck E Cheese was acquired by Showviz.
So I guess ultimately mister whackamole won the war here. Yeah,
so it's fair to say he won the battle. But
in the end, they both.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Lost the war.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
And how is that? Well, Showviz wasn't exactly thriving, and
in their efforts to improve the company. Per foremance Fector
lost out and he left with the Rock and Fire Bend,
And so that was the last we saw them in showbiz.
Then in nineteen ninety eight, the whole company rebranded as
CEC Entertainment.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Well, and now I see there are more than five
hundred Chuck E Cheese locations around the country.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, it's still a big deal.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
It definitely is. Well, that's such a weird but interesting story.
All right, Well, let's talk about another battle where I
found some of the trash talking pretty funny. That was
the result of McDonald's attempt to enter the pizza market,
something I didn't really remember, and this was back in
the late eighties.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yeah, it's a good one. So why don't you take
this one? All right?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Well, just a little bit of background on this one.
And by the way, there's a great mental flaw story
on this from Jake Rosen, one of our favorite writers there.
So let's go back to the early nineteen eighties. McDonald's
is an absolute giant, and as Jake pointed out, they
owned nearly forty percent of what was then a forty
eight billion.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Dollar burger market, so incredible.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Well, and they were looking for ways to keep growing
from there, and because they were looking to break into
the dinner game and a much big way, and the
idea of taking over a meal time was not foreign
to them, and they'd done this in the early seventies
when they introduced the egg McMuffin. You know, despite being
mocked by critics, the McMuffin was a.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Huge success, a crush.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Well, their customers would have disagreed. Their customers were really
digging them.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Well, I mean, I guess so you're saying they had
their eyes on dinner though.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, you know, they'd conquered lunch and breakfast, and next
was figuring out how to get people into their locations
at night because for one reason or another, people saw
burgers and their other offerings as more of a lunch thing,
and that's when they started looking at this rapidly growing
pizza market. And so you look at the late nineteen eighties,
they decided it was time to make a move. So
what they do well, It is important to note that,
(09:43):
unlike the McMuffin introduction, that this was not going to
be an easy transition when it came to the layout
of their stores and their kitchen specifically. And this was
honestly something I'd not really thought about. So first they
had to develop this super quick cook oven and it
wasn't exactly and so you know, in order to include
the oven and other equipment related to it, they had
(10:04):
to remodel their restaurants. And that wasn't actually the only
space problem. Again, something I had not really thought much
about until doing our research here. It was the windows
and their drive through. So think about trying to fit
a full pizza through one of those tiny windows. So
in order to serve the pizza, they'd have to go
back and expand all of them.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
But this didn't stop them from trying, oh not at all,
not at all.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I mean, it might have slowed down the rate at
which they'd try to do some of their early testing.
But in nineteen eighty nine they began testing in a
couple dozen locations in Indiana and Kentucky.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
And this is where the trash talking started. Because I
really want to get to the trashoar.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
A, right, we'll get to the trash talking. So enter
Pizza Hut. So you know, they had to be at
least a little bit nervous. I mean, they were the
giant in the pizza business, but nobody was bigger than McDonald's,
so this was definitely a threat.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And they had to be ready with some good trash talking.
So would they say, Well, if you look.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Back at one of the regional ads, they warned peaeople,
don't make a mixed steak to get it.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
They were really warning people about that.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
And then they started talking about their competition's mic frozen dough.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
That's such a low blow. I kind of like, how
whenever you want to make fun of McDonald's to go
to is just to add mick in front of anything exactly.
That's why it's so ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
I mean, I actually, for some reason started thinking about
a brainstorming session at the Pizza Hut headquarters where they
were just like, all right, what should we put Mick
in front of to show.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Those guys who's boss. It'd be like the one genius.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
He just rattles off like, hey, don't make a mixed
steak by eating a mcfrozen pizza because it's the mic worst.
And they were all like, that's brilliant. You don't mess
with the hut.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, that's why they'd hit in the big box. So
you can tell I've thought about this a little little
too much. So was it the trash talking that ultimately
can the pizza for them?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Well, I doubt that had that much to do with it,
despite how brilliant those micklines were. But I mean it's
not like McDonald's isn't used to some portion of the
population mocking their food. And ultimately there were bigger factors
beyond the restructuring of the restaurants that I mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
So think about prep time. I mean this was a
big factor.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Imagine pulling up to a window and ordering a couple
burgers for one person and pizza for another. So they've
got the quick burger thing down to a science. I mean,
those suckers are ready in a minute and they're waiting
for you at the window right as you pull up.
But a pizza, even if it's quick, even if it
only takes five minutes, I mean, that feels like an
eternity for people who are used to an almost instant
(12:30):
drive through service. You know. Plus the rest of their
order is just sitting there getting cold as they're waiting
on the pizza.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yeah, you can see why that'd be a problem. Well,
and the other issue was price.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
I mean, it's not like pizzas are expensive in the
broader food market, but when customers are used to spending
a buck or two parade and mmcdonald's, an eight ninety
nine item feels expensive. The psychology of this, you know,
the pricing of things. It's weird, but it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah, So how did it all play out?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Well, by the early nineteen nineties, pizzas were being served
in I think about a third of their locations, but
it just wasn't working, and so they disappeared as quickly
as they came.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I mean you might say they were mick history. I've
been practicing. Yeah, I think I need a little break
after that joke. So why don't we get our pizza
genius on the line.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
All right, Well, Mago, I know we've been talking about
pizza wars, and later on in the episode it's going
to get even a little bit darker. So I thought
we should take a break and talk about some of
the fun pizza stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
We're both huge pizza.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Fans, and there's obviously plenty of reasons to celebrate pizza.
In fact, I think we'll do another episode in the
not too distant future about all the fun facts about pizza.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
But today we've got.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Scott Wiener on the program. Scott's an insane pizza connoisseur.
He's the owner of Scott's Pizza Tours. He also consults
on pizza park, writes a column for Pizza Today magazine,
sounds qualified all the pizza references.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
He judges international.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Pizza competition and holds the Guinness Book record for the
largest collection of pizza boxes.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So, Scott, welcome to part time Genius.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Hey, so so, one of the first things I heard
about you was that you loved pizza so much you
decided to turn that into a career. How do you
go about making pizza your career? And were people skeptical
when you told them that's what you were doing.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
You know, I had no idea what it was going
to be like in the beginning. I just thought, Hey,
wouldn't it be great if I could eat pizza for
a living? You know, I don't know what is it,
but I you know, I was like, well, I can't
do a book. Nobody knows who the heck I am,
and I don't know much, and I can't write a
blog because actually at the time I had no internet
where I lived. And I figured, well, what if we
(14:49):
did something live action? And there's nothing better than live
action doing a tour. So I figured, Oh, take people
around the cool pizza rias, show them the ovens, shows
them the kitchen, we'll eat pizza. I'll explain what's going
on in the kitchen, and it'll be like a live
action food TV show. And that was that.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Oh that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
I remember you telling us you kind of have a
strict count of how many pizza slices you allow yourself
every week because you're such a pizza fanatic, So what
do you limit yourself to?
Speaker 4 (15:17):
So my limit is fifteen slices per week. It begins
Monday mornings loo one am and Sunday night and you
know what, it's really hard to keep to that low
of a limit because I'm exposed to somewhere between four
and ten pizzeri is every day, and so to you
have to say to eight pizzeri is a day. No,
(15:38):
I can't eat the slice right now. It's really tough.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
That's pretty incredible, and you never get sick of it.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
I haven't gotten sick of it yet, but I'm always
nervous about it. And that's why I have this limit.
It's just so I don't lose that edge. I want
to stay interested in pizza. And I'm worried that what
if I go overboard one week and you know when
you're a kid and you ate too many jelly beans
and then he's like candy jelly beans anymore. I don't
want to live that life.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
That's pretty great. So I just moved to Atlanta, and
it's not like New York where you can get slices
on every block. And so I was wondering, how do
you plan the perfect pizza crawl in a city you
don't know.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
So if I'm planning a pizza crawl in a city
I haven't been to before, I always start by putting
up a post on Twitter on Facebook, Hey, anybody have
ideas for pizzerias? And then I sort of I call
together a list based on the most suggestions I get.
I cross reference that with recommendations people have given me
on my pizza tours, which of course I keep a
(16:36):
long spreadsheet about that, and you know, I kind of
narrow it down to what days of the week are
these pizzerias open, what times are they open? And I
kind of carve out a little route that makes sense.
And I mean, I just got back from a trip
to Detroit last week where all I did for three
days was hit the pizza scene. And I mean I
hit a ton of pizza a short amount of time,
(16:59):
and it couldn't without intensive preparation.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And Detroit's like a hot scene for pizza right now.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
Right So, only in the past few years has it
really become obvious to everyone outside of Detroit that they've
got their own pizza thing going. You know, if you
ask anybody ten years ago, where do you get pizza
in America? They say, well, it's New York and it's Chicago.
And the people who knew a little bit better would say, oh,
and New Haven, Connecticut. But now we're starting to see
(17:26):
that all these little regional variations are at least as significant.
And I got to say, having just eaten myself, Detroit
definitely has it going on.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I know you've been a judge at the World Pizza Cup,
which I have to be honest, isn't something I was
that familiar with. So can you tell our listeners a
little about the World Cup? And also how do you taste,
test or judge a pizza?
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Wow, there are serious pizza competitions. I mean there's that
Pizza World Cup is in Parma, Italy, and then there's
one called the International Pizza Challenge, which is part of
the International Pizza Expo in Las AGAs every year. And
judging is tough because, as you can probably imagine, the
more slices you eat, the more they start to taste
the same. So you really have to you really have
(18:10):
to stay sharp. Like I always bring some palate cleansers,
like an apple, I bring some lemon rind. I always
try to have some bubbly water on hand, coffee beans
to you know, clear my nasal passages. You know, just
to give a whiff and kind of reset by all
fuctory senses and you know you stay at that and
you can have you can sample twenty or thirty slices
(18:33):
of one day and still be able to tell the difference.
You know, when you're when you're given a slice of pizza,
you have to be given the whole slice, so you
can choose your own adventure with how you bite that.
I do. I always do a bite of the tip
and a bite of the lift, so I'm getting a
bite of the center of the pie and I'm also
getting some of the edge crust. And after those two bites,
(18:54):
you know, if I need to go back for more
information and more more reconnaissance, I can choose my own
bite for where I go next. But bite of the
tip and a bite of the lip is the best.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Way to start. I love that. Start using that phrase
a lot.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
See what people say, Well, let's talk about this pizza
box collection you have.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
As we mentioned, you're the world record holder.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
So what's your obsession with pizza boxes and and what
are some of the smartest design ones you have in
your collection?
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Well, when I started doing these tours in two thousand
and eight, I was so interested in learning as much
as I could about every angle of the pizza world
because it's subjective. You like a different pizza than I like,
and neither of us is wrong or right, you know.
So I figured, well, let me, let me dive into
some of these things that that are that are more objective.
(19:42):
Let's let's look at pizza box part. And I was
fascinated by the fact that we have different generic box
designs in different parts of the country and different parts
of the world to draw their most mustachio demand a
little differently than the others. So I just thought that
that was it was really striking. And then I started
getting more into the technology behind the box, and I found,
(20:05):
you know, there's a great box in Italy that's lined
with this reflective polyester fabric so that it keeps the
pizza hotter on the inside of the box. It prevents
the grease from soaking into the box itself, which would
render it unrecyclable in some municipalities. So it's a cool box.
(20:26):
And then there's one in India that is unbelievable. It's
a breathable box. It has indirect ventilation that uses the
fluting of a corrugated cardboard box set up to the
advantage of getting rid of steam while maintaining heat and
the inside of the box so cool.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
All right, Well, before we play a little quiz, I
want to make sure our listeners know about Slice out Hunger.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Can you tell us a little bit about this?
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Yeah, Slice Out Hunger is a nonprofit that I started
right when I started the pizza to our company, where
we do fundraising for hunger relief organizations all around the country,
and we do it through the pizza community. So we
have an annual event that happens in New York where
we have sixty pizzerias in one location, all serving slices
for a buck a pop, and all the money that
(21:13):
we raise gets matched by corporate sponsors and then donated
to local hunger relief organizations. We also have these nationwide
campaigns where your local pizzeria might have a little sign
and then we know that says Slice out Hunger this
month with our you know whatever it is our specialty
pizza of the months, or we're working on a project
(21:33):
coming up for National Pizza Day on February ninth, which
we'll have a simultaneous delivery of pizza in every state
in the United States to a local hunger relief organization,
charity after school program Senior Center, Food Bank, food pantry.
It's going to be crazy.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Well, thank you for doing all of that incredible work,
and is our way of saying thanks.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
We thought we would give you a really horrible quiz.
You don't mind, So what I'm prepared?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
All right?
Speaker 1 (22:03):
So what's our quiz called today?
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Mango?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
We're going to play a game called Our Cheesiest Quiz Ever.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Okay, so we're going to give Scott four cheesy statements
and he's going to tell us whether they're true or false.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
You ready, Scott?
Speaker 4 (22:16):
I guess I'm ready. I got no choice?
Speaker 1 (22:18):
All right? Well, question number one.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
When Pizza Hut introduced the Insider Pizza in two thousand,
it became the world's largest user of cheese.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Each pie required about one pound of cheese. Truer false,
I'll say true.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
At the time, Pizza Hut was using more than three
hundred million pounds of cheese each year and purchasing three
percent of all the cheese produced in the US. All right,
one for one. Number two.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Moose cheese costs about four hundred and twenty dollars per
pound because milking of moose takes two hours and must
be done in complete silence.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Tru or false.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
I love this, but I'm gonna say it's false.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Oh, it's actually true. Moo. Yeah, they're notoriously moody and
they'll go dry if they're even slightly deserved.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
So I didn't think that was true either when I
saw this quiz when Mango brought it in this morning,
So that one stumped me as well.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
All right.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Question number three. Frankie Easy Cheese Jenkins was a New
York City graffiti artist in the nineteen seventies before he
patented and sold his idea for putting cheese in an
aerosol can. True or false.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Ooh, this is a tough one. I feel like I
really want it to be true, and it could be,
but I'm going to say. I'm going to say it's
too good to be true. It's false.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah, you're right. So. Originally known as Snackmate, the product
was invented in nineteen sixty five in a Nibisco lab.
All right, so Scott's two for three. This is for
the big prize here. Number four.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Wisconsin has started using provolone and mozzarella to d ice
roads as a way to keep cost of rock salt down.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
True. Or faults.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Oho, this is another one that feels like it's too
good to be true. But all right, I'm gonna go
with my heart on this one, and I'm gonna give
you the answer that I want it to be, even
though it might not be correct. I'm gonna say that
that is true.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah, absolutely right. So the cheese Brian is a cheaper
and greener way to keep traffic safe and it comes
with the added perk of making town smell faintly like mazzarella. Wow. Oh,
all right, so what Scott won today? Yeah, so Scott
went impressive three or four And in addition to our
total admiration, Scott's going to get a copy of The
Jetsons the Great Pizza Hunt Book, which is the only
(24:37):
book about the Jetsons and pizza with a five star
rating on Goodreads.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
All right, well, Scott, thanks so much for joining us
on Part Time Genius.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
Thanks for having me, guys, welcome back to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Before the break, we talked about a couple of the
pizza wars from the past few decades, first one with
Chuck E Cheese and Showbiz, and then the trash talking
one between McDonald's and Pizza hut. But now it's time
to tackle a much more serious topic. We don't get
all that serious very often here at Part Time Genius,
but this is a fascinating case.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, I know, we wanted to talk about the Pizza
Connection trial, right.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Right, So let me just share a few of the
basics and the numbers involved here. So this was March
of nineteen eighty seven, and there were seventeen people found
guilty of building a massive international drug ring. It was
all orchestrated by the mafia, and it was managed through
this network of neighborhood pizzerias all.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Over the country.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
So it started with thirty five defendants, nineteen of them
ended up standing trial, and the street value of the
heroin they moved was worth an estimated one point sixty
five billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Wow, which is no small operation.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
No, it definitely wasn't. And it gets more complex from there.
This network was insane. There were two primary organized crime
groups behind this. You have the Sicilian mafia and then
you have the Banano crime family in New York. And
the arrests were not just made in New York and Italy,
but in Switzerland, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
I mean It's crazy how wide this was. Yeah, and
so I'm guessing a case this complex isn't fast to
prosecute and investigate, right, No, not at all.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I mean, there was this series of raids of pizzerias
and homes all over the country. This was one morning
in nineteen eighty four, and this happened after four years
of an FBI investigation. Then you have this seventeen month trial.
Seventeen months, I mean, it's one of the longest trials
in American history, and it was at the end of
that that these seventeen people were found guilty.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
I was on grand jury for seven months once. I
remember that forever. Seventeen months just feels impossible.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, I can't imagine. But in this case, it's not
just because it took forever. I mean, you know, think
about the jurors. They were scared for their lives. It
actually ended up being an eleven member jury because one
of the was excused after getting these threatening phone calls.
Even the judge admitted to being worried for his safety. Yeah,
and of course they were the only ones who had
to fear for their lives. I remember reading that one
(27:10):
of the suspects was found dead in a garbage bag
before the trial ended, and another defendant was shot a
few times and ended up pleading guilty from his hospital bed.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
And there are two really interesting articles in Vice, or
rather there was one on the Vice website and it
was called how Mafia pizzeria drug fronts inspired one of
the most complex criminal trials ever, Yeah, exactly by a
guy named John Serico, and another on their Munchie site
called The Dark Side of Pie by Nick Rose. And
I would recommend reading both of them.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
They were both very interesting. So it's just so wild
that it was called the pizza connection and that it
was largely managed through a huge network of pizzerias. So
want to tell our listeners why, Well, you know.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
In the article I mentioned by Nick Rose, he interviews
a few experts on this connection between organized crime and pizza.
And one of the experts he spoke to was a
guy named Antonio Nika, and he's written several books on
organized crime and when he was asked why pizzerias, here's
what he said. You can do this with any kind
of restaurant, but at the time, it was just easier
(28:10):
to buy a pizzeria and it was a great opportunity
to make money and sell heroin out of the back door.
He then goes on to say a pizzeria can.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Be a good way to launder money. At the end
of the day.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
You can produce fake receipts because it's mostly a cash business.
If you have two hundred clients in a given day,
a bookkeeper can punch the receipts so that it says
five hundred customers. And the money that you don't make
from selling pizza, you can put in the cash by
selling heroin or drugs and pay taxes.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Which is so crazy. And I guess another advantage of
pizza places is their whole delivery network, right, Yeah, that's
exactly right.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
And so they've got this distribution system that's already in place.
You've got people out delivering pizzas all over the country,
you know, so why not have them deliver heroin? I mean,
I know why they shouldn't deliver heroines, So don't answer that.
But that was their line of thinking. So eventually this
pizza connection spanned all over the country. It even went
up into Canada over time, and they built what was
(29:06):
essentially a monopoly on heroin there.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
And as a side note, I noticed that the US
attorney who was prosecuting the cases a name we'd eventually
all know. That's right.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
It was none other than future in New York City
mayor and presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
And he was known for being a tough prosecutor. Yeah,
that's right. So this trial happens, and does it slow
down the trafficking of heroin and the connection with Pizza,
Well not really.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I mean, just seven years later, famous original raised Pizza
in the heart of Manhattan was busted for being this
big organizing spot for another major drug ring. And these
bus take an enormous amount of human power and time,
and this one specifically, it took three years and more
than two hundred agents involved in this thing. Yeah, it's crazy.
And then fast forward to twenty eleven, John Porcello, known
(29:51):
as Johnny Pizza, was arrested in what the FBI reports
as the biggest mob raid in its history.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
But I mean, if I remember correctly, the actual pizzerias
weren't discovered to be a part of the racketeering.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
No, But I mean still, I mean, the guy was
known as Johnny Pizza. There's some connection there. But by
the way, I know there's not much funny about these cases,
but when the La Times reported on this bust I
did enjoy this line. It said many had nicknames that
just read like a Hollywood script. Lumpy, Johnny, Pizza, the Bull, Baby,
Fat Mush, Jello.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
And meat Ball among them. Lumpy and Mush. I know,
I love those. Well, it's all really strange, and I'd say,
while the show biz and McDonald's stories are pretty crazy,
they aren't quite as heavy as all this pizza connection stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
No agreed, but things are about to get heavier because
you know what time it is?
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Yeah, backt off time, all right, I'll go first.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
So we were talking about the pizza wars in the
first half of the show. Well, the founder of Domino's,
Tom Monaghan, he may not have been in many all
out wars, but he wasn't a to rough up some
of his earliest customers if they tried to skip out
on paying. As he said in his autobiography quote, if
someone refused to pay a driver for an order, I
didn't call the police. I just went and demanded the money. Usually,
(31:13):
the culprits were a bunch of college guys who decided
to have a party at my expense, and I didn't
hesitate to swing a punch to persuade them to pay up.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
That's crazy. So here's a quick one. Ever wondered where
tombstone pizza got its name. It's because it was first
made in a bar that was across the street from
the cemetery.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
You know, I actually have wondered that, but I've never
looked at up. So that's interesting to know. All right, Well,
I'm not done. Quoting Domino's founder Tom Onahan, he also said,
from time to time, we'd have a rash of pizza
thefts from parked vehicles while drivers were busy with customers.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
I'd hide in the.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Back of the car, and the next time it went
to that neighborhood, I'd wait for them to try it again.
I'd carry a meat tenderizing mallet or a pop bottle
as a persuader, and that approach, Yeah, always solved the problem.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
It's just the problem. That's as simple, is that, Okay.
So on a slightly lesson sane note, In the nineteen eighties,
Chuck E. Cheese decided to expand to Australia, but instead
decided to be called Charlie Cheese's Pizza playhouse. And that's
because the word chuck is even more strongly associated with
throwing up there than it is here.
Speaker 5 (32:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Okay, you know, actually I think I might try to
get that term Charlie cheese to catch on for throwing
somebody Charlie cheese everywhere.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Okay, all right?
Speaker 2 (32:24):
So did you know back in the nineteen sixties there
was a US Army intelligence unit that would use fake
pizza deliveries to spy on people, namely reporters and politicians.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
That's weird. So want to know who holds the Guinness
World Record for the most expensive pizza commercially available. It's
in my old home of New York City at Industry Kitchen.
The pizza, which takes two days to make, includes black
squid incto, stilton cheese from the UK, French truffles, two
types of caviar foi gras, and of course a twenty
four carrot gold leaf. Wow, it goes for two thousand dollars.
(32:54):
All right, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Of all the things we've talked about today, that is
the most offensive by far. So that shouldn't be classified
as a pizza at that price. Actually, maga, have you
got me so riled up, I'm gonna have to give
you the fact off trophy today.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Well, while while will storms off, I'd like to thank
you for listening today, and if you want to share
any favorite pizza facts, hit us up at part Time
Genius at HowStuffWorks dot com, where find us on Facebook
or Twitter, or call our twenty four to seven fact hotline.
It's one eight four four pt Genius. We'll see you
next time.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several
brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even
begin to understand.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Tristan McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the
theme song and does the mixy mixy sound thing. Jerry
Roland does the exec producer thing.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Gabe Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the
research army including off Then Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas
Adams and Eves.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Jeffcok gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Good review for us. Do we forget Jason? Jason who
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
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