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April 15, 2024 12 mins

Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: author, humorist, and "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" regular, Adam Felber!

Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask Chat GPT” and audio rebuses.

Subscribe to The Puzzler podcast wherever you get your podcasts! 

"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas. 

Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.

The show is produced by Jody Avirgan and Brittani Brown of Roulette Productions. 

Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello, Puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast, the line of
green signals in your morning commute to puzzle Town. I
am your host, A J. Jacobs, and today's guest is
the great Adam Felber, writer, actor, frequent panelist on Wait Wait,

(00:26):
don't tell me so many things. Welcome Adam, thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
It's a pleasure to be here. Welcome to you.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Thank you. We're always here.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Well, I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Well, it's nice to be welcomed.

Speaker 4 (00:40):
I'm kind of a natural host, so it's hard for
me to guest in here and not welcome you.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
I like that. Well, listen, I am if you need
to take over at any time from me and grew.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
No, but I made some brushetta so you can feel
free to.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
You really are a good host. Well, I wanted to
start because all summer I thought, Barbenheimer, that's a funny mashup,
a little like a little good joke about two movies
that were released at the same time, Barbie and Oppenheimer.
But you took the joke a little further than other people.
Can you tell us about that?

Speaker 4 (01:18):
I tweeted one day this summer I would watch the
hell out of a movie about really chipper positive plastic
dolls who destroy the world with an atomic bomb. And
then I woke up literally the next morning and thought, hey,
I wrote a book with a B movie impresario. Who
would make that if I suggested it to him? And
I did and he did. It's actually shooting this month.

(01:41):
It's called Barbon Home.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Oh my god. I cannot wait. I cannot wait. And
who is in it? Anyone?

Speaker 4 (01:48):
We I don't know. I'm gonna drop by the set though.
I can tell you that screenplay is very, very funny.
And that's all I can tell you about, except that
because of the shortened production cycle of Charlie Band, the
maker of the movie, this thing will be out by summertime.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
All right.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
I'm excited like a Hollywood movie that takes years.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
And if I may, I did write a book with
Charlie Band, So that's how I knew him and was
in touch with him and got this idea.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
And he is like the king of B movies. He's
made if.

Speaker 4 (02:20):
You've seen puppet Master movies or gooolies, Yeah, he's made
about four hundred movies.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
And we wrote Confessions of a puppet Master together.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
I love it. One last question on it. How would
plastic hold up in a nuclear explosion? Would it survive? It?

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Ain't no refrigerator.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
You don't want to be near the blast unless you
keep your Barbie collection in a refrigerator. But all right,
well that's good for the purposes of this movie they do.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
All right, okay, great spoilers.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Well, I bring up Barbenheimer because our chief puzzle officer,
Greg Pliska has actually written a puzzle related to it.
So I'm going to turn it over to Greg now
and and you too can take it. I have not
read Greg's puzzle, so I am here if you need help,
which I'm guessing you.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
What you are my lifeline AJ, and I probably do
need you.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
Okay, thank you, well, thank you AJ and Adam. Thanks
for being with us today. I'm looking forward to playing
some games. I will tell you. We decided that Barbenheimer
should just be the beginning of your producing career. Ooh,
so we've come up with some other B movie mashups
in the style of our One of our favorite puzzles,
Gorilla's in the Mystic Pizza, where we join two films

(03:33):
that have a word or syllable in common, Gorilla's in
the Mist and mix Mystic Pizza for example.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Sure, okay, So.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
We'll give you a clue to the resulting movie, and
you tell us the two movies that were used to
make up Now in this special B movie edition, the
first film always starts with the letter b ah. So
do you need an example? Do you want an example
of how this works?

Speaker 2 (03:58):
I feel like our listeners want an exam.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
Okay, well, then, as a good host and guest, we
will give the listeners the example. If I don't need one,
but I won't give it. We'll give it to everybody
if we gave you the clues. An animated fawn discovers
a portal into the head of a famous actor that
would be a clue to the film Mashup Bam being

(04:22):
John Malkovich.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, yeah, it sure would.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
But this sounds like Adam, you have like five movies
coming up with this guy. These are all pitches that
you can make to him and make.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
If it's all right with you, Guys, I came up
with these, We give.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
You the rights, and we give it as the host
of the show.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Greg actually owns the right. So I can't give you
the rights, but.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
We'll share credit. Can we can? Absolutely?

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Wow, Okay, that happened fast. Okay, John of John Malcovitch, exactly.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
All right, So we've got a few of these for you.
Just jot them down and send them to your agent.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Here we go, Okay, here we go.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, and Hillary Swank play transgender cops
in rural Nebraska.

Speaker 4 (05:15):
Okay, Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, and who Hillary Swank.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
So there's I'm no help here?

Speaker 3 (05:23):
So yeah, no, exactly, Bambi will not be used again.
There's a cop movie with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence
that starts with a B.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, it's bad Boys Don't Cry.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
There you go, Oh, bad boys don't smash up of
bad boys and the great boys don't cry.

Speaker 4 (05:42):
So that didn't really help me. No, I didn't know
all because I couldn't. I couldn't for the life of
me think of what the name of that movie was
until Greg said buddy cop movie.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
Got it?

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Ok I needed that hint.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Happy to share them. We're here for hints.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
AJ wasn't, but thank you for the emotional support.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
I did.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
I threw myself that. I said, I'm no help. I
just want to be honest.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
I knew where to look.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
As mister Rogers said, look for the helpers. Okay, and
here's another. Brookshields and Christopher Atkins play shipwrecked teens who
team up with a group of kids to discover the
lost treasure of One Eyed Willie.

Speaker 4 (06:25):
Wow, we decided to head for the eighties for this one,
didn't we?

Speaker 3 (06:28):
We sure did.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
Yeah, And in fact, I think you referenced this movie
in a recent episode with our mutual friend Faith Saley.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
Oh we may have, which is why it's.

Speaker 4 (06:39):
So fresh in my mind, because so it would be
Blue Lagoonies exactly.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
Here's here's another one. A German shepherd named for a
famous composer is taken over by an alien symbiote.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Alien symbiote.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
Okay, all right, well I know the German composer's got
to be Beethoven because that was one of my sister's
favorite movies, because she's a Charles Grodin freak. So it's
Beto and then there's a vent at the end. Yeah,
or Oven Oven poppers.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
No, no, no, come on, what's the most famous alien symbiote?

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Well, that's alien.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
No, no, it's not a symbiote. Well I kind of.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Oh, it's Beetho.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
Venom, isn't it Betho Venom? Exactly.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
I like, Greg gave you some tough love. That's how
I know that you do our friends. He's like, come on, you.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
Come on, that's your hit.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
Thank you, Greg for the idiot you've you've written comic
books I have.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
I'm like that, you're right, You're right. I'm ashamed and
I have written comic books.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
So here we go. Two more, A large white robot
sees dead people.

Speaker 4 (07:55):
Ooh okay, oh okay, so I know I can picture
both movies. One is the Disney animated film with the
that takes place in San Frantikio or something and that
and the speaking of and the Dead people is of
course that uh movie with with Bruce Willis, So here

(08:15):
we go.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
It's he plays a rope. The robots name is like
Beta Max or something.

Speaker 4 (08:22):
Yes, be Maax, but that's not that's called that's Big
Hero six is the name of the movie. So that's
Big Hero sixth sense exactly, the for sixth sense.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
Yeah, yeah, it's okay, fine, fine, it's a little we'll
cut that cut that. It's a terrible error.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
No, it's a good it's a good puzzle.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Grin it's such a good mash up I couldn't get
rid of.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
I think it's just missing because it's the th H
is for the sixth sense, right and then so.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
You yes, so you're right, big hero correct the h G.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
Yeah, wow, you got saving me from puzzle disaster.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
We played aj I wouldn't have seen that at all.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
All right, you're your last one is a film TV
mashup because having done five hit mashup films or however
many you're doing here, you're gonna now mix film and
TV to get even more spectacular.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
So it's gonna be bay Watchman.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Very nice.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
I see you're the host. You're writing the puzzles now. No,
this is a Coen Brothers black comedy in which LeVar
Burton finds CIA documents and shares them with a bunch
of school children.

Speaker 4 (09:39):
Okay, I was gonna say blood simple Rainbow, but that doesn't.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Work new so it's.

Speaker 4 (09:47):
Oh, I know, yes, Oh yeah, it's a later Coen
Brothers movie. It's it's burn after reading Rainbow exactly.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
And reading Rainbow the LeVar Burton show. Well done at.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Him, really good, really good, very impressive.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
And what a fun puzzle. Greg.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
It was a great puzzle and people can hear. I
forgot to plug one of your great projects, which is
you are co host of Nobody listens to Paula Poundstone,
a hilarious and entertaining, an informative show. So people can
listen to that and where else where else can and
Barbenheimer's coming out. Anything else you want to plug.

Speaker 4 (10:29):
There's a lot of there's a lot of hats that
I'm worrying. Oh, I've got a new podcast which fits
with this b movie thing. It's called stark Raving Reviews.
It's a funny movie review podcast where we essentially Andre
du Bouche and I essentially play characters who just love everything.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
That's nice. We need more positivity. It is a very
negative world, so that's good to hear. Greg. Do you
have an extra credit for the Puzzlers at Home?

Speaker 3 (10:58):
I do have one for the Puzzlers at Home. This
is another movie TV mashup. It's a sex comedy starring
Tom Hanks as a man trying to manage a quintet
of kids who have lost their parents.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
Ah, okay, there you go. Awesome. Thank you again, Adam,
and thank you all for listening. Come back tomorrow for
the answer. And for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle
you puzzlingly.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
Hello puzzlers. Greg Pliska here with the extra credit answer
from our previous show. On that show, we were talking
about World War two puzzles and we signed off with
this extra credit clue, did a nose get out of order?
This may be the cause. The answer is adenoids, which

(11:54):
is a cause for noses being out of order, not
working properly. And also in an anagram for did a nose,
the phrase did a nose is out of order anagrammed
to form adenoids. Hope you got that one. Happy puzzling
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