April 29, 2024 • 10 mins
Hello, Puzzlers! AJ has a new book coming out! You can pre-order "The Year of Living Constitutionally" right now!.
Puzzling with us today: host of "Ridiculous History" and "Stuff They Don't Want You to Know," Noel Brown!
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 (00:05):
Hello, Puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast the t k
O in your Puzzled Prize Fight. I am your host,
A J. Jacobs, and today's guest is the Great Noel Brown,
co host of the Ridiculous History podcast and Stuff they
(00:28):
Don't Want You to Know and just an all around
mench Welcome Noel.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Oh, that's so kind of you. Agent. Maybe I would
take the just fine Noel Brown. But great is I
love it. I will lean on some hyperbole here and there.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I'm standing by great. I'm and in future episodes, I
may go, I may go bigger.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Well, we'll see how I perform. Okay, it's yet to
be determined.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
There you go. One of your shows is the huge
hit Stuff they Don't Want You to Know, which is
about conspiracies and secrets involving everything from assass Nations to UFOs,
And in honor of that, today's puzzle is about aliens,
or more specifically ets. And before we begin, I thought
I'd ask, what is your favorite conspiracy that you've heard about?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
ET's There's just so many, but there was one of
recent note that made some delightful memes. I don't know
if you remember. In Mexico, some officials at the National
Autonomous University of Mexico purported to be the mummified remains
of an Et, an adorable little fellow, quite gaunt, with
(01:34):
a very fun little very et esque like as in
the Spielberg Spielberg and Et face. And it generated so
many memes because he's just a chill looking little guy.
They had him like with like a blunt, you know,
in his mouth, and fun like you know, like hype
beast type clothes like street wear on and it just
(01:54):
really tickled me. Of course, it was determined to be
a hoax quite quickly, but the closest to allegedly were
you know, we'll see the juries mainly in but we'll
just for the purposes of this podcast, say it's still out.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
That is interesting. That gives me an idea. I'd like
to see sort of a spectrum from the cutest ets
to the scariest ets, like who would who would be
the cutest like this guy? Would it be Et? From Spielberg?
All right, Well, this puzzle is all about looking for
hidden ets. Every answer will have the letters E T
(02:27):
appear in it, not once, but twice. So for example,
if I said, since we're talking about movies. If I
said this is what a director says before shooting a scene,
you might say quiet on the set. So you see
there's two ET's, one at the end of quiet and
one at the end of set.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
That would have taken me a minute. I'm not gonna lie.
Am terrified.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
But that was a tough one. That's why I put
it in the intro. I was just to terrify you.
I guess. Okay, all right, well, let let's start. You
may not be terrified after the ready. Ace Ventura is
one of these. Ace Ventura is one of the.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Okay, well, I'm gonna give a beat for the for
the audience to give it a go beat. And he
is a pet detective.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
A pet detective exactly there. It is two ET's right
in there. All right, what about this one? This is
a toy in the National Toy Hall of Fame, and
you draw little pictures using two knobs.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
That is an Etchus beat. It beats given a beat?
Do you cannot go? Just for the people at home
on our podcast, when we make a mistake or want
our editor to know we'd like something edited out, we
say beep out loud and having been doing this for
so long that sometimes finds its way into our normal,
everyday life where I'll be having a conversation and we'll
(03:51):
do a retake and say beep out loud. People think
it's like a glitch in the matrix, or that I'm
some sort of you know, et myself perhs glitching out. Okay,
that was enough of a beat. I would say that
would be an etch a sketch.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
And etch a sketch is correct?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Sketch?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Oh, I don't know what did you say?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
I said a sketch? I'm joking.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Oh, I say, yes, Well it's my northern accent and
you've got the Atlanta accent.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I will say, I have an accent. How dare you?
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I do like the idea of the beet during normal
conversation because you realize they can still hear you. Don't.
You can't go back and edit.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
It just not real life. Unfortunately, we haven't figured that
out quite unless it's at all a simulation exactly, all right?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
What about this?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
What is this?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Is what hester Prinne or in a novel by Nathaniel
Hawthorne Hester Prinne or this and it might be.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
A giant a.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yes, it's a giant a. But there's another name for
it that includes two.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
A burgundy character nail that. Oh no, okay, it would
be a scarlet letter.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Scarlet letter exactly, well done, well done, by the way.
I had a good idea for hester when I read that,
and which was so other letters around the A. So
it spells badass with the scarlet A in the middle,
and then you can own it. And you're like, hey,
I'm so anyway.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Do you think that's an odd choice for like early
education reading. It feels a little slut shaming or something like.
I know that's not the point of the of the book,
but it just feels it's an odd one. I don't
think they maybe they don't do that as much anymore.
Seems like it's in the in the curriculum.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
My son, my son did read it, and I agree
with you. I would not put that in. It's a little,
as you say, it's a little slut shaming. All right,
are you ready for your next one?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
This is what you go I'm doing Okay, I'm sorry rough,
I'm feeling good.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Okay, as a host, I should have mentioned that you
are killing it.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yes, thank you so much, Matt.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
I'm sorry all right, what this is what you go
through in an airport or what you use on the
beach when you're looking for coins. Oh, you might have stumped.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Them or no, no, no, I'm giving the early beats. It took.
It took an internal beats, and then I'm giving the
external beat. And now I will say a metal detecture.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
A metal detector is correct? Should we do just one? Well,
I have two more.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Let me do themit to me. Oh no, I'm in
I'm in this. I also just recently played twenty questions
for the first time on a special crossover episode of
Ridiculous History with our sister podcast, Ridiculous Crime. Uh, and
had a really lovely time doing that too. So this
is my week of firsts for me.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Oh interesting.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I want to listen to never participated in a in
a puzzle off?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I want. I'm very tempted to ask what the answer was,
but I guess that would I have to listen to
the episode. Listen, yeah, listen to uh. All right, here's one.
This is a little harder. Perhaps a buzzkill. A party
pooper might be called a shoot. Okay, okay, well, let
(07:05):
me let me do this. Let me throw this at you.
It's a more I got it. Oh yeah, you don't
even need the end.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
I got a clue.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Okay, what what do you got?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I sometimes, much to her chagrin, call my girlfriend this
actually a wet blanket.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
A wet blanket. It is absolutely true.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I say it with love less less to anybody in
the audience think that I'm being emotionally abusive.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Maybe you like wet blair. If you're hot, a wet
blanket can be very helpful. All right, Well, let's end
with this one. This is the full name of Romeo's lover.
So it's Romeo's lover a little tricky. Oh, but they
think he's got it beat.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
That would be Juliette Montague.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Oh no, that's Romeo's last name is Montague.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
And there's Montague. Wait, hold on a second. What is't
Yeah this on his turkey because he's actually Montagues and
the Montagues and the copula populate.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
You got it. You got it very well. Look at
that one hundred percent. You didn't have to worry.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
There's a T. There is an E N a T
in Montague.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
That's not the subsequence that well, lovely job. As I said,
I'm sticking with the great that I used in the intro.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Confidence is up significantly.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Well, this is the way we do it. We we
give you a nice ego boost and then we crush
you the next one. So I'm crushing.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I'm ready to be crushed. Now I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Where can people find more Noel Brown content?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Well, as you said at the top of the show,
I am the co host of Ridiculous History with the
great Ben Bolin, also a previous Puzzler guest, and also
the Stuff I Don't Want You to Know podcast, a
critical thinking approach to conspiracies with also Ben Bollen and
the also great Matt Frederick. You can find that anywhere
(09:05):
you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Both fantastic podcasts. Uh, thank you for doing them, and
thank you for coming on the show. Before we wrap up,
as always, there's a extra credit for the puzzlers at home.
This is a super low carb eating plan, a super
low carb eating plan. If you want the answer, please
(09:27):
coming back tomorrow. We've got Noel and we've got more puzzles,
and we will meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling
puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Hello, Puzzlers. Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Pliska here with the
extra credit answer from our previous show. We played with
doctor Scott Barry Kaufman a game we called the Psychology
of Puzzles, where every answer is a word with a
silent P, and every clue has all the p's removed from.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
It as if they were silent.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Your extra credit clue was this is an ease of
aper which lists the rice of an object. This is
a ease of apor which lists the rice of an object.
The answer, of course is.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
Receipt our eceei silent p T. We love silent letters,
but we love active listeners. So come on back tomorrow
for more
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly
Hello, Puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast the t k
O in your Puzzled Prize Fight. I am your host,
A J. Jacobs, and today's guest is the Great Noel Brown,
co host of the Ridiculous History podcast and Stuff they
(00:28):
Don't Want You to Know and just an all around
mench Welcome Noel.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Oh, that's so kind of you. Agent. Maybe I would
take the just fine Noel Brown. But great is I
love it. I will lean on some hyperbole here and there.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I'm standing by great. I'm and in future episodes, I
may go, I may go bigger.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Well, we'll see how I perform. Okay, it's yet to
be determined.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
There you go. One of your shows is the huge
hit Stuff they Don't Want You to Know, which is
about conspiracies and secrets involving everything from assass Nations to UFOs,
And in honor of that, today's puzzle is about aliens,
or more specifically ets. And before we begin, I thought
I'd ask, what is your favorite conspiracy that you've heard about?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
ET's There's just so many, but there was one of
recent note that made some delightful memes. I don't know
if you remember. In Mexico, some officials at the National
Autonomous University of Mexico purported to be the mummified remains
of an Et, an adorable little fellow, quite gaunt, with
(01:34):
a very fun little very et esque like as in
the Spielberg Spielberg and Et face. And it generated so
many memes because he's just a chill looking little guy.
They had him like with like a blunt, you know,
in his mouth, and fun like you know, like hype
beast type clothes like street wear on and it just
(01:54):
really tickled me. Of course, it was determined to be
a hoax quite quickly, but the closest to allegedly were
you know, we'll see the juries mainly in but we'll
just for the purposes of this podcast, say it's still out.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
That is interesting. That gives me an idea. I'd like
to see sort of a spectrum from the cutest ets
to the scariest ets, like who would who would be
the cutest like this guy? Would it be Et? From Spielberg?
All right, Well, this puzzle is all about looking for
hidden ets. Every answer will have the letters E T
(02:27):
appear in it, not once, but twice. So for example,
if I said, since we're talking about movies. If I
said this is what a director says before shooting a scene,
you might say quiet on the set. So you see
there's two ET's, one at the end of quiet and
one at the end of set.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
That would have taken me a minute. I'm not gonna lie.
Am terrified.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
But that was a tough one. That's why I put
it in the intro. I was just to terrify you.
I guess. Okay, all right, well, let let's start. You
may not be terrified after the ready. Ace Ventura is
one of these. Ace Ventura is one of the.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Okay, well, I'm gonna give a beat for the for
the audience to give it a go beat. And he
is a pet detective.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
A pet detective exactly there. It is two ET's right
in there. All right, what about this one? This is
a toy in the National Toy Hall of Fame, and
you draw little pictures using two knobs.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
That is an Etchus beat. It beats given a beat?
Do you cannot go? Just for the people at home
on our podcast, when we make a mistake or want
our editor to know we'd like something edited out, we
say beep out loud and having been doing this for
so long that sometimes finds its way into our normal,
everyday life where I'll be having a conversation and we'll
(03:51):
do a retake and say beep out loud. People think
it's like a glitch in the matrix, or that I'm
some sort of you know, et myself perhs glitching out. Okay,
that was enough of a beat. I would say that
would be an etch a sketch.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
And etch a sketch is correct?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Sketch?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Oh, I don't know what did you say?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
I said a sketch? I'm joking.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Oh, I say, yes, Well it's my northern accent and
you've got the Atlanta accent.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I will say, I have an accent. How dare you?
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I do like the idea of the beet during normal
conversation because you realize they can still hear you. Don't.
You can't go back and edit.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
It just not real life. Unfortunately, we haven't figured that
out quite unless it's at all a simulation exactly, all right?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
What about this?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
What is this?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Is what hester Prinne or in a novel by Nathaniel
Hawthorne Hester Prinne or this and it might be.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
A giant a.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yes, it's a giant a. But there's another name for
it that includes two.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
A burgundy character nail that. Oh no, okay, it would
be a scarlet letter.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Scarlet letter exactly, well done, well done, by the way.
I had a good idea for hester when I read that,
and which was so other letters around the A. So
it spells badass with the scarlet A in the middle,
and then you can own it. And you're like, hey,
I'm so anyway.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Do you think that's an odd choice for like early
education reading. It feels a little slut shaming or something like.
I know that's not the point of the of the book,
but it just feels it's an odd one. I don't
think they maybe they don't do that as much anymore.
Seems like it's in the in the curriculum.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
My son, my son did read it, and I agree
with you. I would not put that in. It's a little,
as you say, it's a little slut shaming. All right,
are you ready for your next one?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
This is what you go I'm doing Okay, I'm sorry rough,
I'm feeling good.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Okay, as a host, I should have mentioned that you
are killing it.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yes, thank you so much, Matt.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
I'm sorry all right, what this is what you go
through in an airport or what you use on the
beach when you're looking for coins. Oh, you might have stumped.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Them or no, no, no, I'm giving the early beats. It took.
It took an internal beats, and then I'm giving the
external beat. And now I will say a metal detecture.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
A metal detector is correct? Should we do just one? Well,
I have two more.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Let me do themit to me. Oh no, I'm in
I'm in this. I also just recently played twenty questions
for the first time on a special crossover episode of
Ridiculous History with our sister podcast, Ridiculous Crime. Uh, and
had a really lovely time doing that too. So this
is my week of firsts for me.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Oh interesting.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I want to listen to never participated in a in
a puzzle off?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I want. I'm very tempted to ask what the answer was,
but I guess that would I have to listen to
the episode. Listen, yeah, listen to uh. All right, here's one.
This is a little harder. Perhaps a buzzkill. A party
pooper might be called a shoot. Okay, okay, well, let
(07:05):
me let me do this. Let me throw this at you.
It's a more I got it. Oh yeah, you don't
even need the end.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
I got a clue.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Okay, what what do you got?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
I sometimes, much to her chagrin, call my girlfriend this
actually a wet blanket.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
A wet blanket. It is absolutely true.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I say it with love less less to anybody in
the audience think that I'm being emotionally abusive.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Maybe you like wet blair. If you're hot, a wet
blanket can be very helpful. All right, Well, let's end
with this one. This is the full name of Romeo's lover.
So it's Romeo's lover a little tricky. Oh, but they
think he's got it beat.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
That would be Juliette Montague.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Oh no, that's Romeo's last name is Montague.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
And there's Montague. Wait, hold on a second. What is't
Yeah this on his turkey because he's actually Montagues and
the Montagues and the copula populate.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
You got it. You got it very well. Look at
that one hundred percent. You didn't have to worry.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
There's a T. There is an E N a T
in Montague.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
That's not the subsequence that well, lovely job. As I said,
I'm sticking with the great that I used in the intro.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Confidence is up significantly.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Well, this is the way we do it. We we
give you a nice ego boost and then we crush
you the next one. So I'm crushing.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I'm ready to be crushed. Now I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Where can people find more Noel Brown content?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Well, as you said at the top of the show,
I am the co host of Ridiculous History with the
great Ben Bolin, also a previous Puzzler guest, and also
the Stuff I Don't Want You to Know podcast, a
critical thinking approach to conspiracies with also Ben Bollen and
the also great Matt Frederick. You can find that anywhere
(09:05):
you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Both fantastic podcasts. Uh, thank you for doing them, and
thank you for coming on the show. Before we wrap up,
as always, there's a extra credit for the puzzlers at home.
This is a super low carb eating plan, a super
low carb eating plan. If you want the answer, please
(09:27):
coming back tomorrow. We've got Noel and we've got more puzzles,
and we will meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling
puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Hello, Puzzlers. Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Pliska here with the
extra credit answer from our previous show. We played with
doctor Scott Barry Kaufman a game we called the Psychology
of Puzzles, where every answer is a word with a
silent P, and every clue has all the p's removed from.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
It as if they were silent.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Your extra credit clue was this is an ease of
aper which lists the rice of an object. This is
a ease of apor which lists the rice of an object.
The answer, of course is.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
Receipt our eceei silent p T. We love silent letters,
but we love active listeners. So come on back tomorrow
for more
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly
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