October 27, 2023 • 9 mins
Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: ESPN analyst and podcaster Mina Kimes.
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.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello, puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler podcast, the one hundred
Meter Dash in your daily puzzle combine. I am your host,
AJ Jacobs, and I am here with our guest, the
fantastic Mina Chimes ESPN analyst and host of the podcast
(00:25):
The Mina Chimes Show featuring Lenny. Lenny, of course, is
her talk. Welcome, Mina.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hi, thank you so much for having me finally the
chance to talk about something. I'm truly passionate about.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Puzzles exactly, that's right, sports schmorts. Well, are you also
passionate about movies? How's her? Are you a fan?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I am a fan, but that definitely is not the
strongest suit in my trivia arsenal. So if that's what
we're going today, it could be challenged.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
All right, Well, we have hints. We have hints if
they're needed. What is your favorite movie of the ones
that you are semi passionate about.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
My favorite movie of all time is a movie that
has some puzzle like qualities, Groundhog Day with Bill Murray.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Oh yeah, no, that's fantastic. That is my favorite too. Actually,
that's like in my top three, I know. All right, Well,
we can talk about that later. But I know we
have limited time, so I am going to turn it
over to Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Kliska, who has cooked
(01:30):
off this puzzle in his puzzle lab and has emerged
to give it to you.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I love the way you used e merged like I've
just come up from the basement.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
So people think of us.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
It's so great to have you here. Mina. A groundhog
Day will not appear in this puzzle, I'm sorry to say.
But and in fact, we were going to do a
puzzle that was about short films. But someone's knocking to
the puzzle lab and changed a letter. So now it's
a festival of sport films.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Oh wow, Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
So act whoever it was changed the titles for every
movie in our collection changed one letter in the title,
so that they all became sports movies.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Ah.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
So like, for example, we had this Clark Gable and
Vivian Lee drama about a man from Georgia who heads
north to play hockey in Minnesota, and that was this
great old movie.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Called Oh, Gone with the Wild, Gone with.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
The Wild Exactly. You got how this works. You take
the better known for them and you just change one
of those letters and you get the sport movie.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Oh, this would be a great Thursday crossword by the way,
as a crossroads, right, awesome to see.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, I'm gonna have to write this down. Okay, good,
all right, here's your first one. The hills are alive
with a group of pictures singing while they throw. Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
The original film would be the sound of music. So
I'm guessing we're going with the mound of music.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
The mound of music exactly, which when you think about it,
imagining like that, you know, the last five cy Young
winners up there singing while they throw it could be?
Could be?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
And mounds and are like small hills.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Very well done. Aj here's another one. This is a
mel Brooks comedy about the wackiest table tennis team in
the Old West.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Oh god, mel Brooks. This is this is it's the
older movies that really Yeah, it's.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
It's an older Western.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
And a lot of our jokes.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
That doesn't really narrow it down for a mel Brooks film,
I don't think so. It's it's the title includes what horses,
what you put on a horse to ride it?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Oh? Okay, so blazing saddles and thus blazing paddles. I
wonder if paddles. For people like me who are cinematically challenged,
you almost want to work backwards, you know, think of
ping pong words. And then because I was actually doing that,
I was like, what ping pong, ping pong, but paddles, Yeah, could.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Have maybe great, that's great puzzle advice. Right, Sometimes you
gotta work backwards from the pun All right, here's another one.
This is a breakout debut film created by Matt Damon
and Ben Affleck, and it follows the story of a
young math prodigy who becomes an all star NFL kicker. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I actually just watched Goodwill Hunting the other day, so, uh,
good Will punting. I'm trying to think of there any
Will punters in the NFL. I think it will Will LUTs.
Some want to say, might be a punter, Will LUTs see, that.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Would have been a much better layer.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Andrea, can you look that up? Let's Saints.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
There was definitely a LUTs And I remember that because
you put the position next to the name, and I
was thinking, if he was a kicker, it would have
been k Lutz Klutz, which.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
And it's just career a little bit well done. I
love that Will Lutz. Let's see if he's, if he's real.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
He's aka the Saints, nice.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Perfect, perfect, and he's and he's with the Saints. Now
that's cool. All right, here's another one, Seattle's w n B.
A team gets caught up in a gang dispute, with
direction by Steven Spielberg, music by the great Leonard Bernstein.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Okay, well that would be Seattle Storm and a Steven
Spielberg movie about a gang dispute.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Music by Leonard Bernstein was originally a stage music.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
That's not gonna help me. I'm such a model, like
I am. I'm not a musical person at all.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
There's the Sharks and the Jets.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Oh okay, it's right. The reason I was thinking rhymes
instead of one words off. So west Side Storm.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yeah, there you go, west Side.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Badass name for a sports team, west.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Side Storm, right right? If they well, where does the
Storm play in Seattle? Are they on the west side
of Seattle?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
I'm not sure?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
But if so, Shirts, well, I got one more for
you and then we'll we'll wrap up. In the plot
of this movie, Dorothy is not in Kansas anymore. She's
in a tie game after time is run out and
needs some magic to find a way to win.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Ah. You know some people call Tom Brady this the
Wizard of Ot, the.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Wizard of Ot. Exactly, very well done, nailed it five
for five.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
See you know.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Wow nice We found that sweet spot between sports and movies. Excellent.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I always like when puzzles, especially in the Thursdays, have
two different lines of expertise, so you can kind of
lean into the thing that you know better than rather
for me not knowing movies particularly.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Well and movie music. You nail with your health.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Thank you so much, guys, thank you and Greg. Do
we have an extra credit for the puzzlers at home?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
I do have one for the puzzlers at home. It's
a Marx Brothers classic that sees Groucho, Harpo and Chico
showing off their skills during the NBA All Star competition
doing the tomahawk, the windmill and the alley.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
You all right, so puzzle on that and thank you again, Mina.
He did fantastic. So puzzlers, please don't forget to subscribe
to the Puzzler Podcast and I'll meet you here tomorrow
for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Hello, puzzlers, this is Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Pliska here
with the answer to last episode's extra credit puzzle. We
played a great game called Dan You Bart with Baratunde Thurston,
where every answer is an anagram of his terrifically anagrammable
first name, Baratunde. We gave you the clue offer a
(07:57):
counter argument to comic car which many of you were
able to parse, means rebut Dana rebut Dana as and
Dana Carvey. Hope you got that one, and I hope
to see you here again next time. Thanks for playing
(08:21):
along with the team here at the Puzzler, I'm Greg Kliska,
your chief puzzle officer. Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman
and Adam Neuhouse of New House Ideas and Lindsay Hoffman
of iHeart Podcasts. The show is produced by Jody Abergan
and Brittany Brown of Roulette Productions. Our associate producer is
Andrea Schoenberg. The Puzzler with aj Jacobs is a co
(08:45):
production with New House Ideas and is distributed by Parodist's
Cheat Now Rearrange the Letters distributed by iHeart Podcasts. If
you want to know more about puzzling, puzzles, Please check
out the book The Puzzler by AJ Jacobs, a history
of puzzles that The New York Times called fun and funny.
(09:07):
It features an original puzzle hunt by yours truly, and
is available wherever you get your books and puzzlers. For
all your puzzling needs, go visit the puzzler dot com.
See you there,
Hello, puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler podcast, the one hundred
Meter Dash in your daily puzzle combine. I am your host,
AJ Jacobs, and I am here with our guest, the
fantastic Mina Chimes ESPN analyst and host of the podcast
(00:25):
The Mina Chimes Show featuring Lenny. Lenny, of course, is
her talk. Welcome, Mina.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hi, thank you so much for having me finally the
chance to talk about something. I'm truly passionate about.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Puzzles exactly, that's right, sports schmorts. Well, are you also
passionate about movies? How's her? Are you a fan?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I am a fan, but that definitely is not the
strongest suit in my trivia arsenal. So if that's what
we're going today, it could be challenged.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
All right, Well, we have hints. We have hints if
they're needed. What is your favorite movie of the ones
that you are semi passionate about.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
My favorite movie of all time is a movie that
has some puzzle like qualities, Groundhog Day with Bill Murray.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Oh yeah, no, that's fantastic. That is my favorite too. Actually,
that's like in my top three, I know. All right, Well,
we can talk about that later. But I know we
have limited time, so I am going to turn it
over to Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Kliska, who has cooked
(01:30):
off this puzzle in his puzzle lab and has emerged
to give it to you.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I love the way you used e merged like I've
just come up from the basement.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
So people think of us.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
It's so great to have you here. Mina. A groundhog
Day will not appear in this puzzle, I'm sorry to say.
But and in fact, we were going to do a
puzzle that was about short films. But someone's knocking to
the puzzle lab and changed a letter. So now it's
a festival of sport films.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Oh wow, Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
So act whoever it was changed the titles for every
movie in our collection changed one letter in the title,
so that they all became sports movies.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Ah.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
So like, for example, we had this Clark Gable and
Vivian Lee drama about a man from Georgia who heads
north to play hockey in Minnesota, and that was this
great old movie.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Called Oh, Gone with the Wild, Gone with.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
The Wild Exactly. You got how this works. You take
the better known for them and you just change one
of those letters and you get the sport movie.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Oh, this would be a great Thursday crossword by the way,
as a crossroads, right, awesome to see.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, I'm gonna have to write this down. Okay, good,
all right, here's your first one. The hills are alive
with a group of pictures singing while they throw. Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
The original film would be the sound of music. So
I'm guessing we're going with the mound of music.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
The mound of music exactly, which when you think about it,
imagining like that, you know, the last five cy Young
winners up there singing while they throw it could be?
Could be?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
And mounds and are like small hills.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Very well done. Aj here's another one. This is a
mel Brooks comedy about the wackiest table tennis team in
the Old West.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Oh god, mel Brooks. This is this is it's the
older movies that really Yeah, it's.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
It's an older Western.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
And a lot of our jokes.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
That doesn't really narrow it down for a mel Brooks film,
I don't think so. It's it's the title includes what horses,
what you put on a horse to ride it?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Oh? Okay, so blazing saddles and thus blazing paddles. I
wonder if paddles. For people like me who are cinematically challenged,
you almost want to work backwards, you know, think of
ping pong words. And then because I was actually doing that,
I was like, what ping pong, ping pong, but paddles, Yeah, could.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Have maybe great, that's great puzzle advice. Right, Sometimes you
gotta work backwards from the pun All right, here's another one.
This is a breakout debut film created by Matt Damon
and Ben Affleck, and it follows the story of a
young math prodigy who becomes an all star NFL kicker. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I actually just watched Goodwill Hunting the other day, so, uh,
good Will punting. I'm trying to think of there any
Will punters in the NFL. I think it will Will LUTs.
Some want to say, might be a punter, Will LUTs see, that.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Would have been a much better layer.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Andrea, can you look that up? Let's Saints.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
There was definitely a LUTs And I remember that because
you put the position next to the name, and I
was thinking, if he was a kicker, it would have
been k Lutz Klutz, which.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
And it's just career a little bit well done. I
love that Will Lutz. Let's see if he's, if he's real.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
He's aka the Saints, nice.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Perfect, perfect, and he's and he's with the Saints. Now
that's cool. All right, here's another one, Seattle's w n B.
A team gets caught up in a gang dispute, with
direction by Steven Spielberg, music by the great Leonard Bernstein.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Okay, well that would be Seattle Storm and a Steven
Spielberg movie about a gang dispute.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Music by Leonard Bernstein was originally a stage music.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
That's not gonna help me. I'm such a model, like
I am. I'm not a musical person at all.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
There's the Sharks and the Jets.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Oh okay, it's right. The reason I was thinking rhymes
instead of one words off. So west Side Storm.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yeah, there you go, west Side.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Badass name for a sports team, west.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Side Storm, right right? If they well, where does the
Storm play in Seattle? Are they on the west side
of Seattle?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
I'm not sure?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
But if so, Shirts, well, I got one more for
you and then we'll we'll wrap up. In the plot
of this movie, Dorothy is not in Kansas anymore. She's
in a tie game after time is run out and
needs some magic to find a way to win.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Ah. You know some people call Tom Brady this the
Wizard of Ot, the.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Wizard of Ot. Exactly, very well done, nailed it five
for five.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
See you know.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Wow nice We found that sweet spot between sports and movies. Excellent.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I always like when puzzles, especially in the Thursdays, have
two different lines of expertise, so you can kind of
lean into the thing that you know better than rather
for me not knowing movies particularly.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Well and movie music. You nail with your health.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Thank you so much, guys, thank you and Greg. Do
we have an extra credit for the puzzlers at home?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
I do have one for the puzzlers at home. It's
a Marx Brothers classic that sees Groucho, Harpo and Chico
showing off their skills during the NBA All Star competition
doing the tomahawk, the windmill and the alley.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
You all right, so puzzle on that and thank you again, Mina.
He did fantastic. So puzzlers, please don't forget to subscribe
to the Puzzler Podcast and I'll meet you here tomorrow
for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Hello, puzzlers, this is Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Pliska here
with the answer to last episode's extra credit puzzle. We
played a great game called Dan You Bart with Baratunde Thurston,
where every answer is an anagram of his terrifically anagrammable
first name, Baratunde. We gave you the clue offer a
(07:57):
counter argument to comic car which many of you were
able to parse, means rebut Dana rebut Dana as and
Dana Carvey. Hope you got that one, and I hope
to see you here again next time. Thanks for playing
(08:21):
along with the team here at the Puzzler, I'm Greg Kliska,
your chief puzzle officer. Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman
and Adam Neuhouse of New House Ideas and Lindsay Hoffman
of iHeart Podcasts. The show is produced by Jody Abergan
and Brittany Brown of Roulette Productions. Our associate producer is
Andrea Schoenberg. The Puzzler with aj Jacobs is a co
(08:45):
production with New House Ideas and is distributed by Parodist's
Cheat Now Rearrange the Letters distributed by iHeart Podcasts. If
you want to know more about puzzling, puzzles, Please check
out the book The Puzzler by AJ Jacobs, a history
of puzzles that The New York Times called fun and funny.
(09:07):
It features an original puzzle hunt by yours truly, and
is available wherever you get your books and puzzlers. For
all your puzzling needs, go visit the puzzler dot com.
See you there,
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
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