September 2, 2025 • 16 mins
The Puzzler team is taking a short break, and in the meantime we're bringing you some of our favorite episodes from the archives. We'll be back with brand new episodes next week!
Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: actor and musician Josh Radnor! Be sure to check out his new How I Met Your Mother rewatch podcast, "How We Made Your Mother"!
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 AI” 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 (00:00):
Hello Puzzlers. This week, the week of Labor Day, the
Puzzler team will be busy in the Puzzler Laboratory. We
are coming up with new ways to bemuse and amuse
our wonderful listeners, which gives us the chance to play
you some of our favorite episodes from the Puzzler vault.
(00:21):
So please enjoy today's selection. Hello Puzzlers. Let's start with
a quick puzzle. This puzzle is about canned laughter or
audience laughter, which appears in many of our favorite sitcoms,
including How I Met Your Mother. Now, it turns out
canned laughter has a long history. In the seventeen hundreds
(00:43):
French theater, there were people who were paid to clap.
They were called clax That's the name of the folks
who were sort of the canned laughter, the live canned
laughter from the seventeen hundreds. Turns out, when I read
the encyclopedia, I found out that it was a very
(01:05):
specialized industry. You had the people who clapped, but you
had different people doing different ways of supporting the play
by pretending to have different reactions. So I'm going to
give you three words, and you are going to try
to guess what those people meant might help if you
(01:27):
speak French, but you can always give it a shot.
All right, there is the bisseurs, the the commissaires and
the plurists. I'm not sure I got the right. I'll
take it. So who were the bisseurs, who were the commissaires,
(01:47):
and who were the pluristies. I'll accept even if you
get one reaction, I can't even match it up to
the word. But just what would people be paid to
do when they go to the theater in France in
the eighteenth century? The answers and more puzzling goodness after
the break, Hello, puzzlers, welcome back to the Buzzler. The
(02:14):
gelatinous yeast in your kombucha Scobie.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Oh god, I'd never want to be gelatinous east.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Well, listen, it's delicious. I am your host, A j. Jacobs.
I'm here, of course, with Chief puzzle Officer Greg Kliska.
Before the break, Greg, we asked about the the specialty
paid reactors in seventeen hundred's French theater. You had the
clack which were the clappers, the reeurs who laughed? What
(02:46):
were the bizous, the commissaires and the pleurists.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
So the clack is kind of Is that just the
clappers or is that the general term?
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I think that group general. That's the big term, like bird.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I know that word from the opera world, where you
also have clacks, people who cheer for different singers.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
I didn't know these specialized group.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
You said bassers or bissers. Say okay, so because if
you said bassers, I would have thought they'd blow kisses
right to.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Best is the kiss?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
But bass bias in the opera world means again on core,
do it again? So the bissors must be the people
that cheer on core.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Wow, encore to you? Nice?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Okay one? What are the other two? All? Right? Were
they come? They? It sounds like they arrest to the
people who don't cheer.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, this one is a tough one. I would not
have thought that this was an entire job. But they
are the folks who elbow their neighbors and say, watch this,
watch this, this is great.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
That is very specific. I'd like that.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I'd like to I think just going to random movie
theaters and elbow the people next to me. Hey, there's
a good scene, isn't it right?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Well, maybe Josh, he's a filmmaker, he could hire you
My last one is pleurissues. Uh. You might know this
if you know a little friends.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Well wait you are p l e U are is
it to to cry?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
These are the weepers, the paid weepers and tragedies. So
which is funny. We have canned laughter, but we don't
have canned weeping. Uh, so maybe that's a ye.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Imagine if you got it wrong and you hired some
for your comedy and would just be a mess.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Exactly. You have to be very careful. Now. I bring
all this up because one of our favorite shows has
I guess reers uh, and that is How I Met
Your Mother. And we are lucky enough to have as
our guest Josh Radner, who played the main character Ted Moseby. Uh.
(04:55):
And he is host of a new podcast within series
co creator Craig Thomas call How We Made Your Mother.
Welcome Josh.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
We love the name of your podcast, which is of
course a play on How I Met your Mother. It's
called How We Made your Mother? How We Made your Mother?
Was that an immediate like as soon as you had
the idea like this is how we're going to do it?
Or did you go through?
Speaker 4 (05:21):
But it just came to me and I texted Craig
and our producer Alec lev and I said, what about
How We Made Your Mother? And they liked it, And
we kicked around maybe a couple other different titles, but
I think we liked something that was is it homophonically?
Speaker 5 (05:38):
Is that the right word?
Speaker 4 (05:38):
Something that kind of evoked the original title of the show.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
Yeah, I think that's the.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Well we went even further. We went even harder on that.
We like to come up with ideas for spin offs,
and these are, by the way, you are welcome to
option any of these from the Puzzler, and they are
all spin off where we took out the word met
from How I Met your Mother and replaced it with
a word that rhymes with met. So, for instance, if
(06:10):
I said this is a show about the time I
wagered one hundred dollars on the Super Bowl with your mom,
it would be How I Bet your Mother instead of
How I Met your Mother. So that is the premise,
and I'm just going to go right into my pitches
and you can you can buy them as we go.
(06:31):
We're going to start with a single syllable, so it's
like met, this is a show about doing an extensive
background check on your mom.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Oh, yes, okay, so that would be how I vet
your mother exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
How I vet your mother, how I totally understand your
mom's sense of humor.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
How I get your mother exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
How I broked your mom's hair in a very platonic,
g rated way. Just I want to keep that clear
for the puzzler audience.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
How I pet your mother exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
This one is actually a little tricky. How your mom
tries to correct the spelling on my book manuscript, but
I overrule her.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
Yes, very good. How I stet your mother, How.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I set your mother exactly. I'm impressed.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
That's a good that's a good crossword. Not that appears
in the crossword now and then.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Like every crossword puzzler knows a priest's robe, you know,
right exactly?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
We all have an.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
That's right, and we know and what is the one
that there's the Sumo belt is similar to that, but
I forget what is that one you know?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Or Josh, wait, Josh looks like you know Obi right,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Japanese belt is the belt and the boa is another
belt like thing around your neck. All right, moving on
from that nerdery, I'm gonna go with now, we're bumping
it up to two syllables. Two syllables. This is a
show about being the getaway driver for your mom when
she robs a bank. How I bet your mother exactly?
Speaker 3 (08:23):
How I another word that appears in crosswords.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, a show about the time I beat your mom
at a bunch of sports even though she was heavily
favored to win.
Speaker 5 (08:35):
M How I upset your mother exactly?
Speaker 1 (08:39):
There's no fooling you, there's no fool How about well,
maybe this one. How I donated to an environmental cause
to balance out all the carbon dioxide that your mom produces.
That one maybe is a trickier one, but he's got it.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
I like this one. How I offset your mother?
Speaker 1 (09:00):
That's it. How I offset your mother's.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
The idea offset some person's carbon emission.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
We all created. Oh, last of the two syllables, How
I gave birth to your mother in uh? Maybe uh in.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
The biblical yes version. How I beget your mother exactly?
Speaker 1 (09:24):
How I beget your mother? All Right, just a couple more,
but we're going to bump it up to even more syllables.
How I draw your mom as a dark shape against
a white background. Maybe in profile, often in profile and
it's black, a black figure on a white background.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
It's a long word too, It's like what nine.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, that's what's tricky. That's what's tricky. It's a long word.
And it doesn't actually end with et. It ends with ette.
That's another Kirsty.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
I'm stumped. It is lifeline.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
I'm the lifeline.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
It's how I silhouette your oh silhouette. Of course, of
course that.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Get off the podcast of silhouette.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Dammits Well, Josh, you blew through these. I'm going to
ignore the silhouette, uh and pretend that you got one
hundred percent. He did brilliantly before we let you go.
I just wanted to talk quickly because I see puzzles
(10:36):
as a metaphor for everything. I'm a little over zealous.
I see him as a metaphor for writing, as a
meta But I wonder, as a musician is do you
ever see writing a song as a puzzle?
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Oh? Without question?
Speaker 4 (10:49):
I mean, in some ways as a creative act, songwriting
feels the most puzzlely to me. But you you know,
you kind of create the grid with the rhyme scheme
and the meter, and you can feel when something doesn't fit,
and you can feel when you get it exactly right.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
It was also I.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
Realized, you know, I've written and directed a few films,
and being in the editing room is very puzzly.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
There's certain things.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
That in the original script you think are incredibly important,
and then you lift them out of the movie and
then your movie works better. It's a very intuitive feeling
you can feel when things fall into.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
The right place.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
And I've described editing movies and even songwriting as the
same satisfaction of.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
A crossword puzzle.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
They're a little bit more like the diagram list right,
so you don't actually have the darkened squares. You have
to figure out where those are, so it's a little
more daunting than all that. But I love the diagram
less crossword puzzle. I would take more of those will
if you're listening. But yeah, I always feel like my
(12:00):
love for crosswords is a bit of a It makes
complete sense given my other interests. I also think of writing,
you know, even an essay. You know that you it
feels like a puzzle to work out, like to how
to marshal the right argument in some ways, and you're
thing like how what is what needs to be trimmed away?
(12:22):
What needs to be bolstered. It all feels like you're turning.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
The knobs of a of a big puzzle.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
But songwriting, especially is really it carries a lot of
the same satisfactions.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Interesting. Two things that just popped into my mind. One,
I am impressed. I don't do the diagram list. I
know Greg probably does, but that is hardcore love them.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
I learned how to do it years ago, and when
I see it, I really love it. Some Sometimes you're
just stumped, but you know, they give you like the
first they say, block out the first seven, right, and
if you can get that first word going, you can
kind of go from there. But it's really it's really fun,
but it's quite a challenge.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
I always have graph paper and do the Grandmos on
that so I don't have to worry about where I'm
starting in the square they give you.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Well, yeah, I was sometimes doodle in the margins. I'll
get a little block and I'll see, okay, I just
need to figure out where this goes.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And then the other thing is you mentioned Will Schwartz.
So what was it like working with him? Did you
get to talk, did you get the nerd out?
Speaker 5 (13:25):
He was a delight, I mean, at that party.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
It was also Arianna Huffington and Peter Bogdanovich and Michael Yorke.
I mean, it was this really great collection of characters.
But I stayed in touch with Peter, and Arianna became
a dear friend and Will. I had a movie coming out,
My first movie, Happy, Thank You More Please came out
not long after that, and Will showed up at the
(13:48):
first weekend at the Angelica.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
To see it.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Though.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
That was a good a and it was so sweet
of him to come. You know, he's used my name
in a few puzzles, and I actually created a puzzle
with Jeff Chen a couple of years ago.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
That's right, Yes, I forgot about that. That was great fun.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
What was the theme?
Speaker 4 (14:07):
He because I've been a longtime meditator, he added the
word ome into different phrases, so.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
It was like, you have I remember that now? Yeah?
It was very Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Now have you been doing the puzzle when it all
of a sudden, has you as a clue or are
you told late?
Speaker 5 (14:23):
I have been, Yeah, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
It's quite what's that feeling like?
Speaker 4 (14:27):
I think, out of all the things that can happen
in showbiz, somehow landing in the New York Times crossword
puzzle feels the most like I've arrived. It's like, yeah,
it's somehow, it's somehow the most satisfying, at least.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
To me aside from being a guest on the Puzzler.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Yes, oh yes, this is They're all puzzle related, anything
puzzle adjacent.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Feel Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
All right.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
I have an extra credit for the folks at home.
This is another How I Met Your Mother's spin off.
This one is about how I rue the day your
mother was created. Well, that's not very sad.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
That's a sad way to end.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
It is fiction. It is fiction. Well, thank you, Josh
and folks. If you like the show, check out our
Instagram feeds app Hello puzzlers, we got new fun puzzles
there all the time, originals you haven't heard or seen.
And of course we'll meet you here tomorrow for more
(15:32):
puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzitive.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
Hello puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer, here
with the extra credit answer from our previous episode, The wonderful, brilliant, funny,
personable puzzling Michael.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Showalter joined us and we played a little game of
what we called show Walter Show. Every answer is the
surname of a person, and then a animal hidden inside that.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Surname actually at the beginning of that surname.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
So AJ did a little extra credit like this, if
you have pointy ears and a bushy tail, you might
be this carnivorous animal. That's a Southern accent, of course,
which is meant to clue the author Jeff Foxworthy, and
that's the Foxworthy Fox. So you enjoyed the puzzles, and
(16:29):
if you're enjoying the puzzler, you all come back next
time you hear
Hello Puzzlers. This week, the week of Labor Day, the
Puzzler team will be busy in the Puzzler Laboratory. We
are coming up with new ways to bemuse and amuse
our wonderful listeners, which gives us the chance to play
you some of our favorite episodes from the Puzzler vault.
(00:21):
So please enjoy today's selection. Hello Puzzlers. Let's start with
a quick puzzle. This puzzle is about canned laughter or
audience laughter, which appears in many of our favorite sitcoms,
including How I Met Your Mother. Now, it turns out
canned laughter has a long history. In the seventeen hundreds
(00:43):
French theater, there were people who were paid to clap.
They were called clax That's the name of the folks
who were sort of the canned laughter, the live canned
laughter from the seventeen hundreds. Turns out, when I read
the encyclopedia, I found out that it was a very
(01:05):
specialized industry. You had the people who clapped, but you
had different people doing different ways of supporting the play
by pretending to have different reactions. So I'm going to
give you three words, and you are going to try
to guess what those people meant might help if you
(01:27):
speak French, but you can always give it a shot.
All right, there is the bisseurs, the the commissaires and
the plurists. I'm not sure I got the right. I'll
take it. So who were the bisseurs, who were the commissaires,
(01:47):
and who were the pluristies. I'll accept even if you
get one reaction, I can't even match it up to
the word. But just what would people be paid to
do when they go to the theater in France in
the eighteenth century? The answers and more puzzling goodness after
the break, Hello, puzzlers, welcome back to the Buzzler. The
(02:14):
gelatinous yeast in your kombucha Scobie.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Oh god, I'd never want to be gelatinous east.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Well, listen, it's delicious. I am your host, A j. Jacobs.
I'm here, of course, with Chief puzzle Officer Greg Kliska.
Before the break, Greg, we asked about the the specialty
paid reactors in seventeen hundred's French theater. You had the
clack which were the clappers, the reeurs who laughed? What
(02:46):
were the bizous, the commissaires and the pleurists.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
So the clack is kind of Is that just the
clappers or is that the general term?
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I think that group general. That's the big term, like bird.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I know that word from the opera world, where you
also have clacks, people who cheer for different singers.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
I didn't know these specialized group.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
You said bassers or bissers. Say okay, so because if
you said bassers, I would have thought they'd blow kisses
right to.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Best is the kiss?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
But bass bias in the opera world means again on core,
do it again? So the bissors must be the people
that cheer on core.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Wow, encore to you? Nice?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Okay one? What are the other two? All? Right? Were
they come? They? It sounds like they arrest to the
people who don't cheer.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, this one is a tough one. I would not
have thought that this was an entire job. But they
are the folks who elbow their neighbors and say, watch this,
watch this, this is great.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
That is very specific. I'd like that.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I'd like to I think just going to random movie
theaters and elbow the people next to me. Hey, there's
a good scene, isn't it right?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Well, maybe Josh, he's a filmmaker, he could hire you
My last one is pleurissues. Uh. You might know this
if you know a little friends.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Well wait you are p l e U are is
it to to cry?
Speaker 1 (04:16):
These are the weepers, the paid weepers and tragedies. So
which is funny. We have canned laughter, but we don't
have canned weeping. Uh, so maybe that's a ye.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Imagine if you got it wrong and you hired some
for your comedy and would just be a mess.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Exactly. You have to be very careful. Now. I bring
all this up because one of our favorite shows has
I guess reers uh, and that is How I Met
Your Mother. And we are lucky enough to have as
our guest Josh Radner, who played the main character Ted Moseby. Uh.
(04:55):
And he is host of a new podcast within series
co creator Craig Thomas call How We Made Your Mother.
Welcome Josh.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
We love the name of your podcast, which is of
course a play on How I Met your Mother. It's
called How We Made your Mother? How We Made your Mother?
Was that an immediate like as soon as you had
the idea like this is how we're going to do it?
Or did you go through?
Speaker 4 (05:21):
But it just came to me and I texted Craig
and our producer Alec lev and I said, what about
How We Made Your Mother? And they liked it, And
we kicked around maybe a couple other different titles, but
I think we liked something that was is it homophonically?
Speaker 5 (05:38):
Is that the right word?
Speaker 4 (05:38):
Something that kind of evoked the original title of the show.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
Yeah, I think that's the.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Well we went even further. We went even harder on that.
We like to come up with ideas for spin offs,
and these are, by the way, you are welcome to
option any of these from the Puzzler, and they are
all spin off where we took out the word met
from How I Met your Mother and replaced it with
a word that rhymes with met. So, for instance, if
(06:10):
I said this is a show about the time I
wagered one hundred dollars on the Super Bowl with your mom,
it would be How I Bet your Mother instead of
How I Met your Mother. So that is the premise,
and I'm just going to go right into my pitches
and you can you can buy them as we go.
(06:31):
We're going to start with a single syllable, so it's
like met, this is a show about doing an extensive
background check on your mom.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Oh, yes, okay, so that would be how I vet
your mother exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
How I vet your mother, how I totally understand your
mom's sense of humor.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
How I get your mother exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
How I broked your mom's hair in a very platonic,
g rated way. Just I want to keep that clear
for the puzzler audience.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
How I pet your mother exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
This one is actually a little tricky. How your mom
tries to correct the spelling on my book manuscript, but
I overrule her.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
Yes, very good. How I stet your mother, How.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I set your mother exactly. I'm impressed.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
That's a good that's a good crossword. Not that appears
in the crossword now and then.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Like every crossword puzzler knows a priest's robe, you know,
right exactly?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
We all have an.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
That's right, and we know and what is the one
that there's the Sumo belt is similar to that, but
I forget what is that one you know?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Or Josh, wait, Josh looks like you know Obi right,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Japanese belt is the belt and the boa is another
belt like thing around your neck. All right, moving on
from that nerdery, I'm gonna go with now, we're bumping
it up to two syllables. Two syllables. This is a
show about being the getaway driver for your mom when
she robs a bank. How I bet your mother exactly?
Speaker 3 (08:23):
How I another word that appears in crosswords.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, a show about the time I beat your mom
at a bunch of sports even though she was heavily
favored to win.
Speaker 5 (08:35):
M How I upset your mother exactly?
Speaker 1 (08:39):
There's no fooling you, there's no fool How about well,
maybe this one. How I donated to an environmental cause
to balance out all the carbon dioxide that your mom produces.
That one maybe is a trickier one, but he's got it.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
I like this one. How I offset your mother?
Speaker 1 (09:00):
That's it. How I offset your mother's.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
The idea offset some person's carbon emission.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
We all created. Oh, last of the two syllables, How
I gave birth to your mother in uh? Maybe uh in.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
The biblical yes version. How I beget your mother exactly?
Speaker 1 (09:24):
How I beget your mother? All Right, just a couple more,
but we're going to bump it up to even more syllables.
How I draw your mom as a dark shape against
a white background. Maybe in profile, often in profile and
it's black, a black figure on a white background.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
It's a long word too, It's like what nine.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, that's what's tricky. That's what's tricky. It's a long word.
And it doesn't actually end with et. It ends with ette.
That's another Kirsty.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
I'm stumped. It is lifeline.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
I'm the lifeline.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
It's how I silhouette your oh silhouette. Of course, of
course that.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Get off the podcast of silhouette.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Dammits Well, Josh, you blew through these. I'm going to
ignore the silhouette, uh and pretend that you got one
hundred percent. He did brilliantly before we let you go.
I just wanted to talk quickly because I see puzzles
(10:36):
as a metaphor for everything. I'm a little over zealous.
I see him as a metaphor for writing, as a
meta But I wonder, as a musician is do you
ever see writing a song as a puzzle?
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Oh? Without question?
Speaker 4 (10:49):
I mean, in some ways as a creative act, songwriting
feels the most puzzlely to me. But you you know,
you kind of create the grid with the rhyme scheme
and the meter, and you can feel when something doesn't fit,
and you can feel when you get it exactly right.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
It was also I.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
Realized, you know, I've written and directed a few films,
and being in the editing room is very puzzly.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
There's certain things.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
That in the original script you think are incredibly important,
and then you lift them out of the movie and
then your movie works better. It's a very intuitive feeling
you can feel when things fall into.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
The right place.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
And I've described editing movies and even songwriting as the
same satisfaction of.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
A crossword puzzle.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
They're a little bit more like the diagram list right,
so you don't actually have the darkened squares. You have
to figure out where those are, so it's a little
more daunting than all that. But I love the diagram
less crossword puzzle. I would take more of those will
if you're listening. But yeah, I always feel like my
(12:00):
love for crosswords is a bit of a It makes
complete sense given my other interests. I also think of writing,
you know, even an essay. You know that you it
feels like a puzzle to work out, like to how
to marshal the right argument in some ways, and you're
thing like how what is what needs to be trimmed away?
(12:22):
What needs to be bolstered. It all feels like you're turning.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
The knobs of a of a big puzzle.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
But songwriting, especially is really it carries a lot of
the same satisfactions.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Interesting. Two things that just popped into my mind. One,
I am impressed. I don't do the diagram list. I
know Greg probably does, but that is hardcore love them.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
I learned how to do it years ago, and when
I see it, I really love it. Some Sometimes you're
just stumped, but you know, they give you like the
first they say, block out the first seven, right, and
if you can get that first word going, you can
kind of go from there. But it's really it's really fun,
but it's quite a challenge.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
I always have graph paper and do the Grandmos on
that so I don't have to worry about where I'm
starting in the square they give you.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
Well, yeah, I was sometimes doodle in the margins. I'll
get a little block and I'll see, okay, I just
need to figure out where this goes.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
And then the other thing is you mentioned Will Schwartz.
So what was it like working with him? Did you
get to talk, did you get the nerd out?
Speaker 5 (13:25):
He was a delight, I mean, at that party.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
It was also Arianna Huffington and Peter Bogdanovich and Michael Yorke.
I mean, it was this really great collection of characters.
But I stayed in touch with Peter, and Arianna became
a dear friend and Will. I had a movie coming out,
My first movie, Happy, Thank You More Please came out
not long after that, and Will showed up at the
(13:48):
first weekend at the Angelica.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
To see it.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Though.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
That was a good a and it was so sweet
of him to come. You know, he's used my name
in a few puzzles, and I actually created a puzzle
with Jeff Chen a couple of years ago.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
That's right, Yes, I forgot about that. That was great fun.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
What was the theme?
Speaker 4 (14:07):
He because I've been a longtime meditator, he added the
word ome into different phrases, so.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
It was like, you have I remember that now? Yeah?
It was very Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Now have you been doing the puzzle when it all
of a sudden, has you as a clue or are
you told late?
Speaker 5 (14:23):
I have been, Yeah, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
It's quite what's that feeling like?
Speaker 4 (14:27):
I think, out of all the things that can happen
in showbiz, somehow landing in the New York Times crossword
puzzle feels the most like I've arrived. It's like, yeah,
it's somehow, it's somehow the most satisfying, at least.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
To me aside from being a guest on the Puzzler.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Yes, oh yes, this is They're all puzzle related, anything
puzzle adjacent.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Feel Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
All right.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
I have an extra credit for the folks at home.
This is another How I Met Your Mother's spin off.
This one is about how I rue the day your
mother was created. Well, that's not very sad.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
That's a sad way to end.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
It is fiction. It is fiction. Well, thank you, Josh
and folks. If you like the show, check out our
Instagram feeds app Hello puzzlers, we got new fun puzzles
there all the time, originals you haven't heard or seen.
And of course we'll meet you here tomorrow for more
(15:32):
puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzitive.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
Hello puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer, here
with the extra credit answer from our previous episode, The wonderful, brilliant, funny,
personable puzzling Michael.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Showalter joined us and we played a little game of
what we called show Walter Show. Every answer is the
surname of a person, and then a animal hidden inside that.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Surname actually at the beginning of that surname.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
So AJ did a little extra credit like this, if
you have pointy ears and a bushy tail, you might
be this carnivorous animal. That's a Southern accent, of course,
which is meant to clue the author Jeff Foxworthy, and
that's the Foxworthy Fox. So you enjoyed the puzzles, and
(16:29):
if you're enjoying the puzzler, you all come back next
time you hear
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
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