July 28, 2025 • 17 mins
Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: Jeopardy! host and friend-of-the-podcast, Ken Jennings!
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.
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"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, puzzlers. Let's start with a quick puzzle. Take the
word for a man who rode freight trains and carried
a bindle stick. Then add the first name of the
current host of Jeopardy. Now put them together and you
get a town in New Jersey where Frank Sinatra was born.
So that again is the word for a man who
(00:23):
rode freight trains and carried a bindlestick during the Great Depression.
You add to the end of that the first name
of Jeopardy's current host and legendary champion. You get the
birthplace of Frank Sinatra and New Jersey. The answer and
more puzzling goodness after the break, Hello puzzlers, Welcome back
(00:48):
to the puzzler the amber grease in the digestive tract
of your puzzle, sperm Whale. I'm your host, aj Jacobs.
Before the break, I asked you to put together two
words to make a new word. I asked you to
take the word for a man who wrote freight trains
and carried a bindlestick, and add to it the first
name of Jeopardy's current host. Put him together, you get
the birthplace of Frank Sinatra. The answer is Hobo that's
(01:14):
the guy who wrote Freight Trains and Ken that is
Ken Jennings. And you put him together and you've got
Hobo Ken, Hobo Ken or Hoboken, the new Jersey town
where Frank Sinatra was born. Now I bring this up
because today we have with it. We don't have a Hobo,
but we have none other than the Ken featured in
(01:35):
this puzzle, Jeopardy champion and Jeopardy host, author of the
new book The Complete Ken Actions. That's k E. N Actions.
Please welcome to the puzzler. Ken Jennings.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Hey, a j how are you doing?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I am seven out of ten? How are you?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Probably a solid seven or eight. I feel like people
now are expecting Sinatra.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I think you're a step up from Sinatra. And I'm
not just saying that he seemed a little yeah, good,
good voice.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I guess the ven diagram of people who think that
and the people listening to a puzzle podcast might be
about the same. And I have very few mob connections.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
That's what I'm thinking. I also thought of another one.
If you wear very fashionable clothes, then you are chic Ken.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
That's a chicken, right like she Ken McNuggets exactly. I
thought you were gonna say, Kendall.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Well, yeah, that's the classic. I feel that was clever.
Thank you. Well, I tried with Ken at the end
of words. Unfortunately they're mostly negative words like forsaken and drunken,
which I don't feel you are. So although Ken your
name Kenneth I looked it up, means handsome.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
It does, which is, you know, one of nature's little ironies.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I think you're very handsome, but not drunken forsaken. Your
appearance today is highly appropriate because you have written a
new puzzle book. It's sort of trivia plus puzzles, and
it's called The Complete Ken Actions. That's Knections. Can you
tell folks how that connection works.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
It's a pretty simple little quiz. You have to answer
five different trivia questions on a variety of subjects, and
then the answers will all have something in common. It's
I've been doing this quiz for over a decade, so
long ago that it started out at Parade Magazine.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Oh I remember Parade. I wrote for Parade. Yeah right, yeah,
you and Marilyn Vos Savant.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yes, I was always the second smartest Parade. I was
fine with that. I was fine with it.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yes, so the answers to the trivia questions. The one
I just did was logan as in the wolverine, straw
and goose, and the connection is they're all berries. So
it's very clever, and you get the little aha moment
at the end.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
And I hastened to add I was doing this, you know,
twelve years before The New York Times had a much
more successful and popular problem called connections. At least mine
has the.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Trivia gives yeah and them and the little pun on ken,
which I heard you hate. Yeah, I read that you
you wrote the intro. You don't like that, so I'm
sorry I brought it up.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
It's a very weird looking word to me still after
all these years. And I went along with it because well,
parade already have the name, before they had the format.
They had this other idea in mind where the answers
would all connect somehow and you'd have to follow a
little scavenger hunting, right, And it just turned out they
didn't have the room on the page for it.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
You know, they had to they had to show in.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Walter Scott's personality Parade and Howard Huge that comic stir
about the large dog, and so they didn't have room
for this idea, so it got simplified down to what
it is now. And I know I really liked the
look of the word, but I knew that if we
called it connections, I was very hard to replace.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
There you go, they'd have to get Ken Jong or someone.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Definitely Ken Burns would have to.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Now I have a puzzle to give to you today.
But since you took the time to write a thousand
Connections puzzles which are in this book, I thought you
could start by giving a couple of them to me
and seenior puzzler Andrea Schoenberg, and we could see how
we do you know in.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
The book they work as word puzzles. We're gonna have
this gimmick where you can see fill in the blank
so you can do it as pencil puzzles, right right, Yes,
that is you know, we like hang Man or Wheel
of Fortune. It'll be a little harder here over the
air because you won't be able.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
To see we're professional puzzlers.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
We also have a patent pending ken sealer that you
can use to cover those up. If you want a
tougher child, you're getting pre ken sealed.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
That's right, without even paying we get the Ken Sealer,
all right, And by the way, we're gonna guess on
the very first one too, because we like to look foolish.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Well, I feel like, should I pick one where it
would be hard to guess on the very first moment?
Speaker 1 (06:07):
I like that idea.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
All right, let's do that. I was gonna pick uping
entry level. We're diving all the way into the middle
of the book here, all right, First question, what Hugh
Lori TV hit about a prickly doctor spawned the meme?
It's never lupus. I'm gonna say house house is correct.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
All right, Then we have to all right, I'm gonna
say genres of dance music.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
That's a great guess, Aja, but I'm sorry it is not.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
All right, Andrea, what's your guess? Maybe you can get
it house house, house house house, places to live. That's
very That's that's too easy. I think I like it.
I like it. Maybe Ken sometimes goes very, very straight ahead,
just to.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Often it's the right. Often it's the final one that
like is kind of the giveaway. Right, So in this case,
it is not place to live. But here's question two.
It'll get easier. What does the B stand for? In
university degrees like BA.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
And BS bachelor. So we've got house and bachelor. Wait
are these reality shows? Because isn't there a house? Real lap,
there must be house, but obviously not from the look
of your face. Okay, guess interesting bachelor house, bachelor house?
(07:31):
Oh oh oh, I think I know. Oh man, I
mean well, I feel pretty confident. Is it types of parties?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Types of parties? Is correct?
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Nicely done?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Now?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Wait? Do I get partial credit for the music? Because
you did get you got the trivia questions?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Wait you believe that? I see the house music is
named after the kind of party. Yeah, you're not. You're
not that far off age.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Well, all right, i'll take I'm going to give my sense.
It's my show. I'm going to give myself half credit.
All right, Well, let's do one more quick one. What
about that same level?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Okay, here we go. Despite dwindling global supplies, Macy's still
uses three hundred thousand cubic feet of what gas every
Thanksgiving in its big parade.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Well, helium, I would think, unless they're going for something explosive.
All right, so helium, helium, helium, Well, it can't be gases.
That's no fun. Helium I don't know noble things. Maybe
it's a noble gas. Is it noble things?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I could guess?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
But no, no, Andrea, what do you got? I mean,
that's the only category of helium I.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Could think of.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
All right, all right, we're ready for number two Helium Helium.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Vertion two what nineteen sixty film based on a Leon
Yuras bestseller, stars Paul Newman as a Jewish freedom fighter.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Oh sure, now, now I can't remember I saw it
and it is. Wait, it's got sort of a biblical name,
so I really should know it. Exodus. Maybe that's right, accident.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
You're in the Bible following paid off agr all your
one years.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
That is exactly why I did it. Wait, Helium and Exodus.
Oh no, I am blanking, Andrea, What do you got?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Ilium?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Exodus, Helium?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Exodus?
Speaker 1 (09:15):
I was thinking things that change your voice when you
inhale them, but that that breaks down after Helium and well.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
The Bob Marley record Exodus might change your voice if
you inhale at a show.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Oh, great point, great point. All right, give us one
more and then we're gonna we're gonna.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Give up the third one in which month of the
year is black? History month celebrated, no pressure.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
I believe that's February, all right, So February helium and.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
February.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Is there a book of the Bible named Helium? Helium
Exodus February?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Something about the words something like.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
It's not but it's a little outside the.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Box helium, Things that rise right of this, things that escape?
What was the third one?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Now I've even forgotten Exodus February. Oh oh, I think
I know it.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
The number two too.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
They are all the second in that theory.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Ah, well done, well.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Done, Genesis Exodus January.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
February, nicely done. All right, well done. So you can
get nine hundred and ninety eight more of those in
Ken's new book. And now we have a quick puzzle
for you. Ken. I wrote this puzzle before I read
that you hated the name connections, so it is gonna
(10:41):
cause you some pain because it's all about Ken.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
It's good for me.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
It's called Ken text clues, and all of the answers
are words where the con at the start of the
word is replaced by K E N. So if if
the clue were, for instance, at the Thanksgiving Day parade
you're watching it, or a new Year's eve, people might
throw this and it's ken fetti. If you are in
(11:07):
the UH in the parade, So are you ready? Yes,
if you seceded from the United States to start your
own country, you might write one of these.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I like that you're doing. If and not when, I
might write a constitution.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
If I was a Ken federacy.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
That's right, the Kenfederacy of Ken.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
We'd have a kenstitutional Kenvention for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Nice like you took it, you took it a step further.
I love it. Jeopardy truthers who say that you were
given all the answers believe in what.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
I guess they would be kenspiracy theorists.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
That's right. Are there jeopardy truthers? Are there people who
say that it it was ragged?
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah? Ever since I was first on people are like, oh,
you lost on purpose?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Well, first there's like they gave you the end, that's right,
And then there's the other ones which are like, they
give you the answers and you still blew it. I
guess they thought I'm mobbed up like Frank Sinatra and
I'm kaking money and eight my ass goes down.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
That is interesting, But I mean they really did rig them.
My uncle went on the game show in the fifties
and was given the answers and he was like the
gimmick was he was like eight years old, so he
would look really smart.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
That's why angels are unriggable today, because there's still those
laws on the books from scofflaws like your uncle.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Exactly, he caused it, but it benefited you. Uh. This
is a clear soup made by chef Jennings.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
I guess I would make a ken same, you.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Would make a ken same? What about I'm gonna stick
with the clear theme. And it's a clear membrane covering
the white part of your eyeball. Oh good, it's giving
him pause.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
This is is this the ken junctiva?
Speaker 1 (12:55):
It is the ken junctiva.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
He didn't actually know the word, but I remembered pinky right.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Conjunctivitis is the disease of the conjunctiva. It just never
it only gets play during the during the disease.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Which is isn't that human nature? Like? We never realized
how good our conjunctive a habit. This is wrong. We're like, ah, conjunctiva.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
I would like to thank the my conjunctiva for being
non pink most of the time. These include Kennis Major
and Kennis minor. Those would be constellation constellations precisely. And
last one, if you have a ZiT but you have
to go on television because that's your job, you might
(13:41):
use this type of makeup.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Oh once again, this is our patent pending ken stealer.
We used to hide the hide the blanks in the connection.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Oh right, I thank you for making that connection. Well
well done. By the way, when I do go on TV,
which is not often, they still make us wear makeup.
So have you gotten used to the makeup? And do
you wear it after and feel really cool and special?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Sometimes I forget to take it off and I'm sitting
on the plane and then you know, my hand comes
away with a little makeup on it, and I think,
should I be embarrassed that I've been wearing makeup for hours?
Or should should I feel great that I've looked so
good here on the plane.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
And so you mentioned in the intro to your Connections
book that you are seeing connections everywhere, and I have
that same thing, like my brain is always now that
I write these puzzles for the Puzzler, I can't turn
it off. So what's an example of where are you
thinking of one right now? A connection?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yeah, I have a list on my phone because you know,
no matter where I am, Like I was at the
gym the other day, and you know, I was doing Superman.
And basically it's any time you think of two things
that have the same name, like a word that can
have a double meaning, because that's the well spring of connections. Oh,
for Man is a comic, but it's also an r
EM song and it's also a Marlon Brando movie, and
it's also a kind of exercise, and so you're like, well,
(15:08):
can I think of four other exercises that could also
be trivia answers? And then the wheels just start turning.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Right, I'm trying to think right now what burpie? I
guess Bert is.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
That you have to be able to force the answer
Burpie without mentioning Burpie. So it's like a very key
kind of like maybe pirates walking the plank, very good,
very good crunch is a candy bar and an exercise
you're looking for ive along those lines.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah, I love that since we do some that are wordplay.
My my anagram mind is always on like this one.
I noticed yesterday Mike Pence, JD vance both and an
NCE and if you take the remaining leftover letters, it's
V E A P. And I was like, so close
(15:55):
to veep.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Can you imagine if it were veep? Then I would
believe that yeah something.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, I'm interested to hear what you would believe.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
I would believe there's a god who loves anagrams. I
guess I would believe. Uh. Well, thank you, handsome Ken.
We love having you, and we get you back for
more tomorrow. And oh, by the way, I have an
extra credit for the folks at home. If Ken ever
(16:29):
gets pregnant, he might experience these. That's the clue. If
Ken ever gets pregnant, which I know is unlikely, he
might experience these. And remember it's a word that starts
with Ken. The answer tomorrow, And while you're waiting for that,
please check out our Instagram feed at Hello Puzzlers, where
(16:52):
we post original puzzles and other fun stuff, lots of
visual puzzles, and we'll meet here tomorrow for more puzzling
puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly
Hello, puzzlers. Let's start with a quick puzzle. Take the
word for a man who rode freight trains and carried
a bindle stick. Then add the first name of the
current host of Jeopardy. Now put them together and you
get a town in New Jersey where Frank Sinatra was born.
So that again is the word for a man who
(00:23):
rode freight trains and carried a bindlestick during the Great Depression.
You add to the end of that the first name
of Jeopardy's current host and legendary champion. You get the
birthplace of Frank Sinatra and New Jersey. The answer and
more puzzling goodness after the break, Hello puzzlers, Welcome back
(00:48):
to the puzzler the amber grease in the digestive tract
of your puzzle, sperm Whale. I'm your host, aj Jacobs.
Before the break, I asked you to put together two
words to make a new word. I asked you to
take the word for a man who wrote freight trains
and carried a bindlestick, and add to it the first
name of Jeopardy's current host. Put him together, you get
the birthplace of Frank Sinatra. The answer is Hobo that's
(01:14):
the guy who wrote Freight Trains and Ken that is
Ken Jennings. And you put him together and you've got
Hobo Ken, Hobo Ken or Hoboken, the new Jersey town
where Frank Sinatra was born. Now I bring this up
because today we have with it. We don't have a Hobo,
but we have none other than the Ken featured in
(01:35):
this puzzle, Jeopardy champion and Jeopardy host, author of the
new book The Complete Ken Actions. That's k E. N Actions.
Please welcome to the puzzler. Ken Jennings.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Hey, a j how are you doing?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I am seven out of ten? How are you?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Probably a solid seven or eight. I feel like people
now are expecting Sinatra.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I think you're a step up from Sinatra. And I'm
not just saying that he seemed a little yeah, good,
good voice.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I guess the ven diagram of people who think that
and the people listening to a puzzle podcast might be
about the same. And I have very few mob connections.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
That's what I'm thinking. I also thought of another one.
If you wear very fashionable clothes, then you are chic Ken.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
That's a chicken, right like she Ken McNuggets exactly. I
thought you were gonna say, Kendall.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Well, yeah, that's the classic. I feel that was clever.
Thank you. Well, I tried with Ken at the end
of words. Unfortunately they're mostly negative words like forsaken and drunken,
which I don't feel you are. So although Ken your
name Kenneth I looked it up, means handsome.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
It does, which is, you know, one of nature's little ironies.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I think you're very handsome, but not drunken forsaken. Your
appearance today is highly appropriate because you have written a
new puzzle book. It's sort of trivia plus puzzles, and
it's called The Complete Ken Actions. That's Knections. Can you
tell folks how that connection works.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
It's a pretty simple little quiz. You have to answer
five different trivia questions on a variety of subjects, and
then the answers will all have something in common. It's
I've been doing this quiz for over a decade, so
long ago that it started out at Parade Magazine.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Oh I remember Parade. I wrote for Parade. Yeah right, yeah,
you and Marilyn Vos Savant.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yes, I was always the second smartest Parade. I was
fine with that. I was fine with it.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yes, so the answers to the trivia questions. The one
I just did was logan as in the wolverine, straw
and goose, and the connection is they're all berries. So
it's very clever, and you get the little aha moment
at the end.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
And I hastened to add I was doing this, you know,
twelve years before The New York Times had a much
more successful and popular problem called connections. At least mine
has the.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Trivia gives yeah and them and the little pun on ken,
which I heard you hate. Yeah, I read that you
you wrote the intro. You don't like that, so I'm
sorry I brought it up.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
It's a very weird looking word to me still after
all these years. And I went along with it because well,
parade already have the name, before they had the format.
They had this other idea in mind where the answers
would all connect somehow and you'd have to follow a
little scavenger hunting, right, And it just turned out they
didn't have the room on the page for it.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
You know, they had to they had to show in.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Walter Scott's personality Parade and Howard Huge that comic stir
about the large dog, and so they didn't have room
for this idea, so it got simplified down to what
it is now. And I know I really liked the
look of the word, but I knew that if we
called it connections, I was very hard to replace.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
There you go, they'd have to get Ken Jong or someone.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Definitely Ken Burns would have to.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Now I have a puzzle to give to you today.
But since you took the time to write a thousand
Connections puzzles which are in this book, I thought you
could start by giving a couple of them to me
and seenior puzzler Andrea Schoenberg, and we could see how
we do you know in.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
The book they work as word puzzles. We're gonna have
this gimmick where you can see fill in the blank
so you can do it as pencil puzzles, right right, Yes,
that is you know, we like hang Man or Wheel
of Fortune. It'll be a little harder here over the
air because you won't be able.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
To see we're professional puzzlers.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
We also have a patent pending ken sealer that you
can use to cover those up. If you want a
tougher child, you're getting pre ken sealed.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
That's right, without even paying we get the Ken Sealer,
all right, And by the way, we're gonna guess on
the very first one too, because we like to look foolish.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Well, I feel like, should I pick one where it
would be hard to guess on the very first moment?
Speaker 1 (06:07):
I like that idea.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
All right, let's do that. I was gonna pick uping
entry level. We're diving all the way into the middle
of the book here, all right, First question, what Hugh
Lori TV hit about a prickly doctor spawned the meme?
It's never lupus. I'm gonna say house house is correct.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
All right, Then we have to all right, I'm gonna
say genres of dance music.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
That's a great guess, Aja, but I'm sorry it is not.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
All right, Andrea, what's your guess? Maybe you can get
it house house, house house house, places to live. That's
very That's that's too easy. I think I like it.
I like it. Maybe Ken sometimes goes very, very straight ahead,
just to.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Often it's the right. Often it's the final one that
like is kind of the giveaway. Right, So in this case,
it is not place to live. But here's question two.
It'll get easier. What does the B stand for? In
university degrees like BA.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
And BS bachelor. So we've got house and bachelor. Wait
are these reality shows? Because isn't there a house? Real lap,
there must be house, but obviously not from the look
of your face. Okay, guess interesting bachelor house, bachelor house?
(07:31):
Oh oh oh, I think I know. Oh man, I
mean well, I feel pretty confident. Is it types of parties?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Types of parties? Is correct?
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Nicely done?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Now?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Wait? Do I get partial credit for the music? Because
you did get you got the trivia questions?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Wait you believe that? I see the house music is
named after the kind of party. Yeah, you're not. You're
not that far off age.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Well, all right, i'll take I'm going to give my sense.
It's my show. I'm going to give myself half credit.
All right, Well, let's do one more quick one. What
about that same level?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Okay, here we go. Despite dwindling global supplies, Macy's still
uses three hundred thousand cubic feet of what gas every
Thanksgiving in its big parade.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Well, helium, I would think, unless they're going for something explosive.
All right, so helium, helium, helium, Well, it can't be gases.
That's no fun. Helium I don't know noble things. Maybe
it's a noble gas. Is it noble things?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I could guess?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
But no, no, Andrea, what do you got? I mean,
that's the only category of helium I.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Could think of.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
All right, all right, we're ready for number two Helium Helium.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Vertion two what nineteen sixty film based on a Leon
Yuras bestseller, stars Paul Newman as a Jewish freedom fighter.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Oh sure, now, now I can't remember I saw it
and it is. Wait, it's got sort of a biblical name,
so I really should know it. Exodus. Maybe that's right, accident.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
You're in the Bible following paid off agr all your
one years.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
That is exactly why I did it. Wait, Helium and Exodus.
Oh no, I am blanking, Andrea, What do you got?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Ilium?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Exodus, Helium?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Exodus?
Speaker 1 (09:15):
I was thinking things that change your voice when you
inhale them, but that that breaks down after Helium and well.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
The Bob Marley record Exodus might change your voice if
you inhale at a show.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Oh, great point, great point. All right, give us one
more and then we're gonna we're gonna.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Give up the third one in which month of the
year is black? History month celebrated, no pressure.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
I believe that's February, all right, So February helium and.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
February.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Is there a book of the Bible named Helium? Helium
Exodus February?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Something about the words something like.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
It's not but it's a little outside the.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Box helium, Things that rise right of this, things that escape?
What was the third one?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Now I've even forgotten Exodus February. Oh oh, I think
I know it.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
The number two too.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
They are all the second in that theory.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Ah, well done, well.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Done, Genesis Exodus January.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
February, nicely done. All right, well done. So you can
get nine hundred and ninety eight more of those in
Ken's new book. And now we have a quick puzzle
for you. Ken. I wrote this puzzle before I read
that you hated the name connections, so it is gonna
(10:41):
cause you some pain because it's all about Ken.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
It's good for me.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
It's called Ken text clues, and all of the answers
are words where the con at the start of the
word is replaced by K E N. So if if
the clue were, for instance, at the Thanksgiving Day parade
you're watching it, or a new Year's eve, people might
throw this and it's ken fetti. If you are in
(11:07):
the UH in the parade, So are you ready? Yes,
if you seceded from the United States to start your
own country, you might write one of these.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I like that you're doing. If and not when, I
might write a constitution.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
If I was a Ken federacy.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
That's right, the Kenfederacy of Ken.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
We'd have a kenstitutional Kenvention for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Nice like you took it, you took it a step further.
I love it. Jeopardy truthers who say that you were
given all the answers believe in what.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
I guess they would be kenspiracy theorists.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
That's right. Are there jeopardy truthers? Are there people who
say that it it was ragged?
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah? Ever since I was first on people are like, oh,
you lost on purpose?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Well, first there's like they gave you the end, that's right,
And then there's the other ones which are like, they
give you the answers and you still blew it. I
guess they thought I'm mobbed up like Frank Sinatra and
I'm kaking money and eight my ass goes down.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
That is interesting, But I mean they really did rig them.
My uncle went on the game show in the fifties
and was given the answers and he was like the
gimmick was he was like eight years old, so he
would look really smart.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
That's why angels are unriggable today, because there's still those
laws on the books from scofflaws like your uncle.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Exactly, he caused it, but it benefited you. Uh. This
is a clear soup made by chef Jennings.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
I guess I would make a ken same, you.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Would make a ken same? What about I'm gonna stick
with the clear theme. And it's a clear membrane covering
the white part of your eyeball. Oh good, it's giving
him pause.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
This is is this the ken junctiva?
Speaker 1 (12:55):
It is the ken junctiva.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
He didn't actually know the word, but I remembered pinky right.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Conjunctivitis is the disease of the conjunctiva. It just never
it only gets play during the during the disease.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Which is isn't that human nature? Like? We never realized
how good our conjunctive a habit. This is wrong. We're like, ah, conjunctiva.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
I would like to thank the my conjunctiva for being
non pink most of the time. These include Kennis Major
and Kennis minor. Those would be constellation constellations precisely. And
last one, if you have a ZiT but you have
to go on television because that's your job, you might
(13:41):
use this type of makeup.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Oh once again, this is our patent pending ken stealer.
We used to hide the hide the blanks in the connection.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Oh right, I thank you for making that connection. Well
well done. By the way, when I do go on TV,
which is not often, they still make us wear makeup.
So have you gotten used to the makeup? And do
you wear it after and feel really cool and special?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Sometimes I forget to take it off and I'm sitting
on the plane and then you know, my hand comes
away with a little makeup on it, and I think,
should I be embarrassed that I've been wearing makeup for hours?
Or should should I feel great that I've looked so
good here on the plane.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
And so you mentioned in the intro to your Connections
book that you are seeing connections everywhere, and I have
that same thing, like my brain is always now that
I write these puzzles for the Puzzler, I can't turn
it off. So what's an example of where are you
thinking of one right now? A connection?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yeah, I have a list on my phone because you know,
no matter where I am, Like I was at the
gym the other day, and you know, I was doing Superman.
And basically it's any time you think of two things
that have the same name, like a word that can
have a double meaning, because that's the well spring of connections. Oh,
for Man is a comic, but it's also an r
EM song and it's also a Marlon Brando movie, and
it's also a kind of exercise, and so you're like, well,
(15:08):
can I think of four other exercises that could also
be trivia answers? And then the wheels just start turning.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Right, I'm trying to think right now what burpie? I
guess Bert is.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
That you have to be able to force the answer
Burpie without mentioning Burpie. So it's like a very key
kind of like maybe pirates walking the plank, very good,
very good crunch is a candy bar and an exercise
you're looking for ive along those lines.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah, I love that since we do some that are wordplay.
My my anagram mind is always on like this one.
I noticed yesterday Mike Pence, JD vance both and an
NCE and if you take the remaining leftover letters, it's
V E A P. And I was like, so close
(15:55):
to veep.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Can you imagine if it were veep? Then I would
believe that yeah something.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, I'm interested to hear what you would believe.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
I would believe there's a god who loves anagrams. I
guess I would believe. Uh. Well, thank you, handsome Ken.
We love having you, and we get you back for
more tomorrow. And oh, by the way, I have an
extra credit for the folks at home. If Ken ever
(16:29):
gets pregnant, he might experience these. That's the clue. If
Ken ever gets pregnant, which I know is unlikely, he
might experience these. And remember it's a word that starts
with Ken. The answer tomorrow, And while you're waiting for that,
please check out our Instagram feed at Hello Puzzlers, where
(16:52):
we post original puzzles and other fun stuff, lots of
visual puzzles, and we'll meet here tomorrow for more puzzling
puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
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