July 22, 2025 • 18 mins
Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: host of "The Gist" podcast, Mike Pesca!
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 (00:01):
Hello puzzlers, I say we start with a quick puzzle today.
Our challenge is, can you come up with any notable
people who have fishy names, by which I mean people
whose first or last names are a species of fish,
such as in sync singer Lance Bass. Bass is a fish,
and we will accept misspellings. We're very liberal. If it
(00:23):
sounds like a fish, like Marlon Wayans, then we'll accept it. Marlin,
the person is spelled with an o, but the fish
is spelled with an eye. But still okay. In our book,
the answers and more, at least some of them, and
more puzzling puzzles after the break, Hello puzzlers, Welcome back
(00:48):
to the Puzzler Podcast the moisture wicking socks in your
puzzle triathlon outfit. I'm your host, AJ Jacobs, and I'm here,
of course, with chief puzzle Officer Greg Pliska.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Greg.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Before the break, we asked puzzlers at home a challenge.
Can you name any notable people with fishy names, such
as in sync singer Lance Bass. Did you have any
thoughts on fish?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Of course?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Of course there's the great baseball player Mike Trout.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yes, yes, he is probably number one in the fishy.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah, Actress Terry Garr.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Spelled good one.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Yeah, but Gar is a fish, the great former Treasury
Secretary Chief Justice Salmon Pea Chase.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Yeah, I think he's on the He's on like the
ten thousand dollars bill or something, right, Salmon Pea Chase,
love it. And then there's Flounder from the movie Animal House.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Nicely done, well well done.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
There, I don't have all that manymore. There's Ray Ray,
Ray Romano or Isa Ray. There's Rosmund Pike. But all
of this is because it's sort of to honor our guest,
but just sort of, and let me explain. Our guest
is the podcaster extraordinaire Mike Pesca, host of the Gist podcast,
(02:08):
the longest running daily news podcast in history. Also he
has the Gist list on substack.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Super entertaining.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
Welcome Mike, thank you for having me, and I thank
you on behalf of former Scottish National Party chair Nicola Sturgeon.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Excellent, well done, well done. Yeah, I had no idea,
but now I am.
Speaker 6 (02:33):
She got smoked in an election in there.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
She's well. The reason I brought up at theological puns
is because your last name is pesca, which sounds very fishy.
It sounds like some European language for the word fish,
like the word pesca terarian someone who only eats fish.
But here's the twist. Here's the puzzly twist. It is
(02:56):
not about fish, is that correct?
Speaker 5 (02:59):
The name in Italian pesca means peach, and the name
of my production company, because everyone thinks it means fish
is peach fish Productions.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Peach fish production exactly. Love it.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
And you feel, how do you feel about being miss
I don't know whether the misspecied as a fish person
instead of a fruit person.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
How do I feel I feel? I don't know, it'll scale,
it's ah. Sometimes I feel flayed, and sometimes sometimes it
just you know, I just swim along with the tie.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Oh my goodness, so much.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
All right, well, I'm not even going to try to
get in there with my own because I'm abandoning fish.
I am cutting bait because we are moving to fruit.
No more fish, all fruit, because that is the true
meaning of your last name. So this puzzle is called
fruity phrases. So I'm going to give you a clue,
and the fra the answer will always be a fruit
(03:57):
filled phrase. So if if the clue is something like
a fruit filled way to say that everything is a okay,
then in that case the answer would be peachee keying
like your name peche.
Speaker 6 (04:12):
Key, although for a fish it might be hunky Dory.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Look at that coming fast.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
I'm just writing up the ichthyological punster contract right now.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
If you're if you're on the fence, hunky Dory, really
put it over the top.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Really nailed it. You were just kind of skating along
before that.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Nice nice one.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
All right, Mike, I need you to change to what
is the word for fruit of the fruitarian puzzle officer?
All right, you're ready, you're ready to go into all right,
this is a fruit filled compatriot of Colonel.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
Mustard, Professor Plum. I believe plums a professor h.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Is Professor Plum.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
That is yes, as far as we know, Uh, this
is a fruit filled body part also called the laryngeal prominence.
That's the official name, the laryngeal prominence.
Speaker 6 (05:13):
The Adams apple.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Correct, That is.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
What you What you can't see if you're listening is
all of us are touching our throats right now.
Speaker 6 (05:21):
I think that's that.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
All right?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
How about a fruit filled song named for a children's
home in Liverpool.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
So that's the key. The Liverpool is the key fruit
filled song.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
Oh okay, yeah, yes, Strawberry, you.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Got it right, you got it.
Speaker 6 (05:45):
Didn't know it was the children's home.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Interesting, I didn't until Wikipedia told me about an hour ago,
but yeah it was. John Lennon spent a lot of
time in the children's home and uh and there it
showed up.
Speaker 6 (05:59):
Uh, don't listen.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
If you didn't know it before Wikipedia, it's nothing to
get hung about.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Ah.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Good one.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
By the way, quick sidebar you. This is not your
first roady in your first game show rodeo. You've done wait, wait,
don't tell me, you've hosted wait went, don't tell me,
and you've been on Jeopardy. So how was your Jeopardy experience?
Speaker 5 (06:20):
I forgot my glasses, so that really screwed me over
during a video Daily dovil yeah.
Speaker 6 (06:25):
Or maybe I'm vain.
Speaker 5 (06:26):
And on the final Jeopardy question, it was bad strategy
because I wrote down it was three possible answers, and
I wrote down the first one that came to mind,
and then I crossed it out. And if I had
not crossed it out, I'll give you a question.
Speaker 6 (06:43):
If you want. I think that's legal.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
After all this time, if I had not crossed it out,
if I just said, all right, I'm going with it,
I would have gotten it. So here's the question. And
this was of the time when I was on twenty
years ago. I think it was four people have won
a an acting oscar and had a number one pop
single named two of the four.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Oh interesting, Bradley Cooper was here.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
That well, no, this was this was yeah wav Starcorn, Yeah,
but after Judy Garland, who's not an answer?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
I am watching musicals with my mom. So funny Girl
was that one?
Speaker 5 (07:27):
Barbara Streistreisand the first name I write down is strisand
and then I'm going through in my mind, what's she
in the oscar for? Not Nuts, not Prince of Tide.
And I, quite foolishly because I forgot funny Girl crossed
out Streisand so.
Speaker 6 (07:40):
Now I have time dwindling down, and.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
I have to come up with a couple more. And
I do come up with a correct other answer. You
want to you want to try?
Speaker 1 (07:47):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (07:48):
They have to have won an acting oscar and a
and had a hit song.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
Yes, and I'll give you a hint on one number
one hit song, many number one hit songs. This man,
this man with not only the golden throat but a
golden arm. Yeah, Sinatra, And I write down Sinatra. And
now time is running down and I have no more.
I've got the bump bump bump in Jeopardy theme music,
(08:14):
and I just scrawled down Smith, I write Smith. And
if in that moment I had enough time to write
striisand I would have. And so the correct answers are
Barber streisand or at the time they were Barber streisand
Frank Sinatra bing Crosby Bells.
Speaker 6 (08:34):
And Jamie Fox.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Jamie, Oh, that's a great one.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
I love that, now, Alex.
Speaker 5 (08:42):
And then Alex said Smith, which Smith do you mean?
And I said to myself, do I really what if
I get the wrong Smith? So I said Will Smith,
knowing he hadn't won an oscar at that point, pre
slap right, And I was wrong.
Speaker 6 (08:55):
But I was also right. It was just ahead of
my time, yes, exactly, just early.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
So can you now go claim it and say listen,
I was just.
Speaker 6 (09:05):
That's why they can't air it and repeats everyone will
be screened, what about Will Smith?
Speaker 1 (09:08):
The guy's right, Oh my god, that is great. But
you were just saying, what is the most common name,
because there is a zero point one percent chance that
that would be.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Is that your strategy?
Speaker 5 (09:20):
Yes, I was just going for a Smith. I've never
seen it work, but it could.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I love it all right.
Speaker 6 (09:26):
Well, I think i'd written.
Speaker 5 (09:27):
The asked for Streisand, and I realized Riisand was not
coming out of my pen, and so I smiffed it up.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
We use in the in Learned League trivia, which I
play all the time, they we call it a lucky Johnson, oh,
where you just write Johnson in is the answering. And
for some reason early on it was a bunch of
there were a bunch of Johnson's that came up. We're like, okay,
it's a lucky Johnson. Now you just throw it in
there if you're stuff.
Speaker 5 (09:51):
That is Johnson the most popular surname? No, I don't.
I don't know that it is. It was just it
felt in the context it was more likely to be. Right,
there's a president named Johnson, so you got you know.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Your thing, right, you've doubled that president couple. Yeah, exactly, exactly,
that may have been the origin. Actually it's if it's
a president question, use the lucky Johnson, you got a shot?
Speaker 6 (10:14):
You got two?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I mean Bush and Roosevelt and Adams.
Speaker 6 (10:16):
Yeah, there are too many, too many common last names.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, oh well that is great.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
All right, if you need to, you can.
Speaker 6 (10:24):
Wait a minute.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
We've had forty five presidents, but only what thirty eight names?
Speaker 6 (10:29):
This seems wrong?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Well, what about the fact that James I think it's
six or seven of our presidents are James's.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
What about that?
Speaker 6 (10:38):
You know? And I know you do, since you are
the kind of guys who know that.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
Jay, though, the third least common consonant is the most
common first letter for a man's man's name.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Oh crazy, crazy, thanks to like a handful of names,
Jack and John and James.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Right right, all right? Are you ready? Are you ready
for more puzzling?
Speaker 6 (11:04):
Do it?
Speaker 3 (11:05):
More fruity phrases?
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yes, more fruit filled phrases. Some of the most famous
of these fruit filled talk show people include Andy Richter,
Paul Schaeffer, Guillermo Rodriguez, and Ed McMahon.
Speaker 6 (11:19):
This would be a second banana.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Second banana, A second Johnson.
Speaker 6 (11:24):
That's right, second banana?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
All right, how about let's see, here's some more learning
for you. The scientific name for this is voiceless labio
dental trill, but it is more often known as a
bronx cheer.
Speaker 6 (11:44):
A raspberry.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
That's it, A blowing a raspberry.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
That's it?
Speaker 1 (11:49):
All right? How about oh, thank you for that labio
dental trill.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
It was the voiceless labio dento trip.
Speaker 6 (11:56):
I think that was more. I think wows will I
think raspber? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (12:01):
I think, well, that's that's voiceless.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
I did.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
If you if you vibrate your vocal cords, it's voice.
Speaker 6 (12:10):
It's a different interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Right, Okay, my apologies. I've done no voiceless dental trails
or voiced people, so blame the other two.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
All right.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I've got I've got a fruit filled yoga pants brand,
also an advertiser on Theist podcast, So you can't make
any negative comments about.
Speaker 5 (12:33):
Him, is it, Lulu Mangomon?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Nicely done? All right?
Speaker 1 (12:43):
I got a couple more. Mark Twain prefaced this novel
with the words persons attempting to find a motive in
this narrative will be prosecuted.
Speaker 6 (12:55):
Huh ah, this is a good one. Pudding Head Sin
Jumping Jo think it too hard.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
I think it's too hard.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Think about the most famous Mark Twain novel.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
But the least one of the least famous fruits. It's
not a fruit like you order.
Speaker 6 (13:11):
Oh, is there a huck fruit or a fin fruit?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Huckleberry?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
There is The Adventures of Ill.
Speaker 6 (13:17):
Be Your Huckleberry for that one.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Nice?
Speaker 1 (13:21):
All right, how about let's stick with literature for one more.
This is a fruit filled novel that features a character
saying you're bound to get ideas if you go thinking
about stuff. You're bound to get ideas if you go
thinking about stuff. And that character was named Tom Jode.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
Yeah, so right, So it is the Oklahoma dust Ball and.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
It's you got it?
Speaker 5 (13:52):
That is exactly it, dude there.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
To John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, And I love that quote.
I think that's a very timely quote that I think
that there's a lack of ideas because people are not
going thinking about stuff.
Speaker 6 (14:09):
Oh, it's definitely true.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
This is the whole the whole economy is based on
not allowing you to think about stuff.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Right, all right.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
This is a boundary that goes from the North Pole
to the South Pole, though it does take some detours.
It curves around Alaska through the Bearing Straight. You know
this longitude one hundred and eighty degree longitude.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
Right, so I'm thinking international date line. I'm thinking not
the prime meridian.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
You're done. You got it, what you're done?
Speaker 6 (14:40):
What did I do?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Well? One of those in date lines.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yeah, that's it, exactly, knuck it in there.
Speaker 6 (14:48):
That's correct in the fruitcake that we all return.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Now, one question.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
I think I've heard you take a stand that daylight
savings time its time is up. Is that right?
Speaker 5 (15:02):
I was early on this, and then the Senate passed
a bill, and now there's a lot of scholarship that
says that daylight savings time should be the one that
is rejected and standard times should be universally adopted. But
I think we should have universal daylight savings time just
so it doesn't become five o'clock in the winter.
Speaker 6 (15:21):
But the twoing and throwing of the times I think
is awful, just awful.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, it's ridiculous. Well, one quick question, what is the
pro standard time versus the pro daylight savings time.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
Doctors right into me and they say, Mike, you're not
using your coconut. They say, you know, we have natural
circadian rhythms, and we would be better off if we
just let the sun and the tides and everything else
affect our lives.
Speaker 6 (15:51):
But I think not.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
I think that having it get so dark early in
winter doesn't help anyone considering we live in an electrified world.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Right, Yeah, I'm I'm always very wary of the of
nature is right argument, Like you know, like hemlock is natural.
Speaker 6 (16:12):
Right, Glad, greg Is it's on COVID.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
I was not in favor of COVID.
Speaker 6 (16:20):
I was against. I was also anti COVID.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
That's funny about that.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
It's a hot take. All right, Well you did fantastic. Uh, congratulations.
As you said, you used your melon and your coconut
and uh and ripped through them.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I do have an extra.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Credit for the folks at home. This is a fruity
synonym for fame or a focus of attention. Fun fact,
it's based on the way theaters used to illuminate the
stage with glowing calcium oxide. Find out what that is
tomorrow and we have one more episode with a delightful
(16:58):
Mike Pesca, so come back for that. And in the meantime,
if you want even more puzzling, check out the Hello
Puzzlers Instagram feed at Hello puzzlers, and we will see
you here of course, for more puzzling puzzles that we'll
puzzling the Puzzling List.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Hey, puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska up from the puzzle at
with the extra credit answer from our previous show. Our
show was titled, according to this document in front in
front of me, Mike Pesca smells like teen Spirit Airlines.
Now I don't think that's actually true, although he was
on Zoom, so you know who knows. But in fact,
this is a puzzle about product placement in famous songs,
(17:44):
and in this case it back in the title it
combines the great Nirvana song smells like Teen Spirit with
Spirit Airlines.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Your extra credit clue? Was this a Taylor Swift song
advertising a popular bug repellent that of is shake it
Off bug Spray. I would have just said shake it
off with an exclamation.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
Point, because that's how that's styled on the product, shake
it Off bug Spray. Anyway, thanks for playing with us
and join us tomorrow for some more puzzling puzzles that
will puzzle you puzzlingly
Hello puzzlers, I say we start with a quick puzzle today.
Our challenge is, can you come up with any notable
people who have fishy names, by which I mean people
whose first or last names are a species of fish,
such as in sync singer Lance Bass. Bass is a fish,
and we will accept misspellings. We're very liberal. If it
(00:23):
sounds like a fish, like Marlon Wayans, then we'll accept it. Marlin,
the person is spelled with an o, but the fish
is spelled with an eye. But still okay. In our book,
the answers and more, at least some of them, and
more puzzling puzzles after the break, Hello puzzlers, Welcome back
(00:48):
to the Puzzler Podcast the moisture wicking socks in your
puzzle triathlon outfit. I'm your host, AJ Jacobs, and I'm here,
of course, with chief puzzle Officer Greg Pliska.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Greg.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Before the break, we asked puzzlers at home a challenge.
Can you name any notable people with fishy names, such
as in sync singer Lance Bass. Did you have any
thoughts on fish?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Of course?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Of course there's the great baseball player Mike Trout.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yes, yes, he is probably number one in the fishy.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah, Actress Terry Garr.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Spelled good one.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Yeah, but Gar is a fish, the great former Treasury
Secretary Chief Justice Salmon Pea Chase.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Yeah, I think he's on the He's on like the
ten thousand dollars bill or something, right, Salmon Pea Chase,
love it. And then there's Flounder from the movie Animal House.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Nicely done, well well done.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
There, I don't have all that manymore. There's Ray Ray,
Ray Romano or Isa Ray. There's Rosmund Pike. But all
of this is because it's sort of to honor our guest,
but just sort of, and let me explain. Our guest
is the podcaster extraordinaire Mike Pesca, host of the Gist podcast,
(02:08):
the longest running daily news podcast in history. Also he
has the Gist list on substack.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Super entertaining.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
Welcome Mike, thank you for having me, and I thank
you on behalf of former Scottish National Party chair Nicola Sturgeon.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Excellent, well done, well done. Yeah, I had no idea,
but now I am.
Speaker 6 (02:33):
She got smoked in an election in there.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
She's well. The reason I brought up at theological puns
is because your last name is pesca, which sounds very fishy.
It sounds like some European language for the word fish,
like the word pesca terarian someone who only eats fish.
But here's the twist. Here's the puzzly twist. It is
(02:56):
not about fish, is that correct?
Speaker 5 (02:59):
The name in Italian pesca means peach, and the name
of my production company, because everyone thinks it means fish
is peach fish Productions.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Peach fish production exactly. Love it.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
And you feel, how do you feel about being miss
I don't know whether the misspecied as a fish person
instead of a fruit person.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
How do I feel I feel? I don't know, it'll scale,
it's ah. Sometimes I feel flayed, and sometimes sometimes it
just you know, I just swim along with the tie.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Oh my goodness, so much.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
All right, well, I'm not even going to try to
get in there with my own because I'm abandoning fish.
I am cutting bait because we are moving to fruit.
No more fish, all fruit, because that is the true
meaning of your last name. So this puzzle is called
fruity phrases. So I'm going to give you a clue,
and the fra the answer will always be a fruit
(03:57):
filled phrase. So if if the clue is something like
a fruit filled way to say that everything is a okay,
then in that case the answer would be peachee keying
like your name peche.
Speaker 6 (04:12):
Key, although for a fish it might be hunky Dory.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Look at that coming fast.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
I'm just writing up the ichthyological punster contract right now.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
If you're if you're on the fence, hunky Dory, really
put it over the top.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Really nailed it. You were just kind of skating along
before that.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Nice nice one.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
All right, Mike, I need you to change to what
is the word for fruit of the fruitarian puzzle officer?
All right, you're ready, you're ready to go into all right,
this is a fruit filled compatriot of Colonel.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
Mustard, Professor Plum. I believe plums a professor h.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Is Professor Plum.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
That is yes, as far as we know, Uh, this
is a fruit filled body part also called the laryngeal prominence.
That's the official name, the laryngeal prominence.
Speaker 6 (05:13):
The Adams apple.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Correct, That is.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
What you What you can't see if you're listening is
all of us are touching our throats right now.
Speaker 6 (05:21):
I think that's that.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
All right?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
How about a fruit filled song named for a children's
home in Liverpool.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
So that's the key. The Liverpool is the key fruit
filled song.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
Oh okay, yeah, yes, Strawberry, you.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Got it right, you got it.
Speaker 6 (05:45):
Didn't know it was the children's home.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Interesting, I didn't until Wikipedia told me about an hour ago,
but yeah it was. John Lennon spent a lot of
time in the children's home and uh and there it
showed up.
Speaker 6 (05:59):
Uh, don't listen.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
If you didn't know it before Wikipedia, it's nothing to
get hung about.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Ah.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Good one.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
By the way, quick sidebar you. This is not your
first roady in your first game show rodeo. You've done wait, wait,
don't tell me, you've hosted wait went, don't tell me,
and you've been on Jeopardy. So how was your Jeopardy experience?
Speaker 5 (06:20):
I forgot my glasses, so that really screwed me over
during a video Daily dovil yeah.
Speaker 6 (06:25):
Or maybe I'm vain.
Speaker 5 (06:26):
And on the final Jeopardy question, it was bad strategy
because I wrote down it was three possible answers, and
I wrote down the first one that came to mind,
and then I crossed it out. And if I had
not crossed it out, I'll give you a question.
Speaker 6 (06:43):
If you want. I think that's legal.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
After all this time, if I had not crossed it out,
if I just said, all right, I'm going with it,
I would have gotten it. So here's the question. And
this was of the time when I was on twenty
years ago. I think it was four people have won
a an acting oscar and had a number one pop
single named two of the four.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Oh interesting, Bradley Cooper was here.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
That well, no, this was this was yeah wav Starcorn, Yeah,
but after Judy Garland, who's not an answer?
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
I am watching musicals with my mom. So funny Girl
was that one?
Speaker 5 (07:27):
Barbara Streistreisand the first name I write down is strisand
and then I'm going through in my mind, what's she
in the oscar for? Not Nuts, not Prince of Tide.
And I, quite foolishly because I forgot funny Girl crossed
out Streisand so.
Speaker 6 (07:40):
Now I have time dwindling down, and.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
I have to come up with a couple more. And
I do come up with a correct other answer. You
want to you want to try?
Speaker 1 (07:47):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (07:48):
They have to have won an acting oscar and a
and had a hit song.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
Yes, and I'll give you a hint on one number
one hit song, many number one hit songs. This man,
this man with not only the golden throat but a
golden arm. Yeah, Sinatra, And I write down Sinatra. And
now time is running down and I have no more.
I've got the bump bump bump in Jeopardy theme music,
(08:14):
and I just scrawled down Smith, I write Smith. And
if in that moment I had enough time to write
striisand I would have. And so the correct answers are
Barber streisand or at the time they were Barber streisand
Frank Sinatra bing Crosby Bells.
Speaker 6 (08:34):
And Jamie Fox.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Jamie, Oh, that's a great one.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
I love that, now, Alex.
Speaker 5 (08:42):
And then Alex said Smith, which Smith do you mean?
And I said to myself, do I really what if
I get the wrong Smith? So I said Will Smith,
knowing he hadn't won an oscar at that point, pre
slap right, And I was wrong.
Speaker 6 (08:55):
But I was also right. It was just ahead of
my time, yes, exactly, just early.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
So can you now go claim it and say listen,
I was just.
Speaker 6 (09:05):
That's why they can't air it and repeats everyone will
be screened, what about Will Smith?
Speaker 1 (09:08):
The guy's right, Oh my god, that is great. But
you were just saying, what is the most common name,
because there is a zero point one percent chance that
that would be.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Is that your strategy?
Speaker 5 (09:20):
Yes, I was just going for a Smith. I've never
seen it work, but it could.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I love it all right.
Speaker 6 (09:26):
Well, I think i'd written.
Speaker 5 (09:27):
The asked for Streisand, and I realized Riisand was not
coming out of my pen, and so I smiffed it up.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
We use in the in Learned League trivia, which I
play all the time, they we call it a lucky Johnson, oh,
where you just write Johnson in is the answering. And
for some reason early on it was a bunch of
there were a bunch of Johnson's that came up. We're like, okay,
it's a lucky Johnson. Now you just throw it in
there if you're stuff.
Speaker 5 (09:51):
That is Johnson the most popular surname? No, I don't.
I don't know that it is. It was just it
felt in the context it was more likely to be. Right,
there's a president named Johnson, so you got you know.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Your thing, right, you've doubled that president couple. Yeah, exactly, exactly,
that may have been the origin. Actually it's if it's
a president question, use the lucky Johnson, you got a shot?
Speaker 6 (10:14):
You got two?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I mean Bush and Roosevelt and Adams.
Speaker 6 (10:16):
Yeah, there are too many, too many common last names.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, oh well that is great.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
All right, if you need to, you can.
Speaker 6 (10:24):
Wait a minute.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
We've had forty five presidents, but only what thirty eight names?
Speaker 6 (10:29):
This seems wrong?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Well, what about the fact that James I think it's
six or seven of our presidents are James's.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
What about that?
Speaker 6 (10:38):
You know? And I know you do, since you are
the kind of guys who know that.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
Jay, though, the third least common consonant is the most
common first letter for a man's man's name.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Oh crazy, crazy, thanks to like a handful of names,
Jack and John and James.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Right right, all right? Are you ready? Are you ready
for more puzzling?
Speaker 6 (11:04):
Do it?
Speaker 3 (11:05):
More fruity phrases?
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yes, more fruit filled phrases. Some of the most famous
of these fruit filled talk show people include Andy Richter,
Paul Schaeffer, Guillermo Rodriguez, and Ed McMahon.
Speaker 6 (11:19):
This would be a second banana.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Second banana, A second Johnson.
Speaker 6 (11:24):
That's right, second banana?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
All right, how about let's see, here's some more learning
for you. The scientific name for this is voiceless labio
dental trill, but it is more often known as a
bronx cheer.
Speaker 6 (11:44):
A raspberry.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
That's it, A blowing a raspberry.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
That's it?
Speaker 1 (11:49):
All right? How about oh, thank you for that labio
dental trill.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
It was the voiceless labio dento trip.
Speaker 6 (11:56):
I think that was more. I think wows will I
think raspber? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (12:01):
I think, well, that's that's voiceless.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
I did.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
If you if you vibrate your vocal cords, it's voice.
Speaker 6 (12:10):
It's a different interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Right, Okay, my apologies. I've done no voiceless dental trails
or voiced people, so blame the other two.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
All right.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I've got I've got a fruit filled yoga pants brand,
also an advertiser on Theist podcast, So you can't make
any negative comments about.
Speaker 5 (12:33):
Him, is it, Lulu Mangomon?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Nicely done? All right?
Speaker 1 (12:43):
I got a couple more. Mark Twain prefaced this novel
with the words persons attempting to find a motive in
this narrative will be prosecuted.
Speaker 6 (12:55):
Huh ah, this is a good one. Pudding Head Sin
Jumping Jo think it too hard.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
I think it's too hard.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Think about the most famous Mark Twain novel.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
But the least one of the least famous fruits. It's
not a fruit like you order.
Speaker 6 (13:11):
Oh, is there a huck fruit or a fin fruit?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Huckleberry?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
There is The Adventures of Ill.
Speaker 6 (13:17):
Be Your Huckleberry for that one.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Nice?
Speaker 1 (13:21):
All right, how about let's stick with literature for one more.
This is a fruit filled novel that features a character
saying you're bound to get ideas if you go thinking
about stuff. You're bound to get ideas if you go
thinking about stuff. And that character was named Tom Jode.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
Yeah, so right, So it is the Oklahoma dust Ball and.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
It's you got it?
Speaker 5 (13:52):
That is exactly it, dude there.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
To John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, And I love that quote.
I think that's a very timely quote that I think
that there's a lack of ideas because people are not
going thinking about stuff.
Speaker 6 (14:09):
Oh, it's definitely true.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
This is the whole the whole economy is based on
not allowing you to think about stuff.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Right, all right.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
This is a boundary that goes from the North Pole
to the South Pole, though it does take some detours.
It curves around Alaska through the Bearing Straight. You know
this longitude one hundred and eighty degree longitude.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
Right, so I'm thinking international date line. I'm thinking not
the prime meridian.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
You're done. You got it, what you're done?
Speaker 6 (14:40):
What did I do?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Well? One of those in date lines.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yeah, that's it, exactly, knuck it in there.
Speaker 6 (14:48):
That's correct in the fruitcake that we all return.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Now, one question.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
I think I've heard you take a stand that daylight
savings time its time is up. Is that right?
Speaker 5 (15:02):
I was early on this, and then the Senate passed
a bill, and now there's a lot of scholarship that
says that daylight savings time should be the one that
is rejected and standard times should be universally adopted. But
I think we should have universal daylight savings time just
so it doesn't become five o'clock in the winter.
Speaker 6 (15:21):
But the twoing and throwing of the times I think
is awful, just awful.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, it's ridiculous. Well, one quick question, what is the
pro standard time versus the pro daylight savings time.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
Doctors right into me and they say, Mike, you're not
using your coconut. They say, you know, we have natural
circadian rhythms, and we would be better off if we
just let the sun and the tides and everything else
affect our lives.
Speaker 6 (15:51):
But I think not.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
I think that having it get so dark early in
winter doesn't help anyone considering we live in an electrified world.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Right, Yeah, I'm I'm always very wary of the of
nature is right argument, Like you know, like hemlock is natural.
Speaker 6 (16:12):
Right, Glad, greg Is it's on COVID.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
I was not in favor of COVID.
Speaker 6 (16:20):
I was against. I was also anti COVID.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
That's funny about that.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
It's a hot take. All right, Well you did fantastic. Uh, congratulations.
As you said, you used your melon and your coconut
and uh and ripped through them.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I do have an extra.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Credit for the folks at home. This is a fruity
synonym for fame or a focus of attention. Fun fact,
it's based on the way theaters used to illuminate the
stage with glowing calcium oxide. Find out what that is
tomorrow and we have one more episode with a delightful
(16:58):
Mike Pesca, so come back for that. And in the meantime,
if you want even more puzzling, check out the Hello
Puzzlers Instagram feed at Hello puzzlers, and we will see
you here of course, for more puzzling puzzles that we'll
puzzling the Puzzling List.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Hey, puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska up from the puzzle at
with the extra credit answer from our previous show. Our
show was titled, according to this document in front in
front of me, Mike Pesca smells like teen Spirit Airlines.
Now I don't think that's actually true, although he was
on Zoom, so you know who knows. But in fact,
this is a puzzle about product placement in famous songs,
(17:44):
and in this case it back in the title it
combines the great Nirvana song smells like Teen Spirit with
Spirit Airlines.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Your extra credit clue? Was this a Taylor Swift song
advertising a popular bug repellent that of is shake it
Off bug Spray. I would have just said shake it
off with an exclamation.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
Point, because that's how that's styled on the product, shake
it Off bug Spray. Anyway, thanks for playing with us
and join us tomorrow for some more puzzling puzzles that
will puzzle you puzzlingly
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
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