"Spoooky" w/ Mo Rocca

Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us all this week: journalist, CBS correspondent, and “Mobituaries” podcast host Mo Rocca. 

Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask Chat GPT” and audio rebuses.

Subscribe to The Puzzler podcast wherever you get your podcasts! 

"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas. 

Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.

The show is produced by Jody Avirgan and Brittani Brown of Roulette Productions. 

Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello, Puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast the Plastic Prize
in your Frank and Berry Cereal. I am your host,
A J. Jacobs, and today's guest is the awesome Mo Raka,
CBS Sunday Morning correspondent and host of the awesome podcast Mobituaries.

(00:30):
Welcome Moe.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, thank you for having me. I'm very excited to
be here.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
We love having you here on this CRISP fall day.
We wanted to do a Halloween themed puzzle because we
thought you would be perfect. So We've hired our chief
puzzle Officer, Greg Pliska to write a special spookkey. Listen,

(00:58):
great sound effects.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Thank you, thanks so much.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Perfect.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
I come with my own and a J.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
I'm right that you're going to play along with this
one love.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
To because yes, I have looked at it. I have not.
I don't even know the theme so ready.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Well everyone, you've you've all said the theme already. Everyone
knows that Halloween is a spooky holiday. So I've taken
a bunch of words and phrases with the O sound
in them and replaced it with the oo sound.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Oh, so you're going to be Canadian.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Great?

Speaker 3 (01:33):
I'm going to be spooky.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Okay, that's a puzzle, right.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
So if I said the very frightening city in Washington,
you would say not spoke can but spook.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
I love that. I think that's great.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
And you guys have to have to stretch the oo
as long as spokyne can.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
That'll be the competition. We'll get them faster, but I
might say them longer.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
You might be spooky. Okay, we'll see. All right, here's
your first one. Roald Emmonson and Robert Scott raced to
be the first to this geographically important swimming area.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
I think I might have a hint moe.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Okay, I think is it the South poo?

Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yes, very good, very spooky too.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
That was a long ooh. So I'm gonna just yield
that to you. Nicely done, nicely done.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
There's another one. I got another one. Famous quote from
Jaws where Roy Scheider's character worries that the footwear he
has is too small.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
We're gonna need a bigger.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
A boots.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
That's it, you need a bigger yes, excellent, Yes, he says,
we're gonna need a bigger boat. But of course you
change the O to the ooh. That's how this works.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
And he could have had a design Joseph Abo. Oh no, no, no,
I didn't change it, so maybe she should have had
it instead designed by horn Nice.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
Or Kenneth Kenneth Kenneth, Well, that's it, it's Kenneth cool. Yes. Yes,
this is an animal with horns and thin legs that
runs very fast, but only in circles.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Can I jump in? Are you on a yeah?

Speaker 2 (03:33):
I don't. It's an animal that can you repeat the clue?

Speaker 3 (03:36):
Yes, an animal with horns and thin legs that runs
very fast and only in circles.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Horns and thin legs.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
There are many different species of this animal than mostly
in Africa and Asia.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
I'm going to do the first to anta and anteloup.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yes, always confusing. Do antelopes and gazells like each other?

Speaker 1 (04:08):
That's a good question.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
I was. I have to admit, I was in uh
in Kenya this summer and we saw lots of antelopes
and gazelles sharing the savannah.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Interesting.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
What about whether they were just being acquaintances or whether
they actually liked each other wasn't clear. But they didn't
hate each other.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
That's nice.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
But if they mate would that what would it be like?
An an antidoodle? They'd interupacking gazellelope.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah, we can have fertile offspring, that's always.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
I also know about the e Land from from Crossword Puzzles.
That's like the that's the only.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
We saw an Eland, great crossword puzzling moment.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Proud of it. It's just a it's a crossword puzzle
word because it's got E and A and N and
D and no one ever uses it except for Greg.
Just now in real life.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
It's a great African antelope.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Oh oh, I know I've seen pictures of Idolapino with
one of those. Or was it was it one? I
can never remember.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
You never know, right, let me give you a couple
more of these before we run out of chaplain. This
is a famous da Vinci work showing a woman staring
at the night sky.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Is the Lisa No doing. I didn't know what she
was doing. I thought she was just waiting Alsa.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
She's staring at the night and she's just looking at us.
But Asa, she's gonna that's by Leonardo. There we go.
One for all you home doctors. This is a special
medical device for listening to your heart while serving you
ice cream.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
Oh all right, I think I got something I got
a hypothesis or whatever it is. Hypothesis.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
It is a stetha school, That's what I had.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
To Yes, stoop exactly like a stethoscope, but you know,
with ice cream. All right. Two more the dessert with
pastry and ice cream, which changes color depending upon how
you're feeling.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Hmmm, well, I'm thinking the seventies, like that seventies fad
of the ring that changed the mood ring. So it's
gotta be something mode, something mode to mood.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
Yeah, dessert pastry and ice cream.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
What is that again?

Speaker 2 (06:32):
It's gonna be a Crembrolet.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Nail crembrolay.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
A crembrolay sounds so irritating, like we're no, We're like,
we're straight guys. This is a Crembrolet. We're sharing like
we're just we're just to dos. We're like, we're just
Roman having a crembrole.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
It's this is this is the dessert with pastry and
ice cream, which changes color depending about how you're feeling.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
It is remember the pie ala mood, Nice.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
Dalla mood exactly pie.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Mood plus a great historical reference you just slipped in there. Fantastic, Yeah,
very clever.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
I think we have time for one more should I
save it for extra credit?

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Sure? Do one last one?

Speaker 3 (07:23):
All right, all right, it's the bribery scandal in the
Harding administration that revolved around a best selling first person
shooter video game.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Oh well, that's interesting. I mean I was thinking teapot
scant domed. Oh right, it is the p teapot doo.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
Doo tea pot done exactly, exactly, well done, gentlemen, Thank.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
You, Greg. That was I should have come up with
an O word that I could stretch and said like
that was so good, but I was too lazy, So
I'm just gonna say that was excellent and mo fantastic
work again, great sound effect, unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
No, it was nice to work on that son, that
tone and then ooh.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
Well you nail. Where can people hear more of you
doing sound effects?

Speaker 2 (08:14):
Well, I mean I have a podcast move Habituaries that
you can find wherever you get your podcast. There's no
longer a sound in there, sorry, And otherwise I'm just
kind of around, so just stop and say hi, okay.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
You heard it here, Thanks MoU And it was a
delight as always, Greg, Before we go, do you have
perhaps one for the puzzlers at home?

Speaker 3 (08:41):
I do I have an extra credit. It goes like this,
accompanied by his theme song, the William Tell Overture. This
icon of the American West is actually a masked Canadian bird.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Hmmm interesting. Okay, well, while you think about that, Puzzlers,
please don't forget to subscribe, and we'll see you here
tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
Muzzlingly. Hello once again, puzzlers, this is Greg Bliska here
with the answer to the extra credit from our previous episode.
We had Moroka on playing a fun game called Joni
Loves Chochkeys, in which we took the name of a

(09:32):
classic show, added an extra sound into it, and then
gave you a clue to the new name. Your clue
was presented in a mockumentary style. This sitcom follows the
lives of an interrelated group of people after they received
the COVID nineteen vaccine that, of course, is MODERNA family,

(09:54):
Modern family with an A stuck into it. MODERNA family.
Hope you've all gotten your VA vaccines, and I hope
you'll be back here to join us for the next episode.