August 30, 2022 • 55 mins
Pretty much everyone recognizes Pringles -- these tasty, not-quite potato chips come in tons of at-times bizarre flavors, all neatly packed in a nifty tube. But where did Pringles come from? In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Matt dive deep into the hidden history of this snack, the astonishing science behind it and the incredibly weird funeral demands of the Pringles creator.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
(00:27):
welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
always so much for tuning in. Let's give it up
for the one and only, the Man, the Myth, the
legend are super producer Mr Max Williams. Who do you who?
And let's also they called me Ben, But I want
to take a moment today and I need some fanfare here. Max, really,
(00:48):
just turn it up to eleven because we've got the
band back together. Everybody, and I mean everybody, even the
people are sitting next to you if they don't have
their headphones in, just hit him on the shoulder and
tell the clap with you right now, returning the one
and only Mr Noel Brown. I gotta say, I don't
(01:14):
want to be responsible for anybody doing soft violence to
people on the train, you know, for my benefit. Maybe
a gentle nudge, a squeeze of the I don't know,
people are weird about being touched. I would maybe just
one handed clap, you know, on your thank you, thank you,
That's what I'm getting at. Thank you, Ben and all
(01:34):
and all of you who are potentially being beaten up
by strangers, uh, for my benefit, um, thank you for
your service. Thank you for your service, folks. To be back.
It's good to be bad. It's so good to have
you back, man, Thank you. I appreciate it. Man. You
you did you you didn't miss too much. We finally
did the McDonald's episode. I think I told you about
(01:57):
this in our in our offline group chat because as
you know, folks, longtime ridiculous historians, Noel, Max and I
are friends in real life, so we're pretty much talking
to each other every day regardless of where we are.
And uh nol, I gotta tell you. We gave Jonathan
Strickland a chance. I had him on as a as
a guest toast. We did two episodes and I don't
(02:20):
know about Max, but no, he had me fooled. I
thought he had turned over a new leaf. He was.
He was an absolute gym, absolute peach until the very
end of the second episode. He did did he transform
before your very ears? He sure did? He sure did, man.
But I think it's a very important note we have
to say here. We got the trivia question right though.
(02:41):
That's it. Yeah, we did you proud man, So we're
we're still ahead. Well, I would have to, I would
have to soft disagree. That didn't miss so much. I
mean it sounds like there was adventure, you know, uh,
like a cultic type behavior and activities, and I mean
you bury the lead there, Ben, I was really looking
forward to that McDonald's episode. Ronald McDonald is pure nightmare fuel,
(03:03):
even in his final form. But man, that that early
commercial that you always threaten us with his absolute terror, Man,
that is the stuff of of of absolute nightmares. He's
got like a weird carrot nosed thing. It looks like
like a like a John Wayne Gacy kind of thrown
together um you know, costume. Like it's yes, just chilling,
(03:28):
chilling for everybody else. Noel and I have been chasing
several episodes for years, and there are sometimes where I
wish that, uh, I wish that we could record the
times we're just we're like hanging out. Sometimes we'll just
meet up for a drink and then we realize that
accidentally our conversation has become a show. Maybe one day
(03:52):
we'll do Ridiculous History after Dark. But for you, my friends,
my brother, my ride or die, I know, I know
you love the food episodes, man, I do too. We've
got one that is another doozy for us, and uh gosh,
I like, I don't even know where to begin, other
than to ask you, were you a Pringles kid man
(04:15):
when you were growing up? Where we're Pringles in the hierarchy,
I'm a Pringles adult man. It's the superior chip, There's
no question about it. They stack. You can make a
little duck mouth with them. If you flip one up
right side up and the other one upside down and
put it, you can quack. It's it's a prop, it's
a chip. It's it's self storing kind of. You know
(04:36):
that you're never gonna that's not sure. You will occasionally
run into some cracked Pringles, but it's it's rare. It's
a lot rarer than opening a bag of lays and
the whole thing is being demolished, not to mention the
shrinkage that you experienced with with bagged potato chips. At
least when you get a stack, you know, a tube
of Pringles, you know it's gonna be mainly full to
the top. It maybe a little they might have they
(04:58):
might have skimped a little bit of we're gonna get
into it. It's it's the kind of story that on
the surface seems like it would be dull once you
just get past the Oh, it's a it's a cool
you know, spheric, spherical, what's the word of hyperbolic. We're
gonna get to that chip. Um, where's the where's the
hook Where's well, it's hooky. It's a hooky story. It
goes places you will not expect. Oh yeah, we want to,
(05:19):
of course shout out our research associate Zach Williams, who
you will meet very soon, folks, as well as our
research associate Jeff Bartlett's. Uh, they're they're on the way.
You'll have to believe us. But we were so excited
about this Pringle's episode because Pringles, I I think, just
to stay on this for a second, I totally agree, man,
(05:40):
Pringles does something beautiful that bags of chips don't do.
And also is Pringle technically a potato chip. We're gonna
get into all of that. But it's such a disappointment.
It's such a cold shower of buyer's remorse. When you
buy a bag of chips and you open it up
and you're like, oh, how about two thirds air and
about one third chip. Pringles doesn't do that. They don't
(06:01):
play I got, actually got a little embarrassing story I
would love to share on the air, because where else
am I gonna share this? But this is for my
friend Ronnie with your therapists. Perhaps, uh she she's tired
of hearing all these from me. But give it to
there was There was one night I was hanging with
my buddy Ronnie at the bar. We've worked out this
is probably about eight nine years ago. And let's to
(06:23):
say I was having a little bit of fun night
and my buddy Ronnie was gonna ride home and I'd
realized I hadn't eaten enough, and uh, I had no
food at the house. And he's like, I want you
to buy some potato chips at the gas station. I go,
absolutely not, Man, those things are like air. It's the
biggest rip off, he said. I wanted this giant rant
in the gas station, all about how much error and
potato back. So Pringles, do you know what you're getting?
(06:46):
You know what you're getting? Yeah, And this is where
our story begins. Ridiculous historians. We're talking innovation, we're talking intrigue,
we're talking a little bit of existentialism, and of course cartoons.
Uh no, you nailed it. You set us up so well, man. Uh,
the idea of like the ultimate downer for anybody who
(07:07):
desperately wants a snack. You get your potato chips, will
you'll crisp as they call them in some parts of
the world, and you open it up and then you've
got crumbs, they're broken, or their stale. It's just a bummer.
You have to go back to the store. Procter and
Gamble was aware of this, right at some point. Yeah.
It's always funny to me that you think of companies
(07:28):
like Procter and Gamble and you think, like, you know,
the ones that make all the chemicals and stuff, the
chemical of things. But these kinds of company there they
diversify and a lot of them, you know, have divisions
that are into like flavor science and like food technology. Um,
you're right. They had a whole division chock full of
food chemists and organic engineers that they tasked, you know,
(07:51):
they you know, vultrond up to create what would be
considered by the world. They hoped to be the perfect
potato chip. No more of those stale you know, crummy
bits at the bottom of the bag. You know, with
that that that shock at the consumer feels when they
opened the bag and it doesn't look anything like the picture.
(08:11):
They wanted something that would look like the picture every time,
every single time. Yes, And to the point about people
with engineering or chemical backgrounds, Yes, folks, Procter and Gamble
has their fingers and a lot of figurative pringle cans.
They had a mission. They wanted to fix the problems
(08:32):
that you just described, Noel, and they did it under
the leadership of a guy named Vic Mills, who, fun fact,
also invented the disposable diaper, and then a food chemist
named Frederick Bauer. Yeah, that's well, yeah, it is well,
you know, one starts the cycle and one ends it.
I guess right. Uh, it's in terms of digestion that's gross.
(08:54):
We don't have to ruin pringles everyone, even though we're
kind of going to a little bit we're gonna get
into like slurry and all of the goop that these
things are actually made up. But I I would argue,
by the end of this, you're still gonna want to
you know, pop and and not stop, which is also
a bright slogan. I would argue because it challenges you
to not be a junkie. It challenges you to not
(09:17):
be you know, and and addicts you know, once you pop,
you can't Oh, I can't can't I pop? I can't stop. Like, dude,
I have a conspiracy theory about this. I feel like
and this is totally unfounded. This is just my speculation.
I feel like maybe there was a pang of conscience
in the engineering, which we'll get to where they made
(09:40):
just like bo Burnham was cavetching about in his specials,
they made the tube too small for a grown person's hands.
So you can have that crossroads moment and you can say,
have I have I popped enough? This is this hurting
my family. Bro, you have not popped enough until you
(10:00):
get to the crusty bits at the bottom. And then
what you do is you dip those those bad boys
right into your mouth until that until that tennis ball
tube of chips is is completely bone dry. But he
exactly Frederick Bauer right, Um, he is the food chemist
in league with this guy, Vic Mills, the diaper guy,
(10:21):
may start out by the siding. They want this process
to begin in a little bit of an unconventional way,
not the way potato chips are usually made, which is
like you know, deep frying slices of potato and oil.
Presumably with this one they actually wanted to use dehydrated
potatoes and create kind of this this slurry, this kind
(10:41):
of paste. They could then, you know, use a die
cast kind of mechanism to cut out whatever shape they wanted,
so that each chip would be like kind of stamped
out on this like line. Like think about you know,
the way like plastic toys are made, you know, they're
they're cut out, or like things are like three D printed.
Even it would everything would have the exact same size,
(11:02):
the exact same shape, and the exact same weight, which
would allow them to kind of streamline the whole process
and really get to the root and solve it in
terms of these like these generations old potato chip problems. Yes,
and you know you guys nol Max, you know, I'm
I'm super fascinated by the often unsung history of packing innovation.
(11:24):
Packaging innovation, I should say, yeah, this, this is this
uniformity is key to preventing breakage. These chips are made
in uh in what you might call a saddle shape.
They look kind of like a wide saddle. Technically the
name for that with a tie on is a hyperbolic
paraboloid shape. This means that you stack them up, they
(11:48):
don't have room to move in the tube, and therefore
it's much more difficult for them to break inside the
package nol Max. We also have to point out at
this at this juncture, this is not a sponsored episode, folks, Pringle.
We didn't talk to Pringles, we didn't ask him permission,
We didn't do any of that. We just are super
(12:08):
into potato chips. Peek behind the curtain, though, Ben, we
would have gladly taken their money. Caveats with the caveat that, y'all,
if we come across some darkness, we're gonna We're gonna
talk about it. You know, I'll take it or leave it.
That's how we do. I mean, y'all will remember the
underwear episode. We got into a lot of chlamydia talk,
and you know, venereal diseases and weird like washing garments
(12:32):
with urine. I mean, just put we're putting it out
there that we are not entirely shills. We will shill
for you, but we will speak the truth. So if
Pringles comes to us after the fact, like let's say,
like in a week and they're hey, we want to
be a sponsored content. Will we do it if they
pay us in pringles? Yeah, we're gonna gonna get to
something that. Yeah, no, you'll take cash. I was gonna say,
(12:53):
as long as they're stuffed into pringles cans. Yes, yes, yes,
what are those two? So so pay attention, Prinkles. We're
getting into it. Also, we're going to name some of
the weird flavors we have request for you, Prinkles. Uh
so all right. So Bower comes up with this shape,
which is, you know, low key, it's super innovative. No
(13:16):
other potato outfit has done something like this before, and
Bower to add to his accolades, he is the guy
who develops that vacuum sealed can. That's what houses the
chips and cheer pointell about staleness. The fact that it's
vacuum sealed also keeps them fresh. We're getting a lot
(13:38):
of this from a great article in Food and Wine
by Matt Blitz. I'm not going to give the headline yet.
I don't think we do, because it's a really cool spoiler.
Matt Blitz, by the way, the most superhero like name
and all the Food and Wine writing. I would have
to talk to um so wait, so Ben, it's a
hyperbolic paraboloid, a paraboloid that just is always overstating the
(13:59):
case and like being really smaltsey about everything. Yeah. Yeah,
it is a hyperbolic paraboloid. Is the most extra of
all paraboloids. Yeah, everything is the end all be all
for this paraboloid. You know. It's like, and that was
the best I'm the best shape that ever existed. It
thinks a lot of itself really kind of sucks all
(14:21):
the air out of the room. Uh. Literally, the shape
doesn't do that. They do that with a machine. But
here's the thing. There is a specific science a golden
ratio as kind of situation to these shapes. The two
principal curvatures of this design meet each other. That's what's called. Uh.
This is from an excellent article in the Interesting Engineering
(14:44):
dot com. By the way, uh, these zero the zero
point is known as the saddle point or the mini
max point, and it is this intersecting double curvature that
that is actually what causes there to be limited stress
from one chip passed on to the next, so there
won't be any kind of like a breakage that would
(15:06):
kind of carry on from one to the other if
the pressure got too great. Um, it's the same kind
of principle as like arches, right, like like uh, buying
buttresses and like you know in engineering and architecture. Yeah,
it's similar to Okay. So one of the one of
the super interesting natural engineering questions is the idea of
(15:26):
why eggs, Uh, you know, why why eggs have evolved
to have an oval shape? It redistributes stress and pressure,
and that's kind of what's happening with this nifty pringles design.
And as you mentioned, the author of that article over
interesting engineering, Kathleen V. I Lose. She points out that
(15:49):
this also encourages pringles to have extra crunch, whether you're
biting off a piece of them or whether you're putting
the whole pringle in your mouth at once, because that
is like now you are you are applying some of
that stress from one of the strongest muscles in your body,
the human jaw. And she says, if you frequently eat pringles,
(16:11):
you would know that they never break off symmetrically, but
instead they crack in different directions. They make flakes with
varying shapes. It's all due to the hyperbolic paraboloid geometry
of each chip. I mean, this goes deep this article.
If you are, um someone, Yeah, if you're someone who
(16:32):
likes to uh unwind a little after work with whatever
you've chosen vices, and you like learning about weird things,
we highly recommend you read about the fascinating geometry of
the Pringles chip. I can't believe that what we're saying that,
but it's true. Yeah, we're really just scratching the surface here. Um,
but check it out. Kathleen Villa loose over at interesting engineering,
(16:54):
crunchy engineering of Pringles hyperbolic paraboloid shape. Um, we're going
from that, but boys, that so much more. That's just
literally one like to lead off with, like just the
engineering part of it. Here was a problem though the
original chips or when they started doing this and the
like what do you call it, uh, research and development stage.
None of this has been released to the public yet.
(17:14):
This is them doing this bind closed doors uh at
proct during gamble. They couldn't figure out how to make
them not taste like trash. They were bad chips. And
you know, I would argue that a lot of a
(17:34):
lot of the the zing from even modern day Pringles
comes from that dust. You know, that that Pringles does.
But you can get you know, a plane pringle and
it's not bad. It tastes potato eat. Does it taste
like a lace or or a ruffle. No, it's got
a different flavor. It's like a different animal. But they
had not h they had not cracked that part of
the equation yet, they thought so much about the slurry
(17:57):
and the shape. They forgot to remember that people need
to be to eat these and have them, you know,
go down and enjoy them and choose them over another
potato product. Yeah, this is so, this is the thing.
Picture our pal Bauer, Frederick Frederick Bauer. He's nailed everything.
He's got a kick ass can or twobe. He's got
an amazing strategy with a lot of smart engineering behind it.
(18:21):
But he says, I can't make these taste good. He
tells the suits, it's gonna take me a while to
make these actually edible potato crisp, because again they have
to make it into a paste to form that provoloid shape.
So soon enough the suits pull him off of the
top secret Prinkles project. They put him on some other stuff.
(18:43):
It's not until the nineteen sixties. Fast forward to the sixties,
there's another Procter and Gamble researcher, Alexander Lipa, is out
of Montgomery, Ohio, and Lipa comes back because and this
happens in corporations all the time, because Soccer and Gamble says,
all right, we need new products. Right, we're always diversifying.
(19:04):
We're not just diaper people. We want to be in
more and more parts of the grocery store shelves. So
they say, let's go back to this idea. These crisp
in a tube, and let's figure out a recipe that
will make this something people want to eat. So they
(19:25):
land on this recipe that has uh, let's see, dehydrated
potatoes with a mixture of rice and corn as well
as wheat. So these are again to be clear, these
are not like lace potato chips or something. They're not
sliced up actual potatoes. They take this stuff. They take
the actual potato, they dehydrate it, they kind of make
(19:47):
it up paste, and they mix it up with all
this other stuff so that they can predictably press it
kind of like they can cookie cutter it basically into
that shape. And this is my favorite part of the story. No,
this is where they get involved with some sci fi folks. Yeah, wow,
(20:07):
that was a zoom. Did not see that coming. Are
they're going to create a chip based religion or something
from here? I don't know. Dune is really about pringles.
When you think about the spices the dust that I
was talking about earlier, and it must have otherwise the
chips taste like garbage. Yeah, it's true. Bauer wasn't the
only person who helped, you know, with this, uh, this
(20:31):
development of the you know, kind of future chip. Right.
There is a dude who, after a brief extent in
the Korean War as a combat engineer, um went on
to study engineering at the University of Houston, a guy
named gene Wolf. Okay that they may sound familiar. Gene
Wolf out of college got a job with Procter and Gamble.
(20:54):
While he was there, he was on the pringles team. Uh,
and his job was specifically to this is from Food
and Wine dot com article, by the way, was to
quote devise a means of frying molded potato shingles. I
just realized that, holy crap, pringles are shingles. Don't let
(21:14):
the word get out. Yeah, before they dropped onto a
conveyor belt. So again we're picturing this, So that is
the process in fact that that is still used today.
That the way they're fried and then and then you know,
dropped out of this conveyor belt to be sorted into
those cans. But again I mentioned you might have you
might have heard of this fellow. Uh, that's not really
what he's known for. UM. In nineteen seventy two, he
(21:36):
was an editor for a technical engineering magazine, UH and
at that time he published his first successful sci fi novel,
and eight years later, the first volume of his uh
what's considered his kind of greatest work, The Book of
the New Sun, came out. It was compared to some
really you know, high minded literature like Ulysses, for example,
(21:58):
by the New Yorker UH and it is considered one
of the greatest sci fi collections of all time. I
am not familiar with this book, Ben, I would not
be surprised if you were. UM, I've heard the name,
but I'm very intrigued. Yeah, honestly, it's dope. UH. Don't
let if you don't like James Joyce, don't let the
comparison to Ulysses fool you. It's a heck of a read.
(22:20):
We also want to say. His first sci fi novel
that was successful was called The Fifth Head of Cerebus,
and it's three interrelated novellas. Uh. That one I haven't read,
but I have read the Book of the New Son
and I enjoyed it. We also, do you know what
we should do? We should take just a second and
figure out this Pringle's name, because there are theories about it,
(22:43):
and at this point in two no one is acent convinced.
One one theory is that there's a guy named Mark
Pringle who way back this is true, folks, way back
in ninety seven, this guy filed a U S. Patent
for something called this is a Quote Method and Apparatus
(23:04):
for processing potatoes. Mark Pringle's work was later cited by
Procter and Gamble in their own patent for improving the
taste of what would become Pringles. Then there's this other
idea that there were these ad guys who worked for
Procter and they they just said, oh, the name sounds
good because they live on Pringle Drive. Like there's a
(23:27):
bunch of weird stuff here, dude. These are also graspy
to me because I think the answer is so obvious.
Their potato shingles their pringles. But where's the ar come from.
That's the fun, that's just the fun. That's just pingles
(23:49):
doesn't sound good. Pingles sounds no. Pingles sounds weirdly, dirt weirdly.
Pringles sounds fun. There's no Jonathan pring goal. Come on,
this is absurd. Uh we there you'll maybe recall, uh there,
this was in the news not terribly long ago, this
(24:09):
whole Wikipedia scam kind of that. That led to another
another possible iteration of this. Uh, the name of the
pringles man the muster by the way, the pringles man.
If you notice he has no mouth. He has mustache,
but no mouth with which to enjoy the pringles. But
he also is a pringle his head, yes, it is
(24:31):
kind of the shape of a pringle. So presumably you're
eating him or or his his life with each most
project exactly. Yeah. Yeah. He was only saved from death
in the two because of that amazing mustache which hides
his mouth. It's weird, so okay, this is so the
name is part of it. They did, regardless of which
(24:54):
theory we want to ascribe to, And there are more
than what we've named. The product was first known as
Pringles newfangled potato chips, but other potato chip manufacturers raised
cane about this, and it's because Noel. They said that
Pringles fails to meet the definition of a potato chip
(25:16):
because they're made from that mixture. They're made from potato dough. Basically. Uh.
And this is where I would love for you to
weigh in. Man, is a Pringle a potato chip? I mean, yeah,
I don't. I guess I don't really have much skin
in the game as far as like purest definitions of
a potato chip. Is that term? I didn't realize we
(25:37):
put so much stock in that, but I guess when
the Food and Drug Administrations involved, these terms kind of matter.
So a chip off the old block would imply that
that was a literal, physical piece of thing that came
off said block. So therefore, a chip, a potato chip
needs to be a thing that came off of a
physical potato in its purest form. I imagine a man there,
(26:00):
there are so many people who are listening right now,
and you're in we hear you, we know where you are.
You're in your dorm, right it's maybe freshman year of college.
It's probably around two three am you might be in
some Pringles right now. Tell us what you think, tell
us what your your pals think? Is this potato chip? Well,
(26:20):
it's like is craft are craft singles cheese? They are
crossed right, whateppens cheese product. I would argue that pringles
is a more upscale snack than than but you know what,
But then there there is a place for for craft singles.
They melt so scientifically perfectly on a burger or like
(26:42):
a breakfast sandwich, like an egg and cheese. Is really
nothing else like it, so that there is there's a
place for them. Again, I think Pringles is the superior chip.
Given given my druthers, I will buy Pringles every time.
Am I gonna get caught up in the semantics of
all this, like I don't know food? You know, lawyer,
it doesn't. It doesn't really fathered me when we are
the other. It's not even the same arguments a hot
(27:03):
dog of sandwich. I don't feel like this is the
same realm. It's not a philosophical argument to me, right right?
And do we need these labels in two? By the way, again,
if you want to be super fun at parties, folks, uh,
you can point out that the reason Kraft Cheese singles
melt so well is that they contain sodium citrate. That's
(27:25):
the secret sauce. Don't tell anyone except for the millions
of other people listening to this show. Maybe we should
get a secret handshake for ridiculous history. One hand we
can't shake, though, is Frederick Bowers. He has passed away.
You mean he was gonna have been canceled or something like.
We can no longer extend our hand and gratitude because
(27:48):
unfortunately it turns out secret Nazi, secret Nazi. That's what
pringles were all about. But he Uh, it's weird because
he uh, this is why we didn't spoil the excellent
article that Matt wrote earlier. Uh, Matt Blitzet is the
best name in food writing. Dr Bower. In his will,
(28:09):
let's be clear, he planned this, He thought about this.
He made a well informed, very weird choice for his funeral.
In his will he said, bury me in a human
sized pringle. Can you know it's it really is a
testament to how he viewed this part of his life,
(28:32):
like like this, this was his life's crowning achievement. Yeah,
that's how he wanted to be remembered. Literally he went
out like gee, he went out like a p Also,
in case you're wondering for anybody with a similar bent
toward morbidity in the macabre like me. Uh, he did
not ask for his remains to be mixed with potatoes, rice,
(28:55):
sweet and flower. He he just they just put the
human him, without potatoes, into a life size Pringle can
in two thousand. So he was not cremated like it
was his his like full body that had been like
um embalmed and stuff was shoved in this can. Ah,
that's an excellent point. Well he was. Let me be
(29:16):
clear there, let me clarify. He was cremated. His ashes
were putting a Pringles can, but they were not mixed
with um dehydrated potato, like you can't dig it up
and eat it as you would have Pringle's chip. It
would have been a real next level flex for him
to have had his ashes mixed into a special flavor
of Pringles power flavored Pringles. Um. Yeah, okay, we freach
(29:42):
some maximum morbidity here. I will say though this is
not unusual. Um. I was just in a situation where
I had occasion to speak to a mortician. Um, regarding
cremains and regarding what types of vessels are are able
to be used, assuming that there were all kinds of
like weird laws around it. Not the case. This person
(30:02):
informed me that they have they had seen cremains placed
in a Mr. Potato Head before. Yeah, surely at the
request of the deceased. I would imagine, you know, that's
the kind of thing you don't just kind of drum up. Hey,
you know what Dad would have liked. Let's put his
cremains in the old Mr. Potato head. Yeah. So. Uh.
(30:25):
Bower's son Larry has an interview with Time magazine about
this uh when when Bauer passes away in two thousand
and eight, he says, when my dad first raised the
burial idea in the nineteen eighties, I chuckled about it.
But they knew what they had to do. They had
to go to Walgreens. They didn't get a custom Pringles can.
(30:47):
They went to their local drug store, picked up some Pringles,
and they debated about which flavor to use. Ultimately, they
sided with tradition, and Larry Bowers said, look, we need
to use the original flavor. And that's why even today,
somewhere out there in Arlington Memorial Gardens in Cincinnati, Ohio.
(31:10):
There's a grave that contains a pringles can holding the
ashes of the man who invented the tube nuts, crisp potatoes, yeah, well, no, well,
and other things. We'll do that in a little bit too,
as the formula has changed. But you know that slurry
or or paste that we talked about, it was dehydrated
(31:31):
potatoes and like you know, corn wheat, you know, other
things went into uh rice exactly. And then again we're
gonna get into you know, and then the dust is
its own thing. The dust must flow. By the way,
what what's your favorite potato chip dust? I'm a big
sour cream and onion guy. Do you go off for
the hot chips the hot dust? You know? Not not
(31:53):
really a hot chip guy. I'm I'm hot enough on
my own, I would say. Uh. The thing that I
love out these conversations is that a lot of people
don't know this unrelated chip. In fact, derritos they don't
need that dust. Their marketing department decided that the orange
dust is part of the derrito's eating experience. So you
(32:17):
can eat you can eat dust less dorritos, or you
can do like our pal Dylan taught me Dylan Fagan. Yeah, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan. Yeah,
it's Dylan. Oh yeah, do you guess, So who's here?
Oh he's my friend. God, that's a fun Yeah, Dylan
(32:46):
ep good friend of ours. In the show, he eats
like hot Cheetos and Dorritos with chopsticks so he doesn't
get any dust on his fingers. That's kind of help
you if you are eating Cheetos or Dorritos and then
do a crime, you know, jeezus. Yeah, they'll leave like
a like a book, a trail, like a like a
snail trail of of of of of golden dust. Uh. Well,
(33:08):
it's not like golden. It's more kind of reddish brown. Yeah,
it's like an umber, I guess. But the like a
bright number. But I love that we're talking about this.
So chester Chester Cheetah obviously has gone down for a
lot of crimes that he didn't commit. The poor guy
gets stitched up, and that leads us to talking about
another mascot, the Pringles mascot, which reintroduced earlier in the show.
(33:32):
He has a bit of a mystery. His name, according
to some, is Julius Pringles or Mr P. But here's
why I'm saying this guy is a man of mystery.
I think there's more to the story about the alleged
name Julius. This guy might have a couple of pseudonyms.
(33:57):
He does. And by the way, he's also changed as
a parents a little bit over the years, like a
man with a secret. You may recall the classic UH
mr P design where his waxed mustache and crop of
hair were a little more realistic. You know, they had
like texture to them than the color, kind of a
brown or like an auburn kind of color, and this
(34:18):
little mop of hair on top, and his eyes had
these little shiny little whites in them, and he was
wearing a bow tie. Recently, I believe it was back
in September, mr P got his first big design update
UH in twenty years, and it's significant. Like many things
(34:39):
in design, this goes for more of a minimalist approach
these days. The mustache is now just pure black with
no textures um, the eyes no more little glinty whites,
and instead of a crop of hair, he has these
disembodied eyebrows that just sort of float above the head.
I mean, it's the kind of thing you could whip
up in in Adobe Illustrator in like seconds. But somebody
(35:01):
got paid a gazillion dollars for this, you know. That's
how these things work. And I'm not saying I could
have done it. That's like saying, oh, look at this Picasso,
I could know you couldn't. You couldn't have done that.
It's brilliant design work. But it is funny how how
simple it is when you really get down to it. Yeah,
and the issue, you know, this is happening with so
many food mascots these days, Like the Quaker oats guy
(35:23):
just keeps getting younger and younger by that that old
man I trusted to give me oats is now like
twenty five with a silver wig. It's a weird time.
It's a weird time to be a food mascot. Also, uh,
to peel the curtain, to pop the tube of Pringles conspiracies,
and once your poppy can't stop, here's another one. It
(35:45):
turns out the name Julius Pringles, even though Kellogg's claims
it's officially trademarked, it was made up by two college
students back in two thousand and in six. They called
him Julius Pringle's know you and I were talking about
this off air. They went on Wikipedia and they made it.
(36:07):
So our moral of the story is be careful what
you read on the Wiki. Always check the horses. To
your point, the company was taken in by this, you know,
I mean, no one is immune to the Wikipedia grift.
You know, however, well intentioned and and you know, you
know some of them armed with the right information, it's
very easy to just read something and be like that
(36:27):
seems right. Let's roll with that. Julius Pringle not a thing,
not a thing, not a thing. But you know, uh,
it's we are all the stories we tell ourselves, right,
So maybe Julius will one day make that canonical. Kellogg's
certainly has another person who has thought about Pringles at
(36:49):
least as much as us. Is a guy who might
recognize we're a big fan of him, Uh will pal
of ours? Mr John Oliver from The Daily Show, from
countless stand up appearances from Community from most recently last
week tonight. So John had this thing. John and his
writers had this thing kind of recently where they just said,
(37:14):
how come we never see the body of Mr p
How what is the Pringles the Pringle Man's body look like,
and John actually went on a huge rant about this
and listeners to last week Tonight responded and send them
all these pictures of what they thought the Pringles man
(37:36):
looked like below the neck. They're pretty fascinating. There's a
lot of inspiration from the natural world, like an octopus
or a hermit crab. And John was not having it. Man.
John demanded that he get an answer, and he put
his money where his mouth is. He said he would
give ten thousand dollars to a nonprofit called Feeding America
(37:58):
if Pringles showed a full body Mr P slash Julius
Pringles on air um and they did you wanna you
want to describe it? You you you you you deserve this, buddy.
Well before we do that, though, did you ever have
any inklear Again, I think I've made my my position clear.
(38:21):
I believe that Julius Pringle or Mr P is in
fact a Pringle himself. He has this preparabolic shaped head.
He appears at the top of the can, so I
would presume that his body is a can. Yeah, you know,
I think that's I think that's a very reasonable assumption.
If you look at the various pitches they're they're pretty neat. Uh,
(38:45):
Pringles themselves went kind of safe with it. I'll go
ahead and just send you guys a picture in the
chat so you can see it. I'm a little I
don't know, I understand why they did it, but uh,
they made him just a dude. He's got a red suit,
white T shirt, kind of supreme style, that says Pringles.
(39:08):
He's got white gloves, regular legs, regular arms. I was
hoping that he would be kind of like a a mech,
like a battle mech made out of Pringle tubes. That
would have been cool um or you know, a segmented
serpent made out of Pringles. Anyway, they didn't write back
to me, but Pringles, if you're listening, these ideas are
(39:31):
for you. What a fascinating thing. Man. We we took
a ride here and we're not, you know, like there's
still more stuff to talk about. But I think all
three of us are really surprised by some of the
mystery surrounding Pringles. And I'll tell you what, honestly, between us, folks,
(39:56):
I'm hungry. I I bought some snackpack Pringles for this one.
You know, they're the little packs, They're not like a
full tube they got like eight soda can Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I got some of those. I'm gonna I'm gonna
crack them open and celebrate, um because it's five five
o'clock somewhere. Does that land Does that work Pringles? Yes? So,
(40:17):
I mean it is possible to get drunk on that
dust man. That that's stuff corrupt you. You can go
straight to you. Like I said, it is, it is
a it is. It is challenging you to not become
an addict of their product. Where you pop, you can't stop.
You're never by the way, that you're never gonna get
as satisfying a pop as when you actually pop not
only the little plastic lid, but the vacuum sealed little
(40:41):
pull tab. You know, that's when you get the real
It's like an air lock. I mean it literally is
like an air lock. It But at this point, you know,
there's more stuff we want to get to. We know
we're we're going a little we're going a little long,
but we've just opened the door on Pringle's lore for
you fell over to iculous historians. Uh, maybe we can
(41:02):
close out by naming some of the weird flavors of
Pringles past, But before we do that. I think the uh,
I think the most important part of today's episode is
just to say welcome back. Man. Uh, this is such
a fun ride. Pringles is awesome. We're gonna record some
more in the future, but it's it's it's really good
(41:23):
to have here. Yeah. Thanks, And just you know, just
a quick heads up. I had mentioned my my my
encounter with a mortician earlier and finding out some of
the odd things that one can place cremains in, and
that was because I was unfortunately a very similar situation
that you were in not to really long ago. Man,
that's kind of crazy. Um, very unexpectedly lost my mother
(41:43):
and UM, I was dealing with all of that stuff,
and and it's just kind of been a lot and
thankfully so many wonderful listeners have reached out, and you know,
I did share this online and um just said such
kind things in terms of like, oh, you're listening to
your podcast helps me when I lost a loved one,
or just you know, just sending kind words. And uh,
it's just nice to know that that that what we
(42:04):
do here means something to you, and and these things
that you sent back to us means something to us. Uh. No,
question about it. So I felt really supported. And obviously
you and super producer Max and everyone on stuff that
I wants you to know have been incredibly kind and
um and supportive while it's been out, And um, just
if you can't tell, I'm excited to be back because
this is this work and doing these these these episodes
(42:26):
and hanging with you guys and talking about nerdy stuff
really is uh a pretty great way of spending my time.
And UM, I'm very lucky that it's something that I
actually get, we get paid for it, so nobody get
paid nobody, Yeah, nobody right to yes man, Um, yeah,
And you and I are gonna be on the road
(42:47):
uh later actually in a few hours technically, Uh, we're
gonna be We're gonna be heading out to uh Texas.
We're gonna be hanging in person Max. Out of respect
for you, We're not going to get in a hot
tub together, which is another episode. No no, no no,
I would argue that we we need to get into
(43:08):
a hot tub justus, you and I Ben, So finally
there can we can get rid of this whole you know,
this divide of who's been in hot tubs together and
who hasn't no, no offense, man. But I think I
think I think the problem Ben has that I haven't
been in a hot tub with him. I know that
just feeling I'm getting because you know, you and I
have been multiple times, but remember multiple times, and we've
(43:29):
had Frank there before also and stuff. Yeah we've touched feet,
you know. Yeah, this is it was like it was
like hours upon hours been by the way. Okay, okay, okay,
you're okay, let's let's dial it back. One peg. Shout
(43:50):
out to everybody who got that vote. Get reference with bocanism.
Um I jeez, uh we promised you know what we
did do we are going to be on the road. Uh.
We're friends and family here and if you're listening, we
consider you family too, So thank you for being part
of the show. Uh. Zack went above and beyond and
(44:10):
found some absolutely ridiculous true pringles flavors. I gotta tell you,
I'm familiar with a lot of these, nule but prosecco
and pink peppercorn. We have to mention. We have to
mention this because yeah, that we're gonna get into the
whole weird flavorless because there's there's a bunch of them,
(44:33):
much like if you go to Asian markets you can
find really interesting oddball flavors of Lais like you know,
crab and and things like that, and also much more
off the beaten path flavors of kit cats. But these
were like sort of goofs, I guess you could you
are you are? Like regional kind of peculiarities that that
the Pringles did, but the prosecco one actually got them
(44:55):
in trouble. There's an organization in France called the AOC,
not to be confused with Alejandro or Tasio cortez um.
This is a French um I guess government body to
the appal Lean de Gene control the AOC, which is
(45:17):
a a division that determines the provenance of particular wines
um that that are that are you know, from grapes
growing in a particular region, and it basically enforces what
labels you can put on them. So that's why you
know Champagne if you remember the amazing speech from Benjamin
(45:38):
played by Rob Low in Wayne's World, Actually, if it's
not from the Champagne region of France, it's called sparkling wine. Uh. Actually,
if you did not know, So that's the thing Prosecco
also refers to one of these designations, and the fact
that Pringles called a junk food chip prosecco, that was
(45:59):
a real problem for for this organization. If I'm not mistaken,
they came down on them pretty hard. Yeah. Yeah, you
don't mess around with the prosecco. Uh. And also I
love what you're saying about these regional flavors. I was.
I was recently abroad for some stuff in a couple
of different countries, and one thing I found is, uh,
(46:20):
paprika as a flavor is super popular. There are parts
of Europe where paprika is in like everything. Imagine your
favorite food, now add paprika on top of that bad boy.
In Germany, it's by far the just most traditional standard chip.
It's just paprico flavorite chips. It's probably what you would
maybe compared to barbecue. But you know, there's a similar
(46:42):
and there's similarity to those players. By the way, I
just have to correct myself. Prosecco is Italian and the
AOC that is a specifically French organization that governs you know,
French wines. This there there's a similar you know analog
in Italy and um The region that prosecco comes from
is called Venito, and there was an investigation by this
body and they determined that this was like way out
(47:04):
of off base for Pringles to do, and they apparently
seized hundreds of cans from supermarkets in that region. Oh
my gosh, this if podcasting doesn't work out, let's start
like moving off the books Pringles flavors. I tell you
there would be a huge market in the United States.
We would be like those guys who figured out how
to get kinder eggs into the States, Remember those how
(47:28):
you can't like have kindred anyway, I'm fueled by coffee.
I'm jet lagged. Attack Sorry guys, Well that's that's and yeah,
I'm glad to have you back as well. Ben. By
the way, um, no spoilers, I'll leave it to you
to discuss your secret travels. But yeah, jet lag. Indeed, honestly,
sometimes being punchy or sleep deprived or jet lag makes
(47:49):
for fun podcasting. So, as you mentioned, Ben, these a
lot of these were specialty, kind of limited you know, uh,
flavors that were really more for like a kind of
a pr move or like you know, sort of like
a promotional kind of like thing um to create buzz
around these goofy flavors. So let's name a few others
(48:11):
that are super weird. There's a ton this like like
a big old list of these. Um kicking off some
of these. Yeah, sweet mayo, wait for it, cheese, I'm sorry, finally,
said one person at Bringles Corporate. Uh there's also Yeah,
there's also uh, this one's interesting to me, lemon and sesame.
(48:35):
I think that's very artistic combination, it really is. That
is very delicate sounding. And again some of these probably
are in Asian market as well, things like soft shell
crab for example. Then you have yeah, and you've got
some of these sweet ones like pumpkin pie. I remember
punkin pieprinkles being on the shelves here in America. It
was a Chris it was a Halloween fall type promotion.
(48:58):
And it's the kind of thing that it may sense
where they do these sort of like hot take kind
of like weird out their flavors because people are gonna
post about them, people are gonna do TikTok videos or
they like try one and make a face even if
it's gross. That's kind of the point some of the time,
and flavor science. I think we're both fascinated by We've
got Grand Canyon French fries. Is that like rocky Mountain oysters?
(49:20):
What are do it? It might be parts of a
donkey or something. I mean, Zach points out that's oddly specific.
Oh yeah, and Max, Max is just yelling no, yeah, yeah,
I think the Grand Canyon French fries the is the
penis in thet It's too late, Max, We've spoken into existence. Uh.
(49:43):
There's also spaghetti. French consume eggs sandwich is probably my
least favorite of these. Weird how would you even do that?
I mean, you know again, flavor science is interesting too,
because it's it requires so much approximation, Like we have
not reached Willy Wonka levels of like oh that's it's
exactly like like piece soup or whatever. You know, it's
always some weird kind of trick of the mind, you
(50:06):
know what I mean, Like that makes you sort of
it's sort of like it's like you waived a Christmas
turkey over this chip and then that's what you know?
And what do they say about the flavors of Lacroix.
It's like somebody whispered the name of a flirt in
the next room. You know, balsamic vinegar, uh, seeweed, top
(50:27):
Ramen chicken. You know what's funny about that, Ben, what
is ramen? The pre package Ramen. It's just all about
flavor powder. So it'll be really easy to make an
exact top Ramen chicken chip because us the same the
same dust. You're on just something. No, this is a
great idea. You're on just something here, and I think
we should pursue it. But uh, for legal reasons, we
(50:49):
might pursue this off air and come back to you
once we've Once we've talked with wonderful folks at Ramen.
Why haven't we done an instant noodles episode? I did
a stuff of genius about the creation of instant noodles
and he's awesome. We should totally do that. Yes, that's
a great idea. No, absolutely is a thing even down
to like I remember kids in in in uh high
(51:10):
in high school or in middle school would bring just
the ramen to school and just crushed, like eat the brick, eat,
eat the eat the brick of noodles and like you know,
dip it in the in the dust. We've got just
a few more of these. We have to while the
the credits are rolling. Now we use some French I
could be interesting. You know you have you ever had
those bullion cubes? You know that you can make like
(51:32):
broth similar flavor science principle, you know, meat flavored dust. Yeah, yeah,
we are. Some of those sweet ones, aren't Maybe for
me blueberry and hazel nuts. You might have to be
at the right cafe in Amsterdam for that. That's a
joke for the adults. Um, we talked about Grand Canyon
French fries. Yeah, okay, yeah, we really yes, that know
(51:55):
the entire time it well, it's all right, Max, We
respect your boundaries. So you can have a packet of
brushetta or tube brushetta Pringles what what a Spanish saltsa pizza?
If you don't even know what that is? If you
have to ask, No, I'm just kidding, honestly. The one
I'm most interested about is the butter popcorn because if
(52:16):
you guys remember this, butter popcorn jelly bean is considered
the most offensive one ever chemically. I like that. I
like it. Well, we're gonna have to We're gonna have
to get Pringles on board. I bet you there is
a museum or there is a room at Pringles Corporate
(52:39):
wherever that is where they have like Indiana Jones style
top men looking at these crates and crates of Pringles.
We need to get in the Pringles Lab. Nol gotta
go there. I'm speaking. I'm putting it on the vision board, man,
that we've been working on ever since this show started,
Pringles Food Lab. So while we are working on our
(53:01):
vision board, we want to put we want to slap
a couple more things on that. And uh, the things
we're slapping on the vision board today, as always, are
our thank you's. Thanks to super producer Max Williams. Thanks
to Alex Williams, Thanks to Casey Pegram, Thanks to our
fellow ridiculous historians. No extra big prosecco and pink peppercorn
(53:23):
flavored thanks to you, my friend. Oh man, Yeah, that
sounds delightful. What is the prosecco would probably just give
it a little a little sweet, kind of like pop,
and then the peppercorn would be kind of a spicy things.
When I were about funky mustard, why has it gotta
be funky? But I don't like what did the bool
called things funky? That's good music? Should music should be funky.
(53:46):
I don't think flavored. When people say like, oh this this,
this beer is funky, they're like, you know, I don't.
I don't like that, Like it's gone back. Like flavors
that have that trigger sentence asia, you know, like the
like a lot of soft drinks or sports drinks are
really good at that. Like what flavor is the blue Gatorade?
(54:09):
What's going on? The pool cleaner? Not a fan I see,
but no, I love it. It just looks like I
will always think that when I see it. It doesn't Yeah,
you've never tasted toilet pool cleaner, but uh, there's something
about that that that that neon bright blue. This makes
me think of the stuff that Sarah Connor is going
to shoot into that psych Ward Doctors. Yeah, let's also think, uh,
(54:36):
the Sarah Connor of our show, Christopher hasciotis. I don't know,
that's just like it. I don't know if that reference
speaks sense. It's a test to see if Chris is
tuning in. Who else should we think, Oh gosh, he's
Jeff Cote, Christopher Hastiotes, both here in spirit and you know,
corporeally somewhere doing things. Jonathan Strickland. I really am sad
(54:56):
that I did not get to witness his, you know,
real life transformation from a bild mannered podcaster to a
diabolical quiz fiend. So but you know what, maybe that
was better that way. Maybe maybe it would have changed
me in ways that I wasn't prepared for him. Something
tells me we'll run into that guy again. Well, in
(55:18):
the meantime, we'll see you next time. Books. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
(00:27):
welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
always so much for tuning in. Let's give it up
for the one and only, the Man, the Myth, the
legend are super producer Mr Max Williams. Who do you who?
And let's also they called me Ben, But I want
to take a moment today and I need some fanfare here. Max, really,
(00:48):
just turn it up to eleven because we've got the
band back together. Everybody, and I mean everybody, even the
people are sitting next to you if they don't have
their headphones in, just hit him on the shoulder and
tell the clap with you right now, returning the one
and only Mr Noel Brown. I gotta say, I don't
(01:14):
want to be responsible for anybody doing soft violence to
people on the train, you know, for my benefit. Maybe
a gentle nudge, a squeeze of the I don't know,
people are weird about being touched. I would maybe just
one handed clap, you know, on your thank you, thank you,
That's what I'm getting at. Thank you, Ben and all
(01:34):
and all of you who are potentially being beaten up
by strangers, uh, for my benefit, um, thank you for
your service. Thank you for your service, folks. To be back.
It's good to be bad. It's so good to have
you back, man, Thank you. I appreciate it. Man. You
you did you you didn't miss too much. We finally
did the McDonald's episode. I think I told you about
(01:57):
this in our in our offline group chat because as
you know, folks, longtime ridiculous historians, Noel, Max and I
are friends in real life, so we're pretty much talking
to each other every day regardless of where we are.
And uh nol, I gotta tell you. We gave Jonathan
Strickland a chance. I had him on as a as
a guest toast. We did two episodes and I don't
(02:20):
know about Max, but no, he had me fooled. I
thought he had turned over a new leaf. He was.
He was an absolute gym, absolute peach until the very
end of the second episode. He did did he transform
before your very ears? He sure did? He sure did, man.
But I think it's a very important note we have
to say here. We got the trivia question right though.
(02:41):
That's it. Yeah, we did you proud man, So we're
we're still ahead. Well, I would have to, I would
have to soft disagree. That didn't miss so much. I
mean it sounds like there was adventure, you know, uh,
like a cultic type behavior and activities, and I mean
you bury the lead there, Ben, I was really looking
forward to that McDonald's episode. Ronald McDonald is pure nightmare fuel,
(03:03):
even in his final form. But man, that that early
commercial that you always threaten us with his absolute terror, Man,
that is the stuff of of of absolute nightmares. He's
got like a weird carrot nosed thing. It looks like
like a like a John Wayne Gacy kind of thrown
together um you know, costume. Like it's yes, just chilling,
(03:28):
chilling for everybody else. Noel and I have been chasing
several episodes for years, and there are sometimes where I
wish that, uh, I wish that we could record the
times we're just we're like hanging out. Sometimes we'll just
meet up for a drink and then we realize that
accidentally our conversation has become a show. Maybe one day
(03:52):
we'll do Ridiculous History after Dark. But for you, my friends,
my brother, my ride or die, I know, I know
you love the food episodes, man, I do too. We've
got one that is another doozy for us, and uh gosh,
I like, I don't even know where to begin, other
than to ask you, were you a Pringles kid man
(04:15):
when you were growing up? Where we're Pringles in the hierarchy,
I'm a Pringles adult man. It's the superior chip, There's
no question about it. They stack. You can make a
little duck mouth with them. If you flip one up
right side up and the other one upside down and
put it, you can quack. It's it's a prop, it's
a chip. It's it's self storing kind of. You know
(04:36):
that you're never gonna that's not sure. You will occasionally
run into some cracked Pringles, but it's it's rare. It's
a lot rarer than opening a bag of lays and
the whole thing is being demolished, not to mention the
shrinkage that you experienced with with bagged potato chips. At
least when you get a stack, you know, a tube
of Pringles, you know it's gonna be mainly full to
the top. It maybe a little they might have they
(04:58):
might have skimped a little bit of we're gonna get
into it. It's it's the kind of story that on
the surface seems like it would be dull once you
just get past the Oh, it's a it's a cool
you know, spheric, spherical, what's the word of hyperbolic. We're
gonna get to that chip. Um, where's the where's the
hook Where's well, it's hooky. It's a hooky story. It
goes places you will not expect. Oh yeah, we want to,
(05:19):
of course shout out our research associate Zach Williams, who
you will meet very soon, folks, as well as our
research associate Jeff Bartlett's. Uh, they're they're on the way.
You'll have to believe us. But we were so excited
about this Pringle's episode because Pringles, I I think, just
to stay on this for a second, I totally agree, man,
(05:40):
Pringles does something beautiful that bags of chips don't do.
And also is Pringle technically a potato chip. We're gonna
get into all of that. But it's such a disappointment.
It's such a cold shower of buyer's remorse. When you
buy a bag of chips and you open it up
and you're like, oh, how about two thirds air and
about one third chip. Pringles doesn't do that. They don't
(06:01):
play I got, actually got a little embarrassing story I
would love to share on the air, because where else
am I gonna share this? But this is for my
friend Ronnie with your therapists. Perhaps, uh she she's tired
of hearing all these from me. But give it to
there was There was one night I was hanging with
my buddy Ronnie at the bar. We've worked out this
is probably about eight nine years ago. And let's to
(06:23):
say I was having a little bit of fun night
and my buddy Ronnie was gonna ride home and I'd
realized I hadn't eaten enough, and uh, I had no
food at the house. And he's like, I want you
to buy some potato chips at the gas station. I go,
absolutely not, Man, those things are like air. It's the
biggest rip off, he said. I wanted this giant rant
in the gas station, all about how much error and
potato back. So Pringles, do you know what you're getting?
(06:46):
You know what you're getting? Yeah, And this is where
our story begins. Ridiculous historians. We're talking innovation, we're talking intrigue,
we're talking a little bit of existentialism, and of course cartoons.
Uh no, you nailed it. You set us up so well, man. Uh,
the idea of like the ultimate downer for anybody who
(07:07):
desperately wants a snack. You get your potato chips, will
you'll crisp as they call them in some parts of
the world, and you open it up and then you've
got crumbs, they're broken, or their stale. It's just a bummer.
You have to go back to the store. Procter and
Gamble was aware of this, right at some point. Yeah.
It's always funny to me that you think of companies
(07:28):
like Procter and Gamble and you think, like, you know,
the ones that make all the chemicals and stuff, the
chemical of things. But these kinds of company there they
diversify and a lot of them, you know, have divisions
that are into like flavor science and like food technology. Um,
you're right. They had a whole division chock full of
food chemists and organic engineers that they tasked, you know,
(07:51):
they you know, vultrond up to create what would be
considered by the world. They hoped to be the perfect
potato chip. No more of those stale you know, crummy
bits at the bottom of the bag. You know, with
that that that shock at the consumer feels when they
opened the bag and it doesn't look anything like the picture.
(08:11):
They wanted something that would look like the picture every time,
every single time. Yes, And to the point about people
with engineering or chemical backgrounds, Yes, folks, Procter and Gamble
has their fingers and a lot of figurative pringle cans.
They had a mission. They wanted to fix the problems
(08:32):
that you just described, Noel, and they did it under
the leadership of a guy named Vic Mills, who, fun fact,
also invented the disposable diaper, and then a food chemist
named Frederick Bauer. Yeah, that's well, yeah, it is well,
you know, one starts the cycle and one ends it.
I guess right. Uh, it's in terms of digestion that's gross.
(08:54):
We don't have to ruin pringles everyone, even though we're
kind of going to a little bit we're gonna get
into like slurry and all of the goop that these
things are actually made up. But I I would argue,
by the end of this, you're still gonna want to
you know, pop and and not stop, which is also
a bright slogan. I would argue because it challenges you
to not be a junkie. It challenges you to not
(09:17):
be you know, and and addicts you know, once you pop,
you can't Oh, I can't can't I pop? I can't stop. Like, dude,
I have a conspiracy theory about this. I feel like
and this is totally unfounded. This is just my speculation.
I feel like maybe there was a pang of conscience
in the engineering, which we'll get to where they made
(09:40):
just like bo Burnham was cavetching about in his specials,
they made the tube too small for a grown person's hands.
So you can have that crossroads moment and you can say,
have I have I popped enough? This is this hurting
my family. Bro, you have not popped enough until you
(10:00):
get to the crusty bits at the bottom. And then
what you do is you dip those those bad boys
right into your mouth until that until that tennis ball
tube of chips is is completely bone dry. But he
exactly Frederick Bauer right, Um, he is the food chemist
in league with this guy, Vic Mills, the diaper guy,
(10:21):
may start out by the siding. They want this process
to begin in a little bit of an unconventional way,
not the way potato chips are usually made, which is
like you know, deep frying slices of potato and oil.
Presumably with this one they actually wanted to use dehydrated
potatoes and create kind of this this slurry, this kind
(10:41):
of paste. They could then, you know, use a die
cast kind of mechanism to cut out whatever shape they wanted,
so that each chip would be like kind of stamped
out on this like line. Like think about you know,
the way like plastic toys are made, you know, they're
they're cut out, or like things are like three D printed.
Even it would everything would have the exact same size,
(11:02):
the exact same shape, and the exact same weight, which
would allow them to kind of streamline the whole process
and really get to the root and solve it in
terms of these like these generations old potato chip problems. Yes,
and you know you guys nol Max, you know, I'm
I'm super fascinated by the often unsung history of packing innovation.
(11:24):
Packaging innovation, I should say, yeah, this, this is this
uniformity is key to preventing breakage. These chips are made
in uh in what you might call a saddle shape.
They look kind of like a wide saddle. Technically the
name for that with a tie on is a hyperbolic
paraboloid shape. This means that you stack them up, they
(11:48):
don't have room to move in the tube, and therefore
it's much more difficult for them to break inside the
package nol Max. We also have to point out at
this at this juncture, this is not a sponsored episode, folks, Pringle.
We didn't talk to Pringles, we didn't ask him permission,
We didn't do any of that. We just are super
(12:08):
into potato chips. Peek behind the curtain, though, Ben, we
would have gladly taken their money. Caveats with the caveat that, y'all,
if we come across some darkness, we're gonna We're gonna
talk about it. You know, I'll take it or leave it.
That's how we do. I mean, y'all will remember the
underwear episode. We got into a lot of chlamydia talk,
and you know, venereal diseases and weird like washing garments
(12:32):
with urine. I mean, just put we're putting it out
there that we are not entirely shills. We will shill
for you, but we will speak the truth. So if
Pringles comes to us after the fact, like let's say,
like in a week and they're hey, we want to
be a sponsored content. Will we do it if they
pay us in pringles? Yeah, we're gonna gonna get to
something that. Yeah, no, you'll take cash. I was gonna say,
(12:53):
as long as they're stuffed into pringles cans. Yes, yes, yes,
what are those two? So so pay attention, Prinkles. We're
getting into it. Also, we're going to name some of
the weird flavors we have request for you, Prinkles. Uh
so all right. So Bower comes up with this shape,
which is, you know, low key, it's super innovative. No
(13:16):
other potato outfit has done something like this before, and
Bower to add to his accolades, he is the guy
who develops that vacuum sealed can. That's what houses the
chips and cheer pointell about staleness. The fact that it's
vacuum sealed also keeps them fresh. We're getting a lot
(13:38):
of this from a great article in Food and Wine
by Matt Blitz. I'm not going to give the headline yet.
I don't think we do, because it's a really cool spoiler.
Matt Blitz, by the way, the most superhero like name
and all the Food and Wine writing. I would have
to talk to um so wait, so Ben, it's a
hyperbolic paraboloid, a paraboloid that just is always overstating the
(13:59):
case and like being really smaltsey about everything. Yeah. Yeah,
it is a hyperbolic paraboloid. Is the most extra of
all paraboloids. Yeah, everything is the end all be all
for this paraboloid. You know. It's like, and that was
the best I'm the best shape that ever existed. It
thinks a lot of itself really kind of sucks all
(14:21):
the air out of the room. Uh. Literally, the shape
doesn't do that. They do that with a machine. But
here's the thing. There is a specific science a golden
ratio as kind of situation to these shapes. The two
principal curvatures of this design meet each other. That's what's called. Uh.
This is from an excellent article in the Interesting Engineering
(14:44):
dot com. By the way, uh, these zero the zero
point is known as the saddle point or the mini
max point, and it is this intersecting double curvature that
that is actually what causes there to be limited stress
from one chip passed on to the next, so there
won't be any kind of like a breakage that would
(15:06):
kind of carry on from one to the other if
the pressure got too great. Um, it's the same kind
of principle as like arches, right, like like uh, buying
buttresses and like you know in engineering and architecture. Yeah,
it's similar to Okay. So one of the one of
the super interesting natural engineering questions is the idea of
(15:26):
why eggs, Uh, you know, why why eggs have evolved
to have an oval shape? It redistributes stress and pressure,
and that's kind of what's happening with this nifty pringles design.
And as you mentioned, the author of that article over
interesting engineering, Kathleen V. I Lose. She points out that
(15:49):
this also encourages pringles to have extra crunch, whether you're
biting off a piece of them or whether you're putting
the whole pringle in your mouth at once, because that
is like now you are you are applying some of
that stress from one of the strongest muscles in your body,
the human jaw. And she says, if you frequently eat pringles,
(16:11):
you would know that they never break off symmetrically, but
instead they crack in different directions. They make flakes with
varying shapes. It's all due to the hyperbolic paraboloid geometry
of each chip. I mean, this goes deep this article.
If you are, um someone, Yeah, if you're someone who
(16:32):
likes to uh unwind a little after work with whatever
you've chosen vices, and you like learning about weird things,
we highly recommend you read about the fascinating geometry of
the Pringles chip. I can't believe that what we're saying that,
but it's true. Yeah, we're really just scratching the surface here. Um,
but check it out. Kathleen Villa loose over at interesting engineering,
(16:54):
crunchy engineering of Pringles hyperbolic paraboloid shape. Um, we're going
from that, but boys, that so much more. That's just
literally one like to lead off with, like just the
engineering part of it. Here was a problem though the
original chips or when they started doing this and the
like what do you call it, uh, research and development stage.
None of this has been released to the public yet.
(17:14):
This is them doing this bind closed doors uh at
proct during gamble. They couldn't figure out how to make
them not taste like trash. They were bad chips. And
you know, I would argue that a lot of a
(17:34):
lot of the the zing from even modern day Pringles
comes from that dust. You know, that that Pringles does.
But you can get you know, a plane pringle and
it's not bad. It tastes potato eat. Does it taste
like a lace or or a ruffle. No, it's got
a different flavor. It's like a different animal. But they
had not h they had not cracked that part of
the equation yet, they thought so much about the slurry
(17:57):
and the shape. They forgot to remember that people need
to be to eat these and have them, you know,
go down and enjoy them and choose them over another
potato product. Yeah, this is so, this is the thing.
Picture our pal Bauer, Frederick Frederick Bauer. He's nailed everything.
He's got a kick ass can or twobe. He's got
an amazing strategy with a lot of smart engineering behind it.
(18:21):
But he says, I can't make these taste good. He
tells the suits, it's gonna take me a while to
make these actually edible potato crisp, because again they have
to make it into a paste to form that provoloid shape.
So soon enough the suits pull him off of the
top secret Prinkles project. They put him on some other stuff.
(18:43):
It's not until the nineteen sixties. Fast forward to the sixties,
there's another Procter and Gamble researcher, Alexander Lipa, is out
of Montgomery, Ohio, and Lipa comes back because and this
happens in corporations all the time, because Soccer and Gamble says,
all right, we need new products. Right, we're always diversifying.
(19:04):
We're not just diaper people. We want to be in
more and more parts of the grocery store shelves. So
they say, let's go back to this idea. These crisp
in a tube, and let's figure out a recipe that
will make this something people want to eat. So they
(19:25):
land on this recipe that has uh, let's see, dehydrated
potatoes with a mixture of rice and corn as well
as wheat. So these are again to be clear, these
are not like lace potato chips or something. They're not
sliced up actual potatoes. They take this stuff. They take
the actual potato, they dehydrate it, they kind of make
(19:47):
it up paste, and they mix it up with all
this other stuff so that they can predictably press it
kind of like they can cookie cutter it basically into
that shape. And this is my favorite part of the story. No,
this is where they get involved with some sci fi folks. Yeah, wow,
(20:07):
that was a zoom. Did not see that coming. Are
they're going to create a chip based religion or something
from here? I don't know. Dune is really about pringles.
When you think about the spices the dust that I
was talking about earlier, and it must have otherwise the
chips taste like garbage. Yeah, it's true. Bauer wasn't the
only person who helped, you know, with this, uh, this
(20:31):
development of the you know, kind of future chip. Right.
There is a dude who, after a brief extent in
the Korean War as a combat engineer, um went on
to study engineering at the University of Houston, a guy
named gene Wolf. Okay that they may sound familiar. Gene
Wolf out of college got a job with Procter and Gamble.
(20:54):
While he was there, he was on the pringles team. Uh,
and his job was specifically to this is from Food
and Wine dot com article, by the way, was to
quote devise a means of frying molded potato shingles. I
just realized that, holy crap, pringles are shingles. Don't let
(21:14):
the word get out. Yeah, before they dropped onto a
conveyor belt. So again we're picturing this, So that is
the process in fact that that is still used today.
That the way they're fried and then and then you know,
dropped out of this conveyor belt to be sorted into
those cans. But again I mentioned you might have you
might have heard of this fellow. Uh, that's not really
what he's known for. UM. In nineteen seventy two, he
(21:36):
was an editor for a technical engineering magazine, UH and
at that time he published his first successful sci fi novel,
and eight years later, the first volume of his uh
what's considered his kind of greatest work, The Book of
the New Sun, came out. It was compared to some
really you know, high minded literature like Ulysses, for example,
(21:58):
by the New Yorker UH and it is considered one
of the greatest sci fi collections of all time. I
am not familiar with this book, Ben, I would not
be surprised if you were. UM, I've heard the name,
but I'm very intrigued. Yeah, honestly, it's dope. UH. Don't
let if you don't like James Joyce, don't let the
comparison to Ulysses fool you. It's a heck of a read.
(22:20):
We also want to say. His first sci fi novel
that was successful was called The Fifth Head of Cerebus,
and it's three interrelated novellas. Uh. That one I haven't read,
but I have read the Book of the New Son
and I enjoyed it. We also, do you know what
we should do? We should take just a second and
figure out this Pringle's name, because there are theories about it,
(22:43):
and at this point in two no one is acent convinced.
One one theory is that there's a guy named Mark
Pringle who way back this is true, folks, way back
in ninety seven, this guy filed a U S. Patent
for something called this is a Quote Method and Apparatus
(23:04):
for processing potatoes. Mark Pringle's work was later cited by
Procter and Gamble in their own patent for improving the
taste of what would become Pringles. Then there's this other
idea that there were these ad guys who worked for
Procter and they they just said, oh, the name sounds
good because they live on Pringle Drive. Like there's a
(23:27):
bunch of weird stuff here, dude. These are also graspy
to me because I think the answer is so obvious.
Their potato shingles their pringles. But where's the ar come from.
That's the fun, that's just the fun. That's just pingles
(23:49):
doesn't sound good. Pingles sounds no. Pingles sounds weirdly, dirt weirdly.
Pringles sounds fun. There's no Jonathan pring goal. Come on,
this is absurd. Uh we there you'll maybe recall, uh there,
this was in the news not terribly long ago, this
(24:09):
whole Wikipedia scam kind of that. That led to another
another possible iteration of this. Uh, the name of the
pringles man the muster by the way, the pringles man.
If you notice he has no mouth. He has mustache,
but no mouth with which to enjoy the pringles. But
he also is a pringle his head, yes, it is
(24:31):
kind of the shape of a pringle. So presumably you're
eating him or or his his life with each most
project exactly. Yeah. Yeah. He was only saved from death
in the two because of that amazing mustache which hides
his mouth. It's weird, so okay, this is so the
name is part of it. They did, regardless of which
(24:54):
theory we want to ascribe to, And there are more
than what we've named. The product was first known as
Pringles newfangled potato chips, but other potato chip manufacturers raised
cane about this, and it's because Noel. They said that
Pringles fails to meet the definition of a potato chip
(25:16):
because they're made from that mixture. They're made from potato dough. Basically. Uh.
And this is where I would love for you to
weigh in. Man, is a Pringle a potato chip? I mean, yeah,
I don't. I guess I don't really have much skin
in the game as far as like purest definitions of
a potato chip. Is that term? I didn't realize we
(25:37):
put so much stock in that, but I guess when
the Food and Drug Administrations involved, these terms kind of matter.
So a chip off the old block would imply that
that was a literal, physical piece of thing that came
off said block. So therefore, a chip, a potato chip
needs to be a thing that came off of a
physical potato in its purest form. I imagine a man there,
(26:00):
there are so many people who are listening right now,
and you're in we hear you, we know where you are.
You're in your dorm, right it's maybe freshman year of college.
It's probably around two three am you might be in
some Pringles right now. Tell us what you think, tell
us what your your pals think? Is this potato chip? Well,
(26:20):
it's like is craft are craft singles cheese? They are
crossed right, whateppens cheese product. I would argue that pringles
is a more upscale snack than than but you know what,
But then there there is a place for for craft singles.
They melt so scientifically perfectly on a burger or like
(26:42):
a breakfast sandwich, like an egg and cheese. Is really
nothing else like it, so that there is there's a
place for them. Again, I think Pringles is the superior chip.
Given given my druthers, I will buy Pringles every time.
Am I gonna get caught up in the semantics of
all this, like I don't know food? You know, lawyer,
it doesn't. It doesn't really fathered me when we are
the other. It's not even the same arguments a hot
(27:03):
dog of sandwich. I don't feel like this is the
same realm. It's not a philosophical argument to me, right right?
And do we need these labels in two? By the way, again,
if you want to be super fun at parties, folks, uh,
you can point out that the reason Kraft Cheese singles
melt so well is that they contain sodium citrate. That's
(27:25):
the secret sauce. Don't tell anyone except for the millions
of other people listening to this show. Maybe we should
get a secret handshake for ridiculous history. One hand we
can't shake, though, is Frederick Bowers. He has passed away.
You mean he was gonna have been canceled or something like.
We can no longer extend our hand and gratitude because
(27:48):
unfortunately it turns out secret Nazi, secret Nazi. That's what
pringles were all about. But he Uh, it's weird because
he uh, this is why we didn't spoil the excellent
article that Matt wrote earlier. Uh, Matt Blitzet is the
best name in food writing. Dr Bower. In his will,
(28:09):
let's be clear, he planned this, He thought about this.
He made a well informed, very weird choice for his funeral.
In his will he said, bury me in a human
sized pringle. Can you know it's it really is a
testament to how he viewed this part of his life,
(28:32):
like like this, this was his life's crowning achievement. Yeah,
that's how he wanted to be remembered. Literally he went
out like gee, he went out like a p Also,
in case you're wondering for anybody with a similar bent
toward morbidity in the macabre like me. Uh, he did
not ask for his remains to be mixed with potatoes, rice,
(28:55):
sweet and flower. He he just they just put the
human him, without potatoes, into a life size Pringle can
in two thousand. So he was not cremated like it
was his his like full body that had been like
um embalmed and stuff was shoved in this can. Ah,
that's an excellent point. Well he was. Let me be
(29:16):
clear there, let me clarify. He was cremated. His ashes
were putting a Pringles can, but they were not mixed
with um dehydrated potato, like you can't dig it up
and eat it as you would have Pringle's chip. It
would have been a real next level flex for him
to have had his ashes mixed into a special flavor
of Pringles power flavored Pringles. Um. Yeah, okay, we freach
(29:42):
some maximum morbidity here. I will say though this is
not unusual. Um. I was just in a situation where
I had occasion to speak to a mortician. Um, regarding
cremains and regarding what types of vessels are are able
to be used, assuming that there were all kinds of
like weird laws around it. Not the case. This person
(30:02):
informed me that they have they had seen cremains placed
in a Mr. Potato Head before. Yeah, surely at the
request of the deceased. I would imagine, you know, that's
the kind of thing you don't just kind of drum up. Hey,
you know what Dad would have liked. Let's put his
cremains in the old Mr. Potato head. Yeah. So. Uh.
(30:25):
Bower's son Larry has an interview with Time magazine about
this uh when when Bauer passes away in two thousand
and eight, he says, when my dad first raised the
burial idea in the nineteen eighties, I chuckled about it.
But they knew what they had to do. They had
to go to Walgreens. They didn't get a custom Pringles can.
(30:47):
They went to their local drug store, picked up some Pringles,
and they debated about which flavor to use. Ultimately, they
sided with tradition, and Larry Bowers said, look, we need
to use the original flavor. And that's why even today,
somewhere out there in Arlington Memorial Gardens in Cincinnati, Ohio.
(31:10):
There's a grave that contains a pringles can holding the
ashes of the man who invented the tube nuts, crisp potatoes, yeah, well, no, well,
and other things. We'll do that in a little bit too,
as the formula has changed. But you know that slurry
or or paste that we talked about, it was dehydrated
(31:31):
potatoes and like you know, corn wheat, you know, other
things went into uh rice exactly. And then again we're
gonna get into you know, and then the dust is
its own thing. The dust must flow. By the way,
what what's your favorite potato chip dust? I'm a big
sour cream and onion guy. Do you go off for
the hot chips the hot dust? You know? Not not
(31:53):
really a hot chip guy. I'm I'm hot enough on
my own, I would say. Uh. The thing that I
love out these conversations is that a lot of people
don't know this unrelated chip. In fact, derritos they don't
need that dust. Their marketing department decided that the orange
dust is part of the derrito's eating experience. So you
(32:17):
can eat you can eat dust less dorritos, or you
can do like our pal Dylan taught me Dylan Fagan. Yeah, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan. Yeah,
it's Dylan. Oh yeah, do you guess, So who's here?
Oh he's my friend. God, that's a fun Yeah, Dylan
(32:46):
ep good friend of ours. In the show, he eats
like hot Cheetos and Dorritos with chopsticks so he doesn't
get any dust on his fingers. That's kind of help
you if you are eating Cheetos or Dorritos and then
do a crime, you know, jeezus. Yeah, they'll leave like
a like a book, a trail, like a like a
snail trail of of of of of golden dust. Uh. Well,
(33:08):
it's not like golden. It's more kind of reddish brown. Yeah,
it's like an umber, I guess. But the like a
bright number. But I love that we're talking about this.
So chester Chester Cheetah obviously has gone down for a
lot of crimes that he didn't commit. The poor guy
gets stitched up, and that leads us to talking about
another mascot, the Pringles mascot, which reintroduced earlier in the show.
(33:32):
He has a bit of a mystery. His name, according
to some, is Julius Pringles or Mr P. But here's
why I'm saying this guy is a man of mystery.
I think there's more to the story about the alleged
name Julius. This guy might have a couple of pseudonyms.
(33:57):
He does. And by the way, he's also changed as
a parents a little bit over the years, like a
man with a secret. You may recall the classic UH
mr P design where his waxed mustache and crop of
hair were a little more realistic. You know, they had
like texture to them than the color, kind of a
brown or like an auburn kind of color, and this
(34:18):
little mop of hair on top, and his eyes had
these little shiny little whites in them, and he was
wearing a bow tie. Recently, I believe it was back
in September, mr P got his first big design update
UH in twenty years, and it's significant. Like many things
(34:39):
in design, this goes for more of a minimalist approach
these days. The mustache is now just pure black with
no textures um, the eyes no more little glinty whites,
and instead of a crop of hair, he has these
disembodied eyebrows that just sort of float above the head.
I mean, it's the kind of thing you could whip
up in in Adobe Illustrator in like seconds. But somebody
(35:01):
got paid a gazillion dollars for this, you know. That's
how these things work. And I'm not saying I could
have done it. That's like saying, oh, look at this Picasso,
I could know you couldn't. You couldn't have done that.
It's brilliant design work. But it is funny how how
simple it is when you really get down to it. Yeah,
and the issue, you know, this is happening with so
many food mascots these days, Like the Quaker oats guy
(35:23):
just keeps getting younger and younger by that that old
man I trusted to give me oats is now like
twenty five with a silver wig. It's a weird time.
It's a weird time to be a food mascot. Also, uh,
to peel the curtain, to pop the tube of Pringles conspiracies,
and once your poppy can't stop, here's another one. It
(35:45):
turns out the name Julius Pringles, even though Kellogg's claims
it's officially trademarked, it was made up by two college
students back in two thousand and in six. They called
him Julius Pringle's know you and I were talking about
this off air. They went on Wikipedia and they made it.
(36:07):
So our moral of the story is be careful what
you read on the Wiki. Always check the horses. To
your point, the company was taken in by this, you know,
I mean, no one is immune to the Wikipedia grift.
You know, however, well intentioned and and you know, you
know some of them armed with the right information, it's
very easy to just read something and be like that
(36:27):
seems right. Let's roll with that. Julius Pringle not a thing,
not a thing, not a thing. But you know, uh,
it's we are all the stories we tell ourselves, right,
So maybe Julius will one day make that canonical. Kellogg's
certainly has another person who has thought about Pringles at
(36:49):
least as much as us. Is a guy who might
recognize we're a big fan of him, Uh will pal
of ours? Mr John Oliver from The Daily Show, from
countless stand up appearances from Community from most recently last
week tonight. So John had this thing. John and his
writers had this thing kind of recently where they just said,
(37:14):
how come we never see the body of Mr p
How what is the Pringles the Pringle Man's body look like,
and John actually went on a huge rant about this
and listeners to last week Tonight responded and send them
all these pictures of what they thought the Pringles man
(37:36):
looked like below the neck. They're pretty fascinating. There's a
lot of inspiration from the natural world, like an octopus
or a hermit crab. And John was not having it. Man.
John demanded that he get an answer, and he put
his money where his mouth is. He said he would
give ten thousand dollars to a nonprofit called Feeding America
(37:58):
if Pringles showed a full body Mr P slash Julius
Pringles on air um and they did you wanna you
want to describe it? You you you you you deserve this, buddy.
Well before we do that, though, did you ever have
any inklear Again, I think I've made my my position clear.
(38:21):
I believe that Julius Pringle or Mr P is in
fact a Pringle himself. He has this preparabolic shaped head.
He appears at the top of the can, so I
would presume that his body is a can. Yeah, you know,
I think that's I think that's a very reasonable assumption.
If you look at the various pitches they're they're pretty neat. Uh,
(38:45):
Pringles themselves went kind of safe with it. I'll go
ahead and just send you guys a picture in the
chat so you can see it. I'm a little I
don't know, I understand why they did it, but uh,
they made him just a dude. He's got a red suit,
white T shirt, kind of supreme style, that says Pringles.
(39:08):
He's got white gloves, regular legs, regular arms. I was
hoping that he would be kind of like a a mech,
like a battle mech made out of Pringle tubes. That
would have been cool um or you know, a segmented
serpent made out of Pringles. Anyway, they didn't write back
to me, but Pringles, if you're listening, these ideas are
(39:31):
for you. What a fascinating thing. Man. We we took
a ride here and we're not, you know, like there's
still more stuff to talk about. But I think all
three of us are really surprised by some of the
mystery surrounding Pringles. And I'll tell you what, honestly, between us, folks,
(39:56):
I'm hungry. I I bought some snackpack Pringles for this one.
You know, they're the little packs, They're not like a
full tube they got like eight soda can Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I got some of those. I'm gonna I'm gonna
crack them open and celebrate, um because it's five five
o'clock somewhere. Does that land Does that work Pringles? Yes? So,
(40:17):
I mean it is possible to get drunk on that
dust man. That that's stuff corrupt you. You can go
straight to you. Like I said, it is, it is
a it is. It is challenging you to not become
an addict of their product. Where you pop, you can't stop.
You're never by the way, that you're never gonna get
as satisfying a pop as when you actually pop not
only the little plastic lid, but the vacuum sealed little
(40:41):
pull tab. You know, that's when you get the real
It's like an air lock. I mean it literally is
like an air lock. It But at this point, you know,
there's more stuff we want to get to. We know
we're we're going a little we're going a little long,
but we've just opened the door on Pringle's lore for
you fell over to iculous historians. Uh, maybe we can
(41:02):
close out by naming some of the weird flavors of
Pringles past, But before we do that. I think the uh,
I think the most important part of today's episode is
just to say welcome back. Man. Uh, this is such
a fun ride. Pringles is awesome. We're gonna record some
more in the future, but it's it's it's really good
(41:23):
to have here. Yeah. Thanks, And just you know, just
a quick heads up. I had mentioned my my my
encounter with a mortician earlier and finding out some of
the odd things that one can place cremains in, and
that was because I was unfortunately a very similar situation
that you were in not to really long ago. Man,
that's kind of crazy. Um, very unexpectedly lost my mother
(41:43):
and UM, I was dealing with all of that stuff,
and and it's just kind of been a lot and
thankfully so many wonderful listeners have reached out, and you know,
I did share this online and um just said such
kind things in terms of like, oh, you're listening to
your podcast helps me when I lost a loved one,
or just you know, just sending kind words. And uh,
it's just nice to know that that that what we
(42:04):
do here means something to you, and and these things
that you sent back to us means something to us. Uh. No,
question about it. So I felt really supported. And obviously
you and super producer Max and everyone on stuff that
I wants you to know have been incredibly kind and
um and supportive while it's been out, And um, just
if you can't tell, I'm excited to be back because
this is this work and doing these these these episodes
(42:26):
and hanging with you guys and talking about nerdy stuff
really is uh a pretty great way of spending my time.
And UM, I'm very lucky that it's something that I
actually get, we get paid for it, so nobody get
paid nobody, Yeah, nobody right to yes man, Um, yeah,
And you and I are gonna be on the road
(42:47):
uh later actually in a few hours technically, Uh, we're
gonna be We're gonna be heading out to uh Texas.
We're gonna be hanging in person Max. Out of respect
for you, We're not going to get in a hot
tub together, which is another episode. No no, no no,
I would argue that we we need to get into
(43:08):
a hot tub justus, you and I Ben, So finally
there can we can get rid of this whole you know,
this divide of who's been in hot tubs together and
who hasn't no, no offense, man. But I think I
think I think the problem Ben has that I haven't
been in a hot tub with him. I know that
just feeling I'm getting because you know, you and I
have been multiple times, but remember multiple times, and we've
(43:29):
had Frank there before also and stuff. Yeah we've touched feet,
you know. Yeah, this is it was like it was
like hours upon hours been by the way. Okay, okay, okay,
you're okay, let's let's dial it back. One peg. Shout
(43:50):
out to everybody who got that vote. Get reference with bocanism.
Um I jeez, uh we promised you know what we
did do we are going to be on the road. Uh.
We're friends and family here and if you're listening, we
consider you family too, So thank you for being part
of the show. Uh. Zack went above and beyond and
(44:10):
found some absolutely ridiculous true pringles flavors. I gotta tell you,
I'm familiar with a lot of these, nule but prosecco
and pink peppercorn. We have to mention. We have to
mention this because yeah, that we're gonna get into the
whole weird flavorless because there's there's a bunch of them,
(44:33):
much like if you go to Asian markets you can
find really interesting oddball flavors of Lais like you know,
crab and and things like that, and also much more
off the beaten path flavors of kit cats. But these
were like sort of goofs, I guess you could you
are you are? Like regional kind of peculiarities that that
the Pringles did, but the prosecco one actually got them
(44:55):
in trouble. There's an organization in France called the AOC,
not to be confused with Alejandro or Tasio cortez um.
This is a French um I guess government body to
the appal Lean de Gene control the AOC, which is
(45:17):
a a division that determines the provenance of particular wines
um that that are that are you know, from grapes
growing in a particular region, and it basically enforces what
labels you can put on them. So that's why you
know Champagne if you remember the amazing speech from Benjamin
(45:38):
played by Rob Low in Wayne's World, Actually, if it's
not from the Champagne region of France, it's called sparkling wine. Uh. Actually,
if you did not know, So that's the thing Prosecco
also refers to one of these designations, and the fact
that Pringles called a junk food chip prosecco, that was
(45:59):
a real problem for for this organization. If I'm not mistaken,
they came down on them pretty hard. Yeah. Yeah, you
don't mess around with the prosecco. Uh. And also I
love what you're saying about these regional flavors. I was.
I was recently abroad for some stuff in a couple
of different countries, and one thing I found is, uh,
(46:20):
paprika as a flavor is super popular. There are parts
of Europe where paprika is in like everything. Imagine your
favorite food, now add paprika on top of that bad boy.
In Germany, it's by far the just most traditional standard chip.
It's just paprico flavorite chips. It's probably what you would
maybe compared to barbecue. But you know, there's a similar
(46:42):
and there's similarity to those players. By the way, I
just have to correct myself. Prosecco is Italian and the
AOC that is a specifically French organization that governs you know,
French wines. This there there's a similar you know analog
in Italy and um The region that prosecco comes from
is called Venito, and there was an investigation by this
body and they determined that this was like way out
(47:04):
of off base for Pringles to do, and they apparently
seized hundreds of cans from supermarkets in that region. Oh
my gosh, this if podcasting doesn't work out, let's start
like moving off the books Pringles flavors. I tell you
there would be a huge market in the United States.
We would be like those guys who figured out how
to get kinder eggs into the States, Remember those how
(47:28):
you can't like have kindred anyway, I'm fueled by coffee.
I'm jet lagged. Attack Sorry guys, Well that's that's and yeah,
I'm glad to have you back as well. Ben. By
the way, um, no spoilers, I'll leave it to you
to discuss your secret travels. But yeah, jet lag. Indeed, honestly,
sometimes being punchy or sleep deprived or jet lag makes
(47:49):
for fun podcasting. So, as you mentioned, Ben, these a
lot of these were specialty, kind of limited you know, uh,
flavors that were really more for like a kind of
a pr move or like you know, sort of like
a promotional kind of like thing um to create buzz
around these goofy flavors. So let's name a few others
(48:11):
that are super weird. There's a ton this like like
a big old list of these. Um kicking off some
of these. Yeah, sweet mayo, wait for it, cheese, I'm sorry, finally,
said one person at Bringles Corporate. Uh there's also Yeah,
there's also uh, this one's interesting to me, lemon and sesame.
(48:35):
I think that's very artistic combination, it really is. That
is very delicate sounding. And again some of these probably
are in Asian market as well, things like soft shell
crab for example. Then you have yeah, and you've got
some of these sweet ones like pumpkin pie. I remember
punkin pieprinkles being on the shelves here in America. It
was a Chris it was a Halloween fall type promotion.
(48:58):
And it's the kind of thing that it may sense
where they do these sort of like hot take kind
of like weird out their flavors because people are gonna
post about them, people are gonna do TikTok videos or
they like try one and make a face even if
it's gross. That's kind of the point some of the time,
and flavor science. I think we're both fascinated by We've
got Grand Canyon French fries. Is that like rocky Mountain oysters?
(49:20):
What are do it? It might be parts of a
donkey or something. I mean, Zach points out that's oddly specific.
Oh yeah, and Max, Max is just yelling no, yeah, yeah,
I think the Grand Canyon French fries the is the
penis in thet It's too late, Max, We've spoken into existence. Uh.
(49:43):
There's also spaghetti. French consume eggs sandwich is probably my
least favorite of these. Weird how would you even do that?
I mean, you know again, flavor science is interesting too,
because it's it requires so much approximation, Like we have
not reached Willy Wonka levels of like oh that's it's
exactly like like piece soup or whatever. You know, it's
always some weird kind of trick of the mind, you
(50:06):
know what I mean, Like that makes you sort of
it's sort of like it's like you waived a Christmas
turkey over this chip and then that's what you know?
And what do they say about the flavors of Lacroix.
It's like somebody whispered the name of a flirt in
the next room. You know, balsamic vinegar, uh, seeweed, top
(50:27):
Ramen chicken. You know what's funny about that, Ben, what
is ramen? The pre package Ramen. It's just all about
flavor powder. So it'll be really easy to make an
exact top Ramen chicken chip because us the same the
same dust. You're on just something. No, this is a
great idea. You're on just something here, and I think
we should pursue it. But uh, for legal reasons, we
(50:49):
might pursue this off air and come back to you
once we've Once we've talked with wonderful folks at Ramen.
Why haven't we done an instant noodles episode? I did
a stuff of genius about the creation of instant noodles
and he's awesome. We should totally do that. Yes, that's
a great idea. No, absolutely is a thing even down
to like I remember kids in in in uh high
(51:10):
in high school or in middle school would bring just
the ramen to school and just crushed, like eat the brick, eat,
eat the eat the brick of noodles and like you know,
dip it in the in the dust. We've got just
a few more of these. We have to while the
the credits are rolling. Now we use some French I
could be interesting. You know you have you ever had
those bullion cubes? You know that you can make like
(51:32):
broth similar flavor science principle, you know, meat flavored dust. Yeah, yeah,
we are. Some of those sweet ones, aren't Maybe for
me blueberry and hazel nuts. You might have to be
at the right cafe in Amsterdam for that. That's a
joke for the adults. Um, we talked about Grand Canyon
French fries. Yeah, okay, yeah, we really yes, that know
(51:55):
the entire time it well, it's all right, Max, We
respect your boundaries. So you can have a packet of
brushetta or tube brushetta Pringles what what a Spanish saltsa pizza?
If you don't even know what that is? If you
have to ask, No, I'm just kidding, honestly. The one
I'm most interested about is the butter popcorn because if
(52:16):
you guys remember this, butter popcorn jelly bean is considered
the most offensive one ever chemically. I like that. I
like it. Well, we're gonna have to We're gonna have
to get Pringles on board. I bet you there is
a museum or there is a room at Pringles Corporate
(52:39):
wherever that is where they have like Indiana Jones style
top men looking at these crates and crates of Pringles.
We need to get in the Pringles Lab. Nol gotta
go there. I'm speaking. I'm putting it on the vision board, man,
that we've been working on ever since this show started,
Pringles Food Lab. So while we are working on our
(53:01):
vision board, we want to put we want to slap
a couple more things on that. And uh, the things
we're slapping on the vision board today, as always, are
our thank you's. Thanks to super producer Max Williams. Thanks
to Alex Williams, Thanks to Casey Pegram, Thanks to our
fellow ridiculous historians. No extra big prosecco and pink peppercorn
(53:23):
flavored thanks to you, my friend. Oh man, Yeah, that
sounds delightful. What is the prosecco would probably just give
it a little a little sweet, kind of like pop,
and then the peppercorn would be kind of a spicy things.
When I were about funky mustard, why has it gotta
be funky? But I don't like what did the bool
called things funky? That's good music? Should music should be funky.
(53:46):
I don't think flavored. When people say like, oh this this,
this beer is funky, they're like, you know, I don't.
I don't like that, Like it's gone back. Like flavors
that have that trigger sentence asia, you know, like the
like a lot of soft drinks or sports drinks are
really good at that. Like what flavor is the blue Gatorade?
(54:09):
What's going on? The pool cleaner? Not a fan I see,
but no, I love it. It just looks like I
will always think that when I see it. It doesn't Yeah,
you've never tasted toilet pool cleaner, but uh, there's something
about that that that that neon bright blue. This makes
me think of the stuff that Sarah Connor is going
to shoot into that psych Ward Doctors. Yeah, let's also think, uh,
(54:36):
the Sarah Connor of our show, Christopher hasciotis. I don't know,
that's just like it. I don't know if that reference
speaks sense. It's a test to see if Chris is
tuning in. Who else should we think, Oh gosh, he's
Jeff Cote, Christopher Hastiotes, both here in spirit and you know,
corporeally somewhere doing things. Jonathan Strickland. I really am sad
(54:56):
that I did not get to witness his, you know,
real life transformation from a bild mannered podcaster to a
diabolical quiz fiend. So but you know what, maybe that
was better that way. Maybe maybe it would have changed
me in ways that I wasn't prepared for him. Something
tells me we'll run into that guy again. Well, in
(55:18):
the meantime, we'll see you next time. Books. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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