November 8, 2024 • 20 mins
Hello, Puzzlers! Please enjoy the latest edition of Friday Farrago with A.J. and Greg!
Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask Chat GPT” and audio rebuses.
Subscribe to The Puzzler podcast wherever you get your podcasts!
"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas.
Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.
The show is produced by Jody Avirgan and Brittani Brown of Roulette Productions.
Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, Buzzlers, and welcome to the Buzzler Podcast the Liquefy
setting on your puzzle Blender. I'm your host, AJ Jacobs,
and I'm here as always with Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Plisco.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome Greg, Thank you, Aj.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Can I tell a quick blender story everyone loves.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
I once wrote a piece of music scored for singers and.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Kitchen utensils brilliance, And the takeaway from that is that
if the blender is one of the instruments, it doesn't
matter what setting you put it on. It's louder than everything. Okay,
it's just important rule.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
If lyriify great, you know, frves, whatever the settings are,
it's just loud.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
So you gotta like put it in another room.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
If this is exactly all right?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Exactly that is again as you can use right exactly
all those scoring musicals with kitchen utensils.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
With kitchen appliances.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yes, well today Greg, as you probably know, it's the
fifth day of the puzzle week, which means it's Friday
for Rago, your weekly mishmash of puzzle goodness.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yes, it's like where we take all the puzzles and
we throw them in the blender and we are liquified,
and here we.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Are beautiful, good, excellent, bringing it together. Let's start with
segment one seems like an appropriate segment to start with,
and today we're going to start with listener mail and
the puzzles they inspire so good. Andrea Schomberg is our
chief email opener. Andrea, what do you have for us today?
Speaker 5 (01:52):
Well, on a recent episode, we had a puzzle where
you had to find a link between three things, and
one of the clues was nuggets, omelet, and boot, and
the link was that these are all words that come
after Denver, Denver, nuggets, Denver omelet, and Denver boot. So
you and Greg wondered aloud about why the Denver boot
(02:14):
is called the Denver boot, right, and.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
The Denver boot being that clamp you put on your
car's wheel when you don't pay your parking tickets.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Well, you don't put it on, They put it on.
Oh yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
The parking ticket people come and right boot your car
so you can't drive it.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Good point.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, you got to pay to get it off.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
I mean maybe you put it on yourself if you
have some sort of you know, that's what you like.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
But well punish yourself, right, Oh, I didn't pay my
speeding tickets putting the boot on.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
All right, So that is the Denver boot. And this email,
what did it say?
Speaker 5 (02:49):
Well, we had a listener email us. This is from
Sam Eagle who looked it up for us and wrote
that the device was invented in nineteen forty by Frank
morug who was a violinist with the Denver the Denver Symphony,
and was first used by the Denver Police in nineteen
fifty five. So that is why it's called the Denver boot.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So there you go.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Thanky lean times, lean times with the Denver Symphony and
players needed extra work, so Frank said, screws violin stuff.
I'm going to invent car punishment tools.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
That's and weirdly, hey, what about this? The guy who
invented the crossword was also in a symphony. I think that. Yeah,
I think he was a violinist. He was with a
violinist with somewhere in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Arthur Wynn of Yea or the Winn of the New
York Sun. Right, that's interesting. That's a violinist. All right.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
All right, Well this inspired a puzzle because I will
take let me take you on a little mental journey,
so you can join me in the ride of how
I arrived at this puzzle? Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So the Denver boot made me think so of things
named after Denver, John Denver. So I went and looked
up John Denver. Turns out his birth name was Henry
John Deutschendorf Junior. You knew that, you think, I remember?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
That's familiar now you say it.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
If you had done the other way, said who was
Henry Deutschendorf, Henry John Deutschendorf, I might have said it
was John Denver.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I had no idea.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
I thought his birth name was John.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Denver me too. There you go already, I'm learning he
chose to change it to John Denver. And for those
who don't remember, John Denver a great singer, he starred
in the movie O God, O God Part two as well.
Wikipedia describes him that says John Denver sang about his
(04:54):
joy in nature and disdain for city life. So my
next thought is why did he name himself after a
city that he so disdains? If he doesn't like, if
he did like cities, name himself after something more bucolic.
So should he not be John Aspen? He should be
(05:16):
something a little.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
More right, right, John Vale exactly, John Beaver Creek, John exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
That would be good. All right, Well that's appropriate because
this is a state and city themed puzzle.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So I'm thinking John Denver should be John Aspen. I'm
thinking what other people are named for cities? And I thought, well,
what if Whitney Houston, We're called Whitney fort.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Worth, right, Texas.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So that led to a puzzle called city Switchers. And
these are all people whose last names are US cities.
But I've changed the city to another city in the
same state, like Whitney Houston. I'm like Whitney Fort Worth
for Whitney Houston, and you have to guess the real one.
Are you ready?
Speaker 6 (06:10):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Got it? Okay? Yes?
Speaker 1 (06:12):
What if a certain actor changed his name to Joaquin Scottsdale.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
I want to know if he changed his name in
the first place, that's Joaquin Phoenix.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Of course, there you go, different city in Arizona.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
What about Johnny Chattanooga?
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Uh, what's not Johnny Depp? It's Shaannie, It's not Johnny Memphis,
Johnny Knoxville. I know it was the guy from the
what is that shows? From Jackass? I wanted to say
the jerk. He's like, not, it's not the jerk. It's
a different thing with the jackass, right right, Johnny Knoxville, okay, good.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
What about Samuel Oxford Samuel Oxford.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Oh, great actor played Nick Fury.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Samuel L. Jackson Exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I was gonna say, Samuel L. Oxford. I thought I'd
make it. Yeah, you're the puny puzzle. What about this one?
It's a little reaching bank is Rick Peoria, Rick Peoria?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Rick Peoria.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Is in which state?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Which is in Iowa? Right? No? Peoria Peoria is in Illinois.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Sorry, exactly, Rick Springfield, Rex Springfield.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Es ser Jesse's girl, and Ricky said Jack and Diane
is that Rick? No, that's no, that's that's a different guy.
That's John Cougar Mellencamp.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I think that might have been John Cougar and then
without the Mellencamp.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Right, so confusing.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
By the way I looked it up, there are at
least thirty five Springfields in the US, so it's not
just Illinois, but this one, the famous one, is in Illinois.
All right now, I'm gonna do switch it up a
little for you, okay. And these are all celebrities whose
first names are cities. Okay, so I'm gonna do the
first name. I'm gonna switch it up to a different
(08:10):
city in the same state, and you have to tell
me who the real person is. What if I told
you Miami Bloom. Who is Miami Bloom?
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Miami Bloom is Orlando Bloom, Alando Bloom, Leopold Bloom. No,
it's got to be a city in Florida, Orlando Bloom.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
There it is the actor Orlando Bloom in Florida. How
about Norfolk Ocazio Cortes.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Norfolk or Cazio Cortes.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Well, that's, of course the great New York representative Alexandra
Ocazio Cortes, And it's Norfolk, Virginia and Alexandria Virginia. Alexandria
Cazio Cortez right right there, are got it?
Speaker 6 (08:59):
Got it?
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Yeah, they're not a huge number of Occasio Corteses who
are well.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Or a huge number of Alexandria's.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Really there you go? Yeah, that was hard. All right,
I'll give you a few more. What about Lubbock Butler,
Lubbock Butler.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Lubbock is in Texas, Lubbock Butler and Tyler Butler, No,
Austin Butler.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Austin Butler, Elvis.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Very good, very good.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
I was on tour of the show that played every
small town in Texas. So you take Texas and I
think Nagadoches, Tyler, Waco, Orange.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I'm like, I forget all the big cities. I think Christy, Galveston.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Choosing between all of those a lot of ye, I
thought of interesting. All right, let me give you a
couple of Butler. Yes, how about a Bloomington Bucy.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Oh, very good, Bloomington, Indiana.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
That would be Gary Busey, Gary buse Gary.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I only know Gary, Indiana because I just watched the
Oklahoma No music Man, music.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Man, music Man, Right, Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Gary Indiana. Butever yep? Good?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
All right, Well I'll give i'll Land with a couple
of more challenging ones. Perhaps how about Oakland breathed. Oakland breathed.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Oh, very interesting.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Oakland breathed is the right next to Oakland is the
town called Berkeley. Berkeley breathod the artist of bloom County
County breathed.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Uh and yeah, I guess they're not a huge number
of Breathods. But no Land with another one? Omaha, Stephens,
Omaha Stephens, Oh Braska, Yeah, exactly, Lincoln Stephens, Lincoln Stephens, exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
It was Lincoln Stephens.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
I ask you, Oh, I found a person that you
don't know. There's a bit super exciting. This is like
this is a red letter.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
There are more people I don't know than I do know.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
He was a muckbreaker, a nineteenth century mucker. I believe.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Cool. What other Nebraska city could also be a first name?
That just seemed the immediate one to choose.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Right, that's the capital. And I was surprised there. I
couldn't find a lot of famous Lincoln's. I think it's
a great name. So and he was a great man.
So there you go. All right, well, there you go.
That's city switchers. So thank you to the Denver boot
and thank you to people who name their kids after cities.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
And thank you again to Sam Yeagle or Yagle, who
I appreciate them for sending that.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
In absolutely all right, I think we're right for segment two,
which is bonus clues from this week's puddles, clues that
were too hot to handle or just once we didn't
get to. And this week we had the great comedian
(12:13):
John Fugelsang and Greg, you gave him a puzzle all
the wrong seasons, so tell remind me of that.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
So we did this game with John that was all
about spices and seasonings, and we took names of shows
like Russian Doll and changed one of them to a
spice who became Russian Dill, right, or the Oregon Trail
became the Oregano Trail. But when I was when we
were first working on this, I actually thought I was
(12:46):
going to just use movies or books whose titles had
spices in them and clue them in a different way.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
And the first example.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
I came up with was the nineteen sixties horror film
in which Mia Farrow plays a spice gardener whose child
is the devil's spawn, right, which is of course Rosemary's
baby because she, in fact she was not a spice gardener.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
But that's the fun spicy twist. The spicy twist in
that clue is is that.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
But the challenge of making that puzzle that way is
that that's pretty much it for well known things where
someone's name is the same as you know, a spice.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Now I did, there are some homophone options.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
So the second one I came up was with was
this based a lot based upon Madeline Langle's novel This
Ava di Verne film follows a young girl as she
journeys across a field of spice to save her father
from an evil force, and that, of course is a
wrinkle in time. Time a lot of t I m
(13:56):
but even that line of puzzle creation, which was homophone
for spices and herbs, was kind of a dead end
after time. Of course, there's not that many left there.
Suppose there's basil, dazzle basil you could.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Do something with, but you know what the famous movie
has dazzle in the title. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
So that a little behind the scenes in the puzzle lab,
we have these sort of experiments that went wrong, and
those are that was the beginning of the experiment that
went wrong, and then it went right and we had
a great time with John doing the other version.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I love that that isn't because yeah, sometimes or not
sometimes a lot of times you'll start a puzzle and
you have this great concept and then you're like, oh,
there is only one movie with herb or spice in
the title, And you know, why aren't there more movies
named after exactly what is wrong with Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
There's probably ready.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
There is a movie called by the way, see see, yeah,
it's a very it's the Toshi Uh what's his name
to she Cohen?
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Anyway, cool, all right, and see and yeah, I'm sure
if we dug deep we could find a movie with
Ginger in it and so on.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Oh yeah, that's right, Ginger snaps.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
Sorry, now I'm thinking.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Of seeing there, you know, the further peaper we go,
the less sort.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Of crowd friendly something, because.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Exactly except for our anime fans like Andrea. All right,
well that was I enjoyed that. And by the way,
can I tell a very quick I didn't have chance
to tell John the story when he was on, but
now I'll just relay it quickly. I'd have known John
for many, many years, like more than twenty five years,
(15:46):
because we met in an odd way. I was working
in Entertainment Weekly and I was a reporter and Columbia
Pictures announced that they were making a movie called Strip Tease.
Do you remember that one?
Speaker 3 (15:59):
With me?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
More? Maybe not? It got like seventeen percent on Rotten Tomatoes,
so not very many.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I assume she played a stripper.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I believe she might have been like an undercover cop
as a stripper.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
I had to become a stripper.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
That sounds like anything we would have been seeing in
the movies back then.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah right, it.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Was something like that. It was crime and stripping and
that was so. Anyway, the studio announced they were holding
open auditions like cattle Call for the role of the
strip club bouncer. So my editors at Entertainment Weekly magazine
thought it'd be funny to send me to the audition,
very good to and then I'd write an article about
(16:40):
And the joke, of course, is if you can't see
I'm not exactly bouncer material, you know, I'm I'm slender
is a polite word for it.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
You're also a nice guy like you. I can't.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I don't see you outside a bar, like outside a
strip club, like beating people up or threatening them.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I get kinds before you go in.
Speaker 7 (17:01):
Let me.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
I've got this great story.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Right, Well, let me tell you a puzzle. I could
only let you in. I'll only let you in if
you get your bubble YEA there you go. That would
be now I would I take that job. So anyway,
I go there and they are all these guys who
don't look like me. They look like refrigerators. There is
one other guy who doesn't look like that, and that
(17:24):
is John fugel Sang who was working at VH one
if you remember that channel, of course, and they had
sent him to interview these wanna be bouncers. And so
he comes up to me with a microphone and he's like,
excuse me, sir, what's going on here? And I'm undercover,
(17:45):
pretending to be a wanta be actor and he's interviewing me,
and I you know, what I wanted to say was
I'm one of you, the same thing you are. Yeah,
but I had to pretend to be this deluded guy
who wanted to be a bouncer anymore movie. And that
is how I first met John Fugelsan. So there you
have it. Thank you, John. Well, that's it. That was
(18:07):
Friday Farrago. Hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for listening.
Go check us out on Instagram at Hello Puzzler, where
we post new puzzles all the time, and we'll meet
you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle
you puzzlingly.
Speaker 7 (18:28):
Hey puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska.
Speaker 6 (18:30):
You're Chief Puzzle officer, and I've got some extra credit
answers from our previous episode, AJ and I played a
game we called Hippo Hip, where every answer was a
part of the human body and the name of an
animal that starts with that body part.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
His clue for the extra credit.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Was the colored part of the eye on a red
coated dog. That, of course is the Irish setter Iris.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
It's a tricky one. It's two words for the animal.
It's got a slightly different pronunciation, but you figured it out,
I'm sure, and.
Speaker 6 (19:04):
You'll be back tomorrow to figure out more of our
puzzling puzzle.
Speaker 7 (19:12):
Thanks for playing along with the team here at The
Puzzler with Aj Jacobs. I'm Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer.
Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and Adam Neuhouse of
New House Ideas and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts. The
show is produced by Jody Averrigan and Brittany Brown of
Roulette Productions, with production support from Claire Bidegar Curtis. Our
(19:34):
associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
The Puzzler with Aj Jacobs is a co production with
New House Ideas and is distributed by Sad Strophick t huh,
just kidding, rearrange the letters. It's distributed by iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 7 (19:53):
If you want to know more about puzzling puzzles, please
check out the book The Puzzler by AJ Jacobs, a
history of puzzles that The New York Times called fun
and funny. It features an original puzzle hunt by yours truly,
and is available wherever you get your books and puzzlers.
For all your puzzling needs, go visit the puzzler dot com.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
See you there,
Hello, Buzzlers, and welcome to the Buzzler Podcast the Liquefy
setting on your puzzle Blender. I'm your host, AJ Jacobs,
and I'm here as always with Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Plisco.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome Greg, Thank you, Aj.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Can I tell a quick blender story everyone loves.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
I once wrote a piece of music scored for singers and.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Kitchen utensils brilliance, And the takeaway from that is that
if the blender is one of the instruments, it doesn't
matter what setting you put it on. It's louder than everything. Okay,
it's just important rule.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
If lyriify great, you know, frves, whatever the settings are,
it's just loud.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
So you gotta like put it in another room.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
If this is exactly all right?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Exactly that is again as you can use right exactly
all those scoring musicals with kitchen utensils.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
With kitchen appliances.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yes, well today Greg, as you probably know, it's the
fifth day of the puzzle week, which means it's Friday
for Rago, your weekly mishmash of puzzle goodness.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yes, it's like where we take all the puzzles and
we throw them in the blender and we are liquified,
and here we.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Are beautiful, good, excellent, bringing it together. Let's start with
segment one seems like an appropriate segment to start with,
and today we're going to start with listener mail and
the puzzles they inspire so good. Andrea Schomberg is our
chief email opener. Andrea, what do you have for us today?
Speaker 5 (01:52):
Well, on a recent episode, we had a puzzle where
you had to find a link between three things, and
one of the clues was nuggets, omelet, and boot, and
the link was that these are all words that come
after Denver, Denver, nuggets, Denver omelet, and Denver boot. So
you and Greg wondered aloud about why the Denver boot
(02:14):
is called the Denver boot, right, and.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
The Denver boot being that clamp you put on your
car's wheel when you don't pay your parking tickets.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Well, you don't put it on, They put it on.
Oh yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
The parking ticket people come and right boot your car
so you can't drive it.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Good point.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, you got to pay to get it off.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
I mean maybe you put it on yourself if you
have some sort of you know, that's what you like.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
But well punish yourself, right, Oh, I didn't pay my
speeding tickets putting the boot on.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
All right, So that is the Denver boot. And this email,
what did it say?
Speaker 5 (02:49):
Well, we had a listener email us. This is from
Sam Eagle who looked it up for us and wrote
that the device was invented in nineteen forty by Frank
morug who was a violinist with the Denver the Denver Symphony,
and was first used by the Denver Police in nineteen
fifty five. So that is why it's called the Denver boot.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So there you go.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Thanky lean times, lean times with the Denver Symphony and
players needed extra work, so Frank said, screws violin stuff.
I'm going to invent car punishment tools.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
That's and weirdly, hey, what about this? The guy who
invented the crossword was also in a symphony. I think that. Yeah,
I think he was a violinist. He was with a
violinist with somewhere in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Arthur Wynn of Yea or the Winn of the New
York Sun. Right, that's interesting. That's a violinist. All right.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
All right, Well this inspired a puzzle because I will
take let me take you on a little mental journey,
so you can join me in the ride of how
I arrived at this puzzle? Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So the Denver boot made me think so of things
named after Denver, John Denver. So I went and looked
up John Denver. Turns out his birth name was Henry
John Deutschendorf Junior. You knew that, you think, I remember?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
That's familiar now you say it.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
If you had done the other way, said who was
Henry Deutschendorf, Henry John Deutschendorf, I might have said it
was John Denver.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I had no idea.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
I thought his birth name was John.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Denver me too. There you go already, I'm learning he
chose to change it to John Denver. And for those
who don't remember, John Denver a great singer, he starred
in the movie O God, O God Part two as well.
Wikipedia describes him that says John Denver sang about his
(04:54):
joy in nature and disdain for city life. So my
next thought is why did he name himself after a
city that he so disdains? If he doesn't like, if
he did like cities, name himself after something more bucolic.
So should he not be John Aspen? He should be
(05:16):
something a little.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
More right, right, John Vale exactly, John Beaver Creek, John exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
That would be good. All right, Well that's appropriate because
this is a state and city themed puzzle.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So I'm thinking John Denver should be John Aspen. I'm
thinking what other people are named for cities? And I thought, well,
what if Whitney Houston, We're called Whitney fort.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Worth, right, Texas.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So that led to a puzzle called city Switchers. And
these are all people whose last names are US cities.
But I've changed the city to another city in the
same state, like Whitney Houston. I'm like Whitney Fort Worth
for Whitney Houston, and you have to guess the real one.
Are you ready?
Speaker 6 (06:10):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Got it? Okay? Yes?
Speaker 1 (06:12):
What if a certain actor changed his name to Joaquin Scottsdale.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
I want to know if he changed his name in
the first place, that's Joaquin Phoenix.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Of course, there you go, different city in Arizona.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
What about Johnny Chattanooga?
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Uh, what's not Johnny Depp? It's Shaannie, It's not Johnny Memphis,
Johnny Knoxville. I know it was the guy from the
what is that shows? From Jackass? I wanted to say
the jerk. He's like, not, it's not the jerk. It's
a different thing with the jackass, right right, Johnny Knoxville, okay, good.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
What about Samuel Oxford Samuel Oxford.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Oh, great actor played Nick Fury.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Samuel L. Jackson Exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I was gonna say, Samuel L. Oxford. I thought I'd
make it. Yeah, you're the puny puzzle. What about this one?
It's a little reaching bank is Rick Peoria, Rick Peoria?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Rick Peoria.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Is in which state?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Which is in Iowa? Right? No? Peoria Peoria is in Illinois.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Sorry, exactly, Rick Springfield, Rex Springfield.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Es ser Jesse's girl, and Ricky said Jack and Diane
is that Rick? No, that's no, that's that's a different guy.
That's John Cougar Mellencamp.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I think that might have been John Cougar and then
without the Mellencamp.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Right, so confusing.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
By the way I looked it up, there are at
least thirty five Springfields in the US, so it's not
just Illinois, but this one, the famous one, is in Illinois.
All right now, I'm gonna do switch it up a
little for you, okay. And these are all celebrities whose
first names are cities. Okay, so I'm gonna do the
first name. I'm gonna switch it up to a different
(08:10):
city in the same state, and you have to tell
me who the real person is. What if I told
you Miami Bloom. Who is Miami Bloom?
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Miami Bloom is Orlando Bloom, Alando Bloom, Leopold Bloom. No,
it's got to be a city in Florida, Orlando Bloom.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
There it is the actor Orlando Bloom in Florida. How
about Norfolk Ocazio Cortes.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Norfolk or Cazio Cortes.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Well, that's, of course the great New York representative Alexandra
Ocazio Cortes, And it's Norfolk, Virginia and Alexandria Virginia. Alexandria
Cazio Cortez right right there, are got it?
Speaker 6 (08:59):
Got it?
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Yeah, they're not a huge number of Occasio Corteses who
are well.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Or a huge number of Alexandria's.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Really there you go? Yeah, that was hard. All right,
I'll give you a few more. What about Lubbock Butler,
Lubbock Butler.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Lubbock is in Texas, Lubbock Butler and Tyler Butler, No,
Austin Butler.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Austin Butler, Elvis.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Very good, very good.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
I was on tour of the show that played every
small town in Texas. So you take Texas and I
think Nagadoches, Tyler, Waco, Orange.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I'm like, I forget all the big cities. I think Christy, Galveston.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Choosing between all of those a lot of ye, I
thought of interesting. All right, let me give you a
couple of Butler. Yes, how about a Bloomington Bucy.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Oh, very good, Bloomington, Indiana.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
That would be Gary Busey, Gary buse Gary.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I only know Gary, Indiana because I just watched the
Oklahoma No music Man, music.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Man, music Man, Right, Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Gary Indiana. Butever yep? Good?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
All right, Well I'll give i'll Land with a couple
of more challenging ones. Perhaps how about Oakland breathed. Oakland breathed.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Oh, very interesting.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Oakland breathed is the right next to Oakland is the
town called Berkeley. Berkeley breathod the artist of bloom County
County breathed.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Uh and yeah, I guess they're not a huge number
of Breathods. But no Land with another one? Omaha, Stephens,
Omaha Stephens, Oh Braska, Yeah, exactly, Lincoln Stephens, Lincoln Stephens, exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
It was Lincoln Stephens.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
I ask you, Oh, I found a person that you
don't know. There's a bit super exciting. This is like
this is a red letter.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
There are more people I don't know than I do know.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
He was a muckbreaker, a nineteenth century mucker. I believe.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Cool. What other Nebraska city could also be a first name?
That just seemed the immediate one to choose.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Right, that's the capital. And I was surprised there. I
couldn't find a lot of famous Lincoln's. I think it's
a great name. So and he was a great man.
So there you go. All right, well, there you go.
That's city switchers. So thank you to the Denver boot
and thank you to people who name their kids after cities.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
And thank you again to Sam Yeagle or Yagle, who
I appreciate them for sending that.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
In absolutely all right, I think we're right for segment two,
which is bonus clues from this week's puddles, clues that
were too hot to handle or just once we didn't
get to. And this week we had the great comedian
(12:13):
John Fugelsang and Greg, you gave him a puzzle all
the wrong seasons, so tell remind me of that.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
So we did this game with John that was all
about spices and seasonings, and we took names of shows
like Russian Doll and changed one of them to a
spice who became Russian Dill, right, or the Oregon Trail
became the Oregano Trail. But when I was when we
were first working on this, I actually thought I was
(12:46):
going to just use movies or books whose titles had
spices in them and clue them in a different way.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
And the first example.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
I came up with was the nineteen sixties horror film
in which Mia Farrow plays a spice gardener whose child
is the devil's spawn, right, which is of course Rosemary's
baby because she, in fact she was not a spice gardener.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
But that's the fun spicy twist. The spicy twist in
that clue is is that.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
But the challenge of making that puzzle that way is
that that's pretty much it for well known things where
someone's name is the same as you know, a spice.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Now I did, there are some homophone options.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
So the second one I came up was with was
this based a lot based upon Madeline Langle's novel This
Ava di Verne film follows a young girl as she
journeys across a field of spice to save her father
from an evil force, and that, of course is a
wrinkle in time. Time a lot of t I m
(13:56):
but even that line of puzzle creation, which was homophone
for spices and herbs, was kind of a dead end
after time. Of course, there's not that many left there.
Suppose there's basil, dazzle basil you could.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Do something with, but you know what the famous movie
has dazzle in the title. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
So that a little behind the scenes in the puzzle lab,
we have these sort of experiments that went wrong, and
those are that was the beginning of the experiment that
went wrong, and then it went right and we had
a great time with John doing the other version.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I love that that isn't because yeah, sometimes or not
sometimes a lot of times you'll start a puzzle and
you have this great concept and then you're like, oh,
there is only one movie with herb or spice in
the title, And you know, why aren't there more movies
named after exactly what is wrong with Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
There's probably ready.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
There is a movie called by the way, see see, yeah,
it's a very it's the Toshi Uh what's his name
to she Cohen?
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Anyway, cool, all right, and see and yeah, I'm sure
if we dug deep we could find a movie with
Ginger in it and so on.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Oh yeah, that's right, Ginger snaps.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
Sorry, now I'm thinking.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Of seeing there, you know, the further peaper we go,
the less sort.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Of crowd friendly something, because.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Exactly except for our anime fans like Andrea. All right,
well that was I enjoyed that. And by the way,
can I tell a very quick I didn't have chance
to tell John the story when he was on, but
now I'll just relay it quickly. I'd have known John
for many, many years, like more than twenty five years,
(15:46):
because we met in an odd way. I was working
in Entertainment Weekly and I was a reporter and Columbia
Pictures announced that they were making a movie called Strip Tease.
Do you remember that one?
Speaker 3 (15:59):
With me?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
More? Maybe not? It got like seventeen percent on Rotten Tomatoes,
so not very many.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I assume she played a stripper.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I believe she might have been like an undercover cop
as a stripper.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
I had to become a stripper.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
That sounds like anything we would have been seeing in
the movies back then.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah right, it.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Was something like that. It was crime and stripping and
that was so. Anyway, the studio announced they were holding
open auditions like cattle Call for the role of the
strip club bouncer. So my editors at Entertainment Weekly magazine
thought it'd be funny to send me to the audition,
very good to and then I'd write an article about
(16:40):
And the joke, of course, is if you can't see
I'm not exactly bouncer material, you know, I'm I'm slender
is a polite word for it.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
You're also a nice guy like you. I can't.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I don't see you outside a bar, like outside a
strip club, like beating people up or threatening them.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I get kinds before you go in.
Speaker 7 (17:01):
Let me.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
I've got this great story.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Right, Well, let me tell you a puzzle. I could
only let you in. I'll only let you in if
you get your bubble YEA there you go. That would
be now I would I take that job. So anyway,
I go there and they are all these guys who
don't look like me. They look like refrigerators. There is
one other guy who doesn't look like that, and that
(17:24):
is John fugel Sang who was working at VH one
if you remember that channel, of course, and they had
sent him to interview these wanna be bouncers. And so
he comes up to me with a microphone and he's like,
excuse me, sir, what's going on here? And I'm undercover,
(17:45):
pretending to be a wanta be actor and he's interviewing me,
and I you know, what I wanted to say was
I'm one of you, the same thing you are. Yeah,
but I had to pretend to be this deluded guy
who wanted to be a bouncer anymore movie. And that
is how I first met John Fugelsan. So there you
have it. Thank you, John. Well, that's it. That was
(18:07):
Friday Farrago. Hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for listening.
Go check us out on Instagram at Hello Puzzler, where
we post new puzzles all the time, and we'll meet
you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle
you puzzlingly.
Speaker 7 (18:28):
Hey puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska.
Speaker 6 (18:30):
You're Chief Puzzle officer, and I've got some extra credit
answers from our previous episode, AJ and I played a
game we called Hippo Hip, where every answer was a
part of the human body and the name of an
animal that starts with that body part.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
His clue for the extra credit.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Was the colored part of the eye on a red
coated dog. That, of course is the Irish setter Iris.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
It's a tricky one. It's two words for the animal.
It's got a slightly different pronunciation, but you figured it out,
I'm sure, and.
Speaker 6 (19:04):
You'll be back tomorrow to figure out more of our
puzzling puzzle.
Speaker 7 (19:12):
Thanks for playing along with the team here at The
Puzzler with Aj Jacobs. I'm Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer.
Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and Adam Neuhouse of
New House Ideas and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts. The
show is produced by Jody Averrigan and Brittany Brown of
Roulette Productions, with production support from Claire Bidegar Curtis. Our
(19:34):
associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
The Puzzler with Aj Jacobs is a co production with
New House Ideas and is distributed by Sad Strophick t huh,
just kidding, rearrange the letters. It's distributed by iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 7 (19:53):
If you want to know more about puzzling puzzles, please
check out the book The Puzzler by AJ Jacobs, a
history of puzzles that The New York Times called fun
and funny. It features an original puzzle hunt by yours truly,
and is available wherever you get your books and puzzlers.
For all your puzzling needs, go visit the puzzler dot com.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
See you there,
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
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