Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what will?
Speaker 2: What's that mango?
Speaker 1: Do you know that NASA Mission Control actually has its
Speaker 1: own official candy?
Speaker 2: And is I'm guessing the ice cream, like the astronaut
Speaker 2: ice cream doesn't count? Is that right?
Speaker 1: You know? I think no one wants that stop, so
Speaker 1: that's right, You're right, sadly. But apparently the big board
Speaker 1: where you see all the scientists sitting at, like you know,
Speaker 1: the one where they're watching to see if anyone's going
Speaker 1: to call in with a problem, that's called the console
Speaker 1: and the quote console candy of choice is the atomic
Speaker 1: fireball nice you know, is also the official candy of
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius. Now, NASA has embraced the candy for
Speaker 1: a little longer than our show, And I just assumed
Speaker 1: it made sense because it's science y and nerdy and
Speaker 1: it kind of feels like, you know, the flames of
Speaker 1: a blast off, But that actually isn't why. There was
Speaker 1: apparently an an admin assistant named Karen who used to
Speaker 1: make copies, and when she'd drop off papers to the
Speaker 1: folks working in the Console and Mission Control, she'd drop
Speaker 1: off an atomic fireball with the copies as kind of
Speaker 1: this little treat, and the scientists found it really helpful
Speaker 1: for that midnight to seven am shift when it kind
Speaker 1: of added a little extra pep to their otherwise sleepy stuffs.
Speaker 1: And that's how the atomic fireball became this permanent fixture
Speaker 1: of NASA and Mission control. They actually began ordering boxes
Speaker 1: of the candy to the office starting in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: That is just one of nine spicy facts for all
Speaker 1: of you about atomic fireballs. I can't wait to dig in.
Speaker 2: Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome a part time genius. I'm
Speaker 2: Will Pearson and as always, I've got my good friend
Speaker 2: mangesh I ticket out here with me and on the
Speaker 2: other side of the soundproof glass lining up a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of different types of milk. He's got almond milk,
Speaker 2: oat and milk two percent whole. Also got a little
Speaker 2: soy milk over there. He was waiting to cool our
Speaker 2: mouths off in case we eat too many fireballs for
Speaker 2: this episode. That is our very thoughtful pal, Dylan Fagan.
Speaker 1: He is just so considered. I am sorry that he
Speaker 1: doesn't have any chocolate milk or any crazy straws. For us,
Speaker 1: but I do like that he's taking the initiative, all right.
Speaker 2: Mega, So we've obviously been talking about atomic fireballs a
Speaker 2: lot recently. So when we started the show, we had
Speaker 2: a little debate about whether the official candy of Part
Speaker 2: Time Genius was going to be Smarties or Nerds. I
Speaker 2: was team Smarties, you were team Nerds, and it got
Speaker 2: pretty heated, unfortunately, and we had to just sort of
Speaker 2: put that conversation aside for a little bit, and then
Speaker 2: just this year we decided to revisit the conversation. We've
Speaker 2: both grown a lot as people, I think, and it
Speaker 2: really helped us come together, and we both decided atomic
Speaker 2: fireballs were the perfect choice. But I'm curious, do you
Speaker 2: remember the first time you had an atomic fireball?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Kind of, like you know, there are all sorts
Speaker 1: of candies that were so novel and of a specific
Speaker 1: era for me right now and later as I really
Speaker 1: associated with like one of my cousin's weddings from when
Speaker 1: I was in third grade, I remember when kids started
Speaker 1: selling airheads at school and then orhoids. But I think
Speaker 1: it was at this summer camp when I was like
Speaker 1: five or six and we were playing kickball and this
Speaker 1: one kid just had this bag of candy from like
Speaker 1: a corner store, and I put an atomic fireball in
Speaker 1: my mouth and I just could not believe this was candy,
Speaker 1: Like it was so hot and unbelievable, also sweet, and
Speaker 1: it just blew my mind. And then I don't think
Speaker 1: I saw them again for like years. They weren't really
Speaker 1: a Halloween candy where I was, Like in my neighborhood
Speaker 1: we had lemonheads at the store and other variations, like
Speaker 1: there was an Alexander the grape candy that the same
Speaker 1: time used to make, but not really atomic fireballs. But
Speaker 1: that moment really stands out to me. What about you, Like,
Speaker 1: I know you've had this somewhat recent renaissance with the candy.
Speaker 1: When did that start?
Speaker 2: Well, so the recent renaissance started, I'm trying to remember
Speaker 2: because it had been years since i'd had I had
Speaker 2: really gotten my fix of atomic fire balls, which I'd
Speaker 2: also loved since I was a kid. I don't actually
Speaker 2: remember how it happened, but when it happened, it was
Speaker 2: all over, Like I was definitely going back to it.
Speaker 2: And as we've talked about before, when I get hooked
Speaker 2: on a candy, I go big and so, as you know,
Speaker 2: we have this place that we know as the center
Speaker 2: of excellence in our home where we store a lot
Speaker 2: of my favorite candies that I end up ordering in bulk.
Speaker 2: And there are no joke, hundreds of atomic fireballs sitting
Speaker 2: in a bucket in there for me to stop buy
Speaker 2: and grab some. But it won't be long before we
Speaker 2: have to refill. They go faster than you think. But
Speaker 2: we should talk about fireballs. Get to the whole history,
Speaker 2: the whole everything here. So where do you want to start.
Speaker 1: How about with the makers of atomic fireballs, uh Farepan,
Speaker 1: who gave the candy the somewhat frightening slogan burns so good.
Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite candy companies. They also called
Speaker 1: a candy quote a spicy hot ball of sweet, burning
Speaker 1: cinnamony deliciousness. But what is amazing about these little red
Speaker 1: balls of wonder is that none of that drives people away.
Speaker 1: In fact, atomic Fireballs have been one of the most
Speaker 1: popular candies in the country since their debut in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties. Now, what's interesting to note is that the
Speaker 1: candies really were of a time when the atom baumb
Speaker 1: was on everyone's mind, and this slipped into kid culture
Speaker 1: as well. So according to a book called Atomic Tunes quote,
Speaker 1: children's toys in the nineteen forties through the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: were rife with atomic age themes, and this is something
Speaker 1: I totally had forgotten. But there were board games like
Speaker 1: Uranium Rush and Air Raid. Kids sucked on atomic fireball
Speaker 1: candies while reading atomic comics like Atomic Man, Captain Adam
Speaker 1: and Nukla. There were atomic disintegrating pistols, we hid Geiger counters,
Speaker 1: and zero scale model train sets that transported nuclear weapons
Speaker 1: and waste. There was a fallout Shelter paper doll cutout book.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty one, the Bowman Gum Company created a
Speaker 1: series of forty eight Red Menace trading cards, some of
Speaker 1: which were titled Fleeing the Reds, Atomic Doom and war
Speaker 1: Maker which was mause a donks card. And all of
Speaker 1: this contact had sort of escaped me, Like for us,
Speaker 1: the candy has just always been around. But at the
Speaker 1: time I guess atomic fireballs were in some way kind
Speaker 1: of the most pleasant and fun version of atomic culture
Speaker 1: you could be interacting with. And now today they are
Speaker 1: so popular that there was a recent scare about the
Speaker 1: shortage of these atomic fireballs. But seeing as the company
Speaker 1: behind them, for a pen, makes over fifteen million fireballs
Speaker 1: a week, I think we're all gonna be okay.
Speaker 2: I do want to just go ahead and apologize in
Speaker 2: case I had anything to do with that shortage sence
Speaker 2: I'm clearly hoarding them here. But all right, Well, because
Speaker 2: we're talking hot stuff, I do think we need to
Speaker 2: take a minute to talk about Wilbur Scoville, and I
Speaker 2: think we've talked about Scoville before, is of course the
Speaker 2: inventor of the Scoville scale, which you probably know measures
Speaker 2: just how hot something is, and so you know, like
Speaker 2: when you're at a Thai restaurant and you have to
Speaker 2: wonder whether the five peppers next to the curry means
Speaker 2: you're probably going to die after eating it. The Scoville
Speaker 2: scale is like a scientific objective answer to that question.
Speaker 2: So in terms of the scale, a bell pepper is
Speaker 2: a zero. A banana pepper, you know, like you might
Speaker 2: have on an Italian sub or something like that, that
Speaker 2: notches up to five hundred, which sounds like a lot
Speaker 2: until you realize the scale goes all the way up
Speaker 2: to two million, six hundred and ninety three thousand with
Speaker 2: pepper X that's the Guinness Book World record holder for
Speaker 2: the hottest pepper on Earth.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that's a pepper that might actually kill you.
Speaker 1: But where does the atomic fireball rate on the Scovill Well.
Speaker 2: That's what's so cool here. So other spicy candy like
Speaker 2: red hots, another Ferrera pan tree and something I also enjoy,
Speaker 2: those don't even rate on the scale. Meanwhile, the atomic
Speaker 2: fireball weighs in at thirty five hundred Scovil units, which
Speaker 2: puts it above seracha and below the Serrano pepper and
Speaker 2: a good bit below at bird's eye chili. So for you, mango,
Speaker 2: that means it's hotter than nachos with jalapinos, but not
Speaker 2: as hot as drunken noodles. So does that register there?
Speaker 1: Yes? I get it now. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I can give seventeen more examples. But one more thing
Speaker 2: about Wilbur Scoville. Before he invented the Scoville scale for
Speaker 2: rating spiciness of food, he wrote a book on compounding
Speaker 2: for pharmacies that went through many additions, and actually, amazingly,
Speaker 2: it was that book that it was first reported in
Speaker 2: print that milk is an antidote to spice so when
Speaker 2: we chug those glasses of milk that Dylan's got laid
Speaker 2: out here for us after setting our mouths on fire
Speaker 2: for this episode, he is actually the one to thank.
Speaker 2: So interesting stuff in there related to Scoville. But I'm curious,
Speaker 2: what do you have next.
Speaker 1: It's kind of perfect that you were talking about, because
Speaker 1: my next fact is about why the atomic fireball is
Speaker 1: so spicy. So I usually see fireballs in the same
Speaker 1: category with red hots and hot tamales, and it turns
Speaker 1: out atomic fireballs aren't just hotter versions of those candies,
Speaker 1: because unlike those other red hot treats, atomic fireballs don't
Speaker 1: really run on cinnamon. They actually have something else to
Speaker 1: thank for their flaming hotness, and that's cap saysan, which
Speaker 1: is why they actually rank on that Scoville scale. So
Speaker 1: cap sasan is the chemical and peppers that makes it spicy,
Speaker 1: and it's also used in medicines to treat pain and
Speaker 1: swelling and cause numbing. It's in all of those peppers
Speaker 1: on the Scoville scale as well. Generally speaking, the more
Speaker 1: cap saysan you have, the higher the Scoville rating. Now,
Speaker 1: the other candies I mentioned, red hots, hot tamales. They
Speaker 1: get their hotness from something called cinnamaldehyde, which I know
Speaker 1: it sounds like something I'm making up, but really it's
Speaker 1: the chemical and cinnamon that makes things more cinnamony. It's
Speaker 1: known for that tingly feeling on your tongue and it
Speaker 1: works on the same recept that other similar spicy but
Speaker 1: not chili hot flavors do. So, like think about things
Speaker 1: like horsefraddish or withsabi. Definitely spicy, but it's a different
Speaker 1: type of heat.
Speaker 2: And so what about capsation, Like what part of your
Speaker 2: tongue is that actually triggering?
Speaker 1: So, according to the Brooklyn brainery, capsaicin gets picked up
Speaker 1: on by something called TRPV one, and this is a
Speaker 1: spiciness receptor, but it doesn't exactly detect the chemicals so
Speaker 1: much as take the temperature, and when it senses that
Speaker 1: things are getting super hot, it sounds this sort of
Speaker 1: alarm in your brain. So when you're eating pizza that's
Speaker 1: too hot, it's this receptor that's telling you quick, put
Speaker 1: the slice down and glugs some soda. But it works
Speaker 1: on capsasin too, and when you eat something with capsaicin
Speaker 1: in it, the receptor tells your brain that it's something
Speaker 1: like one hundred and ten degrees in your mouth. It's
Speaker 1: like a five alarm fire.
Speaker 2: You know, I actually got curious about how they get
Speaker 2: all that heat into this sugary sweet thing, because you know,
Speaker 2: it's an interesting science there. And that gets us to
Speaker 2: my next fact. So you know, the proverb a journey
Speaker 2: of one thousand miles begins with a single step, right,
Speaker 2: you love proverbs, proverbs, And actually it has no relation
Speaker 2: to this episode. I just wanted to. I just like
Speaker 2: to test you every once in a while. So that
Speaker 2: was a pause for our proverb test of the day. Well,
Speaker 2: now this is relevant here. So the same thing is
Speaker 2: kind of true for the atomic fireball. That journey begins
Speaker 2: with a single grain of sugar, literally, like they make
Speaker 2: the candy using the hot panned process as it's non Now,
Speaker 2: this hot doesn't refer to spice, but rather to the
Speaker 2: fact that the pan the candy is cooked in stays
Speaker 2: hot throughout a two week process. So this is a
Speaker 2: long process. An atomic fireball starts with a single grain
Speaker 2: of sugar and nearly equal amounts of flavor and syrup
Speaker 2: that coat that single grain, and then once the coating
Speaker 2: is complete, there's a little more sugar added, and again
Speaker 2: nearly equal amounts of flavor and syrup and so on
Speaker 2: and so on. And the process is actually pretty intense,
Speaker 2: where the candy maker builds up layers in these concentric
Speaker 2: spheres around that initial grain of sugar. It's also how
Speaker 2: other suckers like lemon heads and things like that are made,
Speaker 2: and it's what makes this consistent flavor as you work
Speaker 2: your way through the candy over time. So now that
Speaker 2: you know the process, guess how many layers are in
Speaker 2: a single atomic fireball?
Speaker 1: I feel like a kindly owl once tatas that takes
Speaker 1: three licks to get to the center of a tipsy pop.
Speaker 1: But this is obviously atomic, so maybe like thirty layers.
Speaker 2: You're almost a third of the way there. It's one hundred,
Speaker 2: one hundred layers like sugar and spiciness over that original
Speaker 2: single piece of sugar. There's a lot of science that
Speaker 2: goes into the making of this deliciousness.
Speaker 1: That is incredible. I feel like I can have to
Speaker 1: count the layers as I eat one the next time.
Speaker 1: But why don't we talk about the invention of the
Speaker 1: atomic fireball, which was first created back in nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 1: Something must have been in the air for spicy candy
Speaker 1: at the time because another cinnamon retreat, the Hot Tamale,
Speaker 1: first debuted four years earlier in nineteen fifty. And what's
Speaker 1: wild is that the creators of these two spicy candies,
Speaker 1: they almost have lives that mimic one another. So let's
Speaker 1: actually start with the Hot Tamale. Bob Bourne had just
Speaker 1: come back from fighting in the US Navy in World
Speaker 1: War Two. He actually had been accepted into medical school,
Speaker 1: but the family business needed a little bit of attention.
Speaker 1: His father, Sam Boorne, was this former rabbinical student from
Speaker 1: Ukraine who had started just born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which
Speaker 1: most people know for making peeps, But another candy they
Speaker 1: are famous for is the Mike and Ike. Now, Mike
Speaker 1: and Ikes had a problem at the time. Apparently a
Speaker 1: bunch of misshapen candies would come off the line that
Speaker 1: never could make their way into the candy box. But
Speaker 1: Bob Bourne actually came up with solution. So what if
Speaker 1: you took all these misshapen Mike and Ikes, added cinnamon
Speaker 1: syrup to mask their original flavor, and then packaged them
Speaker 1: together as their own thing. And that is how the
Speaker 1: Hot Tamali got it start. It was kind of like
Speaker 1: this fix for a mis steak, almost the way baby
Speaker 1: carrots started out as a snack that was made from
Speaker 1: a stack of misshapen carrots that was going to be
Speaker 1: thrown away. That's kind of what hot Tomalas were. And
Speaker 1: they were such a success that Bob actually set aside
Speaker 1: his bed school to focus on the family business and
Speaker 1: he ran Just.
Speaker 2: Born Candies for nearly four decades.
Speaker 1: Now, like I was saying, Bob and Nello Ferrara end
Speaker 1: up having these parallel lives. The Ferrara Pan company was
Speaker 1: also a family business. Salvator Ferrara immigrated from Naples, Italy
Speaker 1: in nineteen hundred and by nineteen oh eight he'd made
Speaker 1: his way to Chicago, where he opened this bakery in
Speaker 1: little Italy. But it wasn't the big goods that kept
Speaker 1: people coming back. It was the Jordan amends he was making,
Speaker 1: which are those pastel colored candy treats made by coating
Speaker 1: the nut and layers of sugar. And that's when he
Speaker 1: started a company focused on making what they did best, candy. Now,
Speaker 1: Ferrara Pan had actually been making red Hot since nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty two, so they weren't new to the hot candy trend,
Speaker 1: but Sal's son, nell is the one who took it
Speaker 1: to the next level. Nello, like Bob Bourne, served in
Speaker 1: World War Two. He was in the army and he
Speaker 1: had a degree from DePaul Law School, and he was
Speaker 1: actually about to start his life as a lawyer. He
Speaker 1: was even admitted to the bar, but then he got
Speaker 1: the candy bug and nineteen fifty four he had this
Speaker 1: idea for the atomic fireball and there was really no
Speaker 1: looking back after he put that out.
Speaker 2: I mean, is that true? Was it obvious right away
Speaker 2: that he was better sticking to candy than starting off
Speaker 2: on this law career.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's amazing is that the atomic fireball really
Speaker 1: took off immediately, Like within the first weeks they were
Speaker 1: selling fifty thousand pieces a week. That's just enormous hit
Speaker 1: for the candy business. And he's the one who later
Speaker 1: invents the lemonhead and then all the other flavors that
Speaker 1: are kind of similarly made. And for the lemonheads, he
Speaker 1: used real coatings of citric acid between layers of sugar
Speaker 1: to get that super puckery taste, so it kind of
Speaker 1: mimics that process. You were talking about.
Speaker 2: All right, well, mango, I've been waiting on this one
Speaker 2: here because it's not too often that you get to
Speaker 2: talk about consumer advocacy see Ralph Nader and atomic fireballs
Speaker 2: all at the same time. So I am pleased to
Speaker 2: have this opportunity to share my next fact.
Speaker 1: This sounds really special. So let's hear it.
Speaker 2: You're ready, Okay, here we go. So Ralph Nator has
Speaker 2: sometimes been known as the nation's nag and has spent
Speaker 2: much of his life as a political activist, and in fact,
Speaker 2: he's a huge part of the reason that we have
Speaker 2: seat belts in cars today. But at one time he
Speaker 2: was also focused on getting Americans to consume less sugar.
Speaker 1: That's so funny. I always think about him and cars
Speaker 1: and like Pinto and stuff like that, but I didn't
Speaker 1: realize he was focused on sugar.
Speaker 2: Yep, No, that's exactly right. And he disparaged sugar whenever
Speaker 2: he could. And this really stuck in Nello for ours
Speaker 2: craw So, according to an interview his son sal gave
Speaker 2: with NPR, Nello challenged Natter to quote a teeth fight.
Speaker 1: What's a teeth fight?
Speaker 2: You don't know a teeth fighters? I think it's just
Speaker 2: comparing teeth. I don't know at the time he wrote
Speaker 2: Natter's saying quote, I eat candy every day and I
Speaker 2: have all my teeth. That's such an amazing way to brag.
Speaker 2: But I guess he thought he was pretty convincing, and
Speaker 2: apparently not convincing enough though, because Nello Ferar went further.
Speaker 2: He decided to prove the strength of his teeth by
Speaker 2: lifting a one hundred pound bag of sugar with his teeth.
Speaker 2: I love the idea that he thinks this just like
Speaker 2: proves his points somehow.
Speaker 1: And I love that like Ralph Nader is like, Nope,
Speaker 1: he's right, you won the nice teeth. I'd be so
Speaker 1: afraid of like chipping my tooth or like cracking mine
Speaker 1: like a hundred pounds of sugar is no joke. We
Speaker 1: have got to pause for some commercials, but we've got
Speaker 1: more atomic fireball facts right after the break. Please don't
Speaker 1: go anywhere.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Part Time Genius. We're talking about atomic fireballs,
Speaker 2: and man, our mouths are on fire with facts, of course,
Speaker 2: So mengo, where do you want to go next?
Speaker 1: How about burning men? Okay, So, in addition to Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius and NASA it turns out that Burning Men
Speaker 1: is also known for sending out atomic fireballs with their tickets.
Speaker 1: And of course there's a whole heat, fire and fun
Speaker 1: component that sort of overlaps between the candy and the
Speaker 1: Desert festival. But there's also another reason that they mail
Speaker 1: out candy with the tickets, and this comes from this
Speaker 1: guy named Nimbus, who was the former head of ticketing.
Speaker 1: He says, quote, as the event was growing, so were
Speaker 1: our operations, and some unexpected challenges were introduced. Among them,
Speaker 1: ticket deliveries were being mishandled by the postal service, and
Speaker 1: so they're trying to figure out how to like improve
Speaker 1: their ticketing system and they get this advice from a
Speaker 1: local postbuster. He advises two things. One manually highlight the
Speaker 1: label with the green highlighter to call out that it
Speaker 1: was a signature confirmation. And two, include something small more
Speaker 1: than half an inch thick to make the package uneven,
Speaker 1: so that it has to be hands sorted and couldn't
Speaker 1: be machine sorted. And so that's basically how the atomic
Speaker 1: fireball gets stuffed into these packages. Years later, they were
Speaker 1: told that they didn't have to include the fireballs to
Speaker 1: get the tickets handled with care, but by that time
Speaker 1: it was already a tradition. And Nimbus actually has these
Speaker 1: two other funny stories about the fireballs. One was that
Speaker 1: there was actually a year where there was a shortage
Speaker 1: and apparently fans were both really confused and also livid
Speaker 1: that they received lemonheads and other treats instead of fireballs,
Speaker 1: and as this puts it, he was just happy that
Speaker 1: they didn't go with dumb dums, which had been their
Speaker 1: backup choice.
Speaker 2: That's pretty great.
Speaker 1: And also for years, apparently the guy who did the
Speaker 1: fulfillment used to have to store about thirty thousand fireballs
Speaker 1: in his office every year, and what they didn't know
Speaker 1: at the time was that he hated the smell of cinnamon.
Speaker 1: So this poor guy just had to endure it without
Speaker 1: complaining as part of the job.
Speaker 2: But is wild, I will say, I mean, I know,
Speaker 2: I'd much rather have a fireball than a lemonhead or
Speaker 2: a dumb dumb, but you know, if somebody sent me one,
Speaker 2: I'd still eat it. I'm not going to say no
Speaker 2: to a dumb dumb, especially when it's the mystery flavor.
Speaker 1: You know, screw it, I'm not going to burning menus.
Speaker 2: No, exactly, Yeah, forget it. They're sending me a dumb
Speaker 2: dumb All right, Well, let's get back to the hot
Speaker 2: candies again here. And I was actually curious why anyone
Speaker 2: wanted to make a candy that was hotter than a
Speaker 2: jalapano in the first place, and why did that happen
Speaker 2: when it did, like in the nineteen fifties. Well, it
Speaker 2: turns out that until that time, Halloween had no particular
Speaker 2: connection to candy. But the fifties were the time of
Speaker 2: the baby boom, and an American particular, the great expansion
Speaker 2: of suburbs. Trick or treating took off with waves of
Speaker 2: kids and suburbs, you know, perfect to walk around in
Speaker 2: these neighborhoods as ghosts and witches, scaring their neighbors and
Speaker 2: handing over candies. So with the rise of trick or
Speaker 2: treating came the incentive to find a candy that would,
Speaker 2: you know, be spooky or scary. So enter the atomic fireball.
Speaker 2: It was a double whammy. First, with those thirty five
Speaker 2: hundred Scovil points, it was frighteningly hot. Like we had
Speaker 2: talked about. The hot Tamali and the red Hot were
Speaker 2: already on the scene, but they couldn't make you tear
Speaker 2: up quite like the fireball.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for my last fact, I want to talk about
Speaker 1: why we love atomic fireball so much, even when they
Speaker 1: make our mouths burn. And that's not an attack because,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned earlier, their tagline is burned so good.
Speaker 2: But why can't we lay off these candies? I'm curious
Speaker 2: about that. So the truth is we like the pain.
Speaker 1: Psychologists called this benign masochism, and it isn't just with candy. Like,
Speaker 1: think about watching the scariest movie you can just so
Speaker 1: you can scream your head off at a jump scare,
Speaker 1: or riding a roller coaster with a hair raising drop,
Speaker 1: or even watching Toy Story four. Right, you know you're
Speaker 1: going to cry your eyes out. But sometimes it feels
Speaker 1: good to have these kind of bad feelings. But it
Speaker 1: can only feel good because you know there isn't really
Speaker 1: a threat. And actually this is a funny aside, but
Speaker 1: apparently the candies inventors Nello Ferrara thought that the nat
Speaker 1: high from the spiciness of the candies could make a
Speaker 1: great alternative to drugs. So in nineteen fifty four he
Speaker 1: wrote to a journalist saying, quote, we have many letters
Speaker 1: from university campuses, such as quote, you can get a
Speaker 1: better blast out of atomic fireballs than from a puff
Speaker 1: of marijuana. Now, we make no claims of preventing the
Speaker 1: use of marijuana, but I am personally quite confident that
Speaker 1: many young people went the fireball route who might have
Speaker 1: gone the marijuana route.
Speaker 2: I love that. I love that quote. And you know what,
Speaker 2: I'm going to go ahead and say it. I actually
Speaker 2: do fireballs and don't do drugs, and so you know
Speaker 2: what I think this is Maybe.
Speaker 1: They're right, well, that trend of spicy candies that atomic
Speaker 1: fireballs kicked off is one that is definitely not going
Speaker 1: to stop. Today. There are a few new candies made
Speaker 1: with boot Jlakia, which is also better known as the
Speaker 1: ghost pepper, including some jellybeans. These candies have a Scoville
Speaker 1: rating of nearly one million, making atomic fireballs kind of
Speaker 1: look like a G rated movie by comparison. And as
Speaker 1: much as I love spice, that just sounds unpleasant to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: But you know what doesn't sound unpleasant to me? Watching
Speaker 1: a tooth fight between Ralph Nader and the creator of
Speaker 1: the tomic fireball, and just picturing that heavyweight a bout
Speaker 1: makes me smile really wide. So I'm going to give
Speaker 1: you today's trophy.
Speaker 2: Oh wow. That means a lot to get to talk
Speaker 2: about fireballs and to win the trophy. But I also
Speaker 2: appreciate just being able to sit here and talk about
Speaker 2: super hot and delightfully painful candy and sometimes super painful
Speaker 2: candy as well. But from Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and also
Speaker 2: Lizzie Jacobs, who wrote for today's episode and likes to
Speaker 2: live life at the very bottom of the Scovill chart.
Speaker 2: That's it for this week's Part Time Genius. Now, if
Speaker 2: you like our show, please reach out. We love hearing
Speaker 2: from you on our insta at part Time Genius, and
Speaker 2: you never know when we're going to reach out with
Speaker 2: mail or another giant batch of fireballs to our listeners,
Speaker 2: So keep riding in. But in the meantime, thank you
Speaker 2: so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: This show is hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongash
Speaker 1: Chatikler and research by our goodpal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan
Speaker 1: with support from Tyler Klang. The show is Executive produced
Speaker 1: for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry, with social
Speaker 1: media support from Sasha Gay, trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.