Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
Speaker 2: should know.
Speaker 3: That's right, Popcorn the snack a dish, And I want
Speaker 3: to shout out listener Sean O'shullman.
Speaker 4: He came up with this idea, send it along.
Speaker 3: And I'm trying to get better about crediting people when
Speaker 3: they send great ideas that we use.
Speaker 2: Oh that's that's a great New Year's resolution, Chuck.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which reminds me I need to do a pickup
Speaker 3: for Cliff's notes because I did not credit Mike D
Speaker 3: of Overland Park, Kansas. Or maybe that'll suffice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it might. Well I have to ask Mike D.
Speaker 4: Okay, and he'll you know what he'll say.
Speaker 2: He'll say the mic stance for money and the D
Speaker 2: is for dime.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: Was that exactly what you were going to say?
Speaker 4: No? But that's that was better? So okay.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we're talking Popcorn Day and Chuck, there's a
Speaker 2: lot a lot to talk about with popcorn. Who helped
Speaker 2: us with this?
Speaker 1: Was it?
Speaker 2: Anna?
Speaker 4: This is Anna Green?
Speaker 2: Very nice? So if you don't know what popcorn is,
Speaker 2: We'll wait a second. You go ahead and google popcorn
Speaker 2: and then come back. I'm pretty sure most people know
Speaker 2: what popcorn is because it's a global sensation. But I
Speaker 2: have to say I'm quite proud that popcorn is through
Speaker 2: and through American, and not just the United States version
Speaker 2: of American, Mexico, Central America, South America, Canada will include Canada.
Speaker 2: Sure they love it American in that sense. That is
Speaker 2: popcorn through and through. Even still today, most of the
Speaker 2: popcorn in the world comes from the Americas.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 3: And we should talk a little bit about corn because
Speaker 3: popcorn is just a variety of corn. There are all
Speaker 3: kinds of varieties of corn, and popcorn is the everta variety.
Speaker 3: And if you are corn, you have three main things.
Speaker 4: You have a hull.
Speaker 3: Maybe they might call it a pair of carp or
Speaker 3: maybe even the brand. I like calling it the brand
Speaker 3: the brand, and inside that hole you've got the germ
Speaker 3: and the endosperm and popcorn specific hull, that outer shell
Speaker 3: that has that stuff inside of it. That is the
Speaker 3: main thing that makes it poppable corn. And that's what
Speaker 3: makes it different than other kinds of corn because popcorn
Speaker 3: has a really hard, hard outer shell, much harder than
Speaker 3: other varieties of corn, and inside that hull there's a
Speaker 3: much higher ratio of hard starch to soft starch.
Speaker 4: And all that sounds well and good.
Speaker 3: But a little tidbit I never ever knew until this
Speaker 3: episode was like, what is making that stuff pop?
Speaker 4: And it's very simple, right it is.
Speaker 2: It's awesome. It's a little tiny bit of water. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Apparently anything less than thirteen percent water inside the popcorn
Speaker 2: kernel is not good enough.
Speaker 4: I think you mean the hull, yes, you're right, sorry,
Speaker 4: or the brand as you like to see the bran.
Speaker 2: Yeah, brand to me is like mast It's like one
Speaker 2: of those homey words. I love it. It's the sweet
Speaker 2: spot is between thirteen and twenty percent water content inside
Speaker 2: the brand. And when you heat that, because the brand
Speaker 2: is non porous, that that steam that gets generated gets
Speaker 2: trapped inside. Well, as we all know, when steam expands,
Speaker 2: it really expands, and it expands so much that it blows.
Speaker 2: It blows the popcorn inside out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that what you're eating, the white styrofoamy deliciousness
Speaker 3: that you're eating, that is the starch while you're eating
Speaker 3: that kernel up, I'm sorry, that hole. I guess it's
Speaker 3: a kernel too, and that water is turning into steam
Speaker 3: and expanding, the consistency of that starch is changing, becoming
Speaker 3: more pliable of aka edible, and you're eating that interior
Speaker 3: starch and you can still you know that that little
Speaker 3: thing that gets stuck in your teeth, that's the last
Speaker 3: bit of that hole that has exploded. And like you said, anything,
Speaker 3: like when you get that unpopped stuff at the bottom
Speaker 3: and you're like, what was your problem? Why didn't you
Speaker 3: do what you were told?
Speaker 2: They said, all right, less than thirteen percent.
Speaker 3: More exactly, that's probably the case. It also could be
Speaker 3: the case where that hole was fractured or something was
Speaker 3: wrong with that hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, something's wrong with that. It ain't right. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: so you're like, okay, well, why doesn't rice pop suckers?
Speaker 2: Why doesn't Why isn't wheat pop smart guys? Well, it
Speaker 2: turns out it's because they have porous holes, so steam
Speaker 2: will come out of them. It won't build up pressure
Speaker 2: inside like it does popcorns. So popcorn is a very unique, darling,
Speaker 2: peculiar little thing that everybody loves. Yeah, no, don't don't
Speaker 2: even come at us like you don't love popcorn. Everyone
Speaker 2: loves popcorn.
Speaker 3: Sorry, agreed, And we're going to get some some young
Speaker 3: yuckers that are gonna say they hate popcorn.
Speaker 4: I just don't get it. I don't get it either.
Speaker 3: There's a guy named Andrew Smith and he's a popcorn
Speaker 3: aficionado and in popped culture. Pretty great name for something
Speaker 3: on the internet. He has gone through and shared popcorn
Speaker 3: varieties that were sold in the early I guess twentieth century,
Speaker 3: between nineteen oh one and nineteen oh two. He said,
Speaker 3: some of these may be different names, you know, like
Speaker 3: the same thing that was named different by whoever was
Speaker 3: growing it. But they had some pretty fun names like
Speaker 3: tom thumb popcorn or tattooed Yankee. But popcorn wasn't sold
Speaker 3: commercially at scale like that. Maybe a couple of varieties were,
Speaker 3: but there seemed to be a lot more sort of
Speaker 3: local varieties that people could grow and just sell kind
Speaker 3: of locally. But again, it's not branded or anything at
Speaker 3: this point. You're just buying it by like the scoop
Speaker 3: or the bag.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was all popcorn. It was just a generic
Speaker 2: term for popcorn. It's all called popcorn. But I think
Speaker 2: in the mid nineteenth century. Later nineteenth century, the company
Speaker 2: started to come along and basically branded their own version.
Speaker 2: And there was even a mascot in the eighteen seventies
Speaker 2: called Kernel Pop Love that one. I couldn't find a
Speaker 2: picture of them, could you.
Speaker 4: No, But that's because I did not look.
Speaker 2: The same here. And there's actually a popcorn company from
Speaker 2: not too far after Colonel Pop was developed nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 2: called the American Popcorn Company. And they're the people who
Speaker 2: make jolly Time popcorn. And if you've never made jolly
Speaker 2: Time popcorn, you should just do it. Just go buy
Speaker 2: one of those little foil things that has all the
Speaker 2: stuff you need to pop the corn in it. And
Speaker 2: as it pops, like the foil expands. It's just such
Speaker 2: a great little thing. Word of advice, though I learned
Speaker 2: this the hard way. Don't do it on a ceramic
Speaker 2: cook top. It's really really bad for the ceramic cook top.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, I'm talking about Jiffy pop. Jolly Time comes.
Speaker 4: In the bangs. Yeah, yeah, still you should try and
Speaker 4: Jiffy pop I get.
Speaker 3: I mean, before we go further, I'm curious of how
Speaker 3: you how do you pop your popcorn?
Speaker 2: You know, I don't very much. We have like a
Speaker 2: stir crazy I don't remember who makes it, but it's
Speaker 2: like the the big like black, heavy bottom with like
Speaker 2: a thing that spins around slowly on it so that
Speaker 2: it stirs your your popcorn apparently in a crazy way,
Speaker 2: and then it pop pop pops, but transparent. Well there's
Speaker 2: a hamster that runs the whole thing. I guess technically
Speaker 2: it's mechanical energy, but there's like a transparent yellow bowl
Speaker 2: that keeps it from popping out, and then you just
Speaker 2: turn it upside down, okay, yeah, and then you have
Speaker 2: your bowl of popcorn right there.
Speaker 3: So you got the old school sort of can't you
Speaker 3: plug it in and it turns the little stirring thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But weirdly we got it in the last few years.
Speaker 2: We tried air popping for a while.
Speaker 4: And that's just like punishment garbage.
Speaker 3: I use a whirlypop that is the stovetop thing that
Speaker 3: you put, you know, on your stove. I have a
Speaker 3: gas stove, so it's cooking with gas and you hand
Speaker 3: crank that thing and it stirs it around.
Speaker 4: You need a hamster, I do.
Speaker 3: Those are like seventy bucks, so you know, not cheap
Speaker 3: but not expensive. There's also more expensive brands like that
Speaker 3: that are like a couple of hundred bucks, like the Popsmith.
Speaker 3: But the whole point is you're cooking it on your
Speaker 3: stovetop and you're turning it yourself, right, And that's how
Speaker 3: I like to do it. As the the you know
Speaker 3: that yellow oil that's got the butter flavor in it,
Speaker 3: and I just do a little bit of that popcorn
Speaker 3: salt because I love salt. But that stuff is super
Speaker 3: salty and goes a long way I saw.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. There's a specific kind called Flavacall and
Speaker 2: that's what the movie theaters use, and it's designed to
Speaker 2: dissolve in oil and get in every part of a
Speaker 2: popcorn pop popcorn. I can't remember, I ah the name
Speaker 2: for what? Oh flake, that's what a pop popcorn is called.
Speaker 2: Did you know that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I did not know that. Well at any rate. It's
Speaker 2: meant to get in every crevice and nook and cranny
Speaker 2: of a popped flake, and yeah, I would guess it
Speaker 2: doesn't take very much of that stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we don't pop popcorn a lot, like we
Speaker 3: should do it for every single family movie night because
Speaker 3: there's really no reason not to. But uh, you know,
Speaker 3: Ruby loves it, the family loves it. So I'm gonna
Speaker 3: start popping more popcorn. But let's go back.
Speaker 2: Wait, I'm not quite done. I should say, like, more
Speaker 2: often than not, it's microwave popcorn that.
Speaker 4: We Sorry, I'm judging you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all right. I can take it.
Speaker 4: I just don't like it.
Speaker 2: What about smart food? I like that stuff too.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Bag popcorn that's a whole other game, but a
Speaker 4: huge industry.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Remember it used to be on our what do they
Speaker 4: call it, a rider?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you had to give us smart pop popcorn
Speaker 2: backstage at our shows.
Speaker 4: Yeah. It's good snack, calorie filling for sure, and cheesy,
Speaker 4: pleasing to the tongue.
Speaker 3: Let's go back a little bit though, and talk about cultivation,
Speaker 3: because if you look at you know, indigenous Americans before
Speaker 3: Europeans came along and wrecked everything, they were farming popcorn
Speaker 3: in South and Central America, mainly in North America where
Speaker 3: it was farmed it was in the southwest of the
Speaker 3: United States and Mexico, or I guess most of that
Speaker 3: was Mexico at the time. But when non indigenous Americans,
Speaker 3: you know, white Europeans, came here, they started farming popcorn
Speaker 3: in New England was a surprise.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Through most of the nineteenth century that was sort of
Speaker 3: the center of popcorn, I guess, growing and manufacturing, until
Speaker 3: eventually it moved to the Midwest in Chicago became the
Speaker 3: hub of popcorn.
Speaker 2: Yes, which explains why Chicago is a caramel corn town.
Speaker 2: And despite the fact that people in Chicago won't admit it,
Speaker 2: Chicago is a caramel corn town.
Speaker 3: But most of the popcorn these days that comes for
Speaker 3: the United States, well not most, but twenty five percent
Speaker 3: of the popcorn popped in the US is grown in Nebraska,
Speaker 3: it should be no surprise, but also grown in places
Speaker 3: like Kansas, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa.
Speaker 2: Yeah apparently also Brazil and Argentina grow a lot of
Speaker 2: it too.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, so chuck. A big question is whether popcorn is healthy,
Speaker 2: and the answer is the resounding yes. If you just
Speaker 2: air pop popcorn and only eat popcorn undressed in anything
Speaker 2: and not cooked in oil.
Speaker 4: That's right. But what kind of serial killer does that? Yeah,
Speaker 4: it is.
Speaker 3: It's it's low in calorie. Like I said, it's a
Speaker 3: really good source of fiber. It's one hundred percent whole grain,
Speaker 3: and if you eat one serving as three cups of poppedcorn.
Speaker 3: If you eat three cups of popcorn, that's about fifteen
Speaker 3: percent of your daily recommended fiber intake. So if you
Speaker 3: double that, you're getting thirty percent.
Speaker 2: I saw so I was like, there's got to be
Speaker 2: something wrong with popcorn. I searched Dark side of popcorn,
Speaker 2: and the best I could come up with is that
Speaker 2: it's there's enough fiber in it that if you have
Speaker 2: irritable bowel syndrome, you need to be careful of your
Speaker 2: popcorn intake. That's the worst thing anyone has to say
Speaker 2: about popcorn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can also get about three grams of protein
Speaker 3: preserving eighteen grams of carbs, one gram of fat. You
Speaker 3: can get vitamin B six, a e K riboflavon, buyme
Speaker 3: nicene folate, So.
Speaker 4: It's pretty good for you.
Speaker 3: The nutritional values are going to shift some when you
Speaker 3: cook it in oil and add toppings and butter flavored stuff,
Speaker 3: but it's not like it destroys the nutritional value.
Speaker 4: The fiber's still in there right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, it just makes it less healthy. You know,
Speaker 2: you've got all the problems that you have for eating butter,
Speaker 2: and not just eating butter, but liquid butter. Wow, you
Speaker 2: want to talk about where popcorn came from?
Speaker 4: Because I do, yes.
Speaker 2: So, like I said, popcorn is indigenous to the Americas,
Speaker 2: and that's because corn is indigenous to the Americas. As
Speaker 2: far as we can tell, especially if you've read fourteen
Speaker 2: ninety two, corn was domesticated from the wild Taosenti plant
Speaker 2: as far back as nine thousand years ago. And the
Speaker 2: whole thing began in Mexico, and it was such a
Speaker 2: good idea that it spread throughout Central and South America. Right. Yes,
Speaker 2: popcorn itself is not that much younger, maybe about twenty
Speaker 2: five hundred years or so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean sixty seven hundred years ago there was popcorn.
Speaker 3: We just you know, don't know exactly when people started
Speaker 3: eating it.
Speaker 2: Right, but we do have archaeological evidence. I think people
Speaker 2: have found popcorn buried with people in like South America,
Speaker 2: and I think there was one burial in per maybe
Speaker 2: where the burial was one thousand years old, but the
Speaker 2: popcorn was still viable, like you could have popped it.
Speaker 2: Imagine eating thousand year old funeral burial popcorn. That would
Speaker 2: really be something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's probably in some fancy menu somewhere in a
Speaker 3: fancy restaurant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of those underground restaurants for richies where they
Speaker 2: eat people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, where they eat ancient foods and people, yeah, disguised
Speaker 3: as tasty. There is written documentation. I believe the first
Speaker 3: written documentation of popcorn comes from when the Europeans came
Speaker 3: over again to the Americas. There was a missionary in
Speaker 3: the sixteenth century name Bernardino the Sahagun. He was not
Speaker 3: Italian really, and he claimed Aztecs were wearing popcorn garlands,
Speaker 3: so it was already being used as sort of a decorative.
Speaker 4: And they called it momo cheetle okay.
Speaker 3: And there was a seventeenth century missionary rename I'm not
Speaker 3: even gonna try. His last name was Kobo, I can
Speaker 3: say that one. And he saw Pruvian's toasting a quote,
Speaker 3: a certain kind of corn until it burst, clearly popcorn.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They called it pens and cola.
Speaker 4: Cool, that's all I got, good stuff?
Speaker 2: Uh Yeah, so yes, they were. They were. These guys
Speaker 2: were witnessing popcorn, and you would think like, oh, okay, well
Speaker 2: it would immediately become a big deal everywhere. That's not
Speaker 2: necessarily the case. Despite there being a legend that popcorn
Speaker 2: was introduced to the Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving, that
Speaker 2: seems to have been a nineteenth century invention, which is
Speaker 2: actually about the time that popcorn became a favored American
Speaker 2: snack in the United States.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we should probably take a break and come back
Speaker 3: and talk about what happened from there.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great idea, Joe, all right, we'll
Speaker 2: be right back.
Speaker 5: I want to learn about a terror sort and call
Speaker 5: it red actel. How to take a berg fractal gink
Speaker 5: is Khan.
Speaker 1: That's a little hunt the Lizzie Borderers and all run
Speaker 1: on sport up Jerry.
Speaker 2: So euro Americans knew of popcorn long before they started
Speaker 2: eating it. It was just associated with Native Americans. There
Speaker 2: was a Native American thing. They love their popcorn. But
Speaker 2: in the nineteenth century, as far back as the eighteen twenties,
Speaker 2: people selling seeds started selling popcorn. Seeds kind of slowly
Speaker 2: but surely started to gain traction. Thurreau was a fan.
Speaker 2: He called popcorn a perfect winter flower, which seems like
Speaker 2: a miss to me. And in eighteen forty eight popcorn
Speaker 2: showed up in the debut edition of the Dictionary of Americanisms,
Speaker 2: and I was looking through that. Chuck and keep a
Speaker 2: stiff upper lip was in there too, which I associate
Speaker 2: one with the UK. But apparently that's American.
Speaker 4: Oh. I never really thought about where that might have
Speaker 4: come from.
Speaker 2: I always thought it was the UK, but I was wrong.
Speaker 3: Well, as far as popcorn goes, they used to make
Speaker 3: it in all kinds of crazy ways early on. Sometimes
Speaker 3: they would just throw it in a fire and wait
Speaker 3: for it to pop out, I guess, and eat it
Speaker 3: with a little little ash on it. Sometimes they would
Speaker 3: put like an iron like an iron plank on a fire,
Speaker 3: like you might do steamed oysters or something. If you're
Speaker 3: sitting by the beach these days and you've got some
Speaker 3: oysters and you throw a wet towel over those oysters.
Speaker 3: With popcorn, you could just throw those kernels on that
Speaker 3: hot plate, storm around just like it was on your stovetop,
Speaker 3: and wait for it to pop.
Speaker 2: What's the towel for.
Speaker 4: The towel is for the oysters to steam them?
Speaker 2: Oh, so you cover the oysters with the towel and
Speaker 2: it keeps the steam inside.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, with a wet to gotcha.
Speaker 3: Guy, Yeah, and creates that steam. So, but that's oysters
Speaker 3: just neither here there.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: So a frying pan obviously is one way you could
Speaker 3: have popped it early on, but those things were really
Speaker 3: really heavy to work with. They still are very heavy
Speaker 3: you work with as far as like holding one and
Speaker 3: shaking it over a hot fire. And before they had
Speaker 3: gas s doves, you know, you got to nail the
Speaker 3: popcorn heating temperature or else you're gonna scorch it and
Speaker 3: it's not gonna taste great or it's never going to pop.
Speaker 3: So until gas stoves came along, it was just harder.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it wasn't quite as popular, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: although you can imagine there were some country women who
Speaker 2: had like a much bigger, stronger right arm from popping
Speaker 2: popcorn iron skillet, yeah, dead give away that they were
Speaker 2: a popcorn fan. Yeah. Finally, in eighteen sixty six, the
Speaker 2: first patent was issued for a popcorn popper, and it
Speaker 2: was essentially just like you know those old timey toast makers.
Speaker 2: There's like a it's like an iron rod and it
Speaker 2: ends in like a mesh basket that you'd put the
Speaker 2: bread in and toast it. Yeah, something like that. But
Speaker 2: the mesh was thin enough that the popcorn brand wouldn't
Speaker 2: fall out when you're popping it, and it would just
Speaker 2: go pop pop, pop pop. My feet can't stop.
Speaker 4: They still make those for camping, you know, you can
Speaker 4: still get those.
Speaker 2: Okay, that makes sense. Well, that is the first patented
Speaker 2: popcorn popper that came on the market, and it was
Speaker 2: I mean still hard to do, but it was much
Speaker 2: lighter than holding an iron skillet over the fire until
Speaker 2: your popcorn popped.
Speaker 4: Yeah, at the very least is lighter and had a
Speaker 4: much longer handle.
Speaker 2: Right, So people were like, okay, I can kind of
Speaker 2: get into this, and that's when it just started to
Speaker 2: take off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that was eighteen sixty six. Like you said,
Speaker 3: so in the eighteen seventies, if there was a public event,
Speaker 3: you were going to be able to buy popcorn there.
Speaker 3: Anything that had a concession stand was going to be
Speaker 3: selling popcorn by that time. And in the eighteen nineties
Speaker 3: that was a guy named Charles cr Etrs Creditors, I
Speaker 3: guess in eighteen ninety three. He was a confectionery shop
Speaker 3: owner in Ohio and he patented, I guess the first
Speaker 3: sort of mobile portable popcorn machine that he adapted from
Speaker 3: a peanut roaster of his own design, and all of
Speaker 3: a sudden you could have like a popcorn stand on
Speaker 3: a sidewalk, and that became like a thing.
Speaker 4: People were buying popcorn because it was always pretty cheap.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I looked at a picture. This is glorious. It's
Speaker 2: super got like the big old penny farthing wheels on it.
Speaker 2: It's just I would love to.
Speaker 4: Buy popcorn from it, you know.
Speaker 3: I penny Thuring farthing is called that, no, because one
Speaker 3: wheel was relatively the size of a penny to the
Speaker 3: size of the farthing.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, it's neat.
Speaker 2: Is that kind of like that thing? Where like if
Speaker 2: Earth was the size of a pinhead, the sun would
Speaker 2: be the size of a basketball exactly. So this is
Speaker 2: the nineteenth century. I think we made it through right, Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: So by the twentieth century, Oh no, we haven't quite
Speaker 2: made it either, because I think we would be remiss
Speaker 2: to not mention cracker jacks.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, people in the late nineteenth century were into
Speaker 3: pop like sweet popcorn balls and making popcorn sweet and delicious.
Speaker 2: So it was a dirty lie when you said that
Speaker 2: we made it out of the nineteenth.
Speaker 4: Century, so dirty. I mean this was eighteen ninety six.
Speaker 4: We were so close.
Speaker 3: So they were eating sweet popcorn in the eighteen forties.
Speaker 3: I think cracker Jack came along in ninety six.
Speaker 2: Yes, so another thing that people put popcorn to use for. Again,
Speaker 2: people are starting to get pretty crazy with this. Remember
Speaker 2: our live episode on the Kellogg Brothers at the bat
Speaker 2: Battle Creek Sanitarium. Before they started serving cereal there, John
Speaker 2: Harvey Kellogg's wife Ella Kellogg, introduced popcorn as a cereal,
Speaker 2: a breakfast cereal with milk and a sweetener, and it
Speaker 2: was essentially the predecessor to the corn flakes and the
Speaker 2: brand flakes and everything that came after that. And in
Speaker 2: my opinion, it was the direct indirect predecessor of corn pops,
Speaker 2: which are still around today. But they came out in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty and we're one of my all time favorite cereals.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, I was like, what is corn pops? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 4: corn pops? Yeah.
Speaker 3: She called it popcorn pudding. And there's a historian named
Speaker 3: Andrew Smith that was basically like, popcorn may have been
Speaker 3: what cereal became if it hadn't have been for other
Speaker 3: grain manufacturers really getting super aggressive with the breakfast cereal
Speaker 3: companies being like no, no, no, you want to use
Speaker 3: brand or.
Speaker 4: Oat or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't be stupid.
Speaker 3: Another thing you could use it for back then that
Speaker 3: I have recently used it for is for flour. You
Speaker 3: could grind popcorn into flour.
Speaker 4: And I have had this pancake popcorn pancake mix in
Speaker 4: my house, which is pretty good and way better for
Speaker 4: you than pancakes.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, it's gluten free, right, yeah, and it
Speaker 2: is good. You're not just saying that it's pretty up
Speaker 2: some money on my god, you're gonna like.
Speaker 3: I can't remember the name of the company, unfortunately, but
Speaker 3: you could. You can find that out pretty easily.
Speaker 2: I saw a recipe for popcorn bread and I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: that sounds interesting. And if you look closely, there's like
Speaker 2: five other types of flour in it. It's popcorn is
Speaker 2: just part of it. Yeah, I'd still eat it if
Speaker 2: somebody else made it, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So we finally made it to the twentieth century. And
Speaker 2: the reason the twentieth century became such a big deal
Speaker 2: as far as popcorn goes is because that is when
Speaker 2: movies started to come out At first they were silent movies,
Speaker 2: and then talkies and movie theaters started to open throughout
Speaker 2: the United States, and very quickly people were like, popcorn
Speaker 2: and movies go together really well. But it turns out
Speaker 2: the theater owners were the last ones to figure this out.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: They were like, this stuff is a disaster of a mess.
Speaker 3: It's all over the floor, and it still is, but
Speaker 3: they deal with it because they make a ton of
Speaker 3: money selling it. It was the depression coming along where
Speaker 3: theater owners were like, hey, wait a minute, people don't
Speaker 3: have a lot of money right now. Popcorn is very,
Speaker 3: very cheap. It's a very affordable snack. So the people
Speaker 3: were selling popcorn outside at theater that people could bring in,
Speaker 3: much like my mother did in the nineteen eighties and
Speaker 3: the first YEP, and they finally were like, hey, maybe
Speaker 3: we could lease lobby space these popcorn vendors and just
Speaker 3: have them sell it in here.
Speaker 4: And then someone was like, wait a minute, we're what
Speaker 4: are we doing. We're doing this all wrong.
Speaker 3: We need to pop and sell this popcorn because the
Speaker 3: markup is incredible and we're just losing money. So they started,
Speaker 3: you know, it became hand in hand with theaters making
Speaker 3: profits from the concessions largely popcorn.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean like a lot of money off of popcorn.
Speaker 2: There's a well trod story about a theater owner from
Speaker 2: during the depression name R. J. McKenna, who found that
Speaker 2: popcorn was basically keeping his theater afloat. During the depression,
Speaker 2: people didn't really have much money for a movie theater ticket,
Speaker 2: but if they did, they still had money enough for
Speaker 2: popcorn because it was a cheap snack. So R. J.
Speaker 2: McKenna made the very wise is this decision of lowering
Speaker 2: his ticket prices below what he would have made a
Speaker 2: profit on because he made so much money off of
Speaker 2: popcorn in the concession stands. And I think they the
Speaker 2: number that's bandied about is two hundred thousand dollars from
Speaker 2: popcorn alone, which is more than four and a half
Speaker 2: million dollars today. If that's in nineteen thirty six, dollars.
Speaker 4: From popcorn big big profits.
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure. And he said a bit of a tradition,
Speaker 2: as we'll find out that popcorn still big.
Speaker 4: Profits, Yeah, big time.
Speaker 3: During World War Two, there were sugar shortages, so sweet
Speaker 3: treats were on the wigin I guess, and salty treats rose,
Speaker 3: and popcorn was right at the center of that. Apparently,
Speaker 3: Americans were eating three times more popcorn in the nineteen
Speaker 3: forties than they ever had before, and also in the
Speaker 3: know the connection to movie theater strengthened during the nineteen forties.
Speaker 3: In nineteen forty five, more than half the popcorn people
Speaker 3: eating in the United States was in those movie theaters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's another really great I want to say
Speaker 2: it's an urban legend, but it actually happened a guy
Speaker 2: named James Vicari or Vickery, who we've talked about before,
Speaker 2: because he was basically the inventor of subliminal advertising, even
Speaker 2: though subliminal advertising isn't really a thing. But the reason
Speaker 2: he ties into this is because he supposedly experimented on
Speaker 2: people showing frames interlaced within movies that popped up so
Speaker 2: quickly that you couldn't perceive them, you only perceived them subliminally,
Speaker 2: and they said things like go eat more popcorn, and
Speaker 2: popcorn sales like tripled. Supposedly, even though the whole thing
Speaker 2: was a total fraud and the guy made it up,
Speaker 2: it's still worth mentioning.
Speaker 3: If you ask me, he didn't actually even do that,
Speaker 3: he said later that he made all of that up.
Speaker 3: He never even did the subliminal advertising.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I saw that too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that was just a fraud from top to bottom.
Speaker 3: Prior to the thirties, most of the popcorn was white corn,
Speaker 3: but movie theaters moved to the yellow corn variety and
Speaker 3: it just looked better. It looked buttery, even though it wasn't,
Speaker 3: and people that just became the de facto popcorn that
Speaker 3: you mainly eat here in the United States, is that
Speaker 3: yellow corn. I think by nineteen ninety ten percent of
Speaker 3: commercially soul popcorn was whitecorn.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you, do you get buttered popcorn at
Speaker 2: the movies?
Speaker 3: I get popcorn, And the AMC that I go to
Speaker 3: here has the do your own butter. That's not butter,
Speaker 3: by the way, at all. It's buttered flavored oil and stuff.
Speaker 3: But I add, you know, when I was a kid,
Speaker 3: I would just drench it in that stuff.
Speaker 4: Now I do not.
Speaker 3: Now I do like that flavor, but I'll just do
Speaker 3: a pretty sparing couple of squirts and shakes.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I never was into it, even as a kid.
Speaker 2: I'd hard to be and I just couldn't get into
Speaker 2: it for some reason. I think because it just it's
Speaker 2: the popcorn. And I don't like popcorn wet.
Speaker 3: I love it, but it's just you can't have it
Speaker 3: drenched in that stuff. Like that's when it's really bad
Speaker 3: for you. It's when you're just like dumping all that
Speaker 3: oil on there. But a little bit I like, and
Speaker 3: I'll shake it up and you get you know, I
Speaker 3: get enough of that flavor just from a dab good.
Speaker 2: I respect our differences.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing though, with TV coming along, the popcorn
Speaker 3: industry was really really worried that like, oh no, like
Speaker 3: you know, all this popcorn is being eat in movie
Speaker 3: theaters like we're toast because people aren't gonna go to
Speaker 3: the movies anymore because of TV. A. That didn't really happen.
Speaker 3: People still went to the movies back then. But what
Speaker 3: they found out was people loved popping that popcorn at
Speaker 3: home while they watched TV. And you can also have
Speaker 3: popcorn ads on TV, and so people with their televisions
Speaker 3: were eating more popcorn than ever in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, you know what stuck out to me from
Speaker 2: that that anecdote, Chuck, is like, that's a an example
Speaker 2: of early disruption, right yea, where people are like, oh,
Speaker 2: there's a change, there's a huge sea change in the
Speaker 2: way people do things, So this thing is going to
Speaker 2: totally go away forever, right, And just since the Internet age,
Speaker 2: we found that just doesn't really happen, Like everything from
Speaker 2: bookstores to paper to I don't know, seeing people in person,
Speaker 2: we're all just destined to just go away because they've
Speaker 2: been replaced and it's just not how it goes, which
Speaker 2: I think is kind of neat to understand because it
Speaker 2: makes you a little less fearful of change or technology
Speaker 2: or progress in some ways, I agree, although anyone who's
Speaker 2: listened to the end of the world knows there's plenty
Speaker 2: of technology to be scared of. It's got to be selective.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know there are dents and industries for sure,
Speaker 3: like you know, newspapers and magazines. Some have shuddered, but
Speaker 3: if you believed, you know what the scare tactics, everyone's
Speaker 3: gonna be like, you're never going to hold a newspaper
Speaker 3: again after a certain year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, newspapers, So that one did take a pretty hard hit,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't necessarily because of the Internet. It was
Speaker 2: because of captains of industry essentially realizing that they could
Speaker 2: capture journalism if they if they defunded local news, and
Speaker 2: that's exactly what happened. And I don't remember what episode
Speaker 2: it was on. There's this there's a YouTube podcast that
Speaker 2: I love, if you mean introduced it to me or
Speaker 2: me to it, one of the two called doom Scroll.
Speaker 2: It's hosted by a guy named Joshua Ciderella, and he
Speaker 2: has the most interesting guests on who are just they
Speaker 2: just think and talk about their thoughts, and I mean
Speaker 2: like it's it's all rooted in, you know, like academia
Speaker 2: or research or something. They're not just riffing or anything
Speaker 2: like that. But one of them was talking about that
Speaker 2: that capture and what happened to it, and it's just
Speaker 2: so strange to think, like, yeah, local newspapers went away,
Speaker 2: but the effect that that had on democracy and on
Speaker 2: people being informed and just generally caring about stuff that
Speaker 2: was a huge, huge deal.
Speaker 4: Allegedly, did he eat popcorn while they said this stuff?
Speaker 2: No? I don't think he did. No, he drinks like
Speaker 2: Lacroix instead.
Speaker 3: All right, well let's take our second break and we'll
Speaker 3: finish up with popcorn.
Speaker 4: Right after this, I want to learn.
Speaker 5: About a terrisort and call it fridactyl. How to take
Speaker 5: a pink is gone? That's a little hunt word up, Jerry.
Speaker 3: All Right, So we talked a little bit about innovations
Speaker 3: and how to pop popcorn over the years. That is
Speaker 3: still evolving. I feel like every few years there's some
Speaker 3: new sort of weird gadget to pop popcorn with.
Speaker 2: I did not know that, man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, electricity coming along was a big deal obviously for
Speaker 3: electric popcorn poppers like you have, well, you and your
Speaker 3: electric hamster. That is, they had a drawback though, because
Speaker 3: they were dangerous. The early electric popcorn poppers were like
Speaker 3: fires waiting to happen, essentially. I think in the late
Speaker 3: sixties Consumer Bulletin examined all the most popular ones and
Speaker 3: one of them they determined did not post safety hazards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the one we have.
Speaker 4: Yeah, from nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 2: Although the hamster that runs our popcorn popper did come
Speaker 2: with a little fire chiefs hat that he wears.
Speaker 4: It's so cute.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's another interesting thing about popcorn. If you
Speaker 2: kind of track its trajectory, it just keeps evolving with
Speaker 2: new stuff. Like anytime something new comes along that you
Speaker 2: can apply to popcorn. Whether it's movies or TVs or electricity,
Speaker 2: people apply it to popcorn like it's just this little
Speaker 2: thing lurking in the background that's been woven into our
Speaker 2: culture so thoroughly and for so long, you just look
Speaker 2: right past it and then it trips you as you
Speaker 2: walk by, and you suddenly recognize how important popcorn is.
Speaker 4: Yeah. TV Time was another one.
Speaker 3: We already mentioned jippy pop, but TV Time was it
Speaker 3: was just a packaging innovation where they had like sealed
Speaker 3: popcorn to keep it really fresh, and then also separate
Speaker 3: kind of like fun dip, separate compartments for seasonings and oil.
Speaker 3: So it was kind of an all in one thing.
Speaker 3: So just even little innovations that aren't mechanical, like packaging
Speaker 3: innovations like microwave popcorn. I guess we could get too,
Speaker 3: because that really changed the game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we've talked about this guy plenty of times.
Speaker 2: He was kind of like the Hayflick limit for a
Speaker 2: while and early yeah stuff, you should know. He came
Speaker 2: up a lot. But a guy named Percy Spencer worked
Speaker 2: for the Raytheon Company and he was in charge of
Speaker 2: creating magnetrons. I can't remember what he was doing with them.
Speaker 2: I think they're for like radar or something. And he
Speaker 2: was standing next to one at some point and he
Speaker 2: had a chocolate bar. I'm guessing mister goodbar, that's what
Speaker 2: I've always envisioned, Yeah, in his front pocket, like a
Speaker 2: total nerd, because obviously his shirt was also a short
Speaker 2: sleeve button down shirt, and the mister goodbar melted in
Speaker 2: his pocket and he thought, hmm, that's curious.
Speaker 4: And I was saving this late exactly.
Speaker 2: No, it's just oozy. And then he decided almost immediately
Speaker 2: to see what happens with popcorn, if you could do
Speaker 2: the same thing with popcorn, and he did it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so like microwaves and popcorn, microwave popcorn grew
Speaker 3: in lockstep from.
Speaker 4: The very beginning.
Speaker 3: In fact, he even in his nineteen forty six patent
Speaker 3: for the microwave showed popcorn being popped, so it was
Speaker 3: always sort of tied together. The first commercial microwaves were
Speaker 3: very big and expensive and not really for the home.
Speaker 4: They were more for restaurants.
Speaker 3: So once they went to the house, microwave popcorn was
Speaker 3: right there along with it. In nineteen fifty one, a
Speaker 3: gentleman named Orville Redenbacher got to together with a guy
Speaker 3: named Charles Bowman and bought a corn plant in Indiana
Speaker 3: and experimented with different versions of popcorn varieties and landed
Speaker 3: on the Red Bow variety, and in nineteen sixty nine
Speaker 3: started selling Orvile Reddenbacher branded popcorn. And here's what I
Speaker 3: didn't know. They sold that brand six years later. They
Speaker 3: sold it in nineteen seventy six, Wow, to hunt wessn Foods.
Speaker 3: But he was just the name and face of it,
Speaker 3: So he stayed the name and face of it.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah. And I've read bow variety, you said, I
Speaker 2: wonder if they named it after his penchant for red
Speaker 2: bow ties, or he started wearing red bow ties because
Speaker 2: of the variety.
Speaker 4: I don't think they named the variety, So I bet
Speaker 4: you he started wearing that thing because of that.
Speaker 2: Thank you, CA. He also just said one more thing
Speaker 2: about Orvile Riddenbacher. His Eames lounge chair, you know, the
Speaker 2: one with the ottoman. Yeah, he had one in his
Speaker 2: office and I think Nebraska, Omaha or something, and it's
Speaker 2: still out there Orvile red Eames lounge chair from his
Speaker 2: offices out there somewhere in.
Speaker 4: The world, like someone owns it.
Speaker 2: Yes, I've coveted it ever since I first heard about that.
Speaker 4: Not just a name chair you want Orvile Reddenbocker's Emes chair.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, and I still I don't know why. I've
Speaker 2: never really stepped back and asked myself, but it's it
Speaker 2: just got me for some reason.
Speaker 4: I mean, you can't be a gen x er and
Speaker 4: not have a soft spot for Orvile Reddenbacker and the
Speaker 4: Bartles and James guys.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, they were great. They were wonderful dudes. They
Speaker 2: were the predecessor of Penn and Teller.
Speaker 4: I think, yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we talked about microwaves and how microwaves started
Speaker 2: coming to the home, and microwave popcorn came along quickly
Speaker 2: after that. I think nineteen eighty one was when you
Speaker 2: could start buying microwave popcorn. And like I said, it's
Speaker 2: like a global phenomenon. I think I said it. At
Speaker 2: the outset. Everybody knows popcorn, whether you love it or not.
Speaker 2: You know about popcorn, you know where to buy it,
Speaker 2: and there's different tastes around the world, as you might
Speaker 2: i'd imagine, apparently in the United States, the favorite flavors
Speaker 2: of popcorn are salted, buttered, white cheddar, regular cheddar. So
Speaker 2: white Cheddar's finally overtaken regular cheddar. This is a big deal.
Speaker 2: And then kettle which is the sweet kind.
Speaker 4: I like a kettle corn.
Speaker 2: That's all right. I've never been crazy for it, but
Speaker 2: you know, if somebody put it in my mouth, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't just spit it out.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna try that sometimes, he would have backstage at
Speaker 3: our next live show, I'm just gonna stuff some kettle
Speaker 3: corn in your mouth.
Speaker 2: Do you remember when we were filming a We were
Speaker 2: filming some commercial, I think, and we were eating popcorn
Speaker 2: at the movies for this part of the commercial, and
Speaker 2: we did like one take and then chat. Our friend,
Speaker 2: the director directed the stuff. He's doing a TV show.
Speaker 2: He came over. He's like, just one note, don't mash
Speaker 2: a handful of popcorn into your mouth all at once.
Speaker 2: And he goes, that's a note for regular life too.
Speaker 2: Oh no, yeah, And so.
Speaker 4: Are you supposed to eat it?
Speaker 2: I don't know, Like I guess you hold it in
Speaker 2: one hand and then like daintily pluck a few out
Speaker 2: with the other hand. That's what I've seen people do
Speaker 2: in the movies. But I like that, Yeah, I just
Speaker 2: put my hand in a bag of popcorn or a
Speaker 2: bullet popcorn, just shove it into my face as best, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: it's not just me, but yeah, Chad made it seem
Speaker 2: like it.
Speaker 4: Was just me.
Speaker 3: Isn't it a little funny that you ever think about
Speaker 3: that we used to get way more opportunities to do
Speaker 3: that stuff very much earlier in our career.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah. I think also that we've kind of mellowed
Speaker 2: out in our quest or our willingness to do stuff
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 4: We kind of like we said, yeah, we're kind of like.
Speaker 2: Hey, we're happy podcasting. We tried so many different things
Speaker 2: and it's always just come back to podcasting that I
Speaker 2: think we're just like, yeah, we're happy living this way.
Speaker 4: I mean I am.
Speaker 3: I'm kind of glad now that I'm older and have
Speaker 3: a you know, family at home that did not have
Speaker 3: to travel to do that stuff.
Speaker 4: It just seems weird.
Speaker 3: Like earlier on, I felt like TV shows were trying
Speaker 3: to get us on to be like talk show guests
Speaker 3: or like Toyota do Toyota commercials, Hey come on and
Speaker 3: talk about the housing crisis for the NBC and like
Speaker 3: just nobody asks anymore, and it's.
Speaker 4: It's quite wonderful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is nice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3: Anyway, if you go around the country, you're gonna get
Speaker 3: some interesting flavors. In Japan, apparently there's a bagged popcorn
Speaker 3: company called Mike that Fred La owns, and they have
Speaker 3: of course, like Yuzu salt or.
Speaker 4: Kishu plum popcorn.
Speaker 3: So you're gonna get some some pretty exciting flavors when
Speaker 3: you travel around the world, depending what they like there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I know for a fact it's not pronounced Mike,
Speaker 2: but I failed to ask you me how to pronounce it.
Speaker 4: So now what is it?
Speaker 2: Me? K, We'll go with Mike, but it's not Mike.
Speaker 4: Well, of course it's not Mike. But I'm an American, so.
Speaker 2: No, I'm with you. I just wish I knew how
Speaker 2: to say it, but you probably were right with me.
Speaker 4: What else could it be? Me? K? Nike?
Speaker 2: Kind of yeah, mikey? What else? Chuck? Is there anything
Speaker 2: else to say about popcorn? Oh? I know one? Apparently
Speaker 2: people have used popcorn as like a packaging like stuffer.
Speaker 4: For packing peanuts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, packing peanuts, but popcorn instead. Since like the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2: But the problem is is if you use popcorn, it
Speaker 2: can get kind of gross, especially if you didn't think
Speaker 2: and you popped it in oil and covered it with
Speaker 2: butter before you put it in as a packaging material.
Speaker 2: It'll just get gross. It can attract pests and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. So no one's quite figured it out, but
Speaker 2: I guess a few years back, twenty twenty one, there's
Speaker 2: some German researchers who are like hot on the trail
Speaker 2: of this, using scraps of corn that is like that
Speaker 2: you get off the floor of like a corn flake
Speaker 2: factory that they figured out how to pop and it's
Speaker 2: essentially styrofoam, but it's made of pop corn, And I'm like,
Speaker 2: hurry up with this because styrofoam is one of the
Speaker 2: worst things humans produce on this entire planet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, packing peanuts are a nightmare, they really are.
Speaker 4: So yeah, maybe.
Speaker 3: Popcorn could could help out with that, just a couple
Speaker 3: of things to finish on. It is an eight hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty million dollar industry. I guess in the United
Speaker 3: States alone that bag popcorn, like the smart popping, all
Speaker 3: that stuff combined is about one point five billion, So
Speaker 3: it is it is.
Speaker 2: It's popping.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's pop it's popping.
Speaker 3: And I'm glad that we held onto the stat because
Speaker 3: we kind of teased about movie theaters and how much
Speaker 3: the markup was and how much money they made. The
Speaker 3: popcorn markup in movie theaters is one two hundred and
Speaker 3: seventy five percent.
Speaker 2: Totally buy that. That actually seems low.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's such a money maker because it's just so
Speaker 3: cheap to get and you get that machine that runs forever,
Speaker 3: maybe a little maintenance on it, and then the stuff
Speaker 3: goes with it, and then you sell it for a
Speaker 3: gazillion dollars for a bucket. Then you got that butter
Speaker 3: flavored liquid. This snow good.
Speaker 4: If you do like.
Speaker 3: Real butter on your popcorn at home, I encourage that
Speaker 3: because real butter is great. But you got to use
Speaker 3: clarified butter or ghee right because the water and the
Speaker 3: milk solids are removed in those and that's what's going
Speaker 3: to make the popcorn soggy. So if you're just melting
Speaker 3: butter and pouring on your popcorn, you're like, why is
Speaker 3: my popcorn soggy and gross? That's why I use clarified
Speaker 3: butter or clarify your own butter and pour it over
Speaker 3: your popcorn, and it is delicious and not soggy.
Speaker 2: Very nice. I think that's it for popcorn.
Speaker 3: Right, I've got nothing else on popcorn. Go forth and
Speaker 3: eat it. It's good and pretty good for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and check out that book by Andrew Smith, pop Culture,
Speaker 2: because it's the definitive toe on popcorn.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: Well, since we talked about Andrew Smith, it's time obviously
Speaker 2: for listener mail.
Speaker 3: This is from Cecilia S and it's about our music
Speaker 3: bumpers that we've said before, but it always bears repeating.
Speaker 3: They are made by stuff you should know, listeners. They
Speaker 3: always have been. Every single one of them are made
Speaker 3: by listeners and they send them in and it's a
Speaker 3: really cool, like interactive part of the show for the
Speaker 3: listenership guys. In terms of your music bumpers, I love
Speaker 3: how they relate.
Speaker 4: To the episode subject.
Speaker 3: If it's about an eerie subject, the song reflects that
Speaker 3: with an eerie tone, or if it's a somber, sad subject,
Speaker 3: the song reflects that. And there are many other examples.
Speaker 3: This brings to my father, who is a music director
Speaker 3: at the church we belong to growing up. He would
Speaker 3: sometimes fill in when the organist was unavailable, and before
Speaker 3: and after Mass he would softly play hymns but an
Speaker 3: insert a bit of whimsy. For example, at the start
Speaker 3: of baseball season he'd play a little take Me out
Speaker 3: to the ballgame and the style of a hymn, or
Speaker 3: during football season the university fight song could be heard
Speaker 3: in the fashion of a solemn liturgical piece. Many other
Speaker 3: instances of his playfulness. He had a big band combo
Speaker 3: in college in the nineteen forties and into the seventies,
Speaker 3: and they could sometimes be heard in church.
Speaker 4: Anyway, love the show.
Speaker 3: You both display such curiosity and knowledge and with wonderful
Speaker 3: wit and sensitivity when needed.
Speaker 4: Thank you to whoever is responsible for the music.
Speaker 3: It's not often I would say that about a podcast,
Speaker 3: so Cecilia, like we said, those are from the listeners.
Speaker 4: But Jerry, our esteemed third leg of our.
Speaker 3: Stool, is who ties those so aptly to the subject
Speaker 3: matter with her own wit and whimsy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jerry deserves way more credit for that too, because
Speaker 2: sometimes it's just like, man, you just knocked it out
Speaker 2: of the park with that pick.
Speaker 4: Jerry, she does, and we're never like, uh, who Jerry
Speaker 4: this is a Halloween one, so make sure to use
Speaker 4: a scary bumper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't do that.
Speaker 4: We leave it to Jerry, she does her thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And also, huge, huge, heartfelt thanks. I think I
Speaker 2: just said thanks, but I really meant thanks to every
Speaker 2: single person who's ever sent in a music bumper, because
Speaker 2: that's just such a cool, just little subtle part of
Speaker 2: the show. Ye, all those different, great little pieces of music.
Speaker 2: Thank you to everybody who's ever done that. Thank you
Speaker 2: to everybody who's going to do it in the future,
Speaker 2: even too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, twelve seconds or less.
Speaker 2: I think we say sixteen. I thought it was twelve
Speaker 2: somewhere in that neighborhood. Between twelve and sixteen seconds, how
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but if you send in one of those thirty
Speaker 3: second long ones, you'll hear from me saying this is great,
Speaker 3: but cut it down and we'll use it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's a note for real life too.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: Well, if you want to get in touch with us,
Speaker 2: like Cecilia, you can send us an email too. Send
Speaker 2: it off to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.