309: Yellow? Is It Me You're Looking For?

Summary

Good Job, Brain!
Episode 309: "Yellow? Is It Me You’re Looking For?"
June 3, 2026

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Episode Overview

This lighthearted, trivia-packed episode is all about the color yellow: from the foods we eat, the symbols we know, and the classic songs we hum, to the cultural history behind iconic media and even the existential question: what color is a tennis ball, really? The Good Job, Brain! crew—Karen (host), Colin, and Chris—dive into quizzes, origin stories, playful debates, and wild facts, weaving together history, pop culture, and their signature banter.

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Key Segments & Insights

Opening Banter & Dream Big Week (00:16–02:40)

• Karen shares her experience presenting trivia podcasting to kindergartners during her daughter's career day ("Dream Big Week"). She jokes about trivia that appeals to kids (Pokémon and animal poop facts), and recounts a kid sharing that Mariners player Cal Raleigh's nickname is "the big dumper"—"They love butts." (02:22, Karen)

General Trivia Segment – Trivial Pursuit Pop Quiz (02:41–11:42)

Format: Karen reads questions from old (Genus 2, Genus 4) Trivial Pursuit cards, Colin and Chris answer.

• Topics covered: U.S. geography, entertainment, history, literature, nature, sports & leisure.
• Fun exchanges and quick facts:
  • Boy George's makeup box: Trick question; only one compartment, poking fun at poor question wording.
  • Presidential Succession: Chris nails Teddy Roosevelt after McKinley, Colin guesses Taft.
  • An "alonymous" writer: Means "ghostwriter." (06:09, Chris)
  • Diurnal vs. Nocturnal: Humans are generally diurnal—"We are diurnal animals" (06:29, Chris).
  • French Music Regulation: 2 of every 5 radio songs in France (since 1996) must be by French artists.
  • Best-selling children's album (1994): "The Lion King"
  • First Japanese car plant in US: Honda in 1982.
  • CPR definition: "Cardiopulmonary resuscitation" (09:40, Chris)
  • "Holy water of the American South": Coca Cola.
  • Dry champagne "B" word: Brut.
• Memorable quote: On memorizing presidents, “For fourteen years, we’ve been saying we should memorize all the U.S. presidents in order…We refuse to ever do it.” (11:02, Chris)

Main Theme: Yellow—Quizzes, Cheez Whiz & Regional Foods (11:58–23:02)

Cheese Whiz Quiz (13:08–22:38)

Karen unveils a round of wild Cheez Whiz trivia:

• What dish was Cheez Whiz a shortcut for? Not fondue—Welsh rarebit.
  • "It was for the European market. It was a substitute." (16:03, Karen)
• Does Cheez Whiz contain cheese? No; it contains cheese ingredients, but no cheese itself.
• Spelling: CHEEZ WHIZ—no “E” in “WHIZ.”
• Inventor Ed Treisman also invented: Special freezing process for McDonald’s fries, enabling signature crispiness.
• Minnesota Funeral Bread: Cult regional dish dating back to the 1970s elementary school lunches.
  • Ingredients: Cinnamon swirl bread, Cheez Whiz, and green olives.
  • "As you guys think about it, here's some more info... it's what people are calling a church basement food." (20:14, Karen)
  • Reaction: "Get out of here. ...I'm with you two-thirds of the way, but cinnamon swirl bread with Cheez Whiz topped with green olives? I'm not a big olive fan." (22:43, Chris/Karen)

Feature Story: Hogan’s Alley, The Yellow Kid, & Yellow Journalism (23:05–36:15)

The Evolution of "Yellow" in American Culture

Chris takes listeners through a fascinating trivia path:

• Nintendo’s "Hogan’s Alley": NES Zapper light-gun game, named after an FBI training facility for shoot/don’t shoot drills.
  • "Who is Hogan? The name is not explained in either the instruction manual or the game." (24:00, Karen/Chris)
• Tracing Hogan’s Alley:
  • 1987: FBI simulation town at Quantico, VA.
  • 1950s: Original training, simpler Hollywood flats with criminal cutouts.
  • 1919: Originated as a marksman challenge at Camp Perry, Ohio, constructed to resemble a dangerous city—named for Hogan’s Alley comic.
  • 1890s Comic Strip "Hogan’s Alley": Starred “The Yellow Kid,” bald boy in a yellow nightshirt (colorful due to being an early Sunday color supplement).
  • "He was the Garfield of the 1890s." (33:26, Chris/Colin)
• Yellow Kid’s legacy:
  • Inspired mass merchandising (toys, cigarettes, cracker tins, etc.).
  • Origin of "Yellow Journalism": Pulitzer and Hearst tabloids’ sensational stories became synonymous with “yellow kid journalism”—"the kind of cheap journalism you get in the paper that has the Yellow Kid in it," (34:48, Chris)
  • Now we just say “yellow journalism.”

Quote:

• "What a freaking ride." (35:17, Karen)

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Music Round: Name That "Yellow" Tune (39:08–49:29)

Reverse Music Quiz

Karen challenges the group to guess songs with “yellow” in the title, providing only the years; the crew teams up to match the right song to each year.

Songs featured (chronological):

• 2011: "Black and Yellow" – Wiz Khalifa
• 2002: Cover of "Big Yellow Taxi" by Counting Crows feat. Vanessa Carlton (dubbed "possibly the worst cover in music history"; 42:25, Karen)
• 2000: "Yellow" – Coldplay
• 1992: "Yellow Ledbetter" – Pearl Jam
• 1973: "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" – Elton John
• 1973: "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree" – Tony Orlando & Dawn
• 1966: "Mellow Yellow" – Donovan
• 1966: "Yellow Submarine" – The Beatles
• 1960: "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" – Brian Hyland

Memorable moment: Both hosts realize they blanked on bikini and laugh over how obvious it was.

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The Great Tennis Ball Color Debate (49:43–61:46)

Colin launches a friendship-slashing question: “WHAT COLOR IS A TENNIS BALL?”

• Karen: "Green!"
• Chris: "Yellow."
• Colin: Sits in the middle: “Very yellowish green, but if pushed—green.”
  • Official answer: “Optic Yellow,” per the International Tennis Federation (52:10, Colin)
• Origins: Formerly white or black for practicality; colored to stand out better on color TV, campaign driven by BBC’s David Attenborough.
  • Color adopted for visibility post-1967 color TV switch, first used at the 1972 US Open.
  • Wimbledon was last to switch, holding onto white for 14 years after the TV revolution.

Quotes:

• “If you sit down with your loved ones tonight, just casually bring up, 'Hey, what color is a tennis ball?'" (51:36, Colin)

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Mr. Yuck – When Poison Symbols Lose Their Bite (61:47–69:00)

Karen explores why the Pacific Northwest (and beyond) uses Mr. Yuck stickers (neon green, queasy face) instead of the typical yellow “POISON” skull-and-crossbones:

• History: After the Pittsburgh Pirates (whose logo/colors are black and yellow skull-and-crossbones) dominated the 1971 World Series, public poison symbols lost deterrent value among Pittsburgh’s kids.
• Creation: Dr. Moriarty’s children’s poison hospital replaced the symbol with Mr. Yuck. Kids responded strongly to the disgusted face. Washington State quickly adopted it.
  • "You can actually volunteer... and be Mr. Yuck for a day!" (68:27, Karen)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “They love butts.” (02:22, Karen, on kids’ sports facts)
• “It’s a tough audience. ...First, Chris and I generally cooperate for the first part.” (01:40, Colin)
• On Cheez Whiz: “It contains ingredients that make cheese, but there’s no actual cheese.” (16:43, Karen)
• On Hogan’s Alley: “It was like the Garfield of the 1890s.” (33:26, Chris)
• “What a freaking ride.” (35:17, Karen, after the Yellow Kid story)
• On the tennis ball debate: “Let’s destroy some friendships... What color is a tennis ball?” (61:46, Karen/Colin)
• “The official name... is optic yellow.” (52:51, Colin)
• On Mr. Yuck: “Mr. Yuck is still alive and kicking here in my state.” (67:48, Karen)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Dream Big Week / Opening: 00:16
• Trivial Pursuit Pop Quiz: 02:41 – 11:42
• Cheez Whiz and Regional Food Quiz: 13:08 – 23:02
• Hogan’s Alley, The Yellow Kid & Journalism: 23:05 – 36:15
• Music "Yellow" Medley Quiz: 39:08 – 49:29
• Tennis Ball Color Debate: 49:43 – 61:46
• Mr. Yuck, Poison Symbols: 61:47 – 69:00

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Overall Tone and Style

The episode is lively, educational, and filled with playful arguments and personal anecdotes, foregrounding the color yellow as a throughline for American culture, history, food, and linguistics. The crew’s conversational chemistry and nerdy enthusiasm—plus their love of digressions—make for engaging listening (and trivia gold).

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For trivia fanatics and yellow aficionados alike, this episode is a sunshine-colored cornucopia of factoids, cheerful debates, and origin stories you’ll never forget.

Transcript

[Colin]

You're listening to an Airwave media podcast.

[Karen]

Yellow. You all yelling at yellow jackets, yellow shanks, and yellow fins. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode four, 309. And of course, I'm your humble host, Karen. And we are your jackrabbits, jauntily jogging and jodhpurs while jawing on Jonagold and Johnny Cakes.

[Colin]

I'm Colin.

[Chris]

And I'm Chris.

[Karen]

So I did something very interesting today. This morning, it was what we call career day, but at our school, it's called Dream Big Week. The idea is the same. Like, it's parents come in, share about their dream, their job, their passion. I went into a kindergartner class.

[Colin]

Nice.

[Karen]

And I talked about being a trivia podcaster. It was very cute. You know, I opened up my presentation with some, like, trivia tidbits. I was like, okay, what's going to make me cool in front of the kids?

[Colin]

Like, right.

[Karen]

Pokemon facts. Some animal poop facts. They're gonna think it's funny. And then at the end, we recorded a little episode of a trivia podcast.

[Chris]

Oh, no.

[Karen]

So cute. It was a lot harder than recording this actual.

[Chris]

Oh, sure.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Chris]

It's a tough audience.

[Colin]

First, Chris and I generally cooperate for the first part. Yeah, yeah.

[Karen]

They're very chatty. A lot of hands up. I put Pokemons in these pokeballs, and sometimes they go on your belt. You know, it's just kind of like

[Colin]

the thing I love about young kids that age is that they assume you have all the context in their head.

[Karen]

You know, they just. They just.

[Colin]

They start in the middle of a conversation.

[Karen]

Thought one kid was like, can I share a sports fact? And I was like, yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

We always need a sports guy.

[Karen]

It's the sports guy. He's gonna be a future sports guy. He goes, did you know Cal Raleigh hit the most home runs last season for the Mariners?

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Karen]

And then I asked him, I was like, do you know what his nickname is? And he's like, yeah, it's the big dumper, because he has a big butt. They love butts.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Karen]

Oh, my goodness.

[Chris]

But you got to go in there. You got to explain what is trivia?

[Karen]

Yes.

[Chris]

What is a podcast?

[Karen]

Yes. Yeah. Hopefully, my daughter was very proud that her mom got to be a special guest in the classroom for Dream Big Week. Dream Big Week. All right, without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment. Pop quiz. Hot shot. Here I have genus two. Genus four. Let's do it. In order. I have random Trivial Pursuit cards here. You guys have your barnyard buzzers. Listeners, play along. Answer along. Here we go. Genus.

[Chris]

Two.

[Karen]

All right. Blue hutch for geography. What city with New York and Washington, D.C. defines the airspace known as the Golden Triangle?

[Chris]

Huh?

[Colin]

New York, D.C.

[Karen]

oh. Colin.

[Colin]

Boston.

[Karen]

Incorrect. Chris?

[Chris]

New York, D.C. philadelphia.

[Karen]

Oh. Chicago.

[Chris]

Oh, that's a big triangle.

[Colin]

Okay, okay, okay. All right. Had to think bigger.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah.

[Colin]

All right.

[Karen]

Long triangle, pink wedge. For entertainment. How many compartments. Fewer than a dozen are there in Boy George's makeup box?

[Colin]

My.

[Chris]

How many compartments?

[Colin]

This is genus. Two, right?

[Karen]

Genus.

[Chris]

More than a dozen are there in Boy George's makeup box. Makeup box. Makeup box.

[Karen]

Makeup box.

[Chris]

Makeup box.

[Karen]

How many for his makeup?

[Colin]

All right, let me. Okay, go ahead. I was gonna ask a question, but I don't get questions on the card.

[Karen]

8 Incorrect. Colin, take a guess. Is.

[Colin]

Is this a. It's not a trick question. Right. The answer isn't like 12 or something like that. It's not like, you know, like a song lyric.

[Karen]

One. One compartment. I. I mean, it's on the card.

[Chris]

Oh, that's what it says.

[Karen]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Okay. You're right. All right. Okay. It is a trick question.

[Colin]

So wait. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Not to harp on this weird question. It's one compartment less than a dozen or it's one component.

[Chris]

No, it's. It's one compartment less than a dozen is a hint.

[Colin]

Got it. Got it.

[Chris]

Gives you a range.

[Karen]

How much compartments?

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Karen]

Fewer than a dozen.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Colin]

All right.

[Karen]

Well, would you. I guess you would technically still call it a compartment. Like, are there compartments in a box?

[Colin]

Right.

[Karen]

One single space.

[Colin]

Right, right. The box is the compartment.

[Karen]

The box is the compartment.

[Colin]

Okay. Don't like that question. But also very, very much of its era.

[Chris]

Exactly. Exactly. Listen, man, it's genus. It's genus too. It's genius too.

[Karen]

All right. Yellow for history, who succeeded to the presidency upon the assassination of William McKinley. Oh, who was next?

[Colin]

That's a good one.

[Karen]

Go for it.

[Colin]

Is it Taft?

[Karen]

No. He's got a lot of animals.

[Chris]

Teddy Roosevelt.

[Karen]

Yes.

[Chris]

He had a lot of animals.

[Colin]

I mean, he killed a lot of animals. He also had a fair amount of animals.

[Karen]

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true.

[Colin]

Great lover of and killer of animals at the same time.

[Karen]

Gray silver wedge for Arts and Literature. What kind of writer pens an alonomous book?

[Chris]

Can you spell that?

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Karen]

A, L, L, O, N, Y, M, O, U, S. Alonomous. Alan. No. Alonomous.

[Colin]

That's right.

[Chris]

Is this a Ghost writer.

[Karen]

Yes, it is. Anonymous book.

[Colin]

I like that.

[Karen]

It's good trivia. All right, An Alanym Green Retro signs of nature. When does a diurnal animal usually sleep, Chris?

[Chris]

At night.

[Karen]

Yes, yes, yes. Diurnal, yes. Is there awake during the day, active during the day?

[Chris]

We are diurnal animals.

[Karen]

Yes.

[Chris]

Most of us diurnal animals. Two urinals. Why?

[Colin]

How many do you have?

[Karen]

Orange wedge. Sports and leisure. Which is the better swimmer according to the Red Cross rankings? It advanced beginner or an intermediate.

[Chris]

Oh, I love that. Beginner, which is a wonderful oxymoron. Right. And intermediate. I mean, I. I would have to say. I feel like the Joe blog's answer here is an intermediate.

[Colin]

Right.

[Chris]

Which means beginner is at the end of beginner. And then you would pass to the advanced beginner.

[Colin]

Intermediate is the more fun answer, though. Like, it's the more like, oh, did you know? Answer.

[Karen]

I feel like the Red Cross wouldn't try to confuse you.

[Colin]

Yeah, but then why would it show up on a Trivial Pursuit card?

[Karen]

I mean, why was weird card. George's makeup box.

[Colin]

Okay, all right, I'll go Joe blogs, then I'll throw in with intermediate.

[Karen]

Good choice. Intermediate. All right, next card. Genus four.

[Chris]

Getting more modern.

[Karen]

More modern.

[Chris]

Now we're going to have some questions about Gerald Ford

[Karen]

Blue Edge for people in places. How many of every five songs on French radio stations must be performed by French artists according to the 1996 regulation?

[Chris]

Interesting.

[Karen]

So how many out of five songs. Don't give me a percent. So X amount of five. Every five songs on French radio have to be performed by French artists according to 1996 regulations? Colin, you buzzed in. Yeah.

[Colin]

I mean, like, I know they're very proud about this kind of stuff, but I feel like it also has to be realistic. I'm going to say it's like two.

[Karen]

Chris.

[Chris]

I was going to say two also, but I'm. I'm. Now I'm going to say. I'm going to say one.

[Colin]

I could see one or two.

[Karen]

Yeah, it is two.

[Colin]

All right.

[Karen]

Pink wedge for arts and entertainment. What 1994 Disney soundtrack became the best sell children's album of all time?

[Colin]

Let me take a guess. Disney. Come on, come on.

[Chris]

I need to have this one. Okay. All right.

[Colin]

We all know Chris knows it. Like, I. I will stipulate that you know the answer to this question. Okay. 1994 Disney soundtrack, was this the Lion King?

[Karen]

Yes. And I would dare say in my book, the best original soundtrack.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Karen]

I think it's fantastic. All right. Yellow Ed for History. What was the first Japanese car company to set up a plant in the US in 1982? Oh, wasn't Michael Keaton in a movie?

[Chris]

Yes. Not the documentary.

[Colin]

Was this Toyota?

[Karen]

Incorrect name.

[Colin]

The other one.

[Chris]

Interesting. Oh, the other one. Honda.

[Karen]

Honda. Honda. Next question. Brown went for science. Nature. What does CPR stand for in medical emergencies? Ooh, Chris.

[Chris]

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation.

[Karen]

Correct. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Greenwich for Sports and Leisure. What carbonated beverage was once dubbed the holy water of the American South? Oh, Colin.

[Colin]

Coca Cola.

[Chris]

Coca Cola. Good old Coca Cola.

[Karen]

Last pop quiz question. This is orange Wild card. What B. What B word will usually be found on the labels of every dry champagne. Chris.

[Chris]

Brute.

[Karen]

Brute.

[Chris]

Brute. Meaning dry. Yeah.

[Karen]

It's wet. It's still wet.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Karen]

As a kid, I was like, yeah, dry wine.

[Chris]

Oh, that's the dry champagne.

[Karen]

Good job. Rings.

[Colin]

All right. I. I love. I love the influx of the genus. Two cards. It. It brings a very distinct kind of, you know, vintage. Yeah, yeah. Vintage vibe To. To the. To the whole affair here.

[Chris]

We, for the last 14 years, have been saying we should memorize all the US presidents in order to.

[Colin]

They don't change.

[Chris]

We refuse to ever do it.

[Colin]

Just steadfastly. It's. It's.

[Chris]

They have a poster of all.

[Colin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

Wall of the history class. But they don't actually make us memorize them.

[Karen]

I mean, there. I think there are plenty of mnemonics. There's the Animaniac song.

[Chris]

Oh, there's ways to do it.

[Colin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

We just, to a person, have refused to ever do it. We will never memorize.

[Karen]

Maybe we should divide it up. Like, each person gets. You know, this seems more manageable. Like, I feel like we're all pretty good. 1950s and on.

[Colin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Karen]

And we're all probably pretty good with the first five in the years.

[Colin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

And then there's only a few in between.

[Colin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

It's not that hard.

[Karen]

It's not that many. 2026.

[Chris]

The year is this year of finally

[Colin]

that we finally memorize the order of presidents. Right.

[Karen]

Responsibly. All right, well, Good Job, Brains. Today's episode here on Good Job Brain. We love regional strange foods.

[Colin]

Oh, yes, absolutely.

[Karen]

There was a recent article that came across my desk, my tabs, my Internet

[Chris]

browser tabs across the Good Job Brain.

[Karen]

Brain desk plopped right in front of me. It is about a real wild regional food that I've never heard of.

[Chris]

All right.

[Karen]

And it has a specific color, and so I was inspired by that to set today's topic. So this week, yellow. Is it me you're looking for?

[Colin]

Picture the video.

[Chris]

You remind me. We had an art teacher in middle school who would always answer the phone in sort of an. In some kind of a funny way. And because there was like a phone in the classroom, in the art room, and sometimes the teachers would have to go and pick up the. Pick up the phone, you know, because they'd call them on a landline in the room. And at one point he went over and picks up the phone. He goes, he's in front of the class and he's like, primary colors are red, blue, and yellow.

[Colin]

That's good material.

[Chris]

Yeah. Oh, he was great. He was great.

[Karen]

All right. Teased earlier about this wild, crazy food. It's gonna have to wait a little bit because it's gonna be the finale of my little segment here that I've named. Time for a quick whiz. It is not about pee.

[Colin]

Oh, dear.

[Karen]

Quick quiz about cheese whiz.

[Chris]

Cheese whiz. A cheese whiz quiz.

[Karen]

This beautiful product.

[Chris]

Yes.

[Karen]

Food product. Comes in a jar. This beautiful golden, saffron, deep, rich, marigold color.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Karen]

This is a write down quiz whiz.

[Chris]

We're gonna write it down by dipping our finger into cheese whiz and smearing across the paper. Right.

[Karen]

I don't think I've ever actually had cheese whiz from a jar.

[Chris]

What? That's where it comes from.

[Karen]

I know.

[Chris]

Where are you getting your cheese whiz?

[Karen]

I've only had it on, like, Phil cheesesteaks.

[Chris]

Oh, well, they got me. I got into. I got into buying the cheez whiz jars because I. I became a Philly cheesesteak guy for a while, you know.

[Karen]

Oh, so you, like, made it at home?

[Chris]

I would make. I would try to make it at home. And I was like, well, you gotta get. You gotta get whiz or else it's not free. It's not right. Yeah.

[Karen]

You guys ready?

[Colin]

Let's do it.

[Karen]

No, let's get cheesy. All right, question number one. Cheese whiz was initially intended to. To be a speedy substitute for what European melty cheese dish.

[Chris]

Oh.

[Karen]

Cheez whiz was initially intended to be a speedy substitute for what European melty cheese dish.

[Chris]

I can only think of the one I'm going to.

[Colin]

Joe Bloggs put it up there.

[Karen]

All right, answer is up. Chris put fondue. Colin put fondue. Ha ha. It was a trick.

[Chris]

Oh, no.

[Karen]

Welsh rarebit.

[Colin]

Oh, okay.

[Karen]

Or rabbit spelled sometimes rabbit rarebit.

[Colin]

Welsh rarebit, which is very Similar cheese

[Karen]

on toast to a fondue. It's a cheese sauce.

[Colin]

That makes a lot more sense, though, because you need. You need the sauce to pour on quickly.

[Chris]

You can make it in the morning for yourself. If you just wake up, take the jar out of the fridge, smear it on the bread, pop it in the old toaster.

[Karen]

Yes. So traditionally, the Welsh rarebit is a sa. Cheese sauce. So Welsh herb has spices, melty cheese, sometimes beer or ale or cider mixed in. It takes a really long time to make because you're. You have to consistently melt the cheese, make sure it doesn't burn. You have to stir it. You have to monitor. It takes a long time. Kraft tried to develop a quick substitute. And so it's so funny because we think, oh, wow. Processed, incredible cheese. Such an American.

[Chris]

Very American. Yeah.

[Colin]

But it wasn't. It was for the European market.

[Karen]

It was for the European market. It was a substitute. All right, Million dollar question. Does Cheez Whiz contain cheese?

[Chris]

Oh, dang it.

[Karen]

Yes or no? This is kind of a pumpkin spice latte thing. Does pumpkin spice latte.

[Chris]

Sure.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Which at Starbucks. Yes.

[Karen]

Now does.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Chris]

I believe contains.

[Colin]

Just means some amount present.

[Chris]

Right. I know. I. Yeah, I mean, I gotta go with. I gotta go with yes. I don't wanna.

[Karen]

Chris says yes. Colin says yes. No, it does not contain two for cheese. Yes.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Karen]

It contains ingredients that makes cheese, but there's no actual cheese.

[Colin]

Right.

[Chris]

Dictionary definition of yes.

[Karen]

Like what? What qualify as a.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Colin]

How do they. How do they spell it in the name?

[Karen]

Well, that's my next question.

[Colin]

Ah. Okay, then. All right.

[Karen]

Please provide me the proper spelling of cheese whiz as it is found on the label today.

[Colin]

Oh, man.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Karen]

All right, Chris. C H E E Z W H I Z. Colin. C H E E Z W I Z. No H. I don't know.

[Colin]

I was going back and forth. I was going back and forth.

[Karen]

Proper name, which has not changed since 1952, is C H E E Z. W H.

[Chris]

Okay, okay.

[Colin]

Cheese Whiz. Cheese Whiz Whiz.

[Chris]

I bought it enough during that. During that time in my life.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Karen]

Locked in the Cheese Whiz era. The cheesesteak.

[Chris]

My Cheese Whiz era.

[Karen]

All right. The inventor of Cheez Whiz, Ed Treisman, also invented another revolutionary food process.

[Chris]

Oh.

[Karen]

A special freezing method for what famous fast food product?

[Chris]

Ooh.

[Karen]

You have to give me the brand name.

[Chris]

Okay, okay, okay.

[Karen]

We can credit this guy with invented cheese whiz and this revolutionary food process. Special freezing method.

[Colin]

Food process. Special Freezing method for what Famous fast food. What?

[Chris]

For a specific menu item.

[Colin]

A menu item.

[Chris]

I. I have a question.

[Karen]

Okay.

[Chris]

Do we buy this item in the freezer case of our grocery store, or is this a thing that we go to a fast food restaurant the buy and it gets shipped frozen to them?

[Karen]

Yes.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Karen]

You want to share your answers? Colin, what'd you put?

[Colin]

I put filet o.

[Chris]

Fish.

[Colin]

I don't know.

[Karen]

Maybe he.

[Chris]

Maybe I put McDonald's fries.

[Karen]

It is McDonald's french fries. This freezing method allowed McDonald's to distribute.

[Chris]

Have the exact same French fries.

[Karen]

Exactly. Consistency.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Karen]

Talked about, like, the french fry texture where it's like double fry, like, flash fry, double fry, where they would fry, partially freeze it, and then fry again. And. And that creates more surface area for the oil to crisp up. And that's why McDonald's fries are absolutely delicious.

[Colin]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Karen]

So thank you, Ed Tradesman, for if you get cheese fries and put cheese whiz on your McDonald's french fries, you're doubly honoring. Yeah.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Yep, yep.

[Karen]

All right, last question. Teased about this weird food item is called Minnesota funeral bread.

[Chris]

Yes.

[Karen]

Minnesota funeral bread. It's made out of three ingredients. One of them is cheez Whiz.

[Chris]

Dang it. That's what I was gonna say.

[Karen]

Can you name the other two ingredients? And keep in mind, this is a cult favorite, which also means it's very polarizing. This dish, which is Minnesota funeral bread, has bread, but you have to be specific about what kind of bread. Oh, this is what. What people are calling a church basement food. Okay.

[Colin]

So at, like, church gatherings, a specific type of bread. All right. And cheese whiz. And some.

[Karen]

Another ingredient.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Karen]

But something I would say a topping, let's say.

[Colin]

Oh, okay. Interesting.

[Karen]

So it's. I'll describe it. It's a slice of bread. You spread cheez whiz on it.

[Chris]

Sure.

[Karen]

And then you put this topping.

[Chris]

Something on it.

[Karen]

As you guys think about it, here's some more info. Minnesota Star Tribune recently, very recently published an article, love, hate, nostalgia about this food item, Minnesota funeral bread. Trying to trace back what the origin is. It goes back so long that, like, by the 70s, in parts of Minnesota, it was part of elementary school lunch.

[Colin]

Huh.

[Karen]

Everywhere in this region, church functions, potlucks.

[Colin]

Somebody out there listening to this. Give me your wildness in the last week.

[Karen]

All right.

[Chris]

There's probably a lot of people. Yeah.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Chris]

I don't know.

[Karen]

All right, Colin, read me your ingredients.

[Colin]

All right. I went for cheese whiz on rye bread topped with pimentos.

[Chris]

I. Oh, very similar. I also picked Cheese Whiz. I also said rye bread, and then I put. I put pickles.

[Karen]

Nice, guys. Not wild enough.

[Colin]

Oh, my goodness.

[Karen]

Go back to the drawing board,

[Colin]

Wilder. All right. Okay.

[Karen]

Again, Church Potluck. You got your jello salad on the side. You have your potato salad with raisins,

[Chris]

Cheez Whiz, rye bread, chocolate jimmies.

[Karen]

Are those sprinkles?

[Chris]

Yes.

[Karen]

Okay. Colin.

[Colin]

I put Cheez Whiz, a King's Hawaiian roll, and olives.

[Karen]

The answer is.

[Chris]

Oh, God.

[Karen]

A slice of cinnamon swirl bread.

[Chris]

Okay. All right. Okay.

[Karen]

With cheese. With. Topped with green olives.

[Chris]

Get out of here.

[Colin]

Dancing around it with the pimentos.

[Chris]

Green olives. Yep, yep. Pickles, green olives, Something like that. Okay.

[Colin]

The sweetness from the cinnamon. Can they.

[Chris]

Do they have pimentos in them? The green olives? Yes, they're the ones. Okay, so it's four things. So. So.

[Colin]

Because that's a thing and a thing.

[Chris]

Writer. Yeah, that's a thing and a thing. The cinnamon swirl bread.

[Colin]

Wow.

[Chris]

I could see go.

[Karen]

I mean, have you tried it, though?

[Chris]

No, I haven't tried it, but I'm trying it in my mind right now,

[Karen]

and it doesn't compute.

[Chris]

Yeah, I'm.

[Colin]

I'm with you two thirds of the way there. I'm with you through the cinnamon swirl bread with Cheese Whiz. Like I'd be down to try.

[Karen]

I'm not. I'm not a big olive fan.

[Colin]

I'm not a big green olive with the pimento fan.

[Chris]

No.

[Karen]

Minnesota funeral bread.

[Colin]

Incredible. I love the regional foods.

[Chris]

I love it. The regional foods. Yep.

[Karen]

All right.

[Chris]

All right. I have something to tell you about. But to get there, I am going to go backwards in time, and I'm. I'm going to start with something seemingly unconnected, and we'll. We'll go backwards and backwards and backwards until we figure out how this all relates to the theme of. Of this week's show. So here is a trivia question for you. How well do you remember your Nintendo Entertainment System launch games in which. In which Nintendo Entertainment System game released in 1985 does the following sentence appear in the instruction manual? Okay, here we go. Three of the flashing panels are gangsters. Shoot them as quickly as you can. The other panels are of a lady, a professor, and a policeman. People you must not shoot.

[Karen]

Ooh, I have.

[Chris]

What was the name of this classic? A lot of people had this in their collection. Use the Zapper gun. Right, Right.

[Karen]

Uses the Leica.

[Chris]

It uses the light gun.

[Karen]

Man, I remember Duck hunt.

[Chris]

Cardboard cutouts of criminals would come on and you'd shoot them. Or it would flip over and you'd have to make a quick decision. Is this a criminal or is this an innocent?

[Colin]

It's what they call a shoot, don't shoot.

[Chris]

Yes, the name of this game was Hogan's Alley.

[Karen]

Yes, there we go.

[Chris]

Hogan's Alley.

[Colin]

I was not going to retrieve that, but I did. We had this game.

[Karen]

Who's Hogan?

[Chris]

Who is Hogan? Karen, the name is not explained in either the instruction manual or the game itself. It is not explained who is Hogan? Why he wears his alley. Here's your next question. What was this game named after? Do you know what has to be Hulk Alley. It is. It is not Hulk Hogan.

[Colin]

In my mind as a kid, the only other Hogan I'd ever heard was Hogan's Heroes.

[Chris]

It has nothing to do with that. Yep. It's not Hogan. It's not Hogan's Heroes. Hogan's Alley, the Nintendo game in which you. It's a shoot, don't shoot game. Indeed, indeed. Colin Riff makes snap decisions. Where they're going to shoot the gangster or whether or not it's an innocent person or what. It is named after an FBI training facility. FBI training facility. So currently Hogan's Alley is located in Quantico, Virginia, near the FBI Academy. Hogan's Alley is a 10 acre replica of a small town of small town America. It is a 10 acre fake small town. It has fake banks and fake restaurants and a fake city hall. It has all these different streets and buildings, but it's all unpopulated and fake. And the FBI uses it for super realistic shoot, don't shoot, sometimes scenario training. So basically, like, they'll do mock car chases or like a bank, you know, hostage situation for FBI agents. You can see this Hogan's Alley in Silence of the Lambs. There's a point in which Clarice Starling is like training there. And they send. They actually shot it in the real Hogan's Alley. It's a big place. People sometimes go in there and they think it's a real town. They had to weld all of the mailboxes shut because people would. The US Mail was like accidentally delivering mail there because it all looks totally realistic, but it's all empty and it's all contrived. And so this iteration of Hogan's Alley was opened in 1987. But wait, Chris, you say if you're paying attention, 1987. The Nintendo game came out in 1985. Well, in the 1950s, there was a different FBI facility called Hogan's Alley. And this one was far simpler. It was not a realistic fake city. It was a row of, like, theater flats. Like single walled fake buildings with windows and doors cut out of the buildings, all arranged in a Hollywood set. Yes, really, like a theater set. Almost like you wouldn't necessarily mistake this for the real thing.

[Karen]

Okay.

[Chris]

And mechanically operated cardboard cutouts of criminals and innocent bystanders would, again, unlike mechanical devices, they'd appear in the window and then flip over or whatever to test the FBI agent's ability to quickly assess threat versus not a threat. And so that is what the Nintendo game was based on. The old FBI Hogan's Alley. The concept of literally like. Like a. Like a big sheet of wood or whatever with like a portrait of a criminal on it with like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. Okay, everything is all sorted. Wait, why was that called Hogan's Alley? Well, to find that out, we're gonna have to travel up north to Port Clinton, Ohio, where we would find Camp Perry. And Camp Perry is a National Guard training facility. Okay. Slash. Today also a conference center and RV park, but it's also still a National Guard training facility. And every summer since 1907, Camp Perry in Port Clinton, Ohio, has been the home of something called the national matches. The National Matches, which is sometimes called the World Series of the shooting sports premier competition for marksmen and marks women in the United States. So shooting accuracy, fire and guns at targets. And around 1919, apparently originally to be used in the national Matches competition, they constructed a wall of fake buildings that was meant to resemble a slum, like a dangerous part of a city with surprise targets. And given that this is 1919, apparently they were operated by hand, hopefully the person turning the crank was far away. But this soon came to be also used not only in the competitions, but also as a police training facility. And this was called Hogan's Alley. That is where the FBI got the name when it built its first Hogan Alley. Their own Hogan's alley in the 1940s.

[Karen]

Okay, then who's that? Hogan.

[Chris]

Why was this called Hogan, Sally? Well, now we've gone all the way back to 1919, so it's just a short little extra jump back in time to the 1890s when a newspaper cartoonist named Richard Outcault was drawing a very popular comic called Hogan's Alley about a group of kids who lived in a fictitious slum in New York City that was called Hogan's Alley. So that was the name of the comic. So because the original training facility in Camp Perry was meant to represent, like police getting into shootouts in a rundown part of a town. They named it after what would have still been at that time a well known, popular fictional town, Hogan's Alley. Well, what does that have to do with anything? Well, Hogan's, the comic itself did not really start out being that popular. Hogan's Alley in the first place actually became very well known because of the character that ended up becoming its breakout star character, Yellow Kid. Yellow Kid, he was the first for Americans. He was the first big breakout comic strip mascot character. So Yellow Kid was a little boy with a shaved bald head wearing a long yellow night shirt. Okay. He was a sassy character, you know, always cracking wise, you know, in the Hogan's Alley, why was he shaved bald?

[Karen]

Is he because he's a baby?

[Chris]

No, no, he's like, he looks like, he's like, you know, 9, 10 years old. Apparently this was a common sight to see in turn of the century slums because head lice. Head lice can't have lice if you don't have any hair. Yeah, that is a great lice treatment is to just shave your kids head. So you see a little, little bald shaved kids running around at that time to keep the lice out of their hair. Lice can't lay their eggs without a hair to grab onto. Yeah, right.

[Colin]

Wow.

[Chris]

Why did he have a yellow shirt? He had a yellow shirt because Yellow Kid was one of the first characters to be published in color. In 1893, just a couple of years before Hogan Sally debuted, Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World, had introduced a Sunday color supplement for the first time. And the things that lent themselves very well to being showed in color were the comics. And so he introduced the Sunday color comics, which of course today are still a tradition. You get the Sunday paper, you get the big comic supplements in color that has been going on since 1893. And one of the earlier comics that would appear in these was Hogan's Alley. And so of course, the creators of these comics are looking for bright, vibrant colors for their characters. This kid's night shirt, if he was a real kid, probably would have been like dirty brown, gray, whatever, you know. But it's like if you're going to do color, you got to do color. So they made it yellow and he becomes known as Yellow Kid. And he was the first like licensed mascot as we know it today. So just borrowing a rundown that was on Wikipedia here from an archived website that's called Virtue Magazine, but it's very helpful. Just listed it all Billboards, buttons, cigarette packs, cigars, cracker tins, ladies fans, matchbooks, postcards, chewing gum, cards, toys, whiskey and many other products all had the Yellow Kid on it. He was like the garfield of the 1890s or the.

[Karen]

Oh, I've seen this character before.

[Chris]

You've seen this character, You've seen this character.

[Karen]

It's what you think of. Old timey comic.

[Chris]

Old timey comic. It was, it was not the first one to use speech bubbles, but it was when speech bubbles were sort of coming into vogue, you know, the idea of how do we represent the words somebody is saying? Eventually Richard Outcall moved from Pulitzer's New York World newspaper to William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal. And these two papers, they were constantly trying to one up each other. Pulitzer and Hearst with dramatic sensationalized, sometimes very loosely verified, sometimes maybe just out and out fictional stories that appeared in their tabloid papers. And since both of these papers at one point or another featured the yellow Kid, because people would get these papers to see what the yellow kid was doing. Also. These comics were a mainstay of these papers. No over the top style of these papers came pejoratively known as yellow kid journalism. And finally just yellow journalism. Oh, and now you know, the rest

[Colin]

of the story, it comes from the Yellow Kid.

[Chris]

Originally it was yellow kid journalism, as in the kind of cheap journalism that you get in the paper that has the Yellow kid in it.

[Colin]

Wow. I, you know, some part of my brain knew that it was tied to those early days of these papers fighting, but I had no recollection it was the color comics from the Kid from.

[Chris]

From the Kid from the Kid from Hogan's Alley, which, you know, many, many, many years down the line, ends up being, you know, the name of this Nintendo game.

[Karen]

What a freaking ride.

[Chris]

What a ride. 1, 100 years of.

[Colin]

Yeah, plus 102 years.

[Karen]

At some point people would forget where the actual origin is, right?

[Chris]

Oh yeah.

[Karen]

Through two, two different facilities, FBI facilities called Hogan's Alley. Then you have another facility.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Karen]

Then you have, you have to go

[Chris]

all the way back to the like the origin of it in the 1900s and the fact that people in 1919 would have still known because it was

[Karen]

only like 20 years old.

[Colin]

Right.

[Chris]

You know.

[Colin]

Right.

[Chris]

It's like us making again, it's like us making a reference to Beavis and Butthead, you know, but it's just, it is just so funny how what was a very tongue in cheek. Oh, Hogan, Sally. Hahaha. Yeah, I know that comic just slowly, completely lost any like understanding of what it was actually referring to but was still being used. Wow.

[Colin]

And today there are more people alive who remember the video game than have any idea, any context.

[Karen]

I mean, I don't even think most people know what Hogan's Alley the video game is.

[Colin]

I couldn't even remember it. And I had it. I couldn't conjure the name.

[Karen]

We'll take a quick break and we'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by Wyzant, the nation's largest network of tutors trusted by parents nationwide. Is homework time a stressful time at your house and do tests and exams feel overwhelming for everyone? As parents, it's hard to watch our kids struggle. It's not always easy to have time or the expertise to offer your kids the support they need for schoolwork. But maybe using online one on one tutors could help everyone out. With more than 65,000 expert tutors across more than 350 subjects, Wyzant makes it easy to get personalized support that fits your schedule and budget. Lessons are online from the comfort of home, pay as you go, no subscriptions, just the help you need when you need it. And your first hour is protected by Wyzant's Good Fit Guarantee. Help your child succeed in school and boost their confidence with wyzant. Go to wyzant.com that's W-Y-Z-A-N-T.com and book your first lesson today. And just for a good job, brain listeners, use the code PODCAST15 to enjoy $15 off your first lesson. Visit wyzant.com and give your child the tools they need to thrive. This episode is brought to you by Quince. High Quality Essentials. Sustainably made and affordably priced. It's summertime. It's getting hot. Time for clothes that feel lighter. The kind of clothes you can just throw on and instantly look put together. Quince has beautiful everyday summery pieces like 100% European linen pants, tops, dresses. They have jeans, light sweaters and my favorite, a classic crisp jean jacket for those summer nights. Me and my kids, we're so cute. We actually have matching quints denim jackets. They've been decorating theirs with patches and pins to commemorate travel, our activities together, our memories together. It's super, super cute. So elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com goodjobbrain for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com goodjobbrain for free Shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com goodjobbrain.

[Chris]

You're listening to Good Job Brain. Smooth puzzles, smart trivia. Good Job Brain.

[Karen]

Alright, it is time for our first music round of the season.

[Chris]

Oh yeah, I thought you were going to say of the night. I'm like, oh boy.

[Colin]

Settle in.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Karen]

We hear love music rounds. Kind of name that tune where we play a clip and you try to identify the artist or the song. Usually there is a theme, like a hidden theme in all the song clips and you kind of figure out what it is. Obviously today's music round theme is yellow because that is our episode theme. But we're going to, we're going to change it up a bit. Okay. This is what I'm calling a reverse music round. Instead of playing the clip of music and then you identifying it, I'm going to have you work together to lock in your song selections before I even play.

[Chris]

Okay?

[Colin]

Okay.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Karen]

Because a. We know that this is, this episode is around yellow. And so all the song titles in this music quiz has the word yellow.

[Colin]

Okay. All right, all right.

[Karen]

Keyword yellow in it. So that was. I'm gonna give you the years of the songs.

[Colin]

Okay?

[Chris]

Okay. Okay.

[Colin]

All right. I'm writing a few down already here, getting started. Okay. Huh.

[Karen]

We're gonna lock our answers in.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Karen]

And then afterwards I'm gonna play a medley of these, a continuous medley.

[Colin]

Right.

[Karen]

So that you can validate your answers.

[Chris]

Got it. Okay.

[Karen]

All right. So right. On your sheet, here are the years in chronological reverse order. 2011-2002-2000-1992. Then we kind of have an 80s drought. And then here's something interesting. We have two 1973 songs.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Karen]

And then we have two 1966 songs. And then our oldest song was released in 1960.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Karen]

All right, so again, again, here are the years. 2011-2002-2000-1992. We have two songs in 1973, two songs in 1966 and one song in 1960.

[Chris]

Okay, well, Colin, you've been writing some stuff down.

[Colin]

I've been just. I started a few. I mean, I've got on my list here, I've got Yellow submarine.

[Chris]

So that's 1966. Right.

[Colin]

It's not as late as 73.

[Chris]

No, no, they were broken up.

[Colin]

Oh yeah. I mean I've got the Coldplay song. Right. Just Yellow.

[Chris]

Would that be 2002?

[Colin]

Man, I'm really stretching if that's 2000 or 2002. I, I feel like it's a little bit later. I could go with 2002 for that. Yeah.

[Chris]

Okay. What about Mellow Yellow? Or they call me Mellow Yellow. That's, Is that, Is that Donovan?

[Colin]

That's Donovan. Yep.

[Chris]

And I feel like that 66.

[Colin]

I feel like that would also be 66. Yeah, exactly.

[Chris]

That would be my guess for the other one.

[Colin]

All right, so put the Donovan there maybe for Mellow Yellow. Yep. Okay.

[Karen]

I have a clue.

[Colin]

Okay. Oh, okay.

[Karen]

The song 2002, it was deemed as possibly, some would say, probably the worst cover in the history of music.

[Chris]

Oh, wow.

[Colin]

Okay, so it's a famous enough song to be covered.

[Chris]

Wow.

[Colin]

Do you think, you think Yellow Rose of Texas is on here somewhere?

[Chris]

No, for 1960. Think about the seventies. What's going on in the seventies?

[Colin]

Yeah. Gotta expand my mind here. Yeah.

[Chris]

That's what they were doing. That's what they were doing. Right?

[Colin]

That's right. That's right. We asked Donovan about that.

[Chris]

I figured, like, Follow the Yellow Brick Road would be in here. I don't know. Is that like.

[Colin]

Oh, could be Elton John. Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road. That could be.

[Chris]

That was 73.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Chris]

But there's no whiz Is like, oh, something heading on down the road or going down the road. He's on down the road. Thank you. But, but I don't think yellow appears in the, the title of it.

[Colin]

Oh, okay, okay.

[Chris]

Unless, of course, Karen, did you say that yellow appears in the title of all of these or. No, it does. It does properly too, because Karen said 2002 was the worst cover ever. So 2000 could be the Coldplay song Yellow then. Colin, was there anything else you jotted down?

[Colin]

I, I, I was, I was gonna say, do you think the Joni Mitchell classic Big Yellow Taxi might be on this here somewhere?

[Chris]

There was a famous cover of Big Yellow taxi in the 1990s.

[Karen]

Oh.

[Chris]

And I wonder if maybe that's the 92. The 92 one.

[Colin]

2011. This is gonna be the toughest one for me, man.

[Chris]

It's gonna be a fun one for you to edit Karen, as you cut up.

[Karen]

This is pup trivia.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Okay, so we need 2002 was the bad. What is the worst cover ever?

[Karen]

Let me source this claim. The Village Voice named this cover the worst song of the 2000s.

[Colin]

Wow.

[Karen]

So let's go through what you have locked in. So 2011. Nothing.

[Chris]

Nothing. Locked in.

[Karen]

2002, worst cover.

[Chris]

Oh, my gosh.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Karen]

No, no guess.

[Chris]

2000 yellow by Coldplay, apparently.

[Karen]

1992. I'm so mad.

[Colin]

I, I know when you say It. Okay, I'm gonna. I'm gonna say, like, 19.

[Karen]

Two songs for 1973.

[Chris]

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John, and I guess we're putting Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell in the 73 slot.

[Colin]

Take a flyer.

[Karen]

And then two songs for 1966.

[Colin]

Yellow Submarine, the Beatles and Mellow Yellow by Donovan.

[Chris]

And, oh, I guess 60. We were gonna put the Yellow Rose of Texas if we can't think of anything else.

[Colin]

Yeah, I. I don't. I don't feel great about it, but. Got better than something blank. Yeah.

[Chris]

You got a. An artist for that?

[Colin]

Hank Williams senior. I mean.

[Chris]

Oh, sure. I. Yeah. Well, whoever you want to put down.

[Karen]

All right, locked in. Are we ready to do this lovely Yellow medley? We're going in order. All right, here we go. Let's see if we got them right.

[Colin]

We were dancing around it.

[Chris]

I didn't think it was that bad, but. Okay,

[Karen]

there we go. We got one point on the board here. Is, do you still want me if I don't.

[Colin]

Okay, I'm just mad about.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Colin]

All right. She's just mad about me.

[Karen]

They call me, they call me. 2, 3, 4, tell the people what

[Colin]

she wore Itsy bitsy teeny wee, teeny weeny yellow pocket.

[Chris]

That's the only one where I'm like, okay, we should have.

[Colin]

We should have thought of that one. All right.

[Karen]

Okay, I'll go through 2011 black and yellow by Wiz Khalifa.

[Colin]

Yes. Cheese Whiz Khalifa.

[Chris]

Don't.

[Colin]

Don't tell him I said that.

[Karen]

That's. That's a good. When. When Jeopardy. Feels cheeky, they do those kind of like, funny.

[Colin]

The connector ones.

[Karen]

Yeah. So 2011 black yellow by Wiz Khalifa. 2002. It is the COVID of Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi performed by Counting Crows Featuring Vanessa Carlton. 2000. You guys got it. Yellow by Coldplay International hit, 1992. Yes. Collins. Right. Yellow Ledbetter kind of found fame again in various millennial tiktoks and reels about. You know, it's just. It's so deep when Eddie Vedder says this, and it's just like by Pearl jam. And then 1973 are two songs. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. And the other song is Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree by Tony Orlando and don. And then 1966, you guys got both Mellow Yellow by Donovan and Yellow Submarine by the beatlas. And then 1960, itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow Polka dot Bikini by Brian Highland.

[Colin]

Brian Highland. That is not in the punch.

[Karen]

Not in the punch. Yeah, but the song is and I think when you yeah Learn it as a kid you're like oh it's so fun to see.

[Colin]

That was good Karen, good. Well, well structured.

[Chris]

I was trying to figure out like big Yellow Taxi like a version of that was on the radio when I was like a teenager. Amy granted.

[Karen]

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

[Chris]

I had to know, I had to know him because like there is like okay yeah yeah yeah.

[Karen]

Which was also in the 90s sampled by Janet Jackson in a song that's not titled Yellow. All right, good job Brains. Colin, what's up next?

[Colin]

Okay, I have a question for you guys individually here. This is not a trick. I want you to answer honestly. I don't want you to care what anyone else says or thinks. All right? This is a safe friendly space. With that said, what color is a tennis ball?

[Karen]

Green. Green.

[Colin]

Okay. What okay this is great. Let's hold these emotions. Just, just hold, just sit with these emotions for a moment. Yeah just hold these emotions. You said green. One of you said yellow. We'll go back to this in a moment.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Colin]

I have a vivid memory when I was a little kid way, way back in the mists of time before Mr. Eddie better singing Yellow Ledbetter being out at a tennis court with my parents. My parents friends were playing tennis and they were using bright orange tennis balls like, like safety orange like and I hadn't seen those before. I've never seen it stood out to little Colin there.

[Karen]

Hold on. Yeah Karen, Colin before you, you move.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Karen]

I'm like I'm feeling hot and there's rage that I can't.

[Colin]

Okay, that's okay.

[Karen]

If, if Chris is on tennis balls are yellow and I'm on the green camp. Colin, where do you, where do you stand before the segment like before you research the segment?

[Colin]

I, I would say that both me

[Karen]

and Colin are graphic designers. I'm just saying that we might have

[Colin]

like a little, I would describe a tennis

[Karen]

A rather you can't, no you, you have to say just yellow. That's it. You can't say it's, I would say

[Colin]

it's a yellowish green. If you're going to push me into a camp Karen, if you're, if you're going to, if you're going to, if you're going to put me in, into a bucket. I would say green. I, I, I would say.

[Karen]

I would you choose me?

[Colin]

I would choose you. But, but my full answer is I would say it's a very yellow green. You know but that's still green. Hey look I'm not fighting with you, Karen. I'm not fighting with you. Yeah, these, these are strong emotions. I love bringing up the questions here that can tear a. I encourage you when you sit down with your loved ones tonight, just, just casually, just casually bring up. Is a, hey, hey, what color is a tennis ball? And then no matter what the person answers, bring up your emoji on your smartphone, look at the emoji and just look at them and go, and just

[Chris]

leave it at that.

[Colin]

Just, you know, see what you can fight. All right, so I asked you both, what color is a tennis ball? You both gave perfectly fine and in my opinion, correct answers. You're both right. For my part, as I said, I would say it's, it's a, it's a very yellowish green. If you put me into a corner, I, I, I mean, I would say green. However, Karen, as much as it pains me to tell you this, the official name, flip this table, official name for the color of a modern tennis ball is optic yellow. It is optic yellow. And the, the.

[Chris]

Karen, I didn't know that this was even a discussion.

[Karen]

I didn't know that you would think it's another color.

[Colin]

This is the exact reaction I was hoping, I was really hoping that not only were you guys split, but that you passionately split optic. A lot of people don't.

[Chris]

I mean, I'm not passionately split. I just never even considered that this was even a question.

[Colin]

Most people, when you ask them this question, are confident, like, not a question. They're like, oh, it's yellow, or oh, it's green, obviously. And, and then if you tell them the other answer, they're like, no, you're crazy. Or it's, it's a long, drawn out thing. All right, so this, this is not me. I didn't decide this. But the, the official stance, the official stance of the, of the world governing bodies is that tennis balls are yellow, specifically optic yellow. Now, it is a color very much between what we might call a pure, you know, uncontroversial yellow and a pure uncontroversial green. It does sit between them and perception. We've talked on the show before. Color perception, oh, sure. Is, is highly, highly subjective and contextual. And contextual. That's right. Depends on the light, depends on the environment, depends on what designer, you know, put, put, pick the shades. Tennis balls, however, have not always been this current optic yellow color. In fact, for, for a long, long, long time, by and large, tennis balls were white. They were mostly white. They were sometimes black. There was A lot looser regulations, even in official circles and tournaments about the exact colors. It used to be a lot more loosey goosey. Most tournaments played with white tennis balls, sometimes black, you know, other colors, depending on the color of the court. The goal was to have visible against the court color. Certainly, as you probably know, I'll just say it, tennis, you know, courts can be grass, they can be clay, they can be a variety of hard courts, and those hard courts can be a variety of colors. So it's not like all tennis is played on, you know, the same color court. With the widespread adoption of color TV in the late 1960s, one of the big drivers of sales of color TVs was the appeal of live sports in color. I mean, it's just like being there, I mean, not really on a tiny, you know, tv, but the, the move from black and white TV to color TV was, was huge. I mean, we kind of take it for granted now, you know, black and white, if we see a show, it's a novelty or it's a period, you know, an old rerun of a Twilight Zone or something. So in the late 1960s, at the time that the BBC, that's in England made the transition from black and white broadcasting to color broadcasting. Okay, this was in 1967. The controller for the BBC, sort of the, you know, the program director, the head, the controller was none other, I learned than the legendary Sir David Attenborough. The, the long time, long time TV presenter, broadcast host, natural historian, animal lover. I mean, his name is virtually synonymous with nature documentaries, the Planet Earth series, Blue Planet, many, many, many, many others going back decades. He is 99 years old. Sir David will be 100 next month.

[Chris]

Wow.

[Colin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chris, if you were not impressed by all of that, he is also a fellow BAFTA winner. So that might, you know, I did

[Chris]

not win a bafta, but I did get nominated. So. Yeah, sorry.

[Colin]

I learned, I learned a fun fact about him. He is, he is the only person to win a BAFTA award in black and white color, high definition, 3D and 4K resolution.

[Chris]

Oh, sure, yeah, yeah, he's been on,

[Colin]

he's been on the air for every technology. Yeah. So anyway, a legendary figure in his, in his own stead happened to be, you know, essentially running the, the BBC operations at the time that they switched over from black and white to color. And as he relayed these events, I found an interview that was transcribed from him from not too many years ago. He, he says that he and others, the BBC, had been lobbying to get color broadcasting for a long Time. So he says, quote, we had been asking the government over and over again and they wouldn't allow us until suddenly they said, yes, okay, you can have it. They had no idea what was involved. I mean, you know, yeah, you need color, uncharted territory. Cameras, you need new sets, you need all kinds of new things. And he had this self imposed pressure of trying to be the first European broadcast of color. So at this point, American TV had color, Japanese TV had color. So then these are his words. And it suddenly dawned on me that the one thing we did have was outside broadcast units. I thought, blimey, couldn't we deploy them? And I thought of Wimbledon. I mean, it's a wonderful plot. You've got drama, you've got everything. And it's a national event, it's got everything going for it. And he's absolutely right. And it was a great solution to a problem rather than switching over to like half color, half broadcast. As things rolled out, he's like, let's do Wimbledon. So the 1960 Wimbledon tournament ended up becoming the first color broadcast, not just in the UK but in all of Europe. So they did it, they made it. As they began broadcasting tennis in color, a lot of people noticed and complained that it was hard to track the white colored ball on an OG 1960s era screen. So most of the tournaments, Wimbledon included, were using white balls. So in black and white, you know. And again, keep in mind that in Wimbledon in particular, they were still wearing white uniforms. The sidelines are white. It was just really hard for TV spectators in particular. Okay, so it wasn't. It is specifically people watching this on their new fancy color TVs, and for the first time where color matters, they're like, we can't follow the ball well enough. So Attenborough and his team, they intuited that adding color to the tennis ball was the obvious answer. And not just any color, but a bright neon, fluorescent, whatever you want to call it, color was the answer. So taking their suggestion to heart, the itf, the International Tetras Federation, undertook a study of people watching tennis on TV to find out what the best color is. Yeah, exactly. And indeed, as. As predicted, they found out that a highly visible color, like a very bright yellow, green or green yellow if you prefer, was much easier for the TV viewers to follow. By 1972, the ITF approved the use of the new optic yellow tennis balls for play. The U.S. open was the first of the Grand Slams. So there's Wimbledon, US Open, French Open, and the Australian Open. US Open was the first one to Switch to yellow balls. In 1973, French Open followed suit. Soon after, the Australian Open had switched as well. In what to me is probably the. The greatest irony in all of this

[Karen]

was Wimbledon the last.

[Colin]

The Wimbledon was not only the last, Karen. It took Wimbledon a full 14 years for finally dropping their resistance to the optic yellow colored balls and phasing out their very traditional white color balls.

[Chris]

Wow.

[Colin]

So, all right, so back to those orange balls that I remembered from a kid. So it turns out that in this period, after there was color broadcast of tennis, but before they had really firmly standardized on the yellow ball is the ball for everybody, there were a lot of different color balls and there were a lot of high visibility balls. And what I think my parents friends had is what you could buy, you know, back then, which was a different variety of high vis ball. You had like, oh, there's the yellow green flavor and then, oh, there's the orange flavor. And they phase those out eventually. Game. Now, colored tennis balls signify usually that they're for people who need or want slower balls or balls that behave differently. So very often for kids, when kids take a tennis class, they'll use either a ball with a big orange dot on it or a ball that's all orange or like the half.

[Karen]

It's another level of.

[Colin]

It's another level of code that's right within the tennis community. Any tournament now, at any level, you're going to be seeing the optic yellow balls. And the only controversy left is when you ask somebody who has never really thought about it, what color is a tennis ball?

[Karen]

How can you not see?

[Colin]

The official answer is optic yellow. Thus qualifying modern tennis balls for today's episode. So there you guys have it.

[Karen]

Let's destroy some friendships.

[Colin]

Guys,

[Karen]

say bon appetit to our sponsor. Factor. Factor makes healthy eating easy with fully prepared meals designed by dietitians and crafted by chefs. So eat well without the planning, without the cooking. Because as we all know, sometimes that's actually the hard part that can drain your brain. In my last box, I got to choose a mix of entrees and these really cool gourmet salads that I love. It comes with a lot of toppings. It's crunchy, it's soft, saucy, it's fresh. Really great mix of meals, international flavors. There's also homey comfort food, too. Made of lean proteins, colorful veggies, whole food ingredients. Choose for meals that best support your nutrition priorities. Always fresh, never frozen. Like the chicken breast for the salads are in these cool space age Sous vide Packs. So spend your time on the things you want to spend on and let factor make meal prep easier. Head to factor meals.com goodjob 50 off and use the code good job. 50 off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27, 2026. See website for more details. All right, our last yellow segment. Earlier on the show, I shared that I went to my kids career day at school in her school classroom, and I could. I talked about being a trivia podcaster. One kid asked me a question. How do you remember things? I'm like, when something is really interesting to me or really wild to me, it's gonna stick. And you don't know why, but it does. Just because it, like, sparks something. Okay, so in my current state, I live in the state of Washington. Parents in Washington get mailed these. And I'm sure other states have it too. Parents get mailed these brochures when it's like your. Your child's milestone. So like six months you'll get like a brochure, a little packet of information. At one year, you'll get mailed. Maybe there's a checklist time for.

[Colin]

That's great.

[Karen]

Schedule your first kid's dentist appointment. That kind of stuff. It's a great public health service. And one of these mailings I got, they included this sheet of round stickers featuring a character called Mr. Yuck. They're like this bright green color with a face that's like a disgusted face. Like, his eyebrows are really strong. And you're supposed to, as parents, put them on things in your household that you don't want your kid to play or eat with. Right? You know, laundry detergent bottles, bleach. Prior to this, I've never seen this in my entire life because I'm like, I thought we already have a standard symbol for poison that's pretty universal, right? What is this Mr. Yuck? And why are we going against the classic poison label? Do you guys know I'm talking about how. How would you. How would you describe what a classic universal standard poison label look like?

[Chris]

Skull and crossbones, sometimes.

[Colin]

Like in the little triangle.

[Karen]

I imagine a yellow triangle with a skull and crossbones. Right? That's poison. Okay. In 1971, there's one children's hospital that opened their poison center, and that's headed by Dr. Moriarty. And he and his research team at the poison center noticed an increase in childhood poisoning in the area, which was alarming. And you know what else happened in 1971, the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series. They were doing pretty good in the late 1960s, and eventually 1971, they won World Series in Game 4 in Pittsburgh. So home game, home turf. Home. And it was Pirates mania.

[Chris]

Oh, man.

[Karen]

Their team logo famously is a skull

[Colin]

and crossbones, and their team colors are black and yellow.

[Karen]

Like all Pittsburgh sports team, the Penguins, black and yellow for hockey, the Steelers, black and yellow. Pirates were black and yellow. Fun fact. Going back to my music round, Wiz Khalifa saw him. Black and yellow is dedicated to Pittsburgh. He's from Pittsburgh. The Jolly Roger. The Pirates logo, Pirates imagery was everywhere. Right. There are cereal boxes, candy wrappers, lunch boxes. And so this hospital that I'm talking about that opened its poison control is located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is in the Pittsburgh area where. This is where there was a rise in childhood poisoning, because the effectiveness of the classic universal toxic symbol for skull and crossbones just completely got diluted.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Karen]

Because there's all this skull and crossbones. It's a fun thing. It's a good thing. We love our sports. We love this bottle.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pittsburgh Pirates like baseball.

[Colin]

This local drink of hot dog that I had at the game, it was delicious. Yeah.

[Karen]

And so it was Dr. Moriarty. It was his. It was his mission that we're like, we got to do something about this. We're gonna change the poison logo, at least for our area. But we're gonna adopt a new system. They went through market research with kids. They. They went through a couple designs. It's the yuck face that really got the kids attention. They invented Mr. Yuck. Yuk. They kickstarted this program, this Mr. Yuk program, and Washington state was the second state to adopt it. And so, yes, Mr. Yuck is still alive and kicking here in my state. Sometimes if you go to, like, street fairs, kids fair, school fairs, maybe the Washington Poison Control center will have a Mr. Yuck mascot with its face greeting kids.

[Colin]

Don't lick him.

[Karen]

Give out stickers.

[Colin]

Wow. I. I was familiar with Mr. Yuck. I was familiar with his work, but I didn't. I didn't know that it was that old. I thought it was, like, something that came around, like, long after I was a kid and I.

[Karen]

The radical 90s.

[Colin]

Yeah, it did. It felt very 90s to me, like,

[Karen]

ah, we Kool Aid.

[Colin]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Backward baseball hat and, you know. Right. Yeah.

[Karen]

We need hip.

[Colin]

That's really, really fascinating.

[Karen]

1971. And I will never forget that that year, the Pirates won the World Series. Wow. Turns Out. You can actually volunteer for the Washington State Poison Control. And you can. You listeners can be Mr. Yuck for a day. You can wear the Mr. Yuck suit and appear at events. Fun way to engage with the kids. And it says here, being Mr. Yuck is easy. He doesn't even talk. If you like interacting with kids and are five, seven or taller to fit in the costume, we'd love for you to join the Fun that is Mr. Yuck. That's my story in 1971.

[Colin]

That is good. That is good. I love the sports connection.

[Karen]

Roberto Clemente won mvp.

[Colin]

Look at you picking up stats.

[Chris]

Yes.

[Karen]

Yes. Well, so me and Cameron, my husband, we play. We play heads up a lot. There's one category called sport legends. It's wild to see both of us play that category because I'm like, this guy, he plays basketball, he dated Ava Longoria and he's just like, I don't know. Or I'm like, okay, well, this guy, he wore this weird outfit for the metal gala. He's like, I don't know. And whereas he's being like, oh, it's the quarterback for the Saints. And I'm like, gotta give me more this. I was like, okay, now I know. Because Roberto Clemente comes up and be like, oh, he played for the Pirates. I'm like, yeah, but now I know. Now I know. And that's our show. Thank you all for joining me and thank you listeners for listening in. Hope you learned stuff today about. About how a Nintendo game is tied to the newspaper battles of the late 1800s. About the delicious yellow substance known as cheese whiz. About the yellow. About yellow titled songs and about how friendships can be torn apart if you ask them what color a tennis ball is. You can find us on all major podcast apps and on our website, goodjobbrain.com this podcast is part of Airwave Media Podcast podcast network. Visit airwavemedia.com to listen and subscribe to other shows like Mysteries at Midnight, Reach, a space podcast for kids, and what should I read next? We'll see you next week.

[Chris]

Bye.

[Karen]

Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Because behind every headline is a bottom line. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings. There's a money side to every story. And when you see the money side, you understand what others miss. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe [e-mail].