The Ridiculous Secret of "Supreme" Pizza

Summary

Ridiculous History – "The Ridiculous Secret of 'Supreme' Pizza"

iHeartPodcasts | March 24, 2026
Hosts: Ben Bowlin, Noel Brown
Notable Guest: Max “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle” Williams
Special Guest: Chef Ben, Chicago pizza insider

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Episode Overview

In this playful and irreverent episode, Ben and Noel embark on a deep-dish dive into the history, culture, and ridiculous myths surrounding the "Supreme" pizza. Blending rich historical context with plenty of side-tangents (and turtle references!), the Ridiculous History team untangles fact from fiction about how Supreme Pizza became a symbol of American excess—and finally delivers a jaw-dropping secret from inside pizzeria kitchens.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Pizza as Pop Culture Entry Point

• The episode begins with a nod to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a cultural touchstone linking pizza to Gen X and millennials.
  • Notable Moment [01:57]: Max admits he missed the Turtle craze: “I never was really exposed to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It wasn’t part of my zeitgeist as a child—that, Harry Potter, people talk to me about that kind of stuff, and I’m like, I cannot relate.”
• Pizza’s prominence in pop culture becomes the segway to the larger story.

American Pizza Regionalisms & Weird Styles

• St. Louis-Style Pizza [09:21]:
  • Discussion of Provel cheese (cheddar, Swiss, provolone, liquid smoke) as a defining ingredient; Max calls out a friend for fibbing about what’s in it.
  • Notable Quote [09:46]: “That’s what she told me. And she’s a liar.” – Max Williams
• Pittsburgh Pizza [10:23]:
  • Cold toppings (including cheese) layered atop a hot pie—polarizing and debated among the hosts.
• The U.S. is portrayed as a land of pizza innovation—and sometimes, pizza excess.

The Drive for “Supreme” – Pizza as American Excess

• After WWII, American culture’s “supersize” mentality led to the escalation of pizza’s toppings.
  • Notable Quote [11:38]: “We look at the pizza, we say, more cheese, more stuff. We are the super sized nation.”

Origins of Pizza: From Flatbread to Margherita

• Early history: Flatbreads in the Mediterranean and Africa served as carriers of toppings [12:51].
• The Tomato’s Journey to Italy [14:18]:
  • Tomatoes, native to the Andes, journeyed via conquistadors to Europe.
  • In America, tomatoes were once feared poisonous—legend of Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson eating them publicly in NJ (1820) to dispel the myth [16:56].
• Queen Margherita and the Royal Makeover [21:04]:
  • Pizza’s leap to mainstream acceptability after Queen Margherita of Italy tries a “Margherita” pizza (mozzarella, tomato, basil) during a royal visit, lending pizza panache and respectability.

The American Pizza Boom

• Waves of immigration bring Neapolitan pizza culture to the U.S. in the 1940s [23:27], fueling regional and commercial innovation.
• Franchise Chains Emerge [31:26]:
  • Shakey’s Pizza (1954) – first big chain; followed by Pizza Hut (1958), Little Caesars (1959 - Detroit), and Domino’s (1960).
• Notable Tidbit [34:55]: Mike Illitch, founder of Little Caesars, personally paid Rosa Parks’ rent for over a decade and donated millions to hunger charities.

The Commercialization and Capitalist “Arms Race” of Pizza

• Differentiation in a Saturated Market [38:13]:
  • Chains experiment with wild topping combinations, giving rise to the overloaded, maximalist “Supreme” pizza.
    • Notable Quote [29:36] – Ben: “It is not always the same thing. And I’ll say it. No, it’s a bit of a self-important name, is it not?”
• “Supreme” emerges as a marketing term rather than a culinary standard—no single, agreed-upon list of toppings.

Supreme Pizza: No Rules, Just Right

• Toppings Vary Widely [41:07]:
  • “Supreme” can be anything—a carryover from the culture of “the more, the better.”
  • Discussion compares Supreme Pizza to Bloody Marys—no codified recipe, just a maximalist spirit.
• Notable Quote [42:54] – Noel: “There is no one way to make a Bloody Mary. And there is no one way, apparently, to make a Supreme Pizza.”

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The Ridiculous Secret: The “Supreme” Mystery Exposed

[52:10 – 55:03]

• Insider Chef Ben from Chicago breaks pizza lovers’ hearts:
  • In his first pizza job, the “Supreme” pizza wasn’t meticulously crafted—it was a collection of all the discarded toppings (“detritus”) scraped from the prep table after other pizzas were assembled.
    • Notable Quote [53:37] – Chef Ben: “Whenever we got a supreme pizza, those were the toppings for the supreme pizza.”
• The hosts react with amusement and slight horror at the “drip tray” approach.
  • Noel [53:53]: “It is a bit of a tut … a boo, but it’s not inherently non-hygienic. … There’s something about it, though, that makes it feel like that dare of drinking the drip tray from the bar, you know?”

The Great Supreme Pizza Conspiracy Conclusion

• Supreme pizzas, priced as premium, sometimes are “leftover pizza”—not a unique, high-end concoction, but an exercise in waste reduction and margin maximization.
  • Ben [54:38]: “Here’s the gross thing to us…this is being priced as a premium pizza. Right? It’s more expensive than you could sell it if you called it what it is: the leftover pizza.”
• Final philosophical spin: beauty—and “supremeness”—is in the eye of the pizza beholder.

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Toppings Gone Wild & Pizza Extremes

• Unusual toppings and wild pizza variations abound:
  • Examples include mayonnaise and seafood pizzas in East Asia; rumored durian pizza in Southeast Asia [57:03].
  • Most expensive pizza in the world: Louis XIII pizza ($12,000)—with caviar, Norwegian lobster, buffalo mozzarella, and in-home chef service [59:54].
• Notable closing joke: If it’s called “Louis XIII,” why not charge $13,000?

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Max Williams on St. Louis Pizza [09:46]: “She’s a liar. According to the Google AI, it is a blend of provolone, Swiss and cheddar.”
• Ben Summing Up American Supreme [11:38]: “We look at the pizza, we say, more cheese, more stuff. We are the super sized nation.”
• Noel on Supreme as Branding [29:36]: “It’s a bit of a self important name, is it not?”
• Chef Ben’s Bombshell [53:37]: “Whenever we got a supreme pizza, those were the toppings for the supreme pizza.”
• Max on Pizza & Sex [55:03]: “Pizza is like sex. When it’s good, it’s great—and when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. And like sex, it’s also kind of gross sometimes, but still pretty good.”
• Ben, the Final Word [55:55]: “Just like beauty, supreme can mean different things to different people.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [1:04 – 3:08] – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and pizza in American pop culture
• [9:21 – 10:12] – St. Louis and Pittsburgh regional pizza debates
• [11:38 – 12:01] – America’s “supersize” pizza mentality
• [12:51 – 19:34] – Global pizza history, the tomato journey, and Italian acceptance
• [29:36 – 31:26] – Supreme pizza as a concept and American capitalist excess
• [31:35 – 36:51] – Rise of American pizza chains
• [52:10 – 55:03] – The Ridiculous Secret: The “garbage pizza” method and pizza prep realities
• [59:33 – 60:13] – World’s most expensive pizza

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Tone & Language

The hosts’ tone throughout is upbeat, irreverent, and packed with pop culture references, wordplay, and personal anecdotes. They approach history and culinary lore with equal parts curiosity, skepticism, and humor, maintaining a pace that feels conversational and spontaneous.

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Summary: Why This Episode Matters

This episode of Ridiculous History delivers much more than a slice of pizza trivia. It shows how an iconic food becomes an ever-morphing reflection of societal values, capitalism, regional quirks, and even kitchen realities. The "supreme" pizza, far from a fixed concept, stands as a greasy, delicious monument to American improvisation, the mythology of abundance, and ultimately, the joy (and shenanigans) hidden in the world’s favorite pie.

Bottom Line:
When it comes to “Supreme” pizza, expect the unexpected—because behind the curtain, your premium pie may just be a tasty medley of whatever’s left over. But hey, as the hosts remind us, “When it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.”

Transcript

[Ben]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartradio. Welcome back to the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always, so much for tuning. Tuning in. Let's hear it for the man, the myth, the legend, Max the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Williams.

[Noel Brown]

Cowabunga.

[Ben]

Cowabunga. Radical. Tubular. That's Noel Brown. I've been bolling. We have a great, very weird episode for you today, folks. But before we continue, now that I've brought up the legendary Turtles, I've got to ask you guys, if we haven't talked about it on air, which turtle would you be?

[Noel Brown]

I think most people were fans of Michelangelo. Cause he was the sort of, you know, party dude, party dude. But he only. He didn't like, you know, don't do drugs, kids. He just ate lots of pizza and had pizza parties and talked like a surfer. Though I don't know that there's evidence that Michelangelo ever had access to surfing. Although they could have gone to Coney island and done a surf, but they were trying to keep it low key. So I don't know if surfing Ninja Turtles would have been good for their image. Though I will also say that there's a lot of work that got trickled into the toy lines of the Ninja Turtles. And I want to say somewhere along the line, there had to have been a surf in Mike.

[Ben]

A million percent there. Had to. Okay, so we've got you, Mr. Brown,

[Noel Brown]

as I named my first cat Michelangelo.

[Ben]

Cause he was all right. Doubling down. So Noel Brown is the Michelangelo of the crew. What about you, Max Williams?

[Max Williams]

I gotta admit, this is a weird one right here. I never was really exposed to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It wasn't part of my zeitgeist as a child, that Harry Potter. People talk to me about that kind of stuff, and I'm like, I cannot relate.

[Noel Brown]

Well, you're a little younger than us, Max. And for us, for gentlemen or humans,

[Max Williams]

I was born after Red Bull was invented.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. Humans of a certain age, Ninja Turtles were kind of inescapable. They were on TV all the time. The first movie came out, it was huge. And of course, the action figures were just, you know, on every kid's wish list. How about you, Ben? You strike me as a. As a wrath Raph guy.

[Ben]

Oh, no way. That's the worst way. That's the opposite.

[Max Williams]

I like.

[Noel Brown]

He was angsty.

[Ben]

I don't like him. I always aspired to be a Donatello. Unfortunately, I believe in practice, I'm probably a Leonardo.

[Noel Brown]

Donatello is the smart one. Leonardo was sort of the leader.

[Ben]

See I want to be the Donatello. But one thing these guys have in common, these turtles, is that they love pizza. That's their that Max. That's their formative mythology. Of course they are.

[Max Williams]

That's your segue.

[Ben]

That's not the best one, but it's like an ugly pass thrown by Joe Montana. No matter how, it doesn't matter if it looks good, it makes it to the finish line.

[Noel Brown]

Still better than a pass that, you know, a civilian might throw.

[Ben]

Oh, boy. I appreciate that, Noel. It's funny because remember when you and I were just yesterday when we were up in New York and we were doing some episodes with our pals, Gandhi and Diamond from Sauce on the side? I did attempt a couple pivots.

[Noel Brown]

And I believe I complimented you on them copiously.

[Ben]

Oh, geez.

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[Ben]

Man, do you like pizza?

[Noel Brown]

I do like pizza and there's nothing more New Yorky than a good New York slice, no?

[Ben]

Have you guys ever had pizza in Italy? Like from Italians?

[Noel Brown]

I've not been to Italy personally. I may have been when I was a small child too young to remember, but certainly on my list we do have a fabulous Neapolitan pizza spot here in Atlanta called Antico by all accounts is up there, you know, with some of the best pieces of pizza you might get over there in Italy. The New York slice, however, really differs from that kind of classic Italian style. It's the big old floppy piece. You got the grandma pie, which I'm also a big fan of, the square, the rectangular pieces. And I tried a new spot this trip called Scars Pizza that I think used to be kind of a hot spot where you couldn't get in and the hype seems to have died down a little bit and I was able to get in and it was worthy of the hype. But without the line.

[Ben]

But without the line. We like that part as well. Now if you are traveling through these great United States and you are familiar with the original OG Italian pizza, what you will find is that the United States version of pizza becomes very regional and often is not what Italian people themselves would consider pizza. Now Max here has pointed out something from his travels in St. Louis.

[Max Williams]

Yeah, I was in St. Louis and I was Hanging out with my buddy Nate, who is from Atlanta as well. He moved out there a couple years ago. But his partner, she's like, born and raised in St. Louis. And they have this. You know, every place now has a style of pizza, and theirs is St. Louis style with something called proval cheese.

[Noel Brown]

Not. We've talked about this, and it's not related to provolone. Right?

[Max Williams]

You know what? That's what she told me. And she's a liar.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, dear.

[Max Williams]

Liar. According to the Google AI, it is a blend of provolone, Swiss and cheddar.

[Noel Brown]

Don't quote the Google AI.

[Ben]

Don't.

[Noel Brown]

You can do better. You're better.

[Ben]

Better. You're better.

[Max Williams]

Okay, according to Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia.

[Noel Brown]

Fine. We accept Wikipedia. You know, over goog.

[Ben]

Oh, geez, Joe Montana over here.

[Max Williams]

Provel cheese is. I'm doing this live. A combination of cheddar, Swiss, provolone, and liquid smoke. There we go. That's what you would for the liquid smoke.

[Noel Brown]

Well, you know, you can get a nice smoked provolone, and lest you get a really fancy kind, it's probably going to get that smoky flavor from a liquid smoke as well. That sounds okay to me.

[Ben]

I think.

[Noel Brown]

We've also talked in these regional pizza conversations about Pittsburgh pizza, which is cold toppings, including cheese, and our buddy Theo, who you know as well Ben, swears by the stuff, and it just doesn't do it for me. It kind of sounds like he just took fistfuls of cold toppings out of the prep trays, you know, on the. On the little prep counter and just dumped them on the pie and just kind of called it a day. I don't know about that, but I'm willing to give it a try.

[Ben]

Sure. We're gonna give every regional pizza a try. And we'll get to the very weird pizza toppings at the end of this episode, as well as the world's most expensive pizza. Right now we're asking ourselves about really Americana. About how the United States has always been a land of excess since the close of World War II. Remember, Noel, you and I were talking earlier to our pal Gandhi about how this is the only country that could have invented crack cocaine because regular cocaine just wasn't enough of a zip.

[Noel Brown]

We just need to do. We need to do better, y'. All. We are an aspirational country, if anything.

[Ben]

There we go. Aspirational. We look at the pizza, we say, more cheese, more stuff. We are the super sized nation. So it's no surprise that America collectively looked at regular old pizza and One day decided to make something they call Supreme. But Noel, riddle me this. What is a Supreme Pizza?

[Noel Brown]

Well, that is a really important question, Ben. Cause it's the crux of this entire discussion, actually. To me, I always thought because you got your meat lovers, you got your veggie lovers, maybe that's a branding thing, probably a Pizza Hut invention. But when I think of supreme, at least back in the day, when maybe there were fewer toppings available, I always thought of a Supreme Pizza as being all the toppings.

[Ben]

Yeah, me too, man. I'm right there with you. We're going to answer the question of what makes a Supreme pizza supreme. And just be aware, folks, there is a conspiracy theory at the end. Noel, maybe we start with pizza. Just like the early years. Who came up with this idea?

[Noel Brown]

Pizza, the early years. I love that. Sounds like a Ken Burns documentary. Well, as soon as folks, humans that is, figured out how to make bread, it kind of became a medium for piling on all kinds of other stuff. How do we one up bread? We're already asking ourselves the question of how do we do a good thing and make it more extra? The grandfather, not the grandma of all pizza we know and love is of course, the flatbread, which isn't too different from a matzah kind of situation or some, let's see, a pita. Or there's a, of course, that really interesting type of bread you get at Ethiopian restaurants. These are all kind of related. That's the one to the humble flatbread. It was a super popular street food throughout Africa, Egypt, Greece, and of course, the Roman Empire.

[Ben]

Yeah, and honestly, you can still see versions of this stuff around today because it is delicious. But to be clear, as we're pointing out, these flatbreads, these ancestors of pizza, don't look like the stuff you would find in your local pizza spot today. The Greeks were known to nosh on flatbread with herbs and oil. It was more like what we would call focaccia today. And that's because they didn't have tomatoes,

[Noel Brown]

which is a discussion unto itself, which I think we've had actually, if I'm not mistaken, at the very least in passing, in other food topics, the idea that tomatoes were not native to Italy.

[Ben]

Right. It wasn't until the Spanish conquistadors explored the Americas. Hard air quotes around explored. And Hernan Cortez, his crew ravages Mexico. In 1519, they return to Spain and they carry a bunch of treasures and spoils of war with them. They also are carrying tomatoes. Tomatoes are most likely from Peru. It's interesting because does that make all pizza Incan?

[Noel Brown]

I guess it does, Ben, but they don't really get the props that they deserve. So we're gonna give them their flowers. Today we're talking specifically from the Andes mountains of Peru. And sometime in the distant past, we began to see tomatoes spread to most of south and Central America, eventually reaching Mexico. The Incas first cultivated tomatoes about a thousand years ago and eventually traded the seeds. The Aztecs and the Mayans to the north of them. A lot of historical botany historians, I guess, consider the tiny little scraggly bush known as the Solanum. Is a great name, by the way. Pimpanilla folium. Pimpanilla folium or pimp. My pimp hand is strong as the ancestor of all of the tomatoes that you know and love and or tolerate. Some people don't like tomatoes. Tomatoes today itself becoming an endangered species. The origin, the proto tomato, the OG Pimp.

[Ben]

So the proto tomato, the OG Pimp, is now an endangered species, but it gave birth to so many of the tomatoes that you consume today, folks. And it's weird we have talked about this on air, but it bears repeating. The tomato as a consumable became popular in Europe way before it was popular in North America. Colonial Americans associated the tomato with nightshade, and it is a close cousin of that toxic vine. And that's why the leaves and vines of a tomato plant are fairly toxic. There's this legend, right? We gotta mention the legend about the guy who made tomatoes edible in America.

[Noel Brown]

What do they say? Print the legend. That's what we're gonna do. We're gonna speak it, though, right? You're talking about Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson?

[Ben]

Yes, yes. No relation to the primate, I think.

[Noel Brown]

No, no, no, that's true. I do love a gibbon. He proved to Americans through trial and error, through demonstration, that tomatoes were in fact, not poisonous on June 28, 1820, by like, in a feat of strength demonstration, very evil shoes.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

He ate a who basket of the things in Salem, New Jersey, on the courthouse steps. Quite a flex.

[Ben]

Public protest.

[Noel Brown]

Colonel Gibbon Johnson. Right.

[Ben]

And according to the legend, again, as you said, Noel, a lot of people at this time believed tomatoes were deadly. That was probably due to the lead poisoning from acidic tomatoes on pewter plates. Anyway, a bunch of people gathered around to watch Colonel Johnson consume tomatoes and die. They're kind of like the people who go to a NASCAR race hoping to see one of the cars crash because they were convinced he would die. And because he did not die. According Again to the legend, the crowd went wild.

[Noel Brown]

Remember those train crash expos?

[Ben]

Yes.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, those are fun. Sorry, just remind you, we never saw one live. No, we didn't. We did speak of them on an episode, I think, on that very topic. Do check that one out. It's an interesting one. And it does end in tragedy.

[Ben]

What? No way. Stage trade collisions.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. Not the best idea.

[Ben]

What could go wrong? So because this guy didn't die, Colonel Johnson didn't die, according to the legend, the rest of North America immediately fell in love with tomatoes. That's the end of our tomato sidebar. We just love this story. We've got to get back to Europe and get back to the history of pizza, because it's going to lead us back to the United States and the Supreme Pizza.

[Noel Brown]

But for now, we're going to go to Italy's Campania region, most famously home to the waterfront city of Naples, or Napoli.

[Ben]

There we go. Yeah, Napoli or Naples is founded in its modern version around 600 BCE and it went through all the triumphs and tribulations of any nation state at the time. By the late 1700s and early 1800s, it got a bit of a reputation similar to Portland today in the United States. They said this is home to hordes of working poor, what they called lazzaroni.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, almost like in the style of a caste system, at least in the way that they're referred to. These folks were not the typical, what you might imagine or picture as the unhoused population of. They were, however, hustlers. They were out there wheeling and dealing, haggling, hoogling. That's a word. Out in public spaces, hunting for jobs. Often they didn't have the luxury of being able to be welcome in, say, a public house or the ability to cook in a home. Cause they were just too busy for it. So pizza became a solution. It was available ingredients, again, a simple medium that you could just pile stuff on top. And it's portable, let's not forget.

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[Noel Brown]

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[Ben]

Silver bullet for a hungry stomach and a skinny wallet. The well to do of Italy. This story, the Jedi won't tell you, folks. The upper pizza crust of Italy initially hated this idea.

[Noel Brown]

Kind of like lobster back in the day, right? Peasant food.

[Ben]

Yeah, they called it poor people food. But if we fast forward, we go to the moment where Italy sort of unifies in 1861. And there are these two big deal royals who visit Naples.

[Noel Brown]

Man this is a tale as old as time. You got something that was seen as a little low brow. And then when some royal or some well to do individual, high society type gets a taste for the stuff and judges it up a little bit, names it after themselves, all of a sudden you got yourself a regular culinary phenomenon. And this came in the form of King Umberto I and Queen Margherita, who you might know from the drink and the pizza. Don't think the drink is named after her, but the pizza definitely is. They were on tour like you do, I guess, doing like a whistle stop tour kind of situation. Visiting the people, kissing the lynching, shaking the babies. Babies, yeah, all the stuff. Exactly. And they visited Naples in 1880. Now, another legend has it that the traveling pair got bored of their steady diet of French haute cuisine, which I think, Ben, you and I might also agree, while considered some of the finest food in the land, it's rich and it can be a lot. I wouldn't want to eat, you know, coq au vin for every meal, duck

[Ben]

confit for every meal. It's not Christmas if it's every day. You know, cassoulet is a beautiful dish that is not an everyday dish.

[Noel Brown]

It's also not crispy. It's kind of. It's like, you know, really fancy mush, really fancy slop. It is.

[Ben]

It's a bean soup with duck in it. So, okay, so of course the King and the Queen get a bit satiated. They want some variety, and they reportedly ask for a bunch of pizzas from Naples. Pizzeria, Brandy. And this is like when our pal Alex French takes us to a restaurant and tells the server, take us on a journey.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, pretty sure he got that from Queen Margherita and King Umberto I, who told the locals to take them on a culinary journey. The Queen in particular enjoyed a familiar sounding version. A pie topped with soft white mozzarella. Red tomatoes, of course, green basil. We told you the name already. You know it, you love it. The humble Margherita pizza.

[Ben]

So just as you were saying, Noel, this peasant food or this poor people food gets a cosign from the royals, right? From the biggest celebrities of the day. Pizza then becomes much more widely accepted. But here in the United States, it takes takes a much longer time for pizza to become popular. It's the 1940s when we see tons of Italian immigrants arriving at the US en masse. And a lot of these folks in this particular wave of immigration are from Naples. And food is culture, right? So these folks bring their culture and their food along, and they adapt it to whatever ingredients are available at the time, for sure.

[Noel Brown]

I mean, it's very similar to the story of Americanized Chinese food and even the Thai cuisine, the exporting of Thai cuisine. You gotta kind of read the room and play to the audience. And that is what's happening and part of the reason we see so many regional variations of the stuff. So there's a lot more to the story and the evolution of pizza as a dish and as a culinary tradition. The supreme pizza. However, we're gonna get into the story of now, which took a little more time to cook. Locked in Monthly Wireless Plans were built for another era TextNow is app first free talking text real 5G coverage and service. You switch up in an instant download TextNow and connect in minutes.

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[Noel Brown]

Guess who. Guess who's better.

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[Malcolm Gladwell]

Hello. Hello, I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast smart talks with IBM. I recently sat IBM's chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna and I asked him how can companies use AI to its fullest potential to create smarter business? My one advice to them Pick areas you can scale. Don't pick the shiny little toys on the side. For example, if anybody has more than 10% of what they had for customer service 10 years ago, they're already five years behind. If anybody is not using AI to make their developers who write software 30% more productive today with the goal of being 70% more productive.

[IBM Director]

Yeah.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

So we are not asking our clients to be the first experiment on it. We say you can leverage what we did. We are happy to bring out all our learnings, including what needs to change in the process. Because the biggest change is not technology. It's getting people to accept that there's a different way to do things. To listen to the full conversation, visit IBM.com smarttalks.

[Noel Brown]

Hey there. I'm Kat. I'm a college athlete. I was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis which caused back pain and stiffness. Every day with Cosentyx I'm able to stay active.

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[Noel Brown]

Ask a rheumatologist about Cosenty. Right?

[Ben]

Yeah. Take some more time in the kitchen. Supreme Pizza if you live in the United States, you have seen it on a menu. It is not always the same thing. And I'll say it. No, it's a bit of a self important name is it not?

[Noel Brown]

For sure. I think. You know Ben, I am a fan of the supreme brand of clothing. We even joked on sauce on the side with Gandhi. We were both wearing some supreme pieces. And when we talked about this supreme as a company and as a brand do these, these exclusive drops, whether it be hats or shirts or whatever, they sometimes do ridiculous items like a brick branded with the supreme red box logo. What they had when I was there this past trip was a toaster and it wouldn't surprise me for them and I bet if we looked into it, they've done it. If they had their own like Supreme Pizza boxes or like those, you know those, those cool pizza shaped carrying bags that delivery folks use, that'd be a lot of fun.

[Ben]

Oh that's smart if they haven't done it yet, you're welcome. Supreme. That's a beautiful idea. The stuff that we're talking about, when we talk about a literal Supreme Pizza is generally going to be acknowledged by the number of toppings, the variety of toppings. But those toppings aren't always consistent. I mean. I mean, Supreme Pizza is a thoroughly American idea. Right? Where the land bigger and more is better. Just get it all in there. Get it all in there. You know what I mean? Three shots of espresso in my ice cocktail.

[Noel Brown]

Shoot it right into my neck. Yes, please.

[Ben]

So the Supreme Pizza, we could argue is an escalation of that cultural pattern. There's not a codified list of ingredients like in the Margherita pizza. But also. So we will argue at the end of this that the Supreme Pizza is not the true end of the line. It's not the final form for how far we can take pizza as a concept. The real story of Supreme Pizza is a story of business.

[Noel Brown]

It's a story of commerce capitalism writ large. Ben?

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah. Noel, can you introduce us to pizza chains?

[Noel Brown]

For sure. It's once again that example of taking a beloved culinary tradition and commercializing the hell out of it. Sell it to the lowest common denominator. Us pizza chains really started to take off after World War II, evolving from the aforementioned local eateries to nationwide delivery giants. I didn't know this, Ben, but Shakey's Pizza was actually the first franchise chain. I don't know that there's many of those around. If there are, they're probably some of those like beloved sacred cows. We're gonna keep a couple of Shakies, but maybe that's not true. Let's see if Shakey's is still kicking.

[Ben]

I like the idea though, as a. Of a restaurant concept, as an endangered species.

[Noel Brown]

Well, like there's a Blockbuster Video somewhere in the world.

[Ben]

I want to say that I'm thinking Blockbuster is an excellent example, and I love the joke. Like there are only two blockbusters left in Alaska. They won't reproduce exactly because it's just too cold.

[Noel Brown]

Shakies is absolutely still around, but it is not nearly as, as you know, popular, ubiquitous as it once was. Shakey's in 1954, the first franchise chain was followed by not too far after Pizza Hut with the famed hat shaped buildings that now you'll see repurposed into other stuff. Because what are you gonna do with a hat shaped building other than tear it down? We have a couple of those here in Atlanta that are still around that are repurposed Pizza Huts. They've rebranded and gone through a whole thing. And they don't do the hat sh. Shape anymore. But that's 1958. Then in 1959, just a year later, we have Little Caesars, which is surprising. I only recently found out. Ben, Pizza Pizza is based in Detroit, which makes sense, because the classic Detroit style pizza is square, is that kind of grandma slice with the really good cheese crown, the crispy bits along the side. And, you know, Little Caesars doesn't exactly do it the best, but it is sort of what they're going for.

[Ben]

They didn't say they're good. They said they're hot and ready.

[Noel Brown]

You gotta eat, Ben.

[Ben]

You gotta eat.

[Noel Brown]

I think the big. The arena there in Detroit, I've only visited once, and I went for the first time a couple years ago, is called, like, Little Caesar's Arena.

[Max Williams]

Would you guys like the Detroit person to chime in?

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, of course.

[IBM Director]

Yeah.

[Max Williams]

Little Caesar Arena. That's where the Pistons and the Red Wings play. It replaced Joe Louis Arena.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, I was taken aback. Cause I'm like. I don't really think of Little Caesars like that, but there you go.

[Max Williams]

Ilish family. They.

[IBM Director]

That's.

[Max Williams]

That's Little Caesars people. They own. They own the Tigers and the Pistons. No, the Tigers and the Red Wings. I don't think they own the Pistons.

[Noel Brown]

Okay, I didn't know that. So that's a big. A big family there in. In Michigan.

[Ben]

One other huge Little Caesars fact we have to mention, which I was not aware of. I didn't know Little Caesars dated that far back. I didn't know it was from Detroit. Yeah, but the founder of Little Caesars, I remember this story. A guy named Mike Illidge. He is a huge philanthropist, and he privately, for more than 10 years, paid Rosa Parks rent.

[Noel Brown]

That's incredible.

[Ben]

Yeah. They donated more than $35 million to various feed the hungry kind of initiatives. And he had Rosa Parks back.

[Noel Brown]

Good on you, Little Caesars guy. You love to hear that. Just a year later, Ben, we have. I want. Do you think Domino's has sort of overtaken Pizza Hut in terms of, like, the ubiquitous, you know, pizza chain? Yeah, I think so. I think people more think of Domino's. And of course, you got your Papa John's and all of that stuff. Problematic. But that's 1960. So just a year apart, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars and Domino's. With Shakey's being first to market, all of these chains revolutionized, fast, consistent, uniform product delivery. We have McDonald's, of course, setting the tone for this kind of thing already, you know, in terms of, like, what fast food would become.

[Ben]

Yeah. And the pizza market stumbles on a beautiful idea. Delivery service. McDonald's will make uniform products, but you have to go to a McDonald's to get them. However, these guys who may all be in the same task, they want to send a driver to you. This is a hot pizza arm race. It's so weird. Through the 1960s and 1970s, the United States is in love with pizza. It's a hot new craze in cities and towns across the country, which means a lot of pizza chains are popping up like gangbusters. There's something we have to mention at this point. In addition to being incredibly popular to the public, or as Max said, incredibly in the zeitgeist, pizza is also incredibly profitable as a business. Right. It's like how popcorn cost $10 at the theater but cost a nickel to make.

[Noel Brown]

It's a good point, Ben. Cheap is the name of the game. It's also easy to mass produce these things. And of course, we are talking about largely folks selling entire pies and delivering whole pies. But then, of course, you get pizza parlors of New York, like we were talking about earlier, where you could just get a single slice if you wanted to. The markup on a slice, I mean, that's. That's some good money right there.

[Ben]

That is the most Sopranos you have ever sounded.

[Noel Brown]

Thank you. I have been rewatching it lately, actually. Remember when I mentioned the Esplanade yesterday on the podcast with. We were talking in reference to some of the grifts that the government right now is pulling in terms of budget slashing and, like, having, like, a line item that's like 100 gazillion dollars for a chair or a mouse pad, you know, very Sopranos of them.

[Ben]

The slice shops are a huge part of New York culture. The ingredients for pizza shops in general are dirt cheap, as long as you don't get too specialized. So you can not only sell a slice or a whole pie at a hefty markup, but you can still hit a price point low enough for the average customer to feel like they're getting a good deal. And from there, there, you sell your side snacks. Right. You sell your 2 liters of soda, you branch out to other items.

[Noel Brown]

Boneless wings, your garlic knots.

[Ben]

Yeah. So it's no surprise that the market quickly becomes saturated. I mean, yeah, of course, if we started the ridiculous pizza store, we could. I'm going to write it though. We could make a lot of money. Money. As long as those other new pizza joints across town don't take all our customers. We gotta do something different. We have to differentiate ourselves in the market. This is where pizza chains enter this bold experimental phase. It reminds me of. Do you guys remember a few years back when the roast beef chain Arby's just sold vitison for second?

[Noel Brown]

No, But Arby's came up yesterday with me and my kid referring to it both, both of us as I think the worst fast food in existence. And I do also to that point. Ben, I didn't know about venison, but I do remember a time where Arby's was marketing, no pun intended here. These market fresh sandwiches that were like big old, you know, Dagwood type, you know, Scooby Doo sandwiches. And I remember liking those when I was younger. But they seem to have declined significantly in quality since those days.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah, they were. So Arby's briefly here in the Atlanta area where we record had a venison sandwich or a venison burger. They just wanted to see what works. And pizza chains back in the 60s and 70s were doing the same thing. This probably irritated the heck out of Italian pizzaolo. The folks who make pizza pizza, right? The more conservative old school guys who still probably think margherita pizza is a little bit out there. They hated what American pizza companies were doing because these folks were adding everything they could. It's very again, American dream stuff. They were putting vegetables, meats, all kinds of weird cheeses. Let's see what works. Not every idea is a hit, but that show business showbiz pizza, baby.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, no. Showbiz pizza. Chuck E. Cheese. Chucky Charles Entertainment Cheese who was recently given a perp walk.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

What's happened? What's happening in this country, Ben?

[Ben]

We. We can't even trust Charles Entertainment. So while these pizza companies are trying to, you know, be the most enticing shop around in a very saturated. They stumble on the idea of creating what we call a loaded pie. Let's take some portion of all the toppings we will put on separate pizzas, put them onto one. We'll call it Supreme.

[Noel Brown]

You know what's funny too, Ben? I'd love to look. Maybe we can do a quick cursory Google for this. But we of course know maybe not of course, but the word supreme, it can be attached to lots of different foods. A chicken supreme and a nacho supreme and a cutlet supreme. Supreme. Yeah, that's a tenacious D Raf. But it's true. The supreme moniker isn't just for pizza. It is, however, very much a fast food type chain term.

[Ben]

Oh yeah, 100%. Because you can add the word supreme here in the United States to any kind of food that you see sell, and the FDA can't do anything about that because you're not promising health benefits. You're not promising a specific set of ingredients.

[Noel Brown]

Nine out of 10 physicians recommend pizza for your health and a pack of Pall Malls.

[Ben]

Right, right. How would you describe this, Senator? Well, I would describe it as supreme and delicious. So what makes a pizza pizza supreme? It's weird. It's kind of like a Bloody Mary. Right. Because there's a base but there's no set codified list of ingredients. Right.

[Noel Brown]

There's Bloody Marys with chicken nuggets in them, man.

[Ben]

No, they're not.

[Noel Brown]

Yes, there are.

[Ben]

I'm not a Bloody Mary, brother.

[Noel Brown]

There are these places that specialize in these bonkers ass Bloody Marys. Max is chiming in from his bartending days that have like bacon and like I've seen one with a whole roasted chicken hanging off the side. Max, what are your thoughts on this? Phenomenal.

[Max Williams]

Very popular. I mean, I made kind of a weird bloody mare, but nowhere as weird as other people did. But yeah, you'll have like full on gherkins in them and stuff like that.

[Noel Brown]

The jerkin gherkin.

[Max Williams]

Yeah, you have everything. You'll have stuff where they make the straw out of like a chicken finger or something like that. Like, you know, it is as novelty as it comes. Personally, I think it's the mustard. The mustard is the key.

[Noel Brown]

What if we took a soup and made it a drink and added. Added lots of alcohol and you drank it in the morning. Genius.

[Ben]

Sell it. And then someone said let's name it after a creepy religious thing and I'm sold.

[Noel Brown]

Oh yeah. Creepy religious thing or even like, gosh, there's a lot of. No, Bloody Mary was the queen who murdered everybody. She was the real Protestant one. No, no, she was the Catholic one who fought back against the Protestant thing when she came into power and like killed all the Protestants because she secret held this like Catholic grudge toward all this Protestant nonsense.

[Max Williams]

Yeah, isn't all like, isn't she one of King Henry's daughters and like, you know the one.

[Ben]

That's right.

[Noel Brown]

All that stuff rubbed her the real wrong way. Yes. All the beheadings.

[Max Williams]

All, all the children of like King Henry, they're like, you know, that became monarch of England were like different mothers, so they all had different backstories.

[Ben]

And of course, Bloody Mary. We spoke to her through the magic of editing and she could not be more flattered.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, I thought you meant when we did the ritual in the mirror together the other night.

[Ben]

Right, yeah. I thought we were supposed to go in one at a time, but we had some schedule conflicts so we had to double dragon.

[Noel Brown]

It's very true.

[Ben]

But maybe Bloody Mary would be immensely flattered that a ridiculous alcoholic day drink is named after her. It is, I would posit, still similar to Supreme Court Pizza.

[Noel Brown]

Yes, I know we took a little bit of a side side quest there, Ben, but I think it was worth it. And you're absolutely right because it there is no one way to make a Bloody Mary.

[Ben]

And there is no one way, apparently, to make a Supreme Pizza

[Noel Brown]

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[Malcolm Gladwell]

hello. Hello, I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I recently spoke with IBM's new director of Research Research, Jake Ambetta. We discussed his vision for the future of quantum computing at IBM Research. What we always do is answer what is the future of computing? Whether it's coming up with new algorithms, coming up with better AI, coming up with Quantum or coming up with just how do different accelerators go together? It's our DNA. To answer the question of what is the future? Isn't it a perfect problem for IBM because you kind of need to have a little legacy of building stuff, building actual physical machines. Yeah, it's why I came to IBM. I wanted the experience, the culture of building hard things that others have not done before. Where do you imagine we are in the timeline of this technology? There will come a point when it will mature, right? Yeah. My cell phone is a mature technology at this point. How far are we from that point? With Quantum, by 2029 we'll build the first fault tolerant Quantum computer that is one that can run a very, very large, large problem. To learn how IBM is building the future of computing, visit IBM.com quantum.

[Noel Brown]

Hey there. I'm Kat. I'm a college athlete. I was diagnosed with Ankylosing spondylo which cause back pain and stiffness every day. With Cosentyx I'm able to stay active.

[Ad Host 4]

Cosentyx Secukinumab is prescribed for adults with active psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis or non radiographic axial spondyloarthritis. Available in both IV infusion and self injection. Don't use if allergic to Cosentyx. Get checked for TB before starting. Increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur like TB or other serious bacterial, fungal or viral infection. Some were fatal. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms like fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches or cough. Had a vaccine or plan to. Or if IBD symptoms develop or worsen. Serious allergic reactions and severe eczema like skin reactions may occur. Learn more at 1-844-cosentyx or cosentyx.com Move and feel better.

[Noel Brown]

Ask a rheumatologist about Cosenty.

[Ben]

You were talking about the Grandma Slice. There's a Supreme pizza version of that. There's a supreme pizza version of thin crust or hand tossed crust. It's all about essentially whatever ingredients are around at the time. Whether you're a home cook or whether you're working at a professional pizza shop. I mean also most pizza shops these days have other specialty pies. You mentioned Antigo, right? They have their own takes on things. You mentioned the meat lovers from Domino's and Pizza Hut or the veggie Supreme.

[Noel Brown]

A big one these days that I think we're both fans of. Ben, where was that great pizza place that we all went, Me, you and Our brother Matt, that had an excellent spicy hot honey slice.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

And that place also did really good vegan pizza. Oh, geez.

[Ben]

Hold on.

[Noel Brown]

I gotta give him a shout. My friend just texted me about it the other day. Paulie G's. Paulie G's Pizza.

[Ben]

That's right. Yeah. Shout out to you, Pauly G's.

[Noel Brown]

So, yeah, a very fashionable pizza topping these days has become hot honey. And that's one of those things that kind of got its start at places like Paulie G's or these more local or regional slice shops. And then it gets so popular that you got like a Mike's hot honey brand that is now collabing with, you know, your Pizza Huts and your Dominoes. It's.

[Ben]

And the reason that most pizza places will have their own spin on a supreme pizza is due to the profit margins. They're going to select ingredients based on the cost of those ingredients and how much they can sell them for. And they're usually going to prioritize ingredients that can be used in other pizzas or other dishes at the restaurant. So this is all fun and games, right? Who doesn't love to talk about pizza? You might be wondering why we've dedicated an entire episode to what seems like a small story. And that's because of this. Max, give us a creepy music change. There we go. You see, ridiculous historians Noel Bax and I have a man on the inside of the pizza shop.

[Noel Brown]

Is that Chef Ben?

[Ben]

It is Chef Ben, an exclusive source who revealed to us one of the conspiracies afoot at your local pizzeria. It turns out supreme may not be exactly what you think. Here's our big reveal.

[Noel Brown]

Say the thing. Say the thing from the other show, Ben.

[Ben]

Here's where it gets crazy.

[Noel Brown]

Thank you.

[IBM Director]

Good afternoon, fellas. This is Chef Ben in Chicago. I'm not calling about stuff they don't want you to know. I'm calling about ridiculous food. So this is like, I'm your boss and you didn't show up for work, and I can't get a hold of you, so I called your girlfriend, right? Like, I'm aware there's not a good way to get a hold of ridiculous history. Kind of a time machine. So in the episode that I'm listening to now, which is about ping pong, which I'm not terribly interested in, but I'm here to learn stuff, man. You guys lead with pizza. Great way to get me invested in the episode. So here. Here's my shameful, shameful admission. I have been in the restaurant industry for 33 years. Now, that's not the shameful part. My first two jobs were in pizza. That was the first three years of my career. And the very first job was a mom and pop Italian place in my hometown that made pizza. And I was the pizza guy. The way that I was trained to do this, and I take responsibility for it now. I was 14, and I didn't know any better when we made our supreme pizza. Pizza. Well, let me back up. When we made any pizza, the pizza was topped on a table, right? So you would have the pizza dough on the screen that went into the oven. You would put the sauce and the cheese and then whatever toppings the customers wanted, and you put it in the oven. Well, that tabletop quickly became covered in the detritus of making those pizzas. Right. And cheese sort of off to the sides of where the pizzas normally look landed. We were instructed to scrape all of that off to the side of the table. And whenever we got a supreme pizza, those were the toppings for the supreme pizza.

[Ben]

What?

[Noel Brown]

Okay. It is a bit of a tut, as you would say, Ben. It is a bit of a boo, but it's not inherently. What's the word? Non hygienic. You know, I mean, because technically, it's coming from the same stuff that's already out in the open, you know, on the prep station. I've worked in pizza. I worked in vanilla mushroom for many years with Fried of the show Frank. And I do know about this accumulating stuff. I guess there's something about it, though, that makes it feel like that dare of, like, drinking the drip tray from the bar, you know?

[Ben]

And it does feel like a bit

[Noel Brown]

of a bait and switch. But I don't think it's inherently as gross as it might seem, other than maybe flavor wise, it's like making a. You know, what they used to call a suicide out of all the sodas.

[Ben]

Oh, yeah. And it's also. We've got to mention this part. It also. Here's the gross thing to us. And thank you again, Chef Ben. You're just the best. Yeah. The gross thing to us is that this is being priced as a premium pizza. Right. It's more expensive than you could sell it if you called it what it is, the leftover pizza.

[Noel Brown]

Garbage pizza.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Max Williams]

And if I can jump in real quick, I was just thinking about this. There was a pizza place by. I'm a Georgia State University grad. It was a pizza place by campus and had a sticker on the oven that said Pizza is like sex. When it's good, it's great and when it's bad, it's still pretty good. And like sex, it's also kind of gross sometimes, but still pretty good.

[Ben]

Wow.

[Max Williams]

I don't know if we can keep that in the episode.

[Ben]

Yeah, we're keeping it. I like us with so many directions on that one. So we're not here to disparage the good folks of the world's pizza shop. I think it's fair to say, Noel, that we are thankful they have continued a centuries old ridiculous saga of one of the world's best foods ever. But it's also fair to say just like beauty supreme can mean different things to different people.

[Noel Brown]

Definitely in the eye of the beholder.

[Ben]

There we go, man. This episode went a little bit longer than we thought. We hope you appreciated the grand reveal. Noel, what's the weirdest pizza you have personally encountered?

[Noel Brown]

Gosh, Ben, trying to think. I typically. I'm a little bit vanilla when it comes to pizza. Though I really do love these hot honey varietals that are popular these days and like some Calabrian chilies on top. Perhaps not a huge fan of anchovies, but that's because a lot of the times they're not very good quality anchovies. But if you have a really fine pizza spot and they offer anchovies, they're gonna be the real deal. Like nice chopped white anchovies. Not the kind that come the can that are just mega, mega salt personified. And I would recommend giving that a try. It's like having a roasted fresh beet versus a canned slimy slide out of the can kind of beat, you know. How about you, Ben? You're the kind of more adventurous eater, especially from your snack stuff days.

[Ben]

Oh, geez. Thank you for the setup there, Noel. I've eaten unimaginable things on a pizza

[Noel Brown]

horror that you've seen.

[Ben]

I know, right? With that distant seven league stare. Right. I think the, I guess weird is also in the eye of the beholder. Some of the strangest, most unfamiliar pizzas I have had have been in obviously in East Asia, right. Where there is a lot less of a normalization of cheese and dairy. So mayo replaces cheese in a lot of ways. Okay. Yeah. And seafood is more frequently found on pizza. There's one that I haven't tried yet. We're going to have to try it when we all get over there together on a ridiculous road trip. There's apparently a pizza with durian on it.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, I've never had the durian I've never cracked it. I've seen them in the shops, some of the, like, H Marts and Asian grocery stores that we have over here. If anyone's not familiar, it is the fruit that is banned in the subways over there because of how stinky it is. Apparently it tastes kind of good. Like has a custardy taste, but it just is so darn smelly that it can put you off from even getting as far as sticking it in your mouth.

[Ben]

It tastes pretty good. I had some recently, some fresh durian. And you're right about the smell. It's worse than you're imagining, folks. It's not like Scandinavian rotted shark's head bad, but it is. It smells like a diaper.

[Noel Brown]

Can I just name drop a friend of the show? And I think you and I both have worked with Gabby Watts, who's a really great standup. We've worked with her on podcast stuff with School of Humans, and now she lives in New York and is doing really gangbusters as a standup. She had a really funny joke where she was talking about her butt and said she has a dump truck butt. Not cause of the size, because of the smell. And I just thought that was very, very fun.

[Ben]

Check out Gabby Watts, everybody, coming to a stage near you. Check out previous work with her on podcast. There's so much more to get to here, but we primarily wanted to put our stuff they don't want you to know. Hats on and bust. The myth of supreme pizza. We will be back with more pizza episodes if you are interested. We did learn the world's most expensive pizza is the Louis 13. It sells for $12,000.

[Noel Brown]

What? What's on it? Like gold. Gold leaf. I mean, of course, that's not even that outlandish. There's gold leaf on all kinds of stuff.

[Ben]

But why wouldn't you sell it for $13,000 if it's the Louis 13th?

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, at that point, it's just kind of your nickel and diamond and just do it for the clout. Just, you know, make it match up more with the branding. What is on the $13,000 pizza, though, Ben? Inquiring minds wants to know.

[Ben]

Oh, well, we're happy to share it. Three types of caviar, lobster from normal, Norway, buffalo, mozzarella, as you would say, Noel. And the big flex is they go to your house to make it.

[Noel Brown]

Okay, all right. So still, you know, carrying on the grand tradition of pizza delivery. Just.

[Ben]

There we go.

[Noel Brown]

Just plussing it up a little bit.

[Ben]

Just plussing it up a little bit. And thank you so much, fellow ridiculous historians, for plussing it up with us a bit on the show today. Big thanks to our super producer, Mr. Max Williams. Max, pop back in on the channel real quick because we want to make this official. Noel and I have told you off air, but as soon as we can get that condition repaired, we're taking you out for pizza.

[Noel Brown]

Heck yeah. Huge thanks to Christopher Osiotes and Eve Jeffcoats here in spirit, Max's darling brother, friend of the show, and genius composer Alex Williams, who in fact composed this bang and bop.

[Ben]

Big Big thanks, of course, to the rude dudes at Ridiculous Crime. If you dig us, you'll love love them. Big thanks to AJ Bahamas Jacobs, Dr. Rachel, Big Spinach Lance, and you know, Noel, I've never thought about it. Does Jonathan Strickland, AKA the Quizter, eat pizza?

[Noel Brown]

I think so, as long as it doesn't have shellfish on it.

[Ben]

He's such a Raphael.

[Noel Brown]

He is a bit of a Raph. Remember that scene in the Ninja Turtles movie where Raph is really upset and he goes on a rooftop and he just goes, damn, that was the first swear I ever heard. We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Locked in Monthly Wireless plans were built for another era. TextNow is app first free talking text real 5G coverage and service. You switch up in an Nvidia instant download TextNow and connect in minutes.

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