SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: How Play-Doh Works

Summary

Stuff You Should Know: SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: How Play-Doh Works

Podcast: Stuff You Should Know
Hosts: Josh Clark & Charles W. "Chuck" Bryant
Date: December 12, 2025

---

Episode Overview

In this festive installment of the 12 Days of Christmas Toys, Josh and Chuck do a deep dive into the playful world of Play-Doh—unpacking its surprising origins, clever chemistry, cultural legacy, and its place in childhoods past and present. With characteristic humor and banter, they reveal why Play-Doh is more than just a colorful dough: it’s a story of invention, nostalgic scent, ingenious marketing, and fun science.

“It smells good. It tastes good. I just hope it sounds good. That salty goodness of Play-Doh.”
—Chuck Bryant [02:18]

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

Personal Play-Doh Memories and Opening Thoughts

• Chuck admits to tasting Play-Doh as a kid, though claims he never really ate it; Josh reminisces about eating a particular glue instead.
• Both marvel at Play-Doh’s unique, unmistakable scent, a key driver of nostalgia.
• Early off-topic banter about podcasting without headphones and whimsical merch ideas (“No More Cans” T-shirt).

The Origin Story of Play-Doh [07:40]

• Play-Doh began as a wallpaper cleaner by the Kutol Products company, founded by Joe McVicker’s family [08:07].
  • Houses were once heated with coal, leaving soot on wallpaper.
  • The original product was a pliable putty for cleaning walls.
• Inspiration to repurpose as a toy came from Kay Zufall (Joe's sister-in-law), when she learned kids used the cleaner to make Christmas ornaments [09:25].
• The cleaner was reformulated to be non-toxic, scented with almond, and first sold as a toy in the early 1950s.

“Much like kids do today with Play-Doh. And she said, hey, you know, we're hurting. Why don't we try and turn this stuff into a toy?”
—Chuck Bryant [09:40]

Early Marketing and the Captain Kangaroo Connection [10:11]

• Joe McVicker donated Play-Doh to Cincinnati schools, creating early demand [10:22].
• Breakthrough: McVicker struck a deal with Bob Keeshan (aka Captain Kangaroo) to feature Play-Doh on TV, giving him 2% of gross sales for mentions [11:09].
  • The product initially came in four colors: red, blue, yellow, and white.
  • National exposure caused sales to skyrocket.

“He believed in it so much that he upped the number of mentions without any additional compensation from two times a week to as many as three times a week.”
—Josh Clark [11:52]

Branding Evolution and Nostalgia [12:24]

• The first mascot was an elf, soon replaced by the iconic Play-Doh Pete (kid in a smock and beret) [12:55].
• The look shifted to a can-with-arms character in the 2000s, to Chuck and Josh’s dismay.
  • Both hosts agree nostalgia runs deep for Play-Doh Pete [14:29].

The Reality of Play-Doh Modeling [15:13]

• Play-Doh cannot be baked or permanently hardened like modeling clay; it’s meant for temporary creations [15:18].
• Official advice: If you want something permanent, use actual modeling clay.
• Parental frustrations: Mixed colors, Play-Doh stuck in carpets. Pro tip: Let Play-Doh dry out before vacuuming it (never use warm water!) [16:07].

The Fun Factory and the Rise of Play-Doh Accessories [19:29]

• The Fun Factory, created by GE engineers, revolutionized play by turning Play-Doh into extrudable shapes (think spaghetti, stars, ropes) [19:42].
• If all Play-Doh ever made was extruded into a rope, it would wrap around the Earth 300 times [21:03].
• Over 950 million pounds and 2 billion cans have been sold since 1956; current production is 100 million cans a year [21:26].

“If you took all the Play-Doh ever created and ran it through the Fun Factory...it would wrap around the earth 300 times.”
—Josh Clark [21:03]

Product Variety and Food Mimicry [22:00]

• Numerous branded sets exist (Disney Princesses, Pizza Hut, bakeries, etc.).
• Discussion of fake food sets and new types/formulas (e.g., squishier Play-Doh for "frosting") and allergies—wheat/gluten warnings but no peanuts or milk [22:46].

What’s in Play-Doh? (The Chemistry) [23:06]

• Official recipe is secret (U.S. Patent 6713624), but backbone ingredients are: water, salt, flour (wheat starch), binder, preservative, fragrance, lubricant, surfactant, and coloring [24:30].
• Fun aside: Original scent was almond; current may be vanilla.

The Science: How Play-Doh Works Chemically [25:35]

• In-depth breakdown of why Play-Doh is moldable but not brittle or sticky:
  • Starch molecules (amylose and amylopectin) form the base structure [27:11].
  • Warm water and mechanical mixing gelatinize the starch, but too much or too little amylose/amylopectin causes problems (retrogradation leads to drying out, brittleness, or stickiness) [29:10].
  • Lubricant (likely mineral oil) is added for flexibility [31:19].
  • Surfactant keeps the lubricant integrated in the dough [33:22].
  • Salt not only for taste but also as a preservative and to absorb excess water [38:15].
• Achieving the right ratios of these ingredients yields the perfect Play-Doh texture.

“Anytime, like, they started with a starch and a water, put it together—fantastic. But then that created this problem, and then when they went to solve this problem, it created this problem...It’s really complicated and self-complicating, which I find very interesting.”
—Josh Clark [29:57]

Play-Doh at Home (DIY) [40:07]

• Homemade recipes substitute ingredients like cream of tartar to stabilize texture.
• Science lesson opportunity for kids: Make and explain homemade Play-Doh.
• Peanut butter versions exist; homemade is usually not quite as "good" as the real deal [41:20].

Fun Facts, Trivia & Cultural Impact [42:09]

• Mr. Bill from SNL was made of Play-Doh; first short cost $20 to make [42:15].
• Modern tech: Play-Doh 3D printers now exist—kids can design and "print" models at home [42:33].
• Story of banned Play-Doh ads in Singapore—creative, but outside Hasbro’s approval [43:46].
• Play-Doh’s flexibility as a toy—creative, nostalgic, and continually evolving.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Remember when I was a kid and less violent.”
  —Josh Clark (joking about Play-Doh scent's calming effect) [07:31]

• “Play-Doh, we all played with it. It was fun for modeling, but it was not...a permanent exhibit.”
  —Chuck Bryant [14:53]

• “We can't just talk about surfing, we have to talk about the physics of a wave.”
  —Chuck Bryant (on the show's depth) [25:43]

• “Chemistry was not my bag, baby.”
  —Chuck Bryant (reluctant but game for the science) [25:53]

• “I bet you they're going to come out with a gluten-free Play-Doh.”
  —Chuck Bryant [31:41]

• “What else you got?...I've got nothing else...I got plenty more. Oh, well, please, Mr. Bill...He was made of Play-Doh.”
  —Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant [42:07]

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Personal Play-Doh Memories & Scent: [02:44] - [07:40]
• Play-Doh's Origin as Wallpaper Cleaner: [07:40] - [10:11]
• The Captain Kangaroo Effect: [10:11] - [12:24]
• Evolution of Play-Doh Mascot & Branding: [12:24] - [15:13]
• Modeling Reality & Cleanup Tips: [15:13] - [16:07]
• The Fun Factory & Accessories: [19:29] - [21:03]
• Sales Stats and Product Variety: [21:19] - [22:46]
• Play-Doh Ingredients Overview: [23:06] - [25:35]
• Deep Dive: Chemistry of Play-Doh: [25:35] - [38:54]
• Shelf Life & Shelf Chemistry: [38:54] - [39:49]
• DIY Play-Doh at Home: [40:07] - [41:45]
• Fun Facts, Tech, Banned Ads: [42:09] - [44:52]

---

Final Reflections & Takeaways

• Play-Doh's enduring appeal lies in its simplicity, tactile fun, iconic scent, and bits of science wrapped into a truly accessible toy.
• The story spans from industrial utility to kid-friendly creativity, with clever marketing and ongoing innovation (Fun Factory, 3D printers).
• It's a lesson in chemistry, nostalgia, and playful learning—not just a holiday toy, but a 20th-century icon with ongoing relevance.

---

For more on Play-Doh, including home recipes and trivia, visit the show’s site or search "Play-Doh" at HowStuffWorks.com.

Transcript

[Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Guaranteed Human support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It's IT screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures living.

[Chuck Bryant]

With an autoimmune condition isn't easy, and every journey is different. That's why Season five of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition from Ruby Studio and Argenics, shares powerful firsthand stories from people with conditions like MG and cidp. Hosted by Martine Hackett, these conversations dive into what resilience really looks like through setbacks, breakthroughs and finding strength in community. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Announcer]

Experience the beloved Harry Potter stories like you've never heard them before on Audible. Harry Potter the full cast audio editions presents the iconic series as a truly spellbinding listening event for the whole family with a spectacular A list cast including Hugh Laurie as albus Dumbledore, Matthew McFadden as Voldemort, and many more. The first story in the series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, is available now, with new audiobooks in the series releasing every month thereafter. It's Harry Potter like you've never heard it before. Listen on audible. Go to audible.com HP1 and start listening today.

[Chuck Bryant]

Ho ho ho everybody. Santa Chuck here, continuing on with our 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist. I'm gonna stop doing that silly voice because I'm not Santa Claus. I'm just Chuck. And I am here to introduce it Smells good. It tastes good. I just hope it sounds good. That salty goodness of Play Doh. How Play Doh works.

[Josh Clark]

Welcome to stuff you should know from howstuffworks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And this is the first of two stuff you should know that we're recording today. My voice already sounds weird to me. What do you mean it doesn't sound a little weird? You know how, like, when we get toward the end of the second one or it gets a little, like, worn out or something? Yeah, like it's been extruded through a Play DOH fun factory.

[Chuck Bryant]

Was all that a setup or do you really feel that way?

[Josh Clark]

That was off the cuff, baby.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay. No, it doesn't sound weird to me. Your voice never sounds weird unless you're sick.

[Josh Clark]

Jerry, Judgment call. Yep. Jerry broke the tie. She sided with me.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, Jerry wears headphones, but you and I fight the broadcasting business by being the only people that don't wear headphones or cans. I never get it. I'm like, you're two feet from me. Why do I need headphones?

[Josh Clark]

I know. And I don't want to hear myself anyway. I don't want to hear myself better. No, it's terrible. It sounds like torture.

[Chuck Bryant]

How about this for a new sysk T shirt? No more cans.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Just have a little X through some headphones.

[Josh Clark]

I think when you make a stuff, you should know decree. From now on, we should have like a fairy wand sound effect where you're just like, here's this for a new T shirt. I decree it be made into existence.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, we get. We're gonna. By the way, since I mentioned it, we're gonna have some new shirts coming soon. Yeah, Some good. Like some fan designs even.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. Pretty exciting. Yeah, we do have some now that people can go buy if you want.

[Chuck Bryant]

I like those first designs we had.

[Josh Clark]

And. Well, let's just have this out on the air. It's not an argument. Let's have this discussion. Are we going to retire the original six from the contest, or should we just let them keep going in perpetuity?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, unless there's a reason, I think perpetuity is the way to go. Because someone might like the dancing. I don't know what we call that.

[Josh Clark]

The skeleton woodcut.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Parade of dancing skeletons.

[Josh Clark]

The macabre parade. That's what I would call it. Yeah, that was a good one. All six of them were excellent. The baby with the fly on its.

[Chuck Bryant]

Forehead, still my all time favorite.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. It's good stuff. If you don't know what we're talking about, go to stuffyou Should Know Dot com, our venerable website. And in the top navigation, there's a store button. And it will take you our store. And you can see with your own very eyes what the heck we're talking about.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Yeah, that was off the cuff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it was.

[Chuck Bryant]

I wasn't like, oh, we got to plug the T shirts.

[Josh Clark]

No, no, no. You very rarely say things as fretfully as that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

You want to talk about Play doh?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. We promised to do this recently, and here we are.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. In my defense, it was already on the list.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, wow.

[Josh Clark]

So it's not like, you know, I'm at the beck and call of anybody's like, do Play doh, do this, do that. No, it was already on the list.

[Chuck Bryant]

Dance monkey.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Did you play with Play DOH a lot when you were a kid?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I played with it. I ate it.

[Josh Clark]

I don't recall eating it. I do specifically recall eating the paste that was an off brand that had a purple pirate on it. Oh, he was a pirate wearing a purple hat. And I think maybe he had an orange parrot.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Was the paste. Did it have a. On the inside of the lid? Did it have a applicator attached to it? Yeah, I totally ate that paste.

[Josh Clark]

That was the best tasting paste on the planet.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

As a matter of fact, I think that paste might have been manufactured in part to eat, like, it's rule served to, like, kids. Some bad kids.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Actually, I want to revise my statement. I licked and tasted Play doh. I don't remember, like, swallowing it, but I remember, like, you know, tasting it and then maybe even put it in my mouth and spitting it back out. But I don't think I didn't swallow.

[Josh Clark]

I gotcha. Yeah, I never. I don't think I ever ate Play DOH in any form or fashion. But the scent of it, it's unmistakable.

[Chuck Bryant]

Unmistakable.

[Josh Clark]

It's so unmistakable, in fact, that apparently back in 2006, Plato or Hasbro threw a year long celebration for Play D'oh. Which it owns. Which it bought off of Kenner.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Which Kenner bought from a dude named Joe McVickers.

[Chuck Bryant]

Actually, they bought it from Tonka. Tonka bought it from Kenner.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah. How'd I forget? Tonka.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly.

[Josh Clark]

And for this 50th birthday party, they had a scent, a Play Doh perfume released that smelled just like Play Doh.

[Chuck Bryant]

Can you buy that, I wonder?

[Josh Clark]

I looked and I think you can get it, but I don't think as easy as you could back in 2006.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I wouldn't want to wear it. I was just curious, I think.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Nostalgia. I would like to smell it. But don't spray that stuff on me.

[Josh Clark]

I don't think you're supposed to wear it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, is it just like. Yeah, one of those things.

[Josh Clark]

It's a mood stabilizer.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

You know what I mean? Yeah. Spray in front of your face and you just go, oh, yeah. Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Like rosebuds.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe I should put this lead pipe down and rethink things. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Remember when I was a kid and less violent.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Somebody give me some paste to eat.

[Chuck Bryant]

They should do that.

[Josh Clark]

Well, back when you were a kid, did you know much about the origin of play? D'oh.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, no, not at all.

[Josh Clark]

I didn't either until today or yesterday when I started researching this Plato, everyone. And in this article by Tracy Wilson, who hosts Stuff youf Missed in History Class, she says that it's lore, but I've seen it all over the place. And from what I understand, it's the truth.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think it's the truth.

[Josh Clark]

There's a dude named Joe McVickers who had a company, and his company produced, from What I understand, McVickers invention which was wallpaper cleaner.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. His father and uncle started it and they were called Kutol Products. And it was a soap company. But their big seller was this wall cleaner. Because when we heated our homes with coal. Your house would get coal soot on the walls.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which is really weird to think of now.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But it's true. And your wallpaper can still get dirty grease from cooking things, food fights, whatever. Yeah, your wallpaper can get dirty. Let's just face facts, everybody. And McVicker's company had this putty. It was kind of a pliable, gooey putty that you slapped up against the wallpaper and rolled up and down. And it just took that soot or that grease or that spaghetti sauce clean off. And it was wallpaper cleaner.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And it was doing okay, I guess.

[Chuck Bryant]

Great.

[Josh Clark]

I don't think they were like hurting necessarily. But Joe was married to a woman or was his sister in law was a teacher.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it was in Cincinnati. Yeah, they. They sold a lot of this stuff for a while, but then natural gas came around and so they fell upon hard times.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

But Joe took over from Cleo. Cleo was his father. And his sister in law, Kay Zufal of New Jersey, read about kids that were making Christmas ornaments out of that stuff.

[Josh Clark]

And she said, out of the wallpaper cleaner.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And much like kids do today with Play doh. And she said, hey, you know, we're hurting. Why don't we try and turn this stuff into a toy? And they did so. And in 1950, he made a non toxic version, added some almond scent, and you had your first little off white Play doh.

[Josh Clark]

And. Yeah, kind of exactly what you would think of when you think of a gummy colored, like dough off white khaki almost.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And McVicker was a pretty smart dude as far as business goes. He donated a bunch of cans to the Cincinnati city school system.

[Chuck Bryant]

Very smart.

[Josh Clark]

And so got these little kids hooked on Play doh. It was a huge hit, but it might have just been a regional hit if he hadn't of approached a dude named Captain Kangaroo. Yeah, he went to. What is Captain Kangaroo's name? Bob.

[Chuck Bryant]

Bob Keeshan, I think.

[Josh Clark]

Bob Keeshan. Nice memory, Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

I pulled that out from I don't know how many years ago was the last time I heard that name.

[Josh Clark]

He. Well, did you watch Captain Kangaroo? Oh, yeah, me too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Huge fan.

[Josh Clark]

Loved Captain Kangaroo. I like Captain kangaroo more than Mr. Rogers.

[Chuck Bryant]

I liked them both. But yeah, I think I might have been, yeah, Captain Kangaroo a little bit more.

[Josh Clark]

It was a haircut.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I was Electric Company over Sesame street even.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I liked both, but I liked Electric Electric Company more. Yeah, but I like Pinwheel most.

[Chuck Bryant]

I didn't watch that.

[Josh Clark]

It was for real little kids.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Anyway, Captain Kangaroo had a Show and Joe McVicker somehow got in contact with Captain Kangaroo and said, hey, I have a little deal for you. Yeah, we've got this awesome stuff that the kids in Cincinnati are crazy for it. We're calling it Play Doh right now. It's in off white, or it used to be, but now we have four colors. Red, blue, yellow and white. Those are the four original colors of Play doh, by the way. And he gave some to Captain Kangaroo who said, I will give you 2% of gross sales if you mention this on your show. Two times a week. Yeah, he played with it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Bob Keeshan was a money grubber. That's what we all know.

[Josh Clark]

I think he believed in this product. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And he's a smart guy.

[Josh Clark]

He is. And he believed in it so much that he upped the number of mentions without any additional compensation from two times a week to as many as three times a week. He would play with Play DOH on tv and it just took off like a rocket from there.

[Chuck Bryant]

That was his additional compensation that he got.

[Josh Clark]

Free Play doh.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, he had a percentage, so.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, you're right.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know what I'm saying?

[Josh Clark]

You're right. But it suggests that he believed in it.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. He did believe in it.

[Josh Clark]

Man. Do not shatter my image of Captain Kangaroo.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm not saying he just wanted to make more money. Course not.

[Josh Clark]

Isn't that the show that Mr. Green Tunes was on?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Big fan of that guy, too. They formed the Rainbow Crafts Company. You know, they wanted to take it out from under the Kutol Products banner and got famous wildlife artist John Ruthven to design that first package with. Originally it was. Very briefly it was an elf.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And those I think are probably. If you have a can of that, you probably. It's probably in a museum or something that wasn't around long.

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

And then they went to play doh.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Pete.

[Chuck Bryant]

The kid with the smock and the beret.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because all little kids wore berets and smocks back then.

[Josh Clark]

Or you wore your dad's dress shirt, like backwards.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

That made a good smock too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. The one he didn't want anymore.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or that you thought he didn't want anymore, but he really got mad at you because you got paint on it.

[Josh Clark]

That's my good short sleeve dress shirt.

[Chuck Bryant]

And finally, it took all the way until 2002. Did the herbal Elvis wear short sleeve dress shirts?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

Really?

[Josh Clark]

With slacks and ties?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. My dad usually as a principal wore a coat. But when you take off the jacket and you've got the short sleeve on, that's something else.

[Josh Clark]

With a blue felt tip pen, a red felt tip pen, and a green felt tip pin in his pocket. Front pocket.

[Chuck Bryant]

That was your dad?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, He's a mechanical engineer.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh. So each one had a different use.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Interesting.

[Josh Clark]

Plus, I think he also just thought they were pretty.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Like they kind of. They made his shirt pocket pop.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's where you get it with your shirt pocket thing.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. It took until 2002 for that beret to become a baseball cap.

[Josh Clark]

And then now he's just gone.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I was looking around anymore at all, is he?

[Josh Clark]

Not at all. Now it's a can with arms and the lids kind of pulled back. And in between the rim of the can and the top of the lid are a couple of eyes. It looks a bit like a garbage can, but it's obviously a Play DOH can. But just kind of. I don't like it. Yeah, I like Play doh. Pete, the kid with the Beret.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, me too.

[Josh Clark]

He was great.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's what we grew up with. It's nostalgia.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, but he was around for a really long time, and now they just do away with him like he's nothing.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's our other shirt. Bring back Play doh, Pete.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

We'll get sued.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. Although I didn't get the impression that they were too terribly litigious.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, plus, we could tell them we sold nine T shirts. Here's your $73.

[Josh Clark]

Here's your 2%.

[Chuck Bryant]

So, Plato, we all played with it. It was fun for modeling, but it was not. Like, if you were like me, your hopes were dashed a bit when you modeled something and left it out overnight because you thought it would make it into a permanent exhibit.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

But it would really just kind of break apart. It's not like you can't cure it like you do modeling clay.

[Josh Clark]

No, I was on Plato's site, and they. They readily admit that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

As a matter of fact, they say, if you want a permanent thing, go get you some modeling clay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Get some Sculpey. I don't want to buzzmark it, but Sculpey's a lot of fun.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. We're talking about Play doh, though.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, but Sculpey's fun.

[Josh Clark]

But they say modeling clay. They don't say Sculpey, but they say, if you want to make a permanent thing, go get some modeling clay. It's not what Play doh's for.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, it's for being in the moment, making fun things and then smashing those and then putting it back in the can.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Doing it all over again every day.

[Josh Clark]

And driving your mom crazy because she can't stand colors to be mixed together, so she sits there and picks them apart or whatever.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or it's in the orange shag carpet.

[Josh Clark]

Which, again, Hasbro has some helpful suggestions for how to clean this stuff up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

Number one. And you will understand eventually by the end of this podcast, why do not use warm water when you're cleaning up Play DOH from the carpet. It will make everything a million times worse. What they say, if possible, if you have the patience of job, just go ahead and let this thing dry, turn brittle, use a stiff brush and just kind of brush it out of the carpeting, vacuum it up. Boom.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Or do the reasonable thing and get hardwood floors.

[Josh Clark]

All right, well, we'll discuss that very soon after this message. Stuff you should know.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Support for the show comes from public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public. You can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now Generated Assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member finra, SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures of [e-mail] Disclosures tired of.

[Josh Clark]

Juggling sales tools or spending hours on.

[Announcer]

Prospecting just to book a few meetings?

[Josh Clark]

Meet Apollo, the Go to Market platform.

[Announcer]

For finding leads, connecting with buyers and closing deals all in one place.

[Josh Clark]

Apollo gives you access to over 210.

[Announcer]

Million contacts and AI that handles all.

[Josh Clark]

Your busywork finding leads, drafting emails and.

[Announcer]

Even prioritizing your day. So stop paying for five different sales tools when one does it all.

[Josh Clark]

Visit Apollo I.O. and sign up free today. Hey everybody, we're hitting the road again starting in January 2026, picking up again in April 2026 and eventually Canada will tell you year dates too.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right, we're going to do at least three legs and the first leg is starting out in Denver, Colorado at the Paramount Theater on January 27th. We're going to go back to our beloved Seattle at the Paramount Theater there on the 28th, and then finally back at SketchFest on the 29th at the Sidney Goldstein Theater.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. And then April 16th, 17th and 18th, we're going to be in Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois and Akron, Ohio. And if you're not keeping up with all this or taking notes, don't worry, you can get all the info you need and buy tickets@stuffyou should know.com, click on the Tour button and thank us later.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right, we can't wait to see everybody again out there on the road.

[Josh Clark]

Stuff you should know.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so play DOH is fun enough on its own. Like when I was a kid, I had zero accoutrements to go along with my Play Doh.

[Josh Clark]

I don't recall having anything but just the Play Doh too.

[Chuck Bryant]

All I had was the Play Doh in my imagination. And in 1960, though, I said, you know what? Let's get a couple of engineers from General Electric to design what's going to be called the Fun Factory.

[Josh Clark]

That's like. That was it.

[Chuck Bryant]

That was it. Then you could put Play DOH into various forms and molds and press it and have it come out like sausage or spaghetti or just whatever they decided to design. Like, have you been to the site recently?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

There are hundreds of different things that you can buy now with your Play doh. Of course.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. For sure. And different types of Play doh, too, to make different looking things as well.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But the original Fun Factory thing is basically just a hand pushed lever.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

That shoved the Play DOH inside through a hole.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was a sausage grinder.

[Josh Clark]

And then basically. Yeah. And then in front of the hole, you had a. Just kind of like different shapes that you could make this thing into.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yep.

[Josh Clark]

What'd you say? Spaghetti?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Like spaghetti or a star. Rope. Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And the rope. Speaking of the rope, all of these are basically what it is. An extruder.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

This is a Play doh. Extruder is what these guys came up with. And I guarantee they had colored felt tip pens in the fronts of their pockets too, when they designed this thing. But if you took all the Play doh. By the way, here's a Play DOH fun fact. If you took all the Play DOH ever created and ran it through the Fun Factory and extruded it into one long rope.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

It would wrap around the earth 3,000 times.

[Chuck Bryant]

How many Big Macs is that?

[Josh Clark]

No, I'm sorry. It would wrap around the earth 300 times. Let's not.

[Announcer]

Let's.

[Josh Clark]

Let's not go crazy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, only 300.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And you could go to the moon and back 10 times with that rope. You could make a pretty good little bridge that would be kind of crumbly by the next day.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But it'd be colorful.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

That's a lot of play doh, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. They've sold £950 million of this stuff, more than 2 billion cans since 1956.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And they apparently make about 100 million cans every year.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

What I find heartening is those are current statistics.

[Chuck Bryant]

They're not rated for inflation.

[Josh Clark]

No. But this article that Tracy wrote was apparently written in 2006. She said that they make 95 million cans. So they've upped their production by 5 million cans a year. Which means Play Doh's not going anywhere.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

I'm pretty psyched about that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And all the stuff they have now, they've got all sorts of licensing deals. Like they have like the Play Doh Disney Princess set. And you can make dresses for your Disney Princess out of Play Doh.

[Josh Clark]

And they have a long standing tradition too of making fake food. Like I was watching some. I wouldn't really call it documentary. It was almost just a compilation of Play Doh ads over the years.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And there's one from the 80s where you could make Pizza Hut pizzas out of Play doh. I think I remember that nowadays they have like a kind of a sweet shop, I think is the name of the line. And like I said, they have different types of Play doh. Some are squishier and thinner and more pliable. So you can use those to make the frosting. You use regular Play Doh to make the actual cupcake.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's because the cupcake graze, I bet.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Probably is filtered down to kids. And with the gluten free graze on their website it says contains gluten.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. It has wheat.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But they have to advertise that now because your child will want to eat the Play doh. And if you have your kid off gluten, they can't eat the Play doh. No, Mommy has to explain that. Or daddy.

[Josh Clark]

But if your kid has a peanut allergy or a milk allergy, you're fine.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. Water, salt and flour is the general. I mean, it's a very proprietary recipe, obviously.

[Josh Clark]

Right. It's U.S. patent number 671-3624.

[Chuck Bryant]

But if you look that up, you're not going to find the ingredients.

[Josh Clark]

No, like you said, it's proprietary. They do give kind of like a general ingredient list somewhere, I guess in the patent itself. Yeah, but yeah, they're not going to tell you how to make it, but.

[Chuck Bryant]

We'Ll list those really quickly and then we're going to talk about chemistry.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, we're going to get to the chemical molecular basis of Play DOH itself.

[Chuck Bryant]

But in broad terms it is water. You got a starch based binder, you have a retrogradation inhibitor because you have to inhibit that retrogradation.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Salt. No, there's salt in there. In fact, at one point it was too salty and they had to get a new chemist to remove some of the salt.

[Josh Clark]

Is that right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, but you remember how salty it tasted?

[Josh Clark]

No, I didn't. I never tasted it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, you didn't?

[Josh Clark]

No, I said.

[Chuck Bryant]

I thought you said you tasted it.

[Josh Clark]

No, I said I never did. I ate the paste.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay.

[Josh Clark]

I never tasted it, but the smell.

[Chuck Bryant]

Was the paste salty?

[Josh Clark]

No, no, no. It had a weird sweet taste to it. It wasn't overly sweet, but of all of the tastes, I would say just.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sweet enough to get a kid to eat it.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Salt. You got your lubricant. And all this will make sense in a bit. A surfactant, a preservative hardener, a humectant. A fragrance, of course, and color. I know he used almond for the first fragrance, but I wonder if it's still an offshoot of that. Does it smell like almond?

[Josh Clark]

From what I saw, they've admitted to vanilla.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, really?

[Josh Clark]

That's all I've seen.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

And they're saying, like, that doesn't tell us anything.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's all they admitted to. Yeah, under questioning.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But the colors. We should also say chuckers. They originally had red, yellow, and blue, the primary colors. Then they added white, and this is all in the 50s, and those were the only colors until the 80s.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

And. And then they added a couple more, and they had eight colors total. And then now today, it's like a whole rainbow. A whole galaxy of different colors.

[Chuck Bryant]

I never got the white because it just. It looked dirty so quickly.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I never really understood the purpose of the white.

[Josh Clark]

I liked it. I thought it was a nice juxtaposition with the primary colors.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, you were an artiste.

[Josh Clark]

No, I was just a connoisseur.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so now the rest of the show, we're gonna talk about chemistry.

[Josh Clark]

You're not happy about this, are you? What'd you think about this article?

[Chuck Bryant]

I thought it was. It was good, you know, because that's what house stuff Works does is they tell the story behind things. Like, we can't just talk about surfing. We have to talk about the physics of a wave.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

I get that. But, yeah. Chemistry was not my bag, baby.

[Josh Clark]

This one, Kissing and Roller Coasters, you're kind of like, he had a little bit of protest going on. Like, come on, this is fun stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. When you're talking about kissing, you want to talk about.

[Josh Clark]

Remember the title of it was A Rigid, Sterile look at Kissing?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I don't know if the title for this will end up being what I wanted, but it was going to be taking the fun out of Play D'oh.

[Josh Clark]

No, let's call how Play D'oh. Works. All right.

[Chuck Bryant]

But you heard it here. That was my.

[Josh Clark]

That was the working title.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

All right, well, I will kick the chemistry off and maybe I will spark your interest. Are you ready?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

Do you have your beret and your smock on?

[Chuck Bryant]

This isn't even the fun chemistry. You get to burn things.

[Josh Clark]

No, this is the chemistry of compounds. You're just adding them together. There's a little heat involved, as we'll see.

[Chuck Bryant]

Possibly.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, you could start that flame.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. So the whole basis of play doh. It turns out, is an interaction between starch and. And water.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

And starches are. They're polysaccharides, which are sugar molecules. And there's basically two varieties or two types that combine. There's amylose and there's amylopectin.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

And amylose is like a string. Amylopectin is branched. And when they get together, they form a starburst shape. They form a molecule in a starburst shape.

[Chuck Bryant]

And.

[Josh Clark]

And it's arranged around a central area, a hollow, called a hilum. H I L U m, I'm going with a hilum. And it's all held together thanks to hydrogen bonds. And then you have all that, these polysaccharide chains all mixed together with hydrogen bonds forming a starburst. And my friend, you have a starch molecule. And when you have that starch molecule, you have one of the two bases of pallado.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And this one does. This article does have some pretty handy illustrations. If hearing this doesn't make as much sense, you can follow along on your own computer. Look at the illustrations. If you add cold water to starch, the granules are going to absorb some. But when things really get interesting is when you add warm water or when you heat up that cold water to be warm water. Like, you can mix it ahead of time and then warm it up. And basically what you're doing is making a gelatin. Just like when you make jello, it's got to be warm water, Right.

[Josh Clark]

Like, if you've ever had, like, corn starch or flour or whatever, and you add cold water to it, they just kind of separate, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It's really untoward.

[Josh Clark]

It doesn't do much. It's almost like the starch protects itself against the cold. It's like you stay over there. Cold water. But when you use warm water or a mechanical action of mixing it together, it forms, like you said, it gelatinizes.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

And now you're starting to get the basis of play. D'oh. But the problem is when you just add warm water and the starch. In this case, it's wheat starch that they use. Right. Because they have to warn against gluten. When you add those two things, they mix together well, they form a nice gelatinous goo. But as it dries, you've got the problem of retrogradation.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

And that's trouble.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because it really depends on the breakdown of amylose to amylopectin is the key. If you have a lot of amylose, it's gonna take more swelling to gelatinize.

[Josh Clark]

Right. But you get a nice, robust gel when you have a lot of amylose. But the problem is that excess amylose separates some from the water, binds to itself, and then you have something that's not a full compound anymore. It's basically like a couple of. It's like you've got that gel and then some extra amylose, and it's dry and brittle, and it's not good.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, yeah. And in the case of making a product for kids to play with, it's too firm. Like, they had to get this recipe just right to make it firm, but still pliable. And a lot of work went into this, I'm sure.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because anytime, like, they started with a starch and a water, put it together. Fantastic. But then that created this problem, and then when they went to solve this problem, it created this problem. So then they had to solve it with this problem. And then after adding, like, seven things, they finally have this, like, precariously balanced compound.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's perfect.

[Josh Clark]

That's perfect. But it's pretty neat. It's really complicated, and it's self complicating, which I find very interesting.

[Chuck Bryant]

It is. And what they ended up settling with, as far as percentages go, for that wheat starch was 25% amylose and 75% amylopectin. They found that to be the secret sauce.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

As our buddy Chad likes to say.

[Josh Clark]

And the reason they have the amylopectin is because the amylopectin is a waxy starch, and it keeps the amylose from binding to itself. So you've prevented that retrogradation problem. Right. Where the amylose separates from the water and just binds to itself. The problem is, now that you have this extra amylopectin, the amylopectin, it keeps the whole thing together, but it does it too much. And now you have a sticky, tacky compound.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. You don't want it sticky.

[Josh Clark]

No. And anybody who's ever played with Play Doh and tried to make something. You can't make it stick sticky. It'll stick to your hands or it'll stick to itself. It's not going to make a cheeseburger like that.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, no.

[Josh Clark]

So they added something else. A lubricant.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. In this case. I don't know if that's part of the secret or not, but it's probably some sort of a vegetable oil or mineral oil.

[Josh Clark]

Well, they think possibly it's a mineral oil which is derived from petroleum, which. Petroleum. Which is why it's non toxic. But you still shouldn't eat it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I did see that there was petroleum. I bet you they're going to come out with a gluten free Play doh.

[Josh Clark]

I'm surprised they haven't already.

[Chuck Bryant]

But that would almost be like admitting your child is eating this or can eat it.

[Josh Clark]

Well, some of that new stuff, like the sweet shop stuff.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I'm actually, I would be very surprised if they hadn't done some R and D of different flavored Play doh.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

You know, because they have the different colors and this is supposed to look like this frosting. This supposed to look like this frosting. So I wonder if they were like, well, we can make this taste like vanilla or cotton candy or whatever. And then they kind of shook their heads off and we're like, wait, wait, we can't have kids eating this stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or I wonder if they've done R and D on how much of it you can eat before it makes you sick. Surely, like if they're making something that looks like a cupcake, some kid is probably gonna eat that entire thing at some point.

[Josh Clark]

And like we said, they've pretty much always been like, you can make fake food with this.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Pizza Hut gave us money to do.

[Chuck Bryant]

This, but don't eat it. Right.

[Josh Clark]

It's a weird mixed message.

[Chuck Bryant]

It is a totally mixed message.

[Josh Clark]

But you were saying they use the petroleum oil for. As a lubricant.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And that keeps it from being all sticky. So if you've ever played with it, you know, it like it's very pliable and moist, but it's not going to stick to your fingers, which is the key.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So you have added the mineral oil or some sort of lubricant to prevent the extra amylopectin from making it sticky. And the whole reason you added amylopectin was because too much amylose can cause retrogradation. So you've got all these solutions and you've got the lubricant solution. The problem is you can't just put, like. You can't just drop it into lubricant and expect it to stick. The lubricant won't bind within this compound.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So you have to add yet another thing, the surfactant.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, surfactants. You'll see in a lot of household cleansing products if you use that chemical junk to clean your house. But a surface active agent is another name for it. And it basically, they're artificially manufactured, they're molecules, but it's going to suspend something in water, is the whole key to being a surfactant.

[Josh Clark]

Imagine a surfactant has two ends, and one end is hydrophilic, which means it attracts water and is attracted to water. And the other is hydrophobic, which means it repels water, and it's actually attracted to fats. Lipids, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Or afraid of it even.

[Josh Clark]

The cool thing about a surfactant is that if you take it and you throw it into a solution of water and oil, fats and waters. Right. One end will attract the fat molecules and another end will attract the water molecules. And the end result of all of this is that you can basically suspend fats in water or water and fats, so that you have, effectively, molecularly speaking, a compound that's all mixed together. It's not going to separate like oil and water, because the whole thing's being held together by surfactants.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

That's pretty amazing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It actually binds to the molecules of the lubricant. A chemical reaction is taking place and.

[Josh Clark]

Keeps them all mixed together. It won't allow them to separate. So we've got the lubricant in there.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

The whole thing's being held in place by the surfactant.

[Chuck Bryant]

All lubed up, ready to go.

[Josh Clark]

We've got a little extra water, Chuck. What are we going to do?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I don't think we mentioned earlier, the reason it dries out to begin with if you leave it out overnight is just because of evaporation.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And Hasbro recommends that if this happens, you take your play Doh modeling clay and you wrap it in like a damp paper towel, put it back in the can, put the COVID on it, leave it overnight. Should be good as new.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I've seen you can also add a little water to it as well. Yeah, but I've never tried that. So that, my friend, is. It's a very fine tuned mixture like you said they had to. I'm sure it took a lot of work over the years to get it just exactly right and we're going to learn how you can make your own right after this break.

[Announcer]

Support for this show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, buys one of a kind index and lets you backtest it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.comsysk and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.comsysk paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc, SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures tired.

[Josh Clark]

Of juggling sales tools or spending hours.

[Announcer]

On prospecting just to book a few meetings?

[Josh Clark]

Meet Apollo, the go to Market platform.

[Announcer]

For finding leads, connecting with buyers and closing deals all in one place.

[Josh Clark]

Apollo gives you access to over 210.

[Announcer]

Million contacts and AI that handles all your busy work finding leads, drafting emails and even prioritizing your day. So stop paying for five different sales tools when one does it all.

[Josh Clark]

Visit Apollo I.O. and sign up free today. Hey everybody, we're hitting the road again starting January 2026, picking up again in April 2026 and eventually Canada will tell you year dates too.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. We're going to do at least three legs and the first leg is starting out in Denver, Colorado at the Paramount Theater on January 27th. We're going to go back to our beloved Seattle at the Paramount Theater there on the 28th, and then finally back at SketchFest on the 29th at the Sidney Goldstein Theater.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. And then April 16th, 17th and 18th, we're going to be in Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois and Akron, Ohio. And if you're not keeping up with all this or taking notes, don't worry. You can get all the info you need and buy tickets atstuffyou should know.com, click on the tour button and thank us later.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. We can't wait to see everybody again out there on the road.

[Josh Clark]

So, Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

We should have said there's a couple other things that they add. Like you get excess water.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So they added a little salt.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, sure.

[Josh Clark]

And apparently for the excess salt, they brought in a new chemist.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So it's just fine. Perfectly fine tuned stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

You got to color it, of course. And give it its scent.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And then possibly make it taste in the future. Who knows? I'm betting on that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And you know, the salt also adds a little antimicrobial element to it.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which is nice.

[Josh Clark]

So it acts as a preservative as well. And to make Play doh, you just put all this stuff in these in the right measurements and apply heat to it and mix it together and package it. And that's Play doh. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And it's got to have that shelf life. Like this is. It's really hard to come up with a product like this that meets all those needs. And we'll still like, you know, I'm sure there were times early on we're like, oh, this stuff's two weeks old on the shelf. It's like a brick. Back to the drawing board. Put on your beret.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And your smock.

[Josh Clark]

Remember in our How Twinkies Works episode, they dealt with that initially.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, the shelf life.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. So they just made it infinity.

[Josh Clark]

Man, that was such a good episode.

[Chuck Bryant]

That was good.

[Josh Clark]

One of my all time favorites.

[Chuck Bryant]

Agreed. We still get emails from people that are like, I found the banana Twinkies.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. They, they have them in like limited release from once in a while.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I have yet to try one.

[Chuck Bryant]

I remember trying one years ago, but it wasn't my bag. I don't like banana flavored things, but I like bananas.

[Josh Clark]

You're a very complex man, Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, they don't quite get it right. I don't think ever. I've never tasted a banana flavor thing that got it right.

[Josh Clark]

Gotcha.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm hard to please.

[Josh Clark]

So, man, you just totally threw me off. What were we talking about?

[Chuck Bryant]

I think we were to the point where we're going to make our own. Right.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So it's very tough to make until you come upon the recipe. But apparently a lot of people, even though it's a proprietary recipe, a lot of people have come up with their own recipes for Play doh. Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

And it's fun to do with your kid. You know, like, if they like playing with it, then you can teach them a little chemistry along the way.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Make it a learning moment.

[Josh Clark]

If you want to save some money or you. You don't want to feed the corporate beast. That too, or. Yeah, you just want to do something with your kid and make it. You can do all this stuff. It just takes a little elbow grease and work. And there's recipes all over the Internet. There's some for, like, Glow in the Dark Play doh.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, really?

[Josh Clark]

There's some for glittery Play doh. There's a couple of recipes in this article on how stuff works, but basically you're doing the same thing. You're adding starch to water. You're adding some sort of lubricant to it, something to hold the whole thing together. In this recipe, it's a cream of tartare.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

Which stiffens eggs and gives Play Doh homemade Play Doh its firmness. But there's a lot of recipes online that if you want to not only just play with Play Doh with your kid, but make it. That's a great chemistry teaching experience, I think.

[Chuck Bryant]

Agreed. And you can explain what each ingredient is doing. And then at the very end, you're going to have Play Doh, and your kid's going to say, this Play DOH stinks. It's not nearly as good as the real thing.

[Josh Clark]

Unless it's the peanut butter variety. Then I'll bet you're like, ooh, this is tasty. Play doh.

[Chuck Bryant]

Do they have that?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, there's a recipe for it in this article.

[Chuck Bryant]

So peanut butter is one of the ingredients.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Interesting.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Or you know what? You could make it with your kid while you listen to us stumble through the explanation.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And to everybody who's doing that right now, hello. Hello, everyone.

[Chuck Bryant]

And your kid's gonna say, who are these jerks? And why does my Play DOH not work?

[Josh Clark]

Can we just go to the store and buy some Play doh, please?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yep.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. Well, we're portable. We go around on MP3 players. So we can go to the store with you, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Exactly.

[Josh Clark]

What else you got?

[Chuck Bryant]

And then you can listen to our episode on temper tantrums on the way to the store.

[Josh Clark]

That was a good one, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was.

[Josh Clark]

What else you got?

[Chuck Bryant]

I've got nothing else.

[Josh Clark]

I got plenty more. Oh, well, please, Mr. Bill. Remember him from Saturday Night Live?

[Chuck Bryant]

Of course.

[Josh Clark]

He was made of play doh. Yeah. They made the first Mr. Bill short for 20 bucks.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's pretty good. Stuff. What else you got? Fun facts. Play Doh fun facts.

[Josh Clark]

There's a. There's not. Not just one, but two at least. Play Doh 3D printers on the market right now.

[Chuck Bryant]

Really?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's pretty awesome.

[Chuck Bryant]

So you put a hunk of it in there.

[Josh Clark]

Different hunks in there.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, no, no, no.

[Josh Clark]

And it.

[Chuck Bryant]

And it. I was about to say a hunk in there and then it whittles it down. But that's the opposite of 3D printing.

[Josh Clark]

No, no, it extrudes it. It builds up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. That's crazy.

[Josh Clark]

There's one on ThinkGeek for like 50 bucks that plugs into your iPad. So it's. That's where your schematics are. And it tells it what to do and it makes pretty cool little 3D play doh stuff that's kind of fun.

[Chuck Bryant]

It is.

[Josh Clark]

At the same time, it's kind of like, you know, I mean, you're really building a little geek there. But the imagination and the hands on things kind of taken out of it a little bit.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I think that's the new imagination, my friend.

[Josh Clark]

I guess so. To follow forms and schematics to a table, maybe.

[Chuck Bryant]

So it would be cool is if you could design your own schematic and then.

[Josh Clark]

Which I'm sure you can.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And then Plato has one called the Da Vinci.

[Chuck Bryant]

I saw that.

[Josh Clark]

And that's a 3D printer too. And then one other thing I found. We were talking about Play doh ads earlier. There is a series of banned play DOH ads that were published in Singapore a couple years back.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, band is in. I thought you meant like bands recorded music.

[Josh Clark]

No, no. Like N N E D. Yeah, Taboo Play DOH ads that are very adult centric.

[Chuck Bryant]

Really?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Can you say what?

[Josh Clark]

How about this? Yeah, I made a slideshow of them on our site. You can go check them out. They're pretty crazy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

They're not like naked or any. Not adult in that way, but like kind of violent and a little dark that this ad agency made basically without the approval of Hasbro.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, clearly.

[Josh Clark]

And Hasbro came in and like denounced it and everything. But they're pretty great. So if you go to stuffyouchou.com and search banned Play Doh ads, it will come up.

[Chuck Bryant]

And Hasbro had a news release that says we don't endorse this use of Play Doh brand moldable clay.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

They just kept working the name in there.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. I learned all about something called scam ads where advertising agencies basically Create ad campaigns based around brand names without the brand name's permission, simply to submit them for awards consideration to expand their prestige.

[Chuck Bryant]

Interesting. Well, and if you want to be a TV commercial director, you have probably made some spec or fake ads yourself just to have on your reel. Like, I'm going to make a Dorito. Well, Doritos is that contest every year.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So this is that same thing. But sometimes they really run afoul of like the spirit of the brand.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

And there's. Yeah, scam ads.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they're like European commercials, which are always way better and risque and like funny.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Get with it, America.

[Josh Clark]

So if you want to learn more about Play Doh, including a few Play Doh recipes, you can type Play Doh into the search [e-mail] and since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm gonna call this another MPAA called the Golden F Bomb. Hey guys, I discovered your show. And he says hello to Jerry. And spelled her name right too.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, that was nice.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which doesn't happen often. No, the spelling, that is. I discovered your podcast while looking for something interesting to listen to. While I worked on my organic farm in Kauai, I heard the MPAA show and I just had to write in. Growing up, my friends and I were always looking for a way to sneak into movie theaters via the exit door. Having an older friend or parent buy his tickets using a ticket, single ticket stub, pass back through to get in on the same ticket, etc. He had all sorts of ways of stealing. Our goal was to get into an R rated movie, Underage, with NC17 being the ultimate prize. PG13 always felt like we had failed or were settling. So to make it fun, we would count how many expletives we heard and compare notes. After the movie, he really took things to a different level.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it must have been a time when movies weren't as good as they are today in the theaters.

[Chuck Bryant]

No. Movies have never been this bad.

[Josh Clark]

I know, man. It is really out of control.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's terrible. One pattern we soon realized was that PG13 movies are allotted 1F bomb. Listening for that 1F bomb became the looked for moment, making the PG13 movie experience a tad more interesting and something I look out for to this day. Still, there are some real classics, including Ron Burgundy's in Anchorman, most recently in Skyfall, when Judi Dench uses that naughty word she did.

[Josh Clark]

I don't remember that. Judy.

[Chuck Bryant]

The first one in the Bond series, he claims.

[Josh Clark]

Judy. Judy. Judy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I just saw Philomena by the way, finally.

[Josh Clark]

What did you think? It was fantastic. Was that just an amazing change of pace for her? She always plays like the sharp pulled together like yeah, yeah, like boss lady. And like in this one she was just kind of just working class. God, that was a good movie.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was really good.

[Josh Clark]

Love that movie.

[Chuck Bryant]

Highly recommended. And then I notice the rating rule is not ironclad however, because recent examples of Lincoln and Philomena. Hey, how about that? Had two of those naughty words a piece.

[Josh Clark]

Lincoln had it in there, huh? That Spielberg gets away with anything.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, he's the one that had the whole thing changed.

[Josh Clark]

Oh yeah, he was the one that created it.

[Chuck Bryant]

PG 13. Yeah. And then he ran afoul of it. Anyway, my absolute favorite PG13 golden goal naughty word, not mentioned anywhere else that I've researched was the one that got me out of my seat. Cheering like the president's speech in Independence Day is from Oblivion. Tom Cruise's character awaits to the very end of the movie to deliver the perfectly timed line to his enemy. That movie stunk.

[Josh Clark]

Did it?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I heard the other one was pretty good though. Edge of Tomorrow.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that was really good. Oblivion stunk. And he closes by saying mahalo nui loa. Thank you very much for all you do to infotain us. And that is Evans on Kawaii. Yeah, sorry Evans. Oblivion was no good. He said he liked it a lot but you know, to each their own. I'm not gonna of poo poo his taste.

[Josh Clark]

Good for you Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Thanks for your, your game and your thievery.

[Josh Clark]

If you want to talk to me and Chuck about movies, we are always down for that. We love talking about movies. We should just like do an episode where we just, just say have you seen this movie? Oh yeah, I love that one. For like a half hour there'll be a couple of people out there that are like, oh, this is a good episode.

[Chuck Bryant]

There are podcasts like exactly like that. You know that.

[Josh Clark]

What was I just saying? Oh yeah. If you want to get in touch with us for whatever reason, movies or otherwise, you can tweet to us@syskpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com stuffyouchouldknow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastowstuffworks.com and you can join us at our home on the web stuffyou should know.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.

[Announcer]

Support for this show comes from public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, buys one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.comsysk and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.comsysk paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures tired of juggling sales tools or spending hours.

[Josh Clark]

On prospecting just to book a few meetings?

[Announcer]

Meet Apollo, the go to market platform for finding leads, connecting with buyers and closing deals all in one place.

[Josh Clark]

Apollo gives you access to over 210.

[Announcer]

Million contacts and AI that handles all your busy work finding leads, drafting emails and even prioritizing your day. So stop paying for five different sales tools when one does it all. Visit Apollo I.O. and sign up free today.

[Josh Clark]

Hey everybody, we're hitting the road again starting in January 2026, picking up again in April 2026 and eventually Canada will tell you year dates too.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right, we're going to do at least three legs and the first leg is starting out in Denver, Colorado at the Paramount Theater on January 27th. We're going to go back to our beloved Seattle at the Paramount Theater there on the 28th, and then finally back at SketchFest on the 29th at the Sidney Goldstein Theater.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. And then April 16th, 17th and 18th, we're going to be in Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois and Akron, Ohio. And if you're not keeping up with all this or taking notes, don't worry, you can get all the info you need and buy tickets atstuffyou should know.com, click on the tour button and thank us later.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right, we can't wait to see everybody again out there on the road.

[Announcer]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Josh Clark]

Guaranteed Human.