Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us all this week: comedian and host of "Parenting is a Joke" Ophira Eisenberg!
Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask Chat GPT” and audio rebuses.
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"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas.
Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.
The show is produced by Jody Avirgan and Brittani Brown of Roulette Productions.
Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
Hello, puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast, The Soothing Ben Gaye for your puzzle, Charlie Horse. I am your host, AJ Jacobs, and today's guest is the awesome oh Fira Eisenberg, comedian, author and host of the iHeartRadio podcast Parenting Is a Joke. Welcome, O Fira, Thank you, AJ. So nice to be here with you. Great to be here with you and with Greg Pliska, who is our chief Puzzle Officer and an old friend of yours. I believe that's right, a hio. Good title like that. Yeah, yeah, I'd like it a lot.
I get extra money for that.
Yeah, it's the Chief, I like puzzle officer.
And you're like, wait a second, Yeah, Chief Puzzle is the Chief the chief press. Then that's right.
Thank you? Uh can I be treasure?
Absolutely we would love it. Uh so o Fierra, you and Greg are, among other things, color commentators for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament every year.
I know. I mean you have a very long standing relationship with Greg because you're a solver and a creator. Yeah, so you you are very like you know so many people there. I came in just as a outsider, and I find it. I mean every year I leave the same kind of feeling about how it's It's one of the nicest groups of people.
Yes, out there, absolutely absolutely. Look, the reason you're so great at it is you managed to know how to make fun of all of us puzzle nerds while admitting that you yourself are also a puzzle nerd. You hit that sweet spot of laughing at the thing that you kind of are as well. And I think you can just get a wonderfully warm reception there, and we have a lot of fun doing it.
Yeah, it is super fun and people are so good.
It's uh, it's it's quite Oh, they're scary good. I mean, my friend Peter Gordon, who writes puzzles for it, says they can solve it faster, solve his puzzles faster than he can solve his own puzzles. That's crazy.
It's wild, very wild.
Well, today, appropriately enough, we're playing a game related to crossword puzzles, which was created by our very own Greg Pliska. We call it Crossword Friend Battle since Crossword Family Feud is a trademark name and we don't want to get in trouble, even though it has a very similar fort that. Yeah, okay, all right, which which part?
Okay, great, I'm in, I'm in, I love, I love what we're satiing, parodying, no honoring.
Honoring show whose name we are not stealing?
Well, the rules are Greg, Do you want to tell the rules? Do you want?
No? No, you're in charge of this episode.
Yeah.
He often hosts the crossword friend Battle, but since he wanted to work with you, I'm taking over just this one. And the game is I'm going to give you a word and you're going to try to guess what were the most common clues for that word in the New York Times crossword puzzle in the last thirty years.
Oh my good, New York Times is like, you know, TV Guide, which doesn't exist anymore. That would be OS magazine.
Do that well, the News of the World clues?
Yeah, exactly. Next time you come on, we'll do we'll do more of a junior jumble type thing. You are. Do you underestimate your puzzling ability?
I will find out. I'm going to be like and that word means But that's fine, that's like, that's like a lot of New York Times clues. You're like, what combination? And that's the answer interesting.
So I'm going to give you the word. It's going to be a very common word, like a three or four letter word, and then you and Greg have to try to guess what were the most common clues to love that word. Okay, So the first word we've got is Leo. Put it up on the board Leo l e O, which has appeared two one hundred and twenty eight times in the last thirty years. So, okay, Greg, do you want to start or do you want to start?
No, I'm ready, I'm ready.
All right, she wants to start, Okay. DiCaprio, DiCaprio ding. It makes it on the board, but it's not number one, it is not Okay, what.
Else that's a pop culture clue for Leo?
Though a Dico seven. There were seven of them.
Though, DiCaprio to his friends, something like that, Right.
That's a big one. DiCaprio to his friends, right, or Star of Titanic. They've done things like that. Yeah, Greg, do you want to try.
Sure, I'll try one. What about Zodiac beast or Zodiac Animal? I mean, there's probably a bunch of different ways to get at that, but I'm gonna go with Zodiac animal ding.
That is number one. That is sixty four appearances of the astrology and as you say, a lot of different ways sign of Summer signed before very crowd, right, they're supposed to be very proud they I don't know that. Well, this one I like because it's a little tricky. Bill Clinton or Barack Obama is a clue for Leo?
Oh really.
Right there?
Now? Okay, so let me know if this is I can go here, or this is too related? How about like constellation?
I put that in the same area as the astrology, but.
Yes, I give you ale.
Yeah, like sun sign, all that kind of stuff.
Okay, yeah, I'm looking for one more. There are a couple other areas.
What about this is probably if she's probably not as famous famous as DiCaprio's thinking actress Melissa leoh, probably less less cot Andrea.
Do we have a Melissa in there? Maybe Andrea is looking it up. We do have. There's four appearances of a guy who appeared on a TV show popular in the nineties with a stand up comedian like, oh, well, you mean the.
Man who should not be named?
Oh no, that was the eighties. I feel this was the nineties. I'm thinking or the nineties, the two thousands, is it the two thousand some decade between nineteen fifty and now Seinfeld? Is a character on Seinfeld named are you not? Oh interesting? Maybe they're a deeper cut than I thought.
Do you know this ground?
No, where you admitted you hadn't seen Dirty Dancing, I admit I never watched Seinfeld, So I'm useless in this.
I have watched Seinfeld, but I'm just spacing on the characters. I mean, now, I watch Seinfeld all the time in hotels before I fall asleep.
Well, there is a guy named.
Bringing endorsement the show to Fall Asleep.
By Uncle Leo had four appearances.
Wow, oh into four appearances? Okay, thirty years.
That's deep cut there, all right? Sorry, too deep? All right, I let's move on to the next one. Okay, there was one of thirteen popes. There was a writer, Tolstoy.
I was gonna say, there's got to be like writer or composer Leopold's.
Yeah, yeah, Leopold shot Dimitris Leopold Skowski to the Kowski, to his pals.
All right, ready for your second word? Are Sharon? Word is iron? Iron?
I r o N You know the clue for that is the title of DeSantis' autobiography. Very good. Yeah, no, that's not that's not real.
How about I can't decide I should my goal be popular or interesting?
Well, it's worth it's worth noting. This is the this is all. This data is taken from x word info, which I think we're using just the stuff since Will Schortz took over. They have data all the way back in the old days when pop culture wouldn't have been a thing. But since Will, I think pop culture is the way to go.
Okay, but I'm gonna I'm still gonna go with f.
Well done. That is yes, that is a very common one, and I'm gonna lump all the metals in there. So we had seventeen metal references because like there's all different types of ways to say the metal iron Shellfish has lots of this instance. Yeah, yeah, all right, So that is is not number one, it's number.
Three, number three. Wow, I know you know.
What number one is, though, Greg, we're like skirting around it.
Pumping blank, pumping blank is fifteen waits is number fifteen is four soultimate.
How about something the game, uh, you know, like to take out a wrinkle.
Or right wrinkling ing.
That's it, Yeah, to press smooth pressed the wrinkle.
All of that monopoly token.
Monopoly token in the fever lie former monopoly token.
Yeah, we're t I took it out.
You took it out because nobody knows what it is anymore, nobody one.
And it wasn't even like a new one. It was like the old one, which was like you put it on like the fire.
This stove or something. Yeah, you put it on the top of your stove.
Well you're missing one big genre.
How about Oh avengers? Are we going there?
Oh?
Blank man?
Right, yeah, Andrea, can you check in? See you go? Oh, by the way, Melissa Lea was there once. There was one Melissaly. Oh there you go, So Andrea, I'll look that up. But no, it's something else. It's an alternative alternative to wood or a fairway club.
Oh right, the golf angle.
The golf angle, Oh yes, was surprisingly popular of course. Twenty nine. Well you all did fantastic as a team slash.
I will I will friend battle with ofirat anytime.
I love this game.
This is a fun game.
Well, Greg did came up with it, and we couldn't do it without As he mentioned, x y crosswork is this amazing site, so.
Please x word info ex word info.
That one too. That's what I meant to all of them.
Thank you for all of x y Z crossword x y w.
Y Z.
No one ever says why z why why yse speaking of Canadian airport code.
Good one and all right, okay, well you did great. Where can we find more of you?
Oh Fira, If you want to consume all of my work, you can go. I have a website and it's functions, So go to a fewisberg dot com and from there you can follow me. You can link to my podcast. Here is a joke. You can come see me live.
I play all over the place. Love it. And as always, before we end, we'll have a little uh extra credit for the puzzlers at home. The word is star s t A R. Puzzlers. Please don't forget Subscribe to the Puzzler podcast and we'll meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Hello, puzzlers, this is Greg Pliska popping up here at the end of the episode to give you the extra credit answer. From the last episode, we played a game that We've been calling ohioh my God with Ofira Eisenberg, where each answer is a phrase that starts with a two letter state abbreviation, the way that OH my God starts with the oh that is the abbreviation for Ohio. In this case, we gave you the clue. This is a phrase that you might say at the end of an ultimatum, and that's right. The answer is Oregon else or as we would say, or else, ore.
Being the abbreviation for Oregon.
I hope you enjoyed playing along, and I hope you will be listening again on the next episode for more puzzling puzzles.