"Dad Jam Band Madness" w/ David Wain

Published Aug 19, 2024, 8:00 AM

Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: comedian, writer, and director for the new Peacock series Mr. ThrowbackDavid Wain!

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, and welcome to the Puzzler Podcast The Golden Doodle's Wagging Tail at the end of your long day of puzzling. I am your host, AJ Jacobs, and I am here with today's guest, the great David Wayne, director of Wet Hot American Summer, both the movie and the Netflix series. He's one third of Stella, the classic comedy trio. Much much more we can talk about later. Welcome David.

So good to be here. Aj.

I feel like it's about time I was on this Puzzler podcast.

We have been saying the same thing because if I'm not wrong, you are not just a successful showbiz person, you are also a puzzle fan.

I'm definitely a puzzle fan. I'm an escape room fan. I'm a scrabble fan, all those nerdy related hobbies. Rubik's cubes, Oh really sure?

I am not good with the spatial puzzles. What's your time on Rubert?

Somewhere in my mid forties, I was like, I got to learn this, and then I really went into a hole and did dry little else for a little while, and I got down to maybe forty seconds under a minute. I mean, well, that was like an operation. Maybe a minute or so was my best average time at that point when I was good.

That is amazing. I mean for someone your age, no.

Offense to understand.

My son took it up after me and got way better, very quickly.

Right exactly, because yeah, well you peak at like age thirteen or.

Something for sure.

All right.

Well, in addition to being a puzzle fan and a showbiz luminair, you are also you have a side project called middle Aged Dad jam Band.

It's true, and.

That is the inspiration for our puzzle today. And that is your middle aged dad self described and you play classic rock with other middle aged dad.

Super accurate yep, including the videos, and we go on little tours and it's become this really funny, weird fun project.

It's very entertaining.

All right.

Well, our puzzle is called middle Aged I know what what is our puzzle called. It's called Dad jam Band Madness.

So I love that.

A bespoke puzzle.

These are all extremely bespoke.

Anything bespoke I'm into, whether it's soaps or puzzles.

Okay, good to know.

Uh, well, this one is the theme is I'm going to give you clues and the answers are always going to be the name of a dad rock band and a word that rhymes with it. I go to give you an example. The genetic replicas of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards would be the rolling Stone Homophones. Oh okay, I'll accept it. Twins, twins, Doppelgangers, the Stones, Clones, Theones of course. By the way, this puzzle was written by associate puzzler Andrea Schomberg. Thank you, Andrea.

I love a good show brig puzzle. That's right.

Here is your first one. Freddie Mercury and his bandmates. This is their collection of garbonzos, limas, pintos, et cetera.

Okay, so there they are. Queen and you're talking. This is an easy one to start on it. Queen beans, Queen's queensb.

You got it.

That is exactly it. You got the word, the word, and they're not head gun.

I furthermore, have demonstrated understanding of the puzzle.

You get bonus points for that. If we gave away money, you would be racking it up.

All right.

What about Eddie Vedder and his bandmates. This is their plates of little necks or steamers or cherry stones.

Pearl jam clam, Jam's clams.

Yeah.

I like the I like the plural. Uh this is giving you no trouble at all.

Well, we'll see, all right, Yeah, we'll see. All right.

What about what you'd call the liquor that was drunk while writing Pinball Wizard?

Okay, so, uh there is.

This.

You know, they probably did have liquor when they were writing Pinball Wizard because it's such a it's such a wild song that it probably was liquor fueled, like so many of those bands back in the day. But that's gonna be the Who's Booze exactly.

Yeah, you're right, that one is more realist. I don't know if Eddie Vedder enjoys seafood. Maybe he's maybe he does, but maybe he does. Uh all right, what about Nest Mike yet little harder? But I think you're off to the autobiographies of Rick Okay Sick and Elliott.

East Well, they are in the cars, yes, Elliott Eastman, right, I don't know.

Did I say Elliott? Well, yeah, that's embarrassing. Well you get maybe that you don't even need to get.

The cars memoirs.

Cars Memoirs, and that's it.

I was sure I was going to miss that one. But I got it.

You've got and you have sung a car song.

Yeah, we did Bye Bye Love and a few others in our live show.

Excellent.

All right, just two more, just two more?

Uh?

This one I went high brow because you're a sophisticated This is Michael Stipe's poop.

So, uh, well, Michael Stipe, R E M. We know that, and poop could be let's see doodoo or m X scramn.

Oh, that's interesting. I'm I think it's I think there's one better.

Okay, I'm gonna get it. R E M.

Uh it sort of in the it's I took. I was inspired by R E m's initials, so it's in that area. So it is oh R E M B m ari ms BMS R E M.

I was in an R E M tribute band in high school.

Really, what was it called.

It was called Seven Chinese Brothers, which is which is an r M song from the old days.

Got it all right? Last last one?

Okay.

This is where rivers Cuomo and Patrick Wilson store their popticles and ice cream.

Okay, Now this is an interesting one because I think I'm going to get it, even though I don't know. I didn't know that Rivers Cuomo and Patrick Wilson are members of Weezer, which I guess is the band you guess Clossical storage would be the freezer, Weezer's freezer, Weezer's freezer. This is what's called context clues.

Yes, you solved it there. I mean, there are two ways to solve most places, so nicely done.

I discovered two ways in brilliant.

Well you did it perfect, you got perfect, You get our everlasting respect.

All right, that's about it. That's worth more than anything.

Uh.

By the way, I watched a lot of middle aged band band videos which were delightful, and in one I thought the intro was interesting because you were talking at that point you have several members, but they're kind of rotating. So on this particular one, it was a trio, right, and then you said, wait a second, if you take off the tea from trio and.

You get Rio and then we start playing the song Rio, Yeah, exactly.

That is very puzzling. I thought that was great.

That was that was in Jacobs and Sonyan type of riff.

Well, very flattered, very flat. Well what about this one? If you take Mark Twain, noted humorist n T.

What do you get, Wayne?

There you go, David Wayne. That's me, David Wayne.

Too humorous. There you go, well done. People can watch all of your stuff. It's everywhere.

Yeah, well middle aged dad jam band.

Our YouTube channel is getting ready to start blowing up as soon as your audience checks it out. You know, we do have some very popular videos there. And then also I have a TV show coming out and it's called Mister Throwback and it's on Peacock that I directed the limited series starring Stephen Curry, the great basketball shooter in his debut as an actor, in a half hour comedy show. Along with that's huge. Yeah, it's awesome, and it's Adam Paley and Igo Odum and an incredible cast, and it's a really cool show.

What's the premise.

The premise is that Adam Paley, who is a mid thirties Jewish slub in middle school, was all set up to be the Jewish Jordan. He was going to be the greatest basketball player. Then he had some problems. Things changed course, and now his middle school roommate, i mean a classmate, Stephen Curry, is the big shot. And so now in their mid thirties, they reunite and crazy antics ensue.

That is fantastic. Well, I'll tell you I watched train Wreck and with Lebron James, and I was like, he is such a good actor. I was impressed and annoyed because like, why is he good at other things? So and Stephen Curry?

How is I think people who just have charisma? I gotta say already we just posted the trailer today and not ready some of the comments are saying Steph is a better actor than Lebron. Not I mean, not that it's a competition.

But it is. But he is great.

I think what happens is when people are that great in life, you know, they have so much charisma and that's part of how they became superstars, transcending just being good at what they do. Then you know that if he decides he wants to just sitcom, he's going to be great at it, you know.

And he was before we wrap up. As always, for the puzzlers at home, here is an extra credit puzzle. This is where Jerry Garcia and his band slept. These are the pieces of furniture where Jerry Garcia and his band crashed. Thank you for listening, and please check out our Instagram feed at Hello Puzzlers, where we put new puzzles, all new puzzles all the time. You'll have a good time and we'll meet here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzle that will puzzle you puzzlingly.

Hey puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer, up from the Puzzle Lab with the extra credit answer from our previous episode we did Misunderstood Movies with Susie Bannacaram. Each answer is the name of a movie which we clue with a description that is not the actual movie, but what the title sounds like it might be. Your extra credit clue was this movie follows a group of lovable visitors to a North Dakota monument. The answer, of course is Rushmore. That movie is not actually about Rushmore at all, but the puzzler is about puzzles. So come back and do some more with us next time.

The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs

Finally, your daily puzzle fix—in audio form! Every day, New York Times bestselling author A.J. Jaco 
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