The Puzzler with A.J. JacobsHello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: Emmy-winning sports comedy personality and host of the brand-new podcast "Casuals", Katie Nolan!
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 Buzzler Podcast, the eighth and most surprising twist in your puzzly Netflix spy series. I'm your host, AJ Jacobs, and here's a quick puzzle for you. What word follows choke tag and pop in baseball lingo? The answers after the break, Welcome back to the Puzzler. I'm Aj Jacobs. Before the break, we asked you what word follows choke tag and pop in baseball lingo? And the word is up choke up on the bat tag up and pop up. And I figured we'd do it because our guest, Katie Nolan knows these things. She knows sports, she knows about all sorts of topics. She's an Emmy winning sports comedy host, host of the Brandow podcast Casuals about culture and Sports.
Welcome Katie, thank you for having me back. Aja.
We are delighted and we are also delighted. I know you beat yourself up because you missed just one of the many.
No, a big one, A big one. I'm gonna get a phone call on my.
Dad about Oh well, the thing is, you have been on Celebrity Jeopardy, so I am imagining this is like low much lower pressure. Certainly lower money, you get no money, but well.
It was for charity anyway, so I didn't get any money from that either. So look, I get the same amount of stressed out anytime I do anything. My brain at any moment can fail me, as we've learned in our last episode. So we'll see how it goes today.
All right, Well, I am optimistic. But what was it like being on celebrity?
Oh my god, it's And I feel silly saying this because I've done so many things. I'm so grateful for all the opportunities that I've had in my career. It was the coolest thing I've ever done. It was the peak for me. I don't know, know that I think I'll be chasing that high for the rest of my life. Now. When I watch Jeopardy, which I still do every night when night dinner, I just feel like, I don't know, I'm probably very annoying to my fiance where I'm like, oh, I know that's the their show and the oh look he's looking over at the monitor like I know where everything is now. But I mean, what an experience, Because I mean, if you've loved Jeopardy, like I have, and like many do, it's hard to recreate. Like you can't have like a party where you play Jeopardy. You have to have like technology in order to do that. So to be able to just purely play the game I've watched from home was the best. I can't even it was the best thing I've ever done. I want to do it every day. I miss it.
Oh well, you are a highly entertaining Jeopardy can test. I mean, first of all, you won. You crushed a lot of people, and you I loved when you got into it with Steven Webber from Wings.
Like I'm very competitive and that hasn't come out of me in a while because while I love sports and I watch a lot of sports, I do not play them anymore. So I haven't really had the chance to, like, you know, get kind of chop it up with the people that you're competing against. And that Watching the tape back of that, I was like, Wow, I really let it come back out of me. I had a lot to say, was well, so I did you know it was? He was asking for it, you know.
And just so listeners know, one of the things was the category was obituaries, and I believe Stephen Webber did very well, and he said at the end, well, I read the New York Times obituary and our guest Katie Nolan said.
Looking for your friends. It wasn't that. It wasn't my I as soon as I said it, I was like, I hope he knows I'm joking. I don't know.
Well, you hugged at the end, you hugged.
Yeah. He's a very nice guy, and he was very supportive after I beat him and went on to the finals. He was rooting for me. So he was very supportive. Oh God, shout out to Stephen Webber. I lost in the finals anyway, so he ultimately one, I guess in the sense that I did not win, so he could be happy about them.
Well, I don't know. It sounds you beat him. Let's just stick with that. True, that's true.
All right.
Well, we have a Jeopardy themed puzzle for you.
Ooh.
So this was given to only one other guest in the Puzzler podcast history, and that guest was Ken Jennings, who was a guest.
Oh. I love Ken Jennings. He's doing such a good job with Jeopardy, isn't he.
I'm a big fan I'm an amazing fan. Uh So this puzzle is called in the form of a question. So everyone knows that when you give a response to Jeopardy, it has to be given in the form of a question. So in this game, all the responses are words or phrases that sound like they could be a question. So they all begin with the sounds of who, what, where, when, and why. Lake Mead was formed by the creation of this massive strung ure on the Colorado River. The answer would be who for damn? Who for a damn? So it sounds like who and you. Actually I would request you say what is okay for damn?
I like this, like this extra level of Whenever I play any trivia game, I answer in the form of question, even if I don't have to, just because I don't want to get rid of the.
Muscle the moon. Well, this will be like two questions in one because you'll be like, what.
What is who?
Yeah, damn?
Okay, all right, I'm nervous.
No, all right, here we go. This is a restaurant chain with an owl in its logo.
Oh, what is Hooters?
That's it? What is Hooters?
That's a great way to describe that restaurant. It has an owl in its logo because they love bird.
They love yeah, they love ornithology, they love wisdom. Have you ever had to go on a work I've been.
I went one as for a birthday trip. I don't know. It was my birthday, so I don't know why that was. But my friends, you know, you do the thing where I don't know if people do this still, but you kidnap your friend and you take them to their birthday party. And we used to always go to this place called Dick's Last Resort in in Boston. But for some reason, for my birthday, they thought it would be funny that we went to like a Hooters on Route one, and it was. It was fine. The wings are good. I like their I do like their wings.
Yeah, there you go. Well, An, you might have been served by actress Amy Adams. I learned no way the former Hooters they call them who I am not the Hooters women, Hooters Hooters service, your Hooters Hooters girls is the what they on the website. They call them Hooters girls.
I always found a fascinating that now they make them also wear short shorts, and I'm like, that's not in the in the name. I thought it was I thought we were doing the upstairs. I didn't know we had to worry about the downstairs. So good for those ladies. They've got a lot on their plates that so to speak.
All right, this cat you ready for the next?
Yes?
Yes, this cartoon character bought such products as a rocket powered pair of roller skates, jet propellered pogo sticks. You're you're nodding. I want not even give you the ones, the anvils and dynamite anvils.
Is the tael I feel like, who is Wiley Coyote?
Nice? You got?
It's fun?
Is great?
All right? Move a few more so you're in for more fun. This company's logo features a redheaded girl with exactly ten freckles. I counted at least the one on Wikipedia.
Uh, what is Wendy's?
That's it? What is Wendy's? You're freezing through? No, Jim Thorpe's here for you.
That's gonna haunt me?
Crazy?
All right?
This is a word for a particularly rowdy soccer fan, particularly in the UK.
Okay, so this is what is Yes, a who logan?
Exactly what is a WHO logan?
And they are rowdy?
Yeah, they're crazy? They are agreed. All right, this but this is a Jeopardy themed one in a Jeopardy theme puzzle. This is the name of the IBM computer that defeated Ken Jennings in Jeopardy in twoy eleven.
That's right, Ken, I hope you're listening. I remember that you lost to who is Watson exactly?
Watt Son. And by the way, uh, you should not feel bad because Ken Jennings, we stumped him on a few including including the theme song of the old Jeopardy like he didn't recognize We played him like an audio quiz so.
And he didn't know it.
No, he didn't.
Well look did he beat himself up about that?
He didn't seem to care.
He gotta have more of that that roll off. Truly, I think if I miss one that I that I'm like, oh, I didn't know that bothers me less than if I'm like I had it, I just didn't find it. You know what I mean. When you look in the attic of your brain and you're like, I know it's here somewhere. Where is it?
Right? Yeah, it is it's in there.
Those are the worst, all right?
How about Chicago resident Jenny Doan holds the record for the longest continuous time doing this activity. One hundred hours of doing this activity.
One hundred consecutive hours of it. I mean it could be wearing.
Something good one but it's not.
But it's not okay, uh who.
Yeah, who? I'm just gonna say, who is? It is a hoop, It is a hoop, So what is nice?
Whoo hoop? Hula hooping?
Hula hooping? Yes, you got it. One hundred hours.
Straight of a hundred hours.
Yeah. I have read like records where I did one a few episodes ago where it was like seventy hours straight of interviewing, but she wore an adult diaper, So I.
Don't know, gonna say, I wonder how you you know in one hundred hours you got to.
That's a lot. Yeah, I think. By the way, speaking of important round shaped world records, I believe you are the former owner.
Former owner. Thank you for the specificity. I no longer have my world record, but I did it. It was for doughnuts stacked in a minute, blindfolded. Very specific. The reason the minute matters is because I broke the record. But then I you know, you're blindfolded, so you take your hands off and hope the stack stays, and it did. And the woman who worked at Guinness that has to be there to like make sure it's on the up and up, make sure that doughnuts aren't frosted, et cetera.
She's sick.
Yeah, apparently it's like glue. She told me that it has to be standing at the end of one minute. So I think I got it done in thirty seconds. And then I had the panic of like should I try to adjust it at all or should I just leave it? And I think I touched it a couple times and left it, and then I got it, and then it was taken from me, right Gelman, I believe like the producer of when I was it was regising Kathy, but now it's what's your name? And her Kelly and Mark?
Yeah, well that first of all, did you come up with that? Or was that a request from the Guinness folks?
We were trying to break a record. We did a segment every week on my ESPN show called Always Late, where we would do me trying to break a record. So we would find an obsure, weird one like balloons popped by your butt in forty five seconds, and I would try them. And it was always ridiculous, But we wanted to end with like a like, let's really go for one, And so I practiced this one and I got it, and then it was ripped from my hands. So I'm still a little salty about that. Gilman, if I ever meet.
You, well, listen, it's not over. You can.
I can always toss my blindfold back on, get back into the game. Maybe someday.
All right, a couple more we've got. Amazon has dozens of these, the largest of which is four and a half million square feet about one hundred and one football fields. One hundred and one football fields.
What is a warehouse? They have a warehouse that big.
They had in Ontario, California, which I know ever heard of, but because there's no room for anything else. Uh yeah, that is uh bleak.
I think I think I said bleak about that. But it makes sense. They've got a lot of stuff. They got a lot of stuff, and they bring it to you quick.
Uh. How about this famous radio host has a group of oddball characters called the whack Pack, including Tan Mom and Jeff the Drunk.
I'm gonna guess because I wasn't an avid listener, who is Howard Stern?
You would guess correctly. Who is Howard Stern? And I'm gonna end with the French impressionist was famous for painting these. Oh this is good. Maybe I actually got you on one.
Well because my first thought, Oh no, I was gonna say landscapes, but that's not it's more oh oh oh, oh oh oh, what are water lilies?
Exactly?
Yeah.
Now I thought a lot about this because wat and water, but I looked it up and I think some regional dialects perhaps water.
Yeah, water, Philly calls it water.
That's exactly it.
Yeah.
Yeah, Now you don't have a Boston accent? Did you know?
My mom made sure of that growing up. My parents are from both from Newton, which is closer to Boston than Framingham, which is where I'm from, and they both have them pretty thick. My mom thinks it's unattractive, and so she insisted that my brother and I not have them, but also framing Him doesn't.
Really.
The only people I know from Framingham who have a Boston accent are the ones who went away to college and wanted to be the kid from Boston and they came back with the Boston but they don't make them in Framing.
Him, That's like the kid I knew in college who went to a semester in London and came back with a British.
Accent, Madonna, what are we doing that we've got there? Well, that's contagious. You want to talk like that.
Oh well you sound smart. I feel you've gained like five IQ points when you've got you.
Can also when you say, when you have a British accent, you can say something mean or like direct. You can give direct criticism, but it sounds like softer.
That's so true.
That was nice.
Yeah, that was very nice. And I actually knew a guy who did telemarketing and he said that he got like fifty percent more less hang up fewer hang ups when he had a British accent.
Huh. That's interesting because not to go too far down this road, but I was I did an internship in college. I did like a semester over the summer in Australia, and I was an intern for a public relations firm, and so I had to call people about our stuff and they would all the first thing they would always say is like, I think you have the wrong number. This is we're in Australia. We don't probably we aren't who you're looking for, which is a lot better than the normal first thing they say, which is they just hang up on you. So it actually it got me in the door. Now, I don't think I actually got anything accomplished, but at least they said more to me than no thank you and then hang.
Up interesting, So so it might have been a good thing too. Yeah, yeah, it got I know. My uncle used to say when you get telemarketers, he's like, I'm very interested, could you just hold on one second? And that no, you just leave it on His Dad's mean.
I feel bad. I feel like it's it was easier when you could just make them the bad guy, like how dare you call during dinner? But now you're like, well, they don't want to be doing that either, I'm sure, so we don't have to harass them.
I mean, their bosses are the bad guys.
Yeah, but you never get to talk to them.
No, well, excellent job, excellent j of you. We're not say well thank you. And by the way, Katie will be coming back for one more episode, so we don't have to say goodbye. Just I don't know, au revoir. Does that mean I'll see you again? Yeah? Something like that, and the extra credit is this phrase means that you do not hide your emotions, you put them right out there and it starts with what, where, when, why or who? Excellent. Well, if you like the show, please check out our Instagram feed at Hello Puzzlers, where we post original puzzles and other fun stuff, and we'll meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles. I will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Hello Puzzlers. It's Greg Pliska up from the Puzzle Lab with the extra credit answer from our previous show. Katie Nolan joined us and we did a puzzle about two pairs of rhyming words all related to sports, and your extra credit clue was if WNBA Star and former Russian prisoner opened restaurants where you can get omelets grilled cheese, and those would be yes. That is WNBA Star Britney Griners Diners. So I hope wherever you are in a diner at home, at the breakfast table walking the dog, you're enjoying the puzzles and we'll catch you here next time.
