Hello Puzzlers! Please enjoy this special episode with comedian Myq Kaplan as we gear up for our Season 2 premiere next week!
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.
Subscribe to The Puzzler podcast wherever you get your podcasts!
"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. We are back from two weeks hold up in the Puzzle Lamb with all new puzzles for you. This week, we have five brand new episodes with our guest, Mike Kaplan, the great comedian, and they're historic episodes because they are the final five episodes of season one. Starting next week, October seventh, season two of The Puzzler officially begins, so please enjoy these season finales, which are coming to your audio device right now.
Hello Puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast The Low Rumble from Your Puzzles v Twin Engines. I'm your host, AJ Jacobs, and I am here with today's guest, the great Mike Kaplan, one of my favorite stand up comedians in the world, the whole world, both hemispheres. I'm talking. Welcome Mike.
Thank you so much for having me back. Aj, I really appreciate it. Thank you.
You are a friend of the show, a special friend of the show, even huh. Now, since this is an audio podcast, some listeners might hear your name Mike Kaplan and think, oh Mike, m I k E Kaplan. But those listeners would be wrong.
Get you know, I'll say that they are they wouldn't be as right as they could be. For I was named Michael, your standard m I C H A E L. And then from that point on nicknames, I feel like they're like the wild West. You can choose whatever you wish. When I was about fourteen or fifteen, I forget exactly, though I could look it up, because it was when Prince changed his name to a symbol that I a young, impressionable summer camper at a you know, this artsy summer camp in Connecticut. I was like, that guy's weird and fun and cool. Prince one of the weirdest, funnest, coolest. I was like, he did a weird thing. Maybe I'll do a weird thing, and so I and I feel like in that context, a lot of people see the spelling MYQ the way that I do spell Mike these days, professionally creatively, and for anyone who wishes that looks weird compared to the normal spelling of Mike or Michael, but compared to the hieroglyph that Prince Jose, I feel like I'm being very reasonable. You don't even have to get a whole new keyboard or a typewriter or what have you to you can spell it with the regular old alphabets, just three three standard letters, MYQ. That's how I spelled Mike.
I mean yes, Compared to the hieroglyphs, you really are bourgeois. I always thought you were weird and interesting. Now I realize you're very dull and normal. Well, I bring it up partly because today's puzzle is all about homophones. All so pronounced homophones ironically enough, and homophones homophones are two words that sound the same that are spelled differently. They mean different things. So I'll give you a clue to a two phrase homophone. For instance, if the clue were to put a sound amplifier on comedian Mike, I just screwed that up. But you know what I'm saying.
To put a sound caplin.
Kaplin say you should be hosting, the answer would be Mike Mike, which is spelled M I C M y Q, So none of that m I K, Mike Mike. So they're all in that form. Are you ready?
I believe I am?
Here we go a naked grizzly.
A naked grizzly, A grizzly. I'm I assume you're going to put like Jeopardy or you know, not legally that you have to pay royalties to Jeopardy music under this, but some sort of generic stock Jeopardy like music. A grizzly is a bear and naked is bear, so I think it is a bear bear exactly.
And yes we don't we can't afford that, but well I'll do it right now. Bye, bomby boh bob om Okay, here we go. A tiny insects father's sister, a tiny the sister of a tiny insects father.
The sister of a tiny insects father. I believe the tiny insect we're looking for is an ant so I believe it is an ant ant.
Exact, unless you're British, which yes, it doesn't work at all. An aunt a light dessert made with whipped cream and elk meat.
Delicious, Oh a light dessert now this is uh would not be a light dessert for me as I am a vegan, so no elk meat nor whipped cream unless it is vegan with cream elk eat. I know that deer meat is called venison, but that's probably not what we're looking for, so probably it's it might be moose.
Moose, it is moose moose exactly. Elk and moose apparently are synonyms, although I might get emails about and yes they do. I'm sure they can make vegan moose moose, you know, like tofu based, but I wish they would, Okay, a few more. A garden statue of a little man in a northern Alaska.
Town, A garden statue I love, you know, just real quick. I have some friends that I do word games like this with for fun and not merely for you know, giving the public what they want and demand so fervently, and it's always so fun to think about what we're You're like, well, I can't say this word, like if we want to say eel, we're like, what's that? A snake in the sea, of course, you know, but also a sea snake is slightly different. Anyway. A garden statue, I believe is a gnome. So it is a gnome gnome. As Donald Rumsfeld famously one said, there's the there's the no nons, there's the unknown nons, there's the known unknowns, and then there's of course the noome gnomes.
Yeah, that's part of the sound bit was cut out, but it was the most important part.
And then he actually found them delicious and he went nom nom nicely done.
Good kicker. A line of customers outside a shop selling billiard sticks crafty in London. You want then the oh.
Yes, though, I will. I will say that. My mother, uh, the other day on the phone, I was talking about lining up somewhere and she said queueing? Do they call that queueing? And I was like, some people do, certainly, so I do think it is. I don't believe I'll be kook to say that this is qq you are.
Every single one you are punching up. I am impressed. And your mother, by the way, is not British as far as you.
Know, uh, as far as I know, yes, that is correct, and I do. I do appreciate the kind words. I do my best to punch up because that is what they say is the best to do in comedy, whether you're speaking truth to power, punching up, or editing jokes to make them better punch exactly right.
A private teacher for Henry the Eighth when he was a young a.
That I like that for each of these there's an opportunity to be like, well, what if I don't know anything about Henry the Eighth but I do know a private teacher could be a tutor, So I bet it's a tutor tutor.
He was a tutor, And that is Greg Feleiska, our chief puzzle officer, always says, there's two ways, at least two ways, right Greg. To get into a solution, you got to attack it from both sides. Sometimes.
Yeah, do you know this. I feel like you've just unearthed a memory from my childhood where my father told me this. I don't know if it's a riddle or just a poem or something, but it was about I think somebody who was teaching flute or a different kind of instrument, and it was it goes like this, and said, said the tutor to the two tutors, is it easier to tut or to tutor to tutors to tuote.
I've never heard that. I've heard Piper, but I've never heard tutors that.
I never thought about the fact that Peter Piper and this two tutors. It's sort of like, you know, the way that maybe it isn't the case anymore. But when I was for much of my life, one movie would come out like Dante's Peak, and then another company would make a movie. We have a volcano movie it's called Volcano or Deep Impact and Armageddon. Two asteroid movies or ants and a bugs life or like you know the coke and pepsi of their like, well, somebody wants that movie. We do this same thing, come to our movie, you know. And so I feel like that's Peter Piper is like the famous one, but the generic, the gobots brand, you know, the lowest shelf serial version of it, Gobots transformers is anyone the Yeah, that's the two tutors, the tutors to tutors to tute.
Uh yeah, but who knows. Maybe the tutor was first, just like Hydros came before Oreos. Yes, and core Hydros is like a joke now.
Yeah, if they should have called Oreo's low drocks.
Nice. There it is punching down again. Uh all right, So, ways to keep your smoked salmon safe from smoked salmon thieves?
Yes, as again, I would not have this problem specifically in my own home. I like the salmon to room free, but if one needed to, let's say it's a vegan version of it, you would use your locks locks.
Exactly, all right, two more and then we're out. This is what Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah. This is the money they made from selling their scrolls.
Oh, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah, this is the money that they made.
I know that you are officially Jewish, but maybe you didn't.
Is it? Is it the It can't be the pay us pay us.
No, but I love that. I love it. I give you bonus points. It's a little easier, a little less obscure. These are all old Testament something.
Oh, then then it would certainly be the profits profits exactly.
You've got all right. Last one is I'll do put on my acting hat, which is why can I have more sauvignon blank?
Oh? I really like the act out. You are truly a whiners, whiner presenting a wine.
Wine beautilessy done, Mike, perfect score, unbelievable.
I appreciate it.
You are kind of a perfect guest for the Puzzler because you're not only a comedian, but you're a linguist, as we saw with your many punch ups. You have a master's degree in linguistics, and these are all about language. I actually think you have one of the wisest sayings about language, where you said words are important, words are all that separate us from the mimes.
I appreciate that. It's I stand by it. I said it long ago, but I've never a mime, has never come up to me and said anything about it. So I think that that's punching over if anything.
Well, they don't of course they're not going to say anything. They can't talk.
It is, so they can try to put you in a box and keep you from saying it. But yes I did. I studied linguistics for many years, and I think that being a comedian and studying linguistics are both things that are sort of, you know, intertwined in whatever it is inside of me that you know that enjoys these kinds of like words and puzzles and riddles and jokes. There's a lot of commonality in there. I know. Perhaps we've talked about Griis and the Grisian maxims.
Talk about it, but yeah, I didn't know about it before you. But they are they are like linguistic rules.
Yes, so it's really I look them up every time to make sure because I almost always forget one. But there are four of them. One of them is the maximum of quantity, one of quality, one of relation, and one of manner. And it's also funny because Greis is the name of the person who came up with them, but also his name. He sometimes just goes by Greis, which is the most Grisian of the ways to do it, but I believe he also sometimes goes by Paul Greis or HP Greis or h Paul Greis, And eventually he applied his maximum of quantity to it and got rid of all the extra quantity and just went along with Greis.
Because the maximum quantity says the minimum number of words to convey the proper meaning is what you want when you're speaking English or any other language.
Is that right?
Yes? I would say that is yes, to be the most efficient to not have anything extra or superfluous or redundant, as I am doing now for humor or comedy or in enjoyment, hopefully or potentially I'll stop now.
And you gave one example that is kind of comedy life but also very puzzly, which is the question, how many months have twenty eight days?
Yes, And the answer is, of course all of them. And that is of course the answer that like I remember hearing that joke when I was a kid and wanting to punch the person who told it to me, and I didn't. Of course, I am a pacifist and very short. But in addition to it making me want to, you know, do at least, you know, fictional nerf violence to somebody, let's say, it also made me want to tell people that joke and also jokes like it, the kind of joke that's like, hey, I didn't like it, everyone else like, hey, this tasted bad. You taste it.
That's the secret to great comedy. And just to break it down from a Graciene standpoint, it's it's having enough information that ninety nine percent of people assume how many months have twenty eight days? One February? But but you could interpret it that you're leaving out the word only which how many only have twenty eight days? And they paralyze the humor.
I think that, yes, there's the spirit and the letter of the communication, and the Grisian maxims, you know, outside of comedy are intended to help people communicate the spirit of the intention of the message. So for example, how if somebody who really came to you was like, which one is the month that has twenty eight days? Then you would not be a helpful friend to say all of them if you understood that they truly were looking for the word February. But but yeah, it's for comedy, right, it's it's it's all of it. Like you can take the things that we've used as life hacks to communicate what we really mean with each other and then not do that and it's comedy.
Well, it reminds me of how do you get to Carnegie Hall? A guy comes up to someone who says, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? And the other guy says, practice, practice, practice me, And so the intentionally yes, but but I thought the way I tell it to my kids is which way is it to Carnegie Hall? Or what's the address of Carnegie?
Yeah, can you tell me where? How do GEO locate Carnegie Hall?
Then it's practice. Then it's just a nice absurdist dot.
Oh yo, do you do you know? Real quick? Dimitri Martin, the wonderful comedian who I feel would also align interest wise with this Puzzler podcast. He has a specific joke about I don't remember the exact phrasing, but it's something like I just moved into an apartment just across the street from Carnegie Hall. So now if people ask me how do I get to your apartment? I just say, practice, practice, practice, and then turn left.
Perfect, It's delightful. Correct, Oh, before we go one other, because this was all about homophones. Yes you have you mentioned homophones in your recent special AKA because you are. You grew up with a Jewish father and an Italian mother.
An Italian stepmother. My parents were both Jewish, but then they divorced, and so my father remarried into an Italian family. So many meals, Thanksgivings and holidays and such feature not only your standard fare but everyone. They're like, what do you serve a Thanksgiving? Manicatti of course, or mennegut as they say, which is the opposite of a homophone. It's two pronunciations of literally the same thing. Right.
Well, what was interesting is in your special you talked about how the when they talk about spaghetti, they don't say marinara sauce, at least your family, they say gravy.
It was the strange. They were like, can you pass the gravy for the pasta? And I was like, I think that there's You've gone horribly awry. You want gravy for the potatoes, which is a different starch than the pasta and you and they were like, no, we think you are the one. It's like putting your hands on top of a baseball bat and being like, who is the one on top here? But yeah, I have I've come to accept that there are some families, including a chunk of mine, that refer to pasta sauce as gravy and it makes me want to I mean, it once made me want to go to an early gravy.
Well before we wrap up, as always a puzzle for the puzzlers at home, and it is. This is the homophone clue to make fun of Earl Gray Oolong and cam Emial. I hope I'm pronouncing that right to make fun of Earl Gray Oolong and cam Emeal is to do this. And thank you all for coming and listening. If you have thirty seconds, please go rate the Puzzler on your favorite podcast platform because it makes a huge difference in helping people find us. And we will meet you here tomorrow from more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Hello, Puzzler's Chief puzzle Officer, Greg Pliska here with the extra credit answer from our previous show. We played a random connections game where we tried to come up with our guest win Alo, with connections between two randomly chosen nouns. We had a great time. I hope you did too. We left you with an extra credit pair of words for you to come up with your own submissions. We'll share some of those with you. The two words were jam and calendar. Here are the three that AJ and Winnen and I came up with. AJ said they both can be made up of dates, which I thought was very clever. Date jam and date on a calendar. Winna said they're both packed the way you pack jam into a jar or pack events into your calendar. And my reaction was, I only have them once a year. I don't need a lot of jam. So if you're to have jam once a year and I have one calendar a year, and there you go. Well, thanks for playing with us here on the puzzler, and we will see you next time.