"One Tree Skill" w/ Bethany Joy Lenz

Published Jan 16, 2024, 9:00 AM

Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: actor, singer-songwriter, and co-host of "Drama Queens", Bethany Joy Lenz!

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, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast, the Corinthian Leather seats in your nineteen seventies luxury automobile. I am your host, A J. Jacobs, and today's guest is the awesome Bethany Joy Lens. Joy lends to us actress, singer, songwriter, host of the drama Queen's podcast right here on iHeartRadio. Welcome Joy.

Hello, thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.

We are delighted to have you, and we actually have our beloved Chief Puzzle Officer, Greg Pliska has been busy all week in his puzzle lab cooking up a special puzzle themed just for you. Are you ready?

I am so ready.

Thanks for letting me out of the puzzle lab to come play.

Hi. Greg.

You mentioned that you love escape rooms, Joy, and I'm with you. I love them as well. Do you have a favorite escape room you've played?

Oh, you know, I've done a few where they're my favorite. Ones don't have a lot of locks or math. I'm dyscalculates, so numbers are difficult for me. And when it's a lot of locks, it just kind of feels like a cheap it's like like a cop out. So I did one that was a Moroccan themed. You're kind of stuck in this store, like this Moroccan market in the middle of the night, and you have to find your light and you have to get through all these cipher deciphering and things like that. Yeah, cod and yeah codes and twist right right and you know, twisty lock in place kind of things that and then they open up and yeah. But that one was really great. And there was one I went to that was designed by the same I guess it's the same team that works and does exhibits at the Smithsonia or something, and so it was very elaborate. It was really cool. That was a good one too. What about you.

There's some great ones up in San Francisco Palace Games at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, and some of the best ones and similar they're not based you know. I hate that. I'm with you. I hate the ones we're just a bunch of locks. You're just finding a lot of keys and unlocking things. These are much more and collaborative, where everyone in the room has to do something at the same time.

Can I tell you my idea? For an escape room.

Yes, no, he.

Says, I can't.

No, I thought you didn't.

Well, I'm going to say it anyway, which is everyone at the beginning has to drink like four glasses of water and then you're locked in until and you have to get to the bathroom. That's the that's the escape room.

That just sounds like life.

Yeah, that's me on every plane.

Fifty right there. Well, today's puzzle actually has nothing to do with escape rooms, but I just wanted to talk about that. Great actually came inspired by one Tree Hill, and we call it one Tree Skill because it's a test of your skill in finding words that rhyme with hill.

I see what you did there.

You see it? Yeah? Yeah, So I'll give you a clue to a new version of the show title where the last word has been replaced by a word that rhymes with hill. All right, all right, So as an example, I might say, it's the same show, but everyone is half fish, so they have organs that help them breathe underwater.

M mermaids fish.

Well, what's the organ that helps fish breathe underwater?

Skill?

Yes?

Yes, so it's one tree gill, One tree gill exactly.

I see you see what we're doing here. So every answer is one tree and a word that rhymes with hill. Okay, all right, so here's your first one. The show is about the day that a saxophone playing US president came to visit One tree bill, one tree bill exactly, Bill Clinton, the most famous saxophone playing president. I mean, you know, as they go, might have played saxophone. It's possible. All right, here you go another another version of the show. It's about two half brothers who play high school basketball but never move.

Well, isn't that one trio?

They never they never moved never, Like they.

Never leave the location.

Like there's.

Still one tree, still, one tree still. It looks like, why don't they leave tree hill? I don't understand.

Yeah, that's the show. What actually happened, it's the whole plot. They never great, you're doing great. This is a sequel in which Lucas grows up to be a dentist.

One tree phill.

Oh very good. I didn't even think that wasn't the one I was thinking.

Now, I want to know what you were thinking of. One tree drill, One tree drill drill. There you go, you went.

You went for the like healing part of the dentistry. I went for the Frightening Things version. Yeah, oh, God of the brothers. One tree drill and one tree fill in their office. Yes, excellent. Here's another one. It's Sunday afternoon in town and everyone in the scot is in the Scott backyard for a barbecue. One tree grill, one tree grill exactly.

That would also work for the dentist because you can have a grill the dentist make the grill.

That's so true.

I like it. You're very good. And actually one tree bill would work for the dentist. They send you the bill, all right. Here's another one. The high school English teacher decides everyone has to write with old style Elizabethan pens made from feathers.

One tree quill exactly.

One. I'd like to see an episode like that where it's like like a dream sequence every Elizabethan clothes.

Oh.

I wish we'd have done that. I'd have been a ball.

You know, maybe it's a sequel.

That I think they're making a comeback greg because my daughter was just found when at Barnes and Noble the other day and was begging, begging me to buy her a quill. So maybe they're come back, how old your daughter?

She's twelve, she's twelve. Yeah, my daughter's fifteen, and there's a little like retro thing with kids. My daughter is collecting old phones for some reason, like dial phone.

Rotary phones. Yeah, Harry Potter saying yeah, I think so too.

All right, I got one more for you this season. The brothers are in a real pickle.

Ha ha, well pickleball. But one tree. No, no, they're in a pickle Oh Dill, Come on, Joy, one tree Dill exactly, one.

Dell again, I might be delicious. Actually, that's a cross marketing idea you guys should be selling.

That's actually a great idea. Some sandwich shop in Wilmington, North Carolina needs to be making into one Tree Dill.

Oh come on, that's so brilliant. We all get a percentage of it.

Well, you did fantastic, Joy, That was excellent, and these are all great spin off ideas. So I'll get working pitching on that. Where can people find more of you?

Well, thank you. They can find me on Instagram at Miss Bethany joy Lens ms Bethany Joy Lens. I am also on Spotify as saying I got some music out so you can hear some of that, and I also am the founder and editor in chief of a broadsheet lifestyle newspaper called Modern Vintage News. Modern Vintage news dot Com talk about fascination with older things like rotary phones and what came before us. I feel like there's a new fascination with the past for a lot of the younger generations. So we're tying in the idea of retraining our brains off of the algorithm feed and learning how to critical think for ourselves by looking at things from history and also just fun things like how to change the oil in your car, to a crossword puzzle, to cocktail recipes and travel and so much more. Lot.

All right, thanks, I'm excited about this. I want to check this out.

Yeah, I'll send you one.

Oh that would be so cool.

Greg, before we go, do you have an extra credit puzzle.

For of course, I do the extra at it. Here is the animated version of the show where all the characters are small shrimp like plankton.

Hmm, okay, I'm gonna think on that.

While Puzzler Delicious, you said that like you stand there like it was tasty.

I love a good delicious Clanton lots of good h antioxidants. I'm sure. Puzzlers. While you think about that, please don't forget to subscribe to the Puzzler Podcast and we'll meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.

Hello, Puzzlers, I'm Greg Pliska and I'm pleased to be with you to share the extra credit answer from our previous show. Bethany joy Lenz was our guest playing a game we call ru Paul Revere, where we mash up two famous people's names. The clue we gave you for your mashup is this actor founding father Hybrid, did not throw go away his shot to star in a show about nothing. It's a complex clue, but I bet you got the answer. Jason Alexander Hamilton mashing up Jason Alexander and Alexander Hamilton from the musical Hamilton featuring I Will Not throw Away My Shot. Join us here every weekday for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.

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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