From time to time on the weekends, we’ll be bringing you some of our recent favorite episodes. Enjoy your weekend, and we’ll be back with a brand new puzzle on Monday!
Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: journalist, CBS correspondent, and “Mobituaries” podcast host Mo Rocca.
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, and welcome to the Puzzler Weekend, where we bring you some of our favorite episodes from the vaults for your weekend listening. Today we have our friend Moe Raka solving a puzzle that he himself inspired. So Mo, thank you for being our muse and our guest. Please enjoy. Hello, Puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast the Salted Caramel ice Cream for your daily puzzle cravings. I'm your host, AJ Jacobs, and today's delightful guest happens to be moe Urca, Emmy Winner CBS Sunday Morning correspondent, frequent wait wait Don't tell me panelists, and of course host of the fantastic podcast Mobituaries. Welcome Moe.
Thank you Aj for that wonderful introduction. It's great to be with you.
It was just facts. It's just I'm just saying fact.
Ye.
Well, we love your show, Mobituarors. And I was listening the other day and you talked about your full name is Maurice, a name that no longer is in vogue, much like my real name, Arnold, not so popular.
Your real name is Arnold. I didn't know that. I love that.
Are you ever attempted to bring to how people call you that ask them to call you that I am not.
I mean, I don't suppose if you feel passionate, then feel free. But do you You do like though, Maurice? You like it when people call you Maurice?
Well, yes, because I speak with the pompaetus of love. You do?
You absolutely did that. Laughter, by the way, is from our chief puzzle Officer, Greg Pliska, and Greg has actually written a puzzle that involved the shorter version of your name, Mo. So Greg, I would love to hear what you have cooked up.
Well, thank you, Aj, and thanks for being with us.
Moka. You're my first CPO.
I'm my first CPO too. I know I'm not supposed to laugh until I'm introduced, but I couldn't help it. Well, Mo, you've traveled a lot, I know, and have you ever been to Morocco?
I have not been to Morocco, though I'm oftentimes confused with that Northwest African kingdom when I'm really more like the percussive instrument.
Oh very good. I was gonna say. We're not the first people to notice that your name Morocca is one letter different from the country of Morocco, and that's what inspired this puzzle, which we call Morocca in Morocco. If you get them all right, we will infect send you to Morocco. No, that's a lot. What we've done. We've taken the name of a country, changed the last letter, then joined the two together. So I'll give you a clue to the combined words. So here's an example like we can work through so you see how this works. I might say Chicago playing a preseason baseball game in Havana.
And what I'm doing is I'm taking the city abbreviation.
You know, you're taking the country. So I'll give you a clue to the country. In this case, Havana is the clue to the country Cuba, and you're changing the last letter for the other half, which is Chicago baseball.
Team Cubs Cubs Cubs.
And the form of each answer is blank in blank, where the second part is the country. So it would be like Cubs in Cuba.
Oh, okay, got it?
Okay, right, Morocca in Morocco.
Which has never happen but will perhap some day.
Okay, So I'm ready to play.
All right, good, and you can talk through these, work through these as we go. All right, here's the first one. Grains used to make beer in a small European island nation.
Oh it's going to be I thought it was going to be hops in hop Landia, but instead it's malts in Malta.
Very good, exactly, well done, exactly getting the idea.
It was never going to be barley in Barcelona Barcelona either.
Oh that's so good though. I like these. A British Man in a North African country.
A colonizer, okay, exactly brilliant Okay, A British Man in a North African country. It's not like Algernon in Algeria.
I was thinking, now it's.
A little south of our Algeria.
Okay, well then it's not. Are we really in North Africa?
Okay?
Well if it's yeah, it's one country south of Libya.
It's a four letter it's a four letter country.
I got to push eastward. What is there is?
Go west? And you want me to go?
I loved Togo eyed the.
Capital The capital is uh, the Jemina.
So it's so it's Chad and Chad. It's a British name, British.
Chad no more a more general term for a British, British in Chad.
Sorry, old, it's a chap in Chad.
I swear to god, you've you've written like six puzzles in the answering one.
A chap in Chad.
You get credit for all of those.
That was so good. All right, here's another one. A suspected criminal is arrested and walked through the streets of Lima.
A purple Peru. Yeah, I gave you that too quickly.
That was so well. It makes up for the other one. So we stretched for you know, a long time. But that, yeah, that when you when I give you the capital, you're going to get them so quickly. Here's here's one. I'm not going to give you the capital on this one, at least right away. It's a grabbing kitchen, you tenseil used by a famously bear chested Olympic athlete.
Well, okay, listen, yes, you did not need to give me nw kula lofa very good.
Oh my god, you're coming back. We're doing all world copies.
And it's not it ain't a spatula in Spain because spatulists don't grab. It's a it's gonna be it's gonna be a tongue tongs in Tonga.
Very good. I knew, I knew you'd know. That bear chested Olympic athlete, that guy who came out every time the Tonganese. I think it was it.
Was he right, the Olympic opening of you know events worth it right?
Absolutely? Yeah, last one, last one. I once put up paintings in Budapest. What do we say I did?
Oh?
Okay, well I want to stretch this out so I can say you just you.
Already have.
You weren't doing anything with a room in Romania.
You you were not checkerboarding anything in the Czech Republic.
You were I'm gonna say you were hanging in Hungary. You hung in Hungary?
Are hung Art?
You hung Art in Hungary?
Yeah?
Yeah it was Oh my god, Mo, you have the most puzzling mind. I mean, you don't just stand. You create your own puzzles while answering the puzzle. Hilarious. Uh, well you did fantastic. Where can people find more of Morocca? You know, not in Morocco, of course.
Not in Morocco, you know, kind of on sixth Avenue. It depends what time of day. No, you can find on well, you can find my podcast Mobituaries. Wherever you get your podcasts, it's just obituaries with the nam in front.
And it's a great show. And before we wrap up, Greg, do you have an extra credit puzzle for the puzzlers at home? Perhaps, of course I do.
Here's your extra credit listeners. This northern European country, one of the happiest in the world, has added a special path on its highways for fish.
Oh okay, think about that. Moe is already nodding his head. Uh yes, thank you for restraining yourself. Puzzlers, Please don't forget to subscribe to the Puzzler podcast and we will meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.