Welcome to Season 2!

Published Oct 7, 2024, 8:00 AM

Hello Puzzlers! We are officially kicking off Season 2 with A.J. and Greg here to let you know what The Puzzler has in store!

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 Bid Day in Your Puzzles Sorority Rush Season. I am your host, A J. Jacobs, and I am here with Chief puzzle Officer Greg Pliska. Welcome, Greg, Thank you.

When you started that, I thought you said Bidday and I was like, where are we going to bid Day in your European bathroom or something? You know, like you travel and you're You're like, what is this weird toilet over here? And what am I supposed to do with it? Well, that we got to.

Use that for a puzzle, bid Day and bid Day Day, like, that's a puzzle in the making. People sororities and European bathroom Because I.

Know nothing about sororities, So I don't know if you said the bid Day in my thing, I don't know what that is.

I think I I just watched a documentary on like Bama Rush, and I think that I could be making it up, but I think that's the day. Well, what a way to start, What a way to start season two.

Let's talk of bathrooms straight into the day for season two.

Well, this welcome. This is very exciting for us and hopefully for you. We are officially in season two of The Puzzler, the second season, and we want to thank you all for listening so that we get to do this because we just love doing it and we're very grateful.

I am. I'm hugely grateful. It's a highlight of my day or week or whenever we do this, that we get to do it. You mean every day, every morning. I love getting up early with you.

That we do not do it in batches.

No, we would never do that. It's live every day, No, but truly, it is so much fun to play these puzzles and to have these fun, smart, clever guests with us. And we wouldn't be here if people weren't listening and subscribing and liking it and it's commenting, So thank.

You, and I believe and maybe I fall for my own hype, like I believe it makes my brain better, Like just working on these puzzles and solving the ones that I don't write, I honestly think it is. It's good for my brain.

Absolutely same same, especially because our guests often come up with new versions of puzzles while they're solving ours, and then we have to solve them back and right.

So yes, for your health and enjoyment. Please continue listening. So Greg will talk just briefly about some of the nuggets we have in store for the second season. But of course let's talk about Let's do a puzzle. Okay, season themed puzzle is what? And I've written a little one for us in honor of the second season. In this puzzle, all the answers are raises with two words. Not only that, each of those words has a double letter. So for instance, if the clue were this is where Garfield the cat does his business, the answer would be kitty.

Kitty litter because there are two T two T two were it's like season two twice exactly, It's like it's like season four, season four, season six.

Yeah, a lot of doubles.

Are the double letters always the same double letter? Is it always a kitty litter? Yeah?

Always the same?

To tees, to tease exactly, to teas or not to teas?

Oh? Nice? Two important things. Kitty litter is a trademark phrase which I found out once when I tried to use it as a generic and got an angry letter from kitty litter. And the second is, oh, I just went to James Garfield's memorial is his crypt so.

Which, by the way, that's a different He did not use kitty litter, to be clear. President Garfield not a user of kitty litter.

No, but we did learn some very interesting stuff. All right. So yes, it's kitty litter, jibber jabber, willy nilly, cheese wheeled, that kind of thing.

So you're giving me all the answers up front, Yeah, I have to come up with that.

That's the new gimmick for season two.

Is we can give you all the answers.

It's like Jeopardy, all right, are you ready?

I believe so.

All right, this is what journalists need to get access to an event. Journalists might use.

This yep, yep to get into the event. Okay, this is good, and it switches it up. I was ready for the double letters to be in the middle of the word, but at the ends of the words. This is a press.

Pass, exactly a press pass. We have none in the beginning. There's no lama. What would be a sad Lloyd Lama?

Yeah, Lama Lloyd's Lloyd's of Lama Lloyd's lama.

They ensure your lama yep. Okay, all right, so we got h press path. Next this is your brain produces delta waves when you are in this state.

Oh oh, I like these. This is good. This is also this rhymes. This would be a deep.

Sleep exactly, deep sleep.

I had no idea what the delta waves though.

Yeah, delta wave stage three. This might mean other people know what?

All right?

Next one, if you grew up in Robot and move to America, you might speak English with this.

Oh that is this is a very deep There's several layers of getting to this one. Because you said Robot, and I know that's the capital of Morocco, correct, So I was immediately like, what is he going to do with Morocco? But you would speak with a Moroccan accent exactly.

Both have two seeds.

Very different pronunciations. Nicely done, all right, A couple more, A couple more.

This mascot has a nose that always knows. It is a man, and I can give you more if you don't know.

That mascot has a nose that always knows.

This is not a.

Sports mask mascot. I thought of sports, but.

It is a breakfast Cereal.

Mascoves that always knows. You can see when the last time I had breakfast Cereal I'm just gonna say, as an aside, my kids hate milk, so so in a normal, you know it kind of the household, I would say normal. But in the household I grew up in, we all ate all kinds of breakfast cereal. Now I pretty much just eat granola and blueberries and yogurt, and the kids don't eat any cereal, so I don't. I have very little memory of the mascots. The nose that always knows.

It's a long, colorful nose.

Is it the two can? Yes, it is the two can that doesn't have a double letter. What's the clue again?

The mascot of this breakfast problem?

Right right, right? Okay, got it? Got it to two can is the mascot of fruit.

Loop exactly, and fruit is spelled fr o, yes, very good, which I think they did because it contains actually no fruit, so they had, for.

Legal reason, legally save f r U.

I'm not sure that's true. I would fact check that entirely with vegetables.

I'm ripping this off of the weekend edition Sunday puzzle. But if you take Toucan Sam which is his full name, and you delete like the third, the fifth, sixth letters, and you reverse it it spells mascot.

Oh good one, there you go. Okay, so much going on with to can Sam? All right? And and by the way, I once had an idea it will be an interesting experiment to feed the actual breakfast cereals to the mascots, like I feel you can't say my video loops, But like what about Tony? He would not be in.

He'd bite the hand that fed him right there.

He'd be like, where's the meat?

Yeah?

All right? Moving on two more we have got at the US Open. John McEnroe and Chris Evert might give commentary in this role.

Well, the this is a tennis match, right, there would be the tennis announcer.

That's tennis announcer, nice all right? And then the final the final is This is a phrase that describes an old fashioned person, a traditionalist, a square, maybe a little boring.

Oh we're going back to rhyming things now, that's it, right, Roman went back to the old fashioned square person, not someone who's necessarily old, but someone who is stuck in their ways or not sure.

You can be a young one of.

These should be a young fuddy duddy.

That's at buddy do e.

Where does that word come from.

Yeah, you look that up, because in the meantime, since this is the second season, it may.

Have come from like rhyming jingles or something like that. Not really know where it comes.

Well it is, Yeah, there's a whole I do. I will say a lot of those rhyming words mean chaos, like helter skelter, pell mell, piggy. That seems like a nice little trend. All right, but but wait, there's wait, there's more, there's more. This is the second season, so I figured we should have a part two to this puzzle. A meta puzzle.

Oh okay, written everybody understands. Meta puzzles are when you've often in a puzzle hunt or a suite of puzzles, all the answers to the puzzles combined to form yet another layer of puzzle.

Exactly so memory the previous puzzles. Do you remember? The first one was what journalists need press Pass, and then you've got the nighttime state deep sleep, and then the robot Uh.

Yes, oh, I see where you're going, And then we had the what was the fourth one?

It was a loop?

And then we had tennis announcer and Fuddy.

Duddy exactly So.

The letters that are doubled in each of those are S, E, C, O, N, and D. Second second season. I love meta puzzles. That is good. We should have warned you at the beginning to write down the answers so you could figure.

That surprise them. You like to surprise them.

You had to repeat them so I can figure that. I like that.

All right, Well that was fun, and you will have more of that type of fun. And yeah, and two, we're very excited.

We've got great guests.

Awesome guests, which, well, I guess we can say we just recorded with David Kwang. He won't mind if we say that, because he is a legend in the puzzle world. Absolutely, We've got many others we've got. We're very excited because one of our favorite things about doing the Puzzler is the puzzler community and all of the emails we get. And so please keep sending those because we're gonna bump up our coverage of emails and we're gonna have some listener mail segments. I also love when listeners send in their own clues. So if you hear a puzzle and you're like, you should have done Flannery O'Connor for the double n not spinning Jenny, than send it to us because we love to hear from you about that. All right, Well, I thought, since this is season two, I decided to go crazy with the two theme and write a quick dessert puzzle for us to go out on. Actually two, this is puzzle too, Puzzle two of season two two two.

We're doing it too, Okay, more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you.

Exactly, all right, so this one is we thought, you know, that's uh. Since this is the puzzler and we love to throw around ideas, we had lots of ideas for season two, and one idea in our fictional universe is that we should theme the whole season to the sound too. So maybe we should have a season devoted to big brass instruments in marching bands. That would be season.

Two BA, season two BA. Or maybe we should go ahead, no finish, finish all right.

Well, one more example, Well, maybe we should do a season devoted to ballet skirts, which would be season to two to two to two.

I'm just worried, you said fictional. You mean, I'm not really in a puzzle lab every day.

I don't want to. I don't want to burst the bubble?

Am I not even real?

No?

You are ai uh okay. So these these are all seasons themed around two, like season tuba or season two.

Two exactly, And I'll give you the content of the season, and you tell me what the season might have been called. So this season it would have been It would have covered blue fins, yellow fins, and big eyes.

Oh and it would be delicious. It would be a sushi in there, right, it would be season two NA.

Season two NA exactly. This season would cover such questions as why does she want used body parts from children? And where does she get the money to pay for them?

I'm sorry that got dark hole of a sudden, it's done. Why do you think of body parts from children.

And discarded body parts?

Where does she killed the money to pay for them? This is some fictional character.

I apparently don't know a mythical characters.

But who wants body parts from children?

Discarded body Oh?

This is the season tooth Fairy.

And tooth Fairy. Yes, it's a very dark story.

It's a very dark story. My son has figured out that I am the tooth fairy.

I'm sorry. Well, maybe it's better for his helf. Yea, all right, A couple more. This season will feature interviews with William Shatner and Jeremy Piven about their hair.

You know, you'm I don't know.

Okay, for a fact, I have a disclaimer. I have a dict.

We'll tell us the answer and the answer season two pay?

Yeah, okay. Now, I'm not saying that they necessarily wear a two pay. I'm just saying they might have interesting opinions.

Oh got it, got it. Shatner and Pivet are not wearers of No, we don't know. We'd invite them on to talk about two days.

So that's just for the legal folks at iHeart.

We open invitation to Jeremy Piven and William Shatner to come on the Puzzler and talk or not talk about two days.

Right, it could be another hair and maybe there's you know, weaves and other things like that they could discuss. All right, two more? How about? This season will feature the subject of a seventeenth century investment bubble.

Oh that's an oh god, yeah, what an interesting thing that was. Like that was like meme stock before there was meme stock. Everyone got excited about this flower that came from Holland. Right, that was the is this season twulip.

Season twolip, and I tried to work in the names, which are great. There's viceroy was like one that costs ten times the annual salary of the average Dutch person. The admiral, the simper Augustus.

These are all the types of tulips they are.

Yeah, they all had fancy names. All right, well, let's finish with this one. This season we will be discussing the phrase to bamboom.

Well, you're doing their chuck Berry invitation.

I think I wouldn't say imitation.

Oh my wait wait, I was thinking Season two d fruity. Well, is that what it is? Okay, that's a lyric from that song.

Yeah, that's unless.

Okay, by it? Okay, okay, I have a couple for you. Good.

Yeah.

This is a season all about Egyptian pharaohs, our favorite Egyptian pharaoh.

Season all right, well I'm going through.

There, not just his nickname. There you go. Oh yeah, I would think they're going down at chuck Berry right now two. Season two common and if we're going to get meta meta, this is a season all about one of the elements of the first puzzle you did.

Oh interesting, Okay, hold on, oh wait, what was the first puzzle? Now I have to figure out what the first puzzle is all about?

Something that was mentioned. It was related to the first puzzle you did. The whole season is just going to be about this one breakfast cereal mascot. Oh yes, Season two can yeah, Season two can sam.

That is funny because I did have that as one of the examples, and then I'm like, oh wait, I already did a two can reference.

Yeah. Then, but I made it meta meta.

I like it. Yeah, lean into it, lean into it. Make a lemons made out of lemons or.

Making lemon out of melon exactly.

I like that twist because I don't like that phrase makes lemons out of lemonade, because you also need sugar and water and you don't necessarily have that, so it's kind of a it's not really fair. No, I prefer the melon twist, So thank you for that. All Right, Well that's it. We can't wait. So come back tomorrow and we'll have season two episode two.

If we have an extra credit from this episode, oh.

Yeah, why not. I'm just gonna do one extra credit, which would be this season. We will have episodes on drop down menus such as file format, help window, and view. So check that out. It's gonna be a good season and we'll see you tomorrow for more puzzling puzzle that will puzzle you puzzlingly.

Hey, puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska escaped from the puzzle ab to give you the extra credit answer from our previous episode. We did some trios where I gave aj a bunch of unusual clues to a familiar trio of things, and your extra credit clue was this Madonna book Guns N' Roses out VHS.

Or Beta Max.

These are all blasts from the past.

That's the Madonna book Sex, the Guns N' Roses album Lies, and of course that thing from our childhoods or from your parents' childhoods or your grandparents' childhoods VHS or Beta MAC, which is Beta Max, which is videotape, and that gives you the title of the Steven Soderberg film Sex, Lies and Videotape.

Thanks for playing with us here on the Puzzler, and we'll see you next time for some 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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