Speaker 1: Hello, Puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast, The Woe in
Speaker 1: the Middle of your Keanu Reeves Puzzle Movie. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: AJ Jacobs, and I'm here with our guests, the great
Speaker 1: Mike Grease, longtime writer for The Simpsons and author of
Speaker 1: the new book What Am I Doing here? A Simpsons
Speaker 1: writer visits the World's Hellhole? So you don't have to
Speaker 1: welcome Mike.
Speaker 2: Thank you, great to be here.
Speaker 1: Delighted to have you.
Speaker 3: Mike.
Speaker 1: When I interviewed you for my book, you told me
Speaker 1: you have a compulsion to find anagrams in any word.
Speaker 1: You see. You have anagram itis.
Speaker 2: Yes I do. Yeah, I cannot help it.
Speaker 1: So like if you see a stop sign, you rearrange
Speaker 1: the letters to pots or whatever.
Speaker 2: Pots and posts and ops and all those. Yeah.
Speaker 1: See, you already did it faster than me.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And you've told me some great ones you've come up with. Well,
Speaker 1: one that I always remember is you told me that
Speaker 1: you went to go see a what was it, an
Speaker 1: Oscar Wild play?
Speaker 2: It was an Old Coward play.
Speaker 4: And we walked out of the play and I said
Speaker 4: to my wife, Noel Coward is no Oscar Wild. And
Speaker 4: for some reason that sentence just stuck in my head
Speaker 4: and I didn't know why. And then the next day
Speaker 4: I wrote it down and I realized the first half
Speaker 4: of the sentence is an anagram of the second half.
Speaker 4: Noel Coward is no Oscar Wild, And you know, it
Speaker 4: just tumbled out of me. But the idea that my
Speaker 4: anagram brain was going, hey there's something there is really
Speaker 4: shocked me.
Speaker 1: I never forgot it. And you've snuck quite a few
Speaker 1: anagrams into The Simpsons, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 4: You know they the Simpsons, I think has had more
Speaker 4: anagrams than any other show because there's no real competition.
Speaker 4: But that was it, you know, we and we did
Speaker 4: one where I think early on we had a danger
Speaker 4: sign and then Peace comes to the world and they
Speaker 4: rearranged danger to garden.
Speaker 2: And then like.
Speaker 4: Thirty years later, we needed a similar joke and we
Speaker 4: wound up changing garden to danger.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, that's a good that's a good little
Speaker 1: east And of.
Speaker 4: Course the fans busted out, So you did that already.
Speaker 4: It's like thirty years ago. You can't get away with
Speaker 4: anything with these guys.
Speaker 1: But you did the opposite. It was closing the loop. Yeah, okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what you did it on purpose? Well, what about
Speaker 1: you told me in the very first episode you tried
Speaker 1: to get Bart and Brett as a as an anagram.
Speaker 2: Yes, you know it was funny. It actually is in
Speaker 2: the show where.
Speaker 4: In the first episode I ever wrote, where mister Burns
Speaker 4: is meeting the Simpsons fam and his little note cards, which,
Speaker 4: by the way, just for Simpsons fans. It was something
Speaker 4: we took from Ronald Reagan, and that was our initial
Speaker 4: conception of mister Burns. He was going to be very
Speaker 4: genial and doddering, like really Ronald Reagan. So he's going, oh,
Speaker 4: here's little Lisa, he's looking at cards and Marge and
Speaker 4: here's little bratte Bart and Bart says that's not my name, man,
Speaker 4: and Homer goes, shut up, Bratt. But we made that joke,
Speaker 4: and then Matt Groening said, you know that was the intent.
Speaker 4: It was part of his naming Bart Bart is that
Speaker 4: it was a n anagram of Brett.
Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't know. That's interesting. Yes, And when did
Speaker 1: mister Burns turn evil? How did that happen?
Speaker 2: It was funny.
Speaker 4: What was happening was in that first season, several of
Speaker 4: us were writing episodes independently, so we wrote him genial
Speaker 4: and then someone else wrote him evil and I guess,
Speaker 4: as always in life, evil one.
Speaker 1: Out or interesting to watch the evil? Yeah unfortunately? All right, Well,
Speaker 1: moving onto our puzzle. This is an anagram based puzzle
Speaker 1: written by our Chief puzzle Officer, Greg Pliska. Anagrams, as
Speaker 1: you know, are when you rearrange the letters in a word,
Speaker 1: so like kat becomes act. But this is a next
Speaker 1: level anagram and one that you are familiar with because
Speaker 1: it is used in the National Puzzlers League in their
Speaker 1: puzzle magazine, The Enigma, and it is called a letter bank.
Speaker 1: So a letter bank is when you rearrange the letters,
Speaker 1: but you can use the letters more than once. So
Speaker 1: for instance, if the word is nest, you can rearrange
Speaker 1: it and add as many t's and ends as you
Speaker 1: want and get Tennessee. Or if it's the word is
Speaker 1: law and you're trying to get a city in Washington State,
Speaker 1: it would lead to wa al right, So that is
Speaker 1: the letter bank. And our twist is that we have
Speaker 1: made every letter bank out of a Simpsons character name.
Speaker 1: So we're going to give you the name of the
Speaker 1: character as part of the clue for the longer word.
Speaker 1: So for instance, well this is not for instance, this
Speaker 1: is the puzzle. I'm not even going to get you
Speaker 1: for instance.
Speaker 2: All right, you ready, I think so.
Speaker 1: This is where Homer, when he was a student went
Speaker 1: at the start of each school day.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what you want for me.
Speaker 1: That's the puzzle. We want to baffle you. So all right,
Speaker 1: the letter bank. The bank is Homer.
Speaker 2: Homer Homer. Okay, sir, Homer is.
Speaker 1: The letter bank. And you've got to use letters in
Speaker 1: Homer as many times as you want to find a
Speaker 1: place where he might have gone at the start of
Speaker 1: his school day.
Speaker 2: And now I know, And the answer is Homer.
Speaker 1: Homeroom okay, now you got it. Now we're in the clear.
Speaker 1: All right. This is where Bart's fourth grade teacher, Edna.
Speaker 1: So that's the letter bank. Edna crab Apple might live
Speaker 1: if it is a street with no exit.
Speaker 2: Oh, she would live on a dead end.
Speaker 1: All right, now you're in all right here, Yes, of
Speaker 1: course it's Krabopple.
Speaker 2: It's Edna Krabopple.
Speaker 4: Again, one of those built in jokes that the idea
Speaker 4: was her name is Krabopple. But none of the kids
Speaker 4: ever figure out to make fun of her by calling
Speaker 4: her crab.
Speaker 1: So they are not good at word games.
Speaker 2: That's correct.
Speaker 1: Interesting, So I'm mispronounced. Did I say crab Apple?
Speaker 2: I meant you said crab.
Speaker 1: That's embarrassing.
Speaker 2: Have you seen the show?
Speaker 1: Oh man, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. We have Lindsey Hoffman
Speaker 1: on who is our producer and resident Simpson's expert. Apologies,
Speaker 1: Lindsay that was embarrassing.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 1: How about this one? This one's with the Letterbank Marge.
Speaker 1: This is a big business deal where Marge might join
Speaker 1: together several companies, like if she were perhaps a corporate lawyer.
Speaker 2: I think that would be a mega merger.
Speaker 1: That was fast. That was very fast, by the way.
Speaker 1: All right, two more we've got. This is a simple one.
Speaker 1: Not simple, but sure. This is bart Or Bratt. If
Speaker 1: he went to visit a world capital, he might go too.
Speaker 2: Oh, I guess you would go to the capital of Morocco.
Speaker 1: Robot exactly, which I assume maybe you've been to.
Speaker 2: I have been there. Yeah, Morocco.
Speaker 4: For anyone who wants to be a world traveler like me,
Speaker 4: start with Morocco because it's super exact and yet very
Speaker 4: safe and tourist friendly. Just it's literally like walking into
Speaker 4: the Arabian Nights. I got off the plane and saw
Speaker 4: a snake charmer.
Speaker 2: Really yeah?
Speaker 1: Wow? All right, So last one this is Nelson. This
Speaker 1: is based on Nelson the Bully, and we're hoping one
Speaker 1: day he might get his come upance and have his
Speaker 1: schnas removed, in which case he would be.
Speaker 2: He would be noseless.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was fast.
Speaker 4: That was definitely he would suffer from noselessness.
Speaker 1: Exactly, he would be noseless. All right, well there you go,
Speaker 1: you did it.
Speaker 2: Wow, Well that was fun. I enjoyed that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we redeemed it. It took a rough start. But then,
Speaker 1: so where should people enjoy more of your work, Mike Greece.
Speaker 4: Well, they may have had their fill of me by
Speaker 4: this point, but they can listen to my podcast.
Speaker 2: What Am I Doing Here? Or they can buy the book.
Speaker 4: It's a perfect Christmas book, and that you can order it,
Speaker 4: get it, read it, and then rewrap it and give
Speaker 4: it to someone else. What the book is called, What
Speaker 4: Am I Doing Here? Is big and colorful and full
Speaker 4: of pictures.
Speaker 1: So do you think that other books are less regiftable?
Speaker 1: This is a particularly regiftable book.
Speaker 4: I feel like it's particularly regiftable.
Speaker 2: I wanted to put that on the cover and they say.
Speaker 1: Okay, very good. Well, before we wrap up, as always,
Speaker 1: for all of you puzzlers at home, here is your
Speaker 1: extra credit puzzle. This is a letter Bank. This one's
Speaker 1: a little harder if I didn't mention that this was
Speaker 1: written by our chief puzzle Officer, Greg Plisko. So it's
Speaker 1: based on the Letterbank Skinner. As in Principal Skinner, a
Speaker 1: school prank comes with a certain amount of this, seeing
Speaker 1: as Principal Skinner might catch you. All right, find out
Speaker 1: what it is when you tune in tomorrow, and please
Speaker 1: don't forget to subscribe, and also tell your friends and
Speaker 1: rate and all that stuff. Oh and also puzzler dot com.
Speaker 1: Don't forget about puzzler dot com. That's all your puzzling
Speaker 1: needs right there. And we will meet you here tomorrow
Speaker 1: for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 3: Hello puzzlers, Greg Pliska here, your chief puzzle officer, ready
Speaker 3: to give you the extra credit From our last episode,
Speaker 3: we played Uniting Nations with Mike Reese. In this puzzle,
Speaker 3: there's a blank in the clue that needs to be
Speaker 3: filled in with the name of one of the nations
Speaker 3: in the world to make a sensible sentence. Your extra
Speaker 3: credit clue was, if you're going to make beer, you'll
Speaker 3: need some hops, some blank, a lot of water, and
Speaker 3: a fermentor. And of course the country that belongs in
Speaker 3: there is Malta. Split into the words malt and uh
Speaker 3: so it reads you're going to need some hops, some malt,
Speaker 3: a lot of water, and a fermentor. I hope you
Speaker 3: got that one. And if you're in Malta right now,
Speaker 3: I hope you're listening. Thanks for playing.