Speaker 1: Hello puzzlers, and welcome to the Puzzler Weekend, where we
Speaker 1: bring you some of our favorite episodes from the vaults
Speaker 1: for your weekend listening. This weekend, in honor of Tax Day,
Speaker 1: we have a classic from Mike Reese, longtime writer for
Speaker 1: The Simpsons. Now, what does Mike's episode have to do
Speaker 1: with tax Day? Well, we give Mike a type of
Speaker 1: word puzzle called a letter bank, and to pay taxes
Speaker 1: you have to take money out of a bank. A
Speaker 1: bit of a stretch, let's admit that together, but it
Speaker 1: made sense when we came up with it, So enjoy
Speaker 1: the puzzle. Hello puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast the
Speaker 1: Woe in the Middle of your Keanu Reeves Puzzle Movie.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, AJ Jacobs, and I'm here with our guests,
Speaker 1: the great Mike Grease, longtime writer for The Simpsons and
Speaker 1: author of the new book What Am I Doing here?
Speaker 1: A Simpsons writer visits the World's hell Hole So you
Speaker 1: don't have to welcome Mike.
Speaker 2: Thank you, great to be here, Delighted to have you. 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.
Speaker 1: Yeah. See, you already did it faster than me. And
Speaker 1: 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 Wilde play?
Speaker 3: It was an Old Coward play and we walked out
Speaker 3: of the play and I said to my wife, Noel
Speaker 3: Coward is no Oscar wild And for some reason, that
Speaker 3: sentence just stuck in my head and I didn't know why.
Speaker 3: And then the next day I wrote it down and
Speaker 3: I realized the first half of the sentence is an
Speaker 3: anagram of the second half, Noel Coward is no Oscar
Speaker 3: wild And you know, it just tumbled out of me.
Speaker 3: But the idea that my anagram brain was going, hey
Speaker 3: there's something there is really 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 3: You know they the Simpsons, I think, has had more
Speaker 3: anagrams than any other show because there's no real competition,
Speaker 3: but that was you know, we and we did one
Speaker 3: where I think early on we had a danger sign
Speaker 3: and then peace comes to the world and they rearranged
Speaker 3: danger to garden. And then like thirty years later, we
Speaker 3: needed a similar joke and we wound up changing garden
Speaker 3: to danger.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, that's a good that's a good little
Speaker 1: east And of.
Speaker 3: Course the fans busted out. So you did that already.
Speaker 3: It's like thirty years ago. You can't get away with
Speaker 3: 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 3: Yes, you know, it was funny. It actually is in
Speaker 3: the show where in the first episode I ever wrote,
Speaker 3: where mister Burns is meeting the Simpsons family and these
Speaker 3: little note cards, which by the way, just for Simpsons fans.
Speaker 3: It was something we took from Ronald Reagan, and that
Speaker 3: was our initial conception of mister Burns. He was going
Speaker 3: to be very genial and doddering, like really Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 3: So he's going, oh, here's a little Lea. He's looking
Speaker 3: at cards and Marge and here's little Bratt in set
Speaker 3: of Bart. And Bart says, that's not my name, man,
Speaker 3: and Homer goes, shut up, Bratt. But we made that joke,
Speaker 3: and then Matt Groening said, you know that was the intent.
Speaker 3: It was part of his naming Bart Bart is that
Speaker 3: it was an anagram of Bratt.
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 3: What was happening was in that first season several of
Speaker 3: us were writing episodes independently, so we wrote him genial
Speaker 3: and then someone else wrote him evil. And I guess,
Speaker 3: as always in life, evil one hour, it.
Speaker 1: Is more interesting to watch the evil. Yeah, unfortunately, all right, Well,
Speaker 1: moving on to our puzzle. This is an anagram based
Speaker 1: puzzle written by our Chief puzzle Officer, Greg Puliska. Anagrams,
Speaker 1: as you know, are when you rearrange the letters in
Speaker 1: a word, so like kat becomes act. But this is
Speaker 1: a next level anagram and one that you are familiar
Speaker 1: with because it is used in the National Puzzlers League
Speaker 1: in their puzzle magazine the enigma, and it is called
Speaker 1: a letter bank. So a letter bank is when you
Speaker 1: rearrange the letters, but you can use the letters more
Speaker 1: than once. So for instance, if the word is nest,
Speaker 1: you can rearrange it and add as many t's and
Speaker 1: ends as you want and get Tennessee. Or if it's
Speaker 1: the word is law and you're trying to get a
Speaker 1: city in Washington State, it would lead to Wahalawaala. All right,
Speaker 1: So that is the letter bank. And our twist is
Speaker 1: that we have made every letter bank out of a
Speaker 1: Simpsons character name. So we're going to give you the
Speaker 1: name of the character as part of the clue for
Speaker 1: the longer word. So for instance, well, this is not
Speaker 1: for instance. This is the puzzle I'm not even going
Speaker 1: to get for instance. All right, you ready, I think
Speaker 1: so this is where Homer when he was a student
Speaker 1: went 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 is Homer.
Speaker 2: 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 homeroom.
Speaker 1: Home room. Okay, now you got it. Now we're in
Speaker 1: the clear. 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 3: It's Edna Krabopple again, one of those built in jokes
Speaker 3: that the idea was her name is Krabopple. But none
Speaker 3: of the kids ever figure out to make fun of
Speaker 3: her by calling her crab.
Speaker 1: So they are not good at word games.
Speaker 2: That's correct.
Speaker 1: Interesting, So I've mispronounced. Did I say crab Apple? I
Speaker 1: meant you said crab That's embarrassing.
Speaker 2: Have you seen the show?
Speaker 1: Oh man, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. We have Lindsey Hoffman on,
Speaker 1: who is our producer and Resident Simpson's expert. Apologies, Lindsay,
Speaker 1: that was embarrassing.
Speaker 3: 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 this
Speaker 1: simple one. Not simple, but sure. This is Bart where
Speaker 1: Bratt if he went to visit a world capital, he
Speaker 1: might go too.
Speaker 2: Oh, I guess you would go to the capitol of Morocco, Robot.
Speaker 1: Exactly, which I assume maybe you've been to.
Speaker 2: I have been there. Yeah, Morocco.
Speaker 3: For anyone who wants to be a world traveler like me,
Speaker 3: start with Morocco because it's super exotic and yet very
Speaker 3: safe and tourist friendly. Just it's literally like walking into
Speaker 3: the Arabian nights. I got off the plane and saw
Speaker 3: a snake charmer.
Speaker 1: Really yeah wow? All right. So last one this is Nelson.
Speaker 1: This is based on Nelson the Bully, and we're hoping
Speaker 1: one day he might get his comeuppance and have his
Speaker 1: schnas removed, in which case he would.
Speaker 2: Be he would be noseless.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was fast.
Speaker 3: That was definitely he would suffer from noselessness exactly.
Speaker 1: He would be noseless. All right, Well, there you go,
Speaker 1: you did it.
Speaker 2: Woah, 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 3: Well, they may have had their fill of me by
Speaker 3: this point, but they can listen to my podcast What
Speaker 3: Am I Doing Here? Or they can buy the book.
Speaker 3: It's a perfect Christmas book, and that you can order it,
Speaker 3: get it, read it, and then rewrap it and give it.
Speaker 2: To someone else. What the book is called, What Am
Speaker 2: I Doing Here? It's big and colorful and full of pictures.
Speaker 1: So do you think that other books are less regiftable?
Speaker 1: This is a particularly regiftable book.
Speaker 3: 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 Pliska. 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