Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
Speaker 1: always so much for tuning in. Let's give it up
Speaker 1: for the one and only, the Man, the Myth, the
Speaker 1: legend are super producer Mr Max Williams. Who do you who?
Speaker 1: And let's also they called me Ben, But I want
Speaker 1: to take a moment today and I need some fanfare here. Max, really,
Speaker 1: just turn it up to eleven because we've got the
Speaker 1: band back together. Everybody, and I mean everybody, even the
Speaker 1: people are sitting next to you if they don't have
Speaker 1: their headphones in, just hit him on the shoulder and
Speaker 1: tell the clap with you right now, returning the one
Speaker 1: and only Mr Noel Brown. I gotta say, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be responsible for anybody doing soft violence to
Speaker 1: people on the train, you know, for my benefit. Maybe
Speaker 1: a gentle nudge, a squeeze of the I don't know,
Speaker 1: people are weird about being touched. I would maybe just
Speaker 1: one handed clap, you know, on your thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm getting at. Thank you, Ben and all
Speaker 1: and all of you who are potentially being beaten up
Speaker 1: by strangers, uh, for my benefit, um, thank you for
Speaker 1: your service. Thank you for your service, folks. To be back.
Speaker 1: It's good to be bad. It's so good to have
Speaker 1: you back, man, Thank you. I appreciate it. Man. You
Speaker 1: you did you you didn't miss too much. We finally
Speaker 1: did the McDonald's episode. I think I told you about
Speaker 1: this in our in our offline group chat because as
Speaker 1: you know, folks, longtime ridiculous historians, Noel, Max and I
Speaker 1: are friends in real life, so we're pretty much talking
Speaker 1: to each other every day regardless of where we are.
Speaker 1: And uh nol, I gotta tell you. We gave Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland a chance. I had him on as a as
Speaker 1: a guest toast. We did two episodes and I don't
Speaker 1: know about Max, but no, he had me fooled. I
Speaker 1: thought he had turned over a new leaf. He was.
Speaker 1: He was an absolute gym, absolute peach until the very
Speaker 1: end of the second episode. He did did he transform
Speaker 1: before your very ears? He sure did? He sure did, man.
Speaker 1: But I think it's a very important note we have
Speaker 1: to say here. We got the trivia question right though.
Speaker 1: That's it. Yeah, we did you proud man, So we're
Speaker 1: we're still ahead. Well, I would have to, I would
Speaker 1: have to soft disagree. That didn't miss so much. I
Speaker 1: mean it sounds like there was adventure, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: like a cultic type behavior and activities, and I mean
Speaker 1: you bury the lead there, Ben, I was really looking
Speaker 1: forward to that McDonald's episode. Ronald McDonald is pure nightmare fuel,
Speaker 1: even in his final form. But man, that that early
Speaker 1: commercial that you always threaten us with his absolute terror, Man,
Speaker 1: that is the stuff of of of absolute nightmares. He's
Speaker 1: got like a weird carrot nosed thing. It looks like
Speaker 1: like a like a John Wayne Gacy kind of thrown
Speaker 1: together um you know, costume. Like it's yes, just chilling,
Speaker 1: chilling for everybody else. Noel and I have been chasing
Speaker 1: several episodes for years, and there are sometimes where I
Speaker 1: wish that, uh, I wish that we could record the
Speaker 1: times we're just we're like hanging out. Sometimes we'll just
Speaker 1: meet up for a drink and then we realize that
Speaker 1: accidentally our conversation has become a show. Maybe one day
Speaker 1: we'll do Ridiculous History after Dark. But for you, my friends,
Speaker 1: my brother, my ride or die, I know, I know
Speaker 1: you love the food episodes, man, I do too. We've
Speaker 1: got one that is another doozy for us, and uh gosh,
Speaker 1: I like, I don't even know where to begin, other
Speaker 1: than to ask you, were you a Pringles kid man
Speaker 1: when you were growing up? Where we're Pringles in the hierarchy,
Speaker 1: I'm a Pringles adult man. It's the superior chip, There's
Speaker 1: no question about it. They stack. You can make a
Speaker 1: little duck mouth with them. If you flip one up
Speaker 1: right side up and the other one upside down and
Speaker 1: put it, you can quack. It's it's a prop, it's
Speaker 1: a chip. It's it's self storing kind of. You know
Speaker 1: that you're never gonna that's not sure. You will occasionally
Speaker 1: run into some cracked Pringles, but it's it's rare. It's
Speaker 1: a lot rarer than opening a bag of lays and
Speaker 1: the whole thing is being demolished, not to mention the
Speaker 1: shrinkage that you experienced with with bagged potato chips. At
Speaker 1: least when you get a stack, you know, a tube
Speaker 1: of Pringles, you know it's gonna be mainly full to
Speaker 1: the top. It maybe a little they might have they
Speaker 1: might have skimped a little bit of we're gonna get
Speaker 1: into it. It's it's the kind of story that on
Speaker 1: the surface seems like it would be dull once you
Speaker 1: just get past the Oh, it's a it's a cool
Speaker 1: you know, spheric, spherical, what's the word of hyperbolic. We're
Speaker 1: gonna get to that chip. Um, where's the where's the
Speaker 1: hook Where's well, it's hooky. It's a hooky story. It
Speaker 1: goes places you will not expect. Oh yeah, we want to,
Speaker 1: of course shout out our research associate Zach Williams, who
Speaker 1: you will meet very soon, folks, as well as our
Speaker 1: research associate Jeff Bartlett's. Uh, they're they're on the way.
Speaker 1: You'll have to believe us. But we were so excited
Speaker 1: about this Pringle's episode because Pringles, I I think, just
Speaker 1: to stay on this for a second, I totally agree, man,
Speaker 1: Pringles does something beautiful that bags of chips don't do.
Speaker 1: And also is Pringle technically a potato chip. We're gonna
Speaker 1: get into all of that. But it's such a disappointment.
Speaker 1: It's such a cold shower of buyer's remorse. When you
Speaker 1: buy a bag of chips and you open it up
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, how about two thirds air and
Speaker 1: about one third chip. Pringles doesn't do that. They don't
Speaker 1: play I got, actually got a little embarrassing story I
Speaker 1: would love to share on the air, because where else
Speaker 1: am I gonna share this? But this is for my
Speaker 1: friend Ronnie with your therapists. Perhaps, uh she she's tired
Speaker 1: of hearing all these from me. But give it to
Speaker 1: there was There was one night I was hanging with
Speaker 1: my buddy Ronnie at the bar. We've worked out this
Speaker 1: is probably about eight nine years ago. And let's to
Speaker 1: say I was having a little bit of fun night
Speaker 1: and my buddy Ronnie was gonna ride home and I'd
Speaker 1: realized I hadn't eaten enough, and uh, I had no
Speaker 1: food at the house. And he's like, I want you
Speaker 1: to buy some potato chips at the gas station. I go,
Speaker 1: absolutely not, Man, those things are like air. It's the
Speaker 1: biggest rip off, he said. I wanted this giant rant
Speaker 1: in the gas station, all about how much error and
Speaker 1: potato back. So Pringles, do you know what you're getting?
Speaker 1: You know what you're getting? Yeah, And this is where
Speaker 1: our story begins. Ridiculous historians. We're talking innovation, we're talking intrigue,
Speaker 1: we're talking a little bit of existentialism, and of course cartoons.
Speaker 1: Uh no, you nailed it. You set us up so well, man. Uh,
Speaker 1: the idea of like the ultimate downer for anybody who
Speaker 1: desperately wants a snack. You get your potato chips, will
Speaker 1: you'll crisp as they call them in some parts of
Speaker 1: the world, and you open it up and then you've
Speaker 1: got crumbs, they're broken, or their stale. It's just a bummer.
Speaker 1: You have to go back to the store. Procter and
Speaker 1: Gamble was aware of this, right at some point. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's always funny to me that you think of companies
Speaker 1: like Procter and Gamble and you think, like, you know,
Speaker 1: the ones that make all the chemicals and stuff, the
Speaker 1: chemical of things. But these kinds of company there they
Speaker 1: diversify and a lot of them, you know, have divisions
Speaker 1: that are into like flavor science and like food technology. Um,
Speaker 1: you're right. They had a whole division chock full of
Speaker 1: food chemists and organic engineers that they tasked, you know,
Speaker 1: they you know, vultrond up to create what would be
Speaker 1: considered by the world. They hoped to be the perfect
Speaker 1: potato chip. No more of those stale you know, crummy
Speaker 1: bits at the bottom of the bag. You know, with
Speaker 1: that that that shock at the consumer feels when they
Speaker 1: opened the bag and it doesn't look anything like the picture.
Speaker 1: They wanted something that would look like the picture every time,
Speaker 1: every single time. Yes, And to the point about people
Speaker 1: with engineering or chemical backgrounds, Yes, folks, Procter and Gamble
Speaker 1: has their fingers and a lot of figurative pringle cans.
Speaker 1: They had a mission. They wanted to fix the problems
Speaker 1: that you just described, Noel, and they did it under
Speaker 1: the leadership of a guy named Vic Mills, who, fun fact,
Speaker 1: also invented the disposable diaper, and then a food chemist
Speaker 1: named Frederick Bauer. Yeah, that's well, yeah, it is well,
Speaker 1: you know, one starts the cycle and one ends it.
Speaker 1: I guess right. Uh, it's in terms of digestion that's gross.
Speaker 1: We don't have to ruin pringles everyone, even though we're
Speaker 1: kind of going to a little bit we're gonna get
Speaker 1: into like slurry and all of the goop that these
Speaker 1: things are actually made up. But I I would argue,
Speaker 1: by the end of this, you're still gonna want to
Speaker 1: you know, pop and and not stop, which is also
Speaker 1: a bright slogan. I would argue because it challenges you
Speaker 1: to not be a junkie. It challenges you to not
Speaker 1: be you know, and and addicts you know, once you pop,
Speaker 1: you can't Oh, I can't can't I pop? I can't stop. Like, dude,
Speaker 1: I have a conspiracy theory about this. I feel like
Speaker 1: and this is totally unfounded. This is just my speculation.
Speaker 1: I feel like maybe there was a pang of conscience
Speaker 1: in the engineering, which we'll get to where they made
Speaker 1: just like bo Burnham was cavetching about in his specials,
Speaker 1: they made the tube too small for a grown person's hands.
Speaker 1: So you can have that crossroads moment and you can say,
Speaker 1: have I have I popped enough? This is this hurting
Speaker 1: my family. Bro, you have not popped enough until you
Speaker 1: get to the crusty bits at the bottom. And then
Speaker 1: what you do is you dip those those bad boys
Speaker 1: right into your mouth until that until that tennis ball
Speaker 1: tube of chips is is completely bone dry. But he
Speaker 1: exactly Frederick Bauer right, Um, he is the food chemist
Speaker 1: in league with this guy, Vic Mills, the diaper guy,
Speaker 1: may start out by the siding. They want this process
Speaker 1: to begin in a little bit of an unconventional way,
Speaker 1: not the way potato chips are usually made, which is
Speaker 1: like you know, deep frying slices of potato and oil.
Speaker 1: Presumably with this one they actually wanted to use dehydrated
Speaker 1: potatoes and create kind of this this slurry, this kind
Speaker 1: of paste. They could then, you know, use a die
Speaker 1: cast kind of mechanism to cut out whatever shape they wanted,
Speaker 1: so that each chip would be like kind of stamped
Speaker 1: out on this like line. Like think about you know,
Speaker 1: the way like plastic toys are made, you know, they're
Speaker 1: they're cut out, or like things are like three D printed.
Speaker 1: Even it would everything would have the exact same size,
Speaker 1: the exact same shape, and the exact same weight, which
Speaker 1: would allow them to kind of streamline the whole process
Speaker 1: and really get to the root and solve it in
Speaker 1: terms of these like these generations old potato chip problems. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you know you guys nol Max, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm super fascinated by the often unsung history of packing innovation.
Speaker 1: Packaging innovation, I should say, yeah, this, this is this
Speaker 1: uniformity is key to preventing breakage. These chips are made
Speaker 1: in uh in what you might call a saddle shape.
Speaker 1: They look kind of like a wide saddle. Technically the
Speaker 1: name for that with a tie on is a hyperbolic
Speaker 1: paraboloid shape. This means that you stack them up, they
Speaker 1: don't have room to move in the tube, and therefore
Speaker 1: it's much more difficult for them to break inside the
Speaker 1: package nol Max. We also have to point out at
Speaker 1: this at this juncture, this is not a sponsored episode, folks, Pringle.
Speaker 1: We didn't talk to Pringles, we didn't ask him permission,
Speaker 1: We didn't do any of that. We just are super
Speaker 1: into potato chips. Peek behind the curtain, though, Ben, we
Speaker 1: would have gladly taken their money. Caveats with the caveat that, y'all,
Speaker 1: if we come across some darkness, we're gonna We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about it. You know, I'll take it or leave it.
Speaker 1: That's how we do. I mean, y'all will remember the
Speaker 1: underwear episode. We got into a lot of chlamydia talk,
Speaker 1: and you know, venereal diseases and weird like washing garments
Speaker 1: with urine. I mean, just put we're putting it out
Speaker 1: there that we are not entirely shills. We will shill
Speaker 1: for you, but we will speak the truth. So if
Speaker 1: Pringles comes to us after the fact, like let's say,
Speaker 1: like in a week and they're hey, we want to
Speaker 1: be a sponsored content. Will we do it if they
Speaker 1: pay us in pringles? Yeah, we're gonna gonna get to
Speaker 1: something that. Yeah, no, you'll take cash. I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: as long as they're stuffed into pringles cans. Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: what are those two? So so pay attention, Prinkles. We're
Speaker 1: getting into it. Also, we're going to name some of
Speaker 1: the weird flavors we have request for you, Prinkles. Uh
Speaker 1: so all right. So Bower comes up with this shape,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, low key, it's super innovative. No
Speaker 1: other potato outfit has done something like this before, and
Speaker 1: Bower to add to his accolades, he is the guy
Speaker 1: who develops that vacuum sealed can. That's what houses the
Speaker 1: chips and cheer pointell about staleness. The fact that it's
Speaker 1: vacuum sealed also keeps them fresh. We're getting a lot
Speaker 1: of this from a great article in Food and Wine
Speaker 1: by Matt Blitz. I'm not going to give the headline yet.
Speaker 1: I don't think we do, because it's a really cool spoiler.
Speaker 1: Matt Blitz, by the way, the most superhero like name
Speaker 1: and all the Food and Wine writing. I would have
Speaker 1: to talk to um so wait, so Ben, it's a
Speaker 1: hyperbolic paraboloid, a paraboloid that just is always overstating the
Speaker 1: case and like being really smaltsey about everything. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a hyperbolic paraboloid. Is the most extra of
Speaker 1: all paraboloids. Yeah, everything is the end all be all
Speaker 1: for this paraboloid. You know. It's like, and that was
Speaker 1: the best I'm the best shape that ever existed. It
Speaker 1: thinks a lot of itself really kind of sucks all
Speaker 1: the air out of the room. Uh. Literally, the shape
Speaker 1: doesn't do that. They do that with a machine. But
Speaker 1: here's the thing. There is a specific science a golden
Speaker 1: ratio as kind of situation to these shapes. The two
Speaker 1: principal curvatures of this design meet each other. That's what's called. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is from an excellent article in the Interesting Engineering
Speaker 1: dot com. By the way, uh, these zero the zero
Speaker 1: point is known as the saddle point or the mini
Speaker 1: max point, and it is this intersecting double curvature that
Speaker 1: that is actually what causes there to be limited stress
Speaker 1: from one chip passed on to the next, so there
Speaker 1: won't be any kind of like a breakage that would
Speaker 1: kind of carry on from one to the other if
Speaker 1: the pressure got too great. Um, it's the same kind
Speaker 1: of principle as like arches, right, like like uh, buying
Speaker 1: buttresses and like you know in engineering and architecture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's similar to Okay. So one of the one of
Speaker 1: the super interesting natural engineering questions is the idea of
Speaker 1: why eggs, Uh, you know, why why eggs have evolved
Speaker 1: to have an oval shape? It redistributes stress and pressure,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of what's happening with this nifty pringles design.
Speaker 1: And as you mentioned, the author of that article over
Speaker 1: interesting engineering, Kathleen V. I Lose. She points out that
Speaker 1: this also encourages pringles to have extra crunch, whether you're
Speaker 1: biting off a piece of them or whether you're putting
Speaker 1: the whole pringle in your mouth at once, because that
Speaker 1: is like now you are you are applying some of
Speaker 1: that stress from one of the strongest muscles in your body,
Speaker 1: the human jaw. And she says, if you frequently eat pringles,
Speaker 1: you would know that they never break off symmetrically, but
Speaker 1: instead they crack in different directions. They make flakes with
Speaker 1: varying shapes. It's all due to the hyperbolic paraboloid geometry
Speaker 1: of each chip. I mean, this goes deep this article.
Speaker 1: If you are, um someone, Yeah, if you're someone who
Speaker 1: likes to uh unwind a little after work with whatever
Speaker 1: you've chosen vices, and you like learning about weird things,
Speaker 1: we highly recommend you read about the fascinating geometry of
Speaker 1: the Pringles chip. I can't believe that what we're saying that,
Speaker 1: but it's true. Yeah, we're really just scratching the surface here. Um,
Speaker 1: but check it out. Kathleen Villa loose over at interesting engineering,
Speaker 1: crunchy engineering of Pringles hyperbolic paraboloid shape. Um, we're going
Speaker 1: from that, but boys, that so much more. That's just
Speaker 1: literally one like to lead off with, like just the
Speaker 1: engineering part of it. Here was a problem though the
Speaker 1: original chips or when they started doing this and the
Speaker 1: like what do you call it, uh, research and development stage.
Speaker 1: None of this has been released to the public yet.
Speaker 1: This is them doing this bind closed doors uh at
Speaker 1: proct during gamble. They couldn't figure out how to make
Speaker 1: them not taste like trash. They were bad chips. And
Speaker 1: you know, I would argue that a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of the the zing from even modern day Pringles
Speaker 1: comes from that dust. You know, that that Pringles does.
Speaker 1: But you can get you know, a plane pringle and
Speaker 1: it's not bad. It tastes potato eat. Does it taste
Speaker 1: like a lace or or a ruffle. No, it's got
Speaker 1: a different flavor. It's like a different animal. But they
Speaker 1: had not h they had not cracked that part of
Speaker 1: the equation yet, they thought so much about the slurry
Speaker 1: and the shape. They forgot to remember that people need
Speaker 1: to be to eat these and have them, you know,
Speaker 1: go down and enjoy them and choose them over another
Speaker 1: potato product. Yeah, this is so, this is the thing.
Speaker 1: Picture our pal Bauer, Frederick Frederick Bauer. He's nailed everything.
Speaker 1: He's got a kick ass can or twobe. He's got
Speaker 1: an amazing strategy with a lot of smart engineering behind it.
Speaker 1: But he says, I can't make these taste good. He
Speaker 1: tells the suits, it's gonna take me a while to
Speaker 1: make these actually edible potato crisp, because again they have
Speaker 1: to make it into a paste to form that provoloid shape.
Speaker 1: So soon enough the suits pull him off of the
Speaker 1: top secret Prinkles project. They put him on some other stuff.
Speaker 1: It's not until the nineteen sixties. Fast forward to the sixties,
Speaker 1: there's another Procter and Gamble researcher, Alexander Lipa, is out
Speaker 1: of Montgomery, Ohio, and Lipa comes back because and this
Speaker 1: happens in corporations all the time, because Soccer and Gamble says,
Speaker 1: all right, we need new products. Right, we're always diversifying.
Speaker 1: We're not just diaper people. We want to be in
Speaker 1: more and more parts of the grocery store shelves. So
Speaker 1: they say, let's go back to this idea. These crisp
Speaker 1: in a tube, and let's figure out a recipe that
Speaker 1: will make this something people want to eat. So they
Speaker 1: land on this recipe that has uh, let's see, dehydrated
Speaker 1: potatoes with a mixture of rice and corn as well
Speaker 1: as wheat. So these are again to be clear, these
Speaker 1: are not like lace potato chips or something. They're not
Speaker 1: sliced up actual potatoes. They take this stuff. They take
Speaker 1: the actual potato, they dehydrate it, they kind of make
Speaker 1: it up paste, and they mix it up with all
Speaker 1: this other stuff so that they can predictably press it
Speaker 1: kind of like they can cookie cutter it basically into
Speaker 1: that shape. And this is my favorite part of the story. No,
Speaker 1: this is where they get involved with some sci fi folks. Yeah, wow,
Speaker 1: that was a zoom. Did not see that coming. Are
Speaker 1: they're going to create a chip based religion or something
Speaker 1: from here? I don't know. Dune is really about pringles.
Speaker 1: When you think about the spices the dust that I
Speaker 1: was talking about earlier, and it must have otherwise the
Speaker 1: chips taste like garbage. Yeah, it's true. Bauer wasn't the
Speaker 1: only person who helped, you know, with this, uh, this
Speaker 1: development of the you know, kind of future chip. Right.
Speaker 1: There is a dude who, after a brief extent in
Speaker 1: the Korean War as a combat engineer, um went on
Speaker 1: to study engineering at the University of Houston, a guy
Speaker 1: named gene Wolf. Okay that they may sound familiar. Gene
Speaker 1: Wolf out of college got a job with Procter and Gamble.
Speaker 1: While he was there, he was on the pringles team. Uh,
Speaker 1: and his job was specifically to this is from Food
Speaker 1: and Wine dot com article, by the way, was to
Speaker 1: quote devise a means of frying molded potato shingles. I
Speaker 1: just realized that, holy crap, pringles are shingles. Don't let
Speaker 1: the word get out. Yeah, before they dropped onto a
Speaker 1: conveyor belt. So again we're picturing this, So that is
Speaker 1: the process in fact that that is still used today.
Speaker 1: That the way they're fried and then and then you know,
Speaker 1: dropped out of this conveyor belt to be sorted into
Speaker 1: those cans. But again I mentioned you might have you
Speaker 1: might have heard of this fellow. Uh, that's not really
Speaker 1: what he's known for. UM. In nineteen seventy two, he
Speaker 1: was an editor for a technical engineering magazine, UH and
Speaker 1: at that time he published his first successful sci fi novel,
Speaker 1: and eight years later, the first volume of his uh
Speaker 1: what's considered his kind of greatest work, The Book of
Speaker 1: the New Sun, came out. It was compared to some
Speaker 1: really you know, high minded literature like Ulysses, for example,
Speaker 1: by the New Yorker UH and it is considered one
Speaker 1: of the greatest sci fi collections of all time. I
Speaker 1: am not familiar with this book, Ben, I would not
Speaker 1: be surprised if you were. UM, I've heard the name,
Speaker 1: but I'm very intrigued. Yeah, honestly, it's dope. UH. Don't
Speaker 1: let if you don't like James Joyce, don't let the
Speaker 1: comparison to Ulysses fool you. It's a heck of a read.
Speaker 1: We also want to say. His first sci fi novel
Speaker 1: that was successful was called The Fifth Head of Cerebus,
Speaker 1: and it's three interrelated novellas. Uh. That one I haven't read,
Speaker 1: but I have read the Book of the New Son
Speaker 1: and I enjoyed it. We also, do you know what
Speaker 1: we should do? We should take just a second and
Speaker 1: figure out this Pringle's name, because there are theories about it,
Speaker 1: and at this point in two no one is acent convinced.
Speaker 1: One one theory is that there's a guy named Mark
Speaker 1: Pringle who way back this is true, folks, way back
Speaker 1: in ninety seven, this guy filed a U S. Patent
Speaker 1: for something called this is a Quote Method and Apparatus
Speaker 1: for processing potatoes. Mark Pringle's work was later cited by
Speaker 1: Procter and Gamble in their own patent for improving the
Speaker 1: taste of what would become Pringles. Then there's this other
Speaker 1: idea that there were these ad guys who worked for
Speaker 1: Procter and they they just said, oh, the name sounds
Speaker 1: good because they live on Pringle Drive. Like there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of weird stuff here, dude. These are also graspy
Speaker 1: to me because I think the answer is so obvious.
Speaker 1: Their potato shingles their pringles. But where's the ar come from.
Speaker 1: That's the fun, that's just the fun. That's just pingles
Speaker 1: doesn't sound good. Pingles sounds no. Pingles sounds weirdly, dirt weirdly.
Speaker 1: Pringles sounds fun. There's no Jonathan pring goal. Come on,
Speaker 1: this is absurd. Uh we there you'll maybe recall, uh there,
Speaker 1: this was in the news not terribly long ago, this
Speaker 1: whole Wikipedia scam kind of that. That led to another
Speaker 1: another possible iteration of this. Uh, the name of the
Speaker 1: pringles man the muster by the way, the pringles man.
Speaker 1: If you notice he has no mouth. He has mustache,
Speaker 1: but no mouth with which to enjoy the pringles. But
Speaker 1: he also is a pringle his head, yes, it is
Speaker 1: kind of the shape of a pringle. So presumably you're
Speaker 1: eating him or or his his life with each most
Speaker 1: project exactly. Yeah. Yeah. He was only saved from death
Speaker 1: in the two because of that amazing mustache which hides
Speaker 1: his mouth. It's weird, so okay, this is so the
Speaker 1: name is part of it. They did, regardless of which
Speaker 1: theory we want to ascribe to, And there are more
Speaker 1: than what we've named. The product was first known as
Speaker 1: Pringles newfangled potato chips, but other potato chip manufacturers raised
Speaker 1: cane about this, and it's because Noel. They said that
Speaker 1: Pringles fails to meet the definition of a potato chip
Speaker 1: because they're made from that mixture. They're made from potato dough. Basically. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this is where I would love for you to
Speaker 1: weigh in. Man, is a Pringle a potato chip? I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I guess I don't really have much skin
Speaker 1: in the game as far as like purest definitions of
Speaker 1: a potato chip. Is that term? I didn't realize we
Speaker 1: put so much stock in that, but I guess when
Speaker 1: the Food and Drug Administrations involved, these terms kind of matter.
Speaker 1: So a chip off the old block would imply that
Speaker 1: that was a literal, physical piece of thing that came
Speaker 1: off said block. So therefore, a chip, a potato chip
Speaker 1: needs to be a thing that came off of a
Speaker 1: physical potato in its purest form. I imagine a man there,
Speaker 1: there are so many people who are listening right now,
Speaker 1: and you're in we hear you, we know where you are.
Speaker 1: You're in your dorm, right it's maybe freshman year of college.
Speaker 1: It's probably around two three am you might be in
Speaker 1: some Pringles right now. Tell us what you think, tell
Speaker 1: us what your your pals think? Is this potato chip? Well,
Speaker 1: it's like is craft are craft singles cheese? They are
Speaker 1: crossed right, whateppens cheese product. I would argue that pringles
Speaker 1: is a more upscale snack than than but you know what,
Speaker 1: But then there there is a place for for craft singles.
Speaker 1: They melt so scientifically perfectly on a burger or like
Speaker 1: a breakfast sandwich, like an egg and cheese. Is really
Speaker 1: nothing else like it, so that there is there's a
Speaker 1: place for them. Again, I think Pringles is the superior chip.
Speaker 1: Given given my druthers, I will buy Pringles every time.
Speaker 1: Am I gonna get caught up in the semantics of
Speaker 1: all this, like I don't know food? You know, lawyer,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. It doesn't really fathered me when we are
Speaker 1: the other. It's not even the same arguments a hot
Speaker 1: dog of sandwich. I don't feel like this is the
Speaker 1: same realm. It's not a philosophical argument to me, right right?
Speaker 1: And do we need these labels in two? By the way, again,
Speaker 1: if you want to be super fun at parties, folks, uh,
Speaker 1: you can point out that the reason Kraft Cheese singles
Speaker 1: melt so well is that they contain sodium citrate. That's
Speaker 1: the secret sauce. Don't tell anyone except for the millions
Speaker 1: of other people listening to this show. Maybe we should
Speaker 1: get a secret handshake for ridiculous history. One hand we
Speaker 1: can't shake, though, is Frederick Bowers. He has passed away.
Speaker 1: You mean he was gonna have been canceled or something like.
Speaker 1: We can no longer extend our hand and gratitude because
Speaker 1: unfortunately it turns out secret Nazi, secret Nazi. That's what
Speaker 1: pringles were all about. But he Uh, it's weird because
Speaker 1: he uh, this is why we didn't spoil the excellent
Speaker 1: article that Matt wrote earlier. Uh, Matt Blitzet is the
Speaker 1: best name in food writing. Dr Bower. In his will,
Speaker 1: let's be clear, he planned this, He thought about this.
Speaker 1: He made a well informed, very weird choice for his funeral.
Speaker 1: In his will he said, bury me in a human
Speaker 1: sized pringle. Can you know it's it really is a
Speaker 1: testament to how he viewed this part of his life,
Speaker 1: like like this, this was his life's crowning achievement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how he wanted to be remembered. Literally he went
Speaker 1: out like gee, he went out like a p Also,
Speaker 1: in case you're wondering for anybody with a similar bent
Speaker 1: toward morbidity in the macabre like me. Uh, he did
Speaker 1: not ask for his remains to be mixed with potatoes, rice,
Speaker 1: sweet and flower. He he just they just put the
Speaker 1: human him, without potatoes, into a life size Pringle can
Speaker 1: in two thousand. So he was not cremated like it
Speaker 1: was his his like full body that had been like
Speaker 1: um embalmed and stuff was shoved in this can. Ah,
Speaker 1: that's an excellent point. Well he was. Let me be
Speaker 1: clear there, let me clarify. He was cremated. His ashes
Speaker 1: were putting a Pringles can, but they were not mixed
Speaker 1: with um dehydrated potato, like you can't dig it up
Speaker 1: and eat it as you would have Pringle's chip. It
Speaker 1: would have been a real next level flex for him
Speaker 1: to have had his ashes mixed into a special flavor
Speaker 1: of Pringles power flavored Pringles. Um. Yeah, okay, we freach
Speaker 1: some maximum morbidity here. I will say though this is
Speaker 1: not unusual. Um. I was just in a situation where
Speaker 1: I had occasion to speak to a mortician. Um, regarding
Speaker 1: cremains and regarding what types of vessels are are able
Speaker 1: to be used, assuming that there were all kinds of
Speaker 1: like weird laws around it. Not the case. This person
Speaker 1: informed me that they have they had seen cremains placed
Speaker 1: in a Mr. Potato Head before. Yeah, surely at the
Speaker 1: request of the deceased. I would imagine, you know, that's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing you don't just kind of drum up. Hey,
Speaker 1: you know what Dad would have liked. Let's put his
Speaker 1: cremains in the old Mr. Potato head. Yeah. So. Uh.
Speaker 1: Bower's son Larry has an interview with Time magazine about
Speaker 1: this uh when when Bauer passes away in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, he says, when my dad first raised the
Speaker 1: burial idea in the nineteen eighties, I chuckled about it.
Speaker 1: But they knew what they had to do. They had
Speaker 1: to go to Walgreens. They didn't get a custom Pringles can.
Speaker 1: They went to their local drug store, picked up some Pringles,
Speaker 1: and they debated about which flavor to use. Ultimately, they
Speaker 1: sided with tradition, and Larry Bowers said, look, we need
Speaker 1: to use the original flavor. And that's why even today,
Speaker 1: somewhere out there in Arlington Memorial Gardens in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Speaker 1: There's a grave that contains a pringles can holding the
Speaker 1: ashes of the man who invented the tube nuts, crisp potatoes, yeah, well, no, well,
Speaker 1: and other things. We'll do that in a little bit too,
Speaker 1: as the formula has changed. But you know that slurry
Speaker 1: or or paste that we talked about, it was dehydrated
Speaker 1: potatoes and like you know, corn wheat, you know, other
Speaker 1: things went into uh rice exactly. And then again we're
Speaker 1: gonna get into you know, and then the dust is
Speaker 1: its own thing. The dust must flow. By the way,
Speaker 1: what what's your favorite potato chip dust? I'm a big
Speaker 1: sour cream and onion guy. Do you go off for
Speaker 1: the hot chips the hot dust? You know? Not not
Speaker 1: really a hot chip guy. I'm I'm hot enough on
Speaker 1: my own, I would say. Uh. The thing that I
Speaker 1: love out these conversations is that a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't know this unrelated chip. In fact, derritos they don't
Speaker 1: need that dust. Their marketing department decided that the orange
Speaker 1: dust is part of the derrito's eating experience. So you
Speaker 1: can eat you can eat dust less dorritos, or you
Speaker 1: can do like our pal Dylan taught me Dylan Fagan. Yeah, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's Dylan. Oh yeah, do you guess, So who's here?
Speaker 1: Oh he's my friend. God, that's a fun Yeah, Dylan
Speaker 1: ep good friend of ours. In the show, he eats
Speaker 1: like hot Cheetos and Dorritos with chopsticks so he doesn't
Speaker 1: get any dust on his fingers. That's kind of help
Speaker 1: you if you are eating Cheetos or Dorritos and then
Speaker 1: do a crime, you know, jeezus. Yeah, they'll leave like
Speaker 1: a like a book, a trail, like a like a
Speaker 1: snail trail of of of of of golden dust. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not like golden. It's more kind of reddish brown. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like an umber, I guess. But the like a
Speaker 1: bright number. But I love that we're talking about this.
Speaker 1: So chester Chester Cheetah obviously has gone down for a
Speaker 1: lot of crimes that he didn't commit. The poor guy
Speaker 1: gets stitched up, and that leads us to talking about
Speaker 1: another mascot, the Pringles mascot, which reintroduced earlier in the show.
Speaker 1: He has a bit of a mystery. His name, according
Speaker 1: to some, is Julius Pringles or Mr P. But here's
Speaker 1: why I'm saying this guy is a man of mystery.
Speaker 1: I think there's more to the story about the alleged
Speaker 1: name Julius. This guy might have a couple of pseudonyms.
Speaker 1: He does. And by the way, he's also changed as
Speaker 1: a parents a little bit over the years, like a
Speaker 1: man with a secret. You may recall the classic UH
Speaker 1: mr P design where his waxed mustache and crop of
Speaker 1: hair were a little more realistic. You know, they had
Speaker 1: like texture to them than the color, kind of a
Speaker 1: brown or like an auburn kind of color, and this
Speaker 1: little mop of hair on top, and his eyes had
Speaker 1: these little shiny little whites in them, and he was
Speaker 1: wearing a bow tie. Recently, I believe it was back
Speaker 1: in September, mr P got his first big design update
Speaker 1: UH in twenty years, and it's significant. Like many things
Speaker 1: in design, this goes for more of a minimalist approach
Speaker 1: these days. The mustache is now just pure black with
Speaker 1: no textures um, the eyes no more little glinty whites,
Speaker 1: and instead of a crop of hair, he has these
Speaker 1: disembodied eyebrows that just sort of float above the head.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the kind of thing you could whip
Speaker 1: up in in Adobe Illustrator in like seconds. But somebody
Speaker 1: got paid a gazillion dollars for this, you know. That's
Speaker 1: how these things work. And I'm not saying I could
Speaker 1: have done it. That's like saying, oh, look at this Picasso,
Speaker 1: I could know you couldn't. You couldn't have done that.
Speaker 1: It's brilliant design work. But it is funny how how
Speaker 1: simple it is when you really get down to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the issue, you know, this is happening with so
Speaker 1: many food mascots these days, Like the Quaker oats guy
Speaker 1: just keeps getting younger and younger by that that old
Speaker 1: man I trusted to give me oats is now like
Speaker 1: twenty five with a silver wig. It's a weird time.
Speaker 1: It's a weird time to be a food mascot. Also, uh,
Speaker 1: to peel the curtain, to pop the tube of Pringles conspiracies,
Speaker 1: and once your poppy can't stop, here's another one. It
Speaker 1: turns out the name Julius Pringles, even though Kellogg's claims
Speaker 1: it's officially trademarked, it was made up by two college
Speaker 1: students back in two thousand and in six. They called
Speaker 1: him Julius Pringle's know you and I were talking about
Speaker 1: this off air. They went on Wikipedia and they made it.
Speaker 1: So our moral of the story is be careful what
Speaker 1: you read on the Wiki. Always check the horses. To
Speaker 1: your point, the company was taken in by this, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, no one is immune to the Wikipedia grift.
Speaker 1: You know, however, well intentioned and and you know, you
Speaker 1: know some of them armed with the right information, it's
Speaker 1: very easy to just read something and be like that
Speaker 1: seems right. Let's roll with that. Julius Pringle not a thing,
Speaker 1: not a thing, not a thing. But you know, uh,
Speaker 1: it's we are all the stories we tell ourselves, right,
Speaker 1: So maybe Julius will one day make that canonical. Kellogg's
Speaker 1: certainly has another person who has thought about Pringles at
Speaker 1: least as much as us. Is a guy who might
Speaker 1: recognize we're a big fan of him, Uh will pal
Speaker 1: of ours? Mr John Oliver from The Daily Show, from
Speaker 1: countless stand up appearances from Community from most recently last
Speaker 1: week tonight. So John had this thing. John and his
Speaker 1: writers had this thing kind of recently where they just said,
Speaker 1: how come we never see the body of Mr p
Speaker 1: How what is the Pringles the Pringle Man's body look like,
Speaker 1: and John actually went on a huge rant about this
Speaker 1: and listeners to last week Tonight responded and send them
Speaker 1: all these pictures of what they thought the Pringles man
Speaker 1: looked like below the neck. They're pretty fascinating. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of inspiration from the natural world, like an octopus
Speaker 1: or a hermit crab. And John was not having it. Man.
Speaker 1: John demanded that he get an answer, and he put
Speaker 1: his money where his mouth is. He said he would
Speaker 1: give ten thousand dollars to a nonprofit called Feeding America
Speaker 1: if Pringles showed a full body Mr P slash Julius
Speaker 1: Pringles on air um and they did you wanna you
Speaker 1: want to describe it? You you you you you deserve this, buddy.
Speaker 1: Well before we do that, though, did you ever have
Speaker 1: any inklear Again, I think I've made my my position clear.
Speaker 1: I believe that Julius Pringle or Mr P is in
Speaker 1: fact a Pringle himself. He has this preparabolic shaped head.
Speaker 1: He appears at the top of the can, so I
Speaker 1: would presume that his body is a can. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's a very reasonable assumption.
Speaker 1: If you look at the various pitches they're they're pretty neat. Uh,
Speaker 1: Pringles themselves went kind of safe with it. I'll go
Speaker 1: ahead and just send you guys a picture in the
Speaker 1: chat so you can see it. I'm a little I
Speaker 1: don't know, I understand why they did it, but uh,
Speaker 1: they made him just a dude. He's got a red suit,
Speaker 1: white T shirt, kind of supreme style, that says Pringles.
Speaker 1: He's got white gloves, regular legs, regular arms. I was
Speaker 1: hoping that he would be kind of like a a mech,
Speaker 1: like a battle mech made out of Pringle tubes. That
Speaker 1: would have been cool um or you know, a segmented
Speaker 1: serpent made out of Pringles. Anyway, they didn't write back
Speaker 1: to me, but Pringles, if you're listening, these ideas are
Speaker 1: for you. What a fascinating thing. Man. We we took
Speaker 1: a ride here and we're not, you know, like there's
Speaker 1: still more stuff to talk about. But I think all
Speaker 1: three of us are really surprised by some of the
Speaker 1: mystery surrounding Pringles. And I'll tell you what, honestly, between us, folks,
Speaker 1: I'm hungry. I I bought some snackpack Pringles for this one.
Speaker 1: You know, they're the little packs, They're not like a
Speaker 1: full tube they got like eight soda can Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So I got some of those. I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: crack them open and celebrate, um because it's five five
Speaker 1: o'clock somewhere. Does that land Does that work Pringles? Yes? So,
Speaker 1: I mean it is possible to get drunk on that
Speaker 1: dust man. That that's stuff corrupt you. You can go
Speaker 1: straight to you. Like I said, it is, it is
Speaker 1: a it is. It is challenging you to not become
Speaker 1: an addict of their product. Where you pop, you can't stop.
Speaker 1: You're never by the way, that you're never gonna get
Speaker 1: as satisfying a pop as when you actually pop not
Speaker 1: only the little plastic lid, but the vacuum sealed little
Speaker 1: pull tab. You know, that's when you get the real
Speaker 1: It's like an air lock. I mean it literally is
Speaker 1: like an air lock. It But at this point, you know,
Speaker 1: there's more stuff we want to get to. We know
Speaker 1: we're we're going a little we're going a little long,
Speaker 1: but we've just opened the door on Pringle's lore for
Speaker 1: you fell over to iculous historians. Uh, maybe we can
Speaker 1: close out by naming some of the weird flavors of
Speaker 1: Pringles past, But before we do that. I think the uh,
Speaker 1: I think the most important part of today's episode is
Speaker 1: just to say welcome back. Man. Uh, this is such
Speaker 1: a fun ride. Pringles is awesome. We're gonna record some
Speaker 1: more in the future, but it's it's it's really good
Speaker 1: to have here. Yeah. Thanks, And just you know, just
Speaker 1: a quick heads up. I had mentioned my my my
Speaker 1: encounter with a mortician earlier and finding out some of
Speaker 1: the odd things that one can place cremains in, and
Speaker 1: that was because I was unfortunately a very similar situation
Speaker 1: that you were in not to really long ago. Man,
Speaker 1: that's kind of crazy. Um, very unexpectedly lost my mother
Speaker 1: and UM, I was dealing with all of that stuff,
Speaker 1: and and it's just kind of been a lot and
Speaker 1: thankfully so many wonderful listeners have reached out, and you know,
Speaker 1: I did share this online and um just said such
Speaker 1: kind things in terms of like, oh, you're listening to
Speaker 1: your podcast helps me when I lost a loved one,
Speaker 1: or just you know, just sending kind words. And uh,
Speaker 1: it's just nice to know that that that what we
Speaker 1: do here means something to you, and and these things
Speaker 1: that you sent back to us means something to us. Uh. No,
Speaker 1: question about it. So I felt really supported. And obviously
Speaker 1: you and super producer Max and everyone on stuff that
Speaker 1: I wants you to know have been incredibly kind and
Speaker 1: um and supportive while it's been out, And um, just
Speaker 1: if you can't tell, I'm excited to be back because
Speaker 1: this is this work and doing these these these episodes
Speaker 1: and hanging with you guys and talking about nerdy stuff
Speaker 1: really is uh a pretty great way of spending my time.
Speaker 1: And UM, I'm very lucky that it's something that I
Speaker 1: actually get, we get paid for it, so nobody get
Speaker 1: paid nobody, Yeah, nobody right to yes man, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: And you and I are gonna be on the road
Speaker 1: uh later actually in a few hours technically, Uh, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be We're gonna be heading out to uh Texas.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be hanging in person Max. Out of respect
Speaker 1: for you, We're not going to get in a hot
Speaker 1: tub together, which is another episode. No no, no no,
Speaker 1: I would argue that we we need to get into
Speaker 1: a hot tub justus, you and I Ben, So finally
Speaker 1: there can we can get rid of this whole you know,
Speaker 1: this divide of who's been in hot tubs together and
Speaker 1: who hasn't no, no offense, man. But I think I
Speaker 1: think I think the problem Ben has that I haven't
Speaker 1: been in a hot tub with him. I know that
Speaker 1: just feeling I'm getting because you know, you and I
Speaker 1: have been multiple times, but remember multiple times, and we've
Speaker 1: had Frank there before also and stuff. Yeah we've touched feet,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, this is it was like it was
Speaker 1: like hours upon hours been by the way. Okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: you're okay, let's let's dial it back. One peg. Shout
Speaker 1: out to everybody who got that vote. Get reference with bocanism.
Speaker 1: Um I jeez, uh we promised you know what we
Speaker 1: did do we are going to be on the road. Uh.
Speaker 1: We're friends and family here and if you're listening, we
Speaker 1: consider you family too, So thank you for being part
Speaker 1: of the show. Uh. Zack went above and beyond and
Speaker 1: found some absolutely ridiculous true pringles flavors. I gotta tell you,
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with a lot of these, nule but prosecco
Speaker 1: and pink peppercorn. We have to mention. We have to
Speaker 1: mention this because yeah, that we're gonna get into the
Speaker 1: whole weird flavorless because there's there's a bunch of them,
Speaker 1: much like if you go to Asian markets you can
Speaker 1: find really interesting oddball flavors of Lais like you know,
Speaker 1: crab and and things like that, and also much more
Speaker 1: off the beaten path flavors of kit cats. But these
Speaker 1: were like sort of goofs, I guess you could you
Speaker 1: are you are? Like regional kind of peculiarities that that
Speaker 1: the Pringles did, but the prosecco one actually got them
Speaker 1: in trouble. There's an organization in France called the AOC,
Speaker 1: not to be confused with Alejandro or Tasio cortez um.
Speaker 1: This is a French um I guess government body to
Speaker 1: the appal Lean de Gene control the AOC, which is
Speaker 1: a a division that determines the provenance of particular wines
Speaker 1: um that that are that are you know, from grapes
Speaker 1: growing in a particular region, and it basically enforces what
Speaker 1: labels you can put on them. So that's why you
Speaker 1: know Champagne if you remember the amazing speech from Benjamin
Speaker 1: played by Rob Low in Wayne's World, Actually, if it's
Speaker 1: not from the Champagne region of France, it's called sparkling wine. Uh. Actually,
Speaker 1: if you did not know, So that's the thing Prosecco
Speaker 1: also refers to one of these designations, and the fact
Speaker 1: that Pringles called a junk food chip prosecco, that was
Speaker 1: a real problem for for this organization. If I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: they came down on them pretty hard. Yeah. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: don't mess around with the prosecco. Uh. And also I
Speaker 1: love what you're saying about these regional flavors. I was.
Speaker 1: I was recently abroad for some stuff in a couple
Speaker 1: of different countries, and one thing I found is, uh,
Speaker 1: paprika as a flavor is super popular. There are parts
Speaker 1: of Europe where paprika is in like everything. Imagine your
Speaker 1: favorite food, now add paprika on top of that bad boy.
Speaker 1: In Germany, it's by far the just most traditional standard chip.
Speaker 1: It's just paprico flavorite chips. It's probably what you would
Speaker 1: maybe compared to barbecue. But you know, there's a similar
Speaker 1: and there's similarity to those players. By the way, I
Speaker 1: just have to correct myself. Prosecco is Italian and the
Speaker 1: AOC that is a specifically French organization that governs you know,
Speaker 1: French wines. This there there's a similar you know analog
Speaker 1: in Italy and um The region that prosecco comes from
Speaker 1: is called Venito, and there was an investigation by this
Speaker 1: body and they determined that this was like way out
Speaker 1: of off base for Pringles to do, and they apparently
Speaker 1: seized hundreds of cans from supermarkets in that region. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, this if podcasting doesn't work out, let's start
Speaker 1: like moving off the books Pringles flavors. I tell you
Speaker 1: there would be a huge market in the United States.
Speaker 1: We would be like those guys who figured out how
Speaker 1: to get kinder eggs into the States, Remember those how
Speaker 1: you can't like have kindred anyway, I'm fueled by coffee.
Speaker 1: I'm jet lagged. Attack Sorry guys, Well that's that's and yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm glad to have you back as well. Ben. By
Speaker 1: the way, um, no spoilers, I'll leave it to you
Speaker 1: to discuss your secret travels. But yeah, jet lag. Indeed, honestly,
Speaker 1: sometimes being punchy or sleep deprived or jet lag makes
Speaker 1: for fun podcasting. So, as you mentioned, Ben, these a
Speaker 1: lot of these were specialty, kind of limited you know, uh,
Speaker 1: flavors that were really more for like a kind of
Speaker 1: a pr move or like you know, sort of like
Speaker 1: a promotional kind of like thing um to create buzz
Speaker 1: around these goofy flavors. So let's name a few others
Speaker 1: that are super weird. There's a ton this like like
Speaker 1: a big old list of these. Um kicking off some
Speaker 1: of these. Yeah, sweet mayo, wait for it, cheese, I'm sorry, finally,
Speaker 1: said one person at Bringles Corporate. Uh there's also Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's also uh, this one's interesting to me, lemon and sesame.
Speaker 1: I think that's very artistic combination, it really is. That
Speaker 1: is very delicate sounding. And again some of these probably
Speaker 1: are in Asian market as well, things like soft shell
Speaker 1: crab for example. Then you have yeah, and you've got
Speaker 1: some of these sweet ones like pumpkin pie. I remember
Speaker 1: punkin pieprinkles being on the shelves here in America. It
Speaker 1: was a Chris it was a Halloween fall type promotion.
Speaker 1: And it's the kind of thing that it may sense
Speaker 1: where they do these sort of like hot take kind
Speaker 1: of like weird out their flavors because people are gonna
Speaker 1: post about them, people are gonna do TikTok videos or
Speaker 1: they like try one and make a face even if
Speaker 1: it's gross. That's kind of the point some of the time,
Speaker 1: and flavor science. I think we're both fascinated by We've
Speaker 1: got Grand Canyon French fries. Is that like rocky Mountain oysters?
Speaker 1: What are do it? It might be parts of a
Speaker 1: donkey or something. I mean, Zach points out that's oddly specific.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and Max, Max is just yelling no, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the Grand Canyon French fries the is the
Speaker 1: penis in thet It's too late, Max, We've spoken into existence. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's also spaghetti. French consume eggs sandwich is probably my
Speaker 1: least favorite of these. Weird how would you even do that?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know again, flavor science is interesting too,
Speaker 1: because it's it requires so much approximation, Like we have
Speaker 1: not reached Willy Wonka levels of like oh that's it's
Speaker 1: exactly like like piece soup or whatever. You know, it's
Speaker 1: always some weird kind of trick of the mind, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like that makes you sort of
Speaker 1: it's sort of like it's like you waived a Christmas
Speaker 1: turkey over this chip and then that's what you know?
Speaker 1: And what do they say about the flavors of Lacroix.
Speaker 1: It's like somebody whispered the name of a flirt in
Speaker 1: the next room. You know, balsamic vinegar, uh, seeweed, top
Speaker 1: Ramen chicken. You know what's funny about that, Ben, what
Speaker 1: is ramen? The pre package Ramen. It's just all about
Speaker 1: flavor powder. So it'll be really easy to make an
Speaker 1: exact top Ramen chicken chip because us the same the
Speaker 1: same dust. You're on just something. No, this is a
Speaker 1: great idea. You're on just something here, and I think
Speaker 1: we should pursue it. But uh, for legal reasons, we
Speaker 1: might pursue this off air and come back to you
Speaker 1: once we've Once we've talked with wonderful folks at Ramen.
Speaker 1: Why haven't we done an instant noodles episode? I did
Speaker 1: a stuff of genius about the creation of instant noodles
Speaker 1: and he's awesome. We should totally do that. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: a great idea. No, absolutely is a thing even down
Speaker 1: to like I remember kids in in in uh high
Speaker 1: in high school or in middle school would bring just
Speaker 1: the ramen to school and just crushed, like eat the brick, eat,
Speaker 1: eat the eat the brick of noodles and like you know,
Speaker 1: dip it in the in the dust. We've got just
Speaker 1: a few more of these. We have to while the
Speaker 1: the credits are rolling. Now we use some French I
Speaker 1: could be interesting. You know you have you ever had
Speaker 1: those bullion cubes? You know that you can make like
Speaker 1: broth similar flavor science principle, you know, meat flavored dust. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we are. Some of those sweet ones, aren't Maybe for
Speaker 1: me blueberry and hazel nuts. You might have to be
Speaker 1: at the right cafe in Amsterdam for that. That's a
Speaker 1: joke for the adults. Um, we talked about Grand Canyon
Speaker 1: French fries. Yeah, okay, yeah, we really yes, that know
Speaker 1: the entire time it well, it's all right, Max, We
Speaker 1: respect your boundaries. So you can have a packet of
Speaker 1: brushetta or tube brushetta Pringles what what a Spanish saltsa pizza?
Speaker 1: If you don't even know what that is? If you
Speaker 1: have to ask, No, I'm just kidding, honestly. The one
Speaker 1: I'm most interested about is the butter popcorn because if
Speaker 1: you guys remember this, butter popcorn jelly bean is considered
Speaker 1: the most offensive one ever chemically. I like that. I
Speaker 1: like it. Well, we're gonna have to We're gonna have
Speaker 1: to get Pringles on board. I bet you there is
Speaker 1: a museum or there is a room at Pringles Corporate
Speaker 1: wherever that is where they have like Indiana Jones style
Speaker 1: top men looking at these crates and crates of Pringles.
Speaker 1: We need to get in the Pringles Lab. Nol gotta
Speaker 1: go there. I'm speaking. I'm putting it on the vision board, man,
Speaker 1: that we've been working on ever since this show started,
Speaker 1: Pringles Food Lab. So while we are working on our
Speaker 1: vision board, we want to put we want to slap
Speaker 1: a couple more things on that. And uh, the things
Speaker 1: we're slapping on the vision board today, as always, are
Speaker 1: our thank you's. Thanks to super producer Max Williams. Thanks
Speaker 1: to Alex Williams, Thanks to Casey Pegram, Thanks to our
Speaker 1: fellow ridiculous historians. No extra big prosecco and pink peppercorn
Speaker 1: flavored thanks to you, my friend. Oh man, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: sounds delightful. What is the prosecco would probably just give
Speaker 1: it a little a little sweet, kind of like pop,
Speaker 1: and then the peppercorn would be kind of a spicy things.
Speaker 1: When I were about funky mustard, why has it gotta
Speaker 1: be funky? But I don't like what did the bool
Speaker 1: called things funky? That's good music? Should music should be funky.
Speaker 1: I don't think flavored. When people say like, oh this this,
Speaker 1: this beer is funky, they're like, you know, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't like that, Like it's gone back. Like flavors
Speaker 1: that have that trigger sentence asia, you know, like the
Speaker 1: like a lot of soft drinks or sports drinks are
Speaker 1: really good at that. Like what flavor is the blue Gatorade?
Speaker 1: What's going on? The pool cleaner? Not a fan I see,
Speaker 1: but no, I love it. It just looks like I
Speaker 1: will always think that when I see it. It doesn't Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've never tasted toilet pool cleaner, but uh, there's something
Speaker 1: about that that that that neon bright blue. This makes
Speaker 1: me think of the stuff that Sarah Connor is going
Speaker 1: to shoot into that psych Ward Doctors. Yeah, let's also think, uh,
Speaker 1: the Sarah Connor of our show, Christopher hasciotis. I don't know,
Speaker 1: that's just like it. I don't know if that reference
Speaker 1: speaks sense. It's a test to see if Chris is
Speaker 1: tuning in. Who else should we think, Oh gosh, he's
Speaker 1: Jeff Cote, Christopher Hastiotes, both here in spirit and you know,
Speaker 1: corporeally somewhere doing things. Jonathan Strickland. I really am sad
Speaker 1: that I did not get to witness his, you know,
Speaker 1: real life transformation from a bild mannered podcaster to a
Speaker 1: diabolical quiz fiend. So but you know what, maybe that
Speaker 1: was better that way. Maybe maybe it would have changed
Speaker 1: me in ways that I wasn't prepared for him. Something
Speaker 1: tells me we'll run into that guy again. Well, in
Speaker 1: the meantime, we'll see you next time. Books. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.