Commute | The Podcast

In the late 1980s, the Walt Disney Corporation decided to start work on what it hoped would be the next signature ride at Disney World. The ride would be like nothing park guests had ever seen - a horror ride.  Heinz is one of the most reliable giants in the condiment industry. But what about that time it changed the color of ketchup? The movie ends, but people still sit there. Where did post-cred...

1) When Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark on their famous western expedition, it wasn’t just to find more opportunities for commerce. Instead, Jefferson had a bizarrely personal request for the adventurers. 2) Unlike much of the world, public restrooms are free to use in America. But why, and are we better off because of it? 3) There have been 275 million copies of Monopoly sold worldwide sinc...

It’s a hot summer day, and you pull into a McDonald’s drive-thru only to learn that the ice cream machine isn’t working. Again. Why does that happen so often? Every Easter, they return like weeds - Peeps, the marshmallowy, chick-shaped candy, and every year there seem to be even more. Is there any way to stop them?? Companies often go beyond traditional advertising campaigns to pay for their produ...

It’s every sports fan's daydream - to suit up and play for a real professional team. In one major sports league, it really happens. The Democratic and Republican parties are defined by many things - including colorful animal mascots. We’ll tell you why. Online shopping is used by everyone. Resell options like Craig’s List or Facebook Marketplace are used by many of us. Bad experiences and civ...

Emojis are an essential part of how we communicate with each other. But where did they come from? And what do we do if we want to create a new one? More than  30 years ago, Nirvana released an album with a naked baby in a swimming pool on the cover. That baby is now a man, and he isn’t too happy about it.  When an actor dies, is it unethical to create a virtual reality version of them for future m...

Since its release in the 1960s, the Easy Bake Oven has regularly appeared on many “most successful toy of all time” lists, but it occasionally is found on a few less-than-desirable lists as well. Are we headed for a future where we gaze into the night sky and see the moon featuring a car dealership ad? Advances in artificial intelligence dominate the headlines, but this week we aren’t exploring th...

If you’re a millennial or older, there’s a decent chance that you had to learn to square dance in elementary school gym class. The reason why may be darker than you think. Last night was the Super Bowl. Many of us only tune in for the commercials, but did you notice a glaring difference from those we saw a year ago? The Savannah Bananas are making baseball more fun than ever. What is this team doi...

Over 100 years ago, Charles Ponzi launched a scheme so wildly but only temporarily successful that his name would come to represent all similar schemes that followed. And, boy, would they follow.  The economy is currently in flux, leading to price instability on just about everything, except for AriZona Tea. It costs the same .99 cents today that it did 30 years ago. Chuck E. Cheese has continued...

If you’re one of millions who recently failed to get Taylor Swift concert tickets, this one’s for you. Why so few options when it comes to purchasing event tickets? The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic reckoning of the world’s proximity to man-made Armageddon. Sometimes it even goes the other way. Does the state of the clock matter? Depends on who you ask. He was your first social media connection, bu...

Suddenly, eggs are expensive. Maybe inflation. Maybe … something else? Artificial intelligence has become an engine of content creation. But who owns the content it creates? Nike & Michael Jordan built and dominated the high-end shoe industry. It almost fell apart, though, before a young, inexperienced shoe designer got the call. - Don's miss Jay as a guest cohost on the PandaVision Podca...

The D.A.R.E. Program had an admirable goal - to educate elementary age kids about the dangers of drug use, hoping the lessons would carry into adulthood. Did it work? Or did it somehow do the opposite? Pepsi is always looking for the next great promotion - something to build the brand, sell the product and challenge Coke for soft drink supremacy. They usually give away a free hat or beach towel, b...

We lost another Hollywood celebrity recently, but this one was atypical in many ways. For starters, he wasn’t human. We’ve all experienced disappointment in our lives, and we deal with it uniquely. For some tourists visiting a particular European city, can the shock of letdown be enough to cause a medical emergency? We’ve talked about jingles before on the show, but this one is the granddaddy of t...

For over 100 years we have enjoyed a shared experience (for those of us still awake) when we count down the final minute of the year together for the big ball drop in New York City. Let’s be honest, though - isn’t this somewhat weird? While it wasn’t selected as the Word of the Year, Wordle was the most googled word in 2022 and swept the nation with its simplicity of play and addictive nature. But...

We’ve all sung it, though we can’t always name all 12 items in order (Hint: lots of birds). Where did this strange song come from? Every holiday season a big man in red dusts off his finest jacket, combs out his white beard.. and heads to your local mall. It may seem simple, but being a Mall Santa is not for the faint of heart. Did fighting really stop for a night so opposing sides could enjoy Chr...

Often companies must defend their good names in the face of public criticism. Crockpot is one such company, only it took a different approach than most. Every end of the year, social media gets bombarded with images of Spotify user’s wrapped reports - a list songs and artists most listened to by a user during the past year. But is this actually one of Spotify’s best advertising tools? In 1969, the...

How much would you pay for celebrity-endorsed designer shoes at the latest hip shoe store? When the luxury store Palessi opened in L.A., the answer was anywhere from $400 to over $1,000. There was only one problem. Palessi wasn’t a luxury shoe store - it was an experiment. When a couple of business-school classmates created their IT services website, rentahitman.com, they thought the name was quit...

Ep. 45. Replay: By most accounts, ten-year-old Ryan Kaji is just like any other normal kid - he likes cartoons, playing with toys, and making silly videos. Where Ryan starts to differ from your kid, though, is that he made $30 million last year.   Internet black markets are wild and unregulated places (don’t look it up - it’s not for the faint of the heart), but you can always find help there for...

A special (and a little shorter) holiday week edition of the show: With the holidays comes a lot of decisions. One of the biggest: should you take off your shoes when you enter someone else’s home? The Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions play football every year on Thanksgiving Day. Why those two? *** Episode Sources/Go Deeper: https://www.realsimple.com/home-organizing/cleaning/shoes-inside-house ht...

We just passed another election season so you know what that means - “I Voted” stickers are back! But do they really encourage higher voter turnout? And wait until you hear about the voting sticker of the year for 2022. For 1 billion people around the globe it happens twice a year - we set our clocks ahead or behind an hour because of Daylight Savings Time. Why? Will it always be this way? Wouldn’...

Ever had the feeling that you were being watched? Well, depending on where you live, chances are you actually might be. There are a lot of factors that play into a particular property’s value - updates, neighborhood, school district..and whether or not the house is haunted.  We’ve all heard it  - fake it till you make it. But is it true? We’ll explore if there’s any power in turning that frown ups...

There are few things that more accurately convey current culture than Halloween costume choices, but can they really predict a presidential election? It’s the official logo for Halloween - the jack o’ lantern. So, why did we start carving faces into vegetables? (From the archives) Halloween is today and, if you’re like most of us, you wait med until the last minute to get your costume, visiting a...

Rebroadcast of Ep. 56 Have a weird talent? Always had dreams of securing eternal glory with a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records? Figuring out your talent is the easy part. Author Stephen King is renown for creepy classics like The Shining & IT. But what about the time he found himself in a real-life suspense story?  G, PG, PG-13, R, and even NC-17. We know the movie rating system, but...

It’s been called “Satan’s Earwax.”  Every year at Halloween it reappears like some great plague - CANDY CORN. Where did it come from, and is it really so divisive?  They were the most popular attraction in Las Vegas until the magic and the act ended in a way that, sadly, wasn’t a surprise. We discuss the undoing of Siegfried and Roy. If you played video games in the 1990s, chances are you did it -...

In the 1960s and 1970s, it was an accepted form of cross-country travel until, suddenly, it wasn’t. Have you, would you … hitchhike? It’s back!! Every Fall, we can count on a few things - the leaves changing colors, the air getting colder, and the return of the pumpkin spice latte. Why is it so popular? And you can get a pumpkin scented WHAT?! The recent hurricane in Florida brought death, destruc...

Magnus Carlson is the Michael Jordan of the Chess world. When he recently lost to unknown Hans Niemann and then accused Niemann of cheating, was it sour grapes or does he have a point? Of all foods in the frozen food aisle of your local grocery store, none are as unusual as the fish stick. None are as interesting, either. The marathon is the crown jewel of running accomplishments. 26.2 miles is to...