PG’s Playhouse: Puzzles, games, trivia, & general nerdery

You're starving, sweaty, exhausted, and your best friend on the island just stabbed you in the back. Ahead, a giant obstacle course awaits, with a complex puzzle afterwards. And you've got to juggle all this while outmaneuvering a bunch of other contestants all hungry for the win. With over 49 seasons, Survivor is one of reality television's longest running shows. Steven Fishbach, runner-up on Sur...

Have you ever cooked with molasses? It's so gooey and sticky that it can literally pull the fillings out of your teeth if you're not careful. Now imagine a 15-foot wave of molasses coming towards you at a glacial but inevitable pace. Today, we're diving into one of the stickiest disasters in American history, The Great Molasses Flood of 1919 in Boston, MA. Special guest Emily Jillette joins us aga...

Long before uranium became synonymous with weapons of mass destruction, it was mostly serving as a decorative function. Glassblowers and glass factories would add a tiny bit of uranium to their glass, which gave it that distinctive yellowish green color. It also created a fluorescent effect under blacklight. David explores the history and back ground of this collector's item. Emily Jillette, noted...

" It might be an affront to the laws of physics." In this episode of PG's Playhouse, we're going vertical! Today's topic is Frank Lloyd Wright's Nuclear Powered Elevator. Why would you need nuclear power for an elevator? Well, because it was designed to service a skyscraper stretching a mile upwards. David breaks down this totally bonkers skyscraper design that never ended up being built. Guest Sa...

"Recycling or Wish Cycling?" The next time you go to toss that plastic container in the recycling bin, you might actually be doing more harm than good. In this episode, David gives us some cold hard facts about recycling correctly. As it turns out, the majority of objects we're chucking in the recycling bin require more consideration than you'd think. More often than not, we're just sending items...

"A very popular way to assassinate your rivals." What's a peasant to do when you're in the midst of an uprising and faced with armored knights and lords? Throw them out the windows! Apparently, this was such a popular way to assassinate your rivals that a term was coined to describe such an act: defenestration. David gives us a short lesson on the history of defenestration and why it was such a fa...

In this sponsored episode, we're joined by puzzle writer John Bromels, who created the Hive: The Race to Save Time puzzle hunt , inspired by the new sci-fi novel Hive , book 1 of the Madders of Time series by best-selling author DL Orton. Check out the details below for dates and how to play. John shares all the details of how he crafted this puzzle hunt to accommodate puzzlers of all skill levels...

" Is there a whole lot of murdering going on?" This week, we're talking Assassination by Umbrella, a slightly morbid topic inspired by our guests, Marcus Richardson and Nathan Hicken, co-hosts of the Aurelius Whitlock's Murder Museum podcast. Researching the game takes a dark and surprising turn when Peih-Gee, acting upon David's suggestion, finds herself in a shadowy corner of the internet. David...

" The missing ingredient here is love." This episode we're talking everything bagels! These chewy, crunchy, carbalicious treats are one of my favorite foods. Brent Pope, host of the popular Brentfast podcast, joins us again to dive into the culinary delight that is the bagel. David gives us a short history of the bagel, including its origins and what makes New York bagels so darn delicious. Also,...

" It's important for us to all know and celebrate Sir James Arthur Fool, who created the holiday in 1872." Joke’s on you, April Fools’ Day... I can be fooled any day of the year. Actor, comedian, and podcaster Brent Pope joins us to explore the mysterious origins of April Fool's Day. We talk about some favorite pranks, and David almost pulls a fast one on me. We also talk about the difficulties of...

Every year, thousands of people (including me) gather in the Mojave Desert to live out their wildest cyberpunk fantasies. Jared Butler, owner and creator of the immersive festivals Wasteland Weekend and Neotropolis joins us this week to chat about Neotropolis, including the ever-evolving larp and missions aspect. We also talk about the variety of experiences available, including the interactive mo...

"Technology will not save us." In the shadow of neon-lit streets, kids are jacked in and tuned out. This is the world of cyberpunk, a genre with a view on what the future can look like when technology goes awry. Jared Butler joins us to explore “cyberpunk” as a genre and what it means. Jared Butler is a voice actor who has also created two incredibly immersive desert festivals—the Mad Max-inspired...

" If we're only going to get one trip to the salad bar, we're really going to make that one trip count." Only one trip to the salad bar? Lettuce really make it count. David's wife Lisa Spira, co-founder of Room Escape Artist, joins us again for a trip to the salad bars of Pizza Hut China. Pizza Hut has developed many innovative market strategies, including stuffed crust pizza and PizzaNet, but whe...

“High Risk, High Reward.” Fighting for fame, fortune, and glory? As it turns out, women also fought as gladiators. Just as with sports today, women in the ancient Roman empire had to battle stereotypes, societal norms, and adverse conditions to win a bit of freedom for themselves. Lisa Spira, David’s wife and co-founder of Roomescapeartist.com joins us on this episode exploring gladiatrix, the fem...

What's a day of family fun at Walt Disney World without churros, Cinderella's Magic Castle, and a show so terrifying they had to strap down the hapless guests to keep them from fleeing? In today's episode, we talk about the short-lived, bone-chilling attraction, The Extraterrorestrial Alien Encounter. This attraction only existed for eight short years, but it made quite an impact, earning the dist...

Theresa doesn’t sleep on the weekends, she says sleep is for the week. What is sleep, and why do we need it? Our podcast producer Theresa Piazza joins us to explore this bizarre activity that we spend almost half our lives doing. We talk about what happens when you don't get enough sleep, and share some tips and tricks for how to fall asleep when the dreaded insomnia hits. Theresa also shares some...

The story of the bat bomb begins as so many horrible things do: with a dental surgeon in Pennsylvania who had some connection to Eleanor Roosevelt. In this episode, David tells the story of a completely insane weapon that was built and tested during the World War 2 era, but was ultimately never used. Bill Sunderland and Dani Siller of Escape This Podcast join us again to dive down the rabbit hole...

Blank? Blankety blank! No, we're not censored. Rather, we're filling in the blanks to solve the mystery sleuthing game The Rise of the Golden Idol. This game plays a little bit like a graphic novel, where you're given images of fictional crime scenes and you need to figure out the order of events. What sets this game apart is the unique mechanics and fun storytelling elements. Guests Bill Sunderla...

"Death Chalk... is it death chalk?" Escape This Podcast? But we're just getting started! Of course we couldn't have a game show style podcast without having our good friends from Escape This Podcast on to share the fun. Bill Sunderland and Dani Siller, hosts of the popular audio escape room style podcast, join us this week to run a mini-puzzle for us that involves David having to put on some makeu...

What a tee-rific idea! Today we're talking minigolf, the entertaining twist on a classic sport with an interesting history. Anne & Chris Lukeman, owners of CU Adventures in Time and Space join us again to tackle a subject very close to their heart. As they tell us in the episode, they're taking everything they know about creating amazing escape rooms and applying it to their new venture, Parca...

What's a roadtrip without a visit to that Giant Ball of Twine or a glimpse of a giant Muffler Man? If the sign says "World Famous" anything, I'm pulling over for it. Our guests today are Anne & Chris Lukeman, owners of CU Adventures in Time and Space, an escape room company in Illinois. They love roadside attractions, and in fact, their escape room business was inspired by a road trip to House...

Remember Y2K? The end-of-the-world that came and went without a hitch? Guest Tommy Honton joins us again to explore what really went down in this episode of PG's Playhouse. Our game today is called New Beginnings, where we take the names of old fads and transform them into something new by changing the first letter. David then walks us through a short history of Y2K, the fear mongering about a glo...

In the inaugural episode of PG's Playhouse, Peih-Gee Law and David Spira are joined by immersive creator Tommy Honton to explore the controversial topic of whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie. We kick off with a game called "Christmas-fied" where non-Christmas movies are transformed into Christmas-themed titles by adding festive song lyrics. We also discuss Die Hard's Christmas credentials, and...