We're wrapping this season up with an episode all about gifts and presents! Remember Tickle Me Elmo, Razor scooters, and the Talk Boy? Then take a walk down memory lane with Colin's hottest toy challenge. Learn about a present you should never give yourself from the hardware store, and Dana's got a list of Christmas song presents and she's checking it twice. And Karen's writing gift tags in "From Country with Love," a quiz about country-to-country gifting traditions. Also: horror bird statue, and the thrilling conclusion to our puzzle adventure with Carmin San Mateo. For advertising inquiries, please contact sales@advertisecast.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Good Job, Brain!

224: Today is a Gift, That's Why It’s Called "The Present"

It's elementary, my dear Watson! Find the hidden element name in Colin's quiz. Karen discovers her beloved childhood TV elementals have a strange and strong tie to Bruce Springsteen. There are 11 periodic elements whose symbols are not represented by their names. Chris finds out how and why that is, while sharing some bonkers facts about how some elements got their names. Relax the mind and play "Oh you mean...?" - the debut of Dana's very experimental homophone phrase game where we completely lost it! And it's our last Carmin San Mateo puzzle as we inch closer and closer. For advertising inquiries, please contact sales@advertisecast.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

223: Braving the Elements

We're all seeing double this week now that we've made it to our 222nd episode. We don our raccoonnookkeeper uniforms for Chris' double letter Scrabble word challenge but this time, it's all about words that strangely begin with twinning letters. Celebrate human-animal pals in this Dana's duo quiz, and learn weird facts about reduplicated cities that are so nice, they named them twice: Walla Walla, Pago Pago, and what exactly is so funny about Canada's Saint-Louis-du-Ha!-Ha!? Buy low and sell high in Colin's corporate partnership quiz with some mind-melting trivia behind famous companies. And of course, we're traveling to our third destination in space trying to catch Carmin San Mateo and her greaser henchwoman, Didi Connvict. For advertising inquiries, please contact sales@advertisecast.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

222: It Takes Two 2

Ah hah! We trapped Laura E. Hall (author of Planning Your Escape, puzzle maker, and escape room designer) into a bonus interview with Chris! Can she escape before Chris starts overloading her with Fleetwood Mac facts? We are delighted to debut our first ever one-on-one interview special with Laura, a bona fide expert and pioneer in the field of escape room and immersive experience design. Laura shares some history, behind-the-scenes accounts, and stories about seeing way too many butts. And remember, the real prize is the friendships we made along the way, so Laura discusses ways for people to best come together and work together without ruining relationships! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bonus Episode: Escape Rooms with Laura E. Hall!

Get hype for type and go gooey for Dewey because this week, it's all about books, writing, and reading! Dana's quiz about famous librarians gets us jumping from page to page, and Karen's graphic novel quiz gets us hopping from panel to panel. Colin dives deep into the Microsoft archives to discover the dramatic origin of Comic Sans, and the man behind this typeface phenomenon. Discover what common words and phrases we use everyday actually stem from the tradition of the printing press. And do you ever wonder why books have a certain smell? Our own chronic book sniffer Chris is on the chemical case! Also: Where in outer space is Carmin San Mateo? For advertising inquiries, please contact sales@advertisecast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

221: It's Another One for the Books

Hope you have a lot of toast handy because it's a jam-packed episode! Karen puts on "LollaPUPlooza" - THE festival for dog breed trivia! We dive into the crayon box and explore some of the more quizzical Crayola color names. And it's the return of "First in Line" where we try to identify movies solely by their first few words. 4x4? 45 record? Colin gets us to play "What's That Number" that's all about meaningful numbers in everyday names. Artist Nigel Sussman drops by for Pop Quiz, and tells us all about the mouth-watering piece he has created for us that's now available in our new merch store. And we're still trying to catch Carmin San Mateo who has our trivia prize! Help us find the next location! For advertising inquiries, please contact sales@advertisecast.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

220: ALL QUIZ BONANZA! #44

Hold on to your butts and get ready for a trivia-filled escape adventure this week! We asked Dani & Bill from Escape This Podcast to create and run a surprise audio trivia escape room just for us. Come fuse into our skin-meld quadrabody for some intrigue, puzzles, quiz questions, and laughs in this loving ode to pub quiz. For advertising inquiries, please contact sales@advertisecast.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

219: Special - Escape This Pub Quiz

These trivia pretzels are making us thirsty because we are upping our sodium intake this week to celebrate the crystalline savory goodness that is salt. Learn how people absolutely and hilariously dunked on Thomas Jefferson and his quest for the mysterious and legendary "salt mountain." Take Dana's salty quiz, and take a trivia joyride with Colin across the Bonneville Salt Flats, and find out why car commercials are always being filmed there. And get ready for a truly wild, wild, wild origin story behind the humble barnacle. ALSO: World Porridge Making Championship, NACL word quiz For advertising inquiries, please contact sales@advertisecast.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

218: Are You Worth Your Salt?

Just call us Selina Kyle as we leap from cat quiz to cat quiz in this week's special feline feature. After waiting for eight long years, Chris finally gets to share part two of "Fictional Cats!" Karen's got questions all about foods deceptively named after feline body parts, and Dana's got a quite the catalogue of cattery categories. And let's celebrate astounding cat super powers - why their eyes glow, and what is up with that butt wiggle? Also: bee poo For advertising inquiries, please contact sales@advertisecast.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

217: It's the Cat's Meow!

We can have a whole debate about the most disliked Halloween candy, but Chris goes the extra mile of hate-researching his sugar nemesis: Necco Wafers. Get trapped in a mansion with Karen and the golden rules of detective murder mystery writing, and the origin behind "the butler did it." The story behind the first (and maybe only) photograph of a zombie and author Zora Neale Hurston's fascination with Haitian voodoo culture. And let's build a haunted house with science - amazing facts behind the most common spooky decor that's probably around you right now! For advertising inquiries, please contact sales@advertisecast.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

216: Happy Halloween! #3

We're blasting into season three with a special All Quiz featuring signature classic quizzes and listeners' faves! Dana's got the help of AI this time as we decipher which Lifetime movie titles are real or generated by a bot. We get a visit from our favorite bardy bard and the funky bunch, William Fakespeare. Let's play a round of "Drop a Deuce" and Colin's international food quiz. And which King is which in "Carole or Stephen?" and last but not least, we end with a listener-submitted round of "Brad Pitt or Lasers." For advertising inquiries, please contact sales@advertisecast.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

215: ALL QUIZ BONANZA! #43

It's our last episode of this season, and it has been such a wonderful homecoming, so let's celebrate with trivia all about house and home! Famous fictional addresses, animal nest vocab test, and it's all water under the house in this homey English expressions quiz. Take a twisty cruise with Karen, and meet the master squisher of the household, Victor Mills. Also: James Taylor, Decathlon challenge, we announce our inaugural Good Job, Brain! Charity Fund grant recipients.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

214: There's No Place Like Home

It's our last episode of this season, and it has been such a wonderful homecoming, so let's celebrate with trivia all about houses, abodes, domiciles, nests, pads, and dens! Famous fictional addresses, animal nest vocab test, and it's all water under the house in this homey English expressions quiz. Take a twisty cruise with Karen, traveling all the way from Bermuda and right into your home. And meet the master squisher of the household, Victor Mills. Also: James Taylor, Decathlon challenge, we announce our inaugural Good Job, Brain! Charity Fund grant recipients.

It's our last episode of this season, and it has been such a wonderful homecoming, so let's celebrate with trivia all about houses, abodes, domiciles, nests, pads, and dens! Famous fictional addresses, animal nest vocab test, and it's all water under the house in this homey English expressions quiz. Take a twisty cruise with Karen, traveling all the way from Bermuda and right into your home. And meet the master squisher of the household, Victor Mills. Also: James Taylor, Decathlon challenge, we announce our inaugural Good Job, Brain! Charity Fund grant recipients. 

Let’s melt our brains with a trivia-filled celebration all about TV! Can you figure out what films these funny newspaper TV summaries by Rick Polito are describing? Dana tests us on the most watched moments in world history, and Karen tries to find the weakest link in her game show quiz. Colin takes us on a wild ride about NBA TV rights that starts with Will Ferrell, makes a pitstop at KFC, and then ends with the greatest deal in sports history. Find yourself trapped in a TV show? Take this quiz to escape Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

213: Watch Party

It's our bonus episode all about game shows with our first ever panel of experts! Join Karen and former game show contestants Elliot, Amy, and Tyler in a roundtable about what’s it like being on a game show. Elliot schools us on how to best prepare, work, and earn your win. What’s it like filming during COVID? What was Amy’s winning strategy on Supermarket Sweep? Find out how much Karen has to pay in taxes for her winnings, while Tyler shares his hot book-stacking tips for call backs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bonus Episode: Being on a Game Show 101

Part quiz show, part offbeat trivia, and all awesome. We here are nuts about trivia and pub quiz! And we are darn sure there are people out there who share our unusual obsession. Play along and laugh along as Karen, Colin, Dana, and Chris school each other on some of the weirdest and most interesting facts about our funny little world. Do you relish beating your friends at Trivial Pursuit? Do you blab out the answers at the gym when Jeopardy! is on? And don't you just loathe badly worded questions? Gggrraahhh! Then this podcast, fellow trivia nut, is the ultimate mental nutrition for your very big brain. So eat up!

hubhopper

Good Job, Brain!

hubhopper