OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:
Returning friendtestants (ph) are about to join us. They're here right now. Shalewa Sharpe and Gastor Almonte hosts the podcast "The War Report." Shalewa, Gastor, welcome back to ASK ME ANOTHER.
SHALEWA SHARPE: Hey. Thanks for having us.
GASTOR ALMONTE: What's good? What's good? Thanks for having us.
EISENBERG: So last time we talked a few months ago when we had you on the show, you know, we were talking about your podcast, "The War Report." How's it going?
SHARPE: Oh, it's going fine, although it seems to have become a place where we keep track of odd things.
EISENBERG: Odd things.
SHARPE: Like, we are very on top of billionaires going to space.
ALMONTE: Hmm.
EISENBERG: Yes. Well, it is a hot topic. Let's be honest.
SHARPE: It is. I'm not entirely sure why that seems to have become so important to us. I don't even like space, so...
EISENBERG: (Laughter).
JONATHAN COULTON: Or billionaires.
SHARPE: No. Yeah, I definitely don't like billionaires.
(LAUGHTER)
ALMONTE: I've also been very touched by the outpouring of support I've received by our listeners to show my calves more this coming summer. I realized recently that it's a point of pride if you got good calves. I didn't know that.
EISENBERG: Yeah. It's huge.
ALMONTE: I thought it was a joke my wife was playing on me. I've been covering them up for 38 years, but they coming out, you know, this summer. You're going to see them.
SHARPE: You got to let them out.
EISENBERG: It's a thing.
SHARPE: You got to let them dogs out.
EISENBERG: (Laughter).
ALMONTE: I didn't know. I got to tell you, by the way, if anybody wondering the key to - my key to great calves is I wear Timberland boots all year long.
EISENBERG: So you're always working them.
COULTON: (Laughter).
ALMONTE: It's a great workout. You know, summertime, I'm on the beach, still Timberland boots.
COULTON: Yeah.
ALMONTE: You know, so you don't see them, but trust me. They're getting, you know, regular calisthenic workouts.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: All right, you know what? Let's just let's chat more. Let's do some games. Shalewa, Gastor, are you ready for some games?
SHARPE: Yes.
ALMONTE: Let's do it.
EISENBERG: Ok, so this first game is called Who Owns What Now? Thanks to late-stage capitalism, many companies own other companies, brands or things that you might not expect. So we are going to give you a statement about our corporate hellscape, and you just tell us if it's true or false. That's it.
SHARPE: Ok.
EISENBERG: All right. You'll take turns answering questions. Here we go. Shalewa, if you ate too much at The Cheesecake Factory, good news. The Orangetheory chain of high-intensity interval training fitness classes is owned by the same parent company. Is that true or false?
SHARPE: Oh, wow. That's wild if true.
EISENBERG: Right?
SHARPE: (Laughter) What a racket.
EISENBERG: (Laughter).
SHARPE: I'm going to say, though - I'm going to say that is false because I feel like workout oranges would have hit the scene a lot sooner just based on how long we've been gorging ourselves at Cheesecake Factory.
COULTON: (Laughter).
EISENBERG: Cheesecake Factory - well, it's actually true.
SHARPE: What?
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: All right, Gastor, thanks to this company, you can get moist lips and a gleaming white toilet. Famous bleach maker The Clorox Company also owns the Burt's Bees brand of beeswax-based lip balm. True or false?
ALMONTE: Ok, I'm going to go with - it's got to be true. I feel like those chemicals, there's overlap in those chemicals and stuff - like the supplies. I feel like that's a two-for-one.
COULTON: Yeah, it is absolutely true. Clorox bought Burt's Bees in 2008 for almost a billion dollars, in part to diversify into green products.
SHARPE: (Laughter).
EISENBERG: Mmm hmm. Mmm hmm. Right?
COULTON: That belly laugh is absolutely correct, Shalewa.
SHARPE: Oh.
EISENBERG: Shalewa...
SHARPE: Yes?
EISENBERG: ...Mars, Inc. makes M&M's and Snickers. But if you're sick of eating human snacks, they also make Pedigree and Whiskas pet food. True or false?
SHARPE: I'm going to say that's false.
EISENBERG: It is true.
SHARPE: What?
COULTON: (Laughter).
EISENBERG: It is true. That's right. Mars, Inc. bought the Kal Kan pet food company in the 1960s. And since then, Kal Kan has been rebranded to Pedigree for dogs and Whiskas for cats. And Mars Bars also owns - let me see - Eukanuba, Iams, and other pet food and pet care brands.
ALMONTE: You know, that's why I stopped eating Combos - because they look like a brand of dog food.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: It totally looks like a dog snack. You're right.
EISENBERG: Yeah.
ALMONTE: Straight up. I loved it, but I was like, y'all, hold on. Like, I'm feeding this to Fido, and it's the same factory.
EISENBERG: It is.
SHARPE: Yeah, it's definitely a Snausage.
COULTON: All right, Gastor, the toy company Hasbro is committed to fun for all ages. Until recently, they owned Death Row Records, the '90s label that released Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" and Snoop Dogg's "Doggystyle." True or false?
ALMONTE: That can't be true. No. Oh, you're telling me Suge Knight got punked (ph) by the owners of, like, Barbie and, like, Monopoly? No, man. No way. No, Suge Knight would not let that happen. I'm going to go false.
COULTON: I appreciate your desire for it to be false, but it is absolutely true.
ALMONTE: What?
EISENBERG: Yes. Everything you love is ruined.
ALMONTE: Suge.
COULTON: Death Row filed for bankruptcy in 2006, and ownership changed hands a couple of times. And then its last owner was sold to Hasbro.
SHARPE: That is actually great news if Hasbro really wanted to, like, get in the game, you know what I mean?
COULTON: (Laughter).
EISENBERG: Some crossover. Some crossover.
SHARPE: Yeah, just some great, like, mix - a mixtape-based board game...
COULTON: Yeah.
SHARPE: ...Or - you know, where you have to walk around the block selling your CD. That would be fantastic. Patent pending - Hasbro, call me.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: All right, Shalewa, if you're traveling and love IKEA Swedish meatballs, why not get them to-go and bring them back to your Moxy hotel room? Created by the parent company of IKEA, the chain has locations in North America, Europe and Asia. True or false?
SHARPE: Well, let's see here. OK, we got the IKEA. You know, I worked for IKEA for two weeks.
EISENBERG: What happened?
SHARPE: Well, it was an IKEA that was preparing to open. So I put together a bunch of beds. And then I got a job where I didn't have to put together furniture. And I went, oh, I'm going to go there. I'm going to do that.
(LAUGHTER)
SHARPE: I'm going to say - I'm going to say it's true.
EISENBERG: It is true.
SHARPE: What?
EISENBERG: Yes.
COULTON: All right, Gastor. This is the last clue. True or false - Jeff Bezos bought James Bond.
ALMONTE: All right, so I think he wants to be him so bad. So I'm going to go with yeah. Like, he wants to own the rights - like, this reminds me of, like, Kramer when, like, he sold his story to that dude from the catalog and it became that guy's story on "Seinfeld."
COULTON: Oh, J. Peterman. He sold his story to J. Peterman Catalog. That's right.
ALMONTE: So I think this is Bezos buying the Bond story so he could say all the stories like it was him, you know?
COULTON: That makes perfect sense. And you are correct. In May of 2021, Amazon announced it is buying MGM for $8.5 billion. MGM owns 50% of the James Bond franchise.
EISENBERG: Want more Gastor, extra Shalewa? We've got it after the break. I'm Ophira Eisenberg, and this is ASK ME ANOTHER from NPR.
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