OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:
Our next game is called Myth Conception, and here to play it are Tim Kineke and Stephen Giordano.
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EISENBERG: All right. Tim audits insurance companies.
TIM KINEKE: That is absolutely correct.
EISENBERG: (Laughter) OK, good. The way you said your answer makes me know it's correct.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: And Stephen is an actuary.
STEPHEN GIORDANO: Yes.
EISENBERG: You guys are both numbers people. You like things that probably have definitive answers.
KINEKE: Yes.
GIORDANO: Of course.
EISENBERG: Of course.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: Just - you both scared me for a minute there.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: All right. So what is, in your lifetime, one myth or false thing that you believed in and then found out later, no, you were wrong, you were led down the wrong path of not factual information? Tim?
KINEKE: Back when I was about, I don't know, 5 to 10 years old, I thought that every time a Disney movie got popped in that there were actual people talking through the TV at me.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: Aw.
EISENBERG: Aw, that's just innocence and imagination.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: And then it was squashed, wasn't it?
(LAUGHTER)
KINEKE: Horribly, yeah.
EISENBERG: Yeah, and you were, like, never again. Numbers won't lie to me.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: How about you, Stephen?
GIORDANO: I probably believed pro wrestling was real way longer than any rational...
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KINEKE: Who didn't?
EISENBERG: Do you still watch pro wrestling?
GIORDANO: Not as much.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: Wow.
KINEKE: I still watch Disney movies...
(LAUGHTER)
KINEKE: ...For the record.
EISENBERG: You do?
KINEKE: Yeah.
EISENBERG: All right, well, this game is all about getting things wrong. We are going to dissect an urban legend or misconception, and you have to figure out what we are talking about. For example, Cecil, if I said it is a common medical misconception and myth that people only use 10 percent of what organ, what would you say?
CECIL BALDWIN, BYLINE: My liver.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: You've got to work on that.
BALDWIN: I'm really working on, like, 7 to 10 percent right now.
EISENBERG: (Laughter) Oh, really?
BALDWIN: Yeah.
EISENBERG: That's something you can work on as time goes on.
BALDWIN: Cocktail, please.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: That is a possibility. Actually, we were talking about the brain.
BALDWIN: The brain, yes.
EISENBERG: Because the truth is you use zero percent.
BALDWIN: Oh, yeah.
EISENBERG: It's all liver. It's all liver. We hope that you'll be using more than zero percent in this next game. Are you ready?
KINEKE: Yes.
GIORDANO: Yep.
EISENBERG: Great. There is no evidence that these seafaring Nordic raiders ever wore helmets with horns attached.
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EISENBERG: Stephen.
GIORDANO: Vikings.
EISENBERG: Correct, yes.
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EISENBERG: It was, like, a costume designer who decided to do it for Wagner's "Ring Cycle." Yeah, just made it up, and then everyone was like, yeah, that makes sense.
BALDWIN: True.
EISENBERG: Yeah...
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: ...Exactly.
BALDWIN: We're going with that.
EISENBERG: Yeah, exactly - they did not wear top hats, they wore these horns.
BALDWIN: These animals don't see red when they're angry because they're colorblind. They're really riled up by the motion of the cape.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
BALDWIN: Tim.
KINEKE: Bulls.
BALDWIN: That is correct.
EISENBERG: (Laughter) Yes. All right, according to legend, these cream-filled, golden snack cakes have an infinite shelf life. No - according to Hostess, just 45 days.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
EISENBERG: Tim.
KINEKE: Twinkies?
EISENBERG: Yeah, that's right.
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KINEKE: My mom would kill me if I got that one wrong.
EISENBERG: Why?
KINEKE: She made us Twinkie birthday cakes every now and then.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: Aw...
EISENBERG: Aw, like...
KINEKE: Oh, stop.
EISENBERG: ...She would line them all up in, like, circles?
KINEKE: Make a little pyramid out of them, throw some candles on top.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: Wow. That sounds amazing. I do love the idea that Hostess was, like, no, not forever - 45 days. That's - that's insane.
GIORDANO: You know, you need that emergency Twinkie, like, a month later. Like, oh, wait, I have one in my bag, yes.
EISENBERG: Day 46 - what do you think, everybody? Should I do it? Day 46, it turns into a Ho Ho. It just changes.
(LAUGHTER)
BALDWIN: A staged scene in a 1958 wildlife film helped establish the popular but erroneous belief that these small rodents run off cliffs in mass suicides.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
BALDWIN: Tim.
KINEKE: Lemmings.
BALDWIN: Correct.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: Yeah. Also not true.
KINEKE: My mom made birthday cakes out of those as well.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: While this great scientist did earn the name Peanut Man for his more than 300 peanut-based products, he did not actually invent peanut butter, as it is often claimed.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
EISENBERG: Stephen.
GIORDANO: George Washington Carver.
EISENBERG: Absolutely, George Washington Carver.
BALDWIN: These structures in ancient Roman buildings were passageways, not rooms for puking in.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
BALDWIN: Tim.
KINEKE: The vomit room.
EISENBERG: (Laughter) That's excellent.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: But we need...
BALDWIN: Sure. What is the Latin name for that?
KINEKE: Vomitorium.
BALDWIN: Yes.
EISENBERG: Yeah. I like that you just went with the vomit room.
KINEKE: Nobody speaks Latin anymore.
(LAUGHTER)
BALDWIN: It's a dead language.
EISENBERG: Oh, so you were translating it for the rest of us?
KINEKE: Yeah, I don't think that a lot of people in the room would speak Latin. More people would speak English.
GIORDANO: (Laughter).
EISENBERG: You don't know anything about a public radio audience, do you?
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: All right, this is your last clue. Despite their stereotypical depiction and drab black-and-white outfits, these 1620s settlers wore colorful clothes and did not have buckles on their hats.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
EISENBERG: Tim.
KINEKE: Pilgrims.
EISENBERG: Pilgrims is correct, absolutely.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: All right, Cecil Baldwin, puzzle guru, how did our contestants do?
BALDWIN: They both did great. But Tim, well done, we're going to see you in our final round at the end of the show.
KINEKE: Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: Coming up, we're going to don some pearls and join the upper crust with our guest house musician, Julian Velard. And we'll go deep inside a New York City holiday institution that is full of hot air. So stick around. I'm Ophira Eisenberg, and this is NPR's ASK ME ANOTHER.
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