Leonard Pickel's Hauntrepreneurs has designed over 300 original haunted attractions, including ones for Madison Square Garden, Universal Studios Florida, several Six Flags Amusement Parks, and the Kandy Halloween Party at the Playboy Mansion.

But what goes into designing a haunted house?

Leonard takes us through the spooky business of manipulating architecture, impossible floor plans, why you should always "scare forward," and the kind of haunted houses that chill him to the bone.

A Quick Request

If you enjoy Curious State, would you mind sharing your favorite episode with a friend? It’s a great way to help the show grow and start fun conversations along the way.

There are so many incredible podcasts out there, and you’ve chosen to be here. That means the world to me. Thank you.

Credits

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Digital Operations Specialist - Holly Hutchings
Marketing and Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin
Intern - Kamryn Lacy

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at [email protected].

Imagine the Ultimate Fighting Championship…but with pillows. That’s the basic recipe for the Pillow Fighting Championships. And it just might be the next big sport. 

Steve Williams, CEO of PFC, joins me to share pillow fighting’s journey into worldwide popularity (and possibly into the list of Olympic sports).

A few curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

• The story of the one and only TKO so far in the PFC
• How do you win a pillow fight?
• How the PFC pillows get their trademark thwhop! sound

A Quick Request

If you enjoy Curious State, would you mind sharing your favorite episode with a friend? It’s a great way to help the show grow and start fun conversations along the way.

There are so many incredible podcasts out there, and you’ve chosen to be here. That means the world to me. Thank you.

Credits

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Digital Operations Specialist - Holly Hutchings
Marketing and Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin
Intern - Kamryn Lacy

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at [email protected].

Movie trailers are a game of chess. Except in this game, millions of dollars are at stake with every move.

Dallas Taylor, owner of Defacto Sound and host of Twenty Thousand Hertz, gives us a peek behind the curtains where creativity and business live in a pressure cooker.

A few curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

• How many trillions of minutes of TV are watched in the US every year (yes, trillions)
• The evolution of movie trailers
• Have movie and TV trailers become too epic?

A Quick Request

If you enjoy Curious State, would you mind sharing your favorite episode with a friend? It’s a great way to help the show grow and start fun conversations along the way.

There are so many incredible podcasts out there, and you’ve chosen to be here. That means the world to me. Thank you.

Credits

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Digital Operations Specialist - Holly Hutchings
Marketing and Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin
Intern - Kamryn Lacy

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at [email protected].

Ashrita Furman broke the world record for underwater hoola-hooping in Florida, where a pod of dolphins watched from afar—in what I presume was utter confusion.

I've been in the presence of some pretty fascinating people. The voice of Porky Pig, a haunted house architect, a scientist who's close to bringing back a T-Rex (albeit in a less menacing, chicken-sized form). But Ashrita Furman is in a league of his own. He has world records out the ying yang, including:

• The most matches put out on your tongue in a minute
• The most beers opened with a chainsaw in 60 seconds
• The most watermelons sliced open on your stomach in one minute

He holds so many records that he snagged another one in the process: the world record for the most world records. He's broken over 800 in total, with more than 200 still standing. His secret?

Meditation.

(And a child-like sense of curiosity. Because when you can be anything, why just be one thing?)

Credits

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Digital Operations Specialist - Holly Hutchings
Marketing and Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at [email protected].

A photo album made with rabbit fur. 

A secret breeding project.

A lost alligator.

The story of Project Angora is truly stranger than fiction.

Holocaust researcher and founder of the Knitting Hope project, Tanya Singer, shares a little-known story from inside 31 concentration camps. 

A few curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

• Why Heinrich Himmler was so obsessed with angora rabbits
• The dark message of Nazi fashion
• Why animal exhibits existed at some concentration camps

Click here to read the article on which this episode is based.

Credits

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Digital Operations Specialist - Holly Hutchings
Marketing and Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at [email protected].

The line between friendship and a romantic relationship blurs when sex comes strutting into the room. How do you navigate the complications of going from buddy to booty call?

Thankfully, we’ve got an expert with the answers: Dr. Justin Lehmiller. He’s a social psychologist, Kinsey Institute Research Fellow, and the creator of Sex and Psychology. 

Justin was part of a team that conducted a year-long study of 200 friends-with-benefits relationships. And what he found can help us all unweave this type of messy, sexy, and downright “oh my god what have I done??” relationship.

A few curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

• How FWB relationships can help close the orgasm gap
• Why it’s so difficult to transition an FWB relationship into a romantic one
• What’s so special about the one-year mark for FWB?

Did You Know?

According to the study Justin worked on, 25% of subjects hoped their friend-with-benefits relationship would turn into a romantic relationship. However, friends-with-benefits relationships play out how people want them to only 17% of the time.

Credits

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Digital Operations Specialist - Holly Hutchings
Marketing and Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at [email protected].

Cyanide has made quite the name for itself. 

Take the Jonestown murder-suicide, for example—where cult leader Jim Jones called for over 900 of his followers to drink cyanide-laced punch. Cyanide also sits centerstage with a popular spy movie trope: the cyanide tooth. In case of capture, pop out the fake tooth that’s actually made of cyanide. Swallow it. And boom, a quick death is on its way.

But how exactly does cyanide kill you?

Let’s light up our gumshoe detective pipes and crack this case wide open with Neil Bradbury, author of A Taste for Poison: Eleven Deadly Molecules and the Killers Who Used Them.

A few curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

• Why cyanide causes your blood to turn bright red
• The fascinating way cyanide shuts your body down
• Why B12 can save you from cyanide poisoning

Did You Know?

From a murderer’s perspective, cyanide is typically given as either sodium or potassium cyanide crystals—which are often sprinkled in water.

Buy A Taste for Poison

Amazon | Audible | Bookshop.org

Credits

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Digital Operations Specialist - Holly Hutchings
Marketing and Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at [email protected].

Jackson Galaxy is America’s Cat Daddy. He’s the host of Animal Planet’s hit show, My Cat From Hell, he’s amassed over 100 million views on his YouTube channel, and he has his own toy line—when it comes to cats, Jackson knows best.

So, Jackson…is it true? Are cats assholes? Or is there more to those furry enigmas than meets the eye?

A few curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

• The problems with seeing cats through dog-colored glasses
• Why cats are Zen masters
• The dating impact for men with cats

Did You Know?

There are an estimated 373 million pet cats around the globe.

Credits

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Digital Operations Specialist - Holly Hutchings
Marketing and Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin
Intern - Brendan Picha 

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at [email protected].

The shows we refer to as guilty pleasures may be more insightful than we think. Danielle J. Lindemann, author of True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us, takes us on a journey into ourselves.

A few curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

• The character archetypes that make for compelling reality TV
• Do people care that reality TV isn’t real?
• The very first reality TV show (it’s almost 50 years old)
• How reality TV builds community

Did You Know?

For the season one finale of Survivor in 2000—guess how many people tuned in. Upwards of 51 million. That’s the combined population of Georgia, Ohio, Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North and South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Maine, Michigan, and Illinois.

Credits

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Digital Operations Specialist - Holly Hutchings
Marketing and Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin
Intern - Brendan Picha 

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at [email protected].

Only 80 known cases of highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM) exist. What's it like to remember almost everything that’s ever happened to you? Rebecca Sharrock shares her experience—and how her dreams revealed an incredible feature of HSAM. 

A few curiosities you’ll uncover in this episode:

• How she uses scent to relive positive memories
• Rebecca’s first memory…at just 12 days old
• What her dreams helped reveal about her memory

Did You Know?

To help her quiet the memories in her mind, Rebecca goes to Harry Potter for help. At night, she quietly recites passages to herself, distracting her brain long enough to fall asleep.

Credits

Curious State is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast hosted and produced by Doug Fraser.

Find Curious State on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates.

Podcast Manager - Adam Cecil 
Podcast and Advertising Operations Specialist - Morgan Christianson
Digital Operations Specialist - Holly Hutchings
Marketing and Publicity Assistant - Davina Tomlin
Intern - Brendan Picha 

The Quick and Dirty Tips network is a division of Macmillan Publishers in partnership with Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Have a question? Or a topic you’d like covered on the show? Maybe you just love sending emails? Whichever shoe fits, tie it on and send me a message at [email protected].