Contestants: Mike Jeziorski, Tucker Warner, Jack Rousseau

Enjoy Episode 10?  Then you'll love this SUPER SIZED reunion of all three members of that classic lineup, now with 95% less baseball.  Never fear, though, for I Am the Pretty Thing that Writes the Questions, and so we make up for it with more nods to growing up in Illinois than a Sufjan Stevens album, more video games than a Lana Del Rey album, and more references to illicit drugs than a Willie Nelson album.  Get ready to pull the Walker, Texas Ranger lever and discover the hidden connections between Tucker and 24, Conan O'Brien and Jorge Luis Borges, Neil Patrick Harris and ZZ Top, a huntress from Greek mythology and a terrorist action thriller set during Jesus' crucifixion, a billionaire heiress and her desire to cosplay as a poor person, and, of course, Marjorie Merriweather Post and the entire known universe in this longest-ever episode of Recreational Thinking!  (Yes, it's so long that I elected to extend it by including at the end a discussion of how long it is.)

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Contestants: Mike Samuelson, Colin Smith, Ryan Palmer, Dan Schroeder

Stay hungry, stay foolish, and stay listening to this SPECIAL CROSSOVER REUNION EVENT in which Recreational Thinking yet again meets The Soccer Thread!  For the first time since Episode 5, the host and the majority of the contestants are occupying the same physical space, and for the first time EVER that space is OUTSIDE!!  Yes, you can listen to the birds chirp and the delivery truck engines idle, as I somehow allowed myself to be dragged into nature for this taping.

That's not the only innovation ... pay close attention and see if you can hear our youngest ever guest!  (You can't.)  Come for the Blue Star donuts and the assault on Episode 33's steal record, stay for a "tight 45" on bats, a discussion of comparative health care in Boston and Portland, an introduction to the Sixx Orange oeuvre, and a chance to hear the contestants talk about me behind my back.  Oh, and to find out what Arnold Palmer *really* did that day.

NOTE: My cut of this episode comes from a rather rough version of the audio.  The one The Soccer Thread is preparing will be of much higher quality.  Listen to that one as well, and you'll pick up a few extra jokes!

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Contestants: Matt Jackson, Jenna LaFleur, Ben Rothenberg

Buon giorno!  A Jeopardy! legend and two of his DC-area pub-quiz-mates join us in this exhilarating episode, albeit with one Zooming remotely from Rome, and as if by magic a surprisingly high number of questions sprout Italian connections.  (These unconscious mini-themes — last time's was Game of Thrones — are starting to become a regular feature of this podcast.)  Whether you prefer tennis or theater, Joss Stone or James Bond, M&Ms or clam chowder, one thing's for certain ... this installment of Recreational Thinking is a LOT shorter than the previous one!  You're welcome.

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Contestants: James Lasker, David Plotkin, Manas Sarma

"I can't believe that went longer than our technical difficulties episode!" -David

As only our second episode to cross the 3-hour mark, this one had better justify its length ... and it does!  Episode 6 was the first truly great episode of this podcast, and though I was only able to reunite 2/3rds of its contestant lineup, I've bottled so much magic here that Dr. House diagnosed me with lupus!  (Deep cut.)  Truly, the limit of this episode's quality does not exist.

Did I really construct a question so complicated that I literally consulted four astrophysicists in the process of writing it?  I did!  Do I actually attempt to prove the individual with the (alleged) World's Highest IQ wrong?  I do!  Is this the episode when my hubris finally catches up with me and I fall flat on my face?  Only one way to find out!

From Lovecraft to Lagrange, from mathletics to the Mafia, from chess streamers to Chernobyl, this ambitious episode is a banquet for hungry minds.  Enjoy the feast? Consider donating via PayPal or Patreon, and remember to leave a review and/or rating on iTunes!

Contestants: Aaron Lichtig, David Goldfarb, Greg Fanoe

You know what you doing?  For great justice (and knowledge), make your time for the next 2.5 hours and enjoy this experimental episode of RECREATIONAL THINKING featuring a categorical collision unlike anything we've ever seen before!  If you're curious about superhero comics, Italo Calvino, Janet Jackson, the Hugo Awards, all sorts of bridges (from Staten Island to contract), and the *real* reason the autopilot was invented ... well, like a seemingly washed-up pitcher who strikes out 13 batters in a World Series game, this episode is full of triumphant surprises.

NOTE: We wrapped up the tape session a bit early; the last ~15 minutes are just post-mortem'ing.  There's no more Q&A, and it's not fact-checked, but if you stick around you might learn something!

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Contestants: Daryl Sng, Dargan Ware, Anthony Garino

Brain work ahead?  Uh, yeah, I sure hope it does!  Learn about snarky YouTubers, resilient Czechs, murderous Mannerist madrigalists, Freudian chessmasters, poetry-writing Ouija boards, gentleman safecrackers, and technical fouls galore in this installment of RECREATIONAL THINKING so full of meaty twists and turns that one contestant's mother's cousin's husband would feel right at home!  (That will make sense once you've listened to the episode, I promise.)  We run a true gamut here: Poetry, college basketball, classical music, chess, tennis, and the great nation of Singapore are all on the menu.  Oh, and speaking of menus ... is Pepsi okay?  It sure is!

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Contestants: Alexander Darby, Peter Broda, Ben Zimmer

Who made the man behind "Happy" cry?  What are E-Girls, and why are they ruining my life?  What innocuous nursery rhyme did Paul McCartney turn into a UK Top 10 hit?  Which James Bond theme drew inspiration from the Hebrew Bible?  How does one stuff a wild bikini?

Let's Talk About Love, learn How to Truly Listen, and study pataphysical science as we tour the world of popular music in this single-subject episode that covers proto-punk, punk-pop, thrash metal, '80s synthpop, '90s indie rock, drummers and drumming, the careers of Stevie Wonder and Frank Zappa, and our friendly neighbors in the Great White North alongside several topics that no one requested, including children's TV, French literature, Hindi slang, historical gangsters, BBC quiz shows, the Queens neighborhood where I used to live, and lots and lots of Beatles content.  And You Will Know These Contestants by The Trail of Knowledge they display!

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Contestants: Anu Kashyap, Dan Feitel, Chris Ottolino

Welcome to 2022!  It's our first episode recorded since May 2021.  (If you're curious what's been going on in the interim, feel free to check out the streaming show I attempted to launch: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYyq5QTgHTmLfy4kyrnM7j7fHz87ohqSy .)  A former National Spelling Bee champion joins me alongside two frequent quizzing teammates, one of whom is hoping to make up for his paper-thin loss in E30, so of course the banter flies thick as we cover (among other things) the joy of spelling, the history of Pixar, the fantasy of football, the Silver Age of Comics, and also for some reason ABC's Big Sky, despite no one picking it as a topic.

Yes, like an NFL player who gets a PhD in mathematics from MIT, at RECREATIONAL THINKING we don't believe in disciplinary boundaries.  So if you're curious about the non-fun kind of Zoot Suit Riot ... if you want to know which '90s alt-rock icon tells a lie in the very first line of her most famous song ... if you remember Microsoft's short-lived "Ms. Dewey" ... oh, and if you'd like to learn about the NFL player who got a PhD in mathematics from MIT, then this episode is for you.  

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Contestants: Caitlin Joyce, Randall Eng, Chris Miller

How did a college student urinating into a potted plant bring down a national government?  In what way is Staten Island a magical realm?  When does Before come after After?  Can Belgian Waffles ever be wrong?  What is a "mezzo with moves"?  What is "vore"?  (Don't look that up.)  Who is a "pantspreneur"?  How is a hand grenade like an avocado?  We've met before, haven't we?  Do I know anyone in Idaho?  Is "Deuteronomy" or "Æ" a weirder name for a child?  And, most importantly, what did I say that made Caitlin vow to throttle me?

Discover the answer to most, if not all, of these questions — and learn about board games, celebrity couples, 21st century opera, mustache-less Sam Elliott, and a prolific 102-year-old character actor who's still lucid enough to give fascinating interviews — in this enigmatic, entertaining, and enlightening episode of one of the Top 25 most-listened-to Education podcasts on Podomatic!

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Contestants: Ben Rothenberg, Jimmy Li, Chris Ottolino

The Wednesday Academic Purists may be my bitter rivals in CONNECTIONS ONLINE QUIZ LEAGUE and LEARNEDLEAGUE's A Typhoon rundle, but off the quizzing field it's all fun and games ⁠— and besides, now I get to turn them against each other, in a sidesplitting episode that covers everything from RuPaul's Drag Race to 20th century philosophy, the Eurovision Song Contest to comic book superheroes, tennis to professional wrestling, human anatomy to tech start-ups, the history of socialism to my father's taste in comedians ... yeah, this one's syllabus is exceptionally diverse even by RECREATIONAL THINKING standards.  The contestants are all close friends and it shows both in their rollicking chemistry and in the way the lead seesaws back and forth (and forth) until literally the final question.

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