Underunderstood

By Select WorksSociety & Culture

Underunderstood episodes

June 26, 2023 Update + LIVE show!
It's been a while! We have a quick update about our schedule, plus details about our first-ever LIVE SHOW!

Underunderstood Live
Tuesday August 1, 2023, 7pm
Caveat, NYC (21+)
Tickets (both live and virtual!) at Caveat's website
8 min
May 18, 2023Big Ideas Lost to Mini Rooms
Hollywood is stockpiling scripts for full seasons of unreleased television shows. Are they throwing them out or saving them for a rainy day?
Want to support the show? Become a patron at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/underunderstood⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.

Show notes:
Why Are TV Writers So Miserable? (The New Yorker)

Hollywood Writers Strike (Democracy Now!)

Film and TV writers are striking (CNN)

Writers strike focuses on whether AI could take jobs from screenwriters (CBS News)

Writers On Set (George R. R. Martin’s Not A Blog)

Alex O’Keefe (Linktree)

The Bear (Hulu)

2023 Writers Guild Award for Comedy Series (YouTube)

Reed Hastings on Colbert (YouTube)

Amazon? HBO? Netflix thinks its real competitor is… sleep (CNBC)

We Watched It All | Netflix (YouTube)

Writers Are Not Keeping Up (wgacontract2023.org)

Reed Hastings on Building a Streaming Empire (YouTube)

Hollywoodstrike.org

wgacontract2023.org
47 min
May 10, 2023Even If It's Fake, It's Real
Sometimes the truth is stranger than the hoax.

Want to support the show? Become a patron at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/underunderstood⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.

Show notes:
even if it's fake it's real (sippey.com)

Street View Birth (Andy Wyeth)

turning random internet drama into songs, part 2 (Twitter)

Lubalin on TikTok

Meet The Musician Turning Random Internet Drama Into TikTok Bops (Buzzfeed News)
33 min
May 03, 2023The Other Masked Magician
John revisits a wild pitch about a mysterious television performer.

Want to support the show? Become a patron at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/underunderstood⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.

Show notes:
The first special (YouTube)

2002 thread on The Magic Cafe

It's No Secret (Chicago Tribune, 1998)

The unmasking (YouTube)

The Masked Magician on Diagnosis Murder (YouTube)

Virginia Magicians Sue Fox TV To Stop Revelation of Secrets (Washington Post, 1998)

Street Magic Finally Revealed (YouTube)

A trick from the fifth special (YouTube)
33 min
April 26, 2023What's the Deal With Airport Food?
There’s a formula that dictates restaurant prices in New York City airports. Adrianne digs into what does — and doesn’t — add up.
Want to support the show? Become a patron at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/underunderstood⁠⁠⁠⁠
Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.
Show notes:
Cooper Lund's tweet

Concessionaire Street Pricing Manual (PDF)

The Cibo Express website

Why Does a Plastic-Wrapped Turkey Sandwich Cost $15 at the Airport? (Hell Gate)
43 min
April 19, 2023Hunting for Manhunt
An obscure pro wrestling-adjacent reality show from 2001 was mired in scandal. Was it really rigged?

Want to support the show? Become a patron at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/underunderstood⁠⁠⁠⁠.
Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.

Show notes:
Another Reality TV Show Is Under Fire (New York Times)

Manhunt on IMDB

The Stingray (Wayback Machine)

Twenty-One (Wikipedia)

Prohibited practices in contests of knowledge, skill, or chance (FCC)

JK’s letter to the FCC (Wayback Machine)

Steve Beverly’s letter to the FCC (Wayback Machine)

Survivor rules: the contract that details pay, tie-breakers, prohibited behavior, and more (Reality Blurs)
56 min
April 05, 2023MTV Cribs or MTV Fibs?
Billy shares a new (old) segment, we examine how real MTV Cribs was, and an important update about the missing broccoli game!

Want to support the show? Become a patron at ⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/underunderstood⁠⁠⁠.
Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.

Show notes:
(02:56) MTV Cribs
Inside Travis Barker's Surprisingly Tranquil Calabasas Abode (Architectural Digest)

'I'm Into Cadillacs' Travis Barker's Home & Car Collection (MTV on YouTube)

I Just Found Out That "Cribs" On MTV Was Kinda Fake And I Feel So USED (Buzzfeed)

MTV Cribs Ja Rule (YouTube)

Lawyer: Ja Rule Innocent in Club Clash (E! Online)

Tony Hawk, JoJo & Ryan Nyquist (MTV on YouTube)

Redman's Staten Island 'De La Casa' (MTV on YouTube)

Redman | Drink Champs (YouTube)

Redman: MTV Tried to Get Me to Rent a House for "Cribs" (YouTube)

(35:44) Broccoli Game Follow-up
FirestarterMethod’s comment (Reddit)

ハゲパラ Let’s 育毛 (Appget)

ハゲパラ〜おっさんの毛栽培ゲーム〜【育成・放置】 (APKPure)
48 min
March 29, 2023Did Daft Punk Record ‘Pee is Stored in the Balls?’
Billy helps a listener uncover the true origins of a popular unreleased song.

Want to support the show? Become a patron at ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/underunderstood⁠⁠.
Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.

Show notes:
Daft Punk – Pee Is Stored In The Balls (Full Unreleased Demo) (YouTube)

Pee is Stored in the Balls (Know Your Meme)

What’s the Deal With Boners? (Cosmopolitan)

Daft Punk’s ‘Random Access Memories’ leaks online (The Verge)

Daft Punk – Pee Is Stored In The Balls (Alternate Mix) (YouTube)

HOME – Resonance uploaded by Electronic Gems (YouTube)

The Nostalgia of HOME’s Resonance, Explained (YouTube)

Home’s verified artist page (Spotify)

@RNDYGFFE on Twitter – tweet one, tweet two

Pee Is Stored In The Balls (Unreleased Demo) playlist (Spotify)

Did Daft Punk actually make pee is stored in the balls? (Reddit)

After 8 years, I’ve managed to figure out what vocoder is responsible for the “Robot Voice” (Reddit)

Randy’s original Tumblr post (slimetony.com)

Randy’s tweet about music being free to use (Twitter)

HOME – Odyssey (archive.org)
43 min
March 22, 2023Mail Time!
We take listener calls and emails about lost video games, plus a Triscuit update.

Want to support the show? Become a patron at ⁠https://patreon.com/underunderstood⁠.
Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.

Show notes:
Slope Rider
Slope Rider official website

iOS Emulation Finally Cracked – Stop Skeletons From Fighting (YouTube)

touchHLE, a high-level emulator for iPhone OS applications

Timecoded link to ad in 2009 Apple event (YouTube)

Monte Boyd’s Slope Rider thread on Mastodon

macos9.app

Stream Mixed-Up Mother Goose (1991, MS-DOS) (Internet Archive)

Mixed-Up Mother Goose Deluxe (1995, Mac) (Macintosh Repository)

UTM | Virtual machines for Mac

Slope Rider download (Macintosh Repository)

Slope Rider running (poorly) in UTM (YouTube, unlisted)

Monte Boyd’s Commodore 64 games (itch.io)

Monte Boyd’s website
Broccoli Man
Film restoration: Saving our cinema heritage – CBS Sunday Morning (YouTube)

APKMirror and APKPure

I know an APK is technically an installer package and not “an executable app file.” Don’t @ me. -Billy
Triscuit
Improvements in and relating to Apparatus for Baking Biscuit, Crackers and the like (Google Patents)

Medical Press and Circular – July 29, 1903 (Google Books)

The Sketch, Vol. 43 (Google Books)

“Common wheat” on Wikipedia
45 min
March 15, 2023What happened to Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom?
Billy helps a listener return to VMK, the online world where they remember “learning all the bad words.”

Want to support the show? Become a patron at https://patreon.com/underunderstood.
Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.

Show notes:
Expedition Theme Park’s video about VMK (YouTube)

Sam from Expedition Theme Park also has a new podcast called Expedition Enthused

One Name, Two Games: Virtual Magic Kingdom (Pop History)

Habbo Hotel promotional videos from the mid-2000s (YouTube)

Isometric video game graphics (Wikipedia)

Amazing video about eBoy directed/edited by our editor Ryan Manning (YouTube)

Virtual Magic Kingdom (Fandom)

VMK Values (Disney VMK via Internet Archive)

Fans protest end of virtual Disney site in front of Disneyland (Orange County Register via Internet Archive

Investigation into Habbo Hotel (Channel 4)

Preserving Worlds (Means TV)

MyVMK
52 min