Underunderstood

By Select WorksSociety & Culture

Underunderstood episodes

November 23, 2021 Lou Pearlman Tried to Send a Boy Band to Space
These pop singers thought they were going to be the first band in space. What happened?
Support the show and listen to over 50 episodes of our bonus podcast by joining our Patreon!
Show notes:
02:50 – NASA on mission to planet pop (New Scientist)
04:57 – Put Your Arms Around Me (Natural/YouTube)
06:32 – I Love the USA (Weezer/YouTube)
11:45 – Steve Kipner
15:35 – Claire's press release
19:48 – Journalism about Lou Pearlman from The New Yorker, Tyler Gray, and Lance Bass Productions
25:29 – Veit Renn
35:27 – Danny O'Donoghue (Wikipedia)
40:25 – Columbia Disaster: What happened and what NASA learned
47:25 – Jon Fuller's website / Spotify / Apple Music
48 min
November 09, 2021California License Plate 2SAM564
Why has the same California license plate been showing up in movies and TV shows for two decades?
Support the show and listen to over 50 episodes of our bonus podcast by joining our Patreon!
Show notes:
01:39 – Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Villains" episode

02:16 – The Xandermobile

02:54 – A113 summary

03:43 – Screengrab of the plate in "A Star Is Born"

04:11 – Screengrab from "Matchstick Men"

04:52 – Screengrab from "Ray Donovan"

04:59 – "Furious 7" scene with 2SAM564

06:21 – Flim

26:19 – ISS Props

27:40 – Vehicle registration plates of California

29:27 – California DMV Sample License Plate Order Form (PDF)

33:52 – 2GAT123.com's License Plates

35:34 – Studio Graphics
38 min
October 26, 2021Chief Laugh Officer
Laffy Taffy created a dream joke writing job. But is it real?
Support the show and listen to over 50 episodes of our bonus podcast by joining our Patreon!
Show notes:
00:56 - Laffy Taffy - Wikipedia

01:50 - PDF of Laffy Taffy jokes - mrclegg.com

02:40 - Depressing Laffy Taffy joke - Reddit

03:53 - com4tablynumb1's post - Reddit

04:50 - com4tablynumb1's photo - Imgur

05:46 - Laffy Taffy Is Having a Joke Contest - Thrillist

07:50 - Nick Cannon's annoucement video - Facebook

08:27 - Laffy Taffy Selects Its First-Ever Chief Laugh Officer - Business Wire

13:58 - Mitch Hedberg's notebooks - YouTube

20:40 - Richard Bowen at the Laugh Factory - YouTube

27:14 - Richard and his trophy - Business Wire

27:26 - Richard Bowen and Nick Cannon - Shutterstock

31:35 - Contact Us - Ferrara Candy
40 min
June 03, 2021Who Is John, the Psychic Santa from The Circle?
The Circle is back for Season 2, and there's a mysterious catfish named John. Who is this "full time psychic, part time Santa"?
This is an episode of Overunderstood, our Patrons-only feed. To get a new episode every week (even between Underunderstood seasons!), visit patreon.com/underunderstood.
We're working on season 5 of Underunderstood! Stay tuned to our Twitter and Instagram for updates on when we'll be back.
Show notes:
The Circle on Netflix

Season 2 Trailer (YouTube)

Pimeyes

Kris Kringles are forking over cash to take ‘Santa’ classes (New York Post)

Dave Saunders (@santadept25)
30 min
April 13, 2021Announcement: Join us for the legendary 90FM trivia contest
Underunderstood is recruiting a team for the legendary 90FM Stevens Point TRIVIA! contest. It’s a three-day event from April 16-18 where teams from anywhere compete to answer arcane, nearly un-Googleable trivia questions.
If you’re interested in participating with Underunderstood’s team, email us at [email protected] with the subject “Trivia,” and we’ll add you to a special Discord channel and set you up with all the details you need.
The article and video that started it all (“it” being Underunderstood’s fascination with Stevens Point and TRIVIA!)

More information about the contest: https://www.90fmtrivia.org/AboutTheContest.pdf
We are going on break and will be back with more episodes for season 5. (But as always, there will be a new episode of Overunderstood every week on our Patreon.) In the meantime, here are some podcast recommendations from the hosts and other Underunderstood listeners.
Similar to Underunderstood: Endless Thread, Decoder Ring, Every Little Thing, You’re Wrong About, the Bobby episode of Heavyweight, Oh No Ross and Carrie
Not that similar to Underunderstood: Twenty Thousand Hertz, Potternaught, Flash Forward, Podcast But Outside, The Culture Journalist, Plant Crimes
5 min
April 06, 2021The Most Popular Snoopy Quote in Japan
Adrianne tries to understand the associations around the cartoon beagle in Japan.
If you like the show, support us on Patreon and get access to our bonus show, Overunderstood.
Show notes:
01:49 – Hello, Habits: A Minimalist’s Guide to a Better Life (Fumio Sasaki)

04:35 – Peanuts – October 4, 1991

10:28 – Mia Sato

11:40 – ‘PEANUTS’ Celebrates 70 Years With Limited Heinz Ketchup Bottles

11:58 – Instagram account tracking Snoopy collabs

11:58 – Snoopy Japan blog

13:30 – The Highest-Paid Dead Celebrities Of 2020 (Forbes)

13:43 – Merchandising Snoopy: The case of licensing Peanuts in Japan (Stephen J. Lind)

17:28 – Beyond Cuteness: An Emerging Field of the Psychology of “Kawaii” by Professor Hiroshi Nittono – YouTube

18:40 – Shuntarō Tanikawa (Wikipedia)

19:23 – MetLife press release (2014)

19:47 – DeepL Translate

21:20 – Essay by Masuhiko Hirobuchi (2009)

23:22 – Alisa Freedman

32:37 – Minimal & Ism
35 min
March 23, 2021Side Quests: Tampons, iCarly, and Fruit Snacks
A few “side quests” from our inbox: tampons in the freezer, a missing iCarly cover, and some long lost fruit snacks.
If you like the show, support us on Patreon and get access to our bonus show, Overunderstood.
Tampons in the freezer
01:33 – Thread on ShittyGifRecipes

07:50 – Janelle Flom

09:02 – Wig (about :49 seconds in)

09:25 – Credit cards?! (About :54 seconds in)

11:30 – TikTok divided over video of woman’s revenge on fellow plane passenger (Yahoo)
The missing Miranda Cosgrove cover
14:48 – 'iCarly' and 'Drake & Josh' were actually both on Nickelodeon, not the Disney channel.

15:16 – r/MirandaCosgrove

15:50 – Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls

15:58 – CORRECTION: It actually peaked at No. 1

16:14 – Miranda’s wikipedia page

17:04 – List of iCarly episode titles, from “iPilot” to “iBust a Thief”

18:20 – See: lyrics controversy section of the wikipedia page

19:00 – Beautiful Girls on WhoSampled

19:40 – A better explanation of rights and cover songs, because Regina is definitely not a lawyer

20:05 – Back of the jewel case

21:00 – Beautiful Girls (Nickelodeon Mix)

22:50 – CORRECTION: The band’s name is SugarPop, not SuperPop.

24:20 – Beautiful Girls (Reply) - JoJo

25:50 – JoJo, Miranda Cosgrove, and Selena Gomez at the Teen Choice Awards in 2008
Mystery fruit snacks
28:24 – Betty Crocker Scooby Doo fruit snacks

32:20 – Surf’s Up Tutti-Fruit Fruit Snacks package

32:27 – Rollerblade Fruit Snacks package

36:18 – Rollerblade Fruit Snacks pouch
39 min
March 16, 2021The Origins of Oranges and Door Hinges
Why is Eminem getting credit for a rhyme a Canadian puppet did first?
If you like the show, support us on Patreon and get access to our bonus show, Overunderstood.
Show notes:
00:51 – Adrianne’s story on featured snippets

02:07 – Screenshot of 1st search

02:10 – Screenshot of 2nd search

03:01 – Rhymetime With Eminem | YouTube

04:51 – Under the Umbrella Tree | Wikipedia

05:28 – Summer 1993 Disney Channel Commercial Breaks | YouTube

07:02 – Lena Dunham on Here’s the Thing

09:00 – What word rhymes with orange? | Yahoo Answers

13:32 – Eminem rhyming with orange | Genius / YouTube

17:17 – Rag & Bone - puppet theatre cofounded by Kathy MacLellan

20:21 – Bob Stutt | Wikipedia

24:27 – Under the Umbrella Tree | Lost Media Wiki

24:29 – Under the Umbrella Tree Episode List | Angelfire

24:49 – Under the Umbrella Tree full episodes playlist | Encore+ / YouTube

26:34 – UTUT - Jacob’s World Record | YouTube

28:12 – Noreen Young | Wikipedia

31:43 – Grant Barrett bio

32:04 – A Way with Words

33:10 – Never get your etymologies from memes. | Grant Barrett on Twitter

34:30 – The Athenaeum, Aug. 16, 1862 | Google Books

35:38 – Willard Espy’s orange rhyme | A Man of My Words by Richard Lederer / Google Books

37:00 – Orange Poetry by alexz | Wordnik

37:19 – Uncle, can you find a rhyme for orange? | Google Books

40:30 – Revealing What Rhymes with ‘Orange’ | Merriam-Webster

41:18 – Gresham’s law | Britannica
45 min
March 09, 2021A Conspiracy Theory About Area Codes
Adrianne tries to deconstruct how a big city got a seemingly low-prestige area code.
If you like the show, support us on Patreon and get access to our bonus show, Overunderstood.
Show notes:
02:41 – LincMad.com

04:00 - Adrianne says here that Idaho got area code 702. This is not correct!! Idaho got 208. We regret the error.

04:43 – The rotary dial demonstrated in an AT&T video from around the time area codes were added

07:41 – AT&T, or Atlantic Telephone and Telegraph, was a monopoly provider of telephone service until it was broken up in 1983 as part of an antitrust settlement with the U.S. government. That’s really all you need to know, although a good book about this is The Master Switch

06:52 – A table of the original area code assignments

18:13 – Mark J Cuccia on the 50th anniversary of the North American Numbering Plan

18:34 – Mark J Cuccia mentions the Boston “anomaly”

19:03 – Nation-wide Toll Dialing (Bell Laboratories Record, October 1945)

19:19 – Billy worked on a video about the AT&T archive at The Verge

27:07 – 201, 609 And Now, Oh My, 908 (The New York Times, 1991)

32:40 – An example of Telephone Topics, the in-house magazine for New England Telephone

32:45 – It was actually “Tracing the Telephone in Western Massachusetts”
42 min
March 02, 2021How Cool Ranch Doritos Got Cooler
John pieces together the definitive timeline of when Cool Ranch Doritos became Cooler Ranch Doritos.
If you like the show, support us on Patreon and get access to our bonus show, Overunderstood.
Show notes:
01:19 – Mandela Effect on Snopes

01:31 – Doritos on Wikipedia

02:51 – Doritos' Long, Slow Descent Into Madness

05:07 – John's bag

14:57 – SNAC International

16:00 – Doritos Nacho Cheesier commerical

22:30 – taquitos.net

24:58 – Jeremy's Cooler Ranch review

29:50 – Woman Recreates Engagement Shoot With A Bag Of Doritos

35:00 – George Foreman Doritos commercial
45 min