Pod Insights Civics 101 Civics Trivia: Taxes, terrifying birds, and The West Wing About this episode It's another edition of Civics 101 Trivia! This time, it's also the swan song for one of our own.
Senior Producer Christina Phillips, our mastermind of minutiae and all things related to taxes, joins us to convene a final round of her trademark trivia.
Here is the link to the FOIA documents about the government's involvement in Hollywood productions.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 I don't know what I'm doing.
0:01 Speaker 01 Need a break.
0:02 Speaker 00 Forget it, I quit.
0:03 Speaker 01 Escape to Pluto TV.
0:05 Hannah McCarthy? This is objectively fantastic.
0:07 Speaker 01 Relax into the movies and shows you already know and love, all for free. Shwing! Even our news is uplifting.
0:13 Speaker 03 You stay classy, San Diego.
0:14 Speaker 01 Watch Tommy Boy, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The X-Files, Wayne's World, and so much more. We're not worthy! The best things on TV really are free.
0:24 Hannah McCarthy? You just have to know where to look.
0:26 Speaker 01 Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.
0:30 Speaker 03 Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes, para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro, para los que están lejos, los que no ven de lejos, y los que no ven de cerca, para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos, para los que piensan y los que hacen, para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola. Para todos. Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de usted.
1:01 Speaker 04 Born in Texas, made in America, that's Valero. Keeping America moving, rain or shine, day or night, 365 days a year. Giving back to our communities and helping businesses thrive. We're proud to fuel the people who keep this country moving. So whether you're exploring new roads or heading down ones you know, we're here, fueling drives coast to coast. Proudly American, proudly getting you where you need to be. Right now. Valero.
1:35 Speaker 05 Hi, this is Civics 101. I'm Christina Phillips. I'm Hannah McCarthy.
1:39 Hannah McCarthy? I'm Nikita Diye.
1:40 Speaker 06 And I am Rebecca Lavoy.
1:42 Speaker 05 And I'm realizing it's awkward for me to introduce why we're here.
1:46 Speaker 06 Well, I'll say it.
1:47 Speaker 05 Okay.
1:47 Speaker 06 Christina, you are moving over to the newsroom at NHPR. You got a big promotion, and this is your final episode that you are writing and producing and being in on the Civics 101 team. And we will miss you so much, but we are also so happy for you.
2:02 Speaker 05 We are so happy. Start playing Bittersweet Symphony.
2:06 Speaker 06 So happy for you. I want to get sued by the Rolling Stone.
2:10 Nick Capodice? That's right.
2:11 Speaker 05 That'd be a good way to go out.
2:12 Speaker 06 Yeah.
2:14 Speaker 05 I decided that I would finish us off with a trivia.
2:18 Speaker 06 Ooh.
2:18 Speaker 05 Um, and I tried to pick a bunch of things that were my favorite things. And then a couple of things that were, that you guys know really well that I don't know. And then there's some, it's all fun.
2:30 Speaker 06 And there's dumb questions for Rebecca.
2:32 Nick Capodice? Nixon and taxes and the CIA and other things. Things that nobody else can understand.
2:40 Speaker 05 Well, it's funny you should mention that, Nick, because our first round is taxes.
2:49 Nick Capodice? Can you like, do you have the?
2:50 Speaker 05 No, I can't do any. Why does excise tax exist?
2:55 Speaker 06 Oh, God.
2:56 Speaker 05 Don't ask me that. Okay, well, you brought it up in a way. Okay, uh, well, now I'm, maybe I do know what that is. No, I know what it is. I just don't know why it exists. I don't know why we have them. I think it's just another way to get money. Yeah.
3:14 Speaker 05 Okay, so taxes. I've done a number of episodes on taxes.
3:18 Speaker 06 We know.
3:19 Speaker 05 I was like, well, where do I start? I Googled, uh, tax trivia. And a fun thing I learned is that the IRS has its own tax trivia.
3:28 Speaker 06 What?
3:28 Speaker 05 Yeah, you can take a little quiz. Well, it's, I mean, it's a government website. So like, you have to click on each question. And then you have to click the answer and then it reveals it. And then you have to click back, back, back to go back to the questions.
3:37 Speaker 06 Doesn't work on mobile, probably.
3:38 Speaker 05 Yeah, I didn't even try. Yeah.
3:40 Nick Capodice? Compatible in Netscape and Opera.
3:44 Speaker 05 I did take it, uh, and I got a hundred percent. So. Good for you. If there's one thing I'm taking away from the show, it's that I can get a hundred percent on the IRS trivia. But there were some fun questions, so this is not for points. Here's a question. Uh, which ancient civilization revered tax professionals as the most noble profession in society?
4:01 Nick Capodice? Ancient Greeks.
4:02 Speaker 05 Yes, it is. Ancient Greeks. All right. Well, uh, now I'm gonna destroy you with these trivia questions. So I hope you're ready. In 1959. Florida passed a tax policy known as the Green Belt Law, which had to do with taxation of land. In order to preserve agricultural land, the state gave a tax break to land that was zoned for agricultural use, so farming, et cetera. Creative minds found a loophole that allowed them to exploit this tax policy, and that loophole became known as the Rent a What loophole. All right. You got it, Hannah? Well, I'm gonna start with you.
4:40 Hannah McCarthy? I wrote petting zoo.
4:42 Speaker 05 So that is a very interesting answer. It's not correct, but it's like so close on so many different levels.
4:47 Hannah McCarthy? Are you serious?
4:48 Speaker 05 Yeah, okay. So Nick?
4:50 Nick Capodice? I wrote rent a cow.
4:51 Speaker 05 Yes, that is the correct. Yes. Rebecca, what was your guess?
4:55 Speaker 06 I wrote rent an orchard. That's what Florida is known for. But I'm just gonna throw that away.
4:59 Speaker 05 Okay.
5:01 Nick Capodice? Nice crumple fully there.
5:03 Speaker 05 Okay, so being a dairy farm is not the same thing as being an agricultural thing? Let me explain the policy. So, and then you'll understand why your guess was so close to good and not quite. So, the idea was that if you buy a bunch of land as a developer, for example, it's gonna take some time before you can actually start developing that land. You've gotta get permits, you gotta do zoning. Maybe it's gonna be a number of years. But you've scooped up the land when it was for sale with big dreams ahead. Well, in order to take advantage of that tax loophole, you lease out the land very cheaply to maybe one or two farmers who get way more acres for the thing they wanna do.
5:46 Speaker 05 So, a commercial real estate developer might lease out an entire plot of land to one farmer who has maybe three cows. This loophole was just adjusted, sort of revised, in the most recent tax bill in 2025.
6:02 Hannah McCarthy? So it's been a while.
6:03 Speaker 05 Yeah, so that was, it was a big push to sort of close that loophole. We'll see how successful that is, because you know how trying to close tax loopholes works. It's, you sort of like put a finger in one hole and then another one pops up 10 feet down the road.
6:19 Speaker 05 So lawmakers in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas passed a law that exempted self-employed artists from paying income taxes for social security and Medicaid and provided them lower taxes when selling their publishing rights. So one of the biggest benefactors of this law was this artist, whose songs have been used in soundtracks for One Tree Hill, Crossroads, Dawson's Creek, Sex and the City, Erin Brockovich, and one poorly advised Neutrogena sunscreen commercial.
6:49 Speaker 06 Garth Brooks.
6:50 Speaker 05 No.
6:50 Nick Capodice? Reba McEntire.
6:52 Speaker 05 No, it is a woman. Some of her songs include "Every Day is a Whining Road."
6:56 Speaker 06 Sheryl Crow?
6:57 Speaker 05 Yes.
6:57 Nick Capodice? Oh. Oh, yeah. All I wanna do is have some fun.
7:01 Speaker 05 Yes.
7:02 Nick Capodice? I have the feeling I'm gonna get a big tax break.
7:06 Speaker 05 Wow.
7:06 Nick Capodice? What's her, like, sun song?
7:08 Speaker 05 Soak Up the Sun.
7:12 Speaker 05 We have one more loophole question. Before a company goes public, it has the option to divvy up its stock among investors and employees. And then those employees and investors can profit directly off the stock growth without it being considered income. And this tech CEO, who apparently is obsessed with sellers of Catan and "never loses," that's air quotes, and recently got into jujitsu, used this policy to value his own stock at six cents before his company went public, and then got massive gains on the orders of billions of dollars when the stock debuted and the price went up.
7:48 Speaker 06 Mark Zuckerberg.
7:49 Speaker 05 Yes.
7:49 Nick Capodice? Nicely done.
7:50 Speaker 06 I knew that because of the jujitsu.
7:51 Nick Capodice? Oh, the jujitsu, that's right. He was gonna fight Elon Musk.
7:54 Speaker 05 Yeah.
7:55 Speaker 06 Something like that.
7:56 Nick Capodice? They were gonna have a little Donnybrook, and they never did it.
8:07 Speaker 05 So, over the years, there have been a number of attempts in different countries to tax the wealthy by applying taxes to things that presumably only wealthy people buy or use. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. So we're gonna talk about luxury taxes in the modern era in a minute, but I have a couple of questions about poorly executed wealth taxes in the days of yore. So first, a shout it out.
8:32 Speaker 05 For about 30 years, at the turn of the 19th century, Britain tried to impose a tax on which article of clothing that was seen as a wealthy fashion choice?
8:42 Speaker 06 Was it a waistcoat?
8:43 Speaker 05 What is that?
8:44 Nick Capodice? It's a waistcoat.
8:45 Speaker 05 Oh, no. No, but I like that.
8:49 Nick Capodice? It's an article of clothing?
8:50 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's an accessory, I would say.
8:52 Nick Capodice? Beaver, like that fancy hat?
8:54 Speaker 05 It's hats.
8:55 Nick Capodice? Yeah, a beaver is a hat made of beaver skin.
8:57 Speaker 05 Oh, OK, yeah.
8:58 Speaker 06 Let's give it to Nick.
8:59 Speaker 05 Yeah, just broadly hats, but I'm gonna assume, including those hats.
9:03 Nick Capodice? So this is, I'll say this really fast. The reason that hats are so luxury is that it takes beaver, beaver fur is part of felt production. And felt was in hats. And New York City had a ton of beavers, because it was an island, basically, Manhattan. So it was like, you know, the rich beaver town. That should be our show name, Beaver Town.
9:21 Speaker 05 Beaver Town?
9:30 Speaker 05 Here's another attempt in England to tax the wealthy. For about 200 years, starting in the 1600s, there was a tax on what feature of a building that was seen as valuable?
9:43 Speaker 06 Windows.
9:44 Speaker 05 Yeah.
9:45 Nick Capodice? Oh, well done.
9:46 Speaker 05 So the more windows you had, the higher the taxes.
9:50 Speaker 06 I have to say, I learned that from playing a board game with Nick.
9:52 Speaker 05 Oh, really?
9:53 Nick Capodice? In the game John Company, windows are how you measure how much money you... Because people, if they didn't want to pay taxes, would like brick up windows.
10:00 Speaker 05 Wow, yeah.
10:07 Speaker 05 So have you guys ever seen the movie Tenet?
10:11 Nick Capodice? Yes, I've seen the first half of it.
10:13 Speaker 05 What?
10:13 Speaker 06 Yeah, I never finished it.
10:14 Speaker 05 You can't not see the end.
10:16 Nick Capodice? No, I saw it, I saw it next month.
10:17 Speaker 06 I also fell asleep during midsummer. I have weird experiences with movies.
10:22 Speaker 05 This is a Christopher Nolan movie that is about what he calls reverse entropy. So basically, the idea that you can go forwards and backwards through time. It's completely ridiculous. I highly recommend it. But for the purposes of this trivia, it takes place in what's known as a free port. Are you guys familiar with free ports?
10:40 Speaker 06 Are those tax havens?
10:42 Speaker 05 Basically, a free port, often they're at airports or at ports of entry. They are sort of locations that are not bound by sales tax.
10:49 Speaker 06 Like duty free.
10:50 Speaker 05 Yes. Yeah. So they're not bound by the taxes of the actual, physical location where they are.
10:56 Speaker 06 Right.
10:56 Speaker 05 So in the United States, they're also known as foreign trade zones. And they were really, became popular during the Great Depression. It was a way to allow the United States to recover and be competitive in global markets. Like if you could sort of store things and like wait for the market to improve before you sort of transport it across lines. So over the past century or so, they have become tax havens for extremely valuable properties. So the Louvre's president once described them as the greatest museums nobody can see.
11:26 Speaker 06 Hmm.
11:27 Speaker 05 So the ultra wealthy will store some of the most expensive art, gold, jewels, whatever, until they're ready to sell it. They don't want to display the Renoir in their house. They want to own it. And they keep it in this area where they're not having to pay taxes on it. Sometimes when you purchase it, the auctioneer will even transport it for you. So you're not necessarily moving it across state lines.
11:48 Speaker 06 To the airport.
11:49 Speaker 05 So they're, they're basically just like these zones where, where there's all of these collections of art and valuables that are stored all around the world. So the following questions are about free ports and the kinds of things in them. So Nick, this question is for you.
12:03 Nick Capodice? Sure.
12:05 Speaker 05 The largest free port in the world with more than 1 million works of art is located in this city, which is also home to the most international organizations in the world and is the location of Goldfinger's warehouse from James Bond.
12:20 Nick Capodice? Oh, dear. My brain is saying Switzerland or Sweden.
12:23 Speaker 06 Mm hmm.
12:24 Nick Capodice? I'm gonna say Switzerland.
12:26 Speaker 05 Yes. So it's in Geneva.
12:28 Speaker 06 It had to be.
12:28 Speaker 05 I'll give it to you.
12:29 Nick Capodice? Oh, that's generous of you.
12:30 Speaker 05 What is that?
12:31 Speaker 06 It says Geneva. I wrote it down.
12:33 Speaker 05 Okay.
12:34 Nick Capodice? Well, you know.
12:34 Speaker 05 Well, the question wasn't for you, Rebecca.
12:36 Speaker 06 I know. I'm just so proud of myself.
12:37 Nick Capodice? It wasn't for you.
12:38 Speaker 06 For guessing.
12:38 Speaker 05 Rebecca, everyone, Rebecca's smart.
12:41 Speaker 06 Not usually. Or perhaps she's fabulous.
12:44 Speaker 05 The Geneva Freeport, as I said, has over 1 million works of art. By comparison, the Louvre in Paris, which is considered, it's the largest art museum by square footage, but also considered to have one of the largest collections, has about 380,000 works of art.
12:59 Hannah McCarthy? Wow.
13:00 Speaker 05 So there's just entire collections that are stored in Geneva at this Freeport that nobody else can see.
13:06 Nick Capodice? Christina, did you know that the real Mona Lisa is not in the Louvre?
13:11 Speaker 05 Really?
13:12 Nick Capodice? No, apparently it's just a picture of her.
13:13 Speaker 05 Oh, my gosh. Nick? I, no, Nick got me with that.
13:28 Speaker 05 We're going to talk more broadly about luxury taxes. The United States tried to have a luxury tax. Now, of course, luxury taxes are taxes on goods. It's usually an additional tax on top of a sales tax for certain items that are worth a certain amount. So for example, boats, cars, aircraft, furs and jewelry, over a certain amount of money. The United States tried this. So Rebecca, this question is for you. Congress enacted a luxury tax in this year. It was the same year Jeffrey Dahmer was captured. A spoof interview on Soviet television claimed that Lenin ate so many magic mushrooms that he turned into one, and the Soviet Union fell.
14:12 Hannah McCarthy? 1989?
14:14 Speaker 05 No. 1991. Congress eliminated the luxury tax in this year, under pressure from the yacht industry. This is the same year?
14:26 Hannah McCarthy? Yachts make me laugh.
14:28 Speaker 05 Those yachts.
14:31 Hannah McCarthy? Because, come on.
14:36 Speaker 05 Okay.
14:37 Speaker 06 We apologize to all the yacht owners out there.
14:40 Nick Capodice? Yeah. If a single yacht owner listens to Civics on One.
14:44 Speaker 05 I don't apologize. This year was the same year that Ted Danson wore blackface on TV. 76 Branch Davidians were killed in a siege in Waco, Texas, and Jurassic Park came out. I'm simply saying that life finds a way.
15:00 Speaker 06 1994.
15:03 Speaker 05 Oh, you were so close. 93.
15:05 Speaker 06 Damn.
15:06 Speaker 05 93, so.
15:07 Speaker 06 Two years of election.
15:09 Speaker 05 So, put in place by H.W. Bush and undone by Clinton.
15:14 Speaker 06 Wow.
15:15 Nick Capodice? Wow.
15:16 Speaker 05 Capitalism is fine.
15:16 Speaker 06 Well, it didn't last.
15:23 Speaker 05 All right, so we've reached the end of the taxes round. Nick has three, Hannah has one, Rebecca has two. And we will have more trivia after a quick break.
15:48 Nick Capodice? Haven't you out there ever Googled your own name? Like, actually done it? You'll find your address, your phone number, maybe even that police report from the time you went to see Rain Man in the movie theater, but you were underage? Maybe that one's just me. But here's the thing. There are companies called data brokers, whose entire business model is collecting your personal information and selling it to advertisers, to strangers, sometimes to people running scams. And once your data's out there, it just keeps circulating. That is where incogni comes in. Incogni contacts data brokers on your behalf and sends them removal requests over and over, so your info doesn't just pop right back up. You set it up once, and they keep working in the background.
16:33 Nick Capodice? You can even track the progress on a dashboard. And for our listeners, we have an exclusive 60% off and annual incogni plan. Just go to incogni.com/civics or use the code civics at checkout. There's a link in the episode description. Remember, they can't harm you if they can't find you.
16:53 Speaker 00 Priceline Negotiator. It's me, the Priceline Negotiator. We don't need the jingle twice. What about a third time? Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars. Seems like they just started. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app. Time to read the timeline. Fine. No one deals more deals than... Priceline. Please stop. Priceline. Touche. Priceline. Priceline.
17:23 Speaker 01 I don't know what I'm doing. Need a break. Forget it. I quit. Escape to Pluto TV.
17:28 Hannah McCarthy? This is objectively fantastic.
17:30 Speaker 01 Relax into the movies and shows you already know and love, all for free. Shwing! Even our news is uplifting. You stay classy, San Diego. Watch Tommy Boy, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The Ex-Files, Wayne's World, and so much more. We're not worthy! The best things on TV really are free. You just have to know where to look. Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.
17:53 Speaker 03 Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes. Para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro. Para los que están lejos, los que no vende lejos, y los que no vende cerca. Para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos. Para los que piensan y los que hacen. Para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola, para todos. Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de Usted.
18:25 Speaker 05 We're back. This is Civics 101. This is Christina's Trivia Extravaganza. Our next round is presidential memoirs. You guys may know this about me, but I went to graduate school for nonfiction writing and... We both did. Yeah, and one of the things that we focused on a lot was memoir. And I love memoirs because I think unlike a biography or a nonfiction book about something, the memoir is really telling because how a person chooses to tell their own story often tells you more about them than the actual contents of that story. And so many of the memoirs we're going to talk about also involve ghostwriters, but it's so much about putting it in your own
19:06 Speaker 05 voice. So how does a person tell the story of their life? So I have some questions about presidents who wrote memoirs. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you the title of the memoir. And then I'm going to start reading you clues. And then you shout out when you have a guess about who the president is. And even if you guess it right away, I'm still going to read the clues because they're funny. At least some of them are. Okay. So our first memoir, the title is An American Life. So this president's first marriage only appears in one paragraph of the book with the line, quote, "It didn't work out."
19:43 Speaker 06 Ronald Reagan.
19:44 Speaker 05 Yes.
19:44 Nick Capodice? Oh, well done.
19:45 Speaker 05 That's all you needed.
19:47 Nick Capodice? Didn't work out.
19:50 Speaker 05 I'm going to give you a couple more facts from An American Life, which was one of Reagan's memoirs. So, chapter titles include A New Beginning, Staying the Course, The Middle East, and Lebanon. The first sentence of the summary on Amazon is, quote, "Few presidents have accomplished more or been so effective in changing the direction of government in ways that are both fundamental and lasting than Ronald Reagan," which I tend to agree with.
20:15 Speaker 06 I'd also agree with that. Totally.
20:17 Speaker 05 Yes. Next question. The title of the memoir is At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends. Some of the titles for chapters are Sauce for the Gander, The Key to the Closet, and Lost in the Pentagon.
20:33 Nick Capodice? Eisenhower?
20:34 Speaker 05 It is Eisenhower. What gave it away?
20:37 Nick Capodice? The title.
20:38 Speaker 06 Yeah, I was going to say, it was a military title.
20:40 Speaker 05 At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends. So Eisenhower, of course.
20:43 Nick Capodice? I don't think anybody was at ease talking to Dwight Eisenhower.
20:47 Speaker 05 So he was, of course, the supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II before becoming president. I actually was able to access quite a bit of this book on Google Books and look through it. And it's very entertaining. There is an entire, he talks a lot about his childhood, and there's an entire chapter about being like five years old. And I just want to share an excerpt. So, he's talking about being a five-year-old, encountering geese. And there was one goose in particular who was a nemesis of his, and he describes the experience this way, quote, "Thus, the war began. In the early parts of the campaign, I lost a skirmish every half hour and invariably had to flee ignominiously and weeping from the battlefield."
21:30 Speaker 05 Without support and lacking arms of any kind, it was only by resorting to distressing retreat after retreat to the kitchen door that I kept myself from disaster.
21:41 Speaker 06 Oh, my goodness.
21:42 Hannah McCarthy? This is very interesting because for someone who would go on to be so incredibly, like such a force in the military, to start your book with like, "It all started with the goose," is almost like, it's an odd choice to make. I know everyone does it.
21:58 Speaker 06 You are totally displaying your lack of experience with geese right now.
22:02 Hannah McCarthy? No, no, that's not true.
22:04 Speaker 06 They are so scary.
22:05 Hannah McCarthy? Geese are terrifying. There were whole sections of my college campus that were off limits for like, for a whole season every year because the baby geese had come. And you don't, you don't get near a mother goose. The fact that the rhymes are called "mother goose" doesn't make any sense because a mother goose is the most terrifying bird.
22:33 Speaker 05 Okay, so our last one is called "A Charge to Keep." This was written before this person became president. Some of the titles of chapters include Yale and the National Guard, Harvard and Moving Home, Reading: The New Civil Right. An early ghostwriter was fired because he was seen as overemphasizing early failures and challenges, including in business. And the title of the book comes from a painting called "A Charge to Keep" by Charles Wesley, and it depicts a man on horseback charging up a muddy mountain. This president displayed this painting in the governor's office when they were governor of their state, and then in the Oval Office.
23:19 Nick Capodice? George W. Bush.
23:20 Speaker 05 Yes, George W. Bush. Yeah, so this was published in 1999. I love the fact that he fired an early ghostwriter because he was like, "No, no, we don't talk about my oil business."
23:29 Speaker 06 Yeah.
23:29 Speaker 05 This is about my accomplishments.
23:39 Speaker 05 Okay, the end of that round. The score is Nick, five. Hannah, one.
23:43 Hannah McCarthy? Yeah.
23:44 Speaker 05 Rebecca, three.
23:46 Hannah McCarthy? Yeah.
23:53 Speaker 05 Our next round, a category I've just called Hollywood. I didn't bother making it any more creative than that.
23:59 Nick Capodice? Everybody has a dream.
24:00 Speaker 05 So we have been doing some episodes recently about our favorite movies about the government. I have always been fascinated with the government's relationship to Hollywood, which has been apparent in some of the movies we've talked about, perhaps will be apparent in some of the future movies. So this is all about the relationship between Hollywood and the federal government, and then sometimes state governments as well. So in a few circumstances, the government has helped fund, directly fund, some aspects of different movies or TV shows. But in reality, government support means something different. It usually means giving filmmakers access to shooting locations, or consultants, or
24:41 Speaker 05 supplies, in exchange for oversight or some sort of editorial control. We'll let you film in the CIA building if you let the CIA edit your script. So a classic example is 1994's Clear and Present Danger, which is a Jack Ryan movie. The CIA wanted a scene that showed a conflict between two people in the agency removed, so it came out. And there were parts of that movie that were filmed using CIA headquarters and CIA technology. Also in a clear and present danger, the FBI had a note that the president was not allowed to be racist, and so there were script modifications for that. So this next round is going to be all about movies that were made with, quote, "support
25:24 Speaker 05 by government agencies," support meaning in exchange for locations, equipment, consultation.
25:29 Nick Capodice? Cool.
25:30 Speaker 05 I had so much fun reading about this. There's so many FOIA documents that are just emails back and forth between the government and different sets and Hollywood producers. At the CIA, there was a person known as the Entertainment Industry Liaison. These different agencies literally have offices that are working with Hollywood, and this includes movies, TV shows, reality TV. There's a lot of government involvement in reality TV, which is fascinating, including like cooking shows.
25:59 Speaker 06 Why?
25:59 Speaker 05 Why? I didn't go down the rabbit hole of cooking shows, but I can, I'll post a link to the website that has all of these FOIA requests and you, I spent hours on it. So I'm going to give you a couple of clues, just random clues about a movie. Maybe it's actors, maybe it's topic. And then I want you to guess which movie I'm talking about. So here are my clues. Ben Affleck.
26:26 Speaker 06 Argo.
26:26 Speaker 05 No. War. Air Force.
26:29 Speaker 06 Pearl Harbor.
26:30 Speaker 05 Yes.
26:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, well, you don't have to explain anything to me.
26:35 Speaker 06 I do, because you're acting like I didn't love you.
26:39 Speaker 03 Evelyn, loving you kept me alive.
26:43 Hannah McCarthy? It's Liv Tyler, right? Liv Tyler in that one?
26:45 Speaker 05 Uh, I thought it was like Kate Beckinsale?
26:48 Hannah McCarthy? It is Kate Beckinsale.
26:48 Speaker 06 I think it's Kate Beckinsale.
26:49 Speaker 05 Let's look it up.
26:50 Hannah McCarthy? It could be, it could be Liv Tyler.
26:51 Nick Capodice? Did you say Kate Beckinsale?
26:52 Speaker 06 Kate Beckinsale.
26:54 Nick Capodice? I just thought that would be a funny put down.
26:55 Hannah McCarthy? I love Kate Beckinsale.
26:56 Nick Capodice? More like Kate Beckinsale.
26:57 Hannah McCarthy? She seems like a cool chick.
26:59 Speaker 06 She was in all those vampire movies with Scotty Stevens.
27:01 Speaker 05 Uh, Underworld. Yes, it's Kate Beckinsale. And Josh Hartnett. Um, he's had a wonderful revival of his career.
27:08 Speaker 06 He has, he's so great.
27:09 Speaker 05 Okay, so Pearl Harbor used naval facilities in Hawaii and then members of the military were extras. And they actually created a large scale replica of the USS Oklahoma using military guidance. And that was, of course, one of the ships that sank in the harbor. Okay. Next clue. Ben Affleck.
27:28 Speaker 06 Argo.
27:31 Hannah McCarthy? Batman.
27:34 Speaker 05 Oil drilling. Nuclear bombs. Yes.
27:38 Speaker 03 It's my job. You go take care of my little girl now.
27:44 Speaker 03 That's your job.
27:46 Nick Capodice? The movie they show to NASA to see how many mistakes they can find.
27:50 Speaker 06 Have you ever seen that Ben Affleck's director's cut? Like when he does the commentary over it's, it's the best.
27:56 Nick Capodice? Like eight whole months, as if that's not enough time to learn how to drill a hole. But in a week, we're gonna-
28:01 Speaker 04 Learn how to be astronauts. One whole week. Now you know how to fly into space. I need my guys.
28:09 Speaker 05 Nick, would you just give us really quickly the plot of Armageddon?
28:11 Nick Capodice? An asteroid is hurtling to the earth.
28:13 Hannah McCarthy? That's Liv Tyler.
28:14 Nick Capodice? That is Liv.
28:15 Speaker 05 It is Liv Tyler.
28:16 Hannah McCarthy? With their hand on the screen.
28:17 Speaker 05 Yes.
28:18 Nick Capodice? So an asteroid is hurtling to the earth and NASA just can't figure out how to blow it up. But there's a bunch of wacky drilling people headed by Bruce Willis, who are the only people on the planet who know how to blow up an asteroid. And it's easier to train a bunch of miners to fly in space than a bunch of people in space to drill a hole.
28:39 Speaker 05 So there was NASA cooperation, but there's a really great disclaimer in the credits of this film. I'm going to read it to you. Quote, "The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's cooperation and assistance does not reflect an endorsement of the contents of this film or the treatment of the characters depicted therein."
28:59 Hannah McCarthy? Oh, the treatment.
29:01 Speaker 05 So, yes, so Nick, you got that point.
29:07 Speaker 05 So the next one. Tom Cruise. New York. US military. Tripods.
29:17 Hannah McCarthy? War of the Worlds.
29:18 Speaker 05 Yes.
29:18 Hannah McCarthy? Oh, right.
29:20 Speaker 00 Manny, Manny, Manny, shut up. Guy's acting crazy. Get in, Manny. Guy's gonna come back. Manny, Manny, I don't have time to explain. He busted my chops. I got a shop to run. You know how many people's cars? Manny, listen to me. No way. Get out of the car. Get in, Manny, or you're gonna die.
29:31 Nick Capodice? What a terrible movie that was.
29:33 Speaker 05 Oh, I liked that movie.
29:34 Nick Capodice? And at the end, it's like, and they died of a cold.
29:37 Speaker 05 Okay, yeah, I mean, the plot of War of the Worlds.
29:40 Nick Capodice? HG Wells, right?
29:40 Speaker 05 Is HG Wells, yeah.
29:41 Nick Capodice? Yeah, what a terrible book.
29:43 Speaker 05 There's a couple of interesting things about the Department of Defense involvement. So they wanted to remove scenes where soldiers retreated. Where they wanted to modify them so it didn't look as much like the military was running away from the tripod aliens. And then they also rewrote and made suggestions for the battle scenes, including reducing the number of aircraft that were lost in the fight.
30:04 Hannah McCarthy? Wow.
30:05 Speaker 05 So they just did a little polishing of the US military.
30:07 Hannah McCarthy? A little propagandic polishing.
30:09 Speaker 05 When this happens, we're gonna stick to our guns, literally.
30:22 Speaker 05 Okay, next one. Robert De Niro. The CIA. Lie detector test.
30:30 Nick Capodice? No. Meet the Parents?
30:32 Speaker 05 Yes. What? Meet the Parents.
30:34 Speaker 01 He told me he grew up on a farm.
30:38 Hannah McCarthy? Do they have many farms in Detroit?
30:40 Speaker 01 No, Dina. No, not a lot. In fact, Jack, I should clarify this. I didn't actually grow up in a farm per se. The house that we grew up in was originally erected in the early Dutch farm colonial style. So that, plus we had a lot of pets.
30:57 Speaker 05 De Niro has a very long and storied history of making movies and TV shows that are in cooperation with the government.
31:02 Nick Capodice? Wag the dog, I imagine.
31:04 Speaker 05 Yes. But Meet the Parents, do you want to, do you have a guess, like, what the CIA had to say about his retired CIA officer portrayal in that movie?
31:13 Hannah McCarthy? Well, he gets into his car and it's still, it's like a super CIA car. And he, like, uses the CIA to investigate his daughter's fiancee. And I think the CIA would say, "We don't do that."
31:28 Speaker 05 They allowed that to happen, but there was a scene that depicted torture manuals, like, on a desk. And they removed those and replaced them with photographs of government officials.
31:38 Hannah McCarthy? Okay.
31:39 Speaker 05 So, "We don't do torture. We do do spying on fiancés and lie detector tests." So, the next one. Jeff Daniels. Single dad. Aircraft. Canada. Geese.
31:51 Hannah McCarthy? Fly away home, yes!
31:53 Speaker 01 Hey, guys, mom! Hey, geese! Hey! It's called imprinting. Amy was the first thing they saw when they were born. So they think she's their mother. That one's fluffy, and that one's grumpy. See, the problem with your birds is they're gonna want to migrate south.
32:14 Nick Capodice? Gustavere shot out of your right eyeball.
32:16 Hannah McCarthy? Finally. My weekly viewing of Fly Away Home as a child.
32:20 Speaker 05 Oh, I knew that you would also love Fly Away Home because it's like catnip for the millennial girl. Oh, it's such a good movie.
32:27 Hannah McCarthy? And a paquin.
32:28 Speaker 05 Wow. Okay, so for anyone who doesn't know, Fly Away Home, it's actually based on a true story. The, the
32:34 Hannah McCarthy? Yes, it is.
32:35 Speaker 05 The father and what 11-year-old daughter flying geese from Canada to North Carolina. That didn't actually happen.
32:42 Hannah McCarthy? Right.
32:42 Speaker 05 But there was a experimental aircraft that was built to try to help geese migrate. And it looked like a goose. You can see it at the Experimental Aviation Association Museum in Oshkosh in Wisconsin. It's really neat. So there was involvement with the FAA and of course, various departments. But I think one of my favorite scenes is there's like this height of conflict scene where they cross from Canada into US territory. And I'm like, what are you doing? Like, this is not a sanctioned aircraft. Also, she flies alone. This child just flies alone forever. Because the whole point is they have to get to North Carolina before a property development starts with these geese. Because if the geese
33:23 Speaker 05 migrate there on time, then they can't develop the property because it becomes protected.
33:29 Hannah McCarthy? Yeah, that's how it works.
33:30 Speaker 05 Yeah. Well, it is, it is, you know, the actual flying with a geese-looking machine did really happen.
33:37 Hannah McCarthy? Wow.
33:37 Speaker 05 So Fly Away Home. Hannah, a victorious point for you.
33:41 Hannah McCarthy? Very victorious.
33:43 Speaker 05 It's just it never comes up.
33:45 Hannah McCarthy? Fly Away Home never comes up.
33:54 Speaker 05 Okay, this movie has Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, carbon dioxide, explosion.
34:02 Nick Capodice? Apollo 13?
34:03 Speaker 05 Yes.
34:03 Hannah McCarthy? Oh, of course.
34:06 Speaker 06 Okay, people, listen up. People upstairs handed us this one, and we gotta come through.
34:14 Speaker 05 You gotta find a way to make this fit into the hole for this using nothing but that. NASA, of course, played a big role in the accuracy and recreation of this mission. But it was actually the Navy that had the most noticeable script edits. And the Navy, of course, is only really in the one scene where they're rescued after they land in the water. But they insisted that the script remove all swearing.
34:40 Nick Capodice? Huh.
34:40 Hannah McCarthy? What?
34:41 Speaker 05 Yeah, and this movie is actually rated PG, which is crazy.
34:44 Hannah McCarthy? Apollo 13 is rated PG?
34:46 Speaker 06 Yes. So we are to believe that if you are in a doomed aircraft and everybody very likely could die unless this very specific thing is executed perfectly, that nobody would swear.
35:00 Speaker 05 Yeah, exactly.
35:01 Speaker 06 Cool.
35:03 Speaker 05 We've reached the end of the Hollywood round and the score is as follows. Nick has eight. Hannah has two. Rebecca has six.
35:13 Nick Capodice? All right.
35:14 Speaker 06 All right.
35:27 Nick Capodice? Have any of you out there ever Googled your own name, like actually done it? You'll find your address, your phone number, maybe even that police report from the time you went to see Rain Man in the movie theater, but you were underage? Maybe that one's just me. But here's the thing, there are companies called data brokers whose entire business model is collecting your personal information and selling it to advertisers, to strangers, sometimes to people running scams. And once your data's out there, it just keeps circulating. That is where Incogni comes in. Incogni contacts data brokers on your behalf and sends them removal requests over and over. So your info doesn't just pop right back up. You set it up once and they keep working in the background.
36:13 Nick Capodice? You can even track the progress on a dashboard. And for our listeners, we have an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan. Just go to incogni.com/civics or use the code civics at checkout. There's a link in the episode description. Remember, they can't harm you if they can't find you.
36:32 Speaker 00 Priceline Negotiator. It's me, the Priceline Negotiator. We don't need the jingle twice. What about a third time? Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars. Seems like they just started. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app. Time to read the timeline. Fine. No one deals more deals than... Priceline. Please stop. Priceline. Touche. Priceline. Priceline.
37:03 Speaker 01 I don't know what I'm doing. Need a break. Forget it, I quit. Escape to Pluto TV. This is objectively fantastic. Relax into the movies and shows you already know and love, all for free. Swing! Even our news is uplifting. You stay classy, San Diego. Watch Tommy Boy, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The Ex-Files, Wayne's World, and so much more. We're not worthy! The best things on TV really are free. You just have to know where to look. Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.
37:32 Speaker 03 Para los grandes, para los chicos, para los bajos y los altos, los pacifistas, los valientes. Para los optimistas y los pesimistas, los que valoran lo de adentro. Para los que están lejos, los que no vende lejos, y los que no vende cerca. Para los introvertidos y los extrovertidos. Para los que piensan y los que hacen. Para los que nos mostraron el camino. Coca-Cola. Para todos. Compra una Coca-Cola en una tienda cerca de usted.
38:08 Speaker 05 We're back. This is Civics 101. Our next round is called A Torrid West Wing Love Affair. So, on Civics 101, we all have our niches, our expertise. There's one area of knowledge you all know far better than me, and that's the West Wing, which is a show I've never seen. I've only seen random episodes or maybe, you know, clips when I'm trying to pull clips for my own episodes. And every time you reference it, I sort of nod my head and act like I know what you're talking about, and I very rarely do. However, there is one area of pop culture where I think I have more knowledge than you all, and that is the romantic literary career of one Christina Phillips.
38:52 Speaker 05 I don't know if that's a pseudonym or not. For a while, and depending where you live and your Googling habits, if you Google Christina Phillips, the first thing that will pop up is the romance novelist Christina Phillips.
39:03 Hannah McCarthy? Oh, I thought that you were about to reveal to us that you're a romance novelist.
39:06 Speaker 05 Oh, no.
39:07 Hannah McCarthy? Can you imagine? I was so excited.
39:09 Speaker 05 I'm sorry. I hate to disappoint you, but it's not me. But there is a woman out there named Christina Phillips who writes romance novels.
39:17 Hannah McCarthy? All right.
39:18 Speaker 05 This quiz is going to be about how well you know the titles of West Wing episodes.
39:23 Hannah McCarthy? Ew.
39:24 Speaker 05 So it's a this or that. You're going to tell me if this is the title of an episode of The West Wing, or if it is the title of a romance novel by Christina Phillips. Are we ready?
39:36 Hannah McCarthy? Yes. Yeah.
39:37 Speaker 05 Nick? Oh, dear. First question for you. West Wing or romance novel? Payback.
39:46 Speaker 05 I'm going to say The West Wing. No.
39:50 Speaker 05 The one thing I can say about Payback, the novel, is it's part of a series about bikers.
39:55 Hannah McCarthy? I was really hoping that it was going to be like, "The Duchess's Finest Hour." What is it?
40:03 Speaker 05 You know I wouldn't make it that easy.
40:04 Hannah McCarthy? I know.
40:05 Speaker 05 So Hannah, the title is "The Stormy Present."
40:09 Hannah McCarthy? I'm going to say West Wing.
40:10 Speaker 05 It is West Wing.
40:11 Hannah McCarthy? Nice.
40:12 Speaker 05 So this is from season five, episode 10. "President Bartlet Clears His Schedule to Attend the Funeral of a Former President." You get a point. Rebecca?
40:20 Speaker 06 Yeah.
40:21 Speaker 05 Angel Maintenance.
40:23 Speaker 06 It's got to be The West Wing.
40:25 Speaker 05 It is The West Wing. So do you know what that episode is about?
40:29 Speaker 06 Angel Maintenance?
40:30 Speaker 05 Mm-hmm.
40:31 Speaker 06 I don't know. Is it about Air Force One?
40:33 Speaker 05 Yeah, it is, actually. Nice.
40:35 Speaker 06 You should get a bonus point for that. Hey, uh, listen, everybody. The Colonel just told us we're about to go buy something.
40:42 Hannah McCarthy? Incredible, and you hardly ever get to see this. It's gonna be out the left side of the plane.
40:46 Nick Capodice? What is it?
40:46 Speaker 06 Oh, I remember that one.
40:48 Speaker 05 I don't.
40:48 Speaker 06 I like any of the episodes on Air Force One.
40:51 Speaker 05 All right, Rebecca, I'm going right back to you.
40:53 Speaker 06 Okay.
40:54 Speaker 05 Stirred.
40:55 Speaker 06 This could honestly be either one so easily. I'm going with the romance novel.
40:59 Speaker 05 Nope.
41:02 Speaker 05 It's an episode of The West Wing, season three, episode 13. The president's staff faces a crisis when a rig carrying uranium fuel rods crashes in Idaho. I'm not entirely sure how that involves stirred. Oh, also, there's a whole side plot about filing your taxes online, which I bet I would enjoy. Nick? Not so happily ever after.
41:24 Nick Capodice? I'm gonna say romance novel.
41:25 Speaker 05 It is.
41:26 Nick Capodice? Thank heavens.
41:28 Speaker 05 Hannah? Cinderella and the Geek.
41:32 Speaker 06 West Wing.
41:33 Speaker 05 Nope.
41:35 Speaker 06 That sounds like a West Wing title.
41:37 Speaker 05 So this involves a workplace and a fake relationship.
41:40 Speaker 06 Yeah.
41:40 Speaker 05 You gotta love a fake relationship.
41:42 Speaker 06 Sort of like the proposal with Sandra Bullock.
41:44 Speaker 05 Yes, actually, I think it is a boss-to-employee relationship as well, so yeah.
41:48 Speaker 06 So appropriate.
41:48 Speaker 05 Yes, yes, so just think of that. All right, I'm gonna go right back to you, Hannah, you have another chance.
41:53 Hannah McCarthy? Okay.
41:53 Speaker 05 Another chance at redemption, because that is the title, redemption.
41:58 Hannah McCarthy? Um, West Wing.
42:01 Speaker 05 No.
42:02 Hannah McCarthy? Oh, well.
42:03 Speaker 05 So.
42:04 Speaker 06 Was this a sequel to Payback?
42:06 Speaker 05 So actually, I think one of them is the first one and one of them is the second one.
42:11 Speaker 06 One more title series.
42:13 Speaker 05 So I do have a plot description for this one. A fallen arc angel saves a woman from a deadly fate and unleashes an ancient power that could destroy the universe itself.
42:22 Speaker 06 Oh, so it's not about cyclists.
42:25 Hannah McCarthy? But it is an angel romance. That's interesting.
42:29 Speaker 05 She's got a wide genre spread. There's also wolves, vampires, there's.
42:35 Speaker 06 She's covering all the bases.
42:37 Speaker 05 Historical, yeah, very diverse. Okay, Nick? Bad Moon Rising.
42:43 Nick Capodice? Something bad is happening in the White House. I'm gonna say The West Wing.
42:46 Speaker 05 It is The West Wing. This is season two, episode 19. President Bartlet could be in violation of full disclosure for neglecting to mention his multiple sclerosis.
42:55 Hannah McCarthy? Yeah, that was a big problem.
42:57 Speaker 05 Yeah. Okay, Rebecca?
42:59 Speaker 06 Yeah.
43:00 Speaker 05 Noel?
43:00 Speaker 06 West Wing.
43:01 Speaker 05 It is.
43:02 Hannah McCarthy? Yeah.
43:03 Nick Capodice? Is that the one sort of takes place at Christmas time and Josh is dealing with his PTSD?
43:07 Speaker 03 You wrapped that yourself, right?
43:11 Speaker 03 The bandage? Yeah. Donna's gonna take you to the emergency room. She knows. She was the one who guessed.
43:18 Speaker 05 This feels like I'm reliving so much of my experience. Specifically, when I went to meetings and you're talking about plots, I'm like, yes, uh huh. Oh, yeah, that part. I remember that.
43:36 Speaker 05 So the score is as follows. Nick, 10. Hannah, 3. Rebecca, 8. We've reached the final category, which is called redemption hour. This is just two questions. I've done, I don't know, half a dozen trivia episodes on this show. And in each of those episodes...
43:54 Hannah McCarthy? Oh, no. This is so mean.
43:58 Nick Capodice? Wait, is this... Oh, boy.
43:59 Hannah McCarthy? I know exactly what's coming.
44:01 Nick Capodice? Yeah, I have a feeling.
44:02 Hannah McCarthy? Unbelievable.
44:04 Speaker 05 So, you've gotten a lot of questions right and some questions very, very wrong.
44:12 Speaker 05 I'm calling this redemption hour because I'm gonna bring back two questions that you all got so catastrophically wrong. And I'm gonna give you a chance to try again. So here's how it's gonna work. They are both from the holiday food trivia episode from last December. I want you to write your answer down. I'm gonna play the tape.
44:38 Speaker 05 And then you're gonna reveal your answers this time around. Are you ready?
44:43 Hannah McCarthy? I notably, the things that I get wrong, I get wrong for the rest of my life. I always make the same confusion, you know?
44:53 Nick Capodice? Absolutely true.
44:53 Speaker 06 I'm putting that in your performance review.
44:56 Hannah McCarthy? She just doesn't learn.
44:58 Speaker 05 Okay, so here is the first question. Several sources mentioned that this president, former secretary of state and founding father from Virginia, loved a cocktail known as a Yard of Flannel. Who is the president? All right, let me play the tape.
45:20 Hannah McCarthy? Thomas Jefferson?
45:21 Speaker 05 No.
45:22 Nick Capodice? That's what I was gonna say.
45:24 Hannah McCarthy? Andrew Jackson?
45:25 Nick Capodice? Eleven presidents were Secretary of State.
45:27 Speaker 05 Founding father, former Secretary of State, and from Virginia.
45:32 Speaker 06 They were all from Virginia.
45:34 Speaker 05 Yeah.
45:35 Nick Capodice? Tyler?
45:36 Speaker 05 No, he was one of the first four presidents.
45:39 Nick Capodice? Well, this is embarrassing.
45:40 Speaker 06 This is so embarrassing.
45:41 Nick Capodice? I hope you cut that stuff about us not knowing the first four presidents.
45:44 Speaker 06 I'm editing this.
45:45 Nick Capodice? Because we would lose our job.
45:47 Speaker 05 Rebecca, leave it in. Leave it in, Rebecca. So you did cut it. So I brought it back.
45:51 Speaker 06 Oh, God.
45:53 Speaker 05 Because you've cut a lot of that in the episode.
45:56 Speaker 06 I'm so... Look at we all...
45:56 Nick Capodice? Look who we all wrote down.
45:58 Hannah McCarthy? I wrote Thomas Jefferson.
46:00 Speaker 05 All three of you wrote Thomas Jefferson.
46:02 Hannah McCarthy? Was it George Washington?
46:03 Speaker 05 No, stop guessing.
46:05 Nick Capodice? Monroe?
46:06 Speaker 05 It was Madison.
46:07 Nick Capodice? Madison.
46:08 Speaker 06 Oh, I remember you eventually said, "This guy wrote the Constitution." And we still didn't know.
46:15 Nick Capodice? Oh, I would've gotten that.
46:17 Speaker 06 Oh, goodness.
46:18 Speaker 05 Oh, that played out exactly how I hoped it would.
46:21 Hannah McCarthy? The worst part is that I wrote this, like, kind of romantic philosophical thing about James Madison this morning, not to say in this script.
46:31 Nick Capodice? I feel like I have a yard of flannel to celebrate.
46:40 Speaker 05 All right, so, no redemption on that one. This is from the same episode. So again, I'm gonna have you write down your answers, and I'm gonna play the tape, and then I'm gonna have you reveal your answers. Idaho is the biggest producer of potatoes in the United States. We went around the room, and I asked you to share your guess for one of the four states that rounds out the top five potato producers in this country. Idaho is number one, and there are four other states that are top potato producers. So you each got two guesses last time. Only one person got one out of the eight guesses correct, so... Let's see, once you've written down your guesses, I'm gonna play the tape.
47:25 Speaker 05 Rebecca, you waved your hand, so you first.
47:27 Hannah McCarthy? Maine.
47:28 Speaker 05 No. Nick?
47:31 Nick Capodice? California.
47:32 Speaker 05 No.
47:33 Nick Capodice? Oh, it's so big.
47:38 Hannah McCarthy? Ohio.
47:39 Speaker 05 No.
47:40 Hannah McCarthy? New Jersey.
47:41 Speaker 05 Nope.
47:43 Nick Capodice? Washington State.
47:44 Speaker 05 Yes.
47:44 Hannah McCarthy? Oh, nice. Yeah. I can like see it on a bag of potatoes. That's Idaho.
47:56 Hannah McCarthy? That's so good, Rebecca. Vermont.
47:59 Speaker 05 No.
48:01 Speaker 05 All right. We had a lot of bad guesses, one good guess. Rebecca, what did you guess this time?
48:07 Hannah McCarthy? California.
48:10 Hannah McCarthy? And Michigan.
48:12 Speaker 05 No.
48:13 Nick Capodice? Oh, boy.
48:14 Speaker 05 Nick?
48:15 Nick Capodice? California.
48:17 Speaker 05 No.
48:18 Nick Capodice? Pennsylvania.
48:21 Hannah McCarthy? I put California.
48:23 Speaker 05 Uh huh.
48:24 Hannah McCarthy? And Minnesota.
48:25 Speaker 05 No.
48:27 Nick Capodice? No.
48:27 Speaker 05 Should I do minus one for Nick?
48:31 Speaker 05 He guessed it right the first time and not the second time.
48:33 Hannah McCarthy? Oh, boy.
48:33 Nick Capodice? I did the reverse of getting better.
48:35 Speaker 05 Yeah.
48:35 Nick Capodice? It's like when I did so badly in cursive in second grade and third grade, it was even worse. The teacher was like, what is wrong with your son?
48:44 Speaker 05 So the states are Washington, Wisconsin, Colorado, and North Dakota.
48:49 Hannah McCarthy? All right.
48:50 Speaker 05 So, once again, you have not been redeemed.
48:54 Nick Capodice? Can you come back next year and do that again?
48:56 Speaker 05 Yeah.
48:57 Nick Capodice? Just come, just like leave the hot swanky newsroom. File this, press that, what a scoop. And just come over here and give us a chance of redemption one more time.
49:06 Speaker 05 Yeah, I'll do a whole redemption.
49:08 Nick Capodice? I think everyone deserves a third chance of redemption.
49:10 Speaker 05 Same questions?
49:11 Hannah McCarthy? Yeah.
49:12 Nick Capodice? No.
49:12 Hannah McCarthy? No, no, no.
49:13 Speaker 05 Are you sure?
49:14 Nick Capodice? Yeah, I won one not about the food. I hated them. They were so hard.
49:21 Speaker 05 All right, so our final score. Nick, you have 10.
49:24 Hannah McCarthy? Nice.
49:25 Speaker 05 Hannah, you have 3.
49:26 Hannah McCarthy? All right.
49:27 Speaker 05 Rebecca, you have 8.
49:28 Hannah McCarthy? All right.
49:29 Speaker 05 So, thank you so much.
49:30 Nick Capodice? Oh, well.
49:31 Hannah McCarthy? Thank you, Christina. This was really fun.
49:34 Speaker 05 And I should say that I'm putting together, and you will be hearing it, listener, in just a minute. I have a little montage of some of my favorite moments that were either on tape or off tape of just recording with you guys. So, stick around to hear that. Nick is cringing in horror.
49:49 Nick Capodice? No, I'm trying not to cry.
49:51 Speaker 05 Oh, okay, never mind.
49:52 Nick Capodice? I really, I, I mean, listeners out there, it's, it's, it's, it is bittersweet. It has been so wonderful to work with Christina.
49:59 Speaker 05 Yeah.
49:59 Nick Capodice? Our show changed when you started working here. And you will be really missed, and you're irreplaceable. But we're also happy for what you're doing.
50:08 Speaker 05 Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, guys. It's hard to leave.
50:11 Speaker 06 As I said to our COO this morning, I'm so happy for Christina, but I'm also so upset because it's her work that makes people think I'm doing a good job.
50:24 Speaker 05 Well, you're welcome.
50:33 Speaker 05 This episode was written by me, Christina Phillips, and edited by Rebecca Lavoy. Thank you to our hosts, Nick Capodice and Hannah McCarthy. And thank you to our producer, Marina Henke.
50:43 Nick Capodice? Music in this episode from Epidemic Sound and Chris Zabriski.
50:47 Speaker 05 Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.
51:15 Speaker 05 OK, so are we ready to get started? Yeah.
51:19 Speaker 06 Yep.
51:19 Speaker 05 Wow, that was so enthusiastic. OK.
51:22 Speaker 06 Try not to interrupt each other.
51:23 Speaker 05 Three times a week.
51:25 Nick Capodice? So we're doing hands now, which you poo-pooed when I said it earlier?
51:28 Speaker 06 No, I didn't poo-poo it. I said, should we raise? I said, you shouldn't raise your hand like while she's... I mean, maybe we all did.
51:33 Nick Capodice? You did.
51:33 Speaker 06 You're right, I did him wrong.
51:35 Nick Capodice? You might take a photo next time?
51:40 Nick Capodice? Let's all just do an "ah!"
51:45 Nick Capodice? And when you like when you think of Weems.
51:48 Speaker 06 Weems?
51:49 Nick Capodice? This product is brought to you by Weems Bingo Bong.
51:57 Hannah McCarthy? Hello.
51:57 Nick Capodice? That is she.
51:58 Hannah McCarthy? It's me.
52:07 Nick Capodice? Christina, do you know how many sound texts it takes to change a lightbulb?
52:09 Speaker 05 You've also told me this joke.
52:10 Nick Capodice? One, two, one, two.
52:16 Nick Capodice? Did you know that in Norway, the boats, the boats have UPC codes on the side?
52:20 Speaker 05 That's really smart.
52:21 Nick Capodice? So that when you go, you can Scandinavian.
52:24 Speaker 05 Oh, no. I don't know. I don't figure it out, Christina.
52:26 Hannah McCarthy? That's a really good idea.
52:29 Nick Capodice? Christina, did you know that the real Mona Lisa is not in the Louvre?
52:33 Speaker 05 Really? Where is it?
52:34 Nick Capodice? No, apparently it's just a picture of her.
52:37 Speaker 05 Oh, my gosh, Nick.
52:39 Nick Capodice? Christina, this is for our listeners, Christina. Do you know how to, to make sure you spell cemetery properly?
52:44 Speaker 05 No, but I would love to know.
52:46 Nick Capodice? They're so scary. You go all the way through it.
52:50 Speaker 05 Even the end?
52:52 Hannah McCarthy? The chocolate orange, especially when you leave it on your parents' dashboard and then it gets all like melty. So specific.
53:00 Nick Capodice? And you have to crack it. You like take it and you smack it.
53:02 Hannah McCarthy? A handful of times. What about like chocolate covered pomegranate seeds?
53:06 Speaker 05 Nope.
53:07 Hannah McCarthy? What?
53:08 Speaker 05 No.
53:09 Nick Capodice? Where are those?
53:09 Hannah McCarthy? It's basically just a fancy red net.
53:12 Speaker 05 That is something.
53:13 Hannah McCarthy? They exist if you make them, man.
53:19 Hannah McCarthy? I want some tableside flames.
53:20 Nick Capodice? Yeah, me too.
53:21 Hannah McCarthy? I never had that in my youth.
53:24 Hannah McCarthy? Wait, what's the joke? I can't operate on this, this patient?
53:29 Nick Capodice? He's my son.
53:30 Hannah McCarthy? He's my son. How is that possible? Yes, yes. Grass is fine. I actually kind of like grass.
53:35 Nick Capodice? I eat grass all the time.
53:36 Speaker 05 The jelly bean or the?
53:38 Nick Capodice? The actual substance.
53:39 Hannah McCarthy? The jelly bean.
53:40 Nick Capodice? As a child, I used to eat grass. Or it's gonna rain. It's usually I eat it when it was about to rain.
53:45 Hannah McCarthy? This was fascinating.
53:46 Speaker 05 Oh, good. I'm so glad.
53:47 Hannah McCarthy? This was taxinating.
53:48 Speaker 05 Well, thank you, Hannah.
53:50 Hannah McCarthy? It's like, just to clarify, per usual, the vice president doesn't do anything. Amendments are in addition to, like, they don't cross anything out. Well, that's not actually true.
54:01 Nick Capodice? Amendments can't cross things out.
54:02 Hannah McCarthy? They've crossed some things out.
54:06 Hannah McCarthy? To establishing eligibility for Austrian-born former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president.
54:13 Nick Capodice? Say Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president.
54:15 Hannah McCarthy? Arnold Schwarzenegger to... What am I saying?
54:18 Nick Capodice? You're saying Schwarzenegger. It's Schw- Schwarzenegger.
54:21 Hannah McCarthy? Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president.
54:23 Nick Capodice? One more time.
54:24 Hannah McCarthy? Oh, my god. Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president. Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president. Like German-born Henry Kissin- Henry Kissinger, excuse me. Like German-born... Why is that so hard to say? German-born Henry Kissinger. There have been a few proposed constitutional amendments like that. Oh, no, Christina, you're not gonna make me read this again. Okay, it's different. There's one perfume, I can't even remember the name of it, and it's the only one I've ever really, truly wanted in my heart of hearts, and I wasn't even allowed to spray a tester of it.
54:55 Nick Capodice? Is this the maid from the blood of a thousand dead roses perfume?
54:58 Hannah McCarthy? No, I have purchased that one. It smells great. But a thousand Turkish roses, Nick.
55:04 Speaker 05 I also didn't realize that Metamorphosis, the guy turns into a dung beetle, I didn't pick up on that. I just thought he was, like, having a weird...
55:11 Hannah McCarthy? Did you read the books?
55:13 Speaker 05 No, I did. I was not. I just was so grumpy.
55:16 Hannah McCarthy? I thought he was just having a weird time. This is the difference between a student who uses Spark Notes and one who doesn't, right here.
55:26 Nick Capodice? Christina?
55:26 Hannah McCarthy? Nick thinks Lord of the Rings is a bad series.
55:30 Nick Capodice? I do. I think they're bad movies.
55:33 Hannah McCarthy? All of the good and decent creatures of the world banding together to fight a singular evil.
55:41 Nick Capodice? Including trees.
55:41 Hannah McCarthy? That would mean the destruction, yeah, of life.
55:46 Nick Capodice? But you like that-
55:46 Hannah McCarthy? Life as you know it, basically.
55:47 Nick Capodice? You like that part, when everybody comes together from all these different places to battle this big evil force, and then go back to their own lands to probably fight each other in another 50 years.
55:57 Hannah McCarthy? Well...
55:57 Nick Capodice? Including ghosts. Including ghosts that come out of a cave.
56:03 Hannah McCarthy? I'm not even convinced you've seen the whole series.
56:06 Nick Capodice? Those kings in the hole in the cave, and they come, and he's like, "Please, Jo- okay, fine."
56:12 Nick Capodice? And they just kill everyone. "You bow to no one." Sorry, go ahead. What a terrible movie that was.
56:18 Hannah McCarthy? Oh, I liked that movie.
56:20 Nick Capodice? And at the end, it's like, and they die. Side of a cold.
56:22 Speaker 05 It's so funny. There's so many things that you're like, I hate this. I'm like, I love that.
56:27 Nick Capodice? The perfume I wear, they don't, they don't say. You can always have, you can always have maximum confidence in the original odor protection of Speed Stick.
56:35 Speaker 05 Nick?
56:38 Nick Capodice? Yeah.
56:40 Speaker 05 Who's, who, who are you, sir?
56:42 Nick Capodice? Oh.
56:43 Speaker 05 Nick, answer this as Christopher Walken.
56:46 Nick Capodice? I would think that the cream is of Jelly Bellies. So, to sell to children, wouldn't have an alcoholic drink, but then again.
56:58 Speaker 05 Okay.
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