Pod Insights Stuff You Should Know SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: How Monopoly Works About this episode Since more than 1 billion people have played it, you're probably familiar with the board game Monopoly, but we bet you don't know its secret origins as a left-wing socialist teaching tool. Learn about the history, rules and cultural impact of Monopoly.
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Transcript 11,541 words · 8 speakers
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1:06 Josh Clark? Oh, boy. It's time for one of my favorite episodes, How Monopoly Works. This one was way more interesting than I ever understood. There's a lot more to Monopoly. And just as a little aside, if you think that the Monopoly man wore a monocle, you're wrong. You're thinking of Mr. Peanut. Plus, also, it makes sense that he would be wearing a monocle. It's a bit of a crime that he wasn't. At any rate, here's the episode of Monopoly.
1:33 Speaker 03 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com.
1:43 Josh Clark? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W., Chuck Bryant, and Jerry Rowland, which makes the Stuff You Should Know.
1:50 Speaker 04 That's right. Got on my top hat and my cane.
1:54 Josh Clark? And monocle.
1:55 Speaker 04 My monocle. Does he have a monocle? I thought it was, uh, no, it's Mr. Peanut.
1:59 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah.
2:00 Speaker 04 Not Mr. Monopoly.
2:01 Josh Clark? And I think Mr. Pringle has a monocle, too, doesn't he?
2:04 Speaker 04 Ew.
2:05 Josh Clark? No, he just has a mustache.
2:06 Speaker 04 Yeah.
2:07 Josh Clark? Mr. Monopoly doesn't have a monocle, huh?
2:09 Speaker 04 I don't think so.
2:10 Josh Clark? Huh. You'd think we'd know. We do not, but I do know this, Mr. Monopoly is a nickname for that man.
2:19 Speaker 04 That's right.
2:20 Josh Clark? His born name, his given name by his parents is Rich Uncle Pennybags. Three names. So Uncle would be his middle name.
2:30 Speaker 04 Yeah, well, he even has a regular name, too.
2:32 Josh Clark? Oh, not that I saw.
2:34 Speaker 04 Yeah, it is Milburn Pennybags.
2:37 Josh Clark? No.
2:38 Speaker 04 Yeah, there was a book published, and this is one of those after the fact deals, called The Monopoly Companion. And they named all the characters on the board, Milburn Pennybags, and then the jail guy is Jake the Jailbird.
2:51 Josh Clark? Okay.
2:52 Speaker 04 And the police officer and go to jail is.
2:54 Josh Clark? I'll bet it's Iris, isn't it?
2:56 Speaker 04 Officer Edgar Mallory.
2:57 Josh Clark? I knew it.
2:59 Speaker 04 Really? You just guessed that, huh?
3:00 Josh Clark? Yeah.
3:01 Speaker 04 That's pretty funny. We're talking about Monopoly, by the way.
3:04 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah.
3:04 Speaker 04 Yeah.
3:05 Josh Clark? This is not about anything else but Monopoly.
3:10 Speaker 04 No, and I was just remarking to you, sir, how I've never seen one of our, this had more supplemental information than most shows that we research.
3:20 Josh Clark? Yeah, I can explain why. Because this was written, there was a whole suite of game articles written.
3:29 Speaker 04 Yeah.
3:30 Josh Clark? Like just how to play certain games.
3:32 Speaker 04 Sure.
3:33 Josh Clark? So it kind of came out in this mentality of this is the game, and here's how we explain how to play it, and then this article's done. Whereas Monopoly, it's like, this is more like McDonald's or Twinkies or something like that. It's like a cultural cog.
3:51 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, there's so much extra junk history and, I mean, you talk about the different versions, it's ridiculous.
4:00 Josh Clark? Milburn Pennybags?
4:02 Speaker 04 Yeah, and like I said, that was a post that he wasn't originally called that. This is, I think, Monopoly probably wanted to sell a little book or two.
4:10 Josh Clark? I'm sure they did.
4:11 Speaker 04 Because if one thing we've learned about Parker Brothers and now Hasbro is they love selling different versions of this game.
4:20 Josh Clark? Yeah, they do. They like licensing it off.
4:23 Speaker 04 A lot of money doing that.
4:23 Josh Clark? They like making some changes here or there and releasing a brand new game, but it's all still the same game. And all of it came from a left-wing Quaker intellectual at the turn of the last century, the fin de siècle.
4:39 Speaker 04 Yeah.
4:40 Josh Clark? I think I'm saying that right.
4:43 Speaker 04 Yeah, sure.
4:44 Josh Clark? Okay.
4:44 Speaker 04 I think it sounds right. And it's interesting to me that the game of Monopoly, which is all about capitalism
4:52 Josh Clark? Yes.
4:52 Speaker 04 and bankrupting your neighbor.
4:54 Josh Clark? Yeah.
4:55 Speaker 04 Was stolen. The game was stolen.
4:58 Josh Clark? From a leftist intellectual Quaker.
5:01 Speaker 04 In the original version of the game, it was to teach against monopolies and how they're bad.
5:05 Josh Clark? Right, so let's talk about this. Monopoly, actually, if you trace it back to about the, like, the literal beginning of the 20th century, it's what's considered a folk game. There were a lot of people playing versions like this in cities all over the country, but again, they all shared some pretty common viewpoints. I guess today you would kind of call them socialist, but for the most part, they were followers of a guy named Henry George.
5:36 Speaker 04 Yeah, Georgism.
5:37 Josh Clark? Yeah, he came up with this thing called Georgism, which is based on some other philosophies. But the idea of it is that if you produce something through your own labor, your own work, you own that. That should not be taxed.
5:50 Speaker 04 Right.
5:51 Josh Clark? What should be taxed is things that everybody owns. If somebody's taking something that belongs to everybody, say, a parcel of land.
5:58 Speaker 04 Yeah.
5:59 Josh Clark? Technically, the land belongs to everybody.
6:00 Speaker 04 Well, that was his notion, was that you shouldn't even be a landowner. Like, the whole concept of owning land to him was ridiculous.
6:06 Josh Clark? And that's based on this idea, the law of the commons, which is around for centuries, if not millennia. And then, once people started taking land, he's like, okay, well, if you're gonna own land, it belongs to everybody, so that should be taxed.
6:19 Speaker 04 Yeah.
6:19 Josh Clark? And then that tax will be given back to the community for the greater good.
6:23 Speaker 04 Yeah.
6:23 Josh Clark? So, that's Georgism. And that was kind of the philosophy that formed the basis of Monopoly, what was originally called the landlord's game, which was created by a lady named Lizzie Maggie. M-A-G-Y.
6:38 Speaker 04 M-A-G-I-E.
6:39 Josh Clark? M-A-G-I-E.
6:39 Speaker 04 Yeah.
6:40 Josh Clark? Almost magpie, but without the P. Right?
6:44 Speaker 04 Uh, yeah.
6:45 Josh Clark? And she basically-
6:46 Speaker 04 I think that was on her card.
6:48 Josh Clark? In quote.
6:49 Speaker 04 Yeah.
6:49 Josh Clark? And she, uh, she came up with this, like you said, to kind of teach, um, so you could go and be a rich landowner and bankrupt other people and exploit the poor who need your help, um, who need a decent place to stay, and you could see yourself like the evils of capitalism. But she actually came up with two- Sets of rules for the same game. One was where you got as rich as you could at the expense of everybody else.
7:18 Speaker 04 Yeah.
7:18 Josh Clark? The other was a, oh, basically the community benefited. And you can kind of see that today in like these weird things like community chess. Like, why would I want to, you know, pay into this pot? I don't care about the community. Uh, uh, like now it's a bad thing.
7:35 Speaker 04 Yeah.
7:35 Josh Clark? In her original version, it was a good thing, like the community won.
7:38 Speaker 04 Right.
7:39 Josh Clark? And that was the basis of the whole thing.
7:40 Speaker 04 Yeah, which is really ironic.
7:42 Josh Clark? It is.
7:43 Speaker 04 Uh, yeah, like you said, she created two versions and she said, um, one of the quotes from her is, "It is a practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences." So it, you know, it was kind of to teach people lessons. Uh, and she had it stolen from her.
8:01 Josh Clark? She did. Luckily, Lizzie Maggie was smart enough to patent this game. Uh, it became just kind of a trendy thing again, like if you were, uh, into socialism at the time and you were on the East Coast, you probably hung out at a friend's house and, and, um, played this game at some point in some incarnation or another.
8:24 Speaker 04 Yeah, it was really popular. Like you said, like people made up some of their own rules, but it was, if, I mean, if you look at the original landlord's game board, it looks a lot like the current monopoly. I mean, similar at least.
8:34 Josh Clark? Yeah. And apparently a lot of the, uh, the rules that make the game a lot more enjoyable today came from, uh, Lizzie's Quaker friends. Like, for example, um, the original plots of land were up for auction for, for bid.
8:53 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah.
8:54 Josh Clark? Quakers prefer silence, so they just put a fixed price on a piece of land. So there wouldn't be a loud, obnoxious bidding war.
9:01 Speaker 04 Yeah.
9:02 Josh Clark? Um, they also, um, instituted tokens, fun tokens before they were just boring pawns.
9:08 Speaker 04 Yeah, like, uh, household objects, which, you know, that's why the thimble is in there. And originally the iron.
9:13 Josh Clark? Yeah.
9:14 Speaker 04 We'll get to those in a minute, but, um,
9:16 Josh Clark? Ooh.
9:16 Speaker 04 I know, it's pretty exciting.
9:18 Josh Clark? Uh, and then, so this thing's being played and, uh, Lizzie Maggie holds the patent, but she's not exactly like, um, cracking down on any kind of infringement, really.
9:28 Speaker 04 No, well, she pitched it to Parker Brothers and they said, no.
9:31 Josh Clark? Yeah, so she just kind of went on doing her own thing.
9:33 Speaker 04 So there's another lady, actually, that figures into this, a lady named Ruth Hoskins. And she was one of the ones who caught on in the like Philadelphia, Atlantic City area with her Quaker friends. Two of them in particular, Jesse and Eugene Rayford. And they are the ones who changed some of the rules to make it look more like the monopoly we know. They taught it to a friend named Todd, and Todd taught it to his friend named Charles Darrow. And that's where the story takes a kind of a seedy turn.
10:06 Josh Clark? Well, actually, that's where the Parker Brothers official version begins ironically.
10:11 Speaker 04 Yeah.
10:12 Josh Clark? Things turn seedy.
10:13 Speaker 04 If you go to their website.
10:14 Josh Clark? Parker Brothers is like, hey, this is where our story begins.
10:17 Speaker 04 Yeah, the inventor of monopoly, Charles Darrow.
10:19 Josh Clark? Right, so he was like a radiator salesman during the depression. This is the 30s, right?
10:24 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, it was ironically, again, during the depression, this game really caught hold.
10:29 Josh Clark? Well, supposedly, that's what caught the Parker Brothers' attention was that this guy came to him, came to them to sell him this game, which he had stolen.
10:41 Speaker 04 Yeah, apparently, he didn't innovate it at all. He kind of just copied it and packaged it.
10:45 Josh Clark? Right.
10:45 Speaker 04 And said, hey, what do you think of this?
10:47 Josh Clark? And the Parker Brothers said, we don't think too much of it. Like, how does the game end? We don't know what's going on here, so let's just, you just go your own way. So Charles Darrow went off and started selling it at this Wanamaker's Department Store in Philadelphia.
11:03 Speaker 04 Yeah, without patenting it.
11:04 Josh Clark? Right, and the Parker Brothers said, you know what? It's the depression. Can you believe it? We're not going to have any kind of economic woes like this for another 70, 80 years. And this guy's selling these things like hotcakes. You know what, sir? We will buy your idea from you. And Charles Darrow apparently said, well. That's great.
11:29 Speaker 04 Yeah.
11:30 Josh Clark? Give me the money first and then I'll tell you the second part of the story.
11:33 Speaker 04 Yeah.
11:34 Josh Clark? And they gave him a bag of money with a dollar sign on it, much like the ones that, um, rich Uncle Pennybags likes.
11:41 Speaker 04 Yeah.
11:42 Josh Clark? And, uh, he said, okay, um, we also need to buy the patent off from this lady named Lizzie Maggie.
11:48 Speaker 04 Yeah, which they did. Um, the game was still stolen, I say, even though that they eventually did pay her money.
11:55 Josh Clark? Yeah.
11:56 Speaker 04 Uh, but part of the deal was they said, um, they gri- they agreed to buy her patent and said, you know what? We're gonna, we'll sell a few of your other game ideas to, none of those ever went anywhere. And she was sort of lost to history.
12:06 Josh Clark? Yeah.
12:07 Speaker 04 Except for people who do a little bit of digging.
12:09 Josh Clark? Uh, yeah, and we actually have a, a guy named Ralph to thank for doing that digging initially. We'll talk about him later.
12:16 Speaker 04 Oh yeah, that's right.
12:17 Josh Clark? Yeah, cause he's the one who came up with the unofficial history and like really tracked it down.
12:22 Speaker 04 Well, there's a lot of teases in this one so far.
12:24 Josh Clark? So, um, the Parker Brothers now own the game and, uh, it becomes a huge hit. Virtually off the bat. In the 30s is when they bought it and started really printing it.
12:35 Speaker 04 Yeah, and the game is based on Atlantic City. Uh, those are the properties. And that's because that was the area where it became popular.
12:42 Josh Clark? Right.
12:43 Speaker 04 But, um, this excellent New York Times article you sent, uh, what was the name of it? Monopoly Goes Corporate?
12:49 Josh Clark? Yeah, it was written by, uh, what's, what's the lady's name?
12:52 Speaker 04 Uh, Mary, uh, Pillen.
12:53 Josh Clark? She is a monopoly expert.
12:56 Speaker 04 There's a lot of those out there, I've learned.
12:58 Josh Clark? She, well, she wrote a lot of the articles you'll find.
13:01 Speaker 04 Oh, really?
13:01 Josh Clark? Yeah, she's good.
13:02 Speaker 04 Well, she pointed out that it's interesting that it mirrored sort of the, uh, the cartography of the day in Atlantic City, like Boardwalk was clearly like a rich area.
13:11 Josh Clark? Yep.
13:11 Speaker 04 Uh, the Baltic and Mediterranean, the cheapest properties were, uh, in African-American neighborhoods. Uh, there was a Reading Railroad, uh, that transferred people between Philly and Atlantic City.
13:23 Josh Clark? Yeah.
13:24 Speaker 04 And little known fact, for our friends in the gay community, New York Avenue was one of the earliest gay scenes in the country.
13:31 Josh Clark? Yeah.
13:32 Speaker 04 So, buy that one up.
13:34 Josh Clark? And.
13:35 Speaker 04 Support, support the LBGT community.
13:38 Josh Clark? That's right.
13:39 Speaker 04 If you're playing Monopoly.
13:39 Josh Clark? Yeah.
13:40 Speaker 04 That's what I would do.
13:40 Josh Clark? And maybe just, you know, don't charge anybody when they land on it.
13:43 Speaker 04 Yeah.
13:44 Josh Clark? Just be like, this is the party place, everybody.
13:46 Speaker 04 Exactly.
13:47 Josh Clark? And Marvin Gardens apparently is misspelled.
13:50 Speaker 04 Yeah, the E instead of an I, or I instead of an E.
13:52 Josh Clark? Yeah, on the board it's an I.
13:54 Speaker 04 Right.
13:54 Josh Clark? And it's supposed to be an E.
13:55 Speaker 04 Yeah.
13:56 Josh Clark? There's a lot of monopoly facts dropping all around us right now.
14:00 Speaker 04 I know, it's raining thimbles.
14:02 Josh Clark? And before we go any further, though, you want to do a message break?
14:05 Speaker 04 Yes.
14:06 Josh Clark? Okay, we'll be right back, everyone.
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16:08 Speaker 04 All right, so we were just talking about Atlantic City. I guess it's, we can go ahead and point out now that there are hundreds of versions of Monopoly out there now. One for your hometown, probably.
16:19 Josh Clark? Yeah.
16:20 Speaker 04 One for your favorite sports team.
16:21 Josh Clark? Yeah.
16:22 Speaker 04 I have, personally, my version is a Star Wars Monopoly.
16:25 Josh Clark? Nice.
16:25 Speaker 04 Which is pretty fun.
16:26 Josh Clark? Nice. Yeah, I guess Hasbro's like, "You got some money? Sure you can license this."
16:33 Speaker 04 Yes.
16:33 Josh Clark? Make your own Monopoly game, go ahead.
16:35 Speaker 04 There's a Simpsons Monopoly. I haven't played it, though.
16:37 Josh Clark? And not, in addition to the licensed versions that you can find, like, everywhere.
16:43 Speaker 04 Yeah.
16:44 Josh Clark? They also have, like, official versions, too. Like, there's a US version.
16:47 Speaker 04 Yeah.
16:48 Josh Clark? There's a UK version. There's a, there's a new version that's called Monopoly Here and Now.
16:55 Speaker 04 What does that even mean?
16:56 Josh Clark? Super corporate.
16:57 Speaker 04 Oh, is this the corporate one?
16:59 Josh Clark? Yeah.
16:59 Speaker 04 Oh, okay.
17:00 Josh Clark? It's, uh, it's, like, everything is multiplied by, I think, a thousand? So the dollar amounts are way higher.
17:08 Speaker 04 Is this the one where they replaced the...
17:11 Josh Clark? The railroads are replaced by airports?
17:14 Speaker 04 Yeah, but is this, is this the one where they replaced corporations for all the properties, though?
17:18 Josh Clark? Yes.
17:19 Speaker 04 Like McDonald's and Sony and...
17:21 Josh Clark? Yeah.
17:22 Speaker 04 God, who would want to play that?
17:23 Josh Clark? Some people do.
17:24 Speaker 04 You know?
17:25 Josh Clark? Yeah.
17:26 Speaker 04 Yeah. I mean, I'm not a purist, because I have the Star Wars version, but I just, it's no fun to me to play as Paramount Pictures and...
17:34 Josh Clark? Right.
17:35 Speaker 04 To buy the McDonald's property.
17:36 Josh Clark? Yeah.
17:37 Speaker 04 No, that's just me.
17:40 Josh Clark? So there are a bunch of different versions, but the one we're gonna talk about, we'll just talk about the, the normal version with the 2008 rules.
17:48 Speaker 04 Yeah, and there's actually, coming soon, later this year, there, you can go online at Monopoly, and you can design your own board.
17:56 Josh Clark? Is that right?
17:57 Speaker 04 And do, like, your own neighborhood.
17:59 Josh Clark? Wow.
17:59 Speaker 04 And then they will make it for you. And I think it's, like, 150 bucks or something.
18:03 Josh Clark? Wow, moneybags.
18:04 Speaker 04 You can get, oh, I'm not gonna do it. You can do the Eastlake Monopoly.
18:08 Josh Clark? No, I was talking to whoever went and got it.
18:10 Speaker 04 Oh, sure. Yeah, Rich, Uncle Rich, pennybags. That's what you should've said.
18:15 Josh Clark? Rich Uncle Pennybag. Pennybags just sounds not, not that wealthy.
18:20 Speaker 04 Well, actually...
18:20 Josh Clark? Like, I have a bag of pennies on me right now.
18:22 Speaker 04 He, Forbes has their silly fictional 15 list.
18:27 Speaker 04 Of fictional characters' wealth. And he, in 2013, was number 13.
18:34 Josh Clark? Geez, his stars declined him, huh?
18:37 Speaker 04 Guess who the first, the richest fictional character is?
18:41 Josh Clark? The Incredible Hulk.
18:42 Speaker 04 No, he was not rich. Scrooge McDuck.
18:46 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah, well, dude, he had that gold vault.
18:48 Speaker 04 Apparently, 65 billion. Uh, number two was Smaug, which I thought was kinda silly.
18:55 Josh Clark? Smaug from like, uh...
18:56 Speaker 04 Lord of the Rings. It's a dragon, I think, had like, was sitting on a bunch of gold.
19:01 Josh Clark? Gotcha.
19:01 Speaker 04 Uh, Carlisle Cullen, number three, Tony Stark, four. Charles Foster Kane, number five.
19:07 Josh Clark? Who's number three?
19:08 Speaker 04 Carlisle Cullen from Twilight.
19:11 Josh Clark? Who's that?
19:12 Speaker 04 He was the dad, vampire dad, of the vampire family. Um, and he's been alive forever, so I guess he just keeps accumulating wealth. Uh, Bruce Wayne, Richie Rich, Christian Grey.
19:23 Josh Clark? Richie Rich, I forgot about him.
19:25 Speaker 04 He's number seven.
19:26 Josh Clark? He had a robot maid and a crazy, like, weird scientist friend, didn't he?
19:33 Speaker 04 Uh, sure. Like a Richie Rich robot of himself?
19:37 Josh Clark? Hmm, I think he had that too, but no, his maid was a robot, wasn't it?
19:42 Speaker 04 That was the Jetsons.
19:43 Josh Clark? No, he had a robot maid too.
19:46 Speaker 04 Uh, I thought Monte Burns at number 10 was pretty good.
19:50 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah, that's good. Although, I would guess Mr. Monopoly would be wealthier than Monte Burns, but I guess not.
19:56 Speaker 04 Yeah, 13. And they put it out each year, and it's dumb. Can we just admit that?
20:02 Josh Clark? I was thrilled by it.
20:03 Speaker 04 Okay.
20:04 Josh Clark? We just spent three minutes on it.
20:05 Speaker 04 Yeah, well, that's true.
20:06 Josh Clark? Okay, so, Chuckers.
20:08 Speaker 04 Yeah.
20:08 Josh Clark? You wanna talk about the, the rules of the game? Again, 2008 rules, if you are a Monopoly purist, and, like, I'm sorry, this is just what we're going with.
20:19 Speaker 04 Yeah, well, let's talk about the game board itself, just so. If you haven't played it, uh, I'm surprised, because I think, like, a billion people have played the game.
20:26 Josh Clark? Mm-hmm.
20:27 Speaker 04 Um, but if you haven't, when you get your Monopoly game, you're gonna open it up, and you're gonna have a board with all these different properties and a square. Uh, you have two dice, uh, 12, they call them tokens.
20:41 Speaker 04 That's not the right amount either, is it?
20:42 Josh Clark? No, there's eight.
20:44 Speaker 04 Yeah.
20:44 Josh Clark? I don't understand where they got 12 from unless they're counting ones that maybe were retired or something like that, but when you open the box, there's only eight there.
20:52 Speaker 04 Yeah.
20:53 Josh Clark? There's a, can we go over?
20:55 Speaker 04 Sure.
20:55 Josh Clark? There's a wheelbarrow, a Scotty Dog.
20:57 Speaker 04 Yeah.
20:58 Josh Clark? Top hat, a cat which replaced the iron in 2013.
21:03 Speaker 04 Yeah.
21:03 Josh Clark? There's a big, um, big to do because Parker Brothers or Hasbro was like, we haven't made
21:12 Josh Clark? a lot of money off of this for a couple of months, so let's just do something.
21:15 Speaker 04 Well, they let people vote at least, which is kind of cool.
21:17 Josh Clark? Right, but it was also, did you see the other ones that they were voting for?
21:21 Speaker 04 Yeah.
21:21 Josh Clark? It was like a robot, like Richie Rich's made.
21:23 Speaker 04 A guitar.
21:24 Josh Clark? A guitar?
21:25 Speaker 04 Yeah. They didn't, they didn't make the cut, though.
21:27 Josh Clark? No, they got voted out and the cat got voted in, but the iron got booted.
21:32 Speaker 04 Yeah, it only got 8% of the vote. Uh, there's the classic shoe, of course.
21:37 Josh Clark? Or boot.
21:37 Speaker 04 Which is modeled after a 1930's working shoe.
21:40 Josh Clark? Hmm.
21:41 Speaker 04 And I think they've kept it the same.
21:43 Josh Clark? Yeah, that's one of the original ones. The, the Scotty Dog was not one of the originals. It came in the 50's.
21:48 Speaker 04 Yeah, and I think that was supposed to be the, uh, companion of, uh, Milburn Money Penny.
21:54 Josh Clark? Is that right?
21:56 Speaker 04 Penny bags.
21:57 Josh Clark? Penny bags, it's not.
21:59 Speaker 04 Should be cash bags, fat stacks.
22:01 Josh Clark? Fat stacks bag.
22:03 Speaker 04 Uh, there was a cannon which has since been retired.
22:06 Josh Clark? Yeah.
22:07 Speaker 04 And apparently.
22:07 Josh Clark? They thought it was too militaristic?
22:08 Speaker 04 Well, it was the cannon and the, um.
22:11 Josh Clark? Battleship?
22:12 Speaker 04 Yeah, they were from a failed game called Conflict and they were like, well, we got all these pieces, so.
22:16 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah.
22:17 Speaker 04 Let's just throw them in Monopoly for now.
22:18 Josh Clark? Right.
22:18 Speaker 04 It's pretty smart.
22:19 Josh Clark? But they phased the cannon out because it was just too overtly violent?
22:23 Speaker 04 Um, it just says with any, without any fanfare or vote or campaign, so probably, yeah, that'd be my guess. If it's hush hush.
22:32 Josh Clark? Yeah.
22:32 Speaker 04 It's probably because of violence.
22:34 Josh Clark? There's a conspiracy afoot.
22:35 Speaker 04 Uh, there's the race car.
22:37 Josh Clark? Yeah.
22:37 Speaker 04 It's every little kid's favorite.
22:38 Josh Clark? Which apparently had a number three on the side for a little while.
22:41 Speaker 04 Yeah, I didn't know that.
22:42 Josh Clark? Yeah.
22:43 Speaker 04 Dale Earnhardt.
22:43 Josh Clark? I guess so.
22:45 Speaker 04 Uh, a purse has been retired.
22:48 Josh Clark? Yeah.
22:49 Speaker 04 Uh, the rocking horse was retired.
22:51 Josh Clark? Yep.
22:52 Speaker 04 The lantern was retired.
22:53 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah. I'm doing my best Ben Bolin impression.
22:57 Speaker 04 Did you do, uh, did you get Wheelbearer in there yet?
23:00 Josh Clark? I think I, no, yes, I did. It was the first one I said. Did we say Top Hat?
23:04 Speaker 04 Yeah, that was always my favorite, actually.
23:06 Josh Clark? I, I don't remember what my favorite was.
23:09 Speaker 04 It fit on my pinky and I used to draw faces on it.
23:11 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah.
23:13 Speaker 04 Uh, The Horse and Rider, which is retired, which I didn't know. That's one of the best pieces to me.
23:18 Josh Clark? What, you didn't know it was retired?
23:20 Speaker 04 No.
23:20 Josh Clark? Yeah.
23:21 Speaker 04 It's kinda sad.
23:21 Josh Clark? Yeah.
23:22 Speaker 04 Uh, and now they're, uh, and the Sack of Money was retired as well.
23:25 Josh Clark? The Sack of Money and a purse. Those are a little similar.
23:29 Speaker 04 Yeah, the cat, come on.
23:31 Josh Clark? Yeah.
23:32 Speaker 04 Cat people.
23:33 Josh Clark? I'm sure they're like, yeah, that's exactly right. I guarantee that's why they, they got cat voted in.
23:39 Speaker 04 And I am a cat person, you know?
23:41 Josh Clark? And even you think it's stupid.
23:43 Speaker 04 Exactly.
23:43 Josh Clark? So, those are the tokens, some of those tokens that we mentioned you're going to find in the 2008 set.
23:50 Speaker 04 Yeah, and that is your piece. That is what represents you in the game.
23:53 Josh Clark? Yes.
23:54 Speaker 04 Again, for the three people who have never played Monopoly.
23:56 Josh Clark? Right. Yeah, because supposedly, um, uh, at least as far as Hasbro calculates, over 1 billion people have played Monopoly. And frankly, I'm surprised it's that low.
24:08 Speaker 04 It sounds like an old number.
24:10 Josh Clark? Yeah. Um, okay, so you've got the box open, you got the board, you got two dice, you got the tokens, 32 houses.
24:18 Speaker 04 Yeah.
24:18 Josh Clark? And 12 hotels.
24:19 Speaker 04 Yeah.
24:20 Josh Clark? Uh, 16 chance cards, 16 community chess cards.
24:24 Speaker 04 Yeah.
24:25 Josh Clark? A title deed card for each property. It's got the information on it, like how much it costs to purchase.
24:30 Speaker 04 Sure.
24:30 Josh Clark? How much rent is, depending on how many houses or hotels you have on it.
24:34 Speaker 04 Yeah, what the mortgage value is worth.
24:35 Josh Clark? That's right. Um, and then you've got your mo- your play money, your Monopoly money, which, man.
24:41 Speaker 04 I think that's where it grabs kids because, and they even pointed out in this article, that's, um, it's kinda the first time a lot of kids have money to play with.
24:50 Josh Clark? Yeah, especially the, uh, the $500 bill ones.
24:53 Speaker 04 Oh, man, that gold bill.
24:55 Josh Clark? I always thought it was orange. Is it gold?
24:57 Speaker 04 Uh, yeah.
24:59 Josh Clark? Okay. One's definitely golden rod, like yellow. But I remember the 500, it was, yeah, I guess gold is the way to go.
25:07 Speaker 04 Yeah. Uh, see, I was a cash hoarder, which is no way to win at Monopoly.
25:11 Josh Clark? No.
25:12 Speaker 04 I thought it was.
25:12 Josh Clark? Can't save?
25:13 Speaker 04 No, I just thought, that just figures for me, though, like.
25:16 Josh Clark? You gotta spend money to make money.
25:18 Speaker 04 Yeah, I was like, look at all this cash that I will soon be paying to everyone else.
25:23 Josh Clark? You just keep wandering off in the table and try to buy stuff with it?
25:26 Speaker 04 Did not work.
25:27 Josh Clark? So Chuck, you've got the board laid out, and if you count them, if you're that kind of person.
25:33 Speaker 04 Yeah.
25:33 Josh Clark? You're gonna find that there's forty squares.
25:36 Speaker 04 That's right.
25:36 Josh Clark? Uh, I believe twenty-two of which are, um, no, twenty-eight of which can be purchased.
25:42 Speaker 04 Yeah, twenty-two are properties, uh, you've got your, your electric company and waterworks.
25:47 Josh Clark? Yeah.
25:48 Speaker 04 Sucker's Bet.
25:49 Josh Clark? And then you've got the four railroads.
25:50 Speaker 04 Four railroads.
25:51 Josh Clark? Yeah, so that's twenty-eight.
25:54 Speaker 04 That's right.
25:55 Josh Clark? There are others that you can't buy, so for example, there's a luxury tax square.
25:59 Speaker 04 Yeah, you gotta pay, what, a hundred dollars when you land on that?
26:02 Josh Clark? I believe so.
26:02 Speaker 04 Just right out of, just right out of your pocket.
26:04 Josh Clark? There's an income tax square.
26:07 Speaker 04 Yeah, no good.
26:07 Josh Clark? There's, uh, the go square, which is where you start, and then when you come back around, you collect two hundred dollars, which is, in Monopoly, called your salary.
26:18 Speaker 04 That's right, I never knew that.
26:19 Josh Clark? I didn't either.
26:20 Speaker 04 And there's a lot of rules in here, uh, and I guess it's a good time to point out, Monopoly is one of those games where house rules are highly encouraged.
26:28 Josh Clark? Mm-hmm.
26:29 Speaker 04 Uh, and a lot of the fun of the game, and in fact, to make more money, Monopoly this year, uh, had, are incorporating the top house rules, as voted on by fans, as official rules for this one version.
26:43 Josh Clark? In a seventy-dollar hard back book?
26:47 Speaker 04 I don't see why, a lot of people were incensed, they were like, we, no one plays by the real rules anyway, so why bother packaging it and selling it?
26:52 Josh Clark? Right.
26:53 Speaker 04 And they went, I think you just said the word sell.
26:56 Josh Clark? Did someone say sell?
26:57 Speaker 04 Therein lies the answer.
26:59 Josh Clark? Uh, so you've got, oh, there's, and so there's forty squares, but there's actually forty-one places you can go to on the board because jail is divided into two squares.
27:09 Speaker 04 That's right.
27:09 Josh Clark? You got the jail with the jailbird, what's his name?
27:14 Speaker 04 I can't remember.
27:15 Josh Clark? Johnny Jailbird or something?
27:17 Speaker 04 Jake the Jailbird.
27:18 Josh Clark? Right, okay. Which is where Jake the Jailbird is, and then you've got the lower part of it. It's just visiting.
27:25 Speaker 04 Yeah, if you want to visit Jake, give him a bunt cake with the nail file in it.
27:29 Josh Clark? Right.
27:30 Speaker 04 It'd be very old school.
27:31 Josh Clark? Or a Monopoly set with maybe a map with an escape route embedded in it.
27:37 Speaker 04 Hey, that sounds familiar.
27:38 Josh Clark? Yeah, POWs in World War II were given such Monopoly sets.
27:42 Speaker 04 True.
27:42 Josh Clark? Which is strange to me. It's like, were the Nazis allowing Monopoly sets to be delivered to POWs? Is that what I'm seeing here?
27:49 Speaker 04 Yeah.
27:49 Josh Clark? Maybe it was the Burmese.
27:51 Speaker 04 No, I mean, you've seen the, like, The Great Escape on those, the war prison camps in World War II. It seemed like a lot of them, they let them, like, garden and they were kind of chummy with them. You saw Hogan's Heroes?
28:02 Josh Clark? I saw Hogan's Heroes. I didn't put a lot of stock into it.
28:05 Speaker 04 Yeah.
28:06 Josh Clark? But, yeah, no, I just figured.
28:07 Speaker 04 They played soccer.
28:08 Josh Clark? Maybe the Japanese, or the Burmese, or the Italians, I could see, like, saying, like, "Yeah, bring some Monopoly, and who cares?" But the Nazis, I would think, would... I just don't see that.
28:20 Speaker 04 Yeah. I'm not saying it was a walk in the park, but I think from the depiction in, like I said, like, The Great Escape, it's not like Vietnam prison camp.
28:32 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah.
28:33 Speaker 04 You know?
28:35 Speaker 04 Like, they weren't playing soccer, or Monopoly. They were playing Survive Another Day, that game.
28:40 Josh Clark? Yeah.
28:43 Speaker 04 And I'm not making a lot of that, by the way.
28:45 Josh Clark? Oh, I didn't think you were.
28:46 Speaker 04 And I'm basing everything on war movies, so I'm probably wrong anyway.
28:49 Josh Clark? I've seen Uncommon Valor.
28:52 Speaker 04 That was a good movie.
28:53 Josh Clark? That was a great movie.
28:53 Speaker 04 It doesn't age well, though.
28:55 Josh Clark? Really?
28:56 Speaker 04 No.
28:56 Josh Clark? Remember that menu with the gun silhouettes on it?
28:59 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
29:00 Josh Clark? And when you're 12, you're like, "Oh, my god."
29:02 Speaker 04 Yeah. It's like, I would buy that one and that one.
29:04 Josh Clark? Yeah.
29:07 Speaker 04 All right, so where were we?
29:08 Josh Clark? We were talking about the board itself.
29:11 Speaker 04 Yes.
29:11 Josh Clark? And the different squares.
29:12 Speaker 04 Yes, there are the, the cards that you can draw as well, community chest and chance squares. When you land on these, you draw a card from one of those two piles, and there are various things in there, like, you won a fashion modeling contest, you get $10.
29:28 Josh Clark? Isn't there a dog show one in there, too?
29:30 Speaker 04 I think there's probably a dog show.
29:31 Josh Clark? Yeah.
29:32 Speaker 04 And there's also, you know, you have street repairs, or...
29:37 Josh Clark? Those are big time.
29:38 Speaker 04 General repairs, and that's based on your properties that you own.
29:41 Josh Clark? That's right.
29:42 Speaker 04 A percentage.
29:43 Josh Clark? They can hit you pretty hard.
29:44 Speaker 04 Yeah.
29:45 Josh Clark? Yeah.
29:46 Speaker 04 Just like in real life.
29:47 Josh Clark? That's right.
29:48 Speaker 04 You know?
29:48 Josh Clark? And that's funny because the Monopoly, what was her name, Lizzie Maggie?
29:55 Speaker 04 Yeah.
29:56 Josh Clark? In an interview she gave with some leftist magazine at the time, she said, she basically called the thing "The Game of Life."
30:09 Speaker 04 Yeah, that was already taken out.
30:10 Josh Clark? I don't know, was it?
30:12 Speaker 04 Yeah, that was, that's around since the like mid 1800s.
30:15 Josh Clark? Oh, okay.
30:15 Speaker 04 And it's old.
30:16 Josh Clark? I thought she was being prescient.
30:18 Speaker 04 No, she was being glib.
30:20 Josh Clark? She was, she was making a pop culture reference for the time.
30:23 Speaker 04 Yeah, exactly.
30:24 Josh Clark? But did you know, apparently, there used to be a square on the Game of Life board for suicide?
30:29 Speaker 04 Really?
30:30 Josh Clark? Yeah, it was a way that you could go.
30:32 Speaker 04 I never really played that. I think I played it a couple of times.
30:34 Josh Clark? I never did either. I always thought it was kinda, like, you get the whole family in the car and it's like, whatever.
30:39 Speaker 04 Yeah, we, we did, I mean, we weren't the biggest game players as families, but we did Monopoly some, and Yahtzee was a big one.
30:47 Josh Clark? Yahtzee was great.
30:48 Speaker 04 That I still enjoy today. I love Yahtzee.
30:50 Josh Clark? Sure.
30:51 Speaker 04 We also played this game called Bull, and it was like a stock trading game.
30:56 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah?
30:57 Speaker 04 With cards, and it's just now occurring to me that all these games are just teaching you about life.
31:02 Josh Clark? Yeah.
31:03 Speaker 04 It's like Monopoly is nothing but real estate, The Game of Life is everything.
31:08 Josh Clark? Right.
31:08 Speaker 04 This game Bull was about the stock market.
31:10 Josh Clark? Yeah. Sorry was about sarcastic.
31:17 Speaker 04 Sorry.
31:17 Josh Clark? Yeah.
31:18 Speaker 04 Because you had to say it like a jerk.
31:19 Josh Clark? Right.
31:19 Speaker 04 Candy Land, we know what that's all about.
31:22 Josh Clark? Yeah. Drugs, right?
31:24 Speaker 04 Probably.
31:26 Josh Clark? Chutes and Ladders taught you to stay away from snakes.
31:28 Speaker 04 Yeah, Operation taught you how to be a doctor.
31:30 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah, that's right. That's where I got my M.D.
31:33 Speaker 04 And then, of course, Battleship taught you how to be a war monger.
31:37 Josh Clark? That's right. So did Risk.
31:39 Speaker 04 And take great pride.
31:39 Josh Clark? Risk taught you to be the Antichrist.
31:42 Speaker 04 Yeah, Risk, we should do, there is an article on Risk.
31:45 Josh Clark? I saw. I looked it over. It didn't seem as, as interesting as this one, though.
31:48 Speaker 04 Yeah, I don't know if the history is as interesting, for sure.
31:50 Josh Clark? And I mean, isn't that what, what's interesting about any game? The history of it?
31:55 Speaker 04 Yeah, I think so.
31:56 Josh Clark? So, um, let's talk about the rules, dude.
32:00 Speaker 04 Okay.
32:01 Josh Clark? Let's start at the beginning. We'll start at go.
32:04 Speaker 04 Go is where you start, and that's where you, like you said, you collect the 200 every time you land on it or pass it. Sometimes house rules, uh, you get 400 for actually landing on it.
32:14 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah.
32:14 Speaker 04 And only 200 for passing it. We never played that way.
32:16 Josh Clark? Oh, that makes sense. That's a good, good rule.
32:19 Speaker 04 Free parking is where we had house rules.
32:23 Speaker 04 That is a space on the corner of the board where you supposedly, per the official rules, don't do anything.
32:29 Josh Clark? Yeah, there's nothing. It's just a space.
32:31 Speaker 04 But what we did was we donated all the collected taxes and fees and put it under free parking. And if you landed on that, that was like a lottery win.
32:40 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah.
32:41 Speaker 04 And a lot of people played that way.
32:42 Josh Clark? I think I've heard of that one before.
32:44 Speaker 04 Yeah, it was, you know, we were a bunch of beep, never mind.
32:49 Speaker 04 I liked it because it allowed you more money, which is my favorite thing. Cash.
32:53 Josh Clark? It's a lot of.
32:54 Speaker 04 Yeah, exactly.
32:55 Josh Clark? Uh, we got ahead of ourselves. Let's just start at the real beginning.
32:59 Speaker 04 Okay.
32:59 Josh Clark? So, uh, everybody sits down at the table.
33:02 Speaker 04 Yeah.
33:02 Josh Clark? Maybe somebody, yeah, somebody gets a drink. Uh, maybe you have to wait because somebody has to go to the bathroom, so you're all sitting there quietly. And then when everybody's finally at the table.
33:11 Speaker 04 Yeah.
33:12 Josh Clark? You guys select a banker.
33:13 Speaker 04 Uh, uh huh.
33:14 Josh Clark? And the banker distributes the Monopoly money, $1,500 to each player. Two 500s, two 100s, two 50s, six 20s, and five 10s, five 5s, and five 1s.
33:25 Speaker 04 That's right.
33:25 Josh Clark? $1,500.
33:27 Speaker 04 And the goal of the game that we are getting to here at 30 minutes in is to bankrupt all of your family and friends.
33:34 Josh Clark? That's the whole point.
33:35 Speaker 04 Pretty much. Um, some people put a time limit because this game can go on forever. Um, and other people say, no, it's gotta, you gotta finish it by bankrupting everyone or until
33:45 Josh Clark? Everybody.
33:45 Speaker 04 the last person is like, I give, geez, I've got $8.
33:48 Josh Clark? I hate this game.
33:49 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's usually me.
33:50 Josh Clark? Right.
33:51 Speaker 04 And Emily is usually, has her foot on my throat.
33:53 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah?
33:54 Speaker 04 Yeah, we played two-person Monopoly, which is just not fun.
33:57 Josh Clark? Yeah, because you know one of you is gonna lose.
34:00 Speaker 04 No, that's not why. It's just, it's a game that's more fun with more people, I think.
34:03 Josh Clark? Yeah, I got you.
34:04 Speaker 04 Yeah.
34:05 Josh Clark? So, okay, so everybody's got fifteen hundred bucks. You roll the dice to see who goes first, whoever rolls the highest goes first.
34:12 Speaker 04 Classic move.
34:13 Josh Clark? Then you roll both die and you start moving from the go square and you go clockwise around the board.
34:19 Speaker 04 Yeah.
34:20 Josh Clark? And when you land on a property, this I didn't know.
34:23 Speaker 04 Yeah.
34:24 Josh Clark? Which is kind of a basic rule, I guess, but I never played it this way. When you land on a property.
34:28 Speaker 04 Yeah.
34:28 Josh Clark? You have the option to buy it. I knew that part.
34:31 Speaker 04 Yeah.
34:31 Josh Clark? But if you decline to buy it, then the property goes up for auction.
34:34 Speaker 04 I've never, not only have I never played it that way, I've never heard of anyone playing it that way.
34:38 Josh Clark? Okay, so it's not just me.
34:39 Speaker 04 Not just you.
34:40 Josh Clark? All right. So, I guess, during an auction, not only the person, not only everybody else, but the banker and the person who declined to buy it can bid on it.
34:55 Speaker 04 Which didn't make sense unless you're trying to get it for lower.
34:57 Josh Clark? Yeah.
34:58 Speaker 04 Can't you start the bidding at wherever?
34:59 Josh Clark? Yes, you can start the bidding anywhere you want. So you could conceivably get it for lower. And if you're playing against somebody who declines to buy something and then starts bidding on it at a lower price, keep an eye on that person, because that's a shark.
35:12 Speaker 04 Yeah, they're out to win.
35:13 Josh Clark? Yeah.
35:14 Speaker 04 Yeah, I hate that rule. Because to me, it's just like, what's the point in rolling and landing on something? I guess right of first refusal, but.
35:21 Josh Clark? Yeah.
35:22 Speaker 04 I don't know, I don't like it.
35:23 Josh Clark? No, and plus the Quakers were like, we specifically put a price on these things, so there wouldn't be a lot of yelling.
35:29 Speaker 04 Yeah.
35:29 Josh Clark? We don't like yelling.
35:31 Speaker 04 They had another game to follow called The Quiet Roof Raising Ceremony.
35:39 Josh Clark? Those are not Quakers.
35:40 Speaker 04 It was fun.
35:41 Josh Clark? That was the Amish, they're different.
35:42 Speaker 04 Oh, don't you think Quakers raise some roofs?
35:45 Josh Clark? Yeah, they do. Ain't no party like a Quaker party.
35:49 Speaker 04 That's right. All right, so let's say you buy all of the properties, you know, they're divided into different colors. Like there's three green, you know, green ones, orange ones, blue ones.
35:59 Josh Clark? Right.
35:59 Speaker 04 Light blue. If you buy all of the properties that are tied together by a single color, then you have what's called a monopoly. And that means you can then charge double rent, although we never do that. We just. Keep it single rent and you now have the option to buy houses.
36:15 Josh Clark? Hmm.
36:16 Speaker 04 And then, once you have enough houses, I think three, you can then buy a hotel.
36:19 Josh Clark? Right, and that's called improvements. You're improving your land.
36:22 Speaker 04 Supposedly.
36:23 Josh Clark? And once you start to do improvements, um, things change a little bit. Not only can you start making more money, but it's actually harder to, uh, mortgage your properties if you are, if you find yourself in debt.
36:36 Speaker 04 Right.
36:37 Josh Clark? Because this is, this is how crazy complicated it is. Like, I don't think I was ever paying that much attention to monopoly that I ever mortgaged a, a piece of land.
36:47 Speaker 04 Oh, really?
36:47 Josh Clark? I think it was like, started to get into debt or whatever. I was just like, oh.
36:50 Speaker 04 I'm done.
36:51 Josh Clark? I'm done.
36:51 Speaker 04 Yeah.
36:52 Josh Clark? Um, but apparently, so if you find yourself indebted, and let's say you have a monopoly, and, um, you want to mortgage, you can mortgage just one of the spots, right?
37:02 Speaker 04 Yes.
37:03 Josh Clark? But to do so, let's say you have a hotel, um, on the, that piece of land that you're mortgaging. You first have to sell the hotel back to the bank at half price.
37:14 Speaker 04 Yeah.
37:14 Josh Clark? And then you can mortgage the land. You're still, I think, uh, are you collecting rent on that land? Or does it go right to the bank?
37:24 Speaker 04 No, that's where, um, you just turn the card over and it's just, you still technically own it.
37:29 Josh Clark? Right.
37:29 Speaker 04 But you can't collect any rents on it.
37:31 Josh Clark? But you can collect rent and everything on the other two pieces of property, or the other one, depending on which one you own.
37:37 Speaker 04 I don't know, really?
37:37 Josh Clark? No, you can. I looked it up.
37:38 Speaker 04 So that doesn't bust up the monopoly?
37:40 Josh Clark? No, it doesn't.
37:41 Speaker 04 Okay.
37:41 Josh Clark? So you still own the monopoly.
37:42 Speaker 04 Gotcha.
37:43 Josh Clark? It's just that, that one is mortgaged. And then to get it back, you have to pay the bank the mortgage plus 10%.
37:49 Speaker 04 Right. And this is where you can get silly with your house rules if you want.
37:53 Josh Clark? Yeah.
37:54 Speaker 04 You know, like as far as mortgaging and stuff like that. Cause supposedly it's a rule too where you can't, um, the only thing that is not allowed is a personal loan.
38:02 Josh Clark? Right.
38:02 Speaker 04 And, uh, I did all kinds of personal loaning, cause I was Mr. Cash.
38:06 Josh Clark? What were your, uh, your interest rates?
38:09 Speaker 04 I don't remember.
38:10 Josh Clark? Did you break any usury laws?
38:11 Speaker 04 No, I was a kid, so it was, it was probably just like.
38:14 Josh Clark? Just paying me back whenever.
38:16 Speaker 04 10% or something.
38:17 Josh Clark? I got you.
38:17 Speaker 04 I'm not the right, I'm not enough of a.
38:20 Josh Clark? You're not the shark.
38:21 Speaker 04 Diehard Capital, no.
38:22 Josh Clark? You're not the one who like declines to buy something so you can bid on it at a lower price.
38:26 Speaker 04 I'm playing Candy Land.
38:27 Josh Clark? I loved Candy Land.
38:28 Speaker 04 Actually, I never played that.
38:29 Josh Clark? It was a great game.
38:30 Speaker 04 Was it?
38:31 Josh Clark? Because of the art.
38:32 Speaker 04 Was this crazy?
38:33 Josh Clark? It was beautiful stuff. And then nowadays, you look at the Candy Land board and you're like, poor kids.
38:38 Speaker 04 Yeah.
38:38 Josh Clark? They don't know what they're missing.
38:40 Speaker 04 I just got a Ticket to Ride game that I haven't played yet. Have you heard of that one?
38:43 Josh Clark? No.
38:44 Speaker 04 It was a German game that's like one game of the year. It's a train, uh, train game, like you establish train routes between cities.
38:51 Josh Clark? Uh huh.
38:52 Speaker 04 Um, but it's supposedly like, it sounds like, really? That's fun? But it's supposedly great.
38:57 Josh Clark? I just bled a tear.
38:59 Speaker 04 Did you?
38:59 Josh Clark? At the thought of it.
39:01 Speaker 04 Yeah, it does sound pretty bad.
39:02 Josh Clark? Yeah.
39:02 Speaker 04 But no, it's, it's one game of the year.
39:05 Josh Clark? Why? Those Germans.
39:07 Speaker 04 And watch, people, Ticket to Ride enthusiasts will be like, dude, it's the best ever.
39:10 Josh Clark? Oh, I'm sure. No, I've heard like German game night is like a thing now.
39:14 Speaker 04 Yeah, I think they're a little more heady.
39:17 Josh Clark? Is that what it is?
39:18 Speaker 04 I think so. This seems like, I read over the rules the other night, uh, just so I would know what to do and, uh, cause you gotta like, the purchaser of the game has to be the game explainer as well.
39:27 Josh Clark? Right. Does, you have to listen to Kraftwerk while you play?
39:30 Speaker 04 Yeah. Well, you don't have to, but it helps.
39:33 Josh Clark? House rules.
39:33 Speaker 04 Yeah.
39:34 Josh Clark? So, um, I, I guess we've, oh, and we said you, you can do anything but give personal loans, right?
39:41 Speaker 04 That's what the official rules state.
39:43 Josh Clark? So like you can, I can buy from you on the side or something like that, or you can hold something up for auction, whatever anybody's doing.
39:51 Speaker 04 Yeah. And we always played where you had to do that when it was your turn.
39:53 Josh Clark? That makes sense.
39:54 Speaker 04 And that that would take your turn as well.
39:56 Josh Clark? Right.
39:56 Speaker 04 Yeah.
39:58 Josh Clark? But again, the whole point is, is to be the person who owns the most stuff.
40:02 Speaker 04 Yeah.
40:03 Josh Clark? So that you can bankrupt all of your family and friends.
40:06 Speaker 04 That's right.
40:06 Josh Clark? And I mean, those are the rules, but there's actually strategy to it. And people pay a lot of attention to this. You know, there's a Monopoly World Championship. Roughly every four years, although it's been, the last one was in 2009.
40:18 Speaker 04 Yeah.
40:19 Josh Clark? So we're due.
40:21 Speaker 04 An American lawyer won, right? In 2009?
40:25 Josh Clark? No, I think it was a Swede or a Norwegian man.
40:28 Speaker 04 Okay. Maybe he was the North American. That's what he was.
40:31 Josh Clark? The North American champ.
40:32 Speaker 04 Yeah. And he represented the US in the world championships. It sounds so silly.
40:36 Josh Clark? Weird.
40:36 Speaker 04 Yeah.
40:37 Josh Clark? Huh. Well, he, uh, he used the iron. The piece that was retired. Yeah.
40:44 Speaker 04 Yeah. I think the American used the thimble.
40:46 Josh Clark? Gotcha.
40:48 Speaker 04 Jerry just laughed. She was like, "Really? That's a fact that people need?"
40:54 Josh Clark? Well, we're trying to really appeal to the purists here, too. We want everybody to be engaged.
40:59 Speaker 04 Yeah.
40:59 Josh Clark? All right, so let's do one more message break and then we'll come back and talk strategy.
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41:56 Speaker 06 Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. Imagine your business depends on a system you didn't build and don't fully control. For years, it works perfectly. It's fast, reliable, affordable. So over time, more and more of your operations rely on it. Then one day, the terms change. What once felt flexible now feels difficult to leave. Moving to another provider or bringing those capabilities back under your own control could take years, cost millions, and disrupt the business in the process. That's the challenge of digital sovereignty. Businesses today rely on all sorts of third-party systems.
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43:29 Josh Clark? Okay, Chuggers. So again, the point bankrupt everybody.
43:32 Speaker 04 Bankrupt everybody.
43:32 Josh Clark? But there's like techniques that you can use to more efficiently bankrupt people. Like the overall, the best strategy, the basic strategy is to buy everything every chance you have.
43:45 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, I looked up, there's a lot of different people's strategies and opinions online. I did find this one from a guy, and that was his strategy is buy everything, doesn't matter what it is.
43:56 Josh Clark? Right.
43:57 Speaker 04 Even the sucker's bet, the electric company and the waterworks.
44:00 Josh Clark? Yeah, which don't pay off really.
44:03 Speaker 04 He said, buy it all and never have more than a hundred dollars in cash is his rule.
44:08 Josh Clark? Wow.
44:08 Speaker 04 He says, the number one mistake people make is hoarding cash like I did.
44:13 Josh Clark? Yeah, you're making the number one mistake.
44:15 Speaker 04 That's right. And he says that buy everything and do whatever it takes to get a monopoly, even a bad one. Like he will trade to get a bad monopoly and give someone a good monopoly even as long as he gets the monopoly.
44:28 Josh Clark? Oh, gotcha.
44:29 Speaker 04 And he says, it's fine because then you know, you two will probably take out everyone else. The point is just to get a monopoly and improve it as fast as you can.
44:37 Josh Clark? So supposedly though, a general rule of thumb among like hardcore monopoly players is that while you're improving your monopoly, your properties.
44:46 Speaker 04 Yeah.
44:47 Josh Clark? By adding houses or whatever, you want to stop at three houses.
44:49 Speaker 04 Yes.
44:50 Josh Clark? Because the jump from the third house to the hotel.
44:53 Speaker 04 Yeah.
44:54 Josh Clark? Is financially, it doesn't pay off usually.
44:57 Speaker 04 It's over improvement.
44:58 Josh Clark? Yeah.
44:59 Speaker 04 Just like in your home, like don't build that $80,000 kitchen because you're not going to get your money back on that.
45:04 Josh Clark? Right.
45:05 Speaker 04 So three houses, this guy. Doesn't subscribe to that. He buys everything.
45:10 Josh Clark? And puts hotels on it?
45:12 Speaker 04 Yeah, he says as soon as he gets his first monopoly, he mortgages everything else to get cash back.
45:18 Josh Clark? Right.
45:19 Speaker 04 And then uses that cash to improve.
45:20 Josh Clark? Wow.
45:21 Speaker 04 Which I thought was a little risky.
45:24 Josh Clark? Yeah.
45:24 Speaker 04 Couple of bad rolls. I mean, it's a game of strategy, but at the end of the day, you're rolling dice. And so it is very much a game of chance.
45:31 Josh Clark? I'll bet that guy feels like he's on the back of a Pegasus though, the whole game. Like he's just thrilled.
45:38 Speaker 04 He claims to have beaten.
45:39 Josh Clark? Out there on the edge.
45:40 Speaker 04 He claims to have won a game in 12 minutes one time, which I thought was tooting his own horn a bit.
45:44 Josh Clark? Yeah, sure.
45:46 Speaker 04 But real, regular strategy, you're right. They say three houses is the max you should go.
45:51 Josh Clark? And then there's also some that you should avoid, even though they seem like very tempting. We already said the electric company and the water company, the utilities.
46:01 Speaker 04 Yeah.
46:02 Josh Clark? The most you can get for rent from landing on them is 10 times the roll of the dice, which is 120 bucks.
46:08 Speaker 04 But it's the max roll.
46:10 Josh Clark? It could be as low as $20.
46:12 Speaker 04 Yeah.
46:13 Josh Clark? So, I mean, this guy would probably say, well, hey, it was worth it. Like I still own them. And I'm still making money if somebody lands on them. But a lot of, again, the monopoly purists say, just stay away from them.
46:26 Speaker 04 Yeah.
46:27 Josh Clark? And you also may want to stay away from the most expensive ones, Boardwalk and Park Place.
46:33 Speaker 04 Yeah, there are only two of them and they just don't get landed on very much.
46:39 Josh Clark? Yeah. So think about it, right out of the gate, when you're thinking of probabilities, the fact that there's two of these properties.
46:46 Speaker 04 Yeah.
46:46 Josh Clark? Rather than three, means that you are, that another player is less likely to land on your monopoly. Because there's three or two instead of three. So that's one problem.
46:58 Speaker 04 Yeah.
46:58 Josh Clark? The other problem is placement, where they are. They're right after go.
47:04 Speaker 04 Yeah, right before.
47:04 Josh Clark? Right before go.
47:05 Speaker 04 Yeah. So it's at the end of the board essentially.
47:07 Josh Clark? No, I'm sorry. They're right before jail? No, they're right before go.
47:10 Speaker 04 They're right before go.
47:11 Josh Clark? Okay. So that means that most players are going to, well, they're going to pass them for sure whenever they hit that.
47:20 Speaker 04 Go directly to go.
47:20 Josh Clark? Exactly.
47:21 Speaker 04 Yeah.
47:22 Josh Clark? Um, so that means that your, your monopoly is going to be passed over. The likelihood of making your money back, recouping it, especially if they're improved to the hilt, like a really fancy hotel.
47:32 Speaker 04 Sure.
47:33 Josh Clark? Means that.
47:33 Speaker 04 It's a lot of money.
47:34 Josh Clark? Yeah, you, you've probably sunk a lot of money unwisely into those. You want to go for some other ones.
47:40 Speaker 04 Yeah, supposedly, and there are people that have done, uh, there was this one guy. If you really want to get into monopoly.
47:46 Josh Clark? Uh huh.
47:46 Speaker 04 This dude, I don't even know his name, but just look up probabilities in the game of monopoly. And, uh, Scientific American in the mid 90s did an article that talked about probabilities of landing on different spaces.
47:58 Josh Clark? Right.
47:58 Speaker 04 But they excluded, um, community chest and chance and being sent to jail. So this guy said, I took all of that and included everything.
48:07 Josh Clark? Mm hmm.
48:07 Speaker 04 And he has, uh, statistical charts, uh, long-term probabilities for ending up on each square. Expected income per opponent role.
48:15 Josh Clark? Yeah.
48:16 Speaker 04 Uh, average income per role, expected number of opponent role to recoup incremental costs. Uh, to recoup mortgages. So.
48:25 Josh Clark? It's, uh, the name of his website, by the way, is monopolywasfun.com.
48:31 Speaker 04 It totally should be. Um, but, um, if you just want to do some basic probabilities, the orange properties are landed on more than anyone else.
48:40 Josh Clark? Yes. And why Chuck?
48:42 Speaker 04 Uh, because they are after jail.
48:47 Josh Clark? Yeah, it's six, eight and nine spaces after jail.
48:50 Speaker 04 Yeah. So if you get sent to jail, which is going to happen at some point, and we actually, we didn't talk about jail. We'll talk about that. Um, then you, uh, yeah, chances are you're going to hit one of those orange squares on your way out of jail.
49:00 Josh Clark? Yeah. Because you're rolling with two dice. So you're much more likely to roll like a six, eight or a nine than you are like a two or a three or a one.
49:07 Speaker 04 Yeah.
49:07 Josh Clark? It's not even possible to roll a one. Try it. You can't.
49:11 Speaker 04 You can't unless you eat one of the dice.
49:14 Josh Clark? And in which case, unless it's a house rule, everybody's gonna yell at you and have to wait around until you poop it out to keep playing.
49:21 Speaker 04 Actually, our rule was you had to roll the child then.
49:24 Josh Clark? The what?
49:25 Speaker 04 The child who ate the dice.
49:26 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah. Shake him up, yeah.
49:28 Speaker 04 Yep. Alright, so jail is on the corner of the board and you can, there are a few different ways you can go there. You can draw a go to jail card.
49:38 Josh Clark? Right.
49:39 Speaker 04 You can throw three doubles in a row and go to jail.
49:42 Josh Clark? Yeah.
49:43 Speaker 04 Which I never understood because that's a good thing.
49:46 Josh Clark? I guess, but it's also the sign of the devil, so that's why you have to go to jail for a little while to be cleansed.
49:51 Speaker 04 That's right. Or there is a square marked go to jail and you can land on that and go to jail. You can also get out in three ways. You can have that get out of jail free card. If you draw that, you can hold on to it. We could sell it, although I think that's a house rule. You could sell it to a friend or enemy.
50:09 Josh Clark? Whoever, whoever had the most cash, right?
50:11 Speaker 04 Exactly. And then you basically, the other way is to roll, to either pay your way out with 50 bucks or to roll your way out. And the way we played it was each turn, you had one chance to roll your way out of jail.
50:24 Josh Clark? So you.
50:25 Speaker 04 By rolling doubles.
50:26 Josh Clark? Rolling doubles, right.
50:26 Speaker 04 Yeah.
50:27 Josh Clark? And then if you, under official rules, if you don't roll doubles for three consecutive turns, like you get three consecutive chances to roll doubles, and if you don't on any of those turns,
50:39 Speaker 04 Yeah.
50:39 Josh Clark? then you have to pay 50 bucks to get out of jail.
50:41 Speaker 04 We just played where you just got out and you didn't have to pay.
50:45 Josh Clark? Well, then you guys weren't following the rules.
50:47 Speaker 04 Told you the house rules, the Brian house rules.
50:49 Josh Clark? So there's actually a strategy to jail.
50:51 Speaker 04 Yeah.
50:52 Josh Clark? If you go to jail early on in the game, you want to pay your 50 bucks to get out immediately.
50:59 Speaker 04 Yeah.
51:00 Josh Clark? Just pay the 50 bucks because then you can keep going around the board and there's more stuff available to buy.
51:05 Speaker 04 Yeah.
51:06 Josh Clark? But later in the game. You want to just kind of hang out in jail.
51:10 Speaker 04 Yeah, like Josh has bought all the orange spaces.
51:13 Josh Clark? Yeah.
51:13 Speaker 04 And you've got hotels on each one.
51:14 Josh Clark? Yeah.
51:15 Speaker 04 So I'm thinking, it might be good to sit in jail for a few rounds.
51:18 Josh Clark? Yeah, because you can still collect rent on your properties. But the fact that you're in jail keeps you off of my properties.
51:26 Speaker 04 Yeah, and another Bryant rule we played where when you were in jail, you could not collect any rents.
51:32 Josh Clark? Yeah, I mean, that makes sense, but according to official rules.
51:34 Speaker 04 That's right.
51:35 Josh Clark? You just make as much money as you want there.
51:37 Speaker 04 And apparently in jail, you can officially, you can also buy and sell properties.
51:41 Josh Clark? Yeah.
51:41 Speaker 04 And improve your, and collect rent and build hotels and houses, which I thought, I don't know. If you're in jail, you're going to lose that right.
51:48 Josh Clark? It seems like it in real jail, that's the way it is.
51:51 Speaker 04 No, it's not. You can own a house and be in jail.
51:55 Josh Clark? I guess that's true.
51:57 Speaker 04 And technically, you could probably charge rent to someone. You could sublet it, like, I'm going to be gone for three to six.
52:01 Josh Clark? No, it's true, but what happens when the dishwasher breaks? Try to get let out of jail to go fix it. They're not going to let you do that.
52:08 Speaker 04 That's very funny.
52:10 Josh Clark? But it's true, too.
52:11 Speaker 04 Uh, probability experts also say you get a good return on buying all of the railroads. Because they're pretty cheap. Uh, there's one on each side.
52:20 Josh Clark? Mm-hmm.
52:21 Speaker 04 And once you have each, uh, once you own all of them, um, they're $200 in rent. So that's not too bad. Not too shabby.
52:31 Josh Clark? No.
52:31 Speaker 04 But to me, a monopoly is, the reason monopolies are valuable is because they're in a row. Whereas the railroads are spaced out.
52:38 Josh Clark? Right.
52:39 Speaker 04 Uh, and our friend, the strategist, who thinks he, uh, invented the game, says, "But what you have to remember is none of these strategies matter because you're playing, it's a game of people and personalities." So he said, "You got to sit back and watch the different personalities emerge and then use, manipulate that."
53:00 Josh Clark? Gotcha.
53:01 Speaker 04 Like the cash hoarder versus the shark and, uh,
53:03 Josh Clark? Right.
53:04 Speaker 04 He's like, "You're really playing against people."
53:06 Josh Clark? Man, that's interesting.
53:07 Speaker 04 I thought so.
53:09 Josh Clark? Okay, so let's talk about another friend, an economist friend. His name is Ralph Anspach.
53:20 Speaker 04 Yes.
53:21 Josh Clark? And he, back in the 70s, had a game called Anti-Monopoly.
53:25 Speaker 04 Yeah, he was an econ professor at San Francisco State.
53:28 Josh Clark? That's right.
53:29 Speaker 04 And like made his own real game, like he didn't just like draw it up on paper, like he started a little small business.
53:37 Josh Clark? Right.
53:37 Speaker 04 And manufactured it.
53:38 Josh Clark? Apparently sold about 200,000 copies of it, like right out of the gate.
53:42 Speaker 04 Yeah.
53:42 Josh Clark? Like it just hit a nerve. Again, it was called Anti-Monopoly and the whole point of it was to break up monopolies rather than build monopolies.
53:51 Speaker 04 Yeah, the beginning of the game is essentially the end of a regular game. Like everyone starts off with monopolies and instead of real estate and utilities, in Anti-Monopoly, they had, there are individual businesses that have been brought under a single ownership and you take the role of federal caseworker and bring indictments against monopolized businesses.
54:12 Josh Clark? That's right.
54:13 Speaker 04 In order to turn, return the board to a free market system.
54:16 Josh Clark? You have to wear sensible shoes.
54:19 Speaker 04 It sounds awesome.
54:20 Josh Clark? Yeah, well, and he came up with this because he was trying to apparently explain to his son what was wrong and bad about monopolies.
54:29 Speaker 04 Right.
54:29 Josh Clark? And I suspect capitalism to a certain extent. And he came up with this game instead, like I said, sold a substantial amount, 200,000 copies of a game, especially back in the 70s, that was pretty good.
54:42 Speaker 04 As a startup?
54:43 Josh Clark? Yeah.
54:44 Speaker 04 You know?
54:44 Josh Clark? And it caught Parker Brothers' attention enough that they sent him a cease and desist letter, took him to court, got a court order for him to hand over his like 37,000 copies that he had in his warehouse. And they, Parker Brothers went and unceremoniously buried him in a landfill in Minnesota.
55:02 Speaker 04 Yeah.
55:03 Josh Clark? So Ralph didn't cotton to this very much. He didn't like that. He doesn't like to be pushed around. I get the impression.
55:13 Speaker 04 No, I mean, a guy who makes anti-monopoly is not going to cave into the courts initially.
55:18 Josh Clark? And he did so like very much at his own financial detriment. He had a very expensive team of lawyers at first and spent quite a bit of money fighting Parker Brothers for the right to use anti-monopoly. And it wasn't really going anywhere and he was losing a lot of money. So he started to do legwork himself, found a lawyer friend who worked on the cheap for him, and that's when things started taking off.
55:50 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, he basically uncovered the lie that it was invented by Charles Darrow.
55:55 Josh Clark? Yeah.
55:56 Speaker 04 He found out that the game was essentially in the public domain, or should have been, and went all the way to the Supreme Court and won.
56:05 Josh Clark? Yeah, he won at the Supreme Court. This econ professor who came up with the game called anti-monopoly, won in the Supreme Court, won the right to name his game anti-monopoly.
56:16 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, he deposed the two Quakers that were friends of Hoskins. They were old at that point. They took the stand. He deposed the CEO of Parker Brothers, and he took the stand and had to admit under oath, like, yeah, we did kind of steal it, the idea from that lady, after all.
56:37 Josh Clark? And so, as Ralph says, the whole point to him was for this true story, the true origins of monopoly and how it came about, and the whole point of it originally
56:48 Speaker 04 Yeah.
56:49 Josh Clark? could still be told openly. And that, what he said, couldn't be bought at any price, in his opinion.
56:55 Speaker 04 That's right.
56:56 Josh Clark? So way to go, Ralph.
56:57 Speaker 04 Yeah, he wrote a book awkwardly titled The Billion Dollar Monopoly in Swindle, colon, During a David and Goliath Battle, Anti-Monopoly Uncovers the Secret History of Monopoly.
57:10 Josh Clark? That's a little clunky.
57:12 Speaker 04 A little clunky, but it's still around.
57:15 Speaker 04 In 1984, there was a new version called Anti-Monopoly 2, where you could actually be a monopolist or a competitor. So you got to choose, which I thought was interesting. And if you chose the competitor, you charge lower rents and you can improve property at any time. But if you're a monopolist, you have to own at least two properties in a group before building houses and charge a lot higher rent. So I think you're like playing against the two systems within the same game.
57:45 Josh Clark? That's really interesting.
57:46 Speaker 04 Yeah, I'm gonna, I might grab one of these and see what it's like.
57:48 Josh Clark? Yeah.
57:50 Speaker 04 Maybe.
57:50 Josh Clark? Tell everybody he's German.
57:53 Josh Clark? Uh, you got anything else?
57:54 Speaker 04 I got nothing else.
57:55 Josh Clark? I do. The longest Monopoly game of all time, 70 days.
58:00 Speaker 04 I played a game of Risk that seemed like it lasted that long once.
58:04 Josh Clark? It may have.
58:05 Speaker 04 It didn't last that long, but it lasted a weekend.
58:08 Josh Clark? Oh, okay.
58:09 Speaker 04 Um, and Monopoly, I don't have the patience for that. I'll just give up. I'll take my cash, fake cash and go home.
58:17 Josh Clark? Yeah, you're hoard of it.
58:18 Speaker 04 Yeah.
58:19 Josh Clark? You're like, oh, I just saved all this money.
58:21 Speaker 04 That's right, and I own the utilities.
58:24 Josh Clark? Uh, if you want to learn more about Monopoly, including how to play, if you don't like house rules, but you also don't feel like looking at the official rulebook, you can just go onto HowStuffWorks.
58:34 Speaker 04 Yeah.
58:34 Josh Clark? And check out the rules that is in this article. Just type Monopoly in the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for, what, listener mail?
58:43 Speaker 04 Yes.
58:43 Josh Clark? Okay.
58:45 Speaker 04 I'm gonna call this, uh, Help for a Fan in Need.
58:49 Josh Clark? Oh, that's nice.
58:50 Speaker 04 Hey, guys, I want some help, please. My wife and I are expecting our first kid this summer. And 13 days ago, we also found out that my wife has stage four breast cancer. So we are spending our third trimester getting chemo.
59:01 Josh Clark? My goodness.
59:02 Speaker 04 I know. Uh, we're gonna kick cancer in the butt. We have no doubt, but we're scared and overwhelmed, obviously. Uh, we're doing chemo now, then we'll have the baby get more chemo, then bilateral mastectomy, then radiation. Uh, we have great doctors and great friends in family. So even in the face of this, we feel very lucky. Uh, and by the way, I got a follow-up more recently that says, uh... There is no gestational diabetes and the cancer is already shrinking.
59:28 Josh Clark? Oh, it's great.
59:29 Speaker 04 So, things are going great so far.
59:30 Josh Clark? Thanks for not keeping us in suspense.
59:32 Speaker 04 I know. I was gonna wait till the end. Uh, and he asked for a couple of favors. He said, "First of all, if you want to follow and promote my Tumblr, uh, to keep people updated, it is, um, http://gallafreakedeky, G-A-L-L-I-F-R-E-E-K-Y-D-E-E-K-Y dot tumblr dot com."
59:52 Josh Clark? Okay.
59:53 Speaker 04 He says, "We're huge nerds and Doctor Who fans," so that was lost on me.
59:57 Josh Clark? Some Doctor Who reference, I guess.
59:59 Speaker 04 Apparently so.
59:59 Josh Clark? Does it have to do with the phone booth, maybe?
1:00:02 Speaker 04 That's the only thing you know about Doctor Who. Same here.
1:00:04 Josh Clark? Yeah.
1:00:05 Speaker 04 Um, "Secondly, I'm biking 150 miles, uh, to raise money, and, uh, could you plug that?" And you can go to goo dot gl slash 2wjzxq.
1:00:18 Josh Clark? These people don't like normal words.
1:00:20 Speaker 04 Well, that's one of those shortened URLs.
1:00:22 Josh Clark? Oh, I see.
1:00:23 Speaker 04 It's a goo.
1:00:23 Josh Clark? Gotcha.
1:00:24 Speaker 04 Uh, and then third, "How about a shout-out?" And I think that's what we're doing here. Uh, "My wife is a little shy, so just use her nickname, 'The Mayor.'"
1:00:32 Josh Clark? Oh, that's hilarious. She wears a sash during chemo and childbirth.
1:00:37 Speaker 04 I guess so. I mean, I call Emily "The Boss," so I guess it's the same.
1:00:39 Josh Clark? "The Mayor."
1:00:40 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:00:41 Josh Clark? But "The Mayor" is like the boss of several bosses, I would guess.
1:00:45 Speaker 04 Yeah, we used to call my friend Justin, who you know, "The Mayor of Atlanta," because everywhere he went, he...
1:00:49 Josh Clark? Oh, yeah.
1:00:50 Speaker 04 Somebody knew him.
1:00:50 Josh Clark? He's a sociable fella.
1:00:51 Speaker 04 But now we just call him "The Manager of Atlanta," because everywhere you go, he has some improvement to that place.
1:00:56 Josh Clark? Oh, okay.
1:00:57 Speaker 04 Like, "The lighting's not quite right," or "The door should be over there."
1:00:59 Josh Clark? That's hilarious.
1:00:59 Speaker 04 "The kitchen is not located properly."
1:01:02 Josh Clark? Those Brits.
1:01:03 Speaker 04 Yeah. Uh, "And then fourth, my wife works in public policy, specifically helping women and families, uh, get themselves out of poverty and advocating for low-income workers. So, there you have it, an awesome and incredible woman who dedicates her considerable talents to helping others, is pregnant and has breast cancer. Kinda hard to say no, right? I'm not above guilt-tripping." So, Bob from Swathmore, Pennsylvania, um...
1:01:26 Speaker 04 There you go. People should go and check out that stuff and support your bike ride. And I hope things have continued to progress well for your wife and child.
1:01:33 Josh Clark? Yeah.
1:01:34 Speaker 04 Keep us updated.
1:01:35 Josh Clark? Yeah. And you keep me updated, at the very least, if not, everybody listening.
1:01:40 Speaker 04 I will.
1:01:40 Josh Clark? Okay. Thanks a lot, Bob and the mayor. Good luck to you both. And let's see, if you want to get in touch with us, whether you're a mayor, a provincial governor, who knows?
1:01:53 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:01:54 Josh Clark? You can get in touch with us on Twitter at @SYSKPodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com/StuffYouShouldKnow. You can send us an email to [email protected] . And join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com.
1:02:15 Speaker 03 For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.
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