Episodes

Shakespeare wrote at least 38 plays and 154 sonnets, and the official count is 884,647 words and 118,406 lines. Within this prodigious output, he invented over 1,700 new words and countless phrases that we use every day. Jon ...

Jon and Kurt have a little forum about the most amazing couples ever. Those from fiction. From wars. From the bible. From the arts. From politics. From legend. Forged in love or in greed, these couples all have a fascinating ...

We’ve all been there: you are having a really good time at the party and imbibe just a wee bit too much. Enough too much that the following morning you feel like crap. So you try all sorts of things to mitigate the pain. To n...

The English language is filled with color idioms. White lies, red handed, blue moon, green with envy, paint the town red are just a few examples that Kurt and Jon dig into in this episode. Many of these terms have a literal o...

Celebrities always seem to have really cool names. Names that sound great when spoken and that conjure up a feeling of glamor or strength or sophistication. Interestingly, most of these names were not the names they were give...

Humans, as a species, are a very funny animal classification. Not content to buy just those products that they need for daily survival, their money burns a hole in their pocket to such a degree that they end up spending it on...

In its quest to be remembered by car rental customers, Avis once proudly proclaimed, "We're #2. We Try Harder." It was a brilliant campaign that highlights the challenges of being second. No one remembers you. Kurt and Jon ar...

Kurt and Jon explore the disorienting land defined by the Urban Dictionary and learn more than they bargained for. As it turns out, Kurt is equally at home with hors d'oeuvres as well as store d'oeuvres. One is consumed in a ...

There are certain entries in every category that are just perfect. They may not be the best or the greatest or the deepest or the funniest or the quintessence, but they are perfect. These entrants tick off all the boxes and s...

It’s happened to all of us, too many times to mention. We see something or hear of something or want to do something that seems just fantastic…until it is too late and you realize that it was actually a really bad idea. Jon a...

The boys are back at it with a third episode dedicated to fun phrases and their origins. This time, we learn where “pull out all the stops” and “put a sock in it” and “rule of thumb” come from, among others. We also learn th...

Jon and Kurt have fun guessing famous slogans that were funny, had double meanings, or were just blatantly bad. From the disaster of the Chevy Nova in foreign markets to the hilarity of a Sega print ad to explaining the beaut...

Throughout recorded time, certain foods have been elixirs and medicinal remedies for multiple ailments. As Hipocrates famously said, “let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” In this episode, Jon and Kurt dig up so...

Ever wonder where products got their names? Why so many with numbers–409, 57, 40, 7? On top of that, how did companies come up with their names? Was Amazon always “Amazon” right out of the gate? What was Pepsi first called? W...

We have all had them…these knee buckling, mind boggling big questions that we try to make sense of. Like “why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?” or “how is it possible to have a ‘civil’ war?” or “have you ever imagined...

With the Surgeon General of the United States officially warning of the harmful effects social media can have on children and teens Jon and Kurt thought it was time to re-air one of their first episodes. Taking on a popular i...

Conspiracy theories may seem like they're running rampant right now – and they are – but it's nothing new. Thousands of years ago, well before social media amplified non-stop nonsense, our ancestors looked up at the night sky...

The Darwin Awards are catnip to any Smart Driveler. They “recognize individuals who have supposedly contributed to human evolution by selecting themselves out of the gene pool by dying or becoming sterilized via their own act...

Jon and Kurt have each found certain parts of the human existence that they feel are out of place, unwarranted, just plain wrong. They chalk these up to being some of the (very) few mistakes made by God. In their first episod...

Upon a recommendation from a loyal listener, Jon and Kurt record another episode of fun facts with which to amaze, tantalize, and hypnotize your friends. They run the gamut from expanding landmarks to lacking the body odor ge...

Jon and Kurt recently learned of a fascinating human dynamic: there are many instances where large groups of people all swear they know a fact that is indisputable. Yet they are wrong. Their "fact" is completely made up. It i...

Jon and Kurt had so much fun discovering the greatest April Fool’s pranks that they dove in even deeper and found more incredible hoaxes. Marketers take it as manna from heaven and have had a lot of fun ginning up interest in...

Jon and Kurt decided to capitalize on the fact that they recorded this episode the day after April First and put out a topical discussion about pranks. They found historical jokes centuries old that fooled many middle agers ...

Ever want to hang with Sam I Am and try to eat Green Eggs and Ham? Or chill with Captain Nemo as he heads 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? Maybe you want to have tea with Emma in one of the gorgeous English manor houses or chow ...