Do you know what Blibber-Blubber was? How about Wiff-Waff? If only there were an incredible game hosted by Joy Dolo to help us figure it out. Oh wait, there is! Grab your Smarty Pass and let’s play Whatchamacallit! The greatest game to explain a name.
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AUDIO TRACK: Now entering Brains On Headquarters.
[ELECTRONIC BEEPS AND WHIRS]
JOY DOLO: Oh, hey, Smarty Pal. What's up? I just came up with the best new game. I just need to test it out on someone. Oh, hey. Look, there's my pals Aron Woldeslassie and Anna Weggel.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Hey, it's Joy Dolo, host of Forever Ago.
ANNA WEGGEL: We were just organizing our sock collections.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: We can't decide if we should organize them by color or levels of coziness.
ANNA WEGGEL: Or from least stinky to most stinky.
JOY DOLO: Well, prepare to have your stinky socks blown off. Because I have a game for you. A game of Whatchamacallit.
[MUSICAL CUE]
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: You mean a game of hide and seek?
JOY DOLO: A game of Whatchamacallit.
ANNA WEGGEL: Oh, wait, are you thinking of charades?
JOY DOLO: No, the game is literally called Whatchamacallit.
[MUSICAL CUE]
ANNA WEGGEL: Oh, right. Yeah.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: I thought you didn't remember the name of the game. That's so funny.
JOY DOLO: I've got great jokes, and people usually get into them. But this isn't one of those times. This is just a game called Whatchamacallit. It's the latest game I dreamed up. Hosting Forever Ago, I've learned about so many funny names and words for everyday objects. And I figured I could quiz you on some of them.
Here's how it works. I'll give you a funny name from history, and I want you to tell me what you think it's for. Make sense?
ANNA WEGGEL: Yeah.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Oh, absolutely.
JOY DOLO: Good. OK, Aron, you're up first. Your first whatchamacallit is wiff-waff.
[MUSICAL CUE]
What do you think wiff-waff was? I'll give a hint. It was a type of sport.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: OK. So when I think of whiffs, I think of smelling something. Like-- right? So I'm imagining if this is a sport, it's like a competitive smelling sport.
JOY DOLO: Oh yeah.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: So I'm imagining two people on opposite ends of a garden, and they're blindfolded.
JOY DOLO: Yes.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: And they have to run through the garden as quickly as possible only using their senses of smell. And as they're going through it, they're just smelling so many lovely flowers and roses and what have you. And the first person to get out of the garden wins.
[LAUGHS]
JOY DOLO: Oh, that's nice. And then that's the first level. And then the second level is you have to go to the mall and the perfume section and identify which one is the most expensive just by wiff-waffing.
[LAUGHS]
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Exactly.
JOY DOLO: I wish that was true. I would actually play the perfume game. But wiff-waff is actually one of the original names for ping pong.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: What?
JOY DOLO: The sport was also known as flim-flam.
[PING PONG BALL SOUNDS]
[LAUGHS]
What do you think about that? Wiff-waff, flim-flam, ping pong, it's all the same umbrella.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Am I the only one who was raised by a bunch of old timey people and now that your programmed to believe that flim-flam is just a great way to say something's complicated or strange? That's a bunch of flim-flam. You're telling me flim-flam and wiff-waff are just ping pong?
JOY DOLO: It's just ping pong. But I wonder if you could switch it out. If you're frustrated with something, it's like, oh, that's just ping pong. That's a whole lot of wiff-waff.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: That's a bunch of wiff-waff. Also, I'm noticing that ping pong has a bunch of different names. There's ping pong, table tennis, wiff-waff, and flim-flam.
JOY DOLO: Wow. I bet there's another one that we don't even know about. Or maybe we should dream up a new name.
ANNA WEGGEL: Glim-glam.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: I do like flim-flam.
ANNA WEGGEL: Glim-glam.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Anna, do you want to play some flim-flam after this?
ANNA WEGGEL: I said glim-glam, but yes, I also want to play flim-flam.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: It's coming together.
[LAUGHS]
JOY DOLO: All right, Anna, you're up next. Your whatchamacallit is blibber-blubber.
ANNA WEGGEL: Ooh.
[MUSICAL CUE]
JOY DOLO: What do you think blibber-blubber was? Hinty hint hint-- it was a brand of candy.
ANNA WEGGEL: Oh. OK, so blibber-blubber was the original name for gum. And blibber-blubber gum was made from whales. So it was whale gum, originally.
JOY DOLO: Look at you. Someone has been listening to Forever Ago and Smash Boom Best.
[LAUGHS]
Well, you're absolutely right. Blibber-blubber was the first name for bubble gum. And it was first invented in 1906 but never made it to stores because it was too sticky. If you popped a blibber-blubber bubble on your skin, you might have needed harsh chemicals like turpentine to scrub it off.
ANNA WEGGEL: But was it made of whales?
JOY DOLO: That is something you'll have to listen to the episode to find out about.
[LAUGHS]
ANNA WEGGEL: Amazing.
JOY DOLO: But wouldn't that be interesting? If instead of calling a bubble gum like we do nowadays, you have to go to the gas station and get a packet of blibber-blubber.
ANNA WEGGEL: Yeah, you can't be cool ordering blibber-blubber.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Also, what's going on with this early gum that you need-- if you get it on your skin, you need harsh chemicals.
ANNA WEGGEL: Dangerous.
JOY DOLO: There's a warning on the package, like chew, do not blow.
ANNA WEGGEL: Do not drop it on your arm.
JOY DOLO: Yeah. Be extremely careful.
ANNA WEGGEL: Yeah.
JOY DOLO: All right, Aron. You're up again.
[MUSICAL CUE]
Your whatchamacallit is the Rickenbacker frying pan. Here's a hint. Despite the name, it was not a frying pan.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: What? Frying pan is in the name, but it's absolutely not a frying pan.
JOY DOLO: Yep.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: OK. Then Rickenbacker-- Rickenbacker rhymes with-- and I think you'll agree with this one, Anna-- Rickenbacker rhymes with knickerbocker, which is a type of--
ANNA WEGGEL: Right.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: --pant, if I'm remembering correctly.
JOY DOLO: Yes.
ANNA WEGGEL: Undies, maybe?
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Yeah. So--
JOY DOLO: Pantaloons.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Exactly. So I'm going to say a Rickenbacker frying pan-- I'm imagining something pants adjacent, and this is a pan but not a frying pan. Maybe it's like an iron. It's flat and hot and then you pan over your clothes with it. So your knickerbockers don't have any wrinkles in them.
ANNA WEGGEL: You just have to fry them.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Yeah.
ANNA WEGGEL: And then they're good to go.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Yeah. I would love it if all of my clothes were fried when they were wrinkly.
ANNA WEGGEL: Yeah, perfect.
JOY DOLO: Yeah. That's a great guess. It's not right. But the Rickenbacker frying pan was an electric guitar.
ANNA WEGGEL: Oh.
JOY DOLO: Go figure. It was invented in the early 1930s, and it was actually one of the first electric guitars ever made. This electric guitar got its name because it was shaped like a frying pan. And the frying pan was also a lap steel guitar. Meaning you played it by laying it on your lap face up. Have you ever seen people that play guitar like that? Laying in kind of--
ANNA WEGGEL: Yeah, like a slide guitar?
JOY DOLO: Yeah, yeah. I've seen that before. I wonder if that's where it originated from.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: It's a very beautiful way to play it.
ANNA WEGGEL: Yeah.
JOY DOLO: Yeah. Yeah.
ANNA WEGGEL: And lazy.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Yeah.
ANNA WEGGEL: Just kidding.
[LAUGHS]
JOY DOLO: Why don't you get a job? Guitar. Well, what a game. I think we learned a whole lot. What a great game of Whatchamacallit. Thanks, Aron and Anna, for playing along. And thanks, Smarty Pal for joining us. See you next time.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
That's it for this Smarty Pass episode. It was made by Aron Woldeslassie, Anna Weggel, and Anna Goldfield. Our executive producer is Beth Perlman, and the executives in charge of APM Studios are Chandra Kavati, Joan Griffith, and Alex Schaffert. Brains On is a non-profit public radio program. Thanks, Smarty Pass friends.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Bye.
ANNA AND JOY: Bye!
[ELECTRONIC BEEPS AND WHIRS]
JOY DOLO: Oh, hey, Smarty Pal. What's up? I just came up with the best new game. I just need to test it out on someone. Oh, hey. Look, there's my pals Aron Woldeslassie and Anna Weggel.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Hey, it's Joy Dolo, host of Forever Ago.
ANNA WEGGEL: We were just organizing our sock collections.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: We can't decide if we should organize them by color or levels of coziness.
ANNA WEGGEL: Or from least stinky to most stinky.
JOY DOLO: Well, prepare to have your stinky socks blown off. Because I have a game for you. A game of Whatchamacallit.
[MUSICAL CUE]
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: You mean a game of hide and seek?
JOY DOLO: A game of Whatchamacallit.
ANNA WEGGEL: Oh, wait, are you thinking of charades?
JOY DOLO: No, the game is literally called Whatchamacallit.
[MUSICAL CUE]
ANNA WEGGEL: Oh, right. Yeah.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: I thought you didn't remember the name of the game. That's so funny.
JOY DOLO: I've got great jokes, and people usually get into them. But this isn't one of those times. This is just a game called Whatchamacallit. It's the latest game I dreamed up. Hosting Forever Ago, I've learned about so many funny names and words for everyday objects. And I figured I could quiz you on some of them.
Here's how it works. I'll give you a funny name from history, and I want you to tell me what you think it's for. Make sense?
ANNA WEGGEL: Yeah.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Oh, absolutely.
JOY DOLO: Good. OK, Aron, you're up first. Your first whatchamacallit is wiff-waff.
[MUSICAL CUE]
What do you think wiff-waff was? I'll give a hint. It was a type of sport.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: OK. So when I think of whiffs, I think of smelling something. Like-- right? So I'm imagining if this is a sport, it's like a competitive smelling sport.
JOY DOLO: Oh yeah.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: So I'm imagining two people on opposite ends of a garden, and they're blindfolded.
JOY DOLO: Yes.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: And they have to run through the garden as quickly as possible only using their senses of smell. And as they're going through it, they're just smelling so many lovely flowers and roses and what have you. And the first person to get out of the garden wins.
[LAUGHS]
JOY DOLO: Oh, that's nice. And then that's the first level. And then the second level is you have to go to the mall and the perfume section and identify which one is the most expensive just by wiff-waffing.
[LAUGHS]
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Exactly.
JOY DOLO: I wish that was true. I would actually play the perfume game. But wiff-waff is actually one of the original names for ping pong.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: What?
JOY DOLO: The sport was also known as flim-flam.
[PING PONG BALL SOUNDS]
[LAUGHS]
What do you think about that? Wiff-waff, flim-flam, ping pong, it's all the same umbrella.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Am I the only one who was raised by a bunch of old timey people and now that your programmed to believe that flim-flam is just a great way to say something's complicated or strange? That's a bunch of flim-flam. You're telling me flim-flam and wiff-waff are just ping pong?
JOY DOLO: It's just ping pong. But I wonder if you could switch it out. If you're frustrated with something, it's like, oh, that's just ping pong. That's a whole lot of wiff-waff.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: That's a bunch of wiff-waff. Also, I'm noticing that ping pong has a bunch of different names. There's ping pong, table tennis, wiff-waff, and flim-flam.
JOY DOLO: Wow. I bet there's another one that we don't even know about. Or maybe we should dream up a new name.
ANNA WEGGEL: Glim-glam.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: I do like flim-flam.
ANNA WEGGEL: Glim-glam.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Anna, do you want to play some flim-flam after this?
ANNA WEGGEL: I said glim-glam, but yes, I also want to play flim-flam.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: It's coming together.
[LAUGHS]
JOY DOLO: All right, Anna, you're up next. Your whatchamacallit is blibber-blubber.
ANNA WEGGEL: Ooh.
[MUSICAL CUE]
JOY DOLO: What do you think blibber-blubber was? Hinty hint hint-- it was a brand of candy.
ANNA WEGGEL: Oh. OK, so blibber-blubber was the original name for gum. And blibber-blubber gum was made from whales. So it was whale gum, originally.
JOY DOLO: Look at you. Someone has been listening to Forever Ago and Smash Boom Best.
[LAUGHS]
Well, you're absolutely right. Blibber-blubber was the first name for bubble gum. And it was first invented in 1906 but never made it to stores because it was too sticky. If you popped a blibber-blubber bubble on your skin, you might have needed harsh chemicals like turpentine to scrub it off.
ANNA WEGGEL: But was it made of whales?
JOY DOLO: That is something you'll have to listen to the episode to find out about.
[LAUGHS]
ANNA WEGGEL: Amazing.
JOY DOLO: But wouldn't that be interesting? If instead of calling a bubble gum like we do nowadays, you have to go to the gas station and get a packet of blibber-blubber.
ANNA WEGGEL: Yeah, you can't be cool ordering blibber-blubber.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Also, what's going on with this early gum that you need-- if you get it on your skin, you need harsh chemicals.
ANNA WEGGEL: Dangerous.
JOY DOLO: There's a warning on the package, like chew, do not blow.
ANNA WEGGEL: Do not drop it on your arm.
JOY DOLO: Yeah. Be extremely careful.
ANNA WEGGEL: Yeah.
JOY DOLO: All right, Aron. You're up again.
[MUSICAL CUE]
Your whatchamacallit is the Rickenbacker frying pan. Here's a hint. Despite the name, it was not a frying pan.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: What? Frying pan is in the name, but it's absolutely not a frying pan.
JOY DOLO: Yep.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: OK. Then Rickenbacker-- Rickenbacker rhymes with-- and I think you'll agree with this one, Anna-- Rickenbacker rhymes with knickerbocker, which is a type of--
ANNA WEGGEL: Right.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: --pant, if I'm remembering correctly.
JOY DOLO: Yes.
ANNA WEGGEL: Undies, maybe?
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Yeah. So--
JOY DOLO: Pantaloons.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Exactly. So I'm going to say a Rickenbacker frying pan-- I'm imagining something pants adjacent, and this is a pan but not a frying pan. Maybe it's like an iron. It's flat and hot and then you pan over your clothes with it. So your knickerbockers don't have any wrinkles in them.
ANNA WEGGEL: You just have to fry them.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Yeah.
ANNA WEGGEL: And then they're good to go.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Yeah. I would love it if all of my clothes were fried when they were wrinkly.
ANNA WEGGEL: Yeah, perfect.
JOY DOLO: Yeah. That's a great guess. It's not right. But the Rickenbacker frying pan was an electric guitar.
ANNA WEGGEL: Oh.
JOY DOLO: Go figure. It was invented in the early 1930s, and it was actually one of the first electric guitars ever made. This electric guitar got its name because it was shaped like a frying pan. And the frying pan was also a lap steel guitar. Meaning you played it by laying it on your lap face up. Have you ever seen people that play guitar like that? Laying in kind of--
ANNA WEGGEL: Yeah, like a slide guitar?
JOY DOLO: Yeah, yeah. I've seen that before. I wonder if that's where it originated from.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: It's a very beautiful way to play it.
ANNA WEGGEL: Yeah.
JOY DOLO: Yeah. Yeah.
ANNA WEGGEL: And lazy.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Yeah.
ANNA WEGGEL: Just kidding.
[LAUGHS]
JOY DOLO: Why don't you get a job? Guitar. Well, what a game. I think we learned a whole lot. What a great game of Whatchamacallit. Thanks, Aron and Anna, for playing along. And thanks, Smarty Pal for joining us. See you next time.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
That's it for this Smarty Pass episode. It was made by Aron Woldeslassie, Anna Weggel, and Anna Goldfield. Our executive producer is Beth Perlman, and the executives in charge of APM Studios are Chandra Kavati, Joan Griffith, and Alex Schaffert. Brains On is a non-profit public radio program. Thanks, Smarty Pass friends.
ARON WOLDESLASSIE: Bye.
ANNA AND JOY: Bye!
Transcription services provided by 3Play Media.
