It's been a while! We have a quick update about our schedule, plus details about our first-ever LIVE SHOW!

Underunderstood Live
Tuesday August 1, 2023, 7pm
Caveat, NYC (21+)
Tickets (both live and virtual!) at Caveat's website

Hollywood is stockpiling scripts for full seasons of unreleased television shows. Are they throwing them out or saving them for a rainy day?

Want to support the show? Become a patron at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/underunderstood⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.

Show notes:

• Why Are TV Writers So Miserable? (The New Yorker)
• Hollywood Writers Strike (Democracy Now!)
•  Film and TV writers are striking (CNN)
• Writers strike focuses on whether AI could take jobs from screenwriters (CBS News)
• Writers On Set (George R. R. Martin’s Not A Blog)
• Alex O’Keefe (Linktree)
• The Bear (Hulu)
• 2023 Writers Guild Award for Comedy Series (YouTube)
• Reed Hastings on Colbert (YouTube)
• Amazon? HBO? Netflix thinks its real competitor is… sleep (CNBC)
• We Watched It All | Netflix (YouTube)
• Writers Are Not Keeping Up (wgacontract2023.org)
• Reed Hastings on Building a Streaming Empire (YouTube)
• Hollywoodstrike.org
• wgacontract2023.org

Sometimes the truth is stranger than the hoax.

Want to support the show? Become a patron at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/underunderstood⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.

Show notes:

• even if it's fake it's real (sippey.com)
• Street View Birth (Andy Wyeth)
• turning random internet drama into songs, part 2 (Twitter)
• Lubalin on TikTok 
• Meet The Musician Turning Random Internet Drama Into TikTok Bops (Buzzfeed News)

John revisits a wild pitch about a mysterious television performer.

Want to support the show? Become a patron at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/underunderstood⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.

Show notes:

• The first special (YouTube)
• 2002 thread on The Magic Cafe
• It's No Secret (Chicago Tribune, 1998)
• The unmasking (YouTube)
• The Masked Magician on Diagnosis Murder (YouTube)
• Virginia Magicians Sue Fox TV To Stop Revelation of Secrets (Washington Post, 1998)
• Street Magic Finally Revealed (YouTube)
• A trick from the fifth special (YouTube)

There’s a formula that dictates restaurant prices in New York City airports. Adrianne digs into what does — and doesn’t — add up. Want to support the show? Become a patron at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/underunderstood⁠⁠⁠⁠ Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬. Show notes:

• Cooper Lund's tweet
• Concessionaire Street Pricing Manual (PDF)
• The Cibo Express website
• Why Does a Plastic-Wrapped Turkey Sandwich Cost $15 at the Airport? (Hell Gate)

An obscure pro wrestling-adjacent reality show from 2001 was mired in scandal. Was it really rigged?

Want to support the show? Become a patron at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/underunderstood⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.

Show notes:

• Another Reality TV Show Is Under Fire (New York Times)
• Manhunt on IMDB
• The Stingray (Wayback Machine)
• Twenty-One (Wikipedia)
• Prohibited practices in contests of knowledge, skill, or chance (FCC)
• JK’s letter to the FCC (Wayback Machine)
• Steve Beverly’s letter to the FCC (Wayback Machine)
• Survivor rules: the contract that details pay, tie-breakers, prohibited behavior, and more (Reality Blurs)

Billy shares a new (old) segment, we examine how real MTV Cribs was, and an important update about the missing broccoli game!

Want to support the show? Become a patron at ⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/underunderstood⁠⁠⁠.

Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.

Show notes:

(02:56) MTV Cribs

• Inside Travis Barker's Surprisingly Tranquil Calabasas Abode (Architectural Digest)
• 'I'm Into Cadillacs' Travis Barker's Home & Car Collection (MTV on YouTube)
• I Just Found Out That "Cribs" On MTV Was Kinda Fake And I Feel So USED (Buzzfeed)
• MTV Cribs Ja Rule (YouTube)
• Lawyer: Ja Rule Innocent in Club Clash (E! Online)
• Tony Hawk, JoJo & Ryan Nyquist (MTV on YouTube)
• Redman's Staten Island 'De La Casa' (MTV on YouTube)
• Redman | Drink Champs (YouTube)
• Redman: MTV Tried to Get Me to Rent a House for "Cribs" (YouTube)

(35:44) Broccoli Game Follow-up

• FirestarterMethod’s comment (Reddit)
• ハゲパラ Let’s 育毛 (Appget)
• ハゲパラ〜おっさんの毛栽培ゲーム〜【育成・放置】 (APKPure)

Billy helps a listener uncover the true origins of a popular unreleased song.

Want to support the show? Become a patron at ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/underunderstood⁠⁠.

Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.

Show notes:

• Daft Punk – Pee Is Stored In The Balls (Full Unreleased Demo) (YouTube)
• Pee is Stored in the Balls (Know Your Meme)
• What’s the Deal With Boners? (Cosmopolitan)
• Daft Punk’s ‘Random Access Memories’ leaks online (The Verge)
• Daft Punk – Pee Is Stored In The Balls (Alternate Mix) (YouTube)
• HOME – Resonance uploaded by Electronic Gems (YouTube)
• The Nostalgia of HOME’s Resonance, Explained (YouTube)
• Home’s verified artist page (Spotify)
• @RNDYGFFE on Twitter – tweet one, tweet two
• Pee Is Stored In The Balls (Unreleased Demo) playlist (Spotify)
• Did Daft Punk actually make pee is stored in the balls? (Reddit)
• After 8 years, I’ve managed to figure out what vocoder is responsible for the “Robot Voice” (Reddit)
• Randy’s original Tumblr post (slimetony.com)
• Randy’s tweet about music being free to use (Twitter)
• HOME – Odyssey (archive.org)

We take listener calls and emails about lost video games, plus a Triscuit update.

Want to support the show? Become a patron at ⁠https://patreon.com/underunderstood⁠.

Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.

Show notes:

Slope Rider

• Slope Rider official website
• iOS Emulation Finally Cracked – Stop Skeletons From Fighting (YouTube)
• touchHLE, a high-level emulator for iPhone OS applications
• Timecoded link to ad in 2009 Apple event (YouTube)
• Monte Boyd’s Slope Rider thread on Mastodon
• macos9.app
• Stream Mixed-Up Mother Goose (1991, MS-DOS) (Internet Archive)
• Mixed-Up Mother Goose Deluxe (1995, Mac) (Macintosh Repository)
• UTM | Virtual machines for Mac
• Slope Rider download (Macintosh Repository)
• Slope Rider running (poorly) in UTM (YouTube, unlisted)
• Monte Boyd’s Commodore 64 games (itch.io)
• Monte Boyd’s website

Broccoli Man

• Film restoration: Saving our cinema heritage – CBS Sunday Morning (YouTube)
• APKMirror and APKPure
• I know an APK is technically an installer package and not “an executable app file.” Don’t @ me. -Billy

Triscuit

• Improvements in and relating to Apparatus for Baking Biscuit, Crackers and the like (Google Patents)
• Medical Press and Circular – July 29, 1903 (Google Books)
• The Sketch, Vol. 43 (Google Books)
• “Common wheat” on Wikipedia

Billy helps a listener return to VMK, the online world where they remember “learning all the bad words.”

Want to support the show? Become a patron at https://patreon.com/underunderstood.

Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.

Show notes:

• Expedition Theme Park’s video about VMK (YouTube)
• Sam from Expedition Theme Park also has a new podcast called Expedition Enthused
• One Name, Two Games: Virtual Magic Kingdom (Pop History)
• Habbo Hotel promotional videos from the mid-2000s (YouTube)
• Isometric video game graphics (Wikipedia)
• Amazing video about eBoy directed/edited by our editor Ryan Manning (YouTube)
• Virtual Magic Kingdom (Fandom)
• VMK Values (Disney VMK via Internet Archive)
• Fans protest end of virtual Disney site in front of Disneyland (Orange County Register via Internet Archive
• Investigation into Habbo Hotel (Channel 4)
• Preserving Worlds (Means TV)
• MyVMK

Writer Sage Boggs thought he discovered why Triscuit is called Triscuit. But the cracker brand has a confusing and mysterious relationship with its own name.

A rough version of this story originally ran on our bonus podcast, Overunderstood. This updated version contains some new information and reporting.

Want to support the show? Become a patron at https://patreon.com/underunderstood.

Have a mystery? Email [email protected] or leave a voicemail at 212-994-4882‬.

Show notes:

• Sage’s viral tweet (Twitter)
• John’s original tweet to Triscuit (Twitter)
• Some old Triscuit advertisements (Twitter)
• Triscuit’s response to Sage (Twitter)
• Triscuit tweets about three ingredients (Twitter)
• “Filamentous cracker” patent (PDF)
• “Continuous heating and baking machine” patent
• Snopes article on this matter (Snopes)
• Charles Louis Richter questions the answer (Twitter)