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Transcript

SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: How Play-Doh Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Ho ho, everybody. Santa Chuck here continuing on with our
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: twelve Days of Christmas Toys playlist. I'm gonna stop doing
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: that silly voice because I'm not Santa Claus. I'm just chucking.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I am here to introduce it smells good, it tastes good.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I just hope it sounds good, the salty goodness of Plato.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: How Plato Works.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and this is the first of
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: two Stuff you Should Knows that were recording today. My
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: voice already sounds weird to me. What do you mean? Hmm?
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: It doesn't sound a little weird, you know how like
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: when we get toward the end of the second one, or.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: It gets a little like a worn out or something.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like it's been extruded through a Plato fun Pat.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: What's all that is set up? Or do you really
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: feel that way.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: That was off the cuff? Baby?
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, No, it doesn't sound weird to me. Your voice
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: never sounds weird unless you're sick.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Jerry Judge McCall, Yeah, Jerry brooklet tie. She sided with me.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Well, Jerry wears headphones, but you and I fight the
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: broadcasting business by being the only people that don't wear
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: headphones or cans. I never get it. I'm like, you're
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: two feet from me on what headphones?
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: I know, and I don't want to hear myself anyway.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: I don't want to hear myself better. No, it's terrible.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: It sounds like torture.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: That How about this for a new SYSK T shirt?
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: No more cans? Okay, just have a little X through
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: some headphones.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: I think when you make a stuff, you should know
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: decree from now we should have like a fairy wand
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: sound effect.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: We's like, here's this for a new T shirt. I
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: decree it be made into existence.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we get We're gonna by the way, since I
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: mentioned it, we're gonna have some new shirts coming soon. Yeah,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: some good like some fan designs even yep, pretty exciting.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we and we do have some now that people
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: can go by if you want.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I like those first designs we had.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: And I well, let's just have this out on the air.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: It's not an argument, but let's have this discussion. Are
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: we going to retire the original six from the contest
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: or should we just let them keep going in perpetuity?
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, unless there's a reason. I think perpetuity is the
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: way to go. But someone might like the dancing you
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: know what we call that, the skeleton would cut Yeah,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: fa parade of dancing skeletons.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: The macabre parade, that's what I would call it. Yeah,
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: that's a good one, all six of them. We're excellent.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: The baby with the fly on its forehead.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: It's still my al time favorite.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's good stuff. If you don't know what we're
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: talking about, good of stuff, youshould know dot com our
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: venerable website, and in the top navigation there's a store
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: button and it will take you our store and you
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: can see with your own very eyes what the heck
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: we're talking about.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that was off the cuff.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah it was.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I wasn't like, oh, we gotta plug the T shirts.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, you very rarely say things as fretfully
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: as that. Okay, Chuck, Yes, you want to talk about Plato.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we promised to do this recently and here we are.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, in my defensive was already on the list. Oh well,
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: so it's not like you know I'm at the beck
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: and call of anybody's like, do Plato do this? No,
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: it was already on the.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: List dance monkey.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Right. Did you play with Plato a lot when you
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: were a kid?
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Oh? I played with it. I ate it.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: I don't recall eating it. I do specifically recall eating
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: the paste that was an off brand that had a
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: purple pirate on it. Oh, he was a pirate wearing
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: a purple hat, and I think maybe it had an
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: orange parrot.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Was the paste? Did it have a on the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: inside of the lid. Did it have a applicator?
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, attached to it. Yeah.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I totally ate that paste.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: That was the best tasting paste on the planet.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: As a matter of fact, I think that paste might
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: have been manufactured in part to eat like it's rule
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: serve to like kids, some bad kids.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Actually, I want to revise my statement. I taste,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I licked and tasted playto. I don't remember like swallowing it,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: but I remember, like, you know, tasting it and then
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: maybe even put it in my mouth and spitting it
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: back out. But I don't think I didn't swallow I gotcha.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I never I don't think I ever ate Plato
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: in any form or fashion, but the scent of it,
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: it's unmistakable, unmistakable. It's so unmistakable in fact, that apparently
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: back in two thousand and six, Plato or has bro
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: through a year long celebration for Plato Sure, which it owns,
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: which it bought off of Kenner. Yeah, which Kenner bought
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: from a dude named Joe mcvickers.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Actually they bought it from Tonka. Tonka bought it from Kenner.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, how'd I forget Tonka? Yeah?
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: And for this fiftieth birthday party, they had a scent
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: a Plato perfume released that smelled just like Plato.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Can you buy that? A wonder?
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: I looked, and I think you can get it, but
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: I don't think as easy as you could back in
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: two thousand and six.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wouldn't want to wear it. I was just curious.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I think, yeah, nostalgia, Like I would like to smell it,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: But don't spray that stuff on me.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: I don't think you're supposed to wear it?
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Oh was it just like it? Yeah, one of those things.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: It's a mood stabilizer. Okay, you know what I mean? Yeah,
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: spray in front of your face, and you just go,
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: oh yeah, okay, should put this lead pipe down and
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: rethink things.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Right, Remember when I was a kid and less violent.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Right, somebody give me some paste to eat.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: They should do that.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: Well back when you were a kid, did you know
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: much about the origin of plato?
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Oh no, not at all.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: I didn't either until today or yesterday when I started
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: researching this plato everyone And in this article by Tracy Wilson,
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: who hosts Stuff You Missed in History Class, she says
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: that it's lower, but I've seen it all over the place,
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: and from what I understand, it's the truth.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I think it's the truth.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: There was a dude named Joe mcvickers who had a
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: company and his company produced, from what I understand, McVicker's invention,
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: which was wallpaper clean.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. His father and uncle started it and they were
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: called Koutol Products and it was a soap company, but
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: their big cellar was this wall cleaner. Because when we
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: heated our homes with coal, your house would get coal
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: soot on the walls. Yeah, which is really weird to
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: think of.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: Now, Yeah, but it's true. And your wallpaper can still
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: get dirty grease from cooking things, food fights, whatever, yeah,
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: your wallpaper can get dirty. Let's just face facts. Everybody
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: and McVicker's company had this putty. It was kind of
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: a pliable, gooey putty that you slapped up against the
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: wallpaper and rolled up and down and it just took
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: that suit or that grease or that spaghetti sauce clean off.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: And it was wallpaper cleaner. Yeah, and it was doing okay,
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: I guess great. I don't think they were like hurting necessarily.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: But Joe was married to a woman or was his
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: sister in law was a tea Yeah, it was Cincinnati.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They sold a lot of the stuff for a while,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: but then natural gas came around and so they fell
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: upon hard times. But Joe took over from Cleo. Cleo's
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: was his father and his sister in law, Qesu Fall
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: of New Jersey read about kids that were making Christmas
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: ornaments out of that stuff and she said the wapaper cleaner. Yeah,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: and much like kids do today with playto And she said, hey,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: you know we're hurting, why don't we try and turn
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: this stuff into a toy. And they did so, and
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty he made a non toxic version, added
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: some almond scent, and you had your first little off
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: white playdo Yeah.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: Kind of exactly what you would think of when you
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: think of a gummy colored like dough. Yeah, off white
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: khaki almost yeah. And mc vicar was a pretty smart
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: dude as far as business goes. He donated a bunch
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: of cans to the Cincinnati City School System. Very smart
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: and so got these little kids hooked on Plato. It
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: was a huge hit, but it might have just been
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: a regional hit. And if he hadn't approached a dude
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: named Captain Kangaroo. Yeah, he went to what is Captain
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: Kangaroo's name?
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Bob Bob Keishan.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: I think Bob keishen nice memory, Chuck.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: I pulled that out from I don't know how many
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: years ago, the last time I heard that name.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: He well, did you watch Captain Kangaroo? Oh? Yeah, me too,
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: huge fan loved Captain Kangaroo. I liked Captain Kangaroo more
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: than mister Rogers.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: I liked him both. But yeah, I think I might
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: have been yeah, Captain Kangaro a little bit more. It
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: was a haircut, and I was Electric Company over Tesame
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Street Iman.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I liked both, but I liked Electric Electric Company more. Yeah,
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: but I like Pinwheel most.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: I didn't watch that. It was for real old kids. Okay.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: Anyway, Captain Kangaroo had a show and Joe McVicker somehow
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: got in contact with Captain Kangaroo and said, hey, I
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: have a little deal for you. Yeah, We've got this
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: awesome stuff. The kids in Cincinnati are crazy for it.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: We're calling it Plato right now. It's an off white,
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: or it used to be, but now we have four colors, red, blue, yellow,
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: and white. Those are the four original colors of Plato
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: by the way. Yeah, and he gave someone to Captain
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: Kangaroo said I will give you two percent of gross
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: sales if you mentioned this on your show two times
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: a week. Yeah, he played with it.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Bob Keishan was a money grubber, that's what we all know.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: He I think he believed in this product.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's a smart guy, he is, And he.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: Believed in it so much that he upped the number
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: of mentions without any additional compensation, from two times a
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: week to as many as three times a week. Yeah,
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: he would play with Plato on TV and it just
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: took off like a rocket from there.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: That was his additional compensation that he got free.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: Plato.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: No, he had a percentage. So oh, yeah, you're right,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: You're right, But it suggests that he believed in it.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: That's right. He did believe in it.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: And do not shatter my image of Captain Kangarhood.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying he just wanted to make more money.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Of course not.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: Isn't that the show that Mister Green Teens was on.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, big fan of that guy too. They formed the
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Rainbow Crafts Company, you know. They wanted to take it
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: out from under the Kutole Products banner and got famous
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: wildlife artist John Ruthven to design that first package with.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Originally it was very briefly it was an Elf. Yeah,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: and those I think you're probably if you have a
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: can of that, you probably it's probably in a museum
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: or something that wasn't around long. No, And then they
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: went to Plato. Pete the kid with the smock in
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: the beret. Yeah, because all little kids wore berets and
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: smocks back then.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: Or you wore your dad's dress shirt like backwards.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that made a good smock too, Yeah, the
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: one he didn't want anymore. Yeah, or that you thought
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: he didn't want any more, but he really got mad
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: at you because he got paint on it.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: That's my good short sleeved dress shirt.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: And finally it took all the way until two thousand
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: and two, did the Herbal Elvis wear short sleeve dress shirts?
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Oh man, really with slacks and ties? Yeah, my dad
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: usually as a principal, wore a coat. But when you
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: take off the jacket and you've got the short sleeve, huh,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: that's something else.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: With a blue felt tippin, a red felt tippin, and
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: a green felt tippin in his pocket front pocket.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: That was your dad.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a mechanical engineer.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, so each one had a different use.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: I think he also just thought they were pretty. Yeah,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: like they kind of they made his They made his
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: shirt pocket pop.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: That's where you get it with your shirt pocket thing, right,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: all right. It took it until two thousand and two
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: for that bereat to become a baseball cap.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: And then now he's just gone, Yeah, I.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Was looking like somebody anymortalosy.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: Not at all. Now it's a can with arms and
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: the lids kind of pulled back and in between the
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: rim of the can and the top of the litter
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: couple of eyes. It looks a bit like a garbage can,
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: but it's obviously a Plato can, but just kind of
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: I don't like it. Yeah. I like Plato Pete, the
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: kid with the beret.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, me too.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: He was great.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: That's what we grew up with. It's nostalgia.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but he was around for a really long time
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: and only just do away with him like he's nothing.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: That's another shirt, Bring back Plato Pete. Yeah, we'll get sued.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: Yes, although I didn't get the impression that they were
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: too terribly litigious.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Well, plus we could tell him, you know, we sold
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: nine t shirts. Here's your seventy three dollars. So Plato,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: we all played with it. It was fun for modeling,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: but it was not like you. If you were like me,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: your your hopes were dashed a bit when you modeled
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: something and left it out overnight because you thought it
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: would make it into a permanent exhibit. Yeah, but it
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: would really just kind of break apart. It's not like
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: you can't cure it like you do modeling.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: Clay no I was on Plato's site and they readily
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: admit that as a matter of fact, they say, if
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: you want a permanent thing, go get your some modeling clay.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: You get some Sculpy. I don't want a buzz market,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: but Sculpy's a lot of fun. Okay, we're talking about
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Plato though, Yeah, that Skulpy's fun.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: So but they say modeling clay. They don't say sculpy,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: but they say, if you want to make a permanent thing,
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: go get some modeling clay. It's not what Plato's for.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: No, it's for being in the moment making fun things
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: and then put smashing those and then putting it back
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: in the can right, doing it all over again every day.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: And driving your mom crazy because she can't stand colors
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: to be mixed together. She sits there and like picks
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: them apart or whatever.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Or it's in the orange shag carpet.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: Which again Hasbro has some helpful suggestions for how to
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: clean this stuff up. Sure number one and you will
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: understand eventually by the end of this podcast. Why do
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: not use warm water when you're cleaning up Plato from
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: the carpet? Yeah, it will make everything a million times worse.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: What they say, if possible, if you have the patients
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: of job, just go ahead and let this thing dry,
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: turn brittle, use a stiff brush and just kind of
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: brush it out of the carpeting, vacuum it up boom.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or do the reasonable thing and get hardwood floors.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: All right, we'll discuss that very soon after this message.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Fish.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: So Plato is fun enough on its own. Like when
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: I was a kid, I had zero accoutrem all to
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: go along with my Plato.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: I don't recall having anything but just the Plato too.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: All I had was the Plato in my imagination. And
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty that I said, you know what, let's
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: get a couple of engineers from General Electric to design
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: what's going to be called the fun Factory.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: That's like, that was it.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: That was it, And you could put Plato into various
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: forms and molds and press it and have it come
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: out like sausage or spaghetti or just whatever they decided
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: to design. Like, have you been to the site recently?
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: There are hundreds of different things that you can buy
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: out with your Plato, of course.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: Yes, for sure, and different types of Plato too to
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: make different looking things as well. Yeah, but the original
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: fun Factory thing is basically just a hand pushed lever
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: that shoved the Plato inside through a hole.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: It was a sausage grinder.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: And then basically yeah, and then in front of the hole,
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: you had just kind of like different shapes that you
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: could make this thing into. Yeah, what'd you say, spaghetti
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: rope and the rope. Speaking of the rope, all of
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: these are basically what it is. An extruder.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a Plato extruder.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: Is what these guys came up with. And I guarantee
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: they had colored felt tip pens in the fronts of
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: their pockets too when they design those things. But this,
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: if you took all Plato. By the way, here's a
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: Plato fun fact. If you took all the Plato ever
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: created and ran it through the fun factory and extruded
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: it into one long rope, it would wrap around the
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: Earth three thousand times?
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: How many big max is that?
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: No, I'm sorry, it would wrap around the Earth three
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: hundred times. Let's not go.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Crazy, Oh, only three hundred.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you could go to the moon and back
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: ten times with that rope. You could make a pretty
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: good little bridge that would be kind of crumbly by
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: the next day. Yeah, but it'd be colorful.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: That's a lot of playto man.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they've sold nine hundred and fifty million pounds of
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: this stuff, more than two billion cans since nineteen fifty six.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and they apparently make about one hundred million cans
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: every year.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Yah.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: What I find heartening is those are current statistics.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: They're not rated for inflation.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: No, but this article that Tracy wrote was apparently written
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: in two thousand and six. Yes, she said that they
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: make ninety five million cans, So they've upped their production
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: by five million cans a year, which means Plato's not
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: going anywhere.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: I'm pretty psyched about that.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and all the stuff they have now, Like they've
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: got all sorts of licensing deals like they have like
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: the Plato Disney Princess set and right, you can make
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: dresses for your Disney princess out of Plato.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: And they have a long standing tradition too of making
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: fake food. Like I was watching some I wouldn't really
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: call it documentary. It's almost just a compilation of Plato
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: ads over the years.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: And there's one from the eighties where you could make
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: pizza hut pizzas out of Plato.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: I think I remember that.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: Nowadays they have like a kind of a sweet shop
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: I think is the name of the line. And like
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: I said, they have different types of Plato. Some are
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: squishyar and thinner and more pliable, so you can use
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: those to make the frosting, yeah, and use regular Plato
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: to make the actual cupcake.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: That's because the cupcake grays, I bet.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Probably it's filtered down to kids. And with the gluten
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: free graze on your website as contained gluten yeah, as wheat. Yeah,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: but they like have to advertise that now because your
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: child will want to eat the plato and if you
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: have your kid off gluten, they can't eat the plato. No,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Mommy has to explain that or daddy.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: But if your kid has a peanut allergy or a
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: milk allergy.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're fine. That's right. Water, salt, and flour is
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: the general. I mean, it's a it's a very proprietary
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: recipe obviously.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: Right, it's a US patent number six seven one three
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: six two four.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: But if you look that up, you're not gonna find
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the ingredients.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: No, like you said, it's proprietary. They they do give
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: kind of like a general ingredient list somewhere, I guess
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: in the patent itself. Yeah, but yeah, they're not going
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: to tell you like how to make it.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: But we'll list those really quickly, and then we're gonna
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: talk about chemistry.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're gonna get to the chemical molecular base of
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: play dough itself.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: But in broad terms, it is water. You got a
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: starch based binder. You have a retro gradation inhibitor because
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: you have to inhibit that retrogradation. Sure, salt, know there's
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: salt in there. In fact, at one point it was
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: too salty and they had to get a new chemist
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: to remove some of the salt.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: Is that right?
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah? But you remember how salty it tasted.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: No, I didn't. I never tasted it.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Oh you didn't. No, I thought you said you tasted it.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: No, I said I never did I ate the paste?
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: Oh okay, I never tasted But the smell was the
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: paste salty? No, no, no, it had a weird sweet
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: taste to it. It wasn't overly sweet, but of all
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: of the tastes.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Just sweet enough to get a kid to eat it.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Salt, you got your lubricant and all this will make
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: sense in a bit a surfactant, preservative, hardener, a humectant,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: a fragrance of course in color. I know he used
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: almond for the first fragrance, but wonder if it's still
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: an offshoot of that smell like almond.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: From what I saw, they've admitted to vanilla. Oh really,
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: that's all I've seen, Okay, And they're saying like that
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: doesn't tell us anything.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: That's all they admitted to. Yeah, under question, think.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but the colors, we should also say, Chuckers. They
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: originally had red, yellow, and blue primary colors, and they
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: added white, and this is all in the fifties, and
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: those are the only colors until the eighties.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: And then they added a couple more than they had
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: eight colors total, and then now today it's like a
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: whole rainbow, a whole galaxy of different colors.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: I never got the white because it just it looked
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: dirty so quickly. Yeah, I never really understood the purpose
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: of the white.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: I liked it. I thought it was a nice juxtaposition
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: with the primary colors.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you were in artiste.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: No, I was just a kind of sore.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: All right. So now the rest of the show, we're
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: gonna talk about chemistry.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: You're not happy about this, are you?
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Well?
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: What'd you think about this article?
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I thought it was It was good, you know, because
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: that's what how stuff works does, is they tell the
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: story behind things, Like we can't just talk about surfing.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: We have to talk about the physics of a wave, right,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: I get that, But yeah, chemistry was not my bag baby.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: This one, this one kissing and roller coasters. You were
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: kind of like you had a little bit of protest
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: going on, like, come on, this is fun stuff.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when you're talking about kissing, you want to talk
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: about you know.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: Remember the title of it was a rigid, sterile look
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: at Kissing.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if the title for this will
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: end up being what I wanted, but it was going
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: to be taking the fun out of Plato. No, it's
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: called how Plato Works, all right, but you heard it here.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: That was my It was the working title. Yeah. All right,
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: Well I will kick the chemistry off and maybe I
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: will spark your interest. Are you ready?
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Yes?
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: Do you have your beret and your smock on.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: This isn't even the fun chemistry you get to burn things.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: No, this is the chemistry of compounds. You're just adding
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: them together. Yeah, yeah, there's a little involved, as we'll see,
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: so possibly you could start that flame. Okay, So the
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: whole basis of Plato, it turns out, is an interaction
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: between starch and water and starches. Are there polysacchrides, which
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: are sugar molecules, and there's basically two varieties or two
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: types that combine. There's amelos and there's amelopectin, and amylos
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: is like a string. Amelopectin is branched, and when they
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: get together they form a starburst shape. They form a
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: molecule in a starburst shape, and it's arranged around a
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: central area a hollow called the highlum hi l u
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: M the hylum, and it's all held together thanks to
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: hydrogen bonds. And then you have all that these polysacchride
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: chains all mixed together with hydrogen bonds forming a starburst.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: And my friend, you have a starch molecule. And when
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: you have the starch molecule, you have one of the
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: two bases of Plato.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this one, this article does have some pretty
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: handy illustrations. If hearing this doesn't make as much sense,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: you can follow along on your own computer look at
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: the illustrations. If you add cold water to starch, the
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: granules are gonna absorb some. But when things really get
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: interesting is when you add warm water or when you
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: heat up that cold water to be warm water. Like
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: you can mix it ahead of time and then warm
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: it up, and basically what you're doing is making a
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: gelatin just like when you make jello. It's got to
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: be warm water.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: Right. Like if you've ever had like corn starch or
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: flour whatever and you add cold water to it, they
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: just kind.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Of separate, right, It's really untoor it.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: It doesn't do much. It's almost like this starch protects
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: itself against the cold It's like, yeah, you stay over
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: there cold water. But when you use warm water or
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: mechanical action of mixing it together, it forms, like you said,
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: it gelatinizes. That's right, and how you're starting to get
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: the basis of play dough. But the problem is when
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: you just add warm water and the starch in this
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: case it's wheat starch that they use, right, because they
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: have to gluten more against gluten. When you add those
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: two things, they mix together well, they form a nice
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: gelatinous goo. But as it dries, you've got the problem
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: of retrogradation. That's right, and that's trouble.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because it really depends on the breakdown of amelos
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: to amelopectin is the key. If you have a lot
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: of ammelos, it's going to take more swelling to gelatinize, right.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: But you get a nice robust gel when you have
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: a lot of amlose. But the problem is that excess
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: ammelos separates some from the water, binds to itself, and
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: then you have something that's not a full compound anymore.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: It's basically like a couple of It's like you've got
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: that gel and then some extra amylose and it's dry
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: and brittle and it's not good.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Well. Yeah, and in the case of making a product
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: for kids to play with, it's too firm, Like they
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: had to get this recipe just right to make it
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: firm but still pliable, right, And a lot of a
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: lot of work went into this, I'm sure.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because at anytime, like they started with a starch
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: in the water, put it together fantastic, but then that
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: created this problem, yep. And then when they went to
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: solve this problem, it created this problem. So then they
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: had to solve this problem. And then after adding like
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: seven things, they finally have this like precariously balanced compound.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: That's perfect.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: That's perfect, but it's pretty neat. It's really complicated, and
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: it's self complicating, which I find very interesting it is.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: And what they ended up settling with as far as
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: percentages goes for that wheat startch was twenty five percent
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: amelos and seventy five percent amelopectin. They found that to
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: be the secret sauce, right, as our buddy Chad likes
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: to say.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: And the reason they have the amelopectin is because the
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: amelopectin is a waxy starch and it keeps the amelos
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: from binding to itself. So you have you've prevented that
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: retrogradation problem right where the amelos separates from the water
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: and just binds to itself. The problem is now that
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: you have this extra amelo pectin. The amelo pectin, it
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: keeps the whole thing together, but it does it too much,
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: and now you have a sticky tachy compound.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't want it sticky.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: No, And anybody's ever played with Plato and tried to
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: make something. You can't make it sticky. I'll stick to
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: your hands, or I'll stick to itself. It's not going
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: to make a cheeseburger like that. No, No, so they
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: added something else, a lubricant.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: That's right in this case. I don't know if it's
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: that's part of the secret or not, but it's probably
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: some sort of a vegetable oil or mineral oil.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: Well they think possibly it's it's a mineral oil which
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: is derived from petroleum, which petroleum which is why it's
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: non toxic, but you still shouldn't eat it.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I did see that there was petroleum. I bet
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: you they're going to come out with a gluten free playto.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: I'm surprised they haven't already.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: But that would almost be like it minting. Your child
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: is eating this or can eat it?
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: Well, some of that new stuff like the Sweet Shop stuff. Yeah,
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: I'm actually I would be very surprised if they hadn't
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: done some R and D of different flavored play dough, right,
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: you know, because they have the different colors and this
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: is supposed to look like this frosting. This is supposed
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: to look like this frosting. So I wonder if they
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: were like, well, we can't make this taste like vanilla
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: or or you know, cotton cany or whatever. But yeah,
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: and then they kind of shook their heads off, and
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: we're like, wait, we can't have kids eating this stuff.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Or I wonder if they've done R and D on
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: how much of it you can eat before it makes
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: you sick? Surely, Like if they're making something that looks
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: like a cupcake, yeah, some kid is probably going to
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: eat that entire thing at some point.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: And like we said, they've pretty much always been like,
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: you can make fake food with this.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Pizza Hut gave us money to do this, but
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: don't eat it.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Right, it's a weird mixed message.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: It is a totally mixed message.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: But you were saying they use the petroleum oil for
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: as a lubricant.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that keeps it from being all sticky. So
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: if you've ever played with it, you know it like
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: it's very pliable and moist, but it's not going to
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: stick to your fingers, which is the key.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: Right. So you have added the mineral oil or some
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: sort of lubricant to prevent the extra amlopectin from making
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: it sticky. And the whole reason you added amelopectin was
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: because too much amelose can cause retrogradation. So you've got
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: all these solutions and you've got the lubricant solution. The
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: problem is you can't just put like, you can't just
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: drop it into lubricant and expect it to stick. The
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: lubricant won't bind within this compound. Yeah, so you have
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: to add yet another thing, the surfactant.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Surfactants you'll see in a lot of household cleansing
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: products if you use that chemical junk to clean your house.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: But a surface active agent is another name for it,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: and it basically they're artificially manufactured. They're molecules, but it's
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: gonna suspend some water. It's the whole keyt of being asurfractant.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: Imagine, a surfactant has two ends, and one end is hydrophilic,
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: which means it attracts water and is attracted to water,
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: and the other is hydrophobic, which means it repels water
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: and it's actually attracted to fats lipids.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, are afraid of it. Even.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: The cool thing about a surfactant is that if you
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: take it and you throw it into a solution of
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: water and oil, fats and waters, right, one end will
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: attract the fat molecules and another end will attract the
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: water molecules. And what the end result of all of
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: this is that you can basically suspend fats in water
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: or water in fats, so that you have effectively, molecularly speaking,
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: something a compound that's all mixed together. It's not going
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: to separate like oil and water, because the whole thing's
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: being held together by surfactants. That's right, that's pretty amazing.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it actually binds to the molecules of the lubricanty
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: chemical reaction is taking place.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: And keeps them all mixed together. It won't allow him
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: to separate. So we've got the lubricin in there. Yeah,
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: the whole thing's being held in place by their surfactant.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: All looped up, ready to go.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: We've got a little extra water, chuck, what are we
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: gonna do?
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Well? I don't think we mentioned earlier. The reason it
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: dries out to begin with if you leave it out
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: overnight is just because of evaporation.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: Right, And Hasbro recommends that if this happens, you take
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: your Plato modeling clay. Yeah, and you wrap it in
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: like a damp paper towel, put it back in the camp,
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: but the cover on it leave it overnight should be
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: good as new.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I've seen you can also add a little
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: water to it as well. Yeah, but I've never tried that,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: so that, my friend is it's a very fine tuned mixture,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: like you said, they had to. I'm sure it took
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of work over the years to get it
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: just exactly right. And we're going to learn how you
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: can make your own right after this break.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: So chuck. Yeah, we should have said. There's a couple
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: other things that they add, Like you get excess to water,
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: so they added a little salt. Yeah, sure, and apparently
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: for the excess salt they brought in a new chemist.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: So it's just fine, perfectly fine tune stuff.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: And you get a color it of course, and give
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: it its sent.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then possibly make it taste in the future.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: Who knows. I'm betting on that.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And you know, the salts also adds a little
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: anti microbal element to it.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: Right, which is nice, so it has it acts as
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: a preservative as well. And to make Plato, you just
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: put all this stuff in these in the right measurements
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: and apply heat to it and mix it together and
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: package it and that's Plato.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's got to have that shelf life like
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: this is. It's really hard to come up with a
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: product like this that meets all those needs, and we'll
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: still like, you know, I'm sure there were times early
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: on where like, oh, this stuff's two weeks old on
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: the shelf, it's like a brick back to the drawing board.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Ye put on your beret and your smock.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: Remember in our How Twinkies Works episode they dealt with
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: that initially.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Of the shelf life. Yeah, right, so they just made
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: it infinity. Man, that was such a good episode. No,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: it's good, one of my all time favorites. Agreed. We
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: still get emails from people that are like, I found
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: the banana Twinkies.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they have them in like limited release from once
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: in a while. Yeah, I have yet to try one.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: I remember trying one years ago, but it wasn't my bag.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: I don't like banana flavor things, but I like bananas.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Huh. You're a very complex Manchuck.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Well, they don't. They don't quite get it right. I
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: don't think ever, I've never tasted a banana flavor thing
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: that got it right, gotcha. I'm hard to please, So.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: Man, you just totally threw me off. What were we
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: talking about?
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: We were I think we were at to a point
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: where we're going to make our own right.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: Right, So it's very tough to make what until you
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: come upon the recipe. But apparently a lot of people,
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: even though it's a proprietary recipe, a lot of people
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: have come up with their own recipes for play though.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Sure, and it's fun to do with your kid, you know,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: like if they like playing with it, then you can
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: teach them a little chemistry along the way, right, get
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: a learning moment if.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: You want to save some money, or you you don't
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: want to feed the corporate beast that too, or yeah,
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: you just want to do something with your kid and
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: make it. You can do all this stuff. It just
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: takes a little elbow grease and work. And there's recipes
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: all over the internet. There's some for like glowing the
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: dark plato. Oh really, there's some for glittery plato. There's
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: a couple of recipes in this article on how stuff works.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: But basically you're doing the same thing. You're adding starch
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: to water, you're adding some sort of lubricant to it,
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: something to hold the whole thing together. In this recipe,
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: it's a cream of tartar yes which stiffens eggs and
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: gives plato homemade plato its firmness. But there's a lot
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: of recipes online that if you want to not only
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: just play with Plato with your kid, but make it.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: That's a great chemistry teaching experience. I think, agreed.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: And you can explain, you know, what each ingredient is doing,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: and then at the very end, gonna have plato and
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: your kid's gonna say this Plato stinks. It's not nearly
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: as good as the real thing.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: Unless it's the peanut butter variety. And I'll bet you're like, ooh,
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: this is tasty plato.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Do they have that?
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a recipe for it in this article.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: So peanut butter is one of the ingredients.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: Yes, interesting, Yeah, or you know what, you could make
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: it with your kid. Wow. You listen to us stumble
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: through the explanation. Yeah, and to everybody who's doing that
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: right now, Hello, Hello everyone, and.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Your kid's gonna say, who are these jerks? And why
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: does my plato not work?
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: Can we just go to the store and buy some
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: plato please?
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Yep?
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Well we're portable. We go around on MP three players,
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: so we can go to the store with you two.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Exactly what else you got and then you can listen
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: to our episode on temper tantrums on the way to
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: the store.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: That was a good one too. It was what else
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: do you got? I've got nothing else, I got plenty more.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Oh well, please.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: Mister Bill remember him from sarat Life. Of course he
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: was made a Plato. Yeah, they made the first mister
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: Bill short for twenty bucks.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: That's pretty good stuff. What else you got? Fun facts?
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Playoff fun facts.
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: There's a there's not just one, but two at least
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: Plato three D printers on the market right now. Really, yeah,
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: it's pretty awesome. So you put a hunk of it
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: in there, different hunks in there, and oh no, no, no,
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: and it I was about to say, a hunk in there,
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: and then it whittles it down. But that's the opposite
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: of three D. No, no, it extrudes it. It builds up.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's crazy.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: There's one on think Geek for like fifty bucks that
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: plugs into your iPad, so that's where your schematics are,
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: and it tells it what to do, and it makes
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: pretty cool little three D Plato stuff.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: That's kind of fun.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: It is at the same time, it's kind of like,
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: you know, I mean you're you're really building a little
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: geek there, but the imagination and the hands on things
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: kind of taken out of it a little bit.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that that's the new imagination, my friend, I.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Guess, so to follow forms and schematics the.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: T maybe so it would be cool as if you
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: could design your own schematic and then.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: Which I'm treated you can. Yeah. And then Plato has
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: one called the do Vinci. I saw that, and that's
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: a three D printer too. And then one other thing
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: I found we were talking about plato ads earlier. There
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: is a series of band plato ads that were published
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: in Singapore a couple of years back.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, band is in? I thought you meant like bands
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: recorded music.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: No, no, like d taboo plato ads that are very
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: adult centric.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Really yeah that can you say?
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: What?
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Well?
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: How about this?
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: I made a slideshow of them on our site. You
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: can go check them out. They're pretty crazy. They're not
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: like naked or not adult in that way, but like
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: kind of violent and a little dark that this ad
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: agency made basically without the approval of has Bro clearly,
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: and Hasbro came in and like denounced it and everything.
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: But they're pretty great. So if you go to stuff
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: you should dot com and search a band Plato ads,
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: it will come up.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: And Hasbro had a news release it says we don't
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: endorse this use of Plato brand multiple Clay Right, they
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: just kept working the name in there.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty crazy. I learned all about something called
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: scam ads, where advertising agencies basically create ad campaigns based
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: around brand names without the brand names permission, simply to
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: submit them for awards consideration to expand their prestige.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: Interesting. Well, and if you want to be a TV
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: commercial director, you have probably made some spec or fake
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: ads yourself, right, just to have on your reel, Like
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to make a Dorito. Well, Dorito
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: says said coast every.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: Year, right, So this is that same thing. But sometimes
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: they really run a foul of like the spirit of
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: the brand. Sure, and there's yeah scam ads.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like you're a pan commercials which are always
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: way better than risque and like funny. Yeah, get with it, America.
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: So if you want to learn more about Plato, including
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: a few Plato recipes, you can type Plato into the
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: search bar house stuffworks dot Com and say said search bar,
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: it's time for a listener mail.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: I'm going to call this another MPAA called the Golden
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: f Bomb. Hey, guys, I discovered your show and he
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: says Helloa Jerry and spilled her name right too. Oh
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: that was nice, which doesn't happen aten, No, the spelling
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: that is. I discovered your podcast while looking for something
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: interesting to listen to while I worked on my organic
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: farm in Kawhi nights, I heard the MPAA show and
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: I just had to write. In growing up, my friends
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: and I were always looking for a way to sneak
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: into movie theaters via the exit door, having an older
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: friend or parent, biased tickets, using a ticket, single ticket
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: stub passed back through to get in on the same ticket,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: et cetera. He had all sorts of ways of stealing.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: Our goal was to get into an ra the movie Underage,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: with NC seventeen being the ultimate prize PG. Thirteen always
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: felt like we had failed or were settling, So to
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: make it fun, we would count how many expletives were
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: we heard and compare notes after the movie. He really
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: took things to a different level.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it must have been a time when movies weren't
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: as good as they are today. In the theaters.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: No, movies have never been this bad.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: I know, man, it is really out of kate. It's terrible.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: One pattern we soon realized was that PG thirteen movies
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: are allotted one F bomb. Listening for that one f
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: bomb became the looked for a moment, making the PG
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: thirteen movie experience. It's had more interesting and something I
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: look out for to this day. Still there are some
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: real classics, including Ron Burgundy's and Anchorman, most recently in Skyfall,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: when Judy Dinch uses that naughty word.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: She did, I don't remember that, Judy.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: The first one in the Bond series, heclaimed, Judy, Judy, Judy, Oh,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: I just saw Filamina by the way, finally, what did
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: you think.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Think that it was fantastic? Was that just an amazing
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: change of pace for her? She always plays like the
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: sharp pulled together like yeah yeah, like boss Lady, and
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: this one she was just kind of just working class. God,
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: that was a good movie.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: It was really good.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: I love that movie.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Highly recommended. And then I noticed the rating rule is
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: not ironclad, however, because recent examples of Lincoln and Philamina, Hey,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: how about that had two of those naughty words a piece.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: Lincoln had it in their hunts that Spielberg gets away
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: with anything.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Well, he's the one that had the whole thing changed.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he was the one that created it.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: PG. Thirteen. Yeah, and then he ran a foul of it. Anyway,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: My absolute favorite PG thirteen Golden Goal naughty word not
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: mentioned anywhere else that I've researched, was the one that
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: got me out of my seat cheering like the President's
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: speech and Independence Day is from Oblivion. Tom Cruise's character
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: waits to the very end of the movie to deliver
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: the perfectly timed line to his enemy that movie.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: Stunk, didn't Yeah, I heard the other one was pretty
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: good though, Edge of Tomorrow.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was really good. Oblivion stunk. And he closes
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: by saying, mahalo nue loa, thank you very much for
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: all you do to infotain us. And that is Evans
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: on Kawhii. Yeah, sorry, Evans, Oblivion was no good. He said,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: he liked it a lot, but you know, to each
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: their own, I'm not gonna poopooit his taste.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: Good for you, Chuck, thanks for.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Your game and your thievery.
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: If you want to talk to me and Chuck about movies,
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: we are always down for that. We love to talk
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: about movies. We should just like do an episode where
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: we just just say have you seen this movie? Oh? Yeah,
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: I love that one for like a half hour. There'll
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: be a couple of people out there there like, oh,
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: this is a good episode.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: There were podcasts liked exactly like that. You know that?
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: What was I just saying? Oh yeah. If you want
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: to get in touch with us for whatever reason, movies
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: or otherwise, you can tweet to us at sysk podcast.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash No,
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: you can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: HowStuffWorks dot com, and you can join us at our
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: home on the web, stuff you Should Know dot com.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: HowStuffWorks dot com.