Episode 152: Fire Hydrant Talk

Ah, it’s Wednesday. A.k.a., the day after Tuesday. And some may say, it’s the day before Thursday. People call it the “hump day.” Why? That’s because Wednesday was invented by ancient mathematician Ahmed Kamel, who also invented the camel. Camels famously have humps. The characters of Joe Camel and the talking camel in that Geico commercial were directly inspired by Kamel, who has become associated with his namesake ungulate over time. However, this has become controversial, as the creators of these characters have been accused of whitewashing them. The creators have responded that actually the races of the anthropomorphic camels in question are never actually specified, which is a good point. That’s definitely true for the Geico commercial, although Joe Camel is supposed to be a greaser or something. Greasers are more stereotypically Italian-American, but then you risk stepping into the trap of making your own racist assumption to claim someone else is racist. Wait, what the hell am I talking about? This one really spiraled. I don’t even think any of that is real.Speaking of deranged screeds, we have some truly incredible brains on this episode. We start by discussing the downfall of good content on ESPN, plus we acknowledge what the hell happened at the end of the episode last week. Then we discuss a psychologist with some odd ideas about a chimp, a politician who got caught in a rather baffling scandal, and a guy with a lonely guy who found an unusual romance.Winthrop Kellogg - 00:41:34Douglas Stringfellow - 01:1138Akihiko Kondo - 01:39:43