SmartDrivel is the podcast that promises the drivel and hopes for the smart in every episode. Listeners have described the podcast as funny, quirky, and secretly educational. Join co-hosts Kurt Schneider and Jon Ellenthal as they dig into a wide range of topics drawn from pop culture, history, word play, business, martinis, and more. If you want to impress your friends with your knowledge of the origin of popular phrases, fun facts about pretty much everything, what a contronym is, how beer ...
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Smart Drivel Media LLC Podcasts
Anapodoton is a rhetorical device where the main clause of a sentence is omitted, and its meaning is implied by a subordinate clause that is provided, most commonly in well-known proverbs or phrases. The implied information is easily understood and mentally supplied by the listener or reader, such as saying "When in Rome..." and expecting the liste…
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Jon and Kurt decide to scratch their history itch by having a conversation about some of the world’s greatest unsolved history mysteries. Of course, this being Jon and Kurt, they meander a bit off topic, but do manage to come back each time to probe and theorize what the hell happened.By Smart Drivel Media LLC
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Money. We love it. We hate it. We crave it. We spend it. Money, in all its forms, has been an integral part of all societies. Whether it was huge stones, salt, emu feathers, or trillion dollar bills, it has always had dominion over civilization. In this episode, Jon and Kurt look into the history, the absurdity, the logic, and the just plain funny …
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It all started with a simple question: why are manhole covers round? And then it grew from there…why are eggs always sold in a dozen? Why do pigeons bob their heads when they walk? Why do round pizzas come in a square box? And an episode was born. Come listen to Jon and Kurt ask each other these enigmatic questions and have some fun along the way.…
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Jon and Kurt decide to look at famous hats throughout history and fiction. That’s right. Hats. What started as a random thought turned into a fertile patch of fun, interesting, and previously unknown stories about hats in legend, historical fact, pop culture, and literature. Slip off your chapeaux and take a listen.…
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No matter how smart or talented you think your kids are, there are those among us who are just special. Amazing. Mind blowing. These are the child prodigies. The ones in history who are so talented they were doing incredible things at such a young age. Like Mozart. Like the kid who was giving public lectures at 4. Like Joan of Arc who led the Frenc…
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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 story to tell.By Smart Drivel Media LLC
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Did you know Time magazine was actually an acronym? In this episode, Jon and Kurt have fun with explaining, finding, and debating fun acronyms that are used in every day conversation. Please RSVP...if you want to be redundant.By Smart Drivel Media LLC
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Ep. 287: Dumber and Dumb Doesn't Sound Right
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Gin & Tonic. Salt & Pepper. Fish & Chips. Done & Dusted. Bread & Butter. Sonny & Cher. Earth Wind & Fire. Lock Stock & Barrel. Signed Sealed & Delivered. All of these examples are what are called Irreversible Binomials & Trinomials. The cute phrases or names that ALWAYS appear in the same order. That sound really stupid if switched–”Jelly and peanu…
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We all did it. We all went to school with open minds, excited to learn new things. We, here in the U.S., learned a lot about our country’s history. Interestingly, with the lens of current knowledge, we now know that a lot of what we learned was not exactly correct. In this episode, Jon and Kurt unearth some of these discrepancies and attempt to set…
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Ep. 285: If Famous People Were A Cocktail
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Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. We do it all the time…giving inanimate objects human-like characteristics. Well, in this episode, Jon and Kurt turn that on its head and decide to give humans the qualities of inanimate objects. In this case, the boys pick famous people and present a…
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Ben Franklin is deeply embedded in the American ethos. He was a Founding Father, an inventor, a printer, an author, a diplomat, a man about town, to name just a few of his talents. He was prolific to say the least and was a true Renaissance man. In this episode, Jon and Kurt marvel at his successes and share some of his lesser known accomplishments…
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Just because you are an incredible inventor, politician, musician, actor, artist, etc. it doesn’t mean you aren’t without your quirks. In this episode, Jon and Kurt reveal some of the, ahem, “odd” traits/behaviors/obsessions of famous folk. Guess it makes us feel better for always wrapping our microphones in baloney before each episode.…
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In searching for answers to quell fears or explain life’s quirks, humans have oft come up with some pretty bizarre beliefs. Tomatoes are poison? Witches steal a particular male body part and keep them for pets? Baths are dangerous? Photographs steal your soul? Ya, pretty funny yet weird stuff in which we used to believe. Jon and Kurt use this episo…
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Jon and Kurt return to a theme from the early days of Smart Drivel as they give examples and discuss sayings that just make no sense. Some, like “on cloud 9” confuse one and not the other while others, such as “the exception proves the rule” require much thought. They agree on some, bring up some classics like “pick the low hanging fruit” and try n…
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We always worry about the large looming events that change history. Yet, often, history’s pages are changed not by some titanic event (pun intended), but by small, seemingly inconsequential occurrences. A wrong turn, a different kind of rivet, a misplaced comma, a cuppa tea, a laziness in rushing out on vacation, etc. all led to seismic changes in …
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Jon and Kurt wonder at the pervasive use of animal idioms in everyday conversation. Why do we call someone a Black Sheep? Or accuse someone of crying Crocodile Tears? What is a Paper Tiger and who famously made it into an insult to his enemies? Get the Albatross From Around Your Neck or the Monkey Off Your Back and have a listen. This episode is Th…
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No, dear listener, this episode is not about everything that can go wrong in a podcast episode will go wrong. It is, however, a quick dive into Named Laws of nature or corporate life or technology or etc. Jon and Kurt share and discuss “laws” that are named after people. Where did they come from? Why were they so named? What did they seek to memori…
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There is an actual “Museum of Failures” which memorializes products that were massive failures. Classics like “neon green Heinz Ketchup” and “Spray on Condoms” (yes, you read that correctly) are on exhibit as are countless others that, while born out of innovation, just never made it. Jon and Kurt highlight a few of the juiciest failures and have f…
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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 friend's living room. The other at Costco. If you don't know what it means to be a body booker, say, "Damn, Gina," or engage …
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Did you know that the words written on Twitter every single day would fill a book of ten million pages? Did you know that “buttload” is an actual measurement? Jon and Kurt have fun in this episode doling out seemingly ridiculous statements that are actually true. They sound faker than Kurt’s french accent, but are 100% correct.…
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It started innocently enough when Kurt drove by a parking lot full of fire trucks, lights flashing, but no fire. And it got them thinking, what % of a firefighters day is actually spent fighting fires? (Answer given in the episode.) From there, Jon and Kurt decided it would make a fun game show to ask each other to guess what the % answer was to in…
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The boys decide to give in to their genetic hard-coding and spend an episode exploring what makes the male human do so many idiotic things. Throughout the ages, it seems that those with the Y chromosome have simply not evolved. The “why women outlive men” trend on social media has it right. Tragically funny and infinitely ludicrous, Jon and Kurt di…
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The boys are back sharing their feelings. They emote about peeves…yes, all those peeves, be they macro or micro, that get under their skin. But this time, they don’t just dwell on the negative, the bothersome, the nuisances, as they add a new category…pet pleasures. What are those things/experiences/feelings that conjure up releases of dopamine and…
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Having too much fun with the topic, the boys add on to last week’s list and come up with even more new names for ordinary feelings we all have (like when you have an eyelash stuck in your eye).By Smart Drivel Media LLC
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