Trivial Lawsuit

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
This week, trivial lawsuit. Becky files suit against her brother, Andrew.

16 years ago, they had a dispute over the correct answer in a game of trivial pursuit. Becky says Andrew's answer was wrong because it wasn't the exact same answer on the card.

Andrew says the spirit of the answer was the same. Who's right, who's wrong, only one can decide.
Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

Which 1967 American film garnering a best supporting actress award and a best cinematography award at the Academy Awards

featured prominent use of the song Foggy Mountain Breakdown by Flat Ann Scruggs.

Think it over, Bailiff Jesse Thorne. you may swear them in.

Becky and Andrew, please rise and raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you, God or whatever.

I do. I do.
Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he is arguably trivial himself? I do. I do.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

How dare you? I mean, arguably trivial. Yeah.
I mean, I honestly, it's clear that that I do not meet the standard of triviality. So

I would say arguably all I've ever wanted since Trivial Pursuit came out in 1981 with that beautiful late 70s, early 80s script typeface logo.

All I ever wanted was to be the answer on a trivia card on Trivial Pursuit. But meanwhile, I have offered you a trivia question that comes from the 1981 genus edition of Trivial Pursuit.

Becky, Andrew, you can be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors. Can either of you answer it?

Would you like me to read the question again? Oh, no.

And I don't know it, but I don't need to.

Oh, boy.

You scared me there for a second.

I thought maybe we were done. I thought maybe we were done.
No.

I am going to guess, even though I will be so wrong and people will probably be outraged that I said it. I will say no one's going to be outraged.
Easy rider.

That's a guess. I'll put that in the guess book.

Okay, Andrew, what's your guess? You want to hear the question again? Yes, I'd like to hear the question again, please. All right, stalling for time.
1967.

Sorry, because the clock will run out eventually.

This is a 1967 movie.

It won Academy Awards in the Best Supporting Actress and Best Cinematography categories and made prominent use of the song Foggy Mountain Breakdown by the very well-known bluegrass duo of Flat and Scruggs.

So, I don't, I honestly don't know. I was going to say

the sound of music, but that does not seem like a very bluegrassy music

or movie for that. The hills are not alive for the sound of Flat and Scruggs.

That is a guess. That is a wrong guess.
All guesses guesses are wrong. Let me take you back in time.
I think I've talked about this on the podcast.

Jesse Thorne, this was probably the greatest moment of my life. It's all been downhill since 1981 or two when our family would have dinner next door with the Rosenmeiers.

My dear friend Peter Rosenmeyer, I would hang out with him all the time. And Jesper Rosenmeier and his wife, very, very cosmopolitan, Jesper Rosenmeyer was Danish.

They put real candles on their Christmas tree. Just, it was incredible over there.
I felt like I was walking into an arthouse movie every time I went over there.

And it made me feel so grown up to have dinner over at their place. And then we played a little trivial pursuit.
And it was, you know,

mixed doubles. It was kids and grown-ups.
Hodgman pulls this card. Here's the question.
1967 film featuring Foggy Mountain Breakdown by Erlin Scruggs. What was it? Did I know the answer?

I've never seen this film. To this day, I've never seen this film.
But something happened. And I was like, no, everything was on the line because I wanted to impress these cosmopolitan Danes

and Danish Americans.

I thought to myself, Americana, Americana.

I'm not just in this for myself,

an atrociously precocious and pretentious young man, but for all of America at this point, Earl and Scruggs, Foggy Mountain Breakdown, banjo music. What could it be? Hills.

And somehow the answer just shimmered in the air in front of me. Bonnie and Clyde.
I say, Bonnie and Clyde. Don't know where it came from.

I was absolutely correct. I won the game.
You are both absolutely wrong. You win nothing.
Except the chance to have your case heard before me in this court. Who seeks justice

in this case? All right. Becky, what is the justice you see?

So my brother and I, Andrew, have been playing Trivial Pursuit together. This guy, Andrew, that is on the podcast.
This guy right here. Can you believe it? That guy right there.
Okay.

I have been playing Trivial Pursuit for at Christmas for over 20 years. Over 20 years.
And yes, which is a lovely tradition.

And for many years, we played with my parents' original set that they had purchased in the early 80s.

And one night we're playing, and Andy is about to win on a geography question. It's his pie chance.

Right. And the question is.
Gets that piece of the pie.

For those of you who have not played Trivial Pursuit,

your playing piece looks like

a big deep dish Chicago pizza with the pieces of pizza taken out.

And you march that thing around the board and land on different colors for different categories. Brown, I remember, being arts and leisure.
Blue, I believe, was geography, et cetera.

And when you hit certain key places on the board, if you answer a question correctly, you get

a wedge corresponding to the color of that category. And you put it in there and you fill in the the pizza, and whoever gets the pizza filled in first wins the game of trivial pursuit.
Yes. So,

this was for a wedge. This is for a piece of pizza.
This is for the last wedge.

The last wedge. This is going to be the winning game.
And what category are we talking about? Geography. Geography.
Okay.

And so

tell me what the dispute is. So

the question is, this country spans the most time zones. And Andy says, easy, Russia.
And he goes to reach for that little blue pie piece. And I say, not so fast, little brother.

And I flip the card around and clearly printed in black and white is the Soviet Union.

And I say, you can't have it.

You can't have it. Because, of course, the game was printed.

If you did indeed have the first edition, we're talking about 1981.

The Iron Curtain had not yet fallen. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was still in full effect, as they say in Russian.
That is correct. You attempted to deny Andrew the win.
What happened?

So we had a little chatter about it, and we proceeded for me to have my turn. I was down three pie pieces.
I was losing. Well, stand by.
Stand by. Andrew, you got nagged on Russia.

You accepted that this was, that you accepted the answer was the Soviet Union? Well, no,

I did not accept that the answer was the Soviet Union. I knew it was.
It's clearly what's printed in the back of the card.

But I believed that Russia, as a successor, let's say, of the Soviet Union, or most of the Soviet Union,

especially when it comes to the geography aspect of it. Yeah.
Was

clearly the correct answer.

Yeah, no, I understand your reasoning. I understand your reasoning.

I won't cut you off.

One of the details was that

it was 11 time zones. So it was very specific on the number of time zones that this country

encompassed.

Ryan, I see. You did send in this evidence, and we will be putting this on the Instagram page at judge John Hodgman, both the front and back of the card.
Trivial pursuit, do not come at us.

This is for justice. What country is the most time zones with 11? Okay, that's very specific.
Yeah.

And so I said Russia, and this must have been... a time before information was readily available at our fingertips because Becky disputed that.
I have looked it up in anticipation of testifying today.

And Russia does have 11 time zones. So I feel like that that's dispositive even of itself, even today.
Yes, even today.

So I feel like not knowing with certainty that Russia had 11 time zones, I probably did give in and continued with the game,

even though I believe to this day that I am correct. You conceded in the moment.

Correct. You conceded in the moment.
Right. But now you're coming back 20 years later saying rigged election, you deserve to have won.

This is why you never conceded. I think this is better.
You never concede.

You understand that by conceding, you have effectively, you acknowledged that the answer was wrong. What court in the land would find you to be the winner 20 years after the case?

You understand the trivial pursuit statute of limitations is 19 years.

If only you had been here two years ago, I might have been able to do something for you.

I don't know if conceding is the correct term. I may have tabled the issue.
I may have said that this is clearly what the card says, but in the absence of other information or facts.

Tabling the issue would be, let's discuss this later. Let's discuss this later after they've invented podcasts.

And I think I might have had confidence that knowing I was missing the one pie piece, I would get the

next question.

But underestimating. Right.
And I believe, I don't mean to say that. You thought you had Wisconsin locked down, so you went to campaign

in Texas.

And I do, I actually, I think it was, I think we were playing with a baby boomer edition of Trivial Pursuit. So I completely underestimated the difficulty of the

questions that I was going to face. Weirdly, they were playing the Saturday Night Live edition.

You're saying that the Baby Boomer edition is harder?

The baby boomer edition is impossible. Sorry, Andy.
Okay. No.
Yeah. Baby boomers.
No, baby boomers only had it easy.

That should be the baby boomer edition should be, they just give you the answers and a pension and stability.

In 1997, Chris Katan brought his signature character Mango to this country with 11 time zones.

Okay, so you made a gamble. You didn't table the issue.
You're like, you soft conceited.

By the way, I'm a little soft-conceited myself. You soft-conceited.
It's not true. I'm hard-conceited.
Diamond hard.

You soft-conceited, thinking you would pick up the wedges later, but then what happened, Becky? Oh, I went on the tear of a lifetime. You ran the tear of a lifetime.
And yes. And

I

blew through the board, hit every piece that I needed to hit, and I won. And so the legitimacy of my win has been questioned ever since.

Okay, we'll get into that, but first I need to know more about your triumph because my trip. I told you the story of my trivial pursuit triumph.
Do you remember any of the questions from

2002 or whenever it was?

Do you remember your winning question? I don't, I never remember anything except for these few questions. But my brother, Andrew, who I call Andy, but I'm calling him Andrew today,

has a memory for everything. So if there's ever a question about things typically, I will say, Andy, what happened on that game or what happened on that day? But I don't remember anything.

I just remember that I hit all of them. You don't even remember

the answer that you won the game on? No, because we've played so many games. I don't remember an answer that I've ever won a game on.
Andrew, Andy, as they call you.

Do you remember the question that Becky won on that day, that fateful night? I don't.

And part of the reason is because I feel like after having the victory snatched away from me in that fashion, that I more or less fell apart.

Like, I'm kind of a sports fan, baseball fan in particular. Kind of

like anything I need to in order to make my ruling, I'll be back in a moment and render my verdict.

I feel like when a pitcher loses a no-hitter in the ninth inning, and then the next thing they know, there's like five runs across the board and they've lost the game and everything's falling apart.

That's my recollection of it. Like, I went from, okay, like, I feel like I should have won.
I'll win next. And then I forgot my name and everything about trivia and just back to you on the table.

Yes, momentum had shifted to my sister, and I couldn't recover. You were on tilt, as they say, in the game, not sport of poker.

Yes.

Do you remember any other questions from that game? Because I just want to answer some questions. Come on.
I know. I wish I could.

I remember questions from other games that we've played and other disputes that we've had.

But I really am bad for that kind of thing, remembering details of good and bad. But I remember the ones I've lost on,

but not.

Yeah, well, we tend to remember the things, the pains rather than the pleasures.

How many points is a ringer worth in horseshoe pitching? You guys submitted this card. Do either of you remember this? Two?

Three. Correct.
And three is correct. Were you looking at the photo though, Andy? You were.

All right.

So look.

You want Becky. It's.

Why?

You're under fake oath.

Andrew, what was the sequel to The Moon's a Balloon?

What?

Maybe this is arts and literature. Bring on the empty horses.
I've never heard of that in my life. This has to be like a 1977 clan of the cave bear type situation.
The farm birds.

The moons, the moon's a balloon. This is like a show about 18th century France that came on after roots.
A best-selling memoir by British actor David Niven, detailing his early life.

The thick man.

The thin man?

Isn't it the thin man?

The thick man.

But ironically, daddy was thick.

Is that the thin man guy? I don't know. No, you're thinking of William Powell.
Okay. Who, by the way, was not the thin man in the thin man.

That was a different character. But everyone thought that they were referring to the main

co-lead, William Powell. And so all the other movies were called The Thin Man Goes to Russia to see some time zones or whatever.

He wasn't. That's a little bit of trivia for you.
That's good. The Thin Man was the murdered scientist in the movie The Thin Man.
Just so you know. And probably the book as well.

What is the name of William Powell, Myrna Lloyd's dog, Nick and Nora Charles' dog? This big crossword favorite.

I know this from crosswords at Asta.

All right.

Andrew wins. Sorry, Becky.
That was the determining factor. It was trial by trivial combat here in the court of Judge John Hodgman today.
Becky, I don't understand the justice you seek.

You won the game. You won it.
Fair and square.

That's the justice I see.

So why? What's the problem?

The problem is that the legitimacy of it has always been questioned. I will.

Andrew's out there saying fake news.

Grudgingly, yes. Yeah, pretty much.

Or whenever he gets into a jam. Is he truthing about it all the time? Constantly.
He'll let it go.

Whenever he gets into, tell me how his delegitimizing of your win manifests itself over the years. So let's say that we're playing at another Christmas and a question comes up that I get wrong.

And maybe it's a dumb one. Maybe it's something dumb that I should have gotten right.
He'll say, that's why you need Russia to beat me. Or that's why you need the the Soviet Union to beat me.

Andy is a better trivial pursuit player than me. That doesn't mean he's a better trivial person.
He's a meaner person. Oh, he's not.
He's the nicest person. Well, I mean, I'm just saying he brings

a lot of braggadocio to the game. I mean, but we both do.
That's why, because he's accusing you of working the riffs. Yes.
He's accusing you of working the riffs.

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andrew do you cop to delegitimizing have you not been able to let this go

so uh as becky's alluded to i mean unfortunately most of our if not all of our games of trivial pursuit have some controversy baked in so um tell me more When Becky had first said that she had submitted a, you know, an incident to this podcast and said it was about Trivial Pursuit, I'd actually, my mind went to another game that I feel like is more illegitimate than this victory.

And I was surprised when it did not. I don't allow it.
Tell me all about it.

So, so in this case, my sister was going for the final piece of the pie,

and she got a sports and leisure question.

And those can be. Arts and literature, not sports and leisure.
Don't write me letters, everybody. I got it wrong.
Okay, sports and leisure. All right, there we go.

So, and again, we're playing an outdated version of the game. So

the

question was,

in 1997, the Arizona Rattlers won the championship in this league.

And like I said, knowing sports or following sports my entire life. Arizona Rattlers.
Yeah,

and I was relieved because I saw the question is, okay, there's probably no way that my sister can get this. And my sister is not.
a great actress. So she

kind of pretended that she didn't know and went back and forth and hemmed and hawed and then blurted out arena football like it was common knowledge.

And this is 10 years after probably the arena football league completely disbanded or folded. But yet she had, after just a few moments of deliberation, the 1997 champion of the Arena Football League

on the tip of her tongue. I feel like that was a card that she may have had in a previous game where I had not participated and it stuck.

And she, having remembered what was the the answer on that card,

said it without

knowing about arena football. All right, I understand what you're saying.
Becky, I will remind you you're under fake oath.

Are you a big arena football league fan? Not at all. Not at all.

But I did, so I can go back to this, and this goes back to another issue that exactly as Andy said, if I get questions that he thinks I shouldn't know, he says I encoded it somehow from having looked at the question maybe a year before, and somehow I remember it from a year before.

How else would you have known? I'm not even saying, how else would you have known?

So

when he said the Arizona Rattlers won this, you know, whatever this thing was, I knew that it wasn't the Arizona Cardinals, and I knew it wasn't the Diamondbacks.

And so I was like, okay, well, it's not them. So it's got to either.
It's not elimination. Exactly.
So it either has to be something like the IHL

or arena football. And so I just went with arena football.
I was like arena football. football.

And you knew because you were playing the Saturday Night Live edition that according to Wikipedia, the 19th greatest player in the history of the Arena Football League is Daryl Hammond,

wide receiver and defensive battle.

He coached as Bill Clinton. For the Austin Wranglers, the Georgia Force, the St.
Louis Stampede, and the Albany Firebirds.

And because I grew up in a house with my brother, and in 1997, he would have been living there and watching every

sport that you can watch. And so I would have been exposed to arena football because he would have been watching it.
So

I have it from somewhere, but I thought it was IHL or arena football. Right.
That sounds pretty plausible, Andrew, a.k.a. Andy.

Are you accusing Becky of lying? Well, if I have any blind spot in my sports trivia, it is arena football.

Outside of the fact that Kurt Warner played in that league, I know nothing about arena football. So I don't know if by exposure to me in the household in high school watching ESPN.

Well, you know nothing about arena.

There's no way that your

little sister or your big sister or twin sister, anyway, your sister could know anything about arena football since you didn't know anything about it. Correct.
I did presume that, yes.

So would you say, Andrew, though, let's just say for the sake of argument, since you enjoy it so so much let's say becky said yeah no we had played a game before and i had gotten that

i had gotten that card and i had gotten that question before or i had seen the answer because you know at some point and you know like so three christmases ago i had seen it and i happened to remember would that be cheating would that be wrong would that be

so no because and i think that's the the difference here is that even though i did not personally believe that she she knew that answer i i still said that she won the game she got the pie piece and the game was over.

And I don't think I'm as maybe rigid in my interpretation. I mean, that one, the card, what she said, what she says, the answer was match the back of the card.
Now, that's the discrepancy here, but

I would say you've won. Right.
I bet it's covered in the Trivial Pursuit rules, but what do you think?

What do you think, Jesse Thorne and Jennifer Marmor?

What do you think if you've, if you've, if you get the question, if we were to be playing Trivial Pursuit, the three of us, in the J-Squad satellite some holiday, and you picked the card and the question was, what 1967 movie featured the song Flogging Mountain Breakdown by Earl and Scruggs, and I was supposed to answer it, would it be a fair question or an unfair win for me?

First of all, if this situation were happening, what a dream come true for me.

Yeah, well, first of all, we're in a satellite. It's incredible.
Yeah, what a worst. This is my worst nightmare.
I want to be clear. I know.
I know your feelings about board games, Jesse.

I just like hanging out with you guys. I hate the infinite expanse of space.
It makes me nervous. That is scary.

And I hate board games because I can only either win or lose. And if I win, I will feel bad for making my friends feel bad and embarrassing them by wanting to win too bad.

And if I lose, I will feel bad because I lost.

Right.

All right. I'll let you think about that.
And then

what's your sense on it? My sense is that I think it's totally fair,

Judge, if you got that question and answered it, you know, because part of knowing what trivia is, is like accumulating knowledge in all sorts of places.

You know, we've talked on this show about the crossword, the New York Times crossword. And I believe your

point of view on that is like, if you don't know an answer, it's okay to Google, you know, as long as you're not Googling like crossword answers or Google

point of view. Many disagree, but I

like that

rule. And that's what I do because you're learning something while you're playing.
Yeah. While you're chasing that sweet streak, my streak, RIP, RIP to my streak.

But that's, you know, trivia comes from all kinds of places. It's not your fault if you see a card in a previous game and it happens to stick.
It's interesting. It's an interesting question.

I'll resolve it in my verdict. Okay.

So, Andrew, I thought you were trying to say, oh, here's another illegitimate win that Becky racked up because

she's always getting these illegitimate wins. Or she, you know, every one of her wins comes with an asterisk.
But you're saying that it was a fair win on

Arizona Rattlers. Yes or no? I did.

Yeah,

she had the right answer. I don't know how she's going to be.
Does Becky have an asterisk next to every win?

Yes or no? No.

No, absolutely. Who wins more often, Becky? Andy does.
I mean, he's Andrew does.

He's whatever you want. Yeah, Andy is a

he's got a real mind for it, and we always enjoy it. I probably win 40% of the time, I would say.
Who else is playing? Or just the two of you? Nobody will play with us. Yes.

Nobody will play with us because we're so obnoxious.

The holiday party ends when Trivial Pursuit comes out. Everybody

groans. Becky and I retire to the kitchen to play.
My wife is like, I'm taking the child and leaving. And we play until midnight or later.
Or until whoever wins wins.

And we play usually a few rounds, which is always fun. Yeah.

Andrew, you are the younger sibling.

Does this factor into this dispute in any way, would you say? Absolutely. It does.
Please tell me. Well, so even, I don't know if you picked up on it, but as Becky was kind of presenting the case.

I picked up on everything.

Now

tell me what it is. She referred to what it is, and I'll see if you're right.
So she referred to me as her little brother. That seems to be an ongoing

issue that her and I have.

And I think, so that this could be just me, you know,

being a little conspiratorial or whatever, But this

game occurs at a time when maybe I'm starting to catch up to Becky when it comes to trivial knowledge. And I'm also wondering if there might have been some

unwillingness on her part to accept that her little brother had bested her in the game of trivia. So I do.

I feel like that that may have played a part in the decision to disallow my question.

Have she overshadowed, shadowed you or kept you down or otherwise kind of disdained you as a little brother in concrete ways before? Specificity is the soul of narrative. Examples.

Well,

my sister's been extremely successful. She's really smart.
She said a high bar, which I could never really match when I was going through high school and college.

Personally, professionally. Sure.
Personally,

well, so she got a better GPA. I mean, she's excelled at everything that she's ever really done.
And it's tough to be the

younger.

I haven't been given the opportunity to fail because she's done so well. So, and then I just, I feel like that there's even a rising Becky lifts all boats.

Exactly. That's right.

How did she not give you the opportunity to fail? Is she sending you children? I've always looked up to.

I was going to say, I mean, I always looked up to and admired her.

So I felt like that it's like a very high standard and that I want to, you know, meet that standard, not just to make her happy, but also our parents happy because of the path that she's set.

Aspirational.

She provides an aspirational goal for you.

And beyond that, not just to meet her, but to crush her in trivial pursuit. Yeah, so anytime I can have a small victory, like winning in trivial pursuit, I relish the opportunity.

And it's oftentimes denied by my sister so oftentimes just 40% of the time

Becky do you acknowledge that Andrew pales in comparison to you and is a failure compared to what you've accomplished in this life

yes no not at all no Andy's very successful and he's very smart and he's good at many many things and there are definitely feelings that I have about losing to Andy that I would not have losing to other people.

I just do. Because he's your little, because he's your little brother?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because he's just a baby. He barely entered this world.
And I'm a functioning adult.

My sister even has a hard time acknowledging that I'm taller than her. Like something that should be like

a parent. And has been the case since I was 13 years old.
She's still in her mind. And I think she'll admit.
What is your argument backing for how technically

you're an extra time zone taller than him or whatever? I don't know, but he's 6'2 and I'm 5'4. And I

somehow we're the same. Or I might edge him out a little bit.
I might just. A lot of people are saying that there's height fraud, John.

A lot.

Yeah,

if you're playing by, you know, 1990 rules when you were, you know, 10 or so,

then you probably were taller than him, right? Yeah, and I also believe that I'm stronger than he is. So, like, if something needs to get picked up or taken into the car, I'm like, I'll get it.

So,

how does this affect you? And do you have other grievances, Andrew? I have four words that have been placed before me: video, game, glass, deer.

What are the words? Oh, yeah, those four words. Absolutely.
Yeah.

So

when we were younger, we had a Nintendo. And my, I had two favorite games are Tecmo Super Bowl and RBI Baseball.
And our parents assigned us chores.

And so my sister would have me do her chores in exchange for her agreeing to play like an inning or a quarter of RBI baseball or Tecmo Super Bowl. So I would consistently do those chores.

And when it came time to collect and sit down and play video games, my sister is nowhere to be found. So I'm still owed.
several games worth of RBI baseball and techno Super Bowl.

And then the other, the glass deer, is that...

can I respond to the video game question first, though? Can I respond to that? Yeah, I'd like to hear how you, I'd like to hear your explanation for

making your brother pay you to play with him.

So,

well, so this is my memory of it was I have a memory of it. Three and a half years.
Okay. So

what's your memory of it? My memory of it is that

more like summer vacation. So on summer vacation, when I was like between 12 and 15, I wanted to spend

my entire summer vacation watching MTV and drinking Diet Coke. Sure.
But of course. Diet Coke's were in the fridge that was in the garage, and I didn't really want it.
And the MTV was right here.

And so I would say, Andy, if you go get me a Diet Coke, I'll play. Tecmo Super Bowl with you.
And so he would get up from whatever he was doing and go get me a Diet Coke.

And then he'd come back and be like, okay, I'm ready. And then I'd just say, like, put it on my tab.
And I'd turn up like the volume on the Janet Jackson video that I was watching. And so

then I also like to use some diet soda humor there.

And so what I came to learn was that if I played one out of every eight times that I said I would, I could have minimal MTV disruption and keep myself flush and diet coax for the entire summer.

So you admit to withholding games,

promised games.

Yeah. Seven for every one.
It's a lot. RBI baseball and Techno Super Bowl.
What about glass deer? And stand by, Becky. We're going to get to the bottom of that.

What about glass deer? What does that mean?

Another dispute that Becky and I have had for a long time is that we,

there's a, a, a Kmart or TGNY or some store that was in the town that we grew up in.

At the front, they had the vending machine where you put a quarter in and you get the little egg and it'd have a trinket in it. A little toy.
And yep.

And so one of the those machines had where you got like these little glass animals. And my sister wanted a deer.
She put the quarter in. She got the egg and I had the deer in it.

And she was really, they loved this little glass deer that she had. So

it stood up like on all fours.

It takes a dark turn here in a second.

Or else it's not a story.

So at some point, shortly after she received the deer,

I believe all four legs of the deer were broken off. I never touched the deer.
I knew my sister really liked it.

I've been accused of having broken the legs off of this deer. Now, this goes back way further than the trivial pursuit game.
This is probably a 30-year dispute that we've had.

And I swear that I had never touched the deer. And my sister believes that I was in some fugue state of rage over some

disagreement that we had to play with. Or the fact that you weren't playing Tecmo, Tecmo, whatever it was, ball.
Super Bowl. Tecmo Super Bowl, John.
Tecmo Super Bowl. Get with the Bo Jackson program.

And

I have no recollection of touching the deer or harming the deer, but it's something that my sister... Not you, Andy.
Who? Do you have another sibling? No, we don't.

And so, and even, like, my sister has told her children that Uncle Andy at one point broke.

the legs off of this deer that was very precious to me. So my niece and nephew think I'm a Let the record show that Becky is nodding along gleefully

because he did break the legs off that deer.

What evidence do you have, madam?

I'm sorry, what was that? What evidence do you have?

Okay, here's the evidence that I have. This tiny little glass deer that's sitting on my dresser in my room.
And underneath the dresser is like this 80s carpeting, which is very thick.

And there's no way that this little one ounce deer that would fall there and would break all four of its legs off. However, Andy and I have been arguing, and he was upstairs.

And the next time I went upstairs, the deer has all of its legs broken off. I don't know how else it could have happened.
Did mom and dad do it? Mom and dad did not do it. You're saying that someone

who was a jealous,

small,

shorter, weaker person

had to have broken off the legs of the deer. There's no other explanation.

Becky, that's a wild accusation.

Andy is right here saying that's not what happened. I didn't do it.
And he has forever. And that's part of why it's continued.

And so that's, I mean, truly, that's part of the reason I tell the kids that's young Uncle Andy because they're always like, Andy's so nice. He's the best.

And I'm like, well, if you turn your back, he will break the legs off your little baby deer.

That's a whole other thing. Wow.
All right.

I'm not sure that I can provide justice because this requires some investigation. But I know what I know what Becky wants me to rule, which is,

Andy, stop being snarky about the Russia answer. Andy, what would you want me to rule if I were to rule in your favor?

Well, so I gave this some thought, and I actually, I feel like this is like a class action almost.

Like I'm standing in for as the representative of little brothers everywhere who have had to, you know, had

been denied wins in

uh trivial pursuit and other board games had their manual labor exploited you know uh not getting to play tecmo super bowl uh or rbi baseball with a sibling um and uh

even

uh being introduced as a 38-year-old adult as a little brother to people

so i would just like to have the fact that Russia does have 11 time zones. The answer was, in its spirit, correct.

And I believe that I won the game and that if not being little brother, we would have had a different outcome that night.

So you want me to retroactively name you the winner of the game? Yes. And now that you are an adult, you want Becky to stop introducing you as her little brother.

Or at least acknowledge that I'm taller than she is.

Okay, fine. No, no.
Oh, yeah. I don't know.
It's hard to say. I think I've heard everything I need to.
Sorry, Becky, did you want to?

I want to add something.

You're the older sibling, so you get the last word.

Of course. Of course.

If it's in my favor, this is not going to be fair, but I do want it. I want him to bring me Diet Coax all Christmas break this year.

I want to be not only legitimized, but I want to be flush and Diet Coke again from the day after Christmas until New Year's Eve. I'm making a note.

All right, I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

I'm going to go into my chambers, which is the Mind Palace reconstruction that I've made in my mind of the Rosenmeyer's living room.

I'm going to look at that Christmas tree with the candles, and I'm going to contemplate on this for a while. And if my Mind Palace doesn't burn down, I'll be back in my decision.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Becky, how do you feel about your chances? I feel

goodish.

I feel okay. I feel pretty good.
I think I was right. I mean, you made a pretty bold request,

this Diet Coke fridge thing. It just sounded like such a nice Christmas addition

and just a real

vindication of all those years of being told I was not a legitimate winner. When my grandfather passed away at his

burial, all these folks spoke about him who I had never met, friends of his from a life long before

I knew him.

And one of his work friends said as a sort of revealing fact about Lee Everett Thorne II

that

in his office at Fox Pictures, he had a little refrigerator full of bottles of Coke.

And I just thought, oh, well, I guess my grandfather was the greatest man in history.

It's all I want in the world world now is a tiny refrigerator full of bottles of coke

andrew how are you feeling about your chances uh i'm feeling pretty good um i i do feel like that uh

as is typical for becky at the last minute there is a request for punitive damages even though she has already won the game and uh i've acknowledged that she won the game it's not enough to have won she also wants some punishment for me.

Why were you playing RBI baseball, not baseball stars, which is obviously superior?

I

had a way to, in RBI baseball, paint the corners with the St. Louis Cardinals pitching staff and also with Vince Coleman and the rest of the team terrorize my opponent on the base pass.

Yeah, well, shout out forever to Willie McGee, San Francisco native and legendarily homely man.

God bless him.

We'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a second.

Hello. Hello, I'm calling on behalf of the Beef and Dairy Network podcast.
Oh, no, I'm sorry. No sales calls.
Goodbye.

It's a multi-award-winning podcast featuring guests such as Ted Danson, Nick Offerman, Josie Long.

I don't know what a Josie Long is, and anyway, I'm about to take my mother into town to see Phantom of the Opera at last. You are wasting my time, and even worse, my mother's time.

She only has so much time left. She's 98 years old.
She's only expected to live for another 20 or 30 years. Mother, get your shoes on.
Yes, the orthopaedic ones.

I don't want to have to carry you home again, do I? Right, well, if you were looking for a podcast. Mother, you're not wearing that, are you? It's very revealing, Mother.

This is musical theater, not a Parisian bordello. Simply go to maximum fun.org.
I'm reaching for my Samsung Galaxy 4 as we speak. Mother! Mother, not that hat!

Judge Hodgman, we're taking a quick break. I'm excited to say that we are now the two most important performers in the the history of Hulu, the streaming service Hulu.
That's right. That's right.

We're Hulu buddies. As you know,

Dick Town, the cartoon that I made with David Reese, is on Hulu. You can get to it by bit.ly slash Dick Town.

Also, upcoming on Hulu, the show up here, in which I am fourth on the call sheet, playing the father of Mae Whitman.

Up here, take a look for it. But you're on Hulu as well, Jesse.
This is very exciting. I'm the new star of the television show, Archer.
New star.

By which I mean that in the opening episode, the hilarious opening episode of season 13 of that wonderful program, I am in the opening scene as Hall of Mirrors guy.

I've watched it six times. Yep.
I think I did a good job. I was shocked to learn that I think I did a good job.
I did not watch it six times.

I watched it one time and I was one and done because I was like, my friend Jesse did a great job. And it's really exciting to hear your voice on TV for me.

I can only imagine how it feels for you since it was a lifelong dream. My favorite show.
Love it so much. So go watch that on Hulu.
My aunt Debbie did figure out how to do it. She eventually

recorded it off of the television with her phone and texted it to my mom so my mom could see by pointing the phone at the TV.

I'm loving Hulu so much these days, but do you know what else is out there, Jesse, besides streaming services? What's that? Books. I want to tell you about one book in particular.

My friend and yours, the co-creator of the Thrilling Adventure Hour, Ben Acker, has written a book called Stories to Keep You Alive Despite Vampires. Now, Jesse, don't get upset.

This is a fun, fourth wall-breaking collection of funny, spooky, scary stories that will be enjoyed by fans of, well, you know, goosebumps and stories to tell in the dark and lemony snicket or whatever.

Except it's by Ben Acker, so it's better than all that stuff. Better than all those has-bins.

Funny, scary stories for Halloween that will be enjoyed by all ages.

If you like the Thrilling Adventure Hour, and I know you do, you know the kind of wonderful comedic styling Ben Acker is bringing to this book. Ben's a delight.
And he's a wonderful person.

And I encourage you to please, wherever you get books.

Go to that place and get this book, Stories to Keep You Alive Despite Vampires. It just came out.
It's perfect for Halloween sea times. And I hope you enjoy it.

I have an episode of Bullseye that I was particularly proud of.

I host the NPR interview show Bullseye, and I just thought would be particularly suitable for the listeners of Judge John Hodgman in tone. It's a conversation with Bonnie Hunt, who is one of the

funniest, warmest, most delightful entertainers in America. And she has a great new kids' show on Apple TV Plus.
She came on the show to talk about things.

We ended up talking a lot about her mother, who was with her in quarantine and helped her make the show, especially helped her cast the show at 80-something and

passed away relatively recently.

And it was just a really beautiful conversation with one of the funniest, most thoughtful, warmest, kindest entertainers in the world.

And I just, I loved. getting to talk to Bonnie and I hope that everyone will listen so they can enjoy

what a remarkable person she is. So that's on Bullseye with Jesse Thorne, the NPR interview show.

It was just a couple weeks ago, and I think you will really enjoy it if you download it and give it a listen. Let's get back to the case.

Please rise as Judge Sean Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

What country has the most time zones with 11?

What country has the most time zones with 11? This is a tricky one.

I love this because it's so tricky.

Because

Russia has 11 time zones, as you point out, Andy. Did then, still does.

But of course, the answer on the card is the Soviet Union, 1981. What else makes it tricky? Questions wrong.
Country with most time zones is France,

including all of its territories around the world and its claim on Antarctica, it has 13, 12 if you don't count Antarctica. Trivial Pursuit got it wrong.
So what is truth?

Isn't that ultimately what we're trying to decide in this moment? What is truth?

Is there something that exists outside of our perception that is truth, or is it all conditional on what's on the back of the card?

I would think that a gracious person playing this game in 2002 or wherever it was would say, oh, Russia, Russia, well, it says Soviet Union, but I get what you're going for, and I think you got it.

But an older sibling never would do that. Never, ever in a million years, nor should they.

I think this is a fair win, or I should say a fair wrong on your case, Andrew.

Because here's the thing. When you're playing a game,

there is no objective truth, right? There is the rules of the game that are agreed upon by the people who are playing.

And you did not have a discussion about the fact that you are playing the Genus Edition, which I see right here what it is, not the Boomer Edition.

Andrew, you should probably try to get your facts straight,

you glass deer breaker. This is the Genus Edition.
This is the first one. This gives a little friction, a little extra frisson to the game is the word I'm looking for, not friction.

Because you got to be thinking, you got to be thinking, or at least discussing ahead of time, what happens if the question is outdated.

What is the top-grossing movie of all time? The Titanic isn't going to be on there. Titanic isn't even it anymore.
Whatever it is, you know what I'm saying. You get the point.

And because you did not discuss this, I think the back of the card has to play, as they say in Poke of the Card Speaks. It's the same with Scrabble in two ways.

One, you choose a dictionary to play Scrabble with. And the dictionary most Scrabble players play is the official Scrabble players dictionary.

And there are more recent editions that contain newer words that the older editions don't and there are more recent editions that don't contain words that the older editions did

but there were bad words and they took them out

you have to pick the dictionary you play with

and you have to abide by that dictionary that is the consensus reality when you are playing so if you are going into the game and you challenge someone else on the very controversial word of za,

short for pizza, which was added to the Scrabble Players dictionary probably a decade or decade and a half ago now, you'd be wrong. It's in the book.

Absent any discussion about how to deal with dated things in the cards. The cards speak, as they say in poker.
It's the way it goes.

So, Andrew, I think you need to, I do find in this particular case, I find in Becky's favor that you have to stop, you have to accept because you did 20 years ago. You accepted this.

You said, okay, it's fine. Because you thought you were going to win anyway.
And that's a different game that you were playing. You were still playing the game.

If you truly felt that this was unfair, you would have done what an honorable person would have done. Refuse to concede.

Constantly undermine reality. And march on Becky's house with your friends.

But instead, instead you gambled that your big sister was going to choke and you were going to paint the corners or whatever with whatever you're talking about with Jesse

and find another path to victory. And you didn't.
And

that's the way

the pie wedge crumbles or whatever. And it happens all the time in trivia.
Like, it happens all the time. When Chuck Bryant and I host the MaxFunCon trivia pub quiz, either online or at MaxFunCon,

we always say that like, we're not looking for the right answer. There's an answer we are looking for.

Because there are lots of technicalities that you can imagine the Max Fun listeners get into with some of our questions. There's always an answer that we are looking for.

We have the answer that we put down, the answer that they were looking for, the Soviet Union. And I regret to inform you that even though you were right, you were also

wrong because the answer was different. And also, France.

You were as wrong as the trivial pursuit question writers were.

In any case, there is still some other justice to dispense here. On the manner of answering a question that you have seen before that you know,

a gracious person would say, I just saw the answer to this question in the last round or last time we played.

Please give me another one in this category.

That said, if I were on the satellite and Jennifer Marmor asked about Foggy Mountain Breakdown, I would still answer the question, I would take the wedge because that happened 40 years ago.

And it's one of the greatest stories of my life. Sometimes Panache wins out over decency.
Becky, you played with Panache.

Whatever the case, whenever you're playing Trivial Pursuit, talk to the people about how you want to handle when you've seen a question from a previous game.

With regard to Tecmo Super Bowl, my back of the envelope calculations suggest that Becky owes Andy

793 hours of Tecmo Super Bowl. That's with interest.

And no way in hell or whatever is Andy going to be getting you some Diet Diet Cokes this Christmas.

You only get

no way.

No way.

Are you an attorney? Andy is. I am.

You're a bold negotiator, but no way. What's going to happen when you get together for this winter holiday is you're going to play Trivial Pursuit.
Whoever wins wins, whoever loses, loses.

But forever, however long that game goes, the next day or whenever, you're going to play Tecmo Super Bowl for that period of time. I didn't know that.

And that's going to go on for the next five Christmases. That's a human rights violation, and a court

can't assign a human rights violation.

I can't do that, Your Honor.

You are in profound debt. You are in profound debt.

It's torture. It's prescribing torture, as a sentence.

It's not. It's not.
You owe Tecmo Super Bowl to your brother.

Also, he's your brother, not your little brother. He's a grown man.

Just say, this is my brother, Andy. Younger brother?

Youngest brother. No one cares.

You're adults.

This is my adult brother, Andrew, the attorney. He's not a failure.

He's doing pretty good. Not as good as me.
And he's tall. He's taller than I am.

Reality exists.

Reality does exist.

That's what I want to, you know, even though there is subjectivity in how you interpret the rules of the game of trivial pursuit, there is truth. You cannot deny truth.
He is taller than me.

And the other truth that you have to acknowledge is,

or I should say, the truth that you have to get to the bottom of, is what happened with this glass ear?

Because that is a serious accusation.

And Andrew is either forgotten that he did it, or he's lying to all of of us, and has been for 30 years.

Wild.

And this is no Rasho Mom situation. There is definitely a deer that got its legs broke off.

And I want to get to the bottom of this mystery.

I believe you, Andy. I believe you that you didn't break the legs off the deer.
I don't care whether you believe him. I want to know the truth.

Are your parents still living? Yes.

You need to talk to them about this, but you can no longer slander Lil Andy's name with this accusation unless you have evidence to support it. Fair enough.

And also at Christmas time, you shouldn't be having Diet Cook. You should be having hot Diet Dr.
Pepper with lemon. Or

eggnog with Fanta, orange Fanta, and eggnog. Remember that, Jennifer Marmor? Oh, yeah.
That was really delicious. It was.

Orange, Fanta with eggnog. Give it a try.
Okay. This is the sound of a gabble.

Judge Sean Hodgman rules that is all. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

How do you feel, Becky? I feel very good. And it is

time

to acknowledge Andy's height and that he's taller than me. So I guess if it came today, I can do that.
But the Tecmo Super Bowl is going to be really hard, but I'll do it. It's terrible.
What?

It's hard. It doesn't make any sense.
Wow. Wow.
I'll play Tecmo Super Bowl if you want me to, or I'll play RBI 3.

This is the hottest take in the history of Judge Chon Hodgman. Tecmo Super Bowl is awful.
Broadly considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time. Are you a player?

Do you play that terrible little game? with the little dots. Shut your pie hole, Becky.

Shut your pie hole. Yes, that's right.
It's back.

Who knew that it was just waiting for someone to talk bad about Tecmo Super Bowl?

Andrew, how are you feeling? I feel pretty good. I'm willing to give up the trivial pursuit in exchange for hours of playing Tecmo Super Bowl with my sister.
I think that's a fair trade-off.

I think the judge made a fair ruling today. So

I just will pick a team for my sister to play with that is miserable so that I can get the 49ers

or another super team and just really run up the score.

Montana to rice, baby.

Becky, Andrew, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Thank you so much.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books. In a moment, we'll dispense Swift Justice.
Our thanks first to Twitter user at Adelicious Dish.

Adelicious

for naming this week's dish. Adelicious Dish.
For naming this week's episode Trivial Lawsuit. If you want to name a future episode, follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

While you're there, you can also hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ H O, or check out other people's JudgeJohn Hodgman tweets at hashtag JJ Ho.

And you can join the conversation over at the Maximum Fun subreddit. That is at maximumfun.reddit.com.

Evidence and photos from this show, you can see the card yourself, are posted on our Instagram account at instagram.com/slash judgejohnhodgman.

John, the last time I played Trivial Pursuit was during the economic crisis of 2008, when you could go on a weekend cruise from the port of Long Beach for $80 all-inclusive. Wow.
It's a brief period.

And I went on a cruise with my wife and our friend Adam Lissigore from You Look Nice Today and Sandwich Video.

And we pulled out a a copy of Trivial Pursuit from the cruise ship's game room and started playing against each other.

And about halfway through, I realized that both Adam and I wanted to win really, really badly while our spouses truly did not care.

We made pretty quick work of Teresa and Roxanna and got locked in a deadly battle. I won.
and decided to go out on top and will never play Trivial Pursuit again. Oh, wow.

You are the still reigning champion of Trivial Pursuit of the Seas. Yes, exactly on that discount cruise line.

Here's a question for Swift Justice from at DC Badger. My husband says livery service when he's talking about a car service.
Apparently, that's what it's called at Bates College in Maine.

I say that's an outdated term that no one understands.

I love it. I love a livery.
Sorry, DC Badger.

Your husband, and obviously I love Maine.

Bates College, I have no particular strong opinions on, but I do want to congratulate a friend of the family, Chloe, for matriculating at Bowdoin College this very fall. Congratulations, Chloe.

I hope you go get them academically and on the rugby field. But yeah, livery.
That's a real word. I love that word.
It means

like a limo service or, you know, a professional chauffeur service, livery service. I just want to to thank at DC Badger for going in on Northeastern liberal arts colleges.

I'm just tired of hearing about different ones. And you know what? I'm throwing Oberlin in there too.
Not Northeastern, but it still counts. Honorary.
Yeah. Sorry, Linda Holmes.

No, Linda Holmes. Linda Holmes lived in the same dorm as David Reese.
Oh, my goodness. I know.
Connections upon connections. Hey, if you have disputes regarding,

I was going to say

board games, non-settlers of Catan style, old school board games, Pranchezi, Sari.

I'll throw in Yahtzee, even though it's not on a board. You know, old school games.
Monopoly, dare I open that door? Mealborn. Yeah, Uno, Mealborne, those sort of card games are okay.

Old school games disputes are definitely,

we want them on the docket. I'll also open the door to

friend vacation disputes.

If you went on a cruise, two couples on a cruise got into a dispute, I'd like that. If you went

traveling through the world with a couple of friends and you got into a dispute, I'd like to hear that.

And there's no statute of limitations. You can go all the way back to when you were, you know, taking a gap year or whatever.
But of course, we want to hear about all your disputes, right, Jesse?

Maximumfund.org/slash JJ H O is where you send them into us. No case too big or too small.
It's maximumfund.org slash J J H O and sorry, Sandwich, but the matter is settled. I'm the champion forever.

We'll talk to you next time. Of the seas.
Of the seas.

We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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