Omnibus

In which Ronald Reagan, of all people, introduces a new legal philosophy of marriage and divorce to America in 1970, though it takes New York forty years to catch up. Certificate #27256.

In which a single 1961 comic book births a multiverse and reshapes our modern understanding of parallel dimensions in art as well as life, and John wistfully fantasizes about an honest Hitler. Certificate #46819.

In which the "mondo" shock movie craze of the 1960s inspires a morbid megahit that turns out to be more hoax than documentary, and monkey brains make their big-screen debut. Certificate #41907.

In which the origins of America's favorite 21st-century horror trope are traced back to the miseries of Caribbean plantation slavery, which is a huge bummer, and John ponders the role of squash in the afterlife. Certificate #49964.

In which an American dairy surplus and some dubious policy decisions creates a processed welfare staple of the Reagan era, and Ken reveals his favorite lunchmeat. Certificate #24553.

In which one of America's great folk heroes is revealed as a Swedenborgian mystic, a land baron, and⁠—to John's mind⁠—a 19th-century weed dealer. Certificate #36692.

In which humankind's dream of flying with the birds leads through all manner of weird ornithopters and flying bikes to a very low-altitude crossing of the English Channel, and John aces the Pepsi Challenge on a boat. Certificate #20913.

In which an unscrupulous Michigan music promoter dispatches fake versions of one of the great bands of rock's British Invasion, and John wages his own copyright battle against a legendary pioneer woman. Certificate #51274.

In which the chaos of Europe around 1900 produces a literary hoax that powers a century of anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories, and Ken shares his distrust of sports stadiums. Certificate #42869.

In which scholasticism gets roasted for its obsession with thorny, possibly pointless theological questions, and John explains the difference between escalator angels and hobo angels. Certificate #39095.

In which music legend Brian Eno and an artist friend develop a tarot deck for beating writer's block, and Ken uses lateral thinking to determine that John and Mary were goldfish. Certificate #26638.

In which a mountaineering legend disappears in Pakistan, his game show icon widow becomes convinced he's secretly a spy, and John dresses like the worst kind of CIA agent. Certificate #31997.

In which America's love for French celebrity guests and her abundance of corporate litter combine to create an iconic New York tradition, and Ken ponders what to do with a giant Styrofoam version of his head. Certificate #9509.

In which a helpful new phone app is developed to prevent Icelanders from dating their cousins, which may tragically keep them outside of the "Goldilocks Zone" of inbreeding. Certificate #20625.

In which the canonical greatest innovation of modern life turns out to be a result of uneven toaster technology, and John builds the worst soapbox racer of all time. Certificate #50925.

In which a German church organ perform a John Cage composition so slowly that the concert will last 639 years, and Ken has an opinion on who the horniest characters are in Middle-earth. Certificate #24524.

In which a horrorcore rap-rock duo from Detroit accidentally creates a global army of misfits and outcasts, and Pearl Jam gets John thrown in jail five times. Certificate #32373.

In which a combination of Cold War paranoia and good old-fashioned racism convince America that deliciously "umami" Asian food is actually killing them, and Ken eats kelp in a kayak. Certificate #21879.

In which two overeager fighter pilots chase down a runaway drone over Southern California, accidentally lighting much of the state on fire, and John wants to be a marshal of some kind. Certificate #31303.

In which an adventurous Prussian polymath single-handedly revolutionizes modern science, and even helps kick-start the liberation of South America and the environmental movement, and John and Ken ponder their own inevitable disappearance down the memory hole. Certificate #41705.

In which a vaudeville baby whistler becomes the world's first movie star and goes on to invent the electric windshield wiper, and Ken's knowledge of Ogden Nash insults finally comes in handy. Certificate #52050.

In which many of the most commonly taught grammar and usage rules in English are revealed to be arbitrary, made-up, out-of-date, or all three, and John explains why Miss Manners should be in charge of the Internet. Certificate #41607.

In which an eccentric metallurgist with a theater troupe begins one of the strangest science experiments in history and learns that humankind might not be ready for Mars yet, and Ken watches Jeff Bezos injure a fig tree. Certificate #34308.

In which we follow the history of government games of chance from ancient China to today's bankrupt Powerball millionaires, and John grifts his elementary school out of a side of beef. Certificate #32943.

In which a bygone errand, developing vacation snapshots, becomes so widespread that it gets its own chain of drive-thru kiosks, and Ken's mom looks great in a red knit jumper and gold polyester turtleneck. Certificate #38597.

In which four mysterious cones are unearthed from proto-Celtic Europe, perhaps holding untold secrets of the calendar and cosmos, and John is surrounded by the happy nudists of the Danube. Certificate #23490

In which a periodic "atmospheric river" from the Pacific Ocean threatens to put a quarter of Californians underwater in the very near future, which scares Ken so much that he decides to drill holes in his couch. Certificate #23973.

In which the legal and creative rights of a crested macaque are debated on the world stage, and we learn Ken wants to look like Popeye. Certificate #2720.

In which two savvy farmers try to corner the market on onions by buying up the whole Midwestern supply, and John compares Gerald Ford to a Jesuit. Certificate #25671.

In which rock's most cryptic genius shocks the world by being "born again," releasing three uneven gospel albums and annoying a lot of concertgoers. Certificate #39323.

In which doomed Arctic explorers and a spiritualist's vacuum sealer help revolutionize the science of food storage, and John reveals that his "dueling scars" are actually from drinking cold canned pasta. Certificate #42072.

In which over a century of mathematicians are unable to solve a geometry problem straight out of a coloring book, computers provide their first ever math "proof," and Ken challenges John to map a donut. Certificate #28876.

In which a fictional pipe-smoking salesman invents a new quasi-religion for ironists, Discordians, and weirdos, and Ken believes he could have prevented the Trojan War. Certificate #31147.

In which CBS cancels a full slate of country-fried programming, reinventing TV and marginalizing rural America, and John somehow watches an awful lot of Hee Haw. Certificate #36841.

In which one of the key nutrients for all life on Earth washes inexorably into the ocean all day every day, which really stresses Ken out. Certificate #52178

In which Queen Elizabeth's top astrologer dreams up the British Empire, solar power, and possibly even James Bond, and then loses his whole reputation to a charlatan with no earlobes, leading John to create a list of scientists who should have stayed in their lane. Certificate #44269

In which the U.S. military builds hundreds of thousands of weird half-cylindrical shelters out of corrugated steel, and Ken reports on what they would look like with stained-glass windows. Certificate #35704

In which we remember Frank Zappa's favorite 1950s fad, brought to you by the inventor of Mad Libs, and John remembers why people actually thought a Sasquatch lived on top of the Space Needle back in foggier times. Certificate #48261.

In which hundreds of thousands of people dress in big plush animal suits as a hobby, identity, or fetish, and Ken explains the secret Family Feud notebooks of his childhood. Certificate #26505

In which a tiny village secedes from the United States to join the Confederacy and forgets to rejoin for almost a century--even though it's in upstate New York just miles from the Canadian border. Certificate #42052.

In which two of the world's smartest electrochemists get fooled by a botched experiment and the promise of fame, and John reveals that GPS mysticism is his pseudoscience. Certificate #19668.

In which over a hundred of Honolulu's elite private school students are shipped off to some of the world's most remote islands on a top-secret government mission, and Ken wonders if sea turtles can feel dread. Certificate #22194.

In which we learn how a historical delicacy of Croatia got bastardized into a staple of American cocktails and sundaes, and John is upset when his third grade teacher pays him in ice cream instead of cash. Certificate #28197.

In which we trace script handwriting from ancient Egypt all the way up to the modern culture wars, and John and Ken argue over the ugliest cursive capital letter: is it J or Q? Certificate #32892.

In which the messy orange-eating of a runaway heiress creates a colorful new summer look for American women, and Ken goes way too far with his Kennedy assassination theories. Certificate #12306.

In which America's two greatest dinosaur hunters ruin their lives in an unhinged battle of spite and revenge, which John finds extremely romantic. Certificate #24269.

In which two of the greatest rock guitarists of all time pine after the same woman, each marry her in turn, and somehow stay friends. Certificate #42401.

In which we remember the 1950s charity drive to raise reindeer funds for a tribe of Scandinavian telepaths--a problem they really should have seen coming. Certificate #37239.

In which a re-designed school binder becomes a mandatory school accessory and one of the great marketing successes of the 1980s, and Ken spends hours looking at erasers shaped like sushi. Certificate #31310.

In which an Esperanto-loving stage mom raises America's first celebrity child prodigy, who writes one of history's most famous poems before vanishing into a cloud of bigamy and scandal. Certificate #35551.