Important if true

important if true chronologically

I can't believe we've done this. It's a brand new podcast. Join us, won't you? We're delving into the minutiae of pop culture, technology, and our own lives to find some kind of meaning—or at least to spin everything out as absurdly as we can. This week: Why do hawks ride planes, when they could fly? Who oils The Terminator's pecs? And what's Snagglepuss up to, exactly? These questions and more are answered definitively, sort of.

Chris' Endorsement: Fish Spatula, aka Fish Turner, aka Oliver Fishturner
http://geni.us/4bkAI

Nick's Endorsement: Farberware Nonstick Skillet
http://geni.us/4bkAI

Jake's Endorsement: Listening to Nick starting at 54:30

Important If True

Important If True 1: A Gleaming Collaborative Future

The great mysteries of our time lie before us, hovering tantalizingly out of reach, so instead we set our sights on the achievable. This week: What happens when flame robots battle garbage? Where's the intersection of George Michael and Matlock? And who brought Jaws to the friendly, rustic murder capital of the world? You may think these questions unanswerable, or barely questions at all. Friend, you may be right—but we'll do our best to pull them apart and see what truths they reveal.

Nick's Endorsement: The CW's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
DVD: http://geni.us/rHkbP8T
iTunes: http://geni.us/ASyyX0t

Chris' Endorsement: Batman (1966)
Blu-ray: http://geni.us/d0OkI2
iTunes: http://geni.us/FtUemSG

Jake's Endorsement: ThruYou by Kutiman
http://geni.us/IOtP4M

Note: Endorsements are merely personal recommendations by us, not paid advertising.

Important If True 2: Fight Garbage With Garbage

A researcher has determined that by 2025, if you string all our smart devices together—our Amazon Alexas and always-online talking teddy bears, our color-changing light bulbs and remote-controlled doorknobs—they will have the combined thinking power of 45 human brains. But that raises the question: Who exactly are these 45 brains, and what do they want to tell us? Join us as we find the answer or, failing that, make something up.

Important Reference Materials:Morgan Freeman Turkish Airlines ad (http://geni.us/6zFcChJ), CloudPets hack (http://geni.us/qURy), Furby, Teddy Ruxpin, children loving Alexa (http://geni.us/jhyYRov), Alexa making questionable choices (http://geni.us/RLhN5n), Tomes and Talismans (http://geni.us/YtoO), Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis (http://geni.us/PwGJYyQ)

Chris' Endorsement: The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart (http://geni.us/Bht7)

Jake's Endorsement: Witness, starring Harrison Ford (iTunes: http://geni.us/hiV8F, free on Amazon Prime: http://geni.us/5w4bv)

Nick's Endorsement: Finding and frequenting your local neighborhood bar

Important If True 3: The Power of 45 Brains

The road to the truth can take you through some dangerous places, so keep the windows up, the doors locked, and never, ever get out of the car. Or ignore that advice, and follow us down the truth’s seedier and long-forgotten offramps, in search of the really important questions. Like: What happens when your smart house gets a little too smart? Where do those creepy Chuck E. Cheese pizza robots come from? And why is the society depicted in Pixar's Cars a mockery of the living and the dead? 

Important Reference Materials: Goldblum noises, Smart House, Alexa, Blank Check, The Rock-Afire Explosion, carbohydrillium, Disney•Pixar Cars, popes, geological butts 

Chris' Endorsement: Stayfocusd Chrome browser extension 

Jake's Endorsement: Logan 

Nick's Endorsement: Calling your aunt back; or The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild if you just want to buy something and be a consumer

Important If True 4: A Thousand Dormant Machines

Some questions are like an itch you can't scratch, or worse, an itch you can scratch as much as you'd like, but the itch doesn't go away. Today we indulge our compulsions and scratch away at the unscrachable, like: When did George Clooney start showing so much skin? Why does the flu virus really want you to party? And what drew three painters of video game box art to the same back-alley brawl, in the same town, on the same night? We will tread these paths again and again until we discover the truth, or are tricked by our own minds into believing we have. Plus, thanks to a helpful reader, major steps are taken to record for all time the 45 brains that control existence. 

If you enjoyed this and would like to subscribe to an ad-free feed, please consider supporting Idle Thumbs by backing our Patreon. 

Important Reference Material: self-driving car, self-driving flying car, robots wearing skin, The Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, flu-prompted sociability, Streets of Rage cover art, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Spielberg's early career, 45brains.online

Important If True 5: The Convergence Compulsion

If you could go back to King Arthur times, how would you impress all those medieval idiots? Would you dazzle them with memes? Would they celebrate you, or hoist you? Who's the man, they might ask? Are you the man? Find out, in over 45 minutes of audio content you'll actually want to listen to! 

If you enjoyed this and would like to subscribe to an ad-free feed, please consider supporting Idle Thumbs by backing our Patreon. 

Discussed: Snapple, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Credit Human, Egg Cuber, meme dreams, Jeff Goldblum, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones DVD release TV spot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6d1dR2170o

Jake's Endorsement: Illinois Institute of Technology fight song 

Chris' Endorsement: shoe horn (approachable normal sized shoe horn: http://geni.us/6lBGf — intimidating weird large shoe horn: http://geni.us/jA3yUJl ) 

Nick's Endorsement: Hot Winter Hot Sauce: http://geni.us/DJam

Also: Listen through to the end for a sneak peek at our new true history miniseries, Something True!

Important If True 6: Get Hoisted

Important If True 31: The Illusion of Control

Idle Thumbs is an independent podcast network whose podcasts span comedy, pop culture and entertainment, video games, and TV.