Died of Robots

[upbeat music] Can we open with a quick ruling?

Sure.

Several episodes go, on more than one occasion probably, I've told you a story about how when I set a timer on my Google Home Hub, uh, and I, I, you know, I like to name my timers 'cause I'm not a monster.

And so I'll name it whatever I'm doing.

I, I'll say, "Set a," you know, "40 minute rice timer." You know? Or, "Set a seven minute cookie timer," or whatever.

And I had told you that when I say, "Set a nine minute pasta timer," when the timer goes off, it plays a little tune.

And do I remember correctly, you had not heard that tune before?

At the time you, uh, told me this, no, I had never heard it.

But since then I've tried it several times, and I think I reported back that I tried it and it didn't, didn't do anything.

But since then I have tried it multiple more times, and eventually I did get it to do what you-

Okay.

So let me, just first, just for our, for our listeners, let me ask Jim to please drop in the audio of, um, love theme from nine minute pasta.

[upbeat tune]

Your pasta timer is up.

[upbeat tune]

Okay.

Tell me your thoughts.

I, I got thoughts, but I wanna know your thoughts.

Yeah, so I don't have a thing with the screen, I just have like the cylinder with no screen.

It still played the song.

Um, and I thought that it was-

Oh, but you, but you saw that mine begins with a, with a visual explosion of different kinds of pasta.

Yeah.

That, that I think is even more interesting than the little song.

So I-

Really?

Yeah, it does play the little song.

I don't know why it didn't play the little song all the other ti- Every time I had called it, you know, "Set a pasta timer." So I'm saying the same thing every time, and it would say, "Okay.

Eight minute pasta timer." And it would, but then it would just wouldn't play anything.

Um, but eventually it did do it once, and I'm like, "Okay, I've heard it." Um, in your thing, you've got a thing with a screen, and when the timer goes off it plays the little song that you just heard.

But it also animates this, a bunch of like illustration style single pieces of pasta of various shapes-

Like, like some, some of-

... traveling from the bottom of the screen to the top

...

some of these might be your pasta.

Yeah, but they're...

Why are they going upwards, like as if gravity has been reversed and they're falling into the sky? We've got some, uh-

And there's already a nice bowl of spaghetti just sitting there.

Yeah, we got some elbows, some fusillis, some rotellis, some spaghetti.

Ooh.

[laughs] Ooh.

Some, uh, rigatoni.

Uh, all just farfalle, all going up-

Rigatoni

... vertically.

Yeah.

I don't understand-

But, but the s-

... that

Okay.

So, and what I'd said to you was, I get, I get, I, I, and I haven't tested the rice one and sent it to you, but the rice one is just the tiniest, littlest, tiniest bit ping pong.

Mm-hmm.

But I feel like the Italian one is full on ping pong, because I, I'm not a musician, but I'm pretty sure it's playing a famous, um, recognizable th- uh, version of a tarantella that people associate with Italian, uh, stereotypes.

[laughs]

Yeah, and appar- I looked at the Wikipedia page, and appar- they say it's a, a group of various Southern Italian folk dances.

Apparently there is a rhythm that is common to them, but there is not just one song.

But yes, you've, you've, if you've heard this, it's...

Here's, here's the thing with these timers.

They're, they're picking out the, what they believe to be the ethnicity of the word that you name the timer, and then they're, what they're saying is like, if you're an American, I suppose, what is the most stereotypical musical cue that will remind you of this ethnicity?

We're gonna-

Which is one way to go

... as best, as best we can, pound for pound, we're gonna guess what is the little tune that would most cue people to what they named it.

Right.

And, like, I feel like it would instead that maybe if they want to, if they really, really feel like they want to guess your food ethnicity and then assign music to that ethni- ethnicity, they should do something that people with that e- ethnicity would feel proud of.

So I don't know, what are-

Oh, uh, um, probably O-

... what are Italian Americans are proud of or-

O- O Sole Mio?

Yeah, like maybe, uh, maybe.

Is it opera for Italy?

Mm-hmm.

I don't know.

[laughs] Like-

Did you know that O Sole Mio was, uh, uh, um, adapted into, um, mm, It's Now or Never by Elvis Presley? The same tune.

Did...

I did not know that.

It's now or never.

But there's a famous one, and somebody linked to the Louis Prima version.

It, and so in The Godfather II at, uh, I believe it's at Michael's, the, the party for Michael's, um, confirmation? What is it he has? Not Michael, but you know, the little kid.

Mm-hmm.

It's at the one at Lake Tahoe, and, and Frankie Valli and angels is there.

That's what happens when you leave the East Coast.

But d- didn't mama sing that Louis Prima song in The Godfather Part I wedding?

Yeah, I think she was on stage at one point.

Remember everybody comes up and so- the old man comes up, does the little part?

Yep.

I just wondered your ruling on whether you think it's ping pong, as somebody who's admittedly, you told-

Oh, yeah.

It is, it's a racial stereotype

... you're very sens- you're very sensitive about this kind of Italian racism.

If I was, uh, the product manager, I would say, "How about we just don't try to guess the ethnicity of a food word, and then g- find a thing that we think will cue people to be reminded of that ethnicity?" Because basically, the most successful you can be at reminding people of that ethnicity is to be racist.

[laughs] 'Cause that's the country we live in, and that's what we've got to go...

And, you know.

Well, it's a form of cultural Tourette's.

Yeah.

That shouldn't, that shouldn't be, your, your success criteria shouldn't be, "Oh, I know what you're thinking of there," because it's easy to do that with racism.

[laughs]

Mm-hmm.

And that, that's not successful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I would say don't do that.

Just either, uh-

You know, he says, you know, Frankie says, he says, "Out of 30 musicians, I can't believe there's not one Italian in the group."

Mm-hmm.

And then, so then the funny part is they, the, the, so he does the dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, like trying to get...

A tarantella I think is the beat.

Yeah, yeah.

And like the, the dun, dun, dun.

It's a, a certain kind of dance.

And Frankie starts trying to da, da, da, da, da, da.

Then he's trying to get...

And then the, the clarinet guy starts playing, uh, starts playing Pop Goes the Weasel, which I guess-

Yeah

... turns out to be a tarantella.

Yeah, I guess.

And Frankie Valli and angels does not like that.

[upbeat music]

[upbeat music]Yeah, they're not, uh, not in New York anymore.

I think it's a sign of how everything's changing, John.

Yeah.

Egg noodles and ketchup.

They got him waiting in the lobby.

[upbeat music] Hey, everybody.