Adrianne:

This is Underunderstood.

Regina:

Hello everybody.

Billy:

Hi Regina.

John:

Hello.

Adrianne:

Hi.

Regina:

I promise that was the only time I’ll use my MC voice.

Billy:

That was your MC voice?

Regina:

It felt really over the top to me.

Billy:

Yeah. Wow.

Regina:

Why am emceeing, you ask? Because it’s the end of the year episode. Today’s show is a two for one situation. We’ve got two small segments instead of one big one, just a grab bag, gift bag, stocking stuffed with stories.

John:

End of the year, little bit of story cleanup, two little nuggets that couldn’t be full length episodes, so we’ll smash them together in the show stocking.

Billy:

We should also say if you’ve never listened to this show before, it might be a weird place to start on our website on underunderstood.com. We have a section called Start Here where you can find some of our favorites.

John:

Not that this won’t be a favorite. We just don’t know yet.

Adrianne:

You may remember I started the last episode with a question that came from Trivial Pursuit, the hilarious family friendly board game.

John:

Is this another story about Trivial Pursuit?

Adrianne:

It is a story about Trivial Pursuit. We did that story that was about the question about a boy band that was commissioned to write a song for NASA. That episode prompted a listener named Andrew to write in through the website, and Andrew wrote, “I think we’re all wondering who comes up with Trivial Pursuit questions now. I bet the process is a world away from Laffy Taffy jokes.”

Billy:

Meaning that they assume that it’s much more formalized?

Adrianne:

And not user generated.

Billy:

Yeah.

Regina:

And yeah, probably verified in some way.

Billy:

Okay.

Adrianne:

Does anyone want to guess how many questions are in a typical Trivial Pursuit game?

Regina:

407.

John:

Aren’t there six per card or something like that?

Adrianne:

There are six categories and every card has a question for each category.

John:

So, we’re looking at 900 questions in a deck?

Adrianne:

Well, the edition of Trivial Pursuit that I was playing had 3,600 questions.

John:

Oh, my God.

Billy:

Wow.

Adrianne:

So, that seems pretty typical for a mainline Trivial Pursuit game. They also have spinoffs and travel packs and niche editions that have 600 questions, it seems like. There’s book lovers, national parks, Rick and Morty. It’s a lot. There is a website called triviabliss.com that claims to have the “Ultimate List of Every Trivial Pursuit Version Ever Created.” I will put this list in Slack and I will link to it in the show notes. If you look at this list, there are over a hundred North American editions and mini packs plus the international editions and apps and other spinoff-y things. Altogether, we’re talking about tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of questions that had to be written for the Trivial Pursuit franchise.

John:

This is 277 editions of Trivial Pursuit.

Adrianne:

Right. Again, some of those are smaller. There are like a couple hundred questions. It seems like the standard sizes are 3,000 plus or 600, but anyway, it’s a lot of questions so where did they come from? I could not find any official answer to this. I could not find any job listings for Trivial Pursuit researchers. I emailed Hasbro, which owns trivial pursuit, no response from them, but I did get to talk to somebody who has been a Trivial Pursuit writer and project manager for nearly 12 years. His name is Darryn King.

Darryn King:

Hello. This is Darryn.

Adrianne:

Darryn is originally from Sydney.

Darryn King:

I’m a freelance journalist, have been living in New York for the past nearly 10 years now.

Adrianne:

I found him because of a blog post he wrote on his website which I will link to in the show notes.

Darryn King:

My job is normally asking questions of interviewees but this Hasbro gig is a kind of a weird appendage of that same impulse you might call it.

Adrianne:

He stumbled into this Trivial Pursuit gig back in 2010.

Darryn King:

It just came out of a friend of a friend who had a connection at Hasbro and thought of me.

Adrianne:

What was the application or vetting process like?

Darryn King:

Pretty easy, I’ll say. I mean, I just assured them that I was a writer. I think that was the most important thing, and a curious person, and I didn’t mess it up, I guess.

Adrianne:

What does it take to be good at writing questions?

Darryn King:

Having a lot of time in your hands to go trawling Wikipedia, I would say.

John:

Wait. What?

Billy:

The ultimate source.

John:

Of truth.

Regina:

It’s similar to what it takes to make this podcast.

Billy:

I’m going to take six months off and just let this guy step in for me.

Darryn King:

I’m a pretty curious person so I will gladly go down crazy rabbit holes about, I don’t know, architectural styles of the 19th century or Andrew Lloyd Webber’s back catalog, and things like that.

John:

Ugh.

Darryn King:

That’s a fun way to spend my time and having a sort of bowerbird-like instinct for the perfect little fact, the interesting fact, I think, is what it really comes down to. I think you’ve got to be a good writer as well. You’ve got to know how to craft a question without any superfluous words to make it a little bit witty, if you can.

Adrianne:

Unfortunately, Darryn said it’s not a really great way to actually learn anything.

Darryn King:

You are consuming it and spitting it out at such a speed that you don’t actually have time to absorb the actual knowledge.

Adrianne:

Have you ever had a moment where your Trivial Pursuit research did come in handy? Like a Slumdog Millionaire situation?

Darryn King:

Man, I wish I could say yes. Honestly, it really hasn’t. I’ve learned nothing. I can talk about the job in general terms, but if you ask me for a fact, a single fact that I have picked up in my 10 plus years of writing questions, I would say I got nothing. I have actually got nothing.

Regina:

Wow.

Billy:

I relate to that on a certain level.

Adrianne:

Yeah, me too.

Adrianne:

So the way it works is, it’s project-based. Hasbro will call for some number of questions for a project and they usually overshoot, so they need 2000 questions, they commission 2020 questions. The project manager assigns between 150 to 500 questions per writer.

Darryn King:

For example, if I’ve got writers working for me, I’ll get a couple of hundred questions from a writer, and then I’ll edit them to make sure that they’re actually readable, and then that will go to a fact checker who will spend a lot of time making sure that every single fact is strictly accurate and factual, and that includes other facts within the question as well because a good question isn’t just the thing that’s being asked. There’s reference to a whole bunch of other things in the question. So, that’s a bit of an involved process and then it goes to another proofreader, and then there’s another stage where you just make sure that the balance of the questions on a card is right and there’s not too much overlap in the categories, for example.

Adrianne:

Writers get paid for every question they write but they do not get paid for rewrites and fact fixes, so there’s an incentive to get it right the first time. In the end, most of the questions get used. Darryn even told me that Hasbro doesn’t mind if questions or topics get repeated between editions so there’s no need to check for duplicates.

John:

Are the standards different for the branded ones like the McDonald’s?

Adrianne:

Darryn said the process is pretty much the same just with an added extra layer of approval for questions.

Billy:

So, you’re saying the whole team for these is entirely freelance including the editors?

Adrianne:

It seems that way. Yeah.

Billy:

That’s wild to me.

Adrianne:

This type of work is very commonly done by freelancers, lots of freelancer, fact checkers, lots of freelance editors out there.

Billy:

It seems like the quality control both from editorially like the editor but also fact checking and checking for plagiarism, making sure these weren’t just wholesale ripped from another trivia resource.

Adrianne:

Yeah. There was a lawsuit from this guy named Fred Worth who had a trivia encyclopedia. That one was interesting because he accused the Trivial Pursuit guys in 1984 of copying a ton of questions from his trivia properties and he said he had put in a fake answer in his encyclopedia to catch anyone who was plagiarizing. The fake question was, “What was Colombo’s first name?” and the fake answer was Philip.

John:

What’s the real answer? Christopher?

Regina:

I was going to say Chris.

Billy:

Jumbo.

John:

Jumbo Colombo. Yeah.

Adrianne:

“Never explicitly revealed in the series. However, when Colombo flashes his badge in the episode Dead Weight season one, episode three, the name Frank can clearly be seen on his ID.” This is from IMDB. Who knows? Anyway, so this lawsuit, the judge ended up ruling in favor of the Trivial Pursuit guys and it was appealed and they still won.

Billy:

On what grounds? On just that you can’t own facts?

Adrianne:

Yeah, that it wasn’t copyrightable.

Regina:

Yeah, because I feel like you could argue the curation is what is copyright. It’s the collecting of them and curating them.

Billy:

It also seems like a dangerous precedent for Trivial Pursuit to set as the owners of large collections of facts to have a lawsuit that basically says you can take one large collection of facts and translate it into another large collection of facts and that’s totally fine. You would think that would be against their interests and they would be more content to just settle, give some large amount of money to this person to make them go away, and leave open the option that in the future, if someone does that to them, that they could sue them.

Regina:

Maybe they weren’t thinking that far ahead in 1984.

Billy:

Well, I’m just saying, so now we can, maybe we make our own-

Regina:

Make a more fun version.

Billy:

Yeah, we make our own spinoff. We just have Underunderstood trivia and it’s just the editions from Trivial Pursuit just rewritten slightly.

Regina:

No, I think we change the gameplay a little bit.

Billy:

Well, yeah. It’s Twister and Trivial Pursuit.

Regina:

Oh, God. No.

Adrianne:

The plaintiff, Fred Worth, contends that 1,675 questions in the Genus Edition were taken from Super Trivia I, 1,293 questions in the Silver Screen Edition were taken from Super Trivia I and/or II, and 828 questions in the Baby Boomer Edition were taken from Super Trivia I and/or II. These are his encyclopedias.

Regina:

There’s a Baby Boomer Edition?

Adrianne:

There’s an edition for everything. The defense basically said, “Yeah, we consulted these books, but we also consulted lots of other sources and we didn’t copy your questions. It was just one of the references that we used when we wrote our own questions.” You can see how they could argue that this is not copyright violation. This is an entry in the book, Abel, Colonel Rudolf, Russian spy exchanged February 10, 1962 for F. Gary Powers, U-2 pilot. The Trivial Pursuit game card says, “Question: What Russian spy was exchanged for U-2 pilot, Gary Powers, in 1962? Answer: Rudolf Abel.”

Regina:

Right. So, it’s not plagiarism. It’s just the same information.

Adrianne:

It’s not word for word, but this did get me thinking about sources. Is there a list of approved sources?

Darryn King:

I do keep on mentioning Wikipedia, but actually, we can’t use that as a source. We have to find reliable primary sources wherever possible, so .org websites, official histories, actual physical encyclopedias. Yeah, we would not go to, for example, IMDB for information because of the user generated aspect, so we take that very seriously.

Adrianne:

I told Darryn about the Natural episode.

Adrianne:

In the end, it was like the question leaves you with maybe a possibly inaccurate impression, but technically, the wording of the question was correct.

Darryn King:

Well, that would get flagged. If I was running that ship, I would flag that question as not strictly accurate, I guess, or giving a misleading impression. That’s the kind of thing that should be flagged for sure.

Adrianne:

Well, let me read you the question I tell you what we found. “What boy band did NASA admit they’d hired to write a song about the International Space Station and perhaps microgravity in 2001?” So…

Darryn King:

Well, no idea.

Adrianne:

The band was called Natural. We ended up talking to the band and hunting down this trail and a couple things about this question. NASA did say officially that they were commissioning this song. There were a couple articles that said they had commissioned it, couple articles that said they were planning to commission it. It ended up that it was the project died at some point because of the Columbia shuttle disaster and it never got written. Then the “International Space Station and perhaps microgravity,” that was one person speculating about what the song might be about, someone from NASA. The question was like… It was pretty tight, I think. I think it passes a technical fact check.

Darryn King:

I would ask whether anyone has any chance of actually knowing that fact. It’s an interesting thing but I would probably fail it because of that. I would try to find a way to recast that question so that maybe the answer was just a boy band, and maybe a multiple choice question where you had three different options of like, “Who did NASA want to send to space at this point?”

Adrianne:

I spoke to a member of the band who said that his sister had been playing Trivial Pursuit and came across this question was like, “I know this,” and I thought, “God, that’s got to be the only person who has ever gotten this question right.”

Darryn King:

Yeah.

Adrianne:

Trivial Pursuit also gets a lot of scrutiny. People who are into trivia are the people who will nitpick the specifics of a fact. This is especially true when you get into these niche subcategory packs for fandoms of Lord of the Rings-

Regina:

Star Trek.

Adrianne:

… collab with Trivial Pursuit, Star Wars.

Billy:

Right. These are the type of fans that would fight with the creator of the thing about facts about the thing.

Adrianne:

Absolutely yes. I came across an old thread of people arguing about the questions in the Doctor Who edition, for example. I’ll drop this in Slack.

John:

I don’t even want to click the link. Seems tedious.

Adrianne:

This person writes… Let’s see, what’s their username.

John:

Oh, and it’s called “Not-so-trivial errors.”

Adrianne:

Joekeck or keckles. Yeah, so the title of the thread is “Not-so-trivial errors.” This person wrote, “My findings, out of the 600 questions on a hundred cards, I found only three major errors, 19 minor errors, including a couple typos, 180 questions about classic Doctor Who, 330 questions about new Doctor Who, 18 questions that concern both old and new Doctor Who, 72 questions that really have nothing to do with Doctor Who, most of which require you to be familiar with shows that have never aired outside the UK.”

John:

Oh, okay.

Adrianne:

The three major errors are, the question was, “Which two doctors often wore bow ties?” The answer was Eleventh and Third. However, according to this internet poster, the Second Doctor also wore a bow tie regularly.

Regina:

Well, I do feel like “often” is an arbitrary thing. Often wears bow ties? That feels hard.

Adrianne:

Yeah. That’s a fact checker hedge. The fact checker’s like, “Look, we can do it, but you need to say ‘often.'”

“Question, ‘What extraterrestrial martial art was the Third Doctor fond of using? Answer, Venusian Aikido.’ Correct but he also called it the Venusian Karate on at least one occasion.”

Regina:

How was that a major error? What is this person’s filter?

Adrianne:

By the way, I should have mentioned that this thread is on boardgamegeek.com.

The third major error. “Question, ”Which are the only two Doctors not to have come face to face with the Cybermen? Answer, the Eighth and the Ninth. The Third Doctor did not have a full adventure with them but met them in The Five Doctors.’ Correction, the Third Doctor and the Cybermen were both in The Five Doctors, but they most definitely never came face to face and never actually met. Also, the Ninth Doctor literally came face to face with a cyberman in Henry van Statten’s museum although it was only a head in a glass case, plus the show only shows a portion of the doctor’s life. Three, Eight, and Nine probably all met the Cybermen at some point in their lives but we never saw it.'”

Regina:

It doesn’t exist.

Billy:

Yeah. What was going on off camera?

John:

I can’t.

Adrianne:

“But I know what the game means. They’re just referring to televised adventures.”

John:

Yeah, of course there are-

Regina:

Yeah. Obviously, because it’s about a television show.

John:

Literally, nothing happened to him outside of the show. He’s not real.

Regina:

I don’t understand. Like, “well, if you think about their backstory…” It’s like, if it’s not in the show-

Billy:

And if you consider the possibility of a multiverse, all of them have met each other in an infinite number of permutations.

Adrianne:

Okay, so this person writes, “My verdict, all in all, I’d say it’s worth $16 I paid for it, and more than that, is a ripoff.”

Regina:

Not worth $17.

Adrianne:

Okay, but Trivial Pursuit does sometimes have legitimate factual errors. Here are some examples. Here’s a question Darryn wrote about that had an inaccurate answer. Question, “What did climber Aron Ralston lose at a mountaineering trip in Bluejohn Canyon?”

John:

His life.

Regina:

He’s the guy who lost his arm?

Billy:

His virginity.

Adrianne:

Uh-huh (affirmative). The Trivial Pursuit card said-

Billy:

Wait, really?

Adrianne:

No. What Regina said.

Billy:

Oh.

Regina:

God.

Adrianne:

The Trivial Pursuit card said his lower left arm. However, it was his lower right arm.

John:

Oh, that’s blatant.

Adrianne:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Here’s another one people argue about. Okay, so this is a pretty early one that is cited a lot as a Trivial Pursuit fumble. “Which Roman emperor was murdered in 44 BC?” The game’s answer is Julius Caesar, but he wasn’t an emperor. His son was the first emperor of Rome.

Billy:

What was he technically?

Adrianne:

He was a dictator or imperator. He had a different title.

Billy:

You just pronounced emperor differently.

Adrianne:

I know. Yeah. It’s squishy. It’s a little squishy. Then here’s another one people like to argue about. “What became the first mass produced game playing console with a built-in hard drive and broadband capabilities in 2001?”

John:

Xbox.

Billy:

The Dreamcast.

Regina:

Atari?

Billy:

Oh, Dreamcast didn’t have a hard drive.

John:

It had an ethernet jack.

Billy:

Oh, well yeah. The technical answer would be a PC long before that.

Adrianne:

Trivial Pursuit’s answer is GameCube.

John:

What? It doesn’t have a hard drive.

Billy:

Yeah, it doesn’t.

John:

That’s really weird because they described an Xbox exactly and got the wrong answer. That’s really weird.

Adrianne:

The thing is the GameCube came out one or two months before Xbox. I haven’t fact checked this so don’t come for me. People say the GameCube did not have a built-in hard drive. Xbox had a built-in hard drive.

Regina:

It feels like a fact checking error, like somebody wrote it for the Xbox but then they changed it to GameCube because they were like, “Oh, it came out a month before,” without thinking to check the details.

Adrianne:

Right. Possibly.

Adrianne:

Yeah. So I decided to ask Darryn for a job.

Adrianne:

Is it all freelancers who are writing these?

Darryn King:

Pretty much. That’s who I was working with, people who had other jobs, so I knew some journalists, fellow journalists, just some people who are similarly curious about the world who knew how to write as well. Yeah, it was kind of a side gig for a lot of people.

Adrianne:

How do you get this gig? How do I get this?

Darryn King:

I will let you know if any project has come along because they are quite few and far between. I worked on one this year, but before this year, it was… I don’t know. It was almost like three or four years since the last one. Yeah, it’s not an everyday job for sure.

Adrianne:

Yeah. In three years, when Trivial Pursuit does our next project, I am just going to do all questions about Cool Ranch and mixed nuts and blue toilet seats.

John:

We need an Underunderstood Edition.

Adrianne:

Or a podcast edition or something.

John:

Yeah.

Adrianne:

Thank you, Andrew, for the question. Andrew also wanted me to find, by the way, the person who wrote the Natural question which I didn’t do. Sorry, Andrew. Maybe one day.

Regina:

Oh, even if you found them, they might not remember that they wrote it.

Adrianne:

I know. Exactly. Maybe I did find them.

Regina:

Exactly. There’s just no recollection.

Regina:

All right, so John.

John:

Hey.

Regina:

Are you up?

John:

I think I’m up. Yeah. This is not a question from any listener or anything. This is just something I found on the internet, and surprise, we’ve got a fast food mystery. We all grew up in the ’90s. Were you all Pizza Hut dine-in fans?

Adrianne:

Oh, yeah. Totally.

Billy:

Yes.

Regina:

Oh, is it going to be about the book club?

Billy:

Pizza Hut buffet was a special little thing my mom would do with me every once in a while, take me to the midday Pizza Hut buffet. Yes. They had cinnamon breadsticks and I remember they had different super thin crust pizzas that they normally wouldn’t have, stuff like that.

John:

You remember what the place looked like though generally?

Regina:

The roof.

Billy:

Oh, yeah.

Adrianne:

Yeah. It was kind of dark.

Billy:

And there’s a website. I believe it’s usedtobeapizzahut.com?

John:

Yes.

Billy:

Is this what your story’s about?

John:

No, it’s not, but it’s similar.

Billy:

Yeah, it’s such an iconic silhouette that it’s recognizable even in businesses that have taken over old Pizza Hut locations.

Regina:

It’s like businesses that have taken over like Circuit Cities.

John:

Yes.

Regina:

Now it’s shaped like an outlet.

John:

Well, I don’t remember exactly where I found this, but I saw some photos somewhere on the internet of something called Pizza Hut Classic. Is this ringing any bells?

Adrianne:

No.

John:

I saw you post this.

Billy:

I did?

John:

Or I think it was you.

Billy:

Maybe you favorited a tweet and I saw it because of that or something.

John:

Okay. I’m dropping a link in Slack about this.

Adrianne:

Yeah. This is what I remember it looking like.

John:

Anyone want to read the headline and what’s going on here?

Regina:

The headline says, “Warren Pizza Hut reopens as Pizza Hut Classic,” and then the subhead is, “Warren’s Elm Road location underwent a transformation complete with classic logos, checkered table cloths, and Tiffany-style lamps.”

Adrianne:

The lamps are so good.

Billy:

This is great. This looks like it would smell as if there is a smoking section inside of it.

Regina:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John:

This is a local news source, NBC WFMJ, in Ohio. Apparently, there was a Pizza Hut in Ohio that on September 13th, 2019, this Pizza Hut reopened as what they called Pizza Hut Classic. The inside of this place, there are photos here, it looks like old Pizza Hut. There are red booths, there are checkered table cloths on the tables, there are Tiffany lamps that say Pizza Hut on them like I remember the old Pizza Huts having.

Billy:

Lots of wood grain.

John:

So much wood grain.

Billy:

Carpet.

John:

Yeah. This looks like you’ve stepped into a Pizza Hut that has been well taken care of since 1989.

Billy:

Oh, yeah. The chandelier is iconic.

John:

I’m going to play a video I found of the Warren, Ohio Pizza Hut Classic.

Billy:

Oh, yeah.

John:

It says, “A classic is back.”

Video clip:

A friend of a friend knew someone and I went in for the interview. She sat down right then and hired me on the spot.

That was 30 years ago this month. Bob Jukes has been working up the chain at Pizza Hut ever since. Now, he’s the general manager at the store on Elm Road in Holland.

The Pizza Hut Classic is something new. We’re one of 11 or we were the 11th in the US to open as a Pizza Hut Classic now.

It reopened as Pizza Hut Classic in September, and if you’re from my era, you’ll recognize some of the changes.

New booths, new chairs, new carpet, new Tiffany lamps. The Tiffany lamps, all the artwork has been taken out. Again, the jukebox and the video game.

Billy:

Oh, but it’s a cocktail arcade machine but it has LCD screen in it. That’s-

John:

Yeah.

Video clip:

They did a new roof, new signage, new pole sign has the new classic logo on there.

Back to the days of the Pizza Hut of the ’70s and ’80s, and the response has been one for the ages as well. What was the response?

Very good. People come in just to look at it, just to remember.

Adrianne:

That’s not really what you want as the owner.

Regina:

They’re like, “We don’t want to eat here. We just want to look.”

John:

They come in, they look, they leave.

Adrianne:

They go to Subway.

John:

Here I’ll share some Instagram pictures of the Warren, Ohio Pizza Hut Classic as well if you want to click into Instagram there.

Regina:

The roof isn’t red.

Billy:

Okay. I do have some-

John:

Oh, of course.

Billy:

… complaints here.

John:

Okay.

Billy:

Well, they have a large flat screen TV in the corner. Sure. It’s killing the vibe.

Regina:

The windows are trapezoidal.

John:

Yeah. This was a thing with old Pizza Huts. The windows were not rectangular. They were trapezoidal. Yeah.

Regina:

Did the building not have a red roof?

John:

No, a lot of them had gray or black roofs. Yeah.

Billy:

Yeah, that was kind of one of my grievances too. The outside looked a little too modern.

John:

I thought, Billy, I truly thought you were going to be so excited about this.

Billy:

I am excited but they ruined it.

Regina:

Oh, wow.

Billy:

The arcade machine has the LCD screen in it. They have a large LCD screen in the corner. What’s up with all these LCD screens? Are they on the hook with big LCD or something?

Regina:

All right. We still haven’t described the photos.

Billy:

It looks like a classic Pizza Hut but filled with LCD screens.

John:

Oh, my God.

Regina:

Oh, and then there’s a Book It poster. That’s what I thought you were going to be talking about.

Billy:

A Book It poster?

Regina:

Yeah. Wasn’t Pizza Hut… This is my only memory of Pizza Hut is that there was some sort of book thing with schools where if you read certain book, this is the only situation where I would go to Pizza Hut is if I got enough coupons basically for having read the books, that I would get a free personal pizza.

John:

Oh, wow.

Regina:

Yeah. This was huge.

Regina:

Yeah.

John:

From that video, you might recall that the manager, Bob Jukes said that they were the 11th Pizza Hut Classic in the country to open.

Billy:

Yeah. That’s surprising.

John:

Yeah. I had never heard of these things. I looked into it. There is no official press release about Pizza Hut Classic. The Pizza Hut website does not list Warren, Ohio as a Pizza Hut Classic. There’s nothing different about it on the Pizza Hut website. I found one other YouTube video about any Pizza Hut Classic. This is Ramblin’ Backroads with Bo and Rah.

 Video clip 2:

We are rolling through Eureka Springs and we found a Pizza Hut Classic.

 Video clip 2:

Yeah.

 Video clip 2:

It is an old school Pizza Hut. It looks like one. It smells like one. We’re going to check it out. Pizza Hut Classic.

Regina:

I see LCDs.

Billy:

Oh, come on. Everything else is perfect.

John:

The place looks cool as hell though.

Billy:

Yeah, minus the LCD screens.

John:

Yeah, okay.

Billy:

Also, it looks like it has a modern HVAC system. I don’t know.

John:

Billy.

Regina:

What? You’re being absurd.

Billy:

I’m joking about that part. Does it have the classic red cups?

John:

Yeah, they have the red tumblers. Yes.

Billy:

Okay. That makes up for it.

John:

Yeah. This is in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. That’s another Pizza Hut Classic. If you go into the comments on this YouTube video, the top comment is, “Awesome. Thank you so much for this. I’ve been trying to find out where the Pizza Hut Classics are for a couple months now.” Anytime you search for a Pizza Hut Classic anywhere on the internet, it is not mentioned very often, but when it is, and there’s a comment section, the comment section is full of people asking where Pizza Hut Classics are. There is no definitive list of Pizza Hut Classics anywhere on the internet. They’re not collected. They don’t seem to be aware of each other.

John:

The most common thing people want to know about Pizza Hut Classic is, “Where can I find a list of Pizza Hut Classics?” There was a Reddit post over here and it asks point blank. The name of this Reddit thread is, “Is there a full list anywhere of all Pizza Hut Classic locations?” Basically, the comments arrive at no. The answer is no. There is not a list anywhere. There are no press releases. The only news clip I could find anywhere was about Warren, Ohio. It seems like Pizza Hut doesn’t want to call attention to these locations at all. It’s weird.

Regina:

I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want to call attention to it. It’s clearly an investment to do it.

John:

Yes. This is how I feel.

Billy:

Unless…

Regina:

Unless they are AB testing. I don’t know. Then that would throw off the test.

Billy:

Or it’s a longer game strategy of letting the myth of these trickle out there and trying to create this kind of hype of like, “Where are they? How do I find them?”

Regina:

I just feel like there’s no corporation that’s good at a strategy like that, like a subtle, “Let them come to us.” That doesn’t translate.

John:

The closest thing I could find to an official acknowledgement of Pizza Hut Classic is this commercial starring the guy who played Darryll on The Office.

Regina:

Oh, yeah.

John:

He’s in a series of Pizza Hut commercials and the aesthetic is kind of the same.

Video clip 3:

Man, me and Pizza Hut go way back. I’ve been playing this game since ’82.

Billy:

Ah, see that one they have a CRT in.

John:

Yeah, no LCD screen in this one.

Video clip 3:

I mean, who eats dots anyway? I need a variety.

John:

He’s sitting in a room that looks inspired by Pizza Hut Classic.

Regina:

Yeah. I see the light.

John:

It’s got the Tiffany lamps, the brick, he’s playing an arcade game, but no mention in this commercial even of Pizza Hut Classic. It’s just a Pizza Hut commercial. Looking around from that Instagram post that I shared with you, I found someone who knew a little bit about Pizza Hut Classic a little bit.

Rolando Pujol:

My name is Rolando Pujol. By trade, I’m a journalist, I’m an executive producer at WABC-TV in New York, but on the side, my avocation is traveling the country. I’m sort of exploring these nooks and crannies of places with overlooked, forgotten roadside Americana.

Billy:

Great hobby.

Regina:

I really thought it was going to be of exploring Pizza Huts.

John:

No.

Billy:

Also a great hobby.

John:

Rolando has a website. It’s called The Retrologist. He’s got an Instagram account that’s dedicated to old roadside establishments in the US.

Rolando Pujol:

I quickly began to realize that these kinds of posts, the old diners and the old McDonald’s, and these kinds of places, those were the ones that were resonating with people.

John:

What draws you to these things? What is it about the roadside Americana that’s interesting to you?

Rolando Pujol:

The wonderful thing about roadside Americana and this kind of nostalgia is that is so many aspects of life intersect, right? You’re talking about architecture, design, culinary history, fashion trends. So much about our history as Americans can be explored by looking at a place that’s a time capsule of a particular time. Just noticing these older places, and then really beginning to notice when the mass extinction events began to happen in the 2000s when these places began to disappear, and places that you took for granted, “Oh, that place will never go away,” it went away. There was just such a development boom in that first decade of the 21st century that I began to realize that, “Oh, my God. These places are incredibly precious.”

John:

We’re talking about places that are kitsch, right? Old retro kitsch that kind of represents an older America. What he’s saying here about all these places closing, it tracks with places like Pizza Hut. A ton of Pizza Hut locations began closing dine-in locations in the last 10, 20 years and shifted to pick-up, delivery, they’re doing ghost kitchens. There’s a wing brand that is actually a Pizza Hut. That’s part of what made these Pizza Hut Classics exciting.

Billy:

Wait, didn’t they already have a wing brand? WingStreet or something?

John:

Yeah, that is the wing brand. Yeah.

Billy:

That pre-existed ghost kitchens though.

John:

Oh, okay.

Billy:

They started doing combination Pizza Hut-WingStreets a while ago.

John:

Okay.

Regina:

Billy is the person who writes into Trivial Pursuit about the Pizza Hut Edition.

John:

Yeah. I know. The fact that these kinds of places close so often is what made Pizza Hut Classic exciting to Rolando.

Rolando Pujol:

This is what happened. This is back, I think, in May of 2020. I was driving up along Route 6 in Pennsylvania, and I see a towering Pizza Hut sign with the classic logo, like the 1974 logo, which I know they had brought back in 2019.

John:

To clarify here, this is around the time when Pizza Hut changed their corporate identity and started using a logo and typefaces and imagery that were way, way closer to what they were using in the ’80s and ’90s. Recently, they’ve gone… Burger King did this too. They’ve gone back to a retro looking official logo for Pizza Hut. So, finding this sign on the side of the road, you thought this was part of that campaign.

Rolando Pujol:

To me, that looked to me more like a sort of a marketing initiative where they would use that logo on their Facebook page and then maybe in flyers and in boxes perhaps, but they weren’t going to go through the actual trouble and cost and commitment that comes with changing signage and redoing architecture at stores. That’s a real commitment, right? I couldn’t believe it. I’m like, “Wait a minute. Is this an old one that wasn’t touched?” but it says “classic.” This is new. This is new old. What’s going on here?

John:

The one that he was at was closed for dine-in because this was at the very beginning of the pandemic, but Rolando took a look at the outside, and that is the Instagram post that I had shared with you earlier. Actually, those photos were taken by Rolando.

Rolando Pujol:

I got some pictures and it looked to be something that have been just done. There was a plaque by the door which explained what they were doing, and each of these Pizza Hut Classics has this plaque that explains the philosophy of this.

John:

Here’s the text of that plaque as read by a computer.

Dramatic voice:

[patriotic music plays].

Dramatic voice:

My brother and I opened the first Pizza Hut in Wichita, Kansas with nothing but a dream and $600 borrowed from our mother. Since then, we’ve become one of the world’s best known brands. This Pizza Hut Classic celebrates our heritage with a design that’s reminiscent of our original dine-in restaurants. It reminds us of the Pizza Hut where generations of Americans first fell in love with pizza. We’re so happy to have you here. We hope you will fall in love all over again. Dan Carney, founder.

John:

A special shout out to Descript for adding the Santa voice this month.

Billy:

Oh, I thought I recognized that voice.

John:

Rolando has been to multiple Pizza Hut Classics by now and they are some of his most popular posts.

Rolando Pujol:

I’ve been to the Pennsylvania one, Virginia, North Carolina, I’ve been to Warren, Ohio. So, I’ve been to four.

John:

Are they good?

Rolando Pujol:

Yeah. They’re really cool inside. I’ve eaten at two of them. It’s Pizza Hut. It’s one of those things where, did it taste better 20, 30 years ago? I don’t know. Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t, but it hits the spot.

John:

But Rolando has not been able to find a complete list of locations either. I called Pizza Hut’s press line and left a message. I called them again and left another message. I sent them multiple emails. I’ve gotten no response from Pizza Hut corporate.

Billy:

Wow.

John:

Yeah. This is a common thing with anytime I’ve tried to… We’ve hit walls before trying to get in touch with junk food companies. I think it’s like the calculus of them talking to somebody about this kind of thing is what do they have to gain.

Billy:

Was this always the case or are brands now increasingly afraid of journalists? It’s just so weird that they… I mean, they have press departments.

John:

Maybe they heard my hard hitting report on the McFlurry and decided that this is not someone to be messed with and they won’t answer. Yeah.

Regina:

I think they want to control the narrative.

John:

Yeah. What do they have to gain by talking to me about this? Next, I gave a call to that Warren, Ohio Pizza Hut, the only one basically that’s-

Adrianne:

Did you talk to Bob?

John:

I did talk to Bob. I wasn’t able to do a formal interview on tape, unfortunately.

Adrianne:

Oh, my gosh.

John:

I know. We had a very short conversation. Bob was perfectly friendly about this. His restaurant is part of a pretty big group of Pizza Huts franchise by Hallrich Incorporated. They have 124 Pizza Hut locations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Indiana. What Bob explained is that Pizza Hut has been, we know this, they’ve been closing dine-in locations in the past three years. Here’s the interesting thing. For some older restaurants like his that need facelifts, Pizza Hut made the Pizza Hut Classic treatment available to them as an option to do as a retrofit. Apparently, it can cost $600,000 to a million dollars to totally gut renovate an old Pizza Hut to modernize it, but if you want to flip it and turn it into a Pizza Hut classic, it could be $50,000 or $60,000 because they don’t modify the building.

Billy:

Oh.

John:

Right?

Adrianne:

So, you wouldn’t go modern and then go back? You would go directly from dilapidated to classic?

John:

Yeah. That isn’t really the path that his restaurant had taken. I didn’t remember this at all. There was a thing called Pizza Hut Bistro for a while. That was more upscale or something. They’ve done a few facelifts but the bones of the place have been the same the whole time. For these older locations that have the booths and the salad bar and these kinds of things already in, it’s way cheaper to just now they’ve got this concept of a Pizza Hut Classic. You keep all that, you put in new carpet, you reupholster the booths with the vinyl, add the Tiffany lamps, bring in whatever arcade machines are available, and it is a pretty cheap and quick flip on the place.

Billy:

It’s because they’re using LCD screens that are very cheap.

John:

Sure. Yeah. You don’t have to maintain those CRTs.

Billy:

Yeah.

John:

But where are these things, right? Bob didn’t have a list himself. He doesn’t know where the other ones are. He only seemed to know at the time that he was the 11th one. He didn’t even have a list of the other ones in the Hallrich group but he said there were a few of them.

Billy:

Based on what you’re saying, it makes sense that these would be in kind of more rural or more offbeat areas because that real estate would be too valuable in a busy metropolitan area, right? It would be quickly turned into something else.

Regina:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Billy:

Could I pay to turn my basement into a Pizza Hut Classic?

Regina:

I guarantee you could.

John:

But not in an official capacity.

Billy:

Oh, okay.

Regina:

No, you just have to become a franchise owner. Yeah.

Billy:

Oh, okay. I was thinking if I could do a GoFundMe for the $50,000 to $60,000 or whatever you said.

John:

Well, this is what the Patreon is ultimately for, right?

Billy:

Right. My basement Pizza Hut.

John:

Bob didn’t know where the other ones are. I spoke to another person at Hallrich. They don’t have a complete list of locations. They said they would get back to me about the Hallrich locations and I haven’t heard anything at the time of this recording. So, I took it upon myself to seek these out. Over the last week, I’ve done a red string situation with a bunch of Pizza Hut Classics because every time you find one of them posted, the comments usually include someone else who’s like, “Oh, my God. There’s one of these near me too. I thought it was the only one,” and the list where that one is. You can kind of follow this as a web of people comparing notes about Pizza Hut Classics and start to develop a list of Pizza Hut Classic locations.

Adrianne:

Nice. Classic research technique.

John:

Yeah. I’ve spent hours this week on Instagram, Reddit, and YouTube, and compiled the list of… What am I up to right now? 14 confirmed and two that are questionable that I want to look into more because the Google Street View is outdated.

Regina:

Nice.

John:

We’re getting close. If it was 11 in 2019, I feel like this is getting close to a complete list of locations.

Regina:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Billy:

Wow. What a great public service.

Regina:

Yeah.

John:

I’ll read out what I’ve got right now and I’m assuming that it is not complete. We’ve got Warren, Ohio, Kilmarnock, Virginia, Bryson City, North Carolina, Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, Spring Lake Park, Minnesota, Carrizo Springs, Texas, Fairfield, Texas, Eureka Springs, Arkansas, Park Rapids, Minnesota, Dahlonega, Georgia, Clayton, Georgia, Lavonia, Georgia, Sayre, Pennsylvania, Wadena, Minnesota, and the two that I need to verify are Bloomfield, Indiana, and Weatherford, Texas.

Billy:

These are great town names.

John:

Hard to read, I’ll say that.

Regina:

There’s a bunch of states with two in them, some with three in them. I’m curious about just the division of these. I guess maybe it just is a franchise thing. Yeah, I’m curious.

John:

I think if I were to dig into this more, you’d find that these companies, these franchise companies, a few of them have gotten into this as a way to flip stores.

Billy:

What’s the closest to the New York metropolitan area?

John:

Believe it or not, I think it’s Warren, Ohio.

Regina:

What?

Billy:

Yeah.

John:

Yeah. It would take three or four hours to get there from where I am.

Billy:

Let’s go.

John:

I mean, Omicron is a thing.

Regina:

It is.

Billy:

Oh, that’s true. Yep.

John:

Yeah.

Billy:

Bummer. We don’t have to eat. Remember some people just walk in.

John:

Just wander the premises.

Billy:

Yeah. Walk in, be like, “Ah, LCD screens. Let’s go.”

John:

Seen enough.

Regina:

God.

John:

I will put this list on the Underunderstood website and I’ll start a thread in our subreddit. I’m sure I’m missing some locations, so listener, if you live near a real Pizza Hut Classic, email us at hello@underunderstood.com, put a Pizza Hut Classic in the subject line or something, and I will add it to our list, and hopefully, we can be the source of truth for where these Pizza Hut Classics are in the US. That’s it for Underunderstood this year. That’s 2021.

Adrianne:

Thanks for listening.

Billy:

Happy Holidays.

Adrianne:

We have a Patreon and a bonus show that we’ve done more than 50 episodes.

John:

61 episodes as of this week.

Adrianne:

Wow. 61 episodes. If you sign up for our Patreon, it’s $5 a month, you can immediately listen to all 61 episodes and then unsubscribe. That’s fine.

John:

Well, that’s one way to do the pitch.

Regina:

If you listen to all 61 episodes, you’ve earned it.

John:

In a month. Yeah.

Regina:

That’s a lot of us. You can unsubscribe.

John:

If you have a question that the internet can’t answer and you want us to find the answer for you, email us at hello@underunderstood.com. Some of our best episodes have come from listener questions.

Adrianne:

Definitely.

Regina:

Oh, yeah. Now, you can give us a rating on Spotify, which is cool.

Billy:

You think we can get more stars than Rogan?

John:

Well, it caps at five.

Billy:

No, I mean a higher average.

John:

Oh, maybe. Yeah. Let’s go for it.

Adrianne:

Please have a happy new year, stay safe, get your booster, and we’ll be back next year with more episodes.

John:

Bye.

Regina:

Bye.