It's another edition of Civics 101 Trivia! This time, it's also the swan song for one of our own.
Senior Producer Christina Phillips, our mastermind of minutiae and all things related to taxes, joins us to convene a final round of her trademark trivia.
Here is the link to the FOIA documents about the government's involvement in Hollywood productions.
Transcript
Christina Phillips: Hi, this is Civics 101. I'm Christina Phillips,
Hannah McCarthy: I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice: I'm Nick Capodice,
Rebecca Lavoie: And I am Rebecca Lavoie.
Christina Phillips: And I'm realizing it's awkward for me to introduce while we're here.
Rebecca Lavoie: But I'll say it.
Christina Phillips: Okay.
Rebecca Lavoie: Christina, you are moving over to the newsroom at NHPR. You got a big promotion, and this is your final episode that you are writing and producing and being in on the Civics 101 team, and we will miss you so much. But we are also so happy for you.
Hannah McCarthy: We are so happy to start playing Bittersweet Symphony.
Nick Capodice: We're so happy for you.
Rebecca Lavoie: I want to get sued by the rolling Stone.
Nick Capodice: That's right.
Christina Phillips: A good way to go out. Yeah, I decided that I would finish us off with a trivia. Ooh. And I tried to pick a bunch of things that were my favorite things, and then a couple of things that were that you guys know really well that I don't know. And then there's some. It's all fun.
Rebecca Lavoie: And there's dumb questions for Rebecca.
Nick Capodice: About taxes and the CIA and other things. Things that nobody else can understand.
Christina Phillips: Well, it's funny you should mention that, Nick, because our first round is taxes.
Nick Capodice: Do you know, like, do you have the (sound)
Christina Phillips: Can't do anything.
Nick Capodice: The fail horn effect.
Hannah McCarthy: I want to know why excise taxes exist
Rebecca Lavoie: Oh, God.
Christina Phillips: Don't ask me that.
Nick Capodice: Okay, well, that's. You brought it up in a way.
Christina Phillips: Okay, well, no, I'm. Maybe I do know what that is.
Hannah McCarthy: No, I know what it is. I just don't know why it exists. I don't know why we have them.
Christina Phillips: I think it's just another way to get money.
Nick Capodice: Yeah.
Christina Phillips: Okay. So taxes. I've done a number of episodes on taxes.
Rebecca Lavoie: And we know.
Christina Phillips: I was like, well, where do I start? I googled tax trivia, and a fun thing I learned is that the IRS has its own tax trivia. What? Yeah. You can take a little quiz. Well, it's. I mean, it's a government website, so, like, you have to click on each question and then you have to click the answer and then it reveals it. And then you have to click back back back to go.
Rebecca Lavoie: Doesn't work on mobile probably.
Christina Phillips: I didn't even try.
Nick Capodice: Yeah. Compatible and Netscape and Opera.
Christina Phillips: I did take it and I got 100%.
Nick Capodice: So good for you.
Christina Phillips: If there's one thing I'm taking away from the show, it's that I can get 100% on the IRS trivia. But there were some fun questions. So this is not for points. Here's a question. Uh, which ancient civilization revered tax professionals as the most noble profession in society?
Nick Capodice: Ancient Greeks?
Christina Phillips: Yes, it is ancient Greeks. All right, well, now I'm going to destroy you with these trivia questions, so I hope you're ready.
Nick Capodice: All right.
Christina Phillips: In 1959, Florida passed a tax policy known as the Green Belt law, which had to do with taxation of land in order to preserve agricultural land. The state gave a tax break to land that was zoned for agricultural use, so farming, etc.. Creative minds found a loophole that allowed them to exploit this tax policy, and that loophole became known as the rent a what loophole? All right, you get Hannah.
Nick Capodice: Yeah.
Christina Phillips: Well, I'm going to start with you.
Hannah McCarthy: I wrote Petting Zoo.
Christina Phillips: So that is a very interesting answer. It's not correct, but it's like so close on so many different levels.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay.
Christina Phillips: Okay. So, Nick.
Nick Capodice: I wrote Rent a Cow.
Christina Phillips: Yes, that is the correct answer.
Christina Phillips: Rebecca, what was your guess?
Rebecca Lavoie: I wrote Rent an Orchard because that's what Florida is known for. But I'm just gonna throw that away.
Nick Capodice: Okay. Nice crumple foleyy there.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay, so. So being a dairy farm is not the same thing as being an agricultural thing.
Christina Phillips: Let me explain the policy. So and then you'll understand why your guess was so close to good and not quite so. The idea was that if you buy a bunch of land as a developer, for example, it's going to take some time before you can actually start developing that land. You got to get permits. You get to do zoning. Uh, maybe it's going to be a number of years, but you've scooped up the land when it was for sale with big dreams ahead. Well, in order to take advantage of that tax loophole, you lease out the land very cheaply to maybe 1 or 2 farmers who get way more acres for the thing they want to do. So a commercial real estate developer might lease out an entire plot of land to one farmer who has maybe three cows. This loophole was just adjusted, sort of revised in the most recent tax bill in 2025.
Nick Capodice: So it's been a while.
Christina Phillips: Yeah. So that was it was a big push to sort of close that loophole. We'll see how successful that is because, you know, how trying to close tax loopholes works. Its you sort of like put a finger in one hole and then another one pops up ten feet down the road. So lawmakers in Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas passed a law that exempted self-employed artists from paying income taxes for Social Security and Medicaid and provided them lower taxes when selling their publishing rights. So one of the biggest benefactors of this law was this artist, whose songs have been used in soundtracks for One Tree Hill, crossroads, Dawson's Creek and Sex and the city, Erin Brockovich and one poorly advised Neutrogena sunscreen commercial.
Hannah McCarthy: Garth Brooks.
Christina Phillips: No.
Nick Capodice: Reba mcEntire.
Christina Phillips: No. It is a woman. Some of her songs include. Every day is a Winding Road.
Rebecca Lavoie: Sheryl Crow. Yes. Oh! Oh, yeah. Oh. It's awesome. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the feelin.
Christina Phillips: So.
Nick Capodice: Good.
Christina Phillips: A big tax break.
Nick Capodice: What's her like, sun song.
Christina Phillips: Soak up the sun. We have one more loophole question. Before a company goes public, it has the option to divvy up its stock among investors and employees. And then those employees and investors can profit directly off the stock growth without it being considered income. And this tech CEO, who apparently is obsessed with Settlers of Catan and never loses, that's air quotes and recently got into jujitsu, used this policy to value his own stock at $0.06 before his company went public, and then got massive gains on the orders of billions of dollars when the stock debuted and the price went up.
Rebecca Lavoie: Mark Zuckerberg.
Nick Capodice: Yes. Nicely done.
Rebecca Lavoie: I knew that because the jiu jitsu thing.
Nick Capodice: That's right, he was going to fight Elon Musk. Or something like that. They were gonna have a little a little donnybrook and they never did it.
Christina Phillips: So over the years, there have been a number of attempts in different countries to tax the wealthy by applying taxes to things that presumably only wealthy people buy or use. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. So we're going to talk about luxury taxes in the modern era in a minute. But I have a couple of questions about poorly executed wealth taxes in the days of yore. So first, a shout it out. For about 30 years, at the turn of the 19th century, Britain tried to impose a tax on which article of clothing that was seen as a wealthy fashion choice.
Rebecca Lavoie: Was it a waistcoat?
Nick Capodice: What is that?
Nick Capodice: It's a waistcoat. Oh, no.
Christina Phillips: No, but I like that.
Nick Capodice: It's an article of clothing.
Christina Phillips: Yeah, it's an accessory. I would say.
Nick Capodice: A Beaver - like that fancy hat.
Nick Capodice: It's fascinating. Yeah.
Nick Capodice: A beaver is a hat.
Nick Capodice: Maybe a beaver.
Christina Phillips: Oh, okay.
Rebecca Lavoie: Yeah, that's me too, Nick.
Christina Phillips: Yeah, just broadly hats, but I'm gonna assume including those hats.
Nick Capodice: This is, I'll say this really fast. The reason that hats are so luxury is that it takes beaver. Beaver fur as part of felt production, and felt was in hats. And New York City had a ton of beavers because it was an island, basically Manhattan. So it was like, you know, the rich beaver town. That should be our show name - Beaver town. Beaver town.
Christina Phillips: Here's another attempt in England to tax the wealthy. For about 200 years, starting in the 1600s, there was a tax on what feature of a building that was seen as valuable.
Hannah McCarthy: Windows?
Christina Phillips: Yes.
Nick Capodice: Oh. Well done.
Christina Phillips: So the more windows you had, the higher the taxes.
Hannah McCarthy: I have to say, I learned that from playing a board game with Nick. Oh, really?
Nick Capodice: In the game, John Company windows are how you measure how much money you. Because people, if they didn't want to pay taxes would like brick up windows.
Christina Phillips: Wow. Yeah.
Christina Phillips: So have you guys ever seen the movie tenet?
Nick Capodice: Yes, I've seen the first half of it.
Nick Capodice: What? Yeah, I never finished. You can't not see that. I thought.
Nick Capodice: I saw it next month.
Hannah McCarthy: I also fell asleep during midsummer. I have weird experiences with movies.
Christina Phillips: This is a Christopher Nolan movie that is about what he calls reverse entropy. So basically, the idea that you can go forwards and backwards through time, it's completely ridiculous. I highly recommend it. But for the purposes of this trivia, it takes place in what's known as a free port. Are you guys familiar with freeports?
Rebecca Lavoie: Are those tax havens.
Christina Phillips: Basically a free port? Often they're at airports or at ports of entry. They are sort of locations that are not bound by sales tad.
Rebecca Lavoie: Oh like duty free.
Christina Phillips: Yeah.
Christina Phillips: So they're not bound by the taxes of the actual physical location where they are. So in the United States, they're also known as foreign trade zones. And they were really became popular during the Great Depression. It was a way to allow the United States to recover and be competitive in global markets. Like if you could sort of store things and like wait for the market to improve before you sort of transport it across lines. So over the past century or so they have become tax havens for. Extremely valuable property. So the Louvre president once described them as the greatest museums nobody can see. So the ultra wealthy will store some of the most expensive art gold, jewels, whatever, until they're ready to sell it. They don't want to display the Renoir in their house. They want to own it, and they keep it in this area where they're not having to pay taxes on it. Sometimes when you purchase it, the auctioneer will even transport it for you, so you're not necessarily moving it across state lines. So they're basically just like these zones where where there's all of these collections of art and valuables that are stored all around the world. So the following questions are about freeports and the kinds of things in them. So, Nick, this question is for you.
Nick Capodice: Sure.
Christina Phillips: The largest Freeport in the world with more than 1 million works of art, is located in this city, which is also home to the most international organizations in the world and is the location of Goldfinger Warehouse from James Bond.
Nick Capodice: Oh dear.
Nick Capodice: My brain is saying Switzerland or Sweden. I'm going to say Switzerland.
Nick Capodice: Yes. So it's in Geneva. I'll give it to you.
Nick Capodice: Oh, that's generous of you.
Nick Capodice: What is that?
Rebecca Lavoie: It says Geneva. I wrote it down.
Christina Phillips: Well, the question wasn't for you.
Rebecca Lavoie: I know, I'm just so proud.
Nick Capodice: I'm proud for you for guessing.
Christina Phillips: Rebecca. Everyone. Rebecca is smart.
Rebecca Lavoie: Usually.
Hannah McCarthy: Or perhaps she's fabulously wealthy.
Christina Phillips: The Geneva Freeport, as I said, has over 1 million works of art. By comparison, the Louvre in Paris, which is considered it's the largest art museum by square footage but also considered to have one of the largest collections, has about 380,000 works of art.
Nick Capodice: Wow.
Christina Phillips: So there's just entire collections that are stored in Geneva at this Freeport that nobody else can see.
Nick Capodice: Did you know that the real Mona Lisa is not in the Louvre.
Christina Phillips: Really?
Nick Capodice: No. Apparently it's just a picture of her.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh my gosh. Nick, I know Nick got me with that.
Christina Phillips: We're going to talk more broadly about luxury taxes. The United States tried to have a luxury tax. Now of course, luxury taxes are taxes on goods. It's usually an additional tax on top of a sales tax for certain items that are worth a certain amount. So for example, boats, cars, aircraft, furs and jewelry over a certain amount of money. The United States tried this. So Rebecca, this question is for you. Congress enacted a luxury tax in this year. It was the same year Jeffrey Dahmer was captured. A spoof interview on Soviet television claim that Lenin ate so many magic mushrooms that he turned into one and the Soviet Union fell. 1989 know. 1991 Congress eliminated the luxury tax in this year under pressure from the yacht industry. This is the same.
Hannah McCarthy: Yachts make me laugh.
Christina Phillips: Those yachts.
Hannah McCarthy: Come on.
Christina Phillips: Okay.
Rebecca Lavoie: We apologize to all the yacht owners out there.
Christina Phillips: I don't apologize. This year was the same year that Ted Danson wore blackface on TV. 76 Branch Davidians were killed in a siege in Waco, Texas, and Jurassic Park came out.
Archive: I'm simply saying that life finds a way.
Nick Capodice: 1994.
Christina Phillips: Oh you were so close. 93. 93.
Rebecca Lavoie: So two years of a luxury tax?
Christina Phillips: Yes so put in place by H.W. Bush and undone by Clinton.
Nick Capodice: Wow.
Hannah McCarthy: Wow.
Hannah McCarthy: Capitalism didn't last.
Christina Phillips: All right, so we've reached the end of the taxes round. Nick has three. Hannah has one. Rebecca has two.
Christina Phillips: And we will have more trivia after a quick break.
Hannah McCarthy: We're back. This is Civics 101. This is Christina's trivia extravaganza. Our next round is presidential memoirs. You guys may know this about me, but I went to graduate school for nonfiction writing, and one did. Yeah, and one of the things that we focused on a lot was memoir. And I love memoirs because I think unlike a biography or a nonfiction book about something, the memoir is really telling because how a person chooses to tell their own story often tells you more about them than the actual contents of that story. And so many of the memoirs we're going to talk about also involved ghostwriters, but it's so much about putting it in your own voice. So. So how does a person tell the story of their life? So I have some questions about presidents who wrote memoirs. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you the title of the memoir, and then I'm going to start reading you clues, and then you shout out when you have a guess about who the president is. And even if you guessed it right away, I'm still going to read the clues because they're funny. At least some of them are. Okay. So our first memoir, the title is An American Life. So this president's first marriage only appears in one paragraph of the book with the line quote, it didn't work out.
Rebecca Lavoie: Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan.
Nick Capodice: Well done.
Christina Phillips: That's all you needed.
Nick Capodice: Didn't work out.
Christina Phillips: I'm gonna give you a couple more facts from An American Life, which was one of Reagan's memoirs. So chapter titles include A New Beginning. Staying the course. The Middle East and Lebanon. The first sentence of the summary on Amazon is, quote, few presidents have accomplished more have been so effective in changing the direction of government in ways that are both fundamental and lasting than Ronald Reagan, which I tend to agree with.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, I also agree with that.
Christina Phillips: Totally, yes. Next question. The title of the memoir is At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends. Some of the titles for chapters are: Sauce for the gander. The key to the Closet and lost in the Pentagon.
Nick Capodice: Eisenhower.
Christina Phillips: It is Eisenhower.
Christina Phillips: What gave it away.
Nick Capodice: The title.
Rebecca Lavoie: Yeah, I was going to say. Military title.
Christina Phillips: At Ease stories I tell to friends.
So I don't think anybody was at ease talking to Dwight Eisenhower.
Christina Phillips: So he was, of course, the supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II. Before becoming president, I actually was able to access quite a bit of this book on Google Books and look through it, and it's very entertaining. There is an entire he talks a lot about his childhood, and there's an entire chapter about being like five years old. And I just want to share an excerpt. So he's talking about being a five year old encountering geese. And there was one goose in particular who was a nemesis of his. And he describes the experience this way. Quote. Thus the war began in the early parts of the campaign. I lost a skirmish every half hour and invariably had to flee ignominiously and weeping from the battlefield without support and lacking arms of any kind. It was only by resorting to distressing retreat after retreat to the kitchen door that I kept myself from disaster.
Hannah McCarthy: This is very interesting because for someone who would go on to be so incredibly like such a force in the military to start your book with, like, it all started with the goose. It's almost like it's an odd choice to make. I know everyone doesn it.
Rebecca Lavoie: You are totally displaying your lack of experience with geese right now.
Hannah McCarthy: No, no, that's not true they are so terrifying. There were whole sections of my college campus that were off limits for like, for a whole season every year because the baby geese had come. And you don't you don't get near Mother Goose. The fact that the rhymes are called Mother Goose doesn't make any sense, because a mother goose is the most terrifying bird.
Christina Phillips: Okay. So our last one is called a Charge to Keep. This was written before this person became president. Some of the titles of chapters include Yale in the National Guard, Harvard, and Moving Home reading The New Civil Right. An early ghostwriter was fired because he was seen as overemphasizing early failures and challenges, including in business, and the title of the book comes from a painting called A Charge to Keep by Charles Wesley, and it depicts a man on horseback charging up a muddy mountain. This president displayed this painting in the governor's office when they were governor of their state, and then in the Oval Office.
Nick Capodice: George W Bush.
Nick Capodice: Yes. George W Bush.
Christina Phillips: Yeah. So this was published in 1999. I love the fact that he fired an early ghostwriter because he was like, no, no, we don't talk about my oil business. Yeah, this is about my accomplishments. The end of that round. The score is. Nick five. Hannah one. Rebecca three.
Christina Phillips: Our next round. A category. I've just called Hollywood. Because i didn't bother making hollywood any more creative.
Nick Capodice: Everybody has a dream.
Christina Phillips: So we have been doing some episodes recently about our favorite movies, about the government. I have always been fascinated with the government's relationship to Hollywood, which has been apparent in some of the movies we've talked about, perhaps will be apparent in some of the future movies. So this is all about the relationship between Hollywood and the federal government. And then at some time, state governments as well. So in a few circumstances, the government has helped fund directly fund some aspects of different movies or TV shows, but in reality, government support means something different. It usually means giving filmmakers access to shooting locations or consultants or supplies in exchange for oversight or some sort of editorial control. We'll let you film in the CIA building if you let the CIA edit your script. So a classic example is 1994 is Clear and Present Danger, which is a Jack Ryan movie. The CIA wanted a scene that showed a conflict between two people in the agency removed. So it came out, and there were parts of that movie that were filmed using CIA headquarters and CIA technology. Also, in a clear and present danger, the FBI had a note that the president was not allowed to be racist. And so there were script modifications for that. So this next round is going to be all about movies that were made with, quote, support by government agencies. Support meaning in exchange for locations, equipment consultation.
Nick Capodice: Cool.
Christina Phillips: I had so much fun reading about this. There's so many FOIA documents that are just emails back and forth between the government and different sets, and Hollywood producers at the CIA. There was a person known as the Entertainment Industry Liaison. These different agencies literally have offices that are working with Hollywood, and this includes movies, TV shows, reality TV. There's a lot of government involvement in reality TV, which is fascinating, including like cooking shows.
Hannah McCarthy: Why?
Christina Phillips: Why I didn't go down the rabbit hole of cooking shows, but I can. I'll post the link to the website that has all of these FOIA requests, and I spent hours on it. So I'm going to give you a couple of clues. Just random clues about a movie. Maybe it's actors, maybe it's topic. And then I want you to guess which movie I'm talking about. So here are my clues. Ben Affleck.
Rebecca Lavoie: Argo.
Christina Phillips: No. War. Air force.
Rebecca Lavoie: Pearl Harbor.
Nick Capodice: Yes, yes.
Archive: Yeah. Well, you don't have to explain anything to me.
Archive: I do. Because you're acting like I didn't love you.
Archive: Loving you kept me alive.
Hannah McCarthy: It's Liv Tyler, right? Liv Tyler in that one.
Christina Phillips: Un I thought it was like Kate Beckinsale.
Rebecca Lavoie: Kate. I think it's Kate Beckinsale.
Christina Phillips: Let's look it up.
Rebecca Lavoie: Up. It could be. Or it could be Liv Tyler.
Nick Capodice: Do you say say Kate Beckinstale.
Rebecca Lavoie: Kate Beckinsale.
Nick Capodice: I just thought that would be a funny put down.
Hannah McCarthy: I love Kate Beckinsale.
Nick Capodice: Like Kate Beckinstale.
Hannah McCarthy: She seems like a cool chick.
Rebecca Lavoie: She was in all those vampire movies with Scott Speedman.
Christina Phillips: Uh, underworld? Yes, it's Kate Beckinsale and Josh Hartnett.
Christina Phillips: Um, he's got a wonderful revival of his career.
Rebecca Lavoie: He's so great.
Christina Phillips: Okay, so Pearl Harbor used naval facilities in Hawaii, and then members of the military were extras, and they actually created a large scale replica of the USS Oklahoma using military guidance. And that was, of course, one of the ships that sank in the harbor. Okay. Next clue. Ben Affleck.
Rebecca Lavoie: Argo.
Christina Phillips: No.
Hannah McCarthy: Batman.
Christina Phillips: Oil drilling. Nuclear.
Nick Capodice: Armageddon.
Christina Phillips: Yes!
Archive: It's my job! You go take care of my little girl now. That's your job.
Nick Capodice: The movie they show to NASA to see how many mistakes they can find.
Rebecca Lavoie: Have you ever seen that Ben Affleck director's cut? Like when he does the commentary over. It's in the best.
Archive: Like eight whole months? As if that's not enough time to learn how to drill a hole. But in a week, we're gonna learn how to be astronauts. Oh, one whole week. Now you know how to fly into space. I need my guys.
Christina Phillips: Nick, would you just give us really quickly the plot of Armageddon.
Nick Capodice: An asteroid is hurtling to the earth.
Hannah McCarthy: That's Liv Tyler. That is lifted my hand on the screen.
Christina Phillips: Yeah.
Nick Capodice: So an asteroid is falling to the Earth, and NASA just can't figure out how to blow it up. But there's a bunch of wacky drilling people headed by Bruce Willis, who the only people on the planet who know how to blow up an asteroid. And it's easier to train a bunch of miners to fly in space than a bunch of people in space to drill a hole.
Christina Phillips: So there was NASA cooperation, but there's a really great disclaimer in the credits of this film. I'm going to read it to you. Quote. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's cooperation and assistance does not reflect an endorsement of the contents of this film or the treatment of the characters depicted therein.
Rebecca Lavoie: Oh, the treatment.
Christina Phillips: So, yes. So, Nick, you got that point. So the next one, Tom cruise, New York, US military tripods.
Rebecca Lavoie: War of the worlds.
Christina Phillips: Yes.
Archive: What do you got? Many. Many, many. Nothing crazy. That guy's gonna come back. He's not gonna go. Many, many. I don't have time to explain. Busting my chops here. I got a shop to run. How many people? No way. Get out of here! Get in, Manny, or you're gonna die!
Nick Capodice: What a terrible movie that was.
Christina Phillips: Oh, I liked that movie.
Nick Capodice: And at the end, it's like an. They died of a cold.
Nick Capodice: Okay. Yeah. I mean, the plot. That's what.
Nick Capodice: H.G. Wells is.
Christina Phillips: Yeah, yeah.
Nick Capodice: What a terrible book.
Christina Phillips: There's a couple of interesting things about the Department of Defense involvement. So they wanted to remove scenes where soldiers retreated, um, where they wanted to modify them so it didn't look as much like the military was running away from the tripod aliens. And then they also rewrote and made suggestions for the battle scenes, including reducing the number of aircraft that were lost in the fight.
Rebecca Lavoie: Wow. So they just did a little polishing of the US military propaganda machine.
Hannah McCarthy: When this happens, we're gonna stick to our guns. Literally.
Christina Phillips: Okay. Next one. Robert De Niro. The CIA. Lie detector test. Ben Stiller.
Nick Capodice: NO. Meet the Parents?
Christina Phillips: Yes.
Nick Capodice: What?
Archive: He told me he grew up on a farm. Mm. Do they have many farms in Detroit?
Archive: No dina. No, no. In fact, Jack, I should clarify this. I didn't actually grow up in a farm. Per se. And the house that we grew up in was originally erected in the early Dutch farm, colonial style. So that. Plus we had a lot of pets.
Christina Phillips: De Niro has a very long and storied history of of making movies and TV shows that are in cooperation with the government.
Nick Capodice: Wag the dog, I imagine.
Christina Phillips: Yes, but meet the parents. Do you want to. Do you have a guess? Like what the CIA had to say about his retired CIA officer portrayal in that movie?
Hannah McCarthy: Well, he gets into his car, and it's still. It's like a super CIA car. And he uses the CIA to investigate his daughter's fiance. And I think the CIA would say we don't do that.
Christina Phillips: They allowed that to happen. But there was a scene that depicted torture manuals. Like on a desk. And they removed those and replaced them with photographs of government officials. Okay, so we don't do torture. We do do spying on fiances and lie detector tests.
Christina Phillips: So the next one, Jeff Daniels single dad aircraft, Canada geese.
Hannah McCarthy: Fly way home.
Christina Phillips: Yes.
Archive: Hey, guys. Hey hey hey hey.
Archive: It's called imprinting. Amy was the first thing they saw when they were born. So they think she's their mother.
Archive: That one's fluffy and that one's grumpy.
Archive: See, the problem with your birds is they're going to want to migrate south.
Nick Capodice: Gusts of air shot out of your right eyeball.
Hannah McCarthy: My weekly viewing of my way home as a child.
Christina Phillips: I knew that you would also love flyaway Home because it's like catnip for the millennial girl.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, such a anna Paquin penguin.
Christina Phillips: Okay, so for anyone who doesn't know Flyaway Home, it's actually based on a true story.
Hannah McCarthy: I know.
Christina Phillips: The father of an 11 year old daughter. Flying geese from Canada to North Carolina. That didn't actually happen. But there was a experimental aircraft that was built to try to help geese migrate, and it looked like a goose. You can see it at the Experimental Aviation Association Museum in Oshkosh in Wisconsin. It's really neat. So there was involvement with the FAA and of course various departments. But I think one of my favorite scenes is there's like this height of conflict scene where they cross from Canada into U.S. territory and they're like, what are you doing? Like, this is not a sanctioned aircraft. Also, she flies alone. This child.
Christina Phillips: Just flies alone forever. Because the whole point is they have to get to North Carolina before a property development starts with these geese. Because if the geese migrate there on time, then they can't develop the property because it becomes protected.
Rebecca Lavoie: Yeah, that's how it works.
Nick Capodice: Yeah. Well, it is, it is, you know.
Christina Phillips: The actual flying with a geese looking machine did really exist.
Nick Capodice: Wow.
Christina Phillips: So fly away home, Hannah. A victorious point for you.
Rebecca Lavoie: Very victorious.
Hannah McCarthy: It's just it never comes up.
Christina Phillips: I know. Okay.
Christina Phillips: This movie has Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon. Carbon dioxide explosion.
Nick Capodice: Apollo 13.
Nick Capodice: Yes. Oh.
Rebecca Lavoie: Of course.
Archive: Okay, people.
Archive: Listen up. People upstairs here. This is this one, and we got to come through. We gotta find a way to make this fit into the hole for this, using nothing but that.
Christina Phillips: Nasa, of course, played a big role in the accuracy and recreation of this mission, but it was actually the Navy that had the most noticeable script edits. And the Navy, of course, is only really in the one scene where they're rescued after they land in the water. But they insisted that the script remove all swearing.
Nick Capodice: Huh? What?
Christina Phillips: Yeah, and this movie is actually rated PG.
Hannah McCarthy: Which is crazy how 13 is rated PG.
Rebecca Lavoie: So we are to believe that if you are in a doomed aircraft and everybody very likely could die unless this very specific thing is executed perfectly, that nobody would swear.
Christina Phillips: Yeah, exactly.
Rebecca Lavoie: Cool.
Christina Phillips: We've reached the end of the Hollywood round, and the score is as follows. Nick has eight. Hannah has two. Rebecca has six.
Christina Phillips: We're back. This is Civics 101. Our next round is called a torrid West Wing love affair.
Hannah McCarthy: Hmm.
Christina Phillips: So on Civics 101, we all have our niches, our expertise. There's one area of knowledge you all know far better than me. And that's the West Wing, which is a show I've never seen. I've only seen random episodes. Or maybe, you know, clips when I'm trying to pull clips for my own episodes. And every time you reference it, I sort of nod my head and act like I know what you're talking about, and I very rarely do. However, there is one area of pop culture where I think I have more knowledge than you all. And that is the romantic literary career of one Christina Phillips.
Rebecca Lavoie: Hmm.
Christina Phillips: I don't know if that's a pseudonym or not for a while. And depending where you live and you're googling habits. If you Google Christina Phillips, the first thing that will pop up is the romance novelist Christina Phillips.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, I thought that you were about to reveal to us that you're a romance. Oh, no, I imagined I was so excited.
Christina Phillips: I'm sorry. I hate to disappoint you, but it's not me. But there is a woman out there named Christina Phillips who writes romance novels.
Nick Capodice: All right.
Christina Phillips: This quiz is going to be about how well you know the titles of West Wing episodes.
Hannah McCarthy: Ooh.
Christina Phillips: So it's a this or that. You're going to tell me if this is the title of an episode of The West Wing, or if it is the title of a romance novel by Christina Phillips. Are we. Ready? Yes. Yeah.
Christina Phillips: Nick.
Nick Capodice: Oh, dear.
Christina Phillips: First question for you.
Christina Phillips: West wing, a romance novel. Payback.
Nick Capodice: I'm going to say The West Wing.
Christina Phillips: No. The one thing I can say about payback. The novel is, is part of a series about bikers.
Hannah McCarthy: I was really hoping that it was going to be like the Duchess's finest hour. What is it?
Christina Phillips: You know, I wouldn't make it that easy.
Hannah McCarthy: You know.
Christina Phillips: So, Hannah, the title is The Stormy Present.
Nick Capodice: I'm gonna say West Wing.
Christina Phillips: It is West Wing.
Rebecca Lavoie: Nice.
Christina Phillips: So this is from season five, episode ten. President Bartlet clears his schedule to attend the funeral of a former president. You get a. Point.
Christina Phillips: Rebecca.
Rebecca Lavoie: Yeah.
Christina Phillips: Angel maintenance.
Rebecca Lavoie: It's got to be the West Wing.
Christina Phillips: It is the west wing. So do you know what that episode is about?
Rebecca Lavoie: Angel maintenance. Mhm. I don't know, is it about Air Force One?
Christina Phillips: Yeah it is actually. So you get a bonus point.
Nick Capodice: Nice.
Archive: Hey, uh. Listen, everybody. The colonel just told us we're about to go by something incredible, and you hardly ever get to see this. It's going to be out the left side of the plane.
Archive: What is. It?
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, I remember that one. I like any of the episodes on Air Force One.
Christina Phillips: All right, Rebecca, I'm going right back to you.
Rebecca Lavoie: Okay.
Christina Phillips: Stirred.
Rebecca Lavoie: This could honestly be either one so easily. I'm going with a romance novel. Nope.
Christina Phillips: It's an episode of The West Wing season three, episode 13. The president's staff faces a crisis when a rig carrying uranium fuel rods crashes in Idaho. I'm not entirely sure how that involves stirred. Oh, also, there's a whole side plot about filing your taxes online, which I bet I would enjoy.
Christina Phillips: Nick, not so happily ever after.
Nick Capodice: I'm gonna say romance novel.
Nick Capodice: It is.
Nick Capodice: Thank heavens.
Christina Phillips: Hannah.
Nick Capodice: Yes.
Christina Phillips: Cinderella and the geek.
Hannah McCarthy: West wing.
Christina Phillips: Nope.
Rebecca Lavoie: Oh, that sounds like a West Wing title.
Christina Phillips: So this involves a workplace and a fake relationship? Yeah. You gotta love a fake relationship.
Hannah McCarthy: Like The proposal with Sandra Bullock?
Christina Phillips: Yes. Actually, I think it is a boss to employee relationship as well, so.
Rebecca Lavoie: Yeah. So appropriate.
Christina Phillips: Yes. Yeah. So just think of that. All right. I'm going to go right back to you, Hannah. You have another chance.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay.
Christina Phillips: Another chance at redemption. Because that is the title. Redemption.
Hannah McCarthy: Um. West wing?
Christina Phillips: No.
Rebecca Lavoie: So was this a sequel to payback?
Christina Phillips: Um. So, actually, I think one of them is the first one, and one of them is the second one.
Christina Phillips: So I do have a plot description for this one. A fallen archangel saves a woman from a deadly fate and unleashes an ancient power that could destroy the universe itself.
Rebecca Lavoie: Oh, so it's not about cyclist, but it is an angel romance. That's interesting.
Christina Phillips: She's got a wide genre spread.
Christina Phillips: There's also, apparently wolves, vampires. There's, like, covering all the bases.
Christina Phillips: Historical? Yeah. Very diverse. Okay. Nick.
Nick Capodice: Mhm.
Christina Phillips: Bad moon rising.
Nick Capodice: Something bad is happening in the white House. I'm gonna say the West Wing.
Christina Phillips: It is the West Wing.
Christina Phillips: This is season two, episode 19. President Bartlet could be in violation of full disclosure for neglecting to mention his multiple sclerosis.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, that was a big problem. Yeah.
Christina Phillips: Okay. Rebecca.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah.
Christina Phillips: Noel.
Rebecca Lavoie: West wing.
Nick Capodice: It Is.
Nick Capodice: Is that the one that sort of takes place at Christmas time and Josh is dealing with his PTSD.
Archive: You wrapped that yourself, right?
Archive: The bandage. Yeah.
Archive: Donna's going to take you to the emergency room. She knows she was the one who guessed.
Christina Phillips: This feels like I'm reliving so much of my experience because in meetings when you're talking about plots. I'm like, yes. Oh, yeah. That part. I remember that.
Christina Phillips: So the score is as follows. Nick ten. Hannah three. Rebecca eight. We've reached the final category, which is called Redemption Hour. This is just two questions. I've done, I don't know, half a dozen trivia episodes on this show. And in each of those episodes.
Hannah McCarthy: Christina this is is so mean.
Nick Capodice: Wait. Is this. Oh, boy.
Hannah McCarthy: I know exactly what's going on. I have a feeling. Unbelievable.
Christina Phillips: So you've gotten a lot of questions, right? And some questions very, very wrong. I'm calling this redemption hour because I'm going to bring back two questions that you all got so catastrophically wrong.
Nick Capodice: Mhm.
Christina Phillips: And I'm going to give you a chance to try again. So here's how it's going to work. They are both from the holiday food trivia episode from last December. I want you to write your answer down. I'm going to play the tape.
Nick Capodice: Oh.
Christina Phillips: And then you're going to reveal your answers this time around. Are you ready?
Hannah McCarthy: I notably the things that I get wrong, I get wrong for the rest of my life. I always make the same confusion, you know?
Rebecca Lavoie: Absolutely true. And put it out in your performance review.
Hannah McCarthy: She just doesn't learn.
Christina Phillips: Okay, so here is the first question. Several sources mention that this president, former Secretary of State and founding father from Virginia, loved a cocktail known as a yard of flannel. Who is the president? All right, let me play the tape.
Rebecca Lavoie: Thomas Jefferson.
Christina Phillips: No.
Nick Capodice: That's what I was gonna say.
Christina Phillips: No.
Hannah McCarthy: Andrew Jackson.
Nick Capodice: 11 presidents were secretary of state.
Christina Phillips: Founding father, former secretary of state and from Virginia.
Hannah McCarthy: They were all from Virginia.
Nick Capodice: Tyler.
Christina Phillips: No, he was one of the first four presidents.
Nick Capodice: Well, this is embarrassing.
Nick Capodice: I hope you cut that stuff about us not knowing the first.
Rebecca Lavoie: I'm editing..
Christina Phillips: Leave it in. Leave it in, Rebecca.
Christina Phillips: So you did cut it. Okay, so I brought it back.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, God.
Christina Phillips: Because you cut a lot of that in the episode.
Rebecca Lavoie: Look what we all look. Okay, okay, okay, okay. I wrote Thomas Jefferson. I'm thinking about all three of you.
Christina Phillips: Thomas Jefferson.
Nick Capodice: What was it?
Hannah McCarthy: George Washington.
Christina Phillips: No. Stop guessing.
Nick Capodice: Monroe.
Christina Phillips: It was Madison.
Rebecca Lavoie: Oh, I remember you eventually said this guy wrote the Constitution. And we still didn't know.
Nick Capodice: Oh, my God, that.
Christina Phillips: Oh, goodness. Oh, that played out exactly how I would. The worst part is that I wrote this, like, kind of romantic, philosophical thing about James Madison this morning. I have to say, in this the script.
Nick Capodice: I feel like I have a yard of flannel.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah.
Christina Phillips: All right, so no redemption on that one. This is from the same episode. So again, I'm going to have you write down your answers and I'm going to play the tape. And then I'm going to have you reveal your answers. Idaho is the biggest producer of potatoes in the United States. We went around the room and I asked you to share your guests for one of the four states that rounds out the top five potato producers in this country. Idaho is number one, and there are four other states that are top potato producers. So you each got two guesses. Last time, only one person got one out of the eight guesses correct. So let's see. Once you've written down your guesses I'm going to play the tape. Rebecca, you waved your hands. So you first.
Rebecca Lavoie: Maine?
Christina Phillips: No.
Nick Capodice: Oh.
Christina Phillips: Nick.
Nick Capodice: California.
Nick Capodice: No, no.
Nick Capodice: It's so big.
Hannah McCarthy: Ohio.
Christina Phillips: No.
Rebecca Lavoie: New Jersey.
Christina Phillips: Nope.
Nick Capodice: Washington state.
Nick Capodice: Yes. Nice. Nice.
Hannah McCarthy: Mhm. I can, like, see it on a bag of potatoes.
Rebecca Lavoie: That's Idaho.
Hannah McCarthy: That's so good. Rebecca.
Hannah McCarthy: Vermont.
Christina Phillips: No.
Speaker20: All right. We had a lot of bad guesses. One good guess.
Christina Phillips: Rebecca. What did you guess this time?
Nick Capodice: California and Michigan?
Christina Phillips: No. Oh, boy.
Christina Phillips: Nick.
Nick Capodice: California.
Christina Phillips: No.
Nick Capodice: Pennsylvania.
Hannah McCarthy: No. I put California in Minnesota.
Christina Phillips: No, no,
Christina Phillips: Do I do minus one for Nick because he gets it right the first time and not the second.
Nick Capodice: Oh, boy.I did the reverse of getting better. Yeah, it's like when I did so badly in cursive in second grade. And in third grade, it was even worse. The teacher was like, what is wrong with your son?
Christina Phillips: So the states are Washington, Wisconsin, Colorado and North Dakota are all right.
Christina Phillips: So once again, you have not been redeemed.
Nick Capodice: Can you come back next year and do that again?
Rebecca Lavoie: Yeah.
Nick Capodice: Just just like, leave the hot, swanky newsroom file this. If I press that. What a scoop. And just come over here and give us a chance of redemption one more time.
Christina Phillips: Yeah, I'll do a whole redemption.
Nick Capodice: I think everyone deserves a third chance of redemption.
Nick Capodice: Yeah.
Christina Phillips: Same questions. Yeah.
Nick Capodice: No no no no.
Christina Phillips: Are you sure?
Nick Capodice: Yeah, I won't win. Not about the food. I hate it, though. They were so hard.
Christina Phillips: All right, so our final score. Cor. Nic, you have ten. Nice, Hannah. You have three.
Nick Capodice: All right.
Christina Phillips: Rebecca, you have eight.
Rebecca Lavoie: All right.
Christina Phillips: So thank you so much.
Nick Capodice: Oh thank you.
Hannah McCarthy: Thank you. Christina, this was really fun.
Christina Phillips: And I should say that I'm putting together. And you will be hearing it. Listener, in just a minute. I have a little montage of some of my favorite moments that were either on tape or off tape of just recording with you guys. So stick around to hear that.
Christina Phillips: Nick is cringing in horror.
Nick Capodice: No, I'm trying not to cry.
Christina Phillips: Oh, okay.
Nick Capodice: Listeners out there. It's it's it's it is bittersweet. It has been so wonderful to work with Christina. Yeah, yeah. Our show changed when you started working here. And you will be really missed. And you're irreplaceable. But we're all so happy for what you're doing.
Nick Capodice: Thank you. Yeah.
Christina Phillips: Thank you guys.
Christina Phillips: It's hard to leave.
Rebecca Lavoie: As I said to our COO this morning. I'm so happy for Christina, but I'm also so upset because it's her work that makes people think I'm doing a good job, you know?
Christina Phillips: Yeah. Well. You're welcome.
Christina Phillips: This episode was written by me, Christina Phillips, and edited by Rebecca Lavoie. Thank you to our host, Nick Capodice and Hannah McCarthy. And thank you to our producer, Marina Henke.
Nick Capodice: Music in this episode from Epidemic Sound and Chris Zabriskie.
Christina Phillips: Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.
Nick Capodice: Yay!
Christina Phillips: Okay. Um, so, are we ready to get started?
Rebecca Lavoie: Yeah.
Nick Capodice: Yep.
Christina Phillips: Wow. That was so enthusiastic. Okay.
Rebecca Lavoie: Try not to interrupt each other.
Hannah McCarthy: Three times a week.
Nick Capodice: So we're doing hands now. Would you poo pooed when I said it earlier?
Nick Capodice: I did poopoo and I said, should we raise? I should I said, you shouldn't raise your hand. Like, while she's. I mean, maybe we all did.
Nick Capodice: You did.
Rebecca Lavoie: You're right, I did. I'm wrong.
Nick Capodice: Want me to take a photo next time.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh.
Nick Capodice: Let's all just do it.
Nick Capodice: 00000001.
Nick Capodice: And when you like, when you think of Weems.
Hannah McCarthy: Weems.
Nick Capodice: This product is brought to you by Weems. Bingo. Bong!
Hannah McCarthy: Dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba. Hello.
Hannah McCarthy: That is she.
Hannah McCarthy: It's me.
Hannah McCarthy: Bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop.
Nick Capodice: Do you know how many sound checks it takes to change the light bulb?
Christina Phillips: You've also told me this joke.
Nick Capodice: One two.
Nick Capodice: One two.
Nick Capodice: Oh, did you know that in Norway, the boats. The boats have UPC codes on the side.
Christina Phillips: That's really smart.
Nick Capodice: So that when you go you can Scandinavian.
Christina Phillips: Oh no.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh go for your for Christine. It was a really good idea. Um.
Nick Capodice: Did you know that the real Mona Lisa is not in the Louvre?
Christina Phillips: Oh, really?
Nick Capodice: Where is it? No, apparently it's just a picture of her.
Christina Phillips: Oh my gosh. Nick, I know.
Nick Capodice: This is for our listeners. Christina, do you know how to, uh, to, um, make sure you spell cemetery properly?
Christina Phillips: No, but I would love to know.
Nick Capodice: They're so scary. You go eeeee all the way through it.
Christina Phillips: Even the end?
Hannah McCarthy: The chocolate orange. Especially when you leave it on your parents dashboard. And then it gets all, like, melty.
Rebecca Lavoie: It's so specific.
Hannah McCarthy: And you have to crack it.
Hannah McCarthy: You like take you have a handful of times. Yeah. What about, like, chocolate covered pomegranate seeds? Nope. What are.
Christina Phillips: No.
Nick Capodice: Where are those? It's basically just a fancy Raisinet.
Hannah McCarthy: Not when you make them, man. I want some tableside flames. Yeah. Yeah. I never had that in my youth. Wait, what? What's the joke? I can't operate on this. This patient.
Nick Capodice: This. He's my son.
Hannah McCarthy: He's my son. How is that possible? Yes. Yes.
Graas is fine. I actually kind of like the grass all the time.
Christina Phillips: The jelly bean or the.
Nick Capodice: The actual substance.
Nick Capodice: Oh, the jelly bean.
Nick Capodice: As a child, do you see grass? Which one's gonna rain? It's. Usually. I eat it when it was about to rain.
Nick Capodice: This was fascinating.
Christina Phillips: Oh, good. I'm so glad.
Nick Capodice: This was taxing. Eating. Well, thank you, Hannah. It's like, just to clarify, per usual, the vice.
Hannah McCarthy: President doesn't do anything. Amendments are in addition to, like, they don't cross anything out. Well, that's.
Nick Capodice: Not that's not true. I can't.
Hannah McCarthy: Cross things.
Hannah McCarthy: Out. They've crossed some things out.
Hannah McCarthy: To establishing eligibility for Austrian born former california governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president.
Nick Capodice: Say, Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president.
Hannah McCarthy: Arnold Schwarzenegger. What do I say?
Nick Capodice: You're saying Schwarzenegger. It's Schwarze Schwarzenegger.
Hannah McCarthy: Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president.
Nick Capodice: One more time.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh my God. Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president. Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president. Like German born Henry Kissinger. Henry Kissinger. Excuse me. Like German born. Why is that so hard to say? German born, Henry Kissinger. There have been a few proposed constitutional amendments like that.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, no.
Hannah McCarthy: Because, you know, you're not gonna make me read this. Okay. It's different.
Hannah McCarthy: There's one perfume. I can't even remember the name of it. It's the only one I've ever really, truly wanted in my heart of hearts. And I wasn't even allowed to spray a tester of it.
Nick Capodice: The one made from the blood of a thousand dead roses.
Hannah McCarthy: No, I have purchased that one. It smells great. But a thousand Turkish roses.
Christina Phillips: Nick, I also didn't realize that. Metamorphosis. The guy turns into a dung beetle. I didn't pick up on that. I just thought he was, like, having a weird.
Rebecca Lavoie: Did you read the books?
Christina Phillips: No, I didn't, I was not.
Hannah McCarthy: I just was so grumpy.
Rebecca Lavoie: Do you know this is a difference? This is the difference between a student who uses SparkNotes and one who does it right here.
Hannah McCarthy: Christina.
Hannah McCarthy: Nick thinks Lord of the rings is a bad series.
Nick Capodice: I do. I think they're bad movies.
Hannah McCarthy: All of the good and decent creatures of the world banding together to fight a singular evil,
Nick Capodice: Including trees.
Hannah McCarthy: That would mean the destruction. Yeah. Of life.
Hannah McCarthy: But you like this. You know it.
Nick Capodice: Basically, you like that part when everybody comes together from all these different places to battle this big evil force and then go back to their own lands to probably fight each other in another 50 years.
Hannah McCarthy: Well,
Nick Capodice: Including ghosts, including ghosts that come out of a cave.
Hannah McCarthy: I'm not even convinced you've seen the whole series.
Nick Capodice: Kings in the Hole in the cave. And they come and he's like, please. Okay, fine. And they just kill everyone you bow to no one. Sorry. Go ahead. What a terrible movie that was.
Christina Phillips: Oh, I liked that movie.
Nick Capodice: And at the end, it's like and they died of a cold.
Christina Phillips: It's so funny. And there's so many things that you're like, I hate this.
Christina Phillips: And I'm. Like.I love that.
Nick Capodice: The perfume I wear. They don't. They don't say you can always have it. Because you can always have maximum confidence in the original odor protection of speed stick.
Christina Phillips: Nick.
Nick Capodice: Yeah.
Christina Phillips: Who's who? Who are you, sir?
Nick Capodice: Oh.
Christina Phillips: Nick, answer this as Christopher Walken.
Speaker26: I would think that the creators of Jelly Bellies. So to sell the children wouldn't have an alcoholic drink. But then again.
Nick Capodice: Oh.
Christina Phillips: Okay.