Art by George Butler.
This episode was written and produced by Casey Emmerling.
For our sixth annual Mystery Sound game show, we’ve invited three guests from our video series to test their sonic knowledge on 18 sounds, including production logos, video game FX, bird calls, strange instruments, and more. So put on your listening cap and get ready to guess along in this surprising and hilarious competition. Featuring Jake Hartsfield, Carlos Torres, and John Michael Hinton.
MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE
Martin Landstrom - Go Cat Go
Martin Landstrom - Moonlight Night
Ennio Mano - Deck the Halls
Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced by Defacto Sound.
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View Transcript ▶︎
[20K sonic logo]
[music in : Martin Landstrom - Go Cat Go]
Audience: Guess That Sound! Guess That Sound!
Announcer: Hello, and welcome to Guess That Sound, a sensational game show where players compete to become the maestro of the mystery sounds. The rules are simple. Each sound is worth up to three points, and comes with two possible hints. If the correct answer is guessed without any hints, the player will learn three points. If one hint is given, the player will earn two points. And if two hints are given, the player will earn a single point.
Announcer: Now, here's your host, Dallas Taylor.
[music out with applause]
Dallas: So thank you all for joining our annual Mystery Sound Game, which we're now calling Guess that sound. This is the sixth time we've done this. For the first four, we invited podcasters to play this game with us. Then last year we had a few audio professionals come in and this year I thought it would be fun to invite some of the people that I followed around and recorded for the new video series that we launched over the summer.
Dallas: So we have Carlos Torres, he's the production sound mixer of Jeopardy and has also worked on Wheel of Fortune, The Voice, Key and Peele, Workaholics and many others. And he was the main guest on our very first YouTube video, breaking down the sound of Jeopardy.
Dallas: We also have Jake Hartsfield, who is a mixing engineer of both studio and live music. He's the front of house engineer for my favorite band, Vulfpeck, and he's been on both the podcast and our YouTube channel, breaking down how he mixes Vulfpeck shows.
Carlos: Jake, I love your work, man.
Jake: Thanks dude.
Carlos: Vulfpeck is one of my favorite bands, I love ‘em.
Jake: Oh awesome.
Dallas: And then finally we have John Michael Hinton. He is a world class magician who I just happen to become friends with and he's one of the few magicians to fool Penn and Teller on their show Fool Us. He's been on twice.
Jake: That’s awesome.
Dallas: And he and I are currently working on a video where John breaks down the role of sound in magic.
Carlos: Cool.
Dallas: And with that, I'll pass it over to our producer, Grace, to explain the rules.
Grace: Hey everybody. We're so excited to have you here with us. So the way this is gonna go down is we have 18 total mystery sounds that you'll have the chance to guess. And at the end, I'll add up everyone's score and we'll declare a winner.
John: And we get a trophy, right?
Grace: And you get, yes. And a trophy will be…
John: I'm promised a trophy. That's why I'm here.
Grace: A trophy will be shipped directly to your home address.
Carlos: Do we have a buzzer, or a clicker, or do we just like throw our answer and just go for it? And how about if we interrupt each other? Just…
Grace: Just go for it.
Carlos: Just go for it? Okay.
Dallas: Does that not feel, this is the first time that feels absolutely wrong that we don't have a buzzer, that we literally have the production sound mixer of Jeopardy on.
Carlos: Especially because John is a magician. I don't know what John is gonna do. He’s gonna throw some spells on us, like he's gonna mute my throat. I won't be able to talk, with a spell.
John: We need like our own buzzer sounds, like “Beep Beep!”
[musical sting: Martin Landstrom - Moonlight Night]
Announcer: Sound number one.
[Sound Number 1]
Jake: Oh, airline.
Carlos: Elevator door.
John: Oh you're right. Elevator.
Jake: Airplane?
Jake: We all said it at the same time.
Dallas: We got one.
Carlos: Oh yeah! You can, uh, take off the, take off your seat belts. You can get up on the plane.
[sfx: correct ding]
Dallas: I heard Jake say it. Jake, did I hear you say airline?
Jake: I said airline.
Dallas: Oh, I think that's gotta be…
Carlos: But it's not as specific…
Jake: It wasn’t as specific as Carlos.
Carlos: It could be the door. It could be… I think we should give it to Jake. He did say airline.
Grace: Here's what I propose. Carlos got it exactly right with no hint. So I feel like three points for Carlos. But Jake, I do feel like you need an honorable one point, for the, uh, the genre, if you will.
Jake: Thank you. Thank you.
Dallas: Alright, so that is the two-tone “Buckle your seatbelt” chime that plays in most airplanes around the world. The origin of these chimes is pretty murky. The earliest reference to them we could find was from a 1978 document listing the exact specs for how these tones should sound, from the frequencies of the two notes to the amount of time between the tones, to the length of the decay.
[Sound Number 1]
Jake: Interesting.
Dallas: Very proud of the airline industry on that one.
Grace: Yeah.
Carlos: That’s great.
Announcer: Sound number two.
[Sound Number 2]
Carlos: It is definitely a… a movie. A movie company, production company.
Jake: Yeah it’s a film production company.
Dallas: Mm-hmm.
Carlos: Sounds like a logo.
Dallas: Yes.
John: That’s what I thought, too.
Grace: Mm-hmm.
John: It's not Disney.
Carlos: It's not Disney. It's not Warner Brothers.
John: Yeah, it's not Universal.
Jake: Is it Paramount?
Dallas: No.
Carlos: Is it the Peacock?
Dallas: It's not the Peacock.
Carlos: It's the kid sitting on the moon.
Jake: Dreamworks?
Dallas: It is not Dreamworks.
Carlos: Can we hear it one more time?
[Sound Number 2]
Carlos: I don't know, but I'm getting very nostalgic here, for some reason. It’s—
John: This feels like something from the 80s… Or 90s.
Carlos: Touching a fiber. Yeah. nineties.
Dallas: So I'll give you hint number one. It is a production logo for the company behind the Sixth Sense in Shanghai Noon. And Bruce Almighty, apparently. And Sea Biscuit.
Carlos: Oh God.
John: Sixth Sense production company.
Jake: Well, I got Google right here, uh…
Carlos: No, we cannot chat… Nobody can Google this or Chat GPT, please.
Jake: Oh, no I’m not, I’m not. I’m not touching my computer.
Dallas: All right, we'll go to hint number two. This company is named after something that a pirate might carry.
Jake: Oh. Gold something.
Carlos: Oh yeah. Oh, wait a second.
John: Dubloons?
Grace: Okay. I actually, I'm claiming that name for my future film production company.
Jake: The blooms?
Grace: No, dubloons, dubloons! I love it. It's too good.
John: That's from Jake and the Neverland Pirates.
Dallas: All right, I'm gonna reveal this one, ‘cause this is hard.
Jake: Okay.
Dallas: But this one is the audio logo for Spyglass Entertainment.
Carlos: Oh God, I would never have guessed that. Yeah.
Grace: Yeah.
Dallas: So it's a production company that formed in 1998. The music was made by Randy Edelman who composed the scores for movies like Ghostbusters 2, The Mask, and Angels in the Outfield.
Announcer: Sound number three,
[Sound Number 3]
Carlos: Sounds like the Blue Man group.
Dallas: Yeah it does.
John: Yeah, the, it's PVC pipes! All those videos on YouTube of the PVC pipes with the guy hitting it with the little smacker things.
Dallas: It's very close.
Jake: Is this a trademark sound, or just like a sound?
Dallas: I'm not gonna give this as a hint, Grace, so we're gonna have all three still. But this is an instrument specifically. That's what I'm looking for.
Jake: Ah, I should know what this is.
Carlos: Oh, that, that's yeah, like you say, it's a PVC xylophone, or PVC marimba. Could it be?
Dallas: Very close. You're circling it.
Jake: It's percussion though? It's not a wind instrument?
Carlos: Nah, it’s a percussion for sure.
Dallas: Grace, I'm gonna make a hint. So it really, if you have small children who are in like elementary school music…
Carlos: Oh!
John: It’s a recorder.
Dallas: This is where you would find this instrument.
Carlos: Tubes! Tubes! Tubes! No, tubes!
Dallas: Oh.
Carlos: Uh, banging tubes!
Dallas: Oh, that's, yeah. Do you know what the name of that is, Carlos?
Carlos: Uh, I don't know. I know Remo makes them for kids. It's, it's just a plastic colorful tube.
Dallas: Yeah.
Grace: Oh yeah. Yep.
Carlos: And then you bang it on the floor. And then that's what the kids do. They just—
Dallas: Okay. So I'll say, we could give some level of points for that, unless someone else can just say the name of what it's actually called, which is really fun. It's a great name.
Carlos: Bang-A-Tube? No, right. Uh…
Dallas: That's better.
Grace: I was just about to say, someone pitch us the name of what you think it could be called.
Dallas: So that is someone playing all of the different sizes of Boomwhackers. These are colorful plastic percussion tubes that produce a musical note when you hit them with your hand or against another surface. The smaller the size, the higher the note.
Dallas: And I've had boom Whackers here at my house ever since my first, was born.
Jake: Boomwhackers.
John: Boomwhackers is an awesome name.
Dallas: Isn't it? It’s perfect.
Carlos: I love it.
Jake: Okay.
Carlos: But I thought the boom whacker was the director of photography when the boom gets on the shot. He goes and whacks the boom guy. I say, “We call them boom whackers,” 'cause he's like, “You're on the shot!” Koopam!
Grace: Oh my God.
Grace: So, okay. I think John, I think I'm gonna give you one point because you had like the tube percussion, right?
John: Yay.
Grace: So I think that was like an initial clue. And then Carlos, I'm gonna give you two because you described everything about the exact instrument.
Grace: So I think that's a fair split. Does that sound good to everybody?
Dallas: I think that’s fair.
Carlos: Sounds good. I can settle for that.
John: I feel like that's gonna be my only point, the entire show, but yay.
Dallas: You know, everyone says that, and then they come back.
Grace: That's true.
Announcer: Sound number four.
[Sound Number 4]
Jake: A woodpecker.
Dallas: No.
Jake: Dang.
Carlos: It could be a frog though.
Jake: Can you play it again?
[Sound Number 4]
John: Is the cow part of it, or just giving you context?
Jake: I mean, I hear several things. Yeah. There's… Is it an animal, like a woodpecker?
Dallas: I feel like the specific answer we're going for is gonna be just too hard. I would settle for just getting extremely close to what would make that sound. It is a animal.
Carlos: I go with a cicada or an insect. I'll go with an insect.
Dallas: Okay.
Jake: I'm gonna go with some kind of bird. If it's not a woodpecker, it's something that's doing something with a tree.
John: I definitely heard a cow.
Dallas: Okay.
Carlos: I did hear something mooing at the end for sure.
Dallas: So I'll do hint number one. This sound comes from a bird with three parts to its name. Here's a hint for the first part. What is the last name of the most serious character in Harry Potter?
Jake: Black.
Dallas: Oooh.
Jake: Black. Sirius Black?
John: Oh, Sirius Black, I got you.
Jake: A black some—Birds have such weird names. It could be anything. Uh…
Grace: They do. I will see you are on the right track though.
Dallas: And here's a hint for the third part of the name: In golf, when you score three strokes under par, it's called a “double eagle.” It's also called a…
Jake: Oh. I don't know.
John: Can I just say, you just asked a bunch of artsy people to talk about sports.
Carlos: Yeah, I mean, bocci ball is as far as we get.
John: I was like, birdie. I was like, “It's a black birdie?” Like.
Dallas: Okay. I'm gonna reveal this, and then I'm just gonna leave it to Grace for points, 'cause that's not my department. So those sounds came from a pair of black-footed albatrosses.
Carlos: Oh, for the love of god.
Jake: Oh.
Dallas: I know that was really hard. I didn't put this together. I'm not gonna throw anybody under the bus, but that was hard.
Jake: Oh my gosh.
Carlos: Oh my, I’ve never heard that combination of words together.
Dallas: So it's a species of seabirds that can be found across the Northern Pacific. These two birds are doing a courtship display, which involves a variety of brays, whistles, and bill clattering.
[Sound Number 4]
Grace: My other hint was gonna be as obscure, which is that it's one of the birds in the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner poem from 1834.
Jake: Oh I would not have gotten that.
John: Oh. If it was from 1835, I would've known.
Grace: And then I was like, “Wait a second. No one knows what that is.”
Grace: So Jake's guess that it was a bird. I feel good about giving you a point for that one.
Jake: Alright.
Carlos: Yeah, give it, give it to Jake.
Announcer: Sound number five.
[Sound Number 5]
Carlos: Q-Bert!
Jake: That's a video game of some kind.
Carlos: Q-Bert!
Dallas: Nah, same time frame though.
Carlos: Uh, Donkey Kong.
Dallas: Nope.
Carlos: Uh.
John: Is it an arcade game?
Dallas: I think it was, yeah.
Grace: Yes.
Dallas: I'll tell you, even for no point deduction that it was on multiple platforms.
Jake: Okay.
Carlos: Intellivision, too?
Dallas: Not television. Never had a movie adaptation either, although it would be awesome.
Carlos: No, I mean there was a console called Intellivision.
Dallas: Oh! Oh. That’s what you mean. Okay.
Carlos: I don’t know if you guys remember.
Grace: Oh!
John: Yeah, that had Pong. That was my first gaming system.
Grace: Oh no way.
Carlos: Yeah, Intellivision was big. It was the competition of Atari.
Dallas: You're like orbiting the same… It was after Pong, 'cause that was so early,
John: It's not Space Invaders.
Dallas: It's in that kind of time zone. So here is hint, because hint number one was, it's a classic arcade game made by the company Namco. I don't think we need to deduct anything for that.
Carlos: Namco, okay. Good to know.
Jake: Okay.
Dallas: Okay. Hint number two is: The game’s name includes the present tense and past tense of the same verb.
Carlos: Oh, that makes it so much easier. Thank you so much. My God, just…
[Sound Number 5]
Jake: Oh, Mortal Kombat?
Dallas: Very friendly Mortal Kombat.
John: “Finish him! Finish him!”
Grace: “Finish him, if you want to.”
Dallas: it was the prequel before they had their differences that then led them into Mortal Kombat.
Carlos: Oh, it's not Pacman, 'cause Pacman came out later.
Dallas: It's just kind of in that same world. It's just right on the fringe.
Carlos: Oh god, just… I’m suffering. This is painful. I thought it was going to be fun. I'm curling my toes.
Jake: I'm sure the people listening are cringing.
Dallas: That’s kind of the thing about this whole show.
Jake: Yeah.
Dallas: Yeah.
Carlos: Sorry guys, we were playing outside in the streets, we were kids in the block. Sorry, you guys. Nerds.
Dallas: I just love that there's going to be a handful of people out there yelling at their earbuds that it's a black-footed albatross on that last one. I, I'm sure so this one, that is the digging theme from the arcade game Dig Dug
Carlos: Oh, yes.
Jake: Didn’t know that game
Dallas: During the game's development, composer Yuriko Keino was asked to make a movement sound for the main character. Since she couldn't create a realistic sound using the game's hardware, she composed this loopable melody which starts and stops along with the player's movements.
[Sound Number 5]
Dallas: So at this point, I know we don't have lots of points, but this is our “Have Grace check score” moment of the show.
Grace: Yes. So on that last one, I do wanna give out some partial points. So someone early on said “arcade.”
John: That was me.
Grace: Yeah, I think, is this John?
Carlos: I say “it’s a video game.” That's the first thing I said.
Grace: Yeah, so in that case, I'm gonna give a point to John and a point to Carlos.
Carlos: Sorry, John. You gotta share your points. Don’t disappear me.
Grace: Carlos, you, mentioned Intellivision, which I think was a good guess because it was, there is a Dig Dug version that Intellivision made.
Grace: So with that in mind, our scores thus far in first place with six points, we have Carlos. And tied for second place, we have Jake and John with two points each.
John: Oh, we're so coming back.
Grace: There's still time.
Jake: Oh yeah. Plenty of time. All right, I'm warmed up now. Let's do it. Let's go.
Announcer: Sound number six.
[Sound Number 6]
Jake: Oh, is that it?
Dallas: That's it.
Jake: I mean, it's a synthesizer.
Carlos: That's like a wrong sound. It’s like, when I say something and my wife is like “mah-naw.”
Dallas: Uh, do we need to edit that out?
Carlos: Like “I invited John for lunch.” “Mah-naw.”
Dallas: Oh gosh.
Carlos: Not, not you, John. Just another John.
John: Oh, the other John. Okay.
Grace: Oh my God.
Carlos: Not you. No. You'll be like, more like, “tullallulla.”
Dallas: Alright. How bout, How about that sound again, somebody should get this.
Jake: Yeah, play it again.
[Sound Number 6]
Jake: Is it a game show sound?
Grace: Mmhmm.
Dallas: Yes. Uh, you're going down the right track here, Jake.
Jake: It's like a wrong answer on a game show.
Dallas: Correct.
Jake: Carlos, I feel like this is in your territory.
John: Yeah, how does Carlos not already have this?
Dallas: Yeah, this is a Carlos one.
Carlos: Oh, no! I'm feeling pressure.
Dallas: Yeah
Carlos: Umm…
Jake: It's not Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, is it?
Dallas: It is not. no.
John: Can a hit be like what era this game show is from?
Carlos: Yeah, it sounds like 80s, no?
Dallas: Yes, it is back in the 80s. I think that they've done maybe an updated version?
Grace: They did.
Carlos: It's not Family Feud, is it? Nah.
Dallas: I'm gonna do a two word hint. Okay? “Big bucks.”
John: Oh, the Pyramid?
Carlos: With Donny Osmond?
Dallas: No, you're close though. Okay. Here's the three word hint of that same thing: “Big bucks, no…”
Jake: What?
Carlos: No, I dunno guys.
John: No whammies?
[sfx: correct ding]
Dallas: There it is!
Grace: Ding ding ding ding ding!
Dallas: Ding ding ding!
John: Really?
Dallas: Yes!
John: Yay!
Grace: Yes!
Jake: Oh, it’s the spin the wheel.
Dallas: It's the Whammy from Press Your Luck.
Carlos: Oh, I've never heard—Guys, I was living in Mexico City, watching shows being dubbed in Spanish, like…
Dallas: Okay.
Carlos: Like Different Strokes.
Dallas: Okay. You are in for a treat because Press Your Luck was the most off the rails game show that I remember. It's a brutal game. And they would lose a bunch of money and it would like insult to injury with this little mascot red creature would come out with a yellow cape and a money sign in his chest and just like, take away all their money.
Dallas: It's… I don’t even know if you could get away with it now, because it's just so mean.
Dallas: All right. Here's the reveal. That's the whammy sound effect from the game show Press Your Luck. When a player lands on a whammy space, this sound plays, and they lose all the money they've earned so far.
[Sound Number 6]
Dallas: Then they play a short animation featuring a mischievous whammy character. Here’s one where the whammy skateboards into a tree.
[Whammy animation]
Announcer: Sound number seven.
[Sound Number 7]
Jake: Ugh. Is that from a scene in a movie?
Grace: It is not.
Carlos: Well, there’s a lot of vacuum sound there, so…
Grace: Okay, that's closer.
Dallas: I feel like I just need to say, without any point deduction, that this is a home appliance of some sort.
Jake: Oh.
Carlos: Dishwasher that is finished?
Dallas: Um, that's a good guess, but no.
Grace: That is a good guess. Yeah.
Jake: Washing machine sound?
Dallas: It's kind of like an appliance that has become all the rage lately.
Grace: Yes.
John: An air fryer?
[sfx: correct ding]
Jake: What?
Dallas: There it is. Yeah.
Grace: Ding ding ding!
Jake: Air fryer?
Dallas: Why don’t we just call that a ding, ding, ding. No one's gonna get the actual name brand of that.
Carlos: Okay. Let me ask, does anybody here own an air fryer?
Dallas: I do.
John: Me.
Grace: I do.
John: I love it. It's the best thing in the world.
Jake: Oh, okay.
Grace: It’s the best, I agree.
Carlos: Oh, really?
Dallas: So that's the chime of an Instant Vortex air fryer, when the food is ready. Like many modern appliance companies, instant now uses upbeat melodies instead of simple beeps. But as far as we can tell, this little tune is an original composition, not an existing melody like the other brands use.
[Sound Number 7]
John: Are we being sponsored by Instant Vortex?
Grace: This episode is brought to you by Instant Vortex Air Fryer.
Dallas: Instant Vortex dot com slash twenty K.
Announcer: Sound number eight.
[Sound Number 8]
Jake: Oh my gosh. What is that? Is it like a toy? It's not a toy, like laser gun thing. Is it?
John: It's not a fax machine, but something kind of like that.
Dallas: I will give 87 points to anyone who gets this, gets this right, right now, because this is so hard.
Carlos: Is it a massage handheld machine?
Jake: Play it again?
[Sound Number 8]
Jake: Uh, it sounds like a cassette player, like reversing, or going forward, but then the sound at the end is confusing.
Carlos: No. No there’s something wind—like and end, like a… Like a razor, like an electric razor.
Grace: I think Jake was closest with toy.
Dallas: I feel like what we should do is go ahead and reveal this, and consider doing a pickup that we only have like 16 of these because this is way too oppressively hard. I just want you all to react to what I'm about to say. Here's the reveal: Those sounds came from a 1976 Mattel game called Auto Race.
Carlos: I do remember that game!
Dallas: Oh wait, you do?
Grace: Yeah!
Carlos: I do. They were the best! They were like little handheld…
Grace: Yes!
Dallas: Uh, they had the football, they had the soccer one, they had the base and they had that, the car one. Fantastic machines, I remember. Yeah.
Dallas: Auto Race is considered the first fully electronic handheld game, meaning it had no mechanical components other than the controls in the game. The cars are represented by red lights that—
Carlos: Yes!
Dallas: Flash by as you avoid collisions and try to earn a high score.
Carlos: That's right.
Dallas: And for the sound, you get some good old fashioned beeps.
Jake: Was it black with red lights? What? Are you looking at a picture of it?
Carlos: I think they were white. Like cream white?
Jake: Is it a circle and the lights go in a circle?
Carlos: No, it was like a big calculator.
Grace: Yeah.
Carlos: And the display was just little lines. And you will just, with three, four arrows, you will move the lines. And you had like three, four more lines coming your way. And you had to imagine that was a car.
Jake: Oh, okay.
Grace: Okay. Carlos remembers this perfectly.
Dallas: Yeah.
Grace: I just want everyone to know. It’s very impressive.
Carlos: Yeah. I always wanted one.
Grace: Aww, yeah! Okay Carlos, your prize if you win is us shipping you a Mattel Auto-Race.
Dallas: Oh my goodness. Wait a second. Have you checked eBay prices before we spend all of our money on trophies and…
Grace: It’s a hundred thousand dollars. I'm just kidding.
Dallas: I love how everyone's promising all kinds of stuff, and I'm like, “Wait a second, this all comes outta my pocket!”
Carlos: Yeah. So I get three points for nostal—for um, knowledge?
Grace: Yeah, I think we have to go with zero across the board since we did reveal…
Dallas: Okay.
Jake: Oh, do I get one point, 'cause it was a toy?
Dallas: Well…
Grace: You know. Okay, I'm feeling generous. If we give Jake the point for toy, I feel like we have to give Carlos the post-reveal point for describing the toy perfectly.
John: But then I also should get a point, because I was listening,
Carlos: No, John, you're ahead. You're fine. Don't be greedy. That doesn't suit you.
Announcer: Sound number nine.
[Sound Number 9]
Carlos: That's pretty good rhythm.
Jake: Is this like a recorded thing? Is this an instrument?
Dallas: No. I'm gonna say this is the start of a song,
Carlos: Huh?
Jake: Oh.
[Sound Number 9]
Carlos: Well that sounds like, uh, bottles, water bottles. That could be played by Sheila E. in one of Michael Jackson's tracks.
Jake: Water bottles?
Carlos: Yeah, it, could be like little, Perrier little bottles with different…
Jake: Oh, glass bottles.
Carlos: Glass bottles, yeah.
Dallas: So this is going to be something that a lot of people are yelling at us to get. I am certain of that.
Jake: Is this a Christmas song?
Dallas: Oh, they're just not gonna like that. What you're saying right now,
Carlos: No, no, no. It's not Christmas at all.
John: No it's like Megadeth.
Dallas: Let's go with hint number one, it's a song from a Canadian rock band, if that does anything for you.
Dallas: That did not do anything for anyone. So I'm gonna go to hint number two, which is the song's title consists of three letters.
Jake: Oh, no.
John: That was so helpful.
Dallas: I'm ready to reveal this. That's the start of the song YYZ by the prog rock band Rush.
Jake: Ooh.
Carlos: No way! That's Neil Peart?
Dallas: Rush is from Toronto, And the ringing bells in the intro spell out the letters YYZ in Morse Code, which is the airport code for the Toronto International Airport.
[clip: Rush - YYZ]
Dallas: Alright, so we're halfway through. How are we on the score, Grace?
Grace: Yeah. So Carlos and John are tied for first with seven points each. Jake is in second with three points, but there's still plenty of time to catch up.
Jake: I feel like I need a—one of those magic cards from Candyland where I just jump ahead.
Grace: Just skip ahead.
[repeat theme music + applause]
Announcer: It's a close game, but who will take home the trophy? We'll find out after a word from our sponsors.
[music out] MIDROLL
Announcer: Sound number 10.
[Sound Number 10]
John: Oh, this is um, Pixar!
[sfx: correct dings]
John: This is Pixar lamp.
Grace: Yay.
Dallas: Ding ding ding.
Jake: Oh yeah, it's the lamp.
Dallas: That’s it, yeah.
Grace: Wow. Incredible.
Dallas: John's taken over again.
Jake: Good one.
Carlos: Alright. John.
John: Woo hoo!
Dallas: Okay, so that is the Pixar lamp, AKA Luxo Jr. jumping on top of the letter I in the iconic Pixar opening sequence.
Carlos: I’m impressed.
Dallas: That animation actually came from a short film that Pixar made back in 1986, where a cute little lamp hops around on a desk while its parent lamp watches. The sounds were created by legendary sound designer Gary Rhydstrom, who recorded the springs of real lamps and the squeaks of lightbulbs being screwed in and out of sockets. Many of these original sounds were reused for the Pixar animation we all know today.
[Sound Number 10]
Announcer: Sound number 11.
[Sound Number 11]
John: Water droplets.
Jake: Oh…
Carlos: That, yes. That's a PC sound. I think that's like from PC. could it be the clip animation of the PC?
Dallas: I think you’re orbiting here.
Grace: Yeah, good deduction for sure.
Dallas: You’re circling it.
[Sound Number 11]
Jake: Is it the volume up or down? Hmm.
Dallas: So it is a sound from the early days of the internet.
Jake: Oh, is it a iMessage? I mean, sorry, an instant message?
Dallas: I mean, yeah.
Grace: I think that's enough.
Dallas: You think so?
Carlos: Like You Got Mail?
Jake: Or, or someone coming online.
Dallas: In America?
[sfx: correct dings]
Dallas: Ding, ding, ding. There we go. America Online Instant messenger. There we go.
Grace: I think that’s enough. Yep. Yep.
Dallas: So that's a sound called Drop from AOL Instant messenger. Back in the days of AOL chat rooms, you could make everyone's computer play a sound effect by typing a curly bracket, the letter S and the name of the sound. Needless to say, some people would spam this function so the whole chat room would be flooded with drop sounds.
[flood of drop sounds]
Dallas: Um, how are you gonna do with points on that? I love how just Jake kind of fell into it.
John: That's all Jake.
Carlos: That's all Jake, dude.
Grace: I agree. I think Jake gets the full three.
John: He needs him.
Grace: He's back, baby.
Carlos: He's catching up. Be careful.
Jake: What is that, a six seven? The score right now?
Grace: I’m too old to really know what that means, but yeah.
Jake: I’m too old to actually know what it means either.
Dallas: I have kids and apparently it means nothing, but I don’t know.
Announcer: Sound number 12.
[Sound Number 12]
Carlos: It's a Flexatone.
[sfx: correct dings]
Dallas: That's it. Ding ding ding.
Grace: Wow.
Jake: Oh, all right. Good one.
Dallas: Yep.
Grace: Incredible.
Carlos: I'm coming to get you, John.
Jake: Well, you're tied. Yeah.
Dallas: Carlos, because of how confident you were, do you wanna describe what a Flexatone is?
Carlos: A Flexatone is a metal plate that creates that sound by two little red balls that hit the plate as you shake it. And you can actually curve and manipulate the plate, and it creates that modulation.
Carlos: I don't know who came up with that. It's probably an accident, like a fried wonton.
Dallas: Okay.
John: Like a fried wonton?
Grace: Incredible.
Carlos: You know what I mean. Like, like the guy dropped it on the fry pan and like, “Oh, this is pretty good actually.”
Dallas: “You can fry anything!”
Carlos: You can fry it. Oh, we are back to the frying, “doo doo doo doo.”
[Instant Vortex Beeps]
Dallas: Okay. I don't need to reveal that, because Carlos did a great job.
Grace: It was perfect.
Dallas: But here is a Flexatone in the theme song of Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas.
[clip: Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas theme]
Carlos: Awesome.
Announcer: Sound number 13
Dallas: Okay, number 13 is another one of those. You know, there's gonna be somebody in the audience that knows it, but there's like one
[Sound Number 13]
Jake: It's another bird.
Dallas: True. Grace, we need to have a mystery sound game show with people who are bird experts, and do all the birds all at once. And then just see how spicy that would get.
Grace: Okay wait, I love that idea.
Dallas: Okay. We gotta remember that.
Carlos: That's a whole like niche.
Dallas: Okay. Does anybody know birds here? Anybody?
Jake: Nope.
Dallas: Okay. No one's gonna get this, unless you feel very strongly about thinking about it, but I can go ahead and reveal it.
Jake: A red belied wingle dopper.
Dallas: That's so close. But what this is…
Grace: You know what, yeah it's not that far off.
Dallas: Okay, that squeak comes from a bird called the Club Winged Mannakin. But that sound isn't coming from inside its body. It's coming from the vibration of its feathers. To create that tone, their wings vibrate at more than a hundred cycles per second, which is twice the speed of hummingbirds.
Jake: Wow.
Dallas: While many insects do something similar, this is the only known bird species that does this.
Carlos: Fascinating. I love it.
John: Can you play that again now that I know all that? That was amazing.
[Sound Number 13]
Carlos: Wow.
Dallas: Okay. That's wings flapping? That's pretty awesome.
Grace: Yeah.
Carlos: That’s amazing.
John: That’s amazing.
Announcer: Sound Number 14
[Sound Number 14]
Jake: Oh man.
Carlos: I have no idea.
John: Definitely a logo.
Grace: Mm-hmm. Dallas: It is a sonic logo. This might be one that you wanna start extracting. What's in it? What could it be?
Carlos: It's like pages.
Grace: Mmhmm.
Jake: Can you play it again?
[Sound Number 14]
Carlos: Something flipping.
Grace: Mmhmm.
Jake: Oof.
Carlos: No, I don't think I've ever heard it, to be honest.
Dallas: Okay, it is a sonic logo for a website you probably didn't know how a Sonic logo
Jake: Wikipedia?
[sfx: correct dings]
Dallas: There you go.
John: It's Wikipedia?
Grace: Ding, ding, ding! Amazing!
Dallas: That's Wikipedia.
Grace: Amazing.
Carlos: Wow, I've never heard that.
Grace: Well done.
Dallas: I was actually gonna say it actually has “Wi-ki-pe-di-a” in it.
[Sound Number 14]
John: When do they play this song?
Jake: I’ve never heard it.
Carlos: Me neither.
Dallas: I'm about to find out on this reveal. That is the official sonic logo of Wikimedia, the organization behind Wikipedia. To find this sound, Wikimedia held a global competition in 2022. They received more than 3000 submissions from 135 countries. And here is a quick montage of the finalists.
[Wikimedia sonic logo finalists]
Announcer: Sound number 15.
[Sound Number 15]
John: Oh, that's, uh, Star Tours.
[sfx: correct dings]
Dallas: That's it. Ding ding ding. I figured John would get this.
Grace: Oh my gosh. Incredible.
John: I'm like the biggest Disney nut in the world, so that's not fair.
Grace: Wow.
Dallas: Challenge accepted.
John: Let's go.
Dallas: So that chime comes from the Star Tours ride at Disneyland. It's a Star Wars-themed attraction that was first built in 1987, long before Disney bought Lucasfilm. The chime plays before boarding announcements like this.
Clips: Attention, please. Star Tours Flight 1119 nonstop service to Endor is now ready for boarding at Gate Number One.
John: For the record, you didn't need to play all of the voice. 'Cause I heard it in my head as soon as you played it.
Announcer: Sound number 16.
[Sound Number 16]
Carlos: Ooh.
Jake: What?
Carlos: That's a walrus.
John: That’s not the Wookie?
Dallas: No.
Jake: That was so short. Can you play it again?
[Sound Number 16]
Jake: Is it a bear of some kind?
Carlos: It could be an elephant, too.
John: Is it from Star Wars?
Dallas: This sound comes from a PC game.
Jake: Oh, a PC game. Oh, man.
[Sound Number 16]
Jake: What year was the game?
Dallas: Early PC game. One of the originals, I believe.
John: It's not like Prince of Persia or whatever. They didn't have sounds.
Carlos: I have no idea. I’m not a gamer to be honest.
Dallas: Okay, so over the years, innovative programmers have gotten this game to run on everything from an ATM to a smart refrigerator to a printer.
John: Smart refrigerator?
Grace: Amazing.
John: That's what, where I wanna stand and play a game.
Jake: But it's a PC game.
Dallas: Yeah. it's something that's in the PC game, I would even take the game,
Jake: Oh, gosh. if we talk about PC games, I'm a Rollercoaster Tycoon gamer.
Grace: Nice.
John: Oh, I love that game.
Jake: This seems like it's earlier than that… Ugh, I don’t know.
Dallas: I'll go ahead and reveal it. So that's the sound of an Imp being defeated in the original Doom game. That sound effect is from a Lucasfilm sound library and a set of camel vocalizations. Here are a few more.
[Lucasfilm camel sounds]
Dallas: Camels just make me so sad. I mean, camels are beautiful animals, but they're just like, “Nah!”
Carlos: Uh, they're grumpy. Uh, you guys ever been on a camel trip?
Dallas: I have not, actually.
Grace: I have not.
Carlos: No, and then when they're running back home, you get destroyed with their galloping… if you know what I mean.
Dallas: Oh gosh. Oh gosh. Okay.
John: Carlos has the best comments.
Grace: I know.
Carlos: It’s true. I’m talking the truth.
Announcer: Sound number 17.
[Sound Number 17]
Jake: Oh, that went on longer than I thought it was gonna go.
Carlos: Yeah, I thought it was a sprinkler, but it's not.
Carlos: Nah, that's electronic. It’s when something gets stuck, no?
Jake: Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. It sounds like something that's stuck. Can we play it again?
[Sound Number 17]
Dallas: Who started verbalizing a, uh, a song?
Grace: A beat?
Dallas: Yeah.
Carlos: Yeah, I did. I put it on top. Let's make a song
Dallas: Oh, that's such a smart thing to do with that.
Grace: That’s such a—It is.
Carlos: I have no idea.
Jake: Is it a toy or a game?
Dallas: Well, I'll give a hint. I just got back from Australia and I heard it everywhere.
Carlos: Really? Wow.
Jake: In Australia?
Dallas: Yeah. Go ahead and play that again.
[Sound Number 17]
Dallas: I heard it everywhere in the city.
Jake: Is that the, oh, wait, hold on. It's a ADA crosswalk sound?
[sfx: correct dings]
Dallas: Ding ding. That's exactly what it is.
Grace: Yes.
Carlos: Ooh, Jake.
Dallas: So that is the sound of a crosswalk sign in Sydney, Australia. But I heard 'em all over the place.
Carlos: Really?
Dallas: …changing from Don't Walk to Walk. At one point, Billy Eilish and Phineas visited Sydney and heard that sound.
Carlos: I heard of that.
Dallas: They liked the sound of it, so they recorded it on a phone and sampled it in Billy’s Song, “Bad Guy.” Here's Phineas.
Jake: Ohhh.
Clips: The issue is if you play that un altered, it's not the right speed. Basically like put it into a quantized bar section, and then put sample delay on it so it was wider, and then it became…
Dallas: All right. We are down to one last sound. So Grace, where are we with the scores?
Grace: For sure. So I gave Jake two points for that, because we gave everyone Australia, but he nailed the ADA crosswalk. So we are truly neck and neck here, folks. Carlos is in third with 10 points. Jake is in second place with 11, and John is in the lead with 13.
John: Let’s go!
Jake: Ooh. It's anybody's game.
Dallas: Yikes.
Grace: I know!
Jake: It's anybody's game.
Jake: Should the last one be worth four points?
John: No! It should be worth a half a point. Like Jeopardy.
Announcer: Sound number 18.
[Sound Number 18]
Jake: A hog.
John: I feel like it's a… some sort of dog.
Carlos: No, no. That's, is that a walrus again? No.
Jake: Uh, it sounds like a wild animal, maybe.
John: I don't know, a bulldog like trying to get something out of his throat. That's what it sounded like to me.
Carlos: Maybe a weird canary. No, right?
Dallas: Here’s a hint that we don’t even have to use for points, but right now, there is a whole country yelling at their phones right now.
Jake: Guinea? A Guinea pig? Wait, is the name of the country in the name of the animal?
John: Turkey. I'm sorry. That's the only country I knew that had… named after an animal.
Grace: I love where your mind went. That’s great.
Carlos: A pig?
Dallas: No.
Carlos: Is it eatable?
Dallas: Is it edible? I mean, I'm sure you could eat anything, it just depends on what the outcome would be.
Carlos: If you put it in deep fryer, it’s going to be awesome.
John: In a Vortex Air Fryer.
Carlos: In the Vortex Air… Dallas: This is not good for the people who know what this sound is.
Jake: Oh no.
Dallas: Okay, so this creature often sleeps 18 to 20 hours a day.
John: Sloth?
Dallas: You're awfully close. You're kind of close? I don’t wanna offend anybody.
Grace: Yeah, I think sloth is the closest we've gotten.
Jake: Ooh.
John: Possum.
Dallas: And this thing comes from the same part of the world as the last sound.
Jake: Oh, okay. A wallaby?
Dallas: No. So close.
Jake: Kangaroo, wallaby. What else is over there?
Carlos: Uh, ooh, marsupials. A koala bear.
[sfx: correct dings]
Grace: Yeah!
Dallas: There you go. Ding, Ding, ding, And it's up to uh…
Grace: Ding ding ding.
Jake: Wow, I wouldn't expect a koala to sound like that.
Dallas: Me neither.
Grace: I know!
Dallas: Those freaky sounds were actually made by a koala. Koalas have an extra set of vocal folds outside of their larynx which allows them to create those deep bellows and grunts. These noises are mainly used by male koalas as a mating call, and also in altercations with other males.
[Sound Number 18]
Carlos: Sounds like my neighbor. Carlos: Great. So am I up to speed with, uh, John and Jake, or do we have to do a mano a mano?
John: No, because he had to have way too many hints. He got one point for that.
Grace: Yeah, he, yeah, he did get, I did give him one point for that.
Carlos: Oh, come on you guys, don’t give me tariffs.
Dallas: You remember, Grace is the bad guy, not me.
Grace: So the good news is that we had no true loser, because there was a tie for second place.
Jake: Alright. I’ll take that.
Grace: So second place tie goes to Carlos and Jake, which makes John our winner with 13 points!
John: Oh my goodness.
Dallas: Way to go! Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding ding.
John: Oh, I cannot wait to put this next to my Fool Us trophy.
Dallas: Oh my goodness.
Jake: Congratulations.
Grace: Amazing job.
[music sneaks in: Ennio Mano - Deck the Halls]
Dallas: Well this was so fun. Thank you all for doing this.
Carlos: I love it. I think next time, less video game sounds, and more like cultural beat sounds.
Dallas: What we're actually gonna do is we're gonna get a bunch of people who are bird experts on, and just play them video game sounds.
Carlos: Yes. There you go.
Jake: Show ‘em.
Carlos: Backwards.
[music up, then under]
Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced by my sound agency, Defacto Sound. Find out more at defactosound dot com, or by following defacto sound on Instagram.
Other Voices: This episode was written and produced by Casey Emmerling, with help from Grace East. It was sound designed and mixed by Colin DeVarney.
Announcer: With a game show announcer voice by Casey Emmerling.
Thanks to our guests, Carlos Torres, Jake Hartsfield, and John Michael Hinton. To see the videos of me following Carlos at Jeopardy and Jake at Red Rocks mixing Vulfpeck, subscribe to my YouTube channel, Dallas Taylor dot MP3. You’ll also find short videos on Instagram and TikTok under that same name. And sometime down the road, there will be a video of me following around John, but in the meantime follow him on Instagram under his name, John Michael Hinton. Also there’s two great videos of him performing for Penn and Teller on YouTube, one of which… spoiler alert… he actually fools them. I highly recommend looking that up. And John actually travels the world performing magic for all kinds of big audiences. So if you’d like to book him, which you should, visit John Michael Hinton dot com. I'm Dallas Taylor, and from everyone here at Twenty Thousand Hertz, happy holidays, and thanks for listening.
[music out]
