Are Potatoes Dangerous?

Part-Time Genius

iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope

Society & Culture

4.5 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2026

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We bake them, fry them, mash them, and even turn them into toys, but potatoes weren't always so beloved. In fact, there was a time when they were considered such a threat to humanity, they were declared illegal! Today Will and Mango are serving up nine starch-tastic facts about the humble spud, from its long journey to our tables, to Ben Franklin's role as a potato influencer, to the ridiculous parade float that inspired the term "couch potato."

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This episode originally aired on July 15, 2022.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an I-Heart podcast.
0:02.8	Guaranteed Human.
0:07.7	Welcome to part-time genius, a production of I-Heart Radio.
0:16.0	Guess what, Mango?
0:17.4	What's that, Will?
0:18.3	All right, so I know we both love mr. potato head at least I remember that
0:22.2	you loved mr. potato head did you remember that I loved mr. potato head I did not remember that at all
0:27.5	yeah big fan big fan and you know who invented mr. potato head it was George learner created back in
0:34.4	1949 uh-huh so my favorite thing about Mr. Potato Head was that it was initially just a bag of like
0:41.8	face parts and kids would supply their own potatoes to jab these face parts into it, right?
0:47.6	That is exactly right.
0:49.1	You could use any, like use your imagination here.
0:51.3	You could use carrots, turnips, or really any root vegetable that you wanted. But potatoes were chosen. And this was interesting. Actually, I didn't know exactly why. But one, they're cheap. Of course, they were affordable. And they were available year round. Plus, I guess you could argue they're funnier than Mr. Turniphead. But I don't know. That seems debatable. But the craze then took off when Hasbro made this big TV commercial for the product, and they sold, it was something like $4 million worth of these toy parts within a few months. Now, that was a fortune then. And the interesting thing, though, is that Mr. Potato Head actually wasn't the first potato toy on the market. I don't know if you knew this.
1:28.5	I did not know that. What was before it? Well, it was the first with 3D pieces. So they added a D
1:34.0	to what was being done out there in the world. It was competing with these potato head toys at the
1:40.0	time that were using 2D pieces, like more like paper product type stuff. And so you would stick
1:45.8	these just on to the vegetable. But what's interesting is that in 1931, this was a full 18 years
1:52.4	earlier. So think about this. Like potato toy technology was not fully evolved yet. But the Soviet Union,
1:58.7	of course they had to be first. They launched this guide for kids on how to play with potatoes.
2:04.8	So basically it was a pretty delightful guide on how you could use a penknife and match sticks.
2:11.9	And you could turn a bunch of potatoes into these little play things.
2:15.2	And so there's this illustration on how to make two little
	...

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