Welcome to the Dinner Party Download. This is your icebreaker.

So here's a joke that makes me feel great. What does a nosy pepper do?

Get jalapin' your business!

I'm Brendan Francis Nuneum.

I'm Rico Gagliano, and from APM American Public Media, this is The Dinner Party Download,

culture, food, and humor to fuel your party conversations.

You just got a joke from Issa Ray, creator of the hit web series Awkward Black Girl

and the forthcoming HBO show Insecure.

Believe it or not, that was one of our favorite jokes we aired in

2015, which is why we picked it to kick off this, our annual best of show, in which we share the

greatest moments of 2015, as voted upon by you, and then ultimately decided upon by us.

Yes, it's part democracy, part dictatorship around here. Coming up, we'll listen back on our chats with rocker and writer Carrie Brownstein

and with Oscar Isaac, star of the sci-fi hits Ex Machina and Star Wars.

Plus, we hear from performance artist Laurie Anderson, musician Shamir, and comic Michael Ian Black.

But first small talk in which journalists tell us about odd news of the week.

Here's a mashup of our favorite stories they told us, starting with this one from Atlas Obscura's Rehan Harmancy.

So the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery completed a study on what cats find most relaxing while they're in surgery.

They put what I imagine are very small headphones on the cats,

and then randomly shuffled two-minute segments of a variety of different kinds of music,

including Natalie and Brugio's torn, ACDC's Thunderstruck, and Samuel Barber's, Adagio for Strings, Opus 11.

Did anyone think that possibly ACDC was going to calm cats down for surgery?

Like that's what you put on if a cat was a relief pitcher.

...