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Decoder Ring | Mailbag: Yo-Yos, Sandboxes, and Encores

Slate Daily Feed

Slate

Society & Culture, Business, News

3.91.1K Ratings

🗓️ 17 December 2025

⏱️ 68 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Decoder Ring listeners write in with some excellent mysteries, and for our last episode of the year we’re solving three of them. Why do children play in boxes full of sand? Why do rock bands pretend like the show is over when everybody knows they’re coming back for an encore? And what was up with those school assemblies where you’d get to skip class to learn about…yo-yos? The voices you’ll hear in this episode include yo-yo masters ”Dazzling Dave” Schulte and Dale Oliver, children’s book author Rob Peñas, Pulitzer Prize-winning design critic Alexandra Lange, and music journalists Brian Wise, Michael Walker, and Travis Andrews.  You can find all the music from the segment about encores in this YouTube playlist. This episode was produced by Max Freedman, Katie Shepherd, and Evan Chung, Decoder Ring’s supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. We had additional production from Joel Meyer. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

This festive season of McDonald's...

0:01.7

Get...

0:02.0

Grinched deals every day.

0:03.0

Okay, okay.

0:04.0

With a sausage sandwich for just...

0:05.0

Let's see. 9 an NAPE? Six chigger mcnuggets for just... Nine and ap! Fine. Get Grinch deals every day in the......in the McDonald's app. 18 plus app only. Ends 24th of December. One use per offer. Fees apply to delivery. varies.

0:19.4

Please and see supply.

0:20.3

Hi, it's Willa, and I have a request, which is that you really listen to what I'm about

0:26.7

to say.

0:27.8

I have a pitch for you.

0:29.0

It's not an advertisement, though.

0:30.6

It's something more important to the long-term health and survival of Decoder Ring than

0:35.4

that.

0:36.1

You may or may not be aware, but the kind of show

0:38.8

that we make or that we strive to make, one that is reported and researched and polished and

0:46.3

belabored and obsessed over until hopefully the whole thing gets so good that it achieves a kind of

0:53.2

liftoff and you don't even know how hard we worked on it

0:56.3

and it all just seems easy and fun and buoyant and engaging. Well, that kind of show is becoming

1:01.6

a rarer and rarer thing in the world of podcasts. And for us to be able to keep doing it,

1:08.5

just straight up, we need your help. If you enjoy decodering, if you get

1:15.4

something out of it, if you've learned something, if you've laughed, if you've thought something new,

1:20.7

if you've gotten a fun fact to share at a party, I am asking for you to sign up for Slate Plus.

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