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S6B2 · Standard of Truth Dead and in Hell March Madness Bracket Buster Challenge
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Standard of Truth · Season 6 · Bonus 2 · 29:57

Standard of Truth Dead and in Hell March Madness Bracket Buster Challenge

Listeners filled the 'Dead and in Hell' bracket challenge with names like 'John C. Buckets,' 'Joseph Young's 1838 Pioneers' and 'Buckwheat Baby Shower Baskets.'

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The question ·

Who has the best team name in this year's Dead and in Hell March Madness bracket challenge, and can AI pick a better bracket?

Richard

In this short bonus, Gerrit and Richard keep March Madness out of the main show by giving it its own episode. They announce that both their sons have mission papers in, plug the 'Dead and in Hell' bracket challenge that supports Sweetwater Rescue, and note that it has already grown to 219 entries. Most of the episode is the hosts laughing through listeners' team names, which turn the show's running jokes into a highlight reel. Richard then compares Final Four picks from ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Gemini, and the hosts remind everyone it's all just for fun before a busy stretch of recording ahead of their Kenya trip.

Who comes upJohn C. BennettWillard Richards
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A bonus for basketball

Gerrit explains they made a bonus so the main show isn't all March Madness.

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Transcript

166 moments · tap a time to play from there
Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard LeDuc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the life and teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the Church with faith, expertise and humor.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to a special bonus episode. It's sad actually that we are doing a bonus episode for this purpose, but we don't have the ability to control ourselves and we don't want our actual podcast to be only talking about March Madness. And we've got a lot of buy-in from the folks, but I am your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. I'm joined by my friend, Dr. Richard LeDuc, and we're gonna talk a little bit of March Madness, you know, and maybe, I don't know, other things, like maybe Richard has some French poetry he'd like to share. I don't know where you're at, Richard.
Richard Well, Gerrit, there's so many exciting things that are going on right now. Both of our sons have their mission papers submitted, but we don't have calls yet. We've got the Dead and in Hell Bracket Challenge for Sweetwater Rescue. For Sweetwater Rescue is in on a balance sheet.
Gerrit I like how it started as, you know, we are supporting that charity and suddenly that's the company now. It's a, your hostile takeover bid is well understood.
Richard We used to, we started as an organization to help people get to the temple. And now it's all about NCAA picks, Gerrit.
Gerrit It was always a lot of charities lose their way. A lot of charities, you know, they, they start off with, we'd like to help children have school books in Africa and they end up buying people Teslas in the administration. So that's, so I feel like that's the trajectory you were already on.
Richard No, no, no, no. It's all about stone cold lock picks of the week for the, for the bracket. We w you know, here at whatever organization I'm currently representing, we, we, we're bummed to see Texas beat NC State though.
Gerrit BYU, because we're BYU fans. And, and it sure seems like Texas is, is, they are going to pose some more problems for us because we're kind of small as a team and Texas has two seven footers and even their best player is a guard who's oversized, who's six eight. And so, look, I'm hopeful that BYU is still going to win. But I would have rather, you know, look, NC State had a great beginning of the year. And then they lost seven of nine to end the season. That is a lot of losses out of nine games. Yeah, it's a lot. When you're playing a team that, I mean, when you lose seven of nine, it says something is broken. You know what I mean? Like, and so, yeah, so emotionally, yeah, you always want to play a team that's broken because they're broken. That's it. It's like the best. It's like, it's like I always wanted, you know, to play against the guy who had a quad strain because like, oh, you can't jump as high. Look how good I look now.
Gerrit Anyway, so one number to start with is last year, our ending tally of the number of people in our group was 197. Right now, as of this moment, and I need, you know, we got to pick this up, we have 219 people in the bracket. And I have to say, some of you have the most inventive names. I have told Richard not to read all of them because I want his reaction to some of these as he goes through them. I haven't read all of them. I've read enough of them to know that many of you missed your calling in life, and you must be one of the most sarcastic people that you know, which maybe is why you're a fan of the podcast. So Richard, let's go through some of these great names we have.
Richard Yes, I'm pulling it up. Now, what name did you go with, by the way?
Gerrit I went with, you know, There Was No Dirkmaats.
Richard That's a classic. And I went with Dead Eye Willard. I'm trying to, here we go.
Gerrit Someone named their bracket, named their team Rigdon LeDuc, but it's not Rigdon.
Intro That's great.
Richard No, it's not.
Gerrit I'm interested as to why would someone name their bracket Rigdon, but not actually be Rigdon.
Richard That's really funny. Let's see who they have. Oh, it's too early. They're not going to let me see. They filled out the bracket, but I can't look in.
Gerrit But you see their name. You can see their name.
Richard Yes, but I don't have administrative rights. It was a smart thing you did to not give me administrative rights.
Gerrit So can you not see their name?
Richard I can see their name, but I clicked on it.
Gerrit I can't see anyone's bracket choice either. I can't see anyone's bracket choice. The bracket choice is sacrosanct until the first game.
Richard Is that right?
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, it's basically, it's basically Mariology to our podcast. You cannot four times see what people's picks are.
Richard So part of the reason that we're getting all these sports out now is Gerrit, we have a friend of the show, I think you're gonna be doing some work on her podcast on Monday and we were told we can't talk about sports there, so we're shoehorning it all in here.
Gerrit It was interesting. It was like, hey, we'd love to have you on our podcast because you're an expert. We'd like to talk to you about these things. I was like, I don't, and you know, since you are listening to the bonus and you're suffering through this, they want to talk about polygamy.
Richard Yeah, all polygamy all the time, yeah.
Gerrit In fact, the email that they sent was, it's time for season 38.
Richard She's hilarious. She's very persuasive.
Gerrit But also, it's not time for season 38. Let me just put that right out there. We should attach a link in this bonus to our songs that we created for the live event that are now live on Spotify and Apple and on Amazon Music.
Richard So there's a couple bangers in there that I listened to. You sent it to me. You got your Apple publishing, so you got it on there. And you sent it to me while I was flying back from Missouri, where I was seeking answers, obviously. Not for the things in the 1800s, just the stolen backpack that they still have not.
Gerrit Someone stole his backpack. Look, Mormons have been getting robbed in Missouri since 1833.
Richard All the way until October of last year, when they stole all my stuff out of my rental car. And you know what? Other stuff, they probably just let, they're like, this man is a Mormon.
Gerrit Yeah, they're like, I've decided to go clean. I'm finally out on probation. This man is a Mormon. Oh, we should steal his stuff. At that time, we were thoroughly hated. And but it's out.
Richard Okay, so there's several Yoohoo references that are funny. Yoohoo Chronic is funny. I assume that is a Dr. Dre reference. Frozen Yoohoo is another one. There's quite a few Yoohoos.
Gerrit We got to go through and read a bunch of these.
Richard Okay.
Gerrit Because these are these. I mean, the first one, Joseph Young's 1838 picks. That is literally someone who just listens to the last episode when they decided to put that up.
Richard No, no, that's when the Saints got to the Great Basin.
Gerrit It is when they got to the Great Basin under Joseph Young's leadership. No, he it was his son, Brigham Young, that did that. So, in 1838, Joseph Young, someone had steamed hams, which is a, that's a great Simpsons call out right there. That steamed hams.
Richard That is good. President Hinckley's.
Gerrit You call hamburgers steamed hams. How about the bracket of truth? And some of these demonstrate people that have been listening for a very long, some demonstrate people who just listened last week. But some are people that have clearly read, have been listening for a long time.
Richard Is that is the steamed hams? Is that the Simpsons episode where they've got Aurora Borealis in his kitchen?
Gerrit Yes. Yes. Aurora Borealis. Yes. He's like, I've got these steamed hams. That's what I call hamburgers, steamed hams.
Richard We've got jobless Rob has several entries here.
Gerrit Yeah, jobless Rob. Can I buy a Val Willard? I mean, that's that's that's a long cut. Bernie's Miracle. The Chapstick Monkey Trap, I think, is a reference to Richard. Just let it go. Glossolalia. And I know it. I mean, come on, that's that that's great. Thrifty Nickel Picks.
Richard Oh, that's good.
Gerrit Days of 38, which is clearly a reference to Joseph Young bringing the Saints to Salt Lake in 1838. Days of 38. How about the Hard in the Paint Saint? So, that's why I get mad. I go hard in the paint. I want to be a hard in the paint saint. Faithless Loser. Brocchus Ballers.
Richard Now, I saw that one. That was funny.
Gerrit That's good. Jobless Rob. Still jobless.
Richard Apostle, apostate.
Gerrit What else is Jobless Rob's Bracket?
Richard Yeah, Apostle, apostate, apothecary. That's that one. Oh, okay. I'm glad this one made it fornicating fornicator.
Gerrit Classic. Yeah, I thought we'd get a couple of those. We did get Dirkmaat Rage Energy. I'm not sure I should be proud of that one. But how about Pahoran's Mother-In-Law's Sublet of Department?
Richard Yeah, that one made me laugh actually. That one was very funny.
Gerrit President Hinckley, April 2005. They're letting everybody know. Bernie's Burning Bosom. Again, that's a reference to the very last thing. We got the Twin Relics of Barbarism. How about Paul and Babe's Book of Mormon Picks? I think that's a reference to our Babe the Blue Ox episode. All right.
Richard So John C. Buckets. I don't know that I laughed harder than John C.
Gerrit John C. Buckets made me actually laugh out loud. I know people do LOL all the time when they think something's funny. I actually laughed out loud and I was drinking a diet Coke at the time. And I'll just let you think it was a caffeine free diet Coke. And it was near nostril. So that was a problem. I knew we'd get a couple of treating Guadalupe Hidalgo's, got a couple of those.
Richard Classics.
Gerrit But how about if you're so smart, why don't you make your own bracket? Is the babe of the bracket? Now that's a deep cut. That's something I've been looking for a long time.
Richard So one of my favorite things that we get is, I love the hate mail because it's very funny and not the playful ones. Like when people are really mad for whatever reason.
Gerrit Like the guy who emailed the other day saying I was the anti-Christ.
Richard I felt like he made some good points.
Gerrit But first of all, I've been saying I need to get to Jerusalem and also I need to get an army surrounding it, a thousand threescore days. I mean, yeah. If I had a nickel for every time you said a thousand threescore days. Literally what we were saying in the pre-show was I've got to get myself to Jerusalem and I've got to surround that city and I've got to do it now. You thought I was just saying that to get your son out of Jerusalem.
Richard Yeah, it's true. He's coming home early. The Jerusalem Center, as folks could imagine, it's been an interesting couple of weeks. So they're coming home a little early, but it'll be nice.
Gerrit Here is another very deep cut. We got another 80 degree yu-hu, which is shilled yu-hu, is 80. Supralapsarian remonstrant.
Richard Oh my gosh.
Gerrit That cut is going so deep. But some are just invented names like the Gadianton Ballers.
Richard I like that one. I saw that one. I did want to say just the reference to If You're So Smart. Early on, when we would get the hate mail, my response to every criticism was, look, if you're so smart, why don't you make your own whatever, podcast or whatever. But anyway, that's a very funny reference to that. Maybe they're just early listening. So they just listen to the early ones.
Gerrit You know, people who started at the beginning? Yeah, that's true. We got Gunslinger Brother Richards, Richards Idaho Eye Doctor.
Richard There's a couple references to my general intelligence and lack of vision.
Gerrit We got Dandermeter Nation and MTC District Leader Number One. And I feel like this one is a shot at me. Like there's several that are shots at you. But how about Tertullians Teased is the name of someone's bracket. Yeah, that's we still may not ever actually, you know, but we have the great Brigham Young quote, but I will not.
Richard But I will not.
Gerrit These are hilarious. I mean, now this one from Allison, I'm not entirely sure. It's it's a pretty good basin. So I think that's either a reference to the Great Basin, Great Basin. Yeah, it's a pretty good reference to the fact that I said something about Bogus Basin.
Richard They're both pretty decent basins. As far as basins go. Now, so we're going to have a link in the bonus here. We've got a special Yes or Ta Ta, St. Paddy's Day logo for the bonus to drop today. So it's very exciting. The password is rice from rice tariffs, I assume. What's the prize, Gerrit? What's the first place?
Gerrit I don't know. So here's the problem. If people are joining us from Australia, it's just me saying, I'm glad that you won because I can't pay international shipping on anything. Maybe we'll send them a book.
Richard Okay. A non-signed book because it's worth more.
Gerrit Right. If I sign the book, it's value drops immediately. You don't grab a Pokemon card and sign it.
Richard So are we going to send a book that you wrote, or we're just going to find a book that we like and both sign it?
Gerrit No, I was going to send Mormonism Unveiled or something. Well, you should learn how Sidney Rigdon wrote the whole thing. Speaking of which, here's another good one. Bracket Safety Society.
Richard Oh, that's good.
Gerrit Or Bill the Adulterer's Wingman. I mean, these people are brilliant people. Apostle, Apostate, Apothecary, very good. Dander Disciple. We got a lot of dander ones. AI labor photos. I guess that person is claiming these are made up labor photos of a child when we read those emails. Indiana by Six. Now that's from our buddy, Ken. He has given me some props that I called Indiana by Six. That's pretty awesome.
Richard Well, Gerrit, so.
Gerrit The Danriff Dirkmaat dander. Boy, we had a lot of dander meters here.
Richard Well, so we're excited to have the tournament and to do. Now, last year, I think you finished in the top five or top 10.
Gerrit Let's just say I won it. It was close. If we're just going to estimate, let's just say I won.
Richard It was close. Now, this isn't just fun and games, Gerrit, like we have picks here. We're going to give these picks and people can take them to the bank.
Gerrit So I actually would have won if Houston won the championship game. Because they lost, I didn't. I see.
Richard Do you have the old one there? Do you see where I ended up?
Gerrit We're sorry our computers cannot process numbers this low.
Richard You sent it to NASA.
Gerrit Wait, who did you pick to win last year? Did you pick Florida?
Richard No, I didn't. I don't think I did. I know that I was close. I knew that I had a pretty... I won my... I know I came in like second in my office pool.
Gerrit It is tough because you'll fill out like nine of these brackets. And of course, you don't want them all the same. So, I mean...
Richard Not me. I just do the one.
Gerrit And you filled them all out exactly the same?
Richard Exactly the same. Exactly the same. That's how I win my billion dollars, Gerrit. I think that the odds are... I haven't checked, but I think the odds are like 26% chance of winning the billion dollars of getting the perfect bracket. I think it's something like that.
Gerrit Well, the perfect bracket has never happened, right? That's why every year they give the prize out if anyone gets it.
Richard So what is that? Like 22% chance of getting it right? Perfect, you think?
Gerrit Yeah. I mean, no one's ever, ever, ever going to get it right. So it's like...
Richard Well, like 19% chance probably. So now one thing I did is I have four different AIs that... Now, we had an episode a year or so ago where you went toe-to-toe with AI. And you got into a fight with it. And that was a fun, that was a fun episode. But so I have four different AIs that I use at work to write my dissertation for my kid's homework.
Gerrit To write my dissertation?
Richard You know what's funny about that, though? Like AI really came out after I was done with it, which is really unfortunate because it really helps.
Gerrit It's almost like a slap in your face.
Richard Really is.
Gerrit Think of how much faster you could have gotten your PhD if it was fake.
Richard Seriously, seriously. Okay, so there's a couple of things. So I have Grok, I've got Gemini, I've got Claude and I've got Chat. And so do you just want the final fours from those or what would you like?
Gerrit Yeah, let's do that. The final fours and then, you know, who they have.
Richard Got some upset picks as well.
Gerrit By the way, your sister came in 10th last year.
Richard Yeah, my sister's pretty smart. She loves sports.
Gerrit Hey Richard, you came in 27th last year. You actually would have beaten me, had Houston won.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit We both had Houston.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit And you were slightly ahead of me.
Richard Yeah. So it really is unfortunate.
Gerrit Because you're using AI.
Richard Yeah. So we'll start off with probably the worst is ChatGPT. So now I obviously don't know the future, but I feel like I'm pretty confident that this isn't going to be right.
Gerrit What did you come up with?
Richard So the final four from ChatGPT is Duke, Arizona, Michigan and Purdue. The problem is that Purdue and Arizona are in the same...
Gerrit ChatGPT can't even fill out a bracket, right?
Richard Well, so it's got, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's got Duke versus Arizona for the championship with Duke winning at a 38% confidence. But again, I struggle with that because it has Purdue in the final four, which can't have Purdue and Arizona both in the final four. But so take it from what it's worth. That's unfortunate.
Gerrit Look, you know, I once had a very bad experience with ChatGPT and not just when I talked to it about polygamy. Everyone was like, oh, you did? Because I was running a... I needed to make a schedule for our fantasy football league. And unlike the ones that they generate auto for the... We wanted, you know, to play everybody twice, you know, so you could have like a real division and stuff. Well, it could not do it. And I mean, I tried probably 35 different times, different prompts, everything, and it kept just having people play the same person four times, like no matter what. And I'd be like, hey, you have this team playing this other team three times instead of playing this other team. Oh, sorry about that. I'll fix it. And then they generate it, not fixing it all. The worst part about Chat GPT is when it says it's going to fix it and then gives you something that's actually worse, it just makes you mad. It's like your kid say it's like, hey, son, I said, clean your room.
Gerrit No, no, I cleaned it. I cleaned it. And then you walk into their room and it looks somehow worse than when you told them to clean it and they're not there. Like, I'm actually more mad because you told me it's done.
Richard So now, Claude got Arizona, UConn, Houston, Michigan, and it has Arizona over Houston in the championship.
Gerrit That's what Claude came up with, which is actually 12 championship. Claude is clearly a big 12 AI.
Richard Well, I mean, I use Claude the most. So yeah, I mean, I'm asking it a lot of big 12 related questions all the time. I'm sure that now Gemini, Gemini has Houston, UConn, Michigan and Purdue, with the championship being Houston, UConn, Houston winning 65 percent confidence. That's a high amount of confidence, Gemini. I don't know what you think you are.
Gerrit Do you look, look, I like Houston. I know Houston. Houston was a friend of mine. And you, sir. Do you, don't you feel like Houston's not as good this year as they were last year?
Richard No, they're really good, but.
Gerrit No, they're really, but they're really good defensively. And that's always good for a tournament.
Richard Of course.
Gerrit But it just doesn't feel like that they're quite as. Now watch people replay this back to me when they win the championship. Kelvin Sampson, who listens to this podcast.
Richard I'm sure he doesn't. So then Grok has Duke, Houston, Arizona, Michigan with Duke beating Houston for the national championship.
Gerrit Okay, wow.
Richard Which I don't know that that's possible actually, because Duke would be playing Houston to go to the national championship.
Gerrit How is it possible that they can't fill out a bracket?
Richard So really, you're down to Gemini. Gemini and Claude are the only ones that gave actual plausible final fours. So look, that's the Standard of Truth AI pick. Now, if you want some upsets, you want some Claude upsets here. Akron over Texas Tech, High Point over Wisconsin, McNeese over Vanderbilt, Wright State over Virginia, Cal Baptist over Kansas, and VCU over North Carolina. Those are the Claude upsets. And Gemini, High Point, Hofstra, McNeese, Akron, and VCU. So take those straight to Wendover. And don't go to Wendover.
Gerrit Yeah. And remember, this is only for fun. A couple other really awesome names we had. I mean, there's so many. And I don't know if we'll get through all of them, but like the great and spacious bracket. I mean, come on.
Richard Oh, that's funny. That's really good.
Gerrit Willard Richards Trench Coat, Buckwheat Baby Shower Baskets. I don't know what's going on there.
Richard There were a couple of buckwheat ones. Those always made me laugh.
Gerrit Ward Council Dough Head. Now, that is a deep cut.
Richard That's very funny.
Gerrit Ankle's Broken Burgoyne. That's pretty good. Winter Dimes and Quarters. That's, man, there's in the NCAA, but not of the NCAA.
Richard You got to shout out to Renee with the Hubert Humphrey 68 name. That one's good.
Gerrit Oh my goodness, that's amazing. And then, you know, your wife had the frantic Lucy Harris because she's desperate to find those plates.
Richard That's funny. That's pretty good.
Gerrit Someone has Peggy Fletcher's Shack. That's funny. Gangrenous Antelope. We have multiple gangrenous antelopes. There's gangrenous antelopes everywhere. You've got a non-PhD historian, Rooster Cogburn's Left Eye, Dead and in Hell. We have Hold My Shasta. I think I only said that one time.
Richard So I do have a favorite. Do you have a favorite in that list?
Gerrit They're all so good.
Richard So Fornicating Fornicator from Tyler is my favorite. That one makes me smile every time I see that. That's very funny.
Gerrit I mean, John C. Buckets is pretty amazing.
Richard That's pretty good.
Gerrit You know, there's just so many. I mean, as I go through them, I mean, the pre-mortal Joseph Young, I mean, that's not bad. John C. Buckets is pretty awesome. I mean, Obadiah Dogberry's Reflectors, that's a deep, deep cut. I don't know. I think, I don't know, if I had to pick my favorite. Boy, there's just so many. There's so many. Maybe the person who decided to, I guess I shouldn't pick the favorite one that I can't actually read. I made a comment that there's at least some evidence that Utah's deliberately misspelled Judge Perry Brocchus' name.
Richard Brokay.
Gerrit Yeah. And someone named their bracket with proper, you know, ampersands and such, cleverly placed that. That's a pretty good deep cut. But I mean, honestly, there's so many of them that are just so funny. So hopefully everyone has fun doing it. And yeah, we'll, I guess we'll try to find a way to, like I said, I'm not doing any international shipping. I'm not doing that. I'm not paying $95 to get you a book. That's not happening. We'll just, you just buy one on Amazon.
Richard There's a scene from one of my favorite comedies, The Other Guys, where there's a hot dog vendor and there's general celebration that's going on at the beginning of the movie. And the guy's like, free hot dogs for everybody. And he's like, and everyone's cheering. He's like, but I can't do drinks. I can't do drinks. It's too much. It's too much.
Gerrit That's literally what you are right now. That's exactly what I'm like. Look, look, we'll give you a prize, but it's going to be a bad one. I mean, look, I'll meet you in Albany. That's pretty good. That's someone who's listening to the premium.
Richard Yeah, that is good.
Gerrit That's a bergoin shot. But anyway, so hopefully everyone has a good time. Join the bracket pool and we will obviously reference it a little bit over the coming weeks because we're bad people. But we actually are going to have to record some of these things before Richard leaves to go to Kenya. So perhaps we might end up, some of them will be like, I don't know who's in the Elite 8 or something like that.
Richard No, over the next two weeks, we have to do like a month's worth of, we have to do like eight episodes in the next two weeks.
Gerrit And so what about Kenya makes you think they won't have reliable high speed internet?
Richard It's a great question. Yeah. You know what? Let's just see how it goes.
Gerrit You're right. Yeah. Maybe, maybe we'll just maybe Angie will be sitting in on a couple more. Anyway, thank you so much for playing around. We decided we dropped this as a bonus because it's just so, it's so fun. But thank you so much for joining us for this. And we'll get, you know, don't worry. We'll drop a regular, you know, terrible episode on Thursday like we usually do. Thanks so much for joining us.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard LeDuc. If you know of anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. Until next time.

Quote board

Make a share card from any line

A lot of charities, you know, they, they start off with, we'd like to help children have school books in Africa and they end up buying people Teslas in the administration.

GerritBanter

I've read enough of them to know that many of you missed your calling in life, and you must be one of the most sarcastic people that you know, which maybe is why you're a fan of the podcast.

GerritBanter

Look, Mormons have been getting robbed in Missouri since 1833.

GerritBanter

I felt like he made some good points.

RichardBanter

There's a couple references to my general intelligence and lack of vision.

RichardBanter

If I sign the book, it's value drops immediately. You don't grab a Pokemon card and sign it.

GerritBanter

We're sorry our computers cannot process numbers this low.

GerritBanter

Think of how much faster you could have gotten your PhD if it was fake.

GerritBanter

The worst part about Chat GPT is when it says it's going to fix it and then gives you something that's actually worse, it just makes you mad.

GerritInsight

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
An AI can fill out a March Madness bracket for you without any mistakes.
A book signed by the author is worth more.
Take it to classReady to use in a lesson or a talk.

Take it to class

Ready to copy into a lesson or a text

The Dead and in Hell bracket challenge is all for fun and supports Sweetwater Rescue, which started as a way to help people get to the temple.

Many of the 219 team names are deep cuts from years of episodes, so the bracket list doubles as a highlight reel of the show's running jokes.

Even AI tools need checking: two of Richard's four AIs picked Final Fours that couldn't happen, and ChatGPT couldn't build Gerrit's fantasy football schedule after 35 tries.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
The Sweetwater Rescue hostile takeoverRichard is so used to plugging the charity that Gerrit says it's now 'the company,' headed from school books to Teslas (1:27, 1:47).
Yoo-hooYoo-hoo Chronic, Frozen Yoo-hoo and 80-degree Yoo-hoo all made the bracket list (7:19, 12:16).
Joseph Young's 1838 pioneersListeners and Gerrit keep the gag going that Joseph Young led the Saints to the Great Basin in 1838 (7:33, 9:13).
Robbed in MissouriRichard's stolen backpack fits a pattern going back to 1833 (6:47).
Gerrit's danderDirkmaat Rage Energy, Dandermeter Nation, Dander Disciple and more dander names fill the list (9:57, 13:14, 15:54).
The John C. Bennett buttonJohn C. Buckets nearly sends Gerrit's diet Coke out his nose (10:37, callback 25:56).
Gangrenous antelopes everywhereMultiple brackets borrow the listener salutation 'doctor gangrene dangling antelope' (25:06).
Rice tariffsThe password for the bonus logo link is 'rice,' as in rice tariffs (13:59).
Doctor inflation, AI editionRichard says he uses AI to write his dissertation, and Gerrit wonders how much faster the PhD would have gone if it were fake (17:50, 18:34).
Free hot dogs, no drinksGerrit won't pay international shipping for a prize, which Richard compares to the hot dog vendor in The Other Guys (27:06, 27:41).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

Your question could be next week’s episode
Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
Who Joseph Young actually was, and why the bracket list keeps crediting him with leading the Saints west in 1838 (7:33).
The Missouri troubles of 1833 that Gerrit jokes about when Richard's backpack goes missing (6:47).
Mormonism Unveiled and the Sidney Rigdon authorship theory Gerrit teases as a prize (14:59).
Judge Perry Brocchus and the evidence that people in Utah deliberately misspelled his name (25:59).
SOT Litner · S6B2.