Lateral with Tom Scott
Lateral with Tom Scott

177: Bride then groom

February 27, 2026 • 44m

Summary

⏱️ 7 min read

Overview

Tom Scott hosts a lateral thinking puzzle show with guests from the 'Hey I Love That Movie' podcast: Dan Faulkner, Helena Kirk, and Michael Dearsley. The team tackles creative puzzles involving music equipment, educational balloons, climate change art, casino security, geography trivia, and classic films, combining humor with clever problem-solving.

Introduction and Podcast Overview

Tom Scott welcomes three guests from the Hey I Love That Movie podcast, which explores childhood favorites to see if nostalgia holds up. The hosts discuss their podcast's premise of rewatching beloved childhood VHS movies after 10-20 years, with Michael highlighting Southland Tales featuring Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson as particularly regrettable. They joke about the etiquette of criticizing movies when guests love them, setting a lighthearted tone for the episode.

  • The podcast premise: rewatching childhood movies to test if they hold up or if it's just nostalgia
  • Southland Tales is the worst film they've covered - barely anyone has heard of it and The Rock doesn't talk about it
  • The awkwardness of having a guest who loved a terrible movie on their first guest episode
" Normally it's just the nostalgia. Yeah, normally they're not good. But, you know, it's harder to talk about a good movie most of the time. "
" It is shockingly long. Nothing really happens. And the worst part is, on our podcast, that was the first episode we had a guest. We were trying to work out how mean we could be about the film. "

The Trent Reznor DX7 Mystery

The first puzzle explores why Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails is partly responsible for high prices of Yamaha DX7 synthesizers today. Michael correctly deduces that the equipment was regularly destroyed during their energetic performances, with the band famously assaulting keyboards on stage. This practice reduced the available supply of these 1980s synthesizers, driving up collector prices.

  • The Yamaha DX7 was one of the most popular synthesizers of the 1980s
  • Trent Reznor is the frontman of Nine Inch Nails, recently known for the Tron Ares soundtrack
  • Equipment was regularly destroyed during energetic performances at Nine Inch Nails concerts
  • A YouTube video titled 'Nearly 3 Minutes of Trent Reznor Assaulting Keyboards at Woodstock 94' documents this behavior
" I know a couple of musicians they will break equipment to get the right noise out of it. It could be the most expensive equipment on the planet. They're like yeah but I need it to make this specific noise and to do that I'm going to need to pay to get it fixed after. "

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