Hey, grown ups. Mindy here from Wow in the World, and in case you haven't heard the big news, my friend, Carly Q.
from Who and Wow Mystery Edition will be hitting the road with me this fall, and if you live in or around San Francisco or New York City, we are coming to you.
Introducing Make It Wow, presented by our friends at Audible.
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Make It Wow is the Bonker Balls competition game show where teams of kids from our live audience are challenged to turn their wildest and weirdest ideas into jaw -dropping inventions live on stage.
Featuring live music from the pop -ups and special appearances from Dennis, Grandma G.
Force, and Thomas Fingerling, plus at the San Francisco performance, our buddy Guy Ross will be stopping by too.
So come join the party.
Grownups, you can get your tickets now at tinkercast .com slash events.
That's tinkercast .com slash events.
We can't wait to make it wow with you this fall.
Hey, it's your favorite secret host here from your favorite, hopefully still secret, podcast.
Today, we went to an island in the Pacific to check out a centuries -old mystery.
There were dig sites, giant heads, topknots, and more.
So stick around. I'm Carla Q, and this is Who When Wow Mystery Edition.
["Who When Wow Mystery Edition"] Our past is fast and wild.
Many things have brought us to this day.
As history has been compiled, some important details are slipped away.
In our spectacular shared existence, we consider it a business to recognize a few vlogs you may not know.
["Who When Wow Mystery Edition"] Made important inventions.
["Who When Wow Mystery Edition"] Asked all the right questions.
History will never be the same.
["Who When Wow Mystery Edition"] Coming into work today, I could barely focus.
Hi, Carla Q. Morning, Linda, Amber, I mean, Amber, Amber, nice to see you.
Amber, you are Amber.
Yes, I am. I was having trouble concentrating because I was keeping my eyeballs absolutely sealed for clues.
As you may recall, someone wrote us a letter saying they know we've been secretly using the time elevator, but we don't know who it is.
We're short on answers and even shorter on clues.
Well, have a good day, Carla Q.
Great, yep, mm -hmm.
You too, Amber. Okay, looking for clues.
When I got down to the basement, I could feel myself looking every which way for clues.
Even the smallest detail might shed some light on who wrote the letters.
Carla, you can't hide from me, clues.
Oh, look, my stapler.
He's out of staples.
Maybe that's a clue.
My rat friend, Nibbles, politely disagreed.
Wait, are you saying it's only out of staples because I've been stapling all those pieces of trash to the bulletin board thinking those might be clues?
Okay, well, that's a fair point.
Oh, Carla Q. Lewis came down and I quickly got him up to speed, both about the clue dilemma and the stapler.
Okay, well, Nibbles is definitely right.
You've been stapling like it's your job and it's not your job.
Do you ever do your actual job?
Yeah, sometimes, but what about our total and complete lack of clues?
Who left us that letter?
I thought you were letting it go.
I was and I tried, but I couldn't, so I lied.
Nice rhyme scheme. Thank you, but someone is still on to us for using the elevator.
It's definitely frustrating, but I kind of don't think you're gonna find anything by just randomly fixating on every object in front of you.
That's not actually investigating.
What do you mean? There's a leaky faucet in the bathroom.
That could be a clue, or the flickering light bulb in the kitchen.
Clue? I mean, maybe, or...
It's all nothing and I'm just grasping a paper straws.
Yeah, I think it might be that.
Ugh, clues! I demand you come forward.
Make yourselves know.
But instead of a new clue coming forward, I'm doing timeshields.
I'm doing timeshields.
Event in 1955. Easter Island.
My wife's... Easter Island?
Isn't that where they have those giant head statues?
Either that, or a mythical land, or you get to eat candy Easter eggs every day of the year.
I pulled out my handheld digital assistants device and plugged in the clues from the file.
Easter Island. Moai.
This file likely refers to Easter Island, located off the coast of Chile, and its famous stone statues called Moai.
Stone head emoji. I knew it, the island with the big heads.
In 1955, an archeological expedition studied the statues, but many questions remain, including why they were made and how they were moved, given that they weigh almost 14 tons each.
Yikes, that is heavy.
Huh, maybe the statues are actually the heads of giant robots, controlled from the inside by tiny aliens who escaped a catastrophic event on their planet, traveled to Earth, and crash landed on Easter Island.
Or maybe they're really big key chains.
Gosh, you really are grasping at paper straws today.
Oh, Lewis, it's a brainstorm.
We are throwing out ideas without judgment.
Okay, fair, that's fair.
I gotta get back to work, though.
See you back here at lunch.
Lewis went upstairs.
I got some work done myself.
And a few hours later...
Attention, butthead employees, it's due study lunch day.
La, la, la, lunch time.
So, I grabbed Nibbles and Hdad, and we took off for the elevator.
Hi, Odie. Good afternoon, basement companion.
Lewis, do we have a new time sealed file today?
Or any luck with our letter writer mystery?
Not much new on that front.
We are out of clues.
And turns out the only one suspiciously using all the staples was me.
We do have a new file, though.
A little place called Easter Island and its giant head statues, the mowai.
The mowai? I love the mowai!
I've been fascinated with them ever since I first learned about Easter Island in school.
I used to fancy myself a bit of an amateur archeologist.
I love digging up old things to discover the stories behind them.
Have you ever been to the island?
Never. But perhaps one of you might be willing to trade places with me today and watch over the elevator so I can finally see the mowai for myself.
Why are you both looking at me?
Remember when you did this before so Odie could come meet Amelia Earhart?
You loved it! I did?
Oh, I did, didn't I?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
The mowai! Ugh, why is he like this?
Who knows? Okay, I'll do it.
Okay, great. Odie, it looked like the event on the file was in an archeological expedition in 1955.
Yes, I've read much about it.
the time seal should only cover the end of the expedition, so we should be able to ask some of the archaeologists what they've learned about the statues.
One of them, William Malloy, went on to become one of the most pre -eminent scholars on the Moai and the people who built them.
Alright, then let's hop to it.
Not until we remember our rules.
You must be back by the end of lunchtime, and you cannot change anything in the past.
The rat is right. Good job, Louis.
And Carly, we may also want to jump forward in time to check out some more recent expeditions as well.
Great! Then, any last words?
Remember, the date printed on the milk carton is actually the sell -by date, and not the expiration.
The milk is usually good for at least a week after that.
OK. What? It's true.
Yes, it is, Louis, but perhaps also consider.
You must delve deep to find the answers you seek.
Wow! You're trying to be so much better than mine.
I'm fair. Damn. OK, now I get to flip the switch.
My heart always forgets the story of which this feels.
Hey, grown -ups! Mindy here from Wow in the World.
And let me tell you, Carly Q and I are so excited to make it wow in New York City, I mean, New York!
And San Francisco with our new live show, Make It Wow, presented by Audible.
There's more to imagine, would you listen?
And apparently, you're excited too, because our San Francisco performance is filling up, and our New York City performance is almost so good.
So, we're adding even more wow with a second show for New York City.
Grown -ups, get your tickets today at Tinkercast .com slash events.
That's Tinkercast .com slash events.
That's it! We'll see you there.
We made it to Easter Island.
And whoa! Look at the giant head statues!
They're incredible.
Oh, hi, Nibbles. Hi there, Odie.
Wow, these things are big.
Nibbles and Odie were right.
We were facing a whole row of giant faces.
They were huge heads, like 15 feet high, taller than a school bus and made out of stone.
I've always loved the distinctive look of the faces.
They were all the same shape, heavy brows and long noses, lips in a thin pout, long, flat ears.
I love strong chins.
You can slice a brick of cheese on those tall lines.
There was a group of researchers working nearby.
One of them seemed to notice us, so Nibbles hid down in my cat.
The researcher was a tall man in a cowboy hat and dark -rimmed glasses.
Odie got excited as he approached, so I figured it must be Mr.
Malloy. Call me Bill, please.
It must be our new crop of research assistants who just arrived.
Ah, yeah. Yes, we are.
That's us. We are really excited to be here.
So excited! I'd never seen Odie like this before.
It's like she was starstruck.
Sorry, I've just always dreamed about this moment.
Mr. Bill, can you tell us a bit about the statues?
What are they made of?
Sure, most of them are carved out of a material called tuff, which is...
Solidified volcanic ash.
That's exactly correct.
Also, there's about one thousand of them on the island.
It's estimated they were made between 1200 and 1500 CE by the Polynesian people who likely came here on boats between 600 and 800 CE.
They called the island Rapa Nui.
Then in 1722, a Dutch explorer arrived on Easter Sunday and gave it the name Easter Island.
Okay. Wow, you really know your stuff.
I'm a big, big fan.
Bill, do we know why the statues were made?
We do not. Not for sure, anyway.
That's just one of the many mysteries we're here to find out.
Like the mystery of how they were moved, given how heavy they are.
Absolutely. There's a number of theories for that.
They may have been rolled on logs to get them here from the quarry site.
Or the heads may have been walked by keeping them in an upright position and rocking them back and forth with ropes.
A fascinating theory.
Isn't it just? It really is.
Uh, okay. Well... Hey, Bill.
Come and give me a hand with this.
While Bill went back over to the other researchers, nibbles popped up out of my bag and suggested we have a look around the island.
Great idea. Let's do it.
Uh, Odie? Yes. Sure.
Sorry, I'm just... Distracted by Bill?
Chush. Let's go. We took off walking to see what we could see.
There were statues everywhere.
Look at all those head statues along the coast.
All facing inland with their backs to the sea.
I wonder if it's almost like the heads were meant to be watching over the people on the island.
Or an audience, in case the people ever wanted to...
put on puppet shows at the beach.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, I love puppet shows.
We walked back inland and saw other heads half buried in the sloping hillside.
They couldn't have been built like that on purpose, right?
Probably not. In the hundreds of years since the statues were put up, the land has shifted and eroded, burying these ones under the dirt.
Hey, look at those!
Nibbles was pointing to a series of statues with cylindrical red stones on their heads.
Oh, cool. They gave some of the heads hats.
I actually wonder if it's supposed to be hair.
Come up in a top knot!
The ultimate man bun.
OK, well, hat, top knot, potato, potato.
Circling back to the shore, we saw more of the heads facing inland.
But curiously, we also found seven statues facing the other way, out to sea.
What do you make of that, Odie?
But Odie was distracted looking off in the distance at Bill.
Is she crushing on him or what?
I would be too, Odie if I finally got to meet the handsome archaeologist of my dreams.
He is not the... OK, you know what?
I think for all our sakes, we should fast forward in time to another expedition.
I believe there was one in 2014.
Nibbles and I agreed.
So we went back to the elevator and after Odie got one last look at Bill...
Odie, I'm just messing with you, but you're getting so upset about it.
I just think they chewed together!
I thought so too. Carly, enough!
Coming back out of the elevator in 2014, the island looked pretty much the same.
Except now, with a new crew of researchers studying statues.
Almost as soon as we arrived, one of them saw us and came over.
Hi, hi, hi, I'm Anna.
You all must be part of that new team of research assistants who just arrived.
Uh, yep. That's us.
Still research assistants.
We were just discussing some of our key research questions.
We were wondering, any theories for why the people here made the moai?
Well, that is the question.
We believe the statues represent the Rapa Nui people's ancestors, including important chieftains in the community.
I wonder if perhaps there's a way the chieftain statues are identified.
There is! On some of the statues, there's...
Anna, is it the red hats?
It is the red hats.
Except they're not hats.
They're most likely meant to be topknots, since that hairstyle was a sign of the chieftain's power and status.
Wow. So, nibbles was right.
Um, nibbles? No. Uh, yeah, you know what?
That is just what I call my, you know, my nibbles of inspiration.
Yes, anyway, most of the heads are facing inland, towards the island, but what about the seven facing out to sea?
Ooh, an excellent question.
Since the statues represent their ancestors, most of the heads face inland so the spirits of the ancestors would watch over the islanders.
All right, point for me.
I was right. But the ones that look out to sea are set to relate to an ancient legend, about seven men waiting for their king to arrive from across the sea.
It's very impressive, all the history you've gleaned from these statues.
Well, we really must credit much of the work to a man named William Malloy.
Oh, yeah, we just starly read about him.
We just read about him, inside of a book, with pages, and pages and pages and numbers, and there were words on the pages.
You know, all the things you would normally find in a book.
Mm -hmm, okay, sure.
Well, I am guessing you'd like to see the newly excavated bodies now, right?
Bodies? We followed Anna 20 yards away to the nearest head and as we got closer, we could see they dug out the area beneath the statue, revealing that the statue went down in the ground another 20 feet.
The statues aren't just heads.
They've got bodies, too?
The body didn't have a lot of detail.
Mostly it was just an arm carved on either side, but the sheer size of it was incredible.
Well, many of the statues' torsos became buried as the land on the island shifted over the centuries, but uncovering them has helped us learn more about the statue's purpose and how they were carved.
This is amazing. I know, right?
I love my job. Anna left us to our own devices for a bit, which gave us the chance to take out H -Dad.
Okay, see you, girl!
Keep loving your job!
How about those topknots, huh?
Nibble's popped up, too.
What are you telling you?
Wrecked snow fishin'!
Very impressive, Nibbs.
Anyway, listen, H -Dad, we've learned a lot here, but I do still have some questions.
What happened to the people who made the Moai?
Where are they today?
Unfortunately, the presence of European visitors changed the island and the Rapa Nui people over time.
Today, the island only has roughly 7 ,000 full -time inhabitants.
Ugh, that's sad. But the island hosts thousands of visitors each year coming to see the Moai, and efforts are underway to honor the indigenous history of the island and the Rapa Nui legacy.
Not that I have any reason to ask other than completely disinterested curiosity, but what happened to that earlier archaeologist, Bill Moai?
Moai made more than 20 trips to Easter Island to help study and preserve the statues?
After his death in 1978, his ashes were interred here on Easter Island with an inscription in the local language reading, By studying and racing up the living faces, he showed us his great love for Rapa Nui.
Hm, I love that. Heart emoji.
He was buried with the statues he loved so much.
I'm not crying, you're crying emoji.
How cool. Incoming message from butt head H2.
Attention butt head emoji.
Okay, time to go. Five minutes.
We made our way back to the elevator and...
Stop studying your snow and get back to work.
Whoa! Hey, welcome back.
Kylo, wait. Why are there bowls of stew everywhere?
Uh, because I was studying them.
Duh. How was Easter Island?
We learned so much.
For one thing, the Rapa Nui people likely built the Moai to honor their ancestors and important chieftains.
But also, the statues aren't just heads.
Some of them have bodies, too.
Wow, really? They had, I mean, duh, of course.
They did, obvi. For real.
We were really impressed with all the work the archaeologists have done.
They sure did a lot of digging.
Wait. Odie, you're riddle.
You must delve deep to find the answers you seek.
Delve is just another word for dig, which is exactly what those archaeologists did.
They discovered more about the Moai by literally digging deeper.
Which kind of seems like something we could do with the letter mystery.
I mean, not literally, but, you know.
Yeah, it's like enough with the staplers and light bulbs and bits of trash thinking they all might be clues.
We have to look closer at what we have.
Exactly right. Brilliant advice, Odie.
That is exactly what we're gonna do.
Thank you. And thanks for coming to Easter Island.
How fun was that? Doing it together.
Are you kidding? It was my pleasure.
And thank you, Lewis, for covering for me.
Oh, come here. Even you, Lewis.
Odie grabbed us all in a big group hug.
This is awkward. It was great.
What a successful adventure.
And with such a great piece of wisdom from Odie.
Separate. You know what?
You're right. This is awkward.
The letter writer's still out there, but I'm thinking we're gonna have to focus more on the one clue we already have.
The letter itself. I'm not sure exactly how, but I'm excited to dig deeper and see what else our key piece of evidence might have to tell us.
Until then, this is Carly Q signing off.
And remember, you never heard this.
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Who When Wow Mystery Edition is an original Tinkercast production with help from GZM shows.
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For Tinkercast, the executive producers are Guy Ross, Mindy Thomas and Meredith Halpern -Ranzer.
The shows are written by Aaron Weissman, Susan Mwadi -Daraj and Tom Van Kalkin.
The head writer for Tinkercast is Kenny Curtis and Carly Shiraki is a producing consultant.
Big shout -outs to the rest of the Tinkercast team, including Jed Anderson, Jessica Bodie, Rebecca Caban, Natasha Crandall, Lizzie Freilich, Kristen Jang, Tuy Mac, Erica Medina, Henry Moskal, Jodie Nussbaum, Ali Poxima, Linda Rothenberg, Steph Sosa, Tyler Thall, Joanna Weber and Anna Zegorski.
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The Who When Wow theme song was composed and performed by The Pop -Ups.
For more information on their three -time Grammy -nominated all -ages music, find them at ThePopUps .com.
Producers for GZM shows are David Kreisman, Ben Strauss, Chris Terry, Amy Servini and Claire McClanahan.
The production manager is Sharon Michaels.
Sound design and editing for Who When Wow Mystery Edition is done by Chris Terry and Oded Levaree.
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Original music was created by Jennifer Rokamp.
Voice editing is by Yoni Rekim and voice direction is handled by David Kreisman and Amy Servini.
And voice direction is handled by David Kreisman and Amy Servini.
Our main cast features Carly Schiraki as Carly Q, Brandon Salerno as Lewis, Melissa Van Der Schiff as Nibbles the Rat, Kenny Curtis as H -Dad and Angel Desai as Odie.
Help support Who When Wow by becoming a member of the World Organization of Wowsers and discover wows all year long.
Sign up today at Tinkercast .com slash membership.
You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel at Tinkercast .com slash YouTube for full -length episodes of Who When Wow Mystery Edition.
And reach out to us at Hello at Tinkercast .com if you have a mystery you would like butthead to investigate.
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Who When Wow asked all the right questions.
History will never be the same.
Who When Wow was made by Tinkercast and sent to you by Wondery.
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