Decoder Ring | Mailbag: Fruit Snacks, Waterbeds, and Lobster Tanks

Slate History

It’s our annual mailbag episode! We get a lot of wonderful reader emails suggesting topics for the show — and at the end of the year we try to answer some of them. This year, we’re tackling four fascinating questions. Why do grocery stores keep live lobsters in tanks, unlike any other animal? How did candy get rebranded as “fruit snacks” when fruit is already a snack? Whatever happened to perfumed ads in magazines? And what was the waterbed all about? We’ll get an answer from the waterbed’s inventor who still has four of them.

You’ll hear from Ray Shalhoub of Joray Fruit Rolls, consumer lawyer Steve Gardner, Jessica Murphy, aka the “Perfume Professor,” inventor Charlie Hall, restaurant historian Jan Whitaker, and the CEO of Crustacean Compassion, Dr. Ben Sturgeon.

This episode was produced by Max Freedman and Sofie Kodner. Decoder Ring is also produced by Willa Paskin, Evan Chung, and Katie Shepherd. Derek John is Executive Producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.

If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at [e-mail].

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