A BBN Original

Credentials Pending

The BBN desk books the world's most specific experts. Their credentials are pending. Their confidence is not.

A BBN Original: one anchor, one fictional expert live via satellite or big on the studio wall, and two to four minutes of extremely confident answers to life's small mysteries. The experts come back. Their findings do not hold up.

Meet the experts (12)▶ Watch BBN live

Every episode

The first expert is on the satellite line. The first episode airs on BBN soon. Watch BBN live.

The Guest Book

All 12 experts →

12 experts, 48 specialties, 12 home cities and not one verified credential between them.

Coach Darnell "The Thermostat" Pruitt
Household Temperature Mediator
- Founding expert
- Booked soon
Darnell Pruitt coached youth football for twenty years before finding his true calling: standing between a family and a thermostat. He has settled more than nine hundred temperature disputes, most of them between people who share a bed. He brokered the historic Two-Blanket Accord and still gets holiday cards about it. He believes every argument can be solved with a cardigan and a timeout.
“Sixty-eight degrees. Nobody is happy. That's fair.”
Episodes
0
Debut
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From
Atlanta, Georgia
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Dr. Beatrix Okonkwo-Lund
Professor of Sleep Logistics
- Founding expert
- Booked soon
Beatrix Okonkwo-Lund folded a fitted sheet on live television, and the footage has been studied ever since. She has a theory that every household owns exactly one pillowcase that fits nothing. Her team measured how long people lie awake thinking about something they said in a meeting years ago, and the answer was "too long". She sleeps diagonally, as a matter of professional ethics.
“A fitted sheet cannot be folded. It can only be negotiated with.”
Episodes
0
Debut
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From
Charlotte, North Carolina
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Dr. Ingrid Solvang-Hale
Meteorological Conversation Specialist
- Founding expert
- Booked soon
Ingrid Solvang-Hale studies what people really mean when they say "cold enough for you?" Her research mapped the four-second elevator silence and found it is longest on the way up. She has a scale for small talk that runs from "brisk out there" to "they say it's going to turn". She has never once discussed the weather for pleasure, only for science.
“Partly cloudy, with a chance of awkward.”
Episodes
0
Debut
Not yet
From
Duluth, Minnesota
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Dr. Lucia Ferraventi
Professor of Group Chat Studies
- Founding expert
- Booked soon
Lucia Ferraventi has read more unread messages than anyone alive, which she admits is a contradiction. She decoded the national meaning of the single thumbs-up, and it was not good news. Her lab tracks the exact moment a group chat goes quiet after someone asks who is bringing dessert. She is muted in eleven group chats, including the one she started.
“Nobody has read the chat. Everyone has seen the chat.”
Episodes
0
Debut
Not yet
From
Providence, Rhode Island
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Open the Guest Book

At the desk

Hank Ledger
Host at the BBN desk
Deadpan. Asks every question like a bus timetable.
Vera Bullock
Host at the BBN desk
Delighted by every finding, however alarming.
Dale Bearman
Host at the BBN desk
Hopes every expert is about to announce the end.