BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis, we are playing this week with Alonzo Bodden, Faith Salie and PJ O'Rourke. And here again is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Thank you all so much. Right now it's time for the WAIT WAIT DON'T TELL ME Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our games on the air. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT DON'T TELL ME.
ALEX FLAVOR: Hi, this is Alex from New Orleans.
SAGAL: Hey, Alex. How are you?
O'ROURKE: Hey, Alex.
FLAVOR: I'm doing - hey, everybody. How are you doing?
O'ROURKE: We're headed to New Orleans.
SAGAL: We are. We're going to go down there March 12.
FLAVOR: I know.
SAGAL: We're very excited. There's no crowd like a New Orleans crowd.
FLAVOR: Exactly. I intend to be in that crowd so I'm very excited to have you.
SAGAL: That'll be very exciting.
O'ROURKE: Excellent.
SAGAL: Alex, it's good to have you with us. You're going to play our game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Alex's topic?
KURTIS: Where in the world is Harvey Weinstein?
SAGAL: Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein is one of the most powerful men in the movie business. In fact, he's behind so many Oscar-winners, they just made the statuette a little huskier to look like him. So it's fitting that just weeks before the Academy Awards, we heard a story about Harvey Weinstein showing up in a very unexpected place. Our panelists are going to tell you about that story. Only one of them, though, is true. Guess that one, you'll win Carl Kasell's voice on your voicemail. You ready play this game?
FLAVOR: I hope so.
SAGAL: OK, first let's hear about Harvey from Faith Salie.
FAITH SALIE: Harvey Weinstein is a star maker. Look what he did for ingenues like Gwyneth Paltrow and - Judi Dench? Yes, Weinstein plucked the then 60-something English rose from a vigorous career on the stage and telly and gave her real career by making her a name in America. Presumably, she skipped the casting couch and landed in such Weinstein films such as "Mrs. Brown" and "Shakespeare In Love." For the latter, she won an Academy Award, and Weinstein won her eternal gratitude. She told Harv, you're a guy who has everything. I don't know what to get you. And then she thought of something to get him - a tattoo of his name on her butt. For the unveiling, Dame Judi took Weinstein to the Four Seasons restaurant. In front of famous friends like Carly Simon and late greats Nora Ephron and Mike Nichols, the dame unbuckled her pants, dropped her knickers and gave Weinstein her bum deal. On her Oscar-winning asset it says, J.D. loves H.W. And this is why Harvey Weinstein is a great producer. He knows how to get points in the backend.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Harvey Weinstein appearing, in all places, in the form of initials on Dame Judi Dench's posterior. Your next story of where Harvey Weinstein might pop up is from PJ O'Rourke.
O'ROURKE: Fat, abrasive movie producer Harvey Weinstein and fat, abrasive New Jersey Governor Chris Christie are friends, maybe because they share a fat abrasiveness. And they decided to switch jobs for a week just for the fun of it. Christie went to Hollywood to produce movies and Weinstein went to Trenton to govern New Jersey. A few top aides were in on the prank, but the thing is Christie and Weinstein act so much alike, and everybody is too scared to look either one of them in the eye so nobody noticed. Christie greenlighted a script for a film about a tough and effective governor and possible presidential candidate with anger management issues and an eating disorder. Meanwhile, Weinstein began an aggressive, even abrasive, campaign to give a special Academy Award to the state of New Jersey for providing the ugly, depressing and sleazy locations for countless ugly, depressing and sleazy Hollywood movies.
SAGAL: So Harvey Weinstein switching places with Governor Chris Christie. That was from P.J. O'Rourke. Your last story of Harvey Weinstein's whereabouts comes from Alonzo Bodden.
ALONZO BODDEN: The next time you call Uber in LA and your driver looks like Harvey Weinstein, be nice to them. It might actually be Harvey Weinstein. That's because Harvey's taken to the streets of LA as an Uber driver. He said it allows him to get a feel for what the common man - also known as a movie ticket buyer - is thinking. It's a break from the usual - hey Harvey, here's my brother's wife's cousin's idea for a movie - that he has to listen to every damn day. Well, he thought it was a break. Hollywood is a small town. Once word got out Harvey might be driving, would-be writers, producers and actors began hailing Ubers and pitching ideas no matter who was driving. It's weird, says Al Bideman (ph), a driver for two years/ People get in and start telling me stories. I've received business cards and head shots. I was even propositioned. They have me drive in circles and drop them off right where I picked them up. They all insist I must know Harvey. Don't they realize if I knew Harvey I'd be pitching my own script? Harvey was unable to be reached for comment. Seems he's in talks with George Clooney about a project where a famous person leads an undercover life as an Uber driver.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right then. Harvey Weinstein, movie mogul, appeared somewhat surprisingly in one of these three places. Was it, from Faith Salie, the buttocks of Dame Judi Dench who revealed that she had a tattoo of Harvey there as a tribute to him, from P.J. O' Rourke in Trenton, New Jersey, where he had taken the place in a prince-and-the-prince kind of switch with New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie, or from Alonzo Bodden as an Uber driver in LA so he could walk among the people or drive among them and get a sense of their feelings? Which of these is the real story of a surprise appearance by Harvey Weinstein?
FLAVOR: Let's see. OK, I'm ruling out A for sure.
SAGAL: You're rolling out Dame Judi Dench's butt tattoo?
FLAVOR: I think that's my safe bet, yeah. I think I'm going to go with C.
SAGAL: You're going to then pick Alonzo's story of Harvey Weinstein, multi-millionaire movie producer, getting into a car and picking up Uber drivers?
FLAVOR: Yes.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Well, we spoke to an entertainment journalist to get the truth.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NICK ROMANO: Judi had brought Harvey to the four seasons restaurant. She unbuckles her pants and flashes her butt tattoo.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Amazingly enough, the story you immediately dismissed was the true one. That was Nick Romano who works at Cinema Blend. He was telling us about Dame Judi Dench's tattoo of Harvey Weinstein's initials on her butt.
FLAVOR: You know what? I'm not even sorry.
SAGAL: No, you shouldn't be.
BODDEN: Thank you. Thank you.
SAGAL: You should be proud.
O'ROURKE: If you had guessed correctly, there'd be something wrong with you.
SAGAL: Yeah. As you now have figured out, Faith had the true story. You did not win because you didn't pick that, but you did earn a point for Alonzo which, I think, is a very good idea.
BODDEN: I appreciate it, and we don't know that he's never driven an Uber.
SAGAL: That's true. Thank you, Alex.
FLAVOR: Thanks very much. Have a good one.
SAGAL: Bye bye.
(APPLAUSE) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.