PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Now, onto our final game, Lightning Fill in the Blank. Each of our players will have 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill in the blank questions as he or she can, each correct answer now worth two points. Carl, can you give us the scores?
CARL KASELL: Roxanne Roberts has the lead, Peter. She has four points. Peter Grosz has three. Mo Rocca has two.
SAGAL: Mo, you are in third place.
MO ROCCA: Yes.
SAGAL: You're up first. The clock will start when I begin your first question. Fill in the blank. On Wednesday, President Obama revealed his proposal to reduce blank.
ROCCA: Gun violence.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Foreign workers including Americans were taken hostage by a terror group in blank on Wednesday.
ROCCA: Algeria.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Because of fears over battery fires, this week the FAA grounded Boeing's new blank.
ROCCA: Airplane, the 787.
SAGAL: Yes, called the Dreamliner.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: In an interview this week, an aging mobster with Detroit's mob said he knows where blank is buried.
ROCCA: Oh, the guy.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: That Jack Nicholson played, not very well, even though Jack Nicholson is usually so great. Jimmy Hoffa.
SAGAL: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
(APPLAUSE)
PETER GROSZ: Mo's brain at work.
SAGAL: After a foot chase, police in Florida apprehended a burglary suspect that while he was blanking.
ROCCA: While he was selling his wares on the beach and saying "Hey everyone, I just stole these."
SAGAL: No, while he was hiding in a closet with a lampshade on his head.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Subway restaurants found themselves in hot water this week after a New York Post investigation revealed that some foot-long subs are blank.
ROCCA: Shorter.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: In an official statement on Monday, the Palace revealed that blank's due date is in July.
ROCCA: Kate.
SAGAL: Yeah, Kate Middleton.
ROCCA: Yeah, yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: A teacher in Ohio is suing her school district for discrimination, saying they are not respecting her lifelong fear of blank.
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
ROCCA: Is it a teacher who's doing this?
SAGAL: It's a teacher in Ohio.
ROCCA: They're not - her lifelong fear of children.
SAGAL: Exactly right, yes.
(LAUGHTER)
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: It's unclear if Maria Waltherr-Willard understood that one of the risks that come with being a teacher is an exposure to children.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: She says she's had a lifelong phobia of children. She says that she was fine with high schoolers, but then she was transferred to a middle school and the younger children there were just much for her. They terrified her with their general adorableness and Ms. Waltherr-Willard took early retirement, is moving on. She's excited to begin her new job as a ticket taker at Wiggles concerts.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Carl, how did Mo do on our quiz?
KASELL: Mo had seven correct answers, for 14 more points. He now has 16 points, and Mo has the lead.
SAGAL: Well done, Mo. All right.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Peter, you're up next. Fill in the blank. On Monday, President Obama held the last blank of his first term.
GROSZ: Press conference.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Tuesday night, the House finally voted to approve a $50 billion emergency relief package for victims of blank.
GROSZ: Superstorm Sandy.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Safety concerns arose this week after a blank crashed into a crane over London.
GROSZ: A blank crashed into a - oh, helicopter.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Best known for his role as Mr. Drummond on the sitcom blank, Conrad Bain died this week at age 89.
GROSZ: "Diff'rent Strokes."
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: A sculptor in Siberian explained this week that he made an 880-pound cobra sculpture out of cattle dung in order to blank.
GROSZ: Impress his girlfriend.
SAGAL: No, entertain the children during the long winter months.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: After undergoing treatment for bronchitis, former president blank was released from the hospital on Monday.
GROSZ: George H. W. Bush.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This year's Golden Globes ceremony hosted by blank and blank had the award show's highest ratings in years.
GROSZ: Amy Poehler and Tina Fey.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: A Nebraska man who'd drove his car into a pizza joint blanked before emergency crews arrived.
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
GROSZ: Ordered a pizza.
SAGAL: Yes, indeed.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The elderly man said his foot slipped on the gas pedal as he was parking at Valentino's Pizza and since he was already inside...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Once the car stopped, and since it looked like it'd be a while before anybody showed up to help clean up, why not order the pizza?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The man was actually halfway through his pizza when emergency workers arrived, cranky that he hadn't thought to order them anything.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Carl, how did Peter do on our quiz?
KASELL: Peter had a great round, 7 correct answers, 14 more points. He now has 17 points, and Peter Grosz has taken the lead.
SAGAL: Well done.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: How many then - I know Roxanne knows, but tell us, how many then does Roxanne need to win?
KASELL: Seven correct answers.
SAGAL: Oh my goodness, Roxanne, that's a lot. You ready for it?
ROXANNE ROBERTS: I'm going to try.
SAGAL: Here we go. French troops continued to fight Islamist rebels after landing in blank last Friday.
ROBERTS: Mali.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: After it responded to a request to build a Death Star, the White House changed the numbers of signatures required for a response on blank.
ROBERTS: On the White House petition thing.
SAGAL: Yes.
ROBERTS: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: In a dramatic unveiling on Wednesday, blank announced its new search feature.
ROBERTS: Google.
SAGAL: No, Facebook.
Pauline Friedman Phillips, best known for writing the blank advice column, died Thursday at age 94.
ROBERTS: Dear Abby.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Police were called after a brawl broke out at a blank in Massachusetts.
ROBERTS: A church confirmation.
SAGAL: No.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Close though, a baby shower.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Thirty years after her unexplained drowning, this week the L.A. coroner officially changed the cause of death for actress blank.
ROBERTS: Natalie Wood.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: A Belgian woman says faulty GPS turned her 90-minute trip to the train station into a blank.
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
ROBERTS: It was like a nine-hour trip. She ended up in Croatia or something.
SAGAL: Exactly right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: A 900-mile trip to Croatia. You'd think she would have noticed at some point - maybe when she stopped twice for gas, or had a minor car accident or had to pull over to sleep because the sky had gradually become dark.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: But no. According to the woman, quote, "I was distracted, so I kept driving. I saw all kinds of traffic signs, first in French, then German and finally in Croatian."
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: "Then I looked behind me and I saw the earth receding into the distance."
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: No, she said that she suddenly she was in Zagreb and she realized she wasn't in Belgium anymore.
ROCCA: Yeah, Siri had the wrong accent.
SAGAL: Exactly.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Carl, did Roxanne do well enough to win?
KASELL: Roxanne had five correct answers, for ten more points, giving her a total of 14 points. But with 17 points, Peter Grosz is this week's champion.
SAGAL: Well done, Peter Grosz.
(APPLAUSE)
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.