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Who's Carl This Time

CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME! the NPR news quiz. I'm Carl Kasell. And here's your host at the Comerica Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona, Peter Sagal.

(APPLAUSE)

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Carl. Thank you, everybody.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Thank you so much. It is great to be here in Phoenix. We've got Sen. Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, joining us later on to play our game. But first, first we wanted to spare a thought for our friends back in Chicago and on the East Coast, buried under yet another miserable winter storm. And that thought is: it's 80 degrees and sunny where we are, suckers.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot: you can't hear me because your power's out, too.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: So call us to complain or play our games. The number is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT, that's 1-888-924-8924. It's time to welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!

TRACY MORAN: Hi, this is Tracy. I'm in East Greenwich, Rhode Island.

SAGAL: Tracy, hello, how are you?

MORAN: I'm OK, thank you.

SAGAL: That's great, and I want to ask this question to everybody who calls in today. How miserable is the weather where you are?

(LAUGHTER)

MORAN: It's only moderately miserable here. We've probably got about five inches of snow today, and then it turned to rain.

SAGAL: I find that less than satisfying.

MORAN: I'm sorry.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Tracy. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First it's comedian and host of the Moth, the last Tuesday of the month at Martyrs in Chicago, show up, it's Brian Babylon.

(APPLAUSE)

BRIAN BABYLON: Hey.

SAGAL: Next, it's a columnist and editor at the Houston Chronicle, Ms. Kyrie O'Connor.

(APPLAUSE)

KYRIE O'CONNOR: Hi Tracy.

SAGAL: And finally it's a comedian performing at the Aladdin Theater in Portland, Oregon, on February 23, it's Maz Jobrani.

MORAN: Hi Maz.

MAZ JOBRANI: How are you?

MORAN: Fine, thanks.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: So Tracy, welcome. You're going to start us off course with Who's Carl This Time. Carl Kasell is going to read you three quotations from this week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain two of them, you'll win our prize, Carl's voice on your voicemail. Ready to go?

MORAN: Absolutely.

SAGAL: Let us do it. Your first quote comes from a production insider at NBC's Olympics headquarters in Sochi.

KASELL: The entire set was cleaned and sanitized.

SAGAL: The studio needed to be sanitized before Matt Lauer came in and took over for whom?

MORAN: For Bob Costas and his pinkeye.

SAGAL: Indeed, yes, Bob Costas.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Every four years, we turn to the Olympics for drama, and the big drama of the 2014 Games in Sochi has been what is wrong with Bob Costas's eye?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Was it pinkeye? Had he died during the 2012 London Games and was finally starting to rot?

(LAUGHTER)

JOBRANI: They couldn't have done any, like, Hollywood effects or a blue screen or type of "Avatar" magic?

SAGAL: Like give him a cyborg eye?

JOBRANI: Something.

SAGAL: Or they could have spun it better in the marketing department. Oh, the reason his eye is closed is because it's a tribute to the ring that didn't open in the opening ceremonies.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: I felt bad.

JOBRANI: Or you know what? They could have spun like you know what, secretly Bob Costas, his second job is like he's a daycare, he works in a daycare, and he's around a whole bunch of, like, you know, toddlers who have, like, germs and stuff.

BABYLON: You know what - go ahead.

O'CONNOR: Now it's so great because he can be the spokesman for pinkeye. You know, he can do pinkeye awareness events, have galas to raise money to combat pinkeye.

SAGAL: He can be to pinkeye what Katie Couric is to colon cancer.

O'CONNOR: Exactly.

(LAUGHTER)

JOBRANI: It always happens like that, though. Remember like picture day? Like that's when the pimple comes, right there. And this poor guy, four years. He could have gotten pinkeye for three years, and it happened this one...

BABYLON: He was in his dressing room for, like, hours, like not today, any day but today.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Meanwhile, back on the slopes, things were not going well for the Americans. We were even getting beat in the sports we invented, like snowboarding and pairs figure-eating.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And things were really tough for the snowboarders. Not only did Shaun White fail to win a third gold medal, his nickname The Flying Tomato was stolen by Bob Costas' eye.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Tracy here is your next quote:

KASELL: I guess they don't want to ask a 6'3", 260-pound defensive lineman if he was gay.

SAGAL: That was a 6'3", 260-pound defensive lineman who saved us all the trouble of asking and just told us this week that he is gay. Who is it?

MORAN: Michael Sam?

SAGAL: Michael Sam, very good, yes.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Michael Sam, a football player from the University of Missouri. He made history this week when he announced he was gay before the NFL draft. All previous gay NFL players announced it at the draft with the traditional French kiss of the commissioner.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: In 2014, I don't think - they keep saying that it's going to be a problem in the locker room. And for my friends who play in the NFL, they don't care about that. It's the people who care are like the Jerry Jones of the world.

SAGAL: The owners?

BABYLON: The owners.

SAGAL: Well, they never - you know, they never say it's I have a problem. They say oh, you know, the players have a problem. It'll be a distraction, right. That's the problem, it's a distraction. Like your job, football players, is to throw balls and tackle people. How focused do you need to be?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Gee, the ball is coming toward me in the end zone, but I can't stop thinking about that what that gay guy does on dates.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: When they dance, when he dances with his date, who leads? I don't know.

JOBRANI: What do they think the gay guy's going to try and, like, romanticize the locker room, like bring in candles?

SAGAL: Well that's the other concern, it's like oh, oh, supposedly the players are like I don't like being naked in a room with a gay man. What if he's attracted to me? Dude, you're a 350-pound defensive lineman with a broken nose and backne. I don't think you have anything to worry about, OK?

BABYLON: You're good, you're good.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

BABYLON: But hold on, hold on, that could be someone's type, though. Let's not even - hold on.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: You could be into the big backne dudes. That could be your thing.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: BigBackne.com is a - some type of website.

JOBRANI: And if it's not, you should get it.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Here is your last quote.

KASELL: On the good ship Lollipop. It's a sweet trip to the candy shop.

SAGAL: Those words are from a song stuck in everyone's head this week in honor of whom?

MORAN: Shirley Temple Black.

SAGAL: Yes indeed, Shirley Temple Black.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: America's first child star, and also America's last child star to grow up without going insane, died this week at the age of 85. Her genius, Shirley Temple's was knowing when to quit, just after she stopped being cute and just before she got into cocaine, guns and nude selfies.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: Can I say the thing that's magical about Shirley Temple? People don't remember this like me. She brought - she kept this nation together during the Great Depression, you know.

SAGAL: You remember this, Brian? You're older than you look, is that what you're saying?

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: Yeah, not all vampires are shimmery and in high school, OK?

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: Sometimes they're hipster middle-aged black men. So - but no, I mean, just think about today. What kid star could keep a nation together? Like I doubt, like, you know, the Miley Cyruses could do it.

SAGAL: I find that whole idea a little difficult to understand. It's like a nation is starving, 25 percent unemployment.

BABYLON: And Shirley Temple keep us together.

SAGAL: And people are like well, that's terrible, I have nothing to eat, but that small curly-haired child tap dances well.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: You know what I think, though? Like I think Barack Obama needs to sort of bottle what Shirley Temple had and help his approval rating.

SAGAL: Really?

BABYLON: He needs to go on like a Shirley Temple, like, musical tour where he, like, morphs her songs into things that help him out. Like animal crackers in my soup, Obama website goes loop-de-loop.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: And then he, like, says...

SAGAL: Bring the country together?

BABYLON: He brings the country together, yeah.

SAGAL: That's awesome.

JOBRANI: You don't sound convinced.

SAGAL: No, I'm thinking a bottle of Shirley Temple Black or a bottle of Johnny Walker Black, and I'm thinking...

BABYLON: He'll take that.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Carl, how did Tracy do on our quiz?

KASELL: Tracy, you had three correct answers, so I'll be doing the message on your home answering machine or voicemail.

SAGAL: Well done. Thank you so much for playing, Tracy.

MORAN: Thank you very much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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