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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 Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Carl.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Thank you everybody. Thank you so much. Great to see you. We've got a great show for you today. We've got former vice president Al Gore joining us later to play our games. We're going to have about ten minutes to get in all the jokes he would have done if the Supreme Court had made him president.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: But first, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue came out this week, and inspired by this success, NPR is preparing its own radio swimsuit program.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: It's called All Navels Considered.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Here's an excerpt.

KASELL: Right now, I'm wearing nothing but a tiny patch of spandex and a smile.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: That's coming up later...

(SOUNDBITE OF WHISTLE)

SAGAL: ...on this station. But right now, it's time for our quiz. Give us a call. The number is 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!

SUSIE IRWIN: Hi, this is Susie Irwin from Prineville, Oregon.

SAGAL: Prineville, Oregon?

IRWIN: Uh-huh.

SAGAL: Where's that?

IRWIN: It's a little tiny bird right in the middle of the state.

SAGAL: Well, what do you do there?

IRWIN: I'm retired, and I spend most of my time quilting and playing puzzles and games and as little as I can get away with.

SAGAL: Really?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Because you worked hard your whole life and now you're done with that.

IRWIN: Exactly.

SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Susie. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, a comedian and co-host of The Morning Amp on vocalo.org, the Prince of Bronzeville, Mr. Brian Babylon is here.

BRIAN BABYLON: Yes. Yes.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Next, it's one of the women behind the Washington Post's Reliable Source column, Ms. Roxanne Roberts.

(APPLAUSE)

ROXANNE ROBERTS: Hi, Susie.

SAGAL: And finally, it's the host of the podcast that is taking over the known world, Too Beautiful To Live, it's Mr. Luke Burbank.

(APPLAUSE)

LUKE BURBANK: Hey, Susie.

SAGAL: So Susie, you'll start us off with Who's Carl This Time. Carl Kasell will recreate for you three quotations from the week's news. Your job, correctly identify or explain just two of them. Do that, you'll win our prize.

IRWIN: OK.

SAGAL: Ready to go?

IRWIN: Yeah.

SAGAL: Here is your first quote.

KASELL: Gulp, gulp, gulp.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: That was Marco Rubio Tuesday night.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Taking a sudden drink of water as he responded to what?

IRWIN: The State of the Union.

SAGAL: Yes, exactly right, the State of Union speech, a big deal.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: A big exciting night. President Obama gave his first State of the Union of his second term, and it was so dull that the story of the night became a guy taking a drink of water.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: As everybody now knows, in the middle of his official response, Senator Marco Rubio, Republican from the desert planet of Dune...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: What he did was, as you saw, he grabbed - all of the sudden he started sort of choking and getting more and more agitated and then he grabbed a water bottle from off camera. He had to reach way off screen to get it and it was awkward, but he had a nice save. He was like, well, under President Obama, our tiny bottles of water are even further out of reach than they were four years ago.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: What was so weird about it - did you see this - he kept his eyes on the camera the whole time?

BABYLON: You know what, that's show business.

SAGAL: As if we were holding a gun on him.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: He's like, all right, America, I'm just getting water, do not kill me.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Just getting...

(APPLAUSE)

BABYLON: What he needed, it was like you know how NFL players have people just squirt Gatorade in their mouth.

SAGAL: Yeah.

BABYLON: He needed like a little aide on the side to squirt.

SAGAL: Squirt it.

BABYLON: Yep.

BURBANK: You know there was somebody who before the speech was like - you know like his mom was probably there. She said, Marco, did you drink some water? And he was like, I don't want to have to go to the bathroom in the middle of this.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: Listen to your mother. Listen to your mother.

SAGAL: But anyway, yeah, back to the actual State of the Union address, Obama's speech was really forgettable. It was just a to-do list. You know, it was like reform the tax code, raise the minimum wage, seize everyone's guns, clean out the gutters, find a new place to hide the cigarettes.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: He has, as you know - you know, you can tell the Obama speech playbook. He says things, and he has his applause punches and then, I'm out, good night. He's done.

SAGAL: Done.

BABYLON: Yeah.

SAGAL: He doesn't ever stay.

BABYLON: No encores, he's gone.

BURBANK: It would be great if he did encores like James Brown, where they, like, would throw a cloak over him and then he would throw it off and do like...

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: Yes.

BURBANK: Twenty more minutes of speech.

BABYLON: Yes.

BURBANK: And then they'd try to get him offstage. Joe Biden just on bass, just like keeping it going the whole time.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Anyway. Very good, Susie. Here is your next quote.

KASELL: Ex Benedict.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: That was the headline on Slate, among many other places this week, talking about whom?

IRWIN: Oh, the Pope.

SAGAL: Yeah, the Pope, yes, Pope Benedict.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Very good, yes, give it for Susie.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: This week, Pope Benedict announced his resignation, saying he wanted to spend more time not having a family.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: This is the first time a pope has resigned since the 15th century when Pope Gregory quit because they wouldn't give him a cooler pope name than Gregory.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Pope Benedict said he was too old to carry out the duties of pope, which is weird, since as far as we can tell the most important duty of the pope is to be old.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: That's very real.

SAGAL: If he wanted to, he could be pope and never leave his bedroom. In fact, Pope Boniface, the strangely quiet, remained pope for two years after he died.

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: Oh, I remember that movie, Weekend at Boniface.

SAGAL: Yeah, it was great. Well the real question is, since again, since no one, living memory has ever seen a retired pope, what do you do with him? What is he going to do? Is he going to do what every retired senior citizen who's not quite ready to give up does and be like "Welcome to Walmart?" You know, it would be...

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: Wait, Dracula was the pope?

SAGAL: Yeah, well.

ROBERTS: Do they have the early bird special in the Vatican?

SAGAL: Oh yeah. I'm here before 6.

BURBANK: Do you still make the moons over my hammy.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Everybody is talking about who will be the new pope. Some people think it might be time for an African or Latin American pope. Meanwhile, Karl Rove is convinced it's going to be Mitt Romney.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: Man, but...

SAGAL: He's like, don't call it, I think...

BABYLON: Seriously though...

SAGAL: Seriously what?

BABYLON: Black pope? Man, oh, man, I'm looking forward to that. A black pope might be - well, just for my own comic purposes. I don't know how you feel.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Susie, how's that quilt going?

IRWIN: Well, I'm just about done.

SAGAL: Excellent.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Just here to help. Here is your last quote.

KASELL: Were they disappointed that the United States never sent a dream team of Hulk Hogan, Rick Flair and Roddy Piper?

SAGAL: That was sports columnist Gary Shelton in the Tampa Bay Times, wondering why the Olympics is dropping what sport.

IRWIN: I don't know.

SAGAL: You don't know? You didn't hear this news?

IRWIN: What the Olympics are dropping?

SAGAL: The Olympics are dropping this sport...

IRWIN: Oh, wrestling. Wrestling.

SAGAL: Wrestling, yes, wrestling.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: The Olympics apparently have gotten too big, too many events, too many sports. So the International Olympic Committee got together and decided to eliminate a sport for the 2020 Olympics and they chose wrestling. Apparently, this is true, wrestling was a casualty of politics within the IOC.

It was cut while Modern Pentathlon, the favorite sport of a powerful board member was kept. For those who don't know, Modern Pentathlon is a combination of emailing, texting, sitting, snack eating and Kardashianing.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

BURBANK: Yeah, meanwhile, they left in the sport where you ski with a firearm on your back.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: That's a Winter Olympics. It's Biathlon.

BURBANK: That's a great idea, too, I think we can all agree.

SAGAL: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: So, hold on a second. They kept - what is that called with the...

SAGAL: Ribbons?

BABYLON: Ribbon on a stick.

SAGAL: It's rhythmic gymnastics.

BABYLON: They kept that?

SAGAL: They kept that.

BURBANK: The reason they kept that is because that is the one Olympic sport that if you have enough to drink you're pretty sure you could do.

SAGAL: Right.

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: You ever just been like, yeah, I'm getting good. I'm really getting this.

SAGAL: Just spinning your ribbon around.

BURBANK: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: There you are. Carl, how did Susie do on our quiz?

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

SAGAL: Well done, Susie.

IRWIN: Good.

SAGAL: Congratulations.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Thank you so much for playing, Susie.

IRWIN: Thank you.

SAGAL: Bye-bye.

IRWIN: It's been fun. Bye-bye.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.