Who's Bill This Time
NPR
Saturday, September 20, 2014
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Bill Kurtis reads three quotes from the week's news: Divided We Fall, Here We Go Again, and UTunes
Transcript
BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm fragrance anchorman Bill Kurtis.
(LAUGHTER)
KURTIS: And here is your host at the Paramount Theater in Seattle, Washington, Peter Sagal.
(APPLAUSE)
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you Bill. Thank you everybody.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: All right.
KURTIS: Must be Seattle.
SAGAL: It is great to be back in Seattle, Washington, city of champions.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Last season, the Seattle Seahawks absolutely dominated the season and then won the Super Bowl. And just two weeks into this football season, they're the only team in the NFL not to have a player arrested.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: That is as of show time. We'll check in again with that at the end of the hour. But to pass that time, give us a call. The number is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Let's welcome our first listener this week.
Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME.
JESSICA HART: Hi, Peter. This is Jessica from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
SAGAL: Hey, how are things in beautiful Chapel Hill?
HART: They are beautiful. It's turning Fall and it's very nice.
SAGAL: I'm glad to hear it. What do you do there?
HART: I'm a family medicine resident at UNC.
SAGAL: Oh wow.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Now my understanding is that the people who do family medicine are making a sacrifice 'cause you can make a lot more money if you specialize in a particular organ, right?
(LAUGHTER)
HART: Yes.
SAGAL: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: So are you making this noble sacrifice 'cause you can't decide which organ you'd like to specialize in?
(LAUGHTER)
HART: I like them all.
SAGAL: You them all. They're all so pleasantly squishy.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, welcome to our show. Let me introduce you to our panel this week, Jessica. First up, a comedian whose film "Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero" - described as the Persian "Pink Panther" is premiering at the Austin Film Festival on October 26. It's Maz Jobrani.
MAZ JOBRANI: Hello, there.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Next, a comedian performing October 11 in Concord, New Hampshire at the Capitol Center for the Arts, it's Paula Poundstone.
PAULA POUNDSTONE: Hello.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: And the host of the public radio variety show Live Wire, it's Seattle's own that Luke Burbank.
(APPLAUSE)
LUKE BURBANK: Hey there, Jessica. Jessica, just you don't get the wrong idea, they love me. They're chanting Luke.
HART: (Laughter).
SAGAL: So Jessica, you're going to start us off with Who's Bill This Time? Bill Kurtis is going to re-create for you three quotations from the week's news. Your job of course, correctly identify two or three of them. If you do that, you will win our prize - the amazing Carl Kasell's voice on your voicemail. Ready to play?
HART: Great. Yes.
SAGAL: All right. Well, here is your first quote.
KURTIS: It's much easier to say yes, but sometimes you have to say no.
SAGAL: That was someone in a place that decided no, it would not become an independent country after all. What country?
HART: Scotland.
SAGAL: Scotland, yes indeed.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: It came down to the wire, but Scotland voted to stay part of the United Kingdom on Thursday. The UK was incredibly relieved. Nobody was more relieved than David Cameron because - the Prime Minister of Great Britain - because this let's let Scotland vote thing was his idea. He calculated that leaving the Kingdom was so obviously a terrible idea that of course they'd vote against it, but these are Scots. They love terrible ideas.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Like let's wear a kilt in the winter. Lets eat a sheep's stomach. Let's live in Scotland.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: It's sort of funny 'cause, you know, you think about Scotch Tape holding things together.
SAGAL: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: When you think of Scotch, you think of adhesive things.
POUNDSTONE: You can't help but think of adhesive things. I mean, I don't know if there's really a relationship between those two.
SAGAL: Well, there's Scotch Tape and there's scotch whiskey. So you think of drunk people stuck together, which pretty much describes the United Kingdom as of Friday morning.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: I've got to tell you something, and I'm deeply ashamed of this, but I've really never understood the whole United Kingdom thing.
JOBRANI: Amen, sister.
SAGAL: Well, what do you mean you don't understand it?
POUNDSTONE: I didn't - I really have no idea what's connected.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The idea is that they are independent - there are countries, Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, that are combined into the United Kingdom.
POUNDSTONE: I never knew that.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: It feels like an awkward time to learn it.
SAGAL: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: I learn a lot on the show. And apparently they have very mature 16 year olds there because they had 16 year olds vote. I have a 16 year old son. I don't let him choose what to eat.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: This is true. This is probably why - why it came down to the wire because they did in fact, for the first time in Scotland, give 16 and 17 year olds the vote.
POUNDSTONE: The vote for everything?
SAGAL: They could vote on independence. It's like, oh, great. Teenagers, do want to stay living your mother's attic or would like to be free?
(LAUGHTER)
BURBANK: Well, the good news is Justin Bieber is the new Prime Minister.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BURBANK: So...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right, Jessica, that was very good. Here is your next quote.
KURTIS: I'm back.
SAGAL: That was somebody talking to the good people of Iowa this week. They're hard working, they're honest, they also happen to have the first presidential caucuses. Who was it?
HART: Hillary Clinton.
SAGAL: Yes indeed. Hillary Clinton.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Mrs. Clinton, believe it or not, has not been back to Iowa since Barack Obama kicked her but there in 2008. She didn't even go back to Iowa for a delicious corn dog at the Iowa State Fair or to try her luck at one of the many corn mazes or - all right, let's face it. It's hard to blame her for not going back to Iowa.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: I did - but she - I heard that she didn't declare. Is that right?
SAGAL: Well, that's the thing. Everybody wants to know are you running for president?
JOBRANI: She was just hanging out in Iowa like you do, right?
SAGAL: As one does. She says, quote, "she's thinking about it." And nobody believes her. They're like, oh, come on. You're doing it. We believe her. This makes perfect sense. Why not just go to Iowa for a Steak Fry? Maybe she was hungry.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Come on, skeptics. If history has taught us one thing, it's that we can take the Clintons at their word.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: These elections happen too fast.
SAGAL: I know.
JOBRANI: It's like we just finished and now we start. It's two years away, isn't it?
SAGAL: Yeah. We haven't even gotten to the election before the election and we're still talking about it.
JOBRANI: So many - it's like there's something to be said about dictatorships.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: The guy's there for 40 years. I don't have to think about anything. You know what I'm saying?
SAGAL: Yeah. Now it's possible that Hillary is really just indulging her husband's interests. He was there at the Steak Fry. He sort of dominated the event. He took stage. He talked. We don't know if Hillary wants to be president. We're pretty sure Bill does.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: Can he be vice president of she's president? Is that allowed?
SAGAL: I believe it is allowed, although it might be constitutionally difficult 'cause he's prevented from being president again 'cause the term limit thing.
JOBRANI: Oh, yeah. And she probably wouldn't want that.
POUNDSTONE: So then she could not legally be assassinated.
SAGAL: Right.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Yes.
POUNDSTONE: Which could be a good safeguard, I think.
SAGAL: That's true. All right Jessica, here is your last quote.
KURTIS: It's like everyone's vomiting their first impression.
SAGAL: That was a member of the band U2 describing the reaction of people who didn't like Apple's decision to do what with their new album?
HART: Release it for free?
SAGAL: Yeah, but not only that - you're right - but they forced everybody to have it. That's the problem. Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: As part of their new iPhone launch, Apple wanted to give away the new U2 album. But they didn't just make it free, they made it so it automatically showed up on everybody's iPhones or computers or whatever. It's like offering somebody a free meal and then surgically implanting a steak in their stomach.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Apple thought this would be cool, right? Magic. You all have a U2 album. But it was just creepy. And a lot of people got really mad about it. The news of the last two weeks has taught us something we didn't expect. People are willing to walk around with naked pictures of themselves on their phones, but not U2.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Apple had to launch a site just to help people get it off their devices this week. This is true. Unfortunately, the site - this would have been perfect if the site sent Bono a message every time somebody erased the album.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: Where's Bono from?
BURBANK: Ireland.
POUNDSTONE: Oh, Ireland.
SAGAL: Yes.
POUNDSTONE: Are they - they're not independent, are they?
SAGAL: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: Oh, they are?
SAGAL: Yeah they had a little bit of an argument about that.
POUNDSTONE: Ireland is independent.
SAGAL: And they eventually won that argument. So Ireland is independent from the United Kingdom but not Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. Are you with me?
BURBANK: But they're not part of the Commonwealth?
POUNDSTONE: No.
BURBANK: That's Canada.
SAGAL: Right.
BURBANK: Everyone knows that.
SAGAL: And Australia.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: Canada, where Nickelback is from. And if they force that music on people's phone, there would be a global riot.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Jessica do on our quiz?
KURTIS: She was three for three. Perfect, Peter.
SAGAL: Congratulations Jessica. Thanks for playing.
HART: Thank you so much.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I STILL HAVEN'T FOUND WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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