Panel Round Two
NPR
Saturday, September 27, 2014
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More questions for the panel: The World's Most Annoying Bench; Pizza Pets; This Ramen is Like Crack!
Transcript
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're playing this week with Kyrie O'Connor, Shelby Fero, and Tom Bodett. And here again is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you Bill.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Thanks so much. In just a minute, Bill brings his A game - and also his A, A, B, B, A game. Pretty clever guys. It's the Listener Limerick Challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news.
Kyrie, in an effort to encourage physical fitness, parks in Moscow have installed park benches that do what?
O'CONNOR: Parks that - I need a hint.
SAGAL: Well, you sit on the bench and something happens. You learn something.
(LAUGHTER)
O'CONNOR: You sit on the bench and it weighs you.
SAGAL: It weighs you, yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: The park benches weigh you. From now on, when you sit down on a park bench in Moscow, you will see your weight prominently displayed in large numbers on a panel. This is to encourage gym membership and prevent you from ever daring to go outside again.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The idea was imported from the Netherlands, where they've been doing this. Russians everywhere said, so, we could have had their human rights and social welfare programs, but no, you guys brought the hate benches. Thanks Putin.
(LAUGHTER)
O'CONNOR: That's the worst idea ever.
SAGAL: Isn't it?
O'CONNOR: That would keep me from never sitting down again.
SAGAL: Right. Puts a lot of pressure on Muscovites though. Now they have to get in shape for bench season.
(LAUGHTER)
O'CONNOR: One time I went to a pharmacy, I forget what I was getting - a prescription or something. The pharmacist said, so how old are you? And then he said, and how much do you weigh?
(LAUGHTER)
SHELBY FERO: Were they helping you or were they just curious?
O'CONNOR: No, this was...
TOM BODETT: We have a bet back here.
(LAUGHTER)
BODETT: We have a little pool - we started it when you walked in the store.
(APPLAUSE)
BODETT: If you're over 140 I get a beer, so what is it?
SAGAL: Tom, a Pizza Hut in Australia pushed the art of marketing one step further when they offered customers last week a free what if they bought 10 pizzas?
BODETT: A pizza?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: No, no, no. Everybody does that. You buy 10 pizzas you get one free.
BODETT: OK, so this is Australia. Free - oh, God. I need a hint.
SAGAL: Well, you get this for free, but the little exercise wheel costs extra.
BODETT: Oh my God, you get a free hamster.
SAGAL: Yeah, hamster.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Or if you prefer...
BODETT: I mean, aren't they free anyway?
SAGAL: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
BODETT: I mean, they just show up, right? They show up with your third grader one day and it's just like, oh, there's a hamster in the house.
SAGAL: I should clarify that the hamster does not come on the pizza. You don't eat it. This is not Taco Bell, OK.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: The store - the Pizza Hut - this one store in Australia said that with the purchase of 10 pizzas, customers would get, quote, "one small pet from a nearby pet store," right there in the same mall, I guess. It's a great cross promotion 'cause when you think food safety, you think lots of loose rodents running around.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The idea was met with outrage by local animal activists and the restaurant soon apologized and canceled the promotion. The animal activists thought they'd scored a victory, but when the next pizza they ordered had really tiny pepperoni.
(LAUGHTER)
BODETT: It's like a really twisted version of the happy meal. You know, it's like if the - there was something rustling around in your happy meal bag.
FERO: They just said one small pet.
SAGAL: One small animal from the...
FERO: So it could be anything?
SAGAL: Yeah, it doesn't have to be a hamster. Could have been a gerbil, lizard, snake. Anything you want with a pizza.
FERO: Like a fish?
O'CONNOR: Actual live anchovy.
SAGAL: Flop, flop, flop, flop, flop, flop, flop, flop, flop, flop, flop, flop. That's my imitation of a live anchovy pizza.
BODETT: I've never seen you do that before.
SAGAL: I know.
BODETT: It was amazing.
SAGAL: Dominos says we'll get it to you with the anchovies still alive or it's free.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Kyrie, a Chinese noodle shop owner admitted this week to putting what in his noodles to keep his customers coming back for more?
O'CONNOR: Oh my - not a live anchovy?
SAGAL: No. It was almost as if they were addicted to his noodles.
O'CONNOR: Some form of drug?
SAGAL: Yes, opium specifically.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: The noodle chef was trying to one-up his competitors, so he laced his noodles with heroin. Technically opium poppy seeds.
O'CONNOR: He could've just put a tapeworm in there.
SAGAL: Could have done it.
FERO: All right, both bad ideas.
SAGAL: Yes. Authorities have fined him and are threatening to take away his noodle license.
BODETT: Oh, they're just. They're threaten - this is your first one.
(LAUGHTER)
FERO: Noodle cops are after him.
SAGAL: I imagine the Yelp reviews of this place were just off the charts great. It's like, so good, I cannot stop eating these noodles. I am going to strip abandoned buildings for copper so I can get more of these noodles.
BODETT: They just deliver them in a brick of Ramen.
FERO: That's not even like a light drug. Like that's a serious drug.
SAGAL: People who get addicted to the noodles have to go to like spaghetti clinics to get off of them.
(LAUGHTER)
FERO: And then they just meet other fettuccine dealers and it's a whole thing. It's a broken system. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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