Who's Bill This Time
NPR
Saturday, November 15, 2014
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Bill Kurtis reads three quotes from the week's news: Big Red Blowup; Catch A Falling Star; Devil Moon.
Transcript
BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago this is WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm aerialist and contortionist Bill Kurtis.
(LAUGHTER)
KURTIS: And here is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you Bill.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Thank you everybody. Thank you so much. We got a great show for you today. Later on we're going to be joined by actor Ron Perlman. Now you know him, but you may not know what he looks like. He's done his most famous performances in really heavy makeup like his caveman character in "Quest For Fire" back in the '80s, Hellboy in the two "Hellboy" movies, the beast in the TV show "Beauty And The Beast" and, of course, the hooker with a heart of gold in "Pretty Woman."
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: A transformative performance. You can pretend to be anyone you like when you call us. We can't see you. 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.
KATE ATKINSON: Hi, this is Kate Atkinson calling from Amherst, Massachusetts.
SAGAL: Hey, Kate. How are you?
ATKINSON: I'm great.
SAGAL: I'm so glad to hear it. Now Amherst is, of course, a beautiful town in central Massachusetts - a college town. What do you do there?
ATKINSON: I'm a family physician.
SAGAL: Oh that's sweet. That's nice. So you're tending...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...That is sweet.
ATKINSON: Why are they laughing to that?
SAGAL: I don't know.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I think they're laughing 'cause right before we started, I told them to please laugh so we sound good and they're just overdoing it, I think.
ATKINSON: I see.
SAGAL: Well, Kate, let me introduce you to our wonderful panel this week. First up it's a comedian and the host of the Who's Paying Attention podcast, it's Alonzo Bodden.
ALONZO BODDEN: Hello, Kate.
ATKINSON: Hi, Alonzo.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Next it's a reporter for the Washington Post Style Section, Roxanne Roberts is here.
ROXANNE ROBERTS: Hey, Kate.
ATKINSON: Hey, hi, Roxanne.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Finally, it's a comedian who will be performing at the Levity Live Comedy Club in West Nyack, New York on November 20 through the 22 - it's Maz Jobrani.
MAZ JOBRANI: Hello. Hey, doctor.
ATKINSON: Hey.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: So Dr. Kate, we're going to start off, of course, with Who's Bill This Time? Bill Kurtis, as he often does, is going to re-create for you three quotations from the week's news. Your job, as I bet you know, is to correctly identify or explain two of them. If you do that, you'll win prize - scorekeeper emeritus Carl Kasell's voice on your voicemail. Are you ready to do this?
ATKINSON: I hope so.
SAGAL: All right. Your first quote is from Chinese bloggers who were not liking a visitor to Beijing this week.
KURTIS: This is the American manner and humor - it is immature. No wonder he doesn't get any support.
SAGAL: So who failed to impress the people of China?
ATKINSON: Well, I'm guessing that's president Barack Obama.
SAGAL: Indeed, Barack Obama. That's right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: So President Obama reacted to the midterm elections by getting as far away from America as you can without leaving the planet.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: He wanted to go to Mars but, of course, that's a red planet.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: But even in China he couldn't escape criticism. Mr. Obama appeared in public during one of the events in China chewing gum. That is a major faux pas over there. You can't do that. Now it was nicotine gum, we believe, which he chews because he no longer smokes - or using the same logic, it could have been popularity gum.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: So they were angry about him making a joke or about...
SAGAL: No, they were angry about the fact that he chewed gum and did not ride in the official Chinese limousine, instead going with an American limousine.
BODDEN: What I don't understand is like, you're the president, don't you have a guy on staff who's like, hey, in China, don't chew gum? Like just somebody whose job it is to teach you the protocol. Now the limo thing, you know, he's got a Cadillac limousine, and if a brother has a Cadillac, he's riding in a Cadillac.
(LAUGHTER)
BODDEN: You didn't get a Cadillac to not ride in it.
SAGAL: The other - did you follow this - I'm sure you, Roxanne, were in on this - but the other big controversy in addition to the gum...
ROBERTS: The Putin coat thing?
SAGAL: The Putin thing.
ROBERTS: Yeah, that was awesome.
SAGAL: Putin apparently at some public event with all the leaders and all their wives reached over and put his shawl around the shoulders...
ROBERTS: He put his - it was an outdoor dinner and he was having a conversation with China's first lady. And she must have said she was chilly because - he's so smooth - he, I mean, just like - this was like James Bond smooth - he stands up and gently, very quickly, puts his coat over her shoulders so she's not cold.
SAGAL: Of course, being Putin, he was bare-chested under the coat.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: But he did this and then, of course, it was very gallant, as they say. He then followed that act by declaring that she had always been a part of Russia and stationing tanks on her arms.
(LAUGHTER)
BODDEN: And yet Obama can't chew gum.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: OK. Kate, here is your next quote.
KURTIS: Fantastic, great. Sorry. Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to hug you, but I'm excited.
SAGAL: That was a scientist at the European Space Agency talking about a probe that landed where on Wednesday?
ATKINSON: On a comet.
SAGAL: Yes indeed.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On a comet, or as I'm sure all of you nerds know, specifically on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Now it's important to note this was not an American mission, it was a European Space Agency that succeeded. The Americans tried this with another comet but our probe just kept getting close to the target and just yelled louder and louder, do you understand English? Would you stop? Would you - I don't under - hello?
JOBRANI: So is this thing moving?
SAGAL: Oh, it's moving incredibly fast. It's a comet. It's moving...
ROBERTS: Thirty-six thousand miles an hour?
SAGAL: Yeah. It's zipping through the solar system.
JOBRANI: And our - and so the probe that lands there is moving at that same speed?
SAGAL: Well, yeah. It was a ten year mission. They launched this thing in 2004, and for ten years it's been zooming around out there.
ROBERTS: But they were so cute. They were like, you know, giddy. They were jumping up and down.
JOBRANI: Yeah, if you took ten years - ten years of anything, I'd be happy if I put in ten years to get a cracker and I finally got that cracker.
(LAUGHTER)
BODDEN: Do you know - you know how proud your - like for ten years you've been working and people are like what you working on? And then like - that's never going - what are you, crazy? And, you know - and all of this - and then it finally happens, you know? And you're like, I did it. Like as a rocket scientist, you been a nerd all your life. You were cool for one day.
SAGAL: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right. Here, Kate, is your last quote.
KURTIS: It looks like a glazed Krispy Kreme donut.
SAGAL: That was a writer in Time Magazine writing about a picture of what that took over the Internet this week?
ATKINSON: Can I have a hint?
SAGAL: Well, let's work this out.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: A glaze - well...
ROBERTS: Not really a donut - I'd say...
ATKINSON: Oh, oh, the snowfall.
ROBERTS: No.
SAGAL: No.
ROBERTS: Hot cross buns.
SAGAL: Maybe more like that, Roxanne.
KURTIS: That's very close.
SAGAL: That's very close.
JOBRANI: Breast of chicken.
ATKINSON: I'm really drawing a blank here.
SAGAL: No, wait a minute.
ROBERTS: I'm sorry - she's saving children.
SAGAL: I know. I want to say that Kate, I think the fact that you don't know this speaks so well of you.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I think that by not knowing what the hell we're talking about, you have proved to yourself to be a valuable human being with the correct priorities, so I will tell you with some shame that we are talking about Kim Kardashian's naked butt.
ATKINSON: Oh. Yes, I never would've known that.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: You never would have known that. Given...
BODDEN: Congratulations.
SAGAL: ...And good for you. Given the fact that Ms. Kardashian parlayed her fame from a leaked sex tape into a TV series in which we got to see her get bikini waxed, it's strange how shocked we are that she now has exposed her naked rear end. In the picture she seems weirdly oily as if she's been greased up and is about to be released at the county fair.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: And if you catch her, you win gonorrhea.
(LAUGHTER)
BODDEN: Sounds accurate.
SAGAL: There you go.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill how did Kate do on our quiz?
KURTIS: You know, we respect Kate so much for her position on this, I'm going to give her all three.
SAGAL: There we go.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
ATKINSON: Thank you, thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Congratulations Kate. Well done.
ATKINSON: Thank you very much.
SAGAL: Thank you, bye-bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BOOTY CITY")
BLACK JOE LEWIS AND THE HONEYBEARS: (Singing) Right on everybody, won't you take me to Booty City. Right on everybody, won't you take me to Booty City. I got to tell everybody about all the things that I see here. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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