Bluff The Listener
NPR
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Update RequiredTo play audio, update browser or
Flash plugin.
Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
Our panelists tell three stories about someone getting away with something major because no one was paying attention.
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 Tom Bodett, Maz Jobrani and Faith Salie. And here again is your host at Wang Theater in Boston, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. Thanks, everybody.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Right now it is time for the WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME Bluff The Listener Game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game on the air.
Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME.
BARRY GORDON: Hi, this is Barry Gordon from Missoula, Mont.
SAGAL: Oh, I love Missoula. One of my favorite cities.
GORDON: Oh, good.
SAGAL: What do you do there?
GORDON: Well, I'm a photographer. And sometimes we go out and do a little grizzly bear research in the Blackfoot Valley and work with a bunch of really good folks from Fish, Wildlife & Parks, and I volunteer for them.
SAGAL: And do grizzlies like to be photographed?
GORDON: Well, not really because most of the time they're asleep when we're doing it.
SAGAL: Oh, that's cheating.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Barry, it's nice to have you with us. You're going to play the game in which you have to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Barry's topic?
KURTIS: It was right under my nose.
SAGAL: There are clues everywhere. Also everywhere - people who completely miss those clues. This week, we read a story about someone getting away with something major because everyone was oblivious to the signs. Guess the true story and you'll win Carl Kasell's voice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?
GORDON: I am ready.
SAGAL: First, let's hear from Maz Jobrani.
MAZ JOBRANI: Brooklyn is a big place with lots of police precincts. Not all the cops know each other. Antonio Mirangeli (ph) used this to his advantage and was able to play a cop for three years before getting caught and thrown in jail himself. Mirangeli, the son of a retired policeman, was able to use his father's badge, a walkie-talkie purchased from RadioShack, and a toy gun to pull the wool over the eyes of real cops during his stint. One officer who kept running into Mirangeli says, I should have known he was a fake when we'd make an arrest and he'd never finish the Miranda Rights. He'd say, you have the right to remain silent, yada, yada, yada.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: Another officer was quoted as saying, "he'd pull up his car. You'd hear the sound of sirens going woo, woo, woo. Turns out he had a megaphone like that guy from "Police Academy."
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: Boy, he was good with sounds. It wasn't until Mirangeli finally had to pull his gun during a drug bust when he was busted. Another officer on the scene reports, we pulled our guns on the suspected drug dealer and he points at Mirangeli's and goes, is that a toy gun? I look over and I see that little orange thing on the end of the pistol. I'm like, holy crap, you're not a cop. Mirangeli was arrested on the spot, unfortunately, the drug dealer got away.
APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: A guy successfully pretends to be a cop in Brooklyn for three years. Your next story of a cheater finally caught comes from Tom Bodett.
TOM BODETT: Gaioz Nigalidze rise to the ranks of professional chess began in 2007, the year the first iPhone was released. In hindsight, the timing might not be coincidental. On Saturday, the 25-year-old reigning Georgian champion was competing in the Dubai Open Chess Tournament when his opponent spotted something strange. After every move Nigalidze made, he would jump up and scoot to the bathroom.
Now, if the young chess master had been middle-aged, no one north of 50 would've suspected anything. But anyone under 30 who pees that much is either pregnant or has an iPhone wrapped in toilet paper stashed behind the toilet at a chess tournament. Nigalidze, it turns out, was not pregnant. He was logged into a networking site of chess geeks and software analyzing the game as he played. He denied the phone was his, but officials soon found the phone was logged in under Nigalidze account and they had no choice but to disqualify him.
The news was not a big surprise to the chess world. The basic problem was that it's incredibly easy to cheat with a phone, says Nigel Short, an English chess grandmaster who once was ranked third in the world and is now sixtieth. My dog could win a major tournament using one of these devices, said Nigel, adding the unfortunate afterthought - or my grandmother.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: A chess grandmaster hides an iPhone in the bathroom to cheat at a chess championship. Your last story of someone getting busted comes from Faith Salie.
FAITH SALIE: Rob Weeks (ph) and his in his pet turtle Amos have long enjoyed fame in their hometown of Okeechobee, Fla., but now it's turned to infamy. Amos, winner of the Central Everglades Turtle Sprint for the past three years is a shell of the champion he once was. That's because it's been discovered that Amos, the turtle who smoked his competition, is really a hedgehog. Ironically, it was Amos' speed that undid him. At the annual Spring Sprint last week, Amos got going so fast that the hollow turtle shell his owner had velcroed under the hedgehog's belly started to slip until the shell rotated completely, liberating all of Amos' quills, which had been spray-painted army green for good measure.
The crowd gasped, some screamed, but Amos' challengers just sat there. Neechi Power (ph), owner of a competing turtle admits, I thought it was weird when I overheard Rob call his turtle Mr. Whiskers during their prerace pep talk. And we always thought Amos had an unusually adorable face. Weeks himself remains defiant, declaring Mr. Whiskers identifies as a turtle.
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: He has been transitioning bravely and publicly to become Amos. We ask for your support this time.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Let us review your choices. From Maz Jobrani, the story of a guy in Brooklyn who pretended to be a cop successfully for three years until he pulled out his fake gun. From Tom Bodett, a chess grandmaster who was caught rushing into the bathroom after every turn to check his iPhone. Or from Faith Salie, the story of how a guy won turtle racing championships with a hedgehog stuffed into a turtle shell. Which of these is the real story of a cheater finally getting caught?
GORDON: Well, you know, I would really like to go with Tom, but I'm going to have to go with Maz because it sounds more plausible.
SAGAL: So let me get this straight, Maz's story of a guy pretending to be a policeman making siren sounds with his mouth in a megaphone...
GORDON: Right.
SAGAL: ...Is the plausible one? To bring you the real answer, we spoke to someone familiar with the actual scandal.
MACKENZIE MOLNER: I just can't believe somebody like a grandmaster would be doing that. I just couldn't believe it also because he made it so obvious that he was doing it.
SAGAL: That was Mackenzie Molner, the 2013 the U.S. Open Chess grandmaster talking about...
GORDON: No.
SAGAL: ...The case of the cheating grandmaster with the iPhone. So I'm sorry, you should've gone with your old friend Tom who was telling the truth.
GORDON: I knew. All right.
BODETT: So rare.
SAGAL: Yeah, I know. So you didn't win, but you did earn a point for Maz for his - apparently his very credible bluff story.
GORDON: Can I get Paula Poudstone's voice on my recorder?
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: Conception.
SAGAL: No, but we - you can't get Paula Poundstone but we do have three tubs of chopped liver here that perhaps you might be interested in.
(LAUGHTER)
GORDON: That would be fine, thank you.
SAGAL: Thanks so much for playing. Bye-bye.
(APPLAUSE) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
View this story on npr.org
Follow us for more stories like this
CapRadio provides a trusted source of news because of you. As a nonprofit organization, donations from people like you sustain the journalism that allows us to discover stories that are important to our audience. If you believe in what we do and support our mission, please donate today.
Donate Today