Bluff The Listener
NPR
Saturday, February 13, 2016
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Our panelists tell three stories about something else Chipotle is doing wrong, only one of which is true.
Transcript
BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago this is WAIT WAIT... DON’T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We are playing this week with Maz Jobrani, Roxanne Roberts and Mo Rocca. And here again as your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Thank you so much. It's 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 are on WAIT WAIT... DON’T TELL ME.
DAVID BARNES: Hi, this David from Atlanta.
SAGAL: Hey, David from Atlanta. How are you?
BARNES: I am well. How are you?
SAGAL: I am fine. How are things in Atlanta? We're going down there in just a couple weeks to do our show at the beautiful Fox Theater.
BARNES: Indeed you are.
SAGAL: What's...
BARNES: Unfortunately, you are sold out, and I can't get in. So can you hook me up with some tickets?
(LAUGHTER)
MAZ JOBRANI: Nice.
SAGAL: I don't know. Wait a minute, I don't know, David. What can you do for me?
(LAUGHTER)
BARNES: I can play your quiz.
SAGAL: Oh, there you go. I think that's a fine thing. I'm not going to give you any tickets, but I'm glad you'll play the quiz.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: David, you're going to play the game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is David's topic?
KURTIS: Chipotle - that's Spanish for uh-oh.
SAGAL: So...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Chipotle, everybody's favorite burrito chain, has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons. But this weekend, we learned norovirus is not the only unwanted item on their menu. We heard another interesting story about bad news out of Chipotle. Our panelists are each going to tell you one. Only one of those stories, of course, is real. Your job - pick the real one, you'll get Carl Kasell's voice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?
BARNES: I am indeed.
SAGAL: All right, first let's hear from Mo Rocca.
MO ROCCA: The folks who run Chipotle are exhausted from all the bad press. I mean, they are pooped, sick and turd of it all.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: Unfortunately, here's more - to placate loyal customers when its stores were shut down nationwide for a day to address food safety issues, the chain advertised a special promotion - text of the word raincheck to a six-digit number and get a free burrito. Simple enough, except that due to a glitch, hundreds of messages sent from the D.C. area went not to Chipotle but to Bethesda, Md., resident Hank Levine. When Levine politely replied to texters that he had no burritos to give them, the you-know-what hit the fan, which I'm pretty sure is how Chipotle got in trouble in the first place.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: Quote, "this isn't fit to print," said Levine, "but one text said essentially get my bleeping burrito you bleeping bleep or I'll bleepity (ph) bleep you. You learn what people are really like when you become a social media mistake. Chipotle compensated Levine generously with coupons for four free meals.
(LAUGHTER, GROANS)
SAGAL: A texting error gets lots of requests for free burritos to Mr. Levine, the Washington, D.C., area. You're next story of someone getting Chipotlaid comes from Roxanne Roberts.
ROXANNE ROBERTS: For the past 22 years, Ted Cooper made his living as Chippy, the dancing burrito mascot of Chipotle's Mexican Grill. Life was good until Cooper was sidelined last fall after adding a bit about the E. coli crisis to his act. At some point during his appearances, he would grab his little burrito stomach, pretend to throw up and, quote, "vomit confetti and discount coupons."
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Chipotle execs were not amused and now he's out of a job. Quote, "Chippy has been dumped because some corporate suits need to look serious," Cooper told The Denver Post. Corporate spokeswoman Dawn Tishman said, Chippy will return when they find the right performer to replace Cooper. Quote, "we're grateful for Ted's service, but we just don't think a vomiting dancing burrito is funny.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: They don't, do they?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I could only but agree, Roxanne. That's not funny at all. So the dancing burrito who advertises Chipotle gets fired for getting too much into the act. Your last story of troubled in Chiparadise (ph) comes from Maz Jobrani.
JOBRANI: Anyone who has eaten a burrito knows they pack a lot of calories. So in an effort to reduce the caloric intake of the menu items found at Chipotle, the corporate brass came up with an innovative idea. They decided to install moving treadmills in place of the floor where people stood in line to give their orders. This would force people to keep walking while waiting in line, thus burning upwards of a hundred calories just while the ordered. Brilliant, right? It seemed that way until customers started falling. German tourist Wolfgang von Grimmelshausen...
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: ...Who ate at the restaurant was quoted as saying (imitating German accent) "when I first walked in...
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: "...I thought this is a great idea. I'm a fit 75-year-old who goes for walks every morning in Bavaria. I figured even a baby could handle the treadmill at the burrito shop. But right when I got my chicken burrito with sour cream, someone turned up the treadmill. That's not fair. My supreme Burrito went flying...
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: ...Hit the face of the lady behind me. She fell on the man behind her, who then fell on a baby."
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: She promptly offered to give them free food for a month while they rested and avoided physical activity.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: So in the end, these customers gained more weight than if the treadmills had never been installed in the first place.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: Von Grimmelshausen was quoted as saying (imitating German accent) "I am now 20 pounds heavier than when I first walked into Chipotle. I used to look like a manly man. Now I look like a big, fat burrito.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: "Thank God the baby is OK."
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: All right, David, back to you. These are your choices - they were from Mo - how an attempt by Chipotle to make up for their - well, sickness-spreading food led to an overwhelming number of angry text messages to an innocent person, from Roxanne Roberts - how the dancing burrito mascot lost his job by trying to work in the whole health crisis into his act or from Maz Jobrani - how an upstanding German person was no longer upstanding when he was knocked to the floor by Chipotle's ill-thought-out treadmill waiting area. Which of these is the real story of more bad news from Chipotle?
BARNES: Well, you know, I've seen the standing treadmills in the Minneapolis airport. It makes me wonder. But I'm going to have to go with the lost text messages.
SAGAL: The lost text messages - the text messages flooding into the innocent non-Chipotle store person. All right, well, we spoke to somebody very close to this real story to tell you about it.
HANK LEVINE: He's just been getting all of these text messages by people saying, I want my burrito. And now he's just trying to get the people the burritos he feels they rightly deserve.
SAGAL: That was Dorry Levine. She is the daughter-in-law of Hank Levine, the guy who got all those texts. Congratulations David, you got it right. You've earned a point for Mo simply for telling the truth.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: And Carl Kasell, our old friend, always spicy (ph) - will record the greeting on your voicemail. Congratulations.
BARNES: Thank you, sir.
SAGAL: Thank you, David. Thanks for playing. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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