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Panel Questions

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Right now, panel, it is time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Peter, billionaire U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is being accused of swindling his associates out of $120 million, but his alleged crimes do not end there. According to Forbes magazine, he also regularly steals what?

PETER GROSZ: Butter packets from Denny's.

SAGAL: You're so close.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Like...

SAGAL: Like, you're - it's, like, for his coffee. Otherwise, you're...

GROSZ: Would it be, like, creamers from a place? Or sugar packets?

SAGAL: Sugar - I'll give it to you. He actually is accused of stealing Sweet'N Low packets from...

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: ...Restaurants.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: That's so awesome.

AMY DICKINSON: So, like, who announced this?

SAGAL: This was - he was ratted out by his friends. Like, he's, like, this billionaire. And we go out to lunch, and he grabs a handful of Sweet'N Low packets and sticks them in his pocket when we leave the restaurant.

DICKINSON: That bastard.

GROSZ: That's just - that's so great. That just means that that happens to everybody who turns, like, 75 or whatever.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: No matter how much money you have, it's, like...

SAGAL: I mean, you don't get to be a billionaire by buying your own packets of artificial sweetener.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: You get to be a billionaire by stealing 20 billion of them from restaurants and then selling them each for a nickel.

(LAUGHTER)

BOBCAT GOLDTHWAIT: I'd like to have been involved in the sting operation.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: He's picking up the packet. He's got the packet.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: Move, move, move. Go, go, go, go, go, go. Oh, he's actually putting it in his coffee. Eh.

DICKINSON: Eh.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: So Forbes magazine did this deep investigative dive into his business practice. Why did they do this? They did it because, last year, Ross himself called the magazine to complain he should be higher on their list of richest people.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: So they looked...

DICKINSON: Whoa.

SAGAL: ...Into it, and they found out he was just lying about everything.

(LAUGHTER)

DICKINSON: Wow.

GROSZ: He was probably, like, if you count my strategic Sweet'N Low reserve, I'm worth a trillion dollars.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: He has them in a vault, and he dives and swims on them...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...Like Scrooge McDuck. Bobcat, there is a new tool to help people who are trying to lose weight. It's a high-tech, full-length mirror that does what?

GOLDTHWAIT: It makes them look slimmer. It...

SAGAL: No, it does not do that.

GOLDTHWAIT: It burns their eyes out, and they cry in a fetal position.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: I don't know. I don't have all the answers, Peter.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: No. I'll give you a hint. This device - it actually will remind you of those things they make you go through at the airport now.

GOLDTHWAIT: It's a photo that's like an MRI?

SAGAL: Yes. I will give it to you. It gives you a 3D model of your own body that you can...

DICKINSON: Oh, my God.

GROSZ: Oh.

SAGAL: ...Carry around.

GROSZ: Oh...

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

GROSZ: ...More dangerous than a 3D gun.

SAGAL: On your phone, yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: I had an MRI once, and the guy's like - he goes, you can't - you have to shallow breathe, and you're going to be in this tube. And then it's this - have you had one? The...

SAGAL: Yeah.

GOLDTHWAIT: ...Magnet's going (imitating MRI machine). And then, as I'm going in this thing, the guy goes, I'm your biggest fan. I do an impression of you.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: So I can't move. And then, every 10 minutes, I come out, and the guy's, like, (vocalizing).

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: And I'm, like, I would have told, like, ISIS where my mom lived.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: I was just, like, get me out of this torture.

SAGAL: Well, compared to that, this will sound nice. But this is a $1,300, high-tech mirror that's really a scanner. You stand in front of it...

GOLDTHWAIT: Wow.

SAGAL: ...On a rotating plate that they provide. And it gives you a 3D scan of your body that you can put on your phone and look at it if you're ever feeling too good about yourself in the course of your day.

GOLDTHWAIT: But do you think anyone looks good in a 3D scan?

SAGAL: I don't - I never want to find out, frankly.

DICKINSON: Could I put somebody else's on my phone?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Bobcat, online dating is passe. According to The Washington Post, young people are now finding romantic partners entirely by what?

GOLDTHWAIT: They leave their numbers on Sweet'N Low packets.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: Texting?

SAGAL: No, no, no. I mean, you know, people look at photographs. That's old. People text back and forth. That's old. No, people are trying to find mates at these special parties using what sense?

GOLDTHWAIT: Their smell.

SAGAL: Exactly right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

DICKINSON: No.

SAGAL: D.C. is the most recent city to host a pheromone party...

DICKINSON: Oh, for God sakes...

SAGAL: ...Where singles meet by smelling each other's old T-shirts.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: That's how it works. You wear a T-shirt four nights sleeping. You put it in a Ziploc. You bring it to this party where everybody is there. They're - brought their own T-shirts. And you go around, and you smell them. And you write down which of these other people's T-shirts smell best to you.

DICKINSON: OK, I would definitely be going home with a woman...

SAGAL: You think so?

DICKINSON: ...That night.

(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)

DICKINSON: Definitely.

SAGAL: It makes perfect sense to sniff each other because what great romantic idea did not start with the words, well, this is how dogs do it?

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: If it's four days, right? So, best-case scenario, it goes, so we hook up long-term. He's not bathing. I can deal with this four-day smell.

SAGAL: Right. Exactly. Because you want to prepare for the moment when your long-term relationship - the guy just gives up.

GOLDTHWAIT: Yeah, where you're...

DICKINSON: Yeah.

GOLDTHWAIT: Where you're - where you...

SAGAL: It's a...

GOLDTHWAIT: ...Wake up, and your significant other's got a pillow over your face going, nothing. I was just...

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: ...Fluffing the pillow.

SAGAL: Yeah. I just wanted this pillow to have the scent of your face.

(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED SONG)

UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Singing) Stinker, I love you. Oh, yeah. Stinker, I love you. Oh, yeah. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.