BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT… DON’T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. Hey, Hans Solo, climb in me. I'm Billennium Falcon...
(LAUGHTER)
KURTIS: ...Bill Kurtis. And here is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody.
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SAGAL: Great show for you today. Later on, we're going to talk to author Lee Child. He wrote the Jack Reacher novels. His hero, Jack Reacher, is the kind of man that all men want to be. And all the women want to say really? You want to be a homeless dead-eyed killer? OK.
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SAGAL: We want you to solve our mysteries. Give us a call. The number is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT - that's 1-888-924-8924. Let's welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you are on WAIT WAIT… DON’T TELL ME.
CAROL ANDRE: Hi, Peter.
SAGAL: Hi, who's this?
ANDRE: This is Carol Andre from Dover, N.H.
SAGAL: Oh, you sound like you're from New Hampshire.
ANDRE: I do.
SAGAL: What you do there in New Hampshire?
ANDRE: I am retired now...
SAGAL: Oh, good.
ANDRE: ...A longtime educator, worked in the field of education - special education.
SAGAL: Yeah.
ANDRE: And now I'm retired - just retired...
SAGAL: There you go.
ANDRE: ...Last year.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Well, let me introduce you to our panel. First, a comedian who will be performing at The Lincoln Lodge here in Chicago on January 8, it's Adam Burke.
ADAM BURKE: Hello. How are you?
ANDRE: Hi, Adam.
BURKE: Hi.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Next up, a feature writer for The Washington Post Style section, it's Roxanne Roberts.
ANDRE: Hello, Roxanne.
ROXANNE ROBERTS: Hello, hello. Are you feeling Christmasy?
ANDRE: I am feeling Christmasy.
ROBERTS: Good.
SAGAL: And a man who has left so many lights on over his career, he was an agenda item at the Paris climate talks, Tom Bodett.
ANDRE: Hi, Tom.
TOM BODETT: Hi, Carol. How you doing, neighbor?
ANDRE: I'm good.
SAGAL: You're going to play Who's Bill This Time, Carol. Bill Kurtis is going to read you three quotations from the week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain two of them, you'll win our prize - scorekeeper emeritus Carl Kasell's voice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?
ANDRE: I am.
SAGAL: Let's do this thing. Your first quote is the exciting news from The New York Times about a new film.
KURTIS: The big news is - spoiler alert - that it's good.
SAGAL: What movie turns out to be, as far as we know, not so bad?
ANDRE: That would be the "Star Wars."
SAGAL: The "Star Wars," yes...
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: ...Very good...
ANDRE: "The Force Awakens."
SAGAL: ...Very good.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: The biggest movie event of 2015 was the sixth sequel to a movie that came out 38 years ago. This is sort of like our parent's generation getting really excited about "Birth Of A Nation 8: The Klan Awakens."
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Are you guys excited to see it? It's the beginning of the weekend. I haven't had a chance to see it. Are you guys going to go?
BURKE: I'm excited about it because I don't know if you got the memo from Disney, you're not allowed not to be.
SAGAL: Oh, yes.
ROBERTS: Do you think - do you think this is - now - and I'm going to say this, and I realize I may get thrown off the stage, and if so I want some backup there - I can't remember if I actually ever saw it, or I've only seen clips from all the various scenes because it's so famous. And I'm wondering if it's a girl thing because I just didn't find the whole thing, you know, fascinating.
SAGAL: Right.
BURKE: I think there's so many women who are just excited about "Star Wars." I think there are fewer women who feel the need to make a light saber sound every time they pick up something cylindrical.
SAGAL: Yeah, that's true.
(LAUGHTER)
BODETT: I just remember the most exciting thing about seeing the first one is that a guy I went to high school with was one of the stormtroopers. He was an extra. He was, like, working on a building on Lucas' ranch or something. And they threw him in a stormtrooper costume and put them in the film.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BODETT: And I've seen that probably - you know, I have three boys - so I've probably seen that movie 100 times. And I still don't know which stormtrooper was him. He's explained it to me...
SAGAL: Yeah.
BODETT: ...A couple - it's the scene, you know, when they're coming into the spaceship and Princess - I'm, like, the third one back. I'm the fourth one to get shot.
BURKE: But surely that's the world's easiest lie. I was a stormtrooper, too.
SAGAL: How are you going to tell?
BODETT: Yeah, right.
(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Here, Carol - here is your next quote.
KURTIS: Stay with us, we're just getting...
ANDRE: I am.
KURTIS: ...Started.
SAGAL: Oh, no, that was actually the quote. We'll do that again...
ANDRE: Oh.
SAGAL: ...Although Carol, all that nonsense about "Star Wars" I don't blame you for, like, letting us know you're still with us. I appreciate that. Here is your next quote.
KURTIS: Stay with us, we're just getting started.
SAGAL: That was Wolf Blitzer giving us the great news that after just two hours of what political event on Tuesday, there was more coming. What was it?
ANDRE: That was the GOP debate.
SAGAL: Yes, it was...
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: ...The last GOP debate of 2015.
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SAGAL: And it really forced the country to focus on the greatest threat facing us today - more Republican debates.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: You kind of have to pity the Republican voters. Less than a year away from the election, right, and their leading candidate is - to quote Jeb Bush - "unhinged" - that's Donald Trump.
BURKE: I think - I think it's unfair that Bush keeps calling Trump unhinged because if you look really closely, you can see the hinge just on the side...
SAGAL: That's true.
BURKE: ...Where his hair lifts up.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BODETT: It's true.
SAGAL: You have to get in there somehow to clean out the bats, so...
BURKE: Did anyone else think it was unfair that they held the debates in Vegas, where one of the candidates has a massive build with this name on it?
SAGAL: That is true.
BURKE: That's, like, a psychological advantage. Some of them might have stayed in that hotel. You go to, like, go to bed the night before, and his name is on your face. I'm surprised more didn't complain about how crappy the hotel was.
SAGAL: Yeah.
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ROBERTS: They also - they also - I kind of love how they casually just say you're lying. You know you're lying. You're just lying, you know?
BURKE: And then someone goes we're all lying. This is how...
SAGAL: Yeah.
BURKE: This is how it works.
BODETT: It's a contest...
BURKE: Stop ruining it.
BODETT: It's a lying contest.
BURKE: Also, I was a stormtrooper in the first movie.
SAGAL: Exactly.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right, Carol, for your last quote, you know every year, of course, there's a must-have Christmas toy. Well, here's a review of one model of this year's toy.
KURTIS: It doesn't catch fire.
SAGAL: That is...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: That - the reason that model stood out is because some of these hot toys are genuinely hot. What toy might really halt and catch fire?
ANDRE: That would be the hoverboard.
SAGAL: Very good, Carol, yes...
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SAGAL: ...The hoverboards, all the rage. These are the two-wheeled sideways motorized skateboards that seem to be everywhere on the streets. They're dangerous, not just because you might get run over and die of embarrassment as you are ground under the tiny, tiny wheels.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: No, some of them apparently are made so poorly that their batteries or their motors explode. You can tell which models you have to worry about because they're the ones that are on fire.
(LAUGHTER)
BODETT: You know, I have a confession. This is what happens living in the country. I didn't know that these hoverboards existed...
SAGAL: Yeah.
BODETT: ...Until I printed out my ticket to come here to Chicago.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BODETT: And on the ticket, it said hoverboards will not be accepted as carry-on or checked baggage.
ROBERTS: They're big.
BODETT: And I laughed thinking it was...
SAGAL: A little...
BODETT: ...A joke. I said well, I guess I won't be bringing my light saber.
(LAUGHTER)
BODETT: And then I remember that airlines don't joke. And so I - I...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Not funny companies, airlines.
BODETT: No. So I Googled hoverboards, and sure - there's, like, five brands of them.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BODETT: And they start fires, it turns out.
ROBERTS: Can I - I know this is going to be yet another girl response, but they don't hover.
SAGAL: No, they don't.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: They don't even come close to hovering.
SAGAL: It's one of - that's just one of the many lies that men will tell you over the course of your life, Roxanne.
(LAUGHTER)
BURKE: But the reason they're called hoverboard is that the name half a skateboard didn't test
SAGAL: Yeah.
BURKE: ...That well.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Carol do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Carol's been practicing. She got them all right.
SAGAL: Well done, Carol. Thank you so much.
ANDRE: Thank you.
KURTIS: Thanks, Carol.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THIS WHEEL'S ON FIRE")
THE BAND: (Singing) Wheel's on fire, rolling down the road. Just notify my next of kin. This wheel shall explode.
SAGAL: We want to remind everybody they can join us most weeks right here at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Ill. For tickets and more information, just head over to wbez.org. You can find a link at our website - that's waitwait.npr.org. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.