BILL KURTIS: 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 Adam Burke, Faith Salie and Patton Oswalt. And here, again, is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Right now 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.
HANNAH PELL: Hi, Peter. This is Hanna. I'm calling from Hershey, Pa.
SAGAL: Hershey, Pa.
PELL: Yeah.
SAGAL: Are you a resident of Hershey?
PELL: Yeah, I am - born here and grew up here.
SAGAL: Can you share any secrets? Like, for example, is the chocolate made of people?
(LAUGHTER)
PELL: It is not (laughter).
SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Hannah. You are going to play our game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Hannah's topic?
KURTIS: It's peanut butter jelly time.
SAGAL: Peanut butter.
PELL: All right.
SAGAL: Made from churning the milk of peanut cows.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, this week, it made the news. Our panelists are going to tell you a story sticky with a smear of peanut butter. Pick the one who's telling the truth, and you'll win our prize, Carl Kasell's voice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?
PELL: Yes, I am.
SAGAL: Well, then let's hear first from Patton Oswalt.
PATTON OSWALT: For weeks, London's scenesters (ph) have flocked to Max Sheffield's private house club Bony X (ph) for a unique reason, peanut butter. DJ-in-resident Rolos (ph) smears his speaker cones with peanut butter. And clubgoers claim the tones created by the sound waves passing through the sandwich spread create a trance-like state that mimics REM sleep, even while the listener is awake and dancing. Rolos says he got the idea after dropping his phone in a jar of peanut butter just as he got a phone call. Quote, "I use an old Skrillex beat as my ring tone, and it sounded amazing. The bass was deeper than a mine shaft. The guitar had dimensions I didn't know existed." Plus, he added, laughing, I got to lick the phone, and it made my tongue tingle.
(LAUGHTER)
OSWALT: This week, though, the peanut butter dance party had to shut down after it proved too popular, attracting the type of client clubowners want even less than groups of dudes who don't bring women - millions of ants. They're gross. They're a health code violation. And, frankly, they're terrible dancers. Rollo (ph) at least is hopeful. We'll just have to see what I drop my phone into next, he said, before placing an ad on Craigslist for, quote, "speakers barely used, somewhat sticky."
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: A DJ in London...
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: ...Gets a whole new sound from coating his speakers in peanut butter, at least until the ants show up. Your next story chosen by a choosy mom comes from Faith Salie.
FAITH SALIE: Nine-year-old Logan Frye (ph) loves peanut butter - loves it. But his day camp and his school, like virtually every space for kids in America, are peanut-free zones. But when Logan recently had to evacuate his camp bus, along with 47 other kids, because a piece of wood was mistaken for a Snickers bar, his mother Amanda started peanut butter camp in her own Alpharetta, Ga., backyard. She invites allergy-free families to come and go bananas with peanut butter. (Imitating southern accent) I did it for my kid and other kids like him who love peanut butter, she says. I do understand that nut allergies are deadly for some kids, and I do pray for those families, but I wanted to create a nut freedom zone, a safe space where children and nuts can be together. Amanda, of course, serves PB&Js and Nutter Butters. But kids are also encouraged to roll around on a peanut-butter-covered Slip 'N Slide in her backyard called the Scoot 'N Smear (ph).
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: There's peanut butter face painting. Amanda also offers mothers a chance to be rubbed with peanut butter by an onsite massage therapist. And the ladies swear it leaves their skin super supple, even if dogs won't stop licking them.
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: Everything was going great until outraged allergy activists reported her to local health authorities. So now the peanut butter camp of Alpharetta, like every other public accommodation for children, has a nut-free zone.
SAGAL: A peanut butter camp in Alpharetta, Ga.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Your last story of PB in the MSM comes from Adam Burke.
ADAM BURKE: People think prison breakouts need elaborate schemes or helicopters or Morgan Freeman boring the crap out of you with platitudes for 20 years in prison.
(LAUGHTER)
BURKE: But a successful hoosegow getaway doesn't need to be that fancy or elaborate. Take the case, this week, of 12 inmates of Walker County Jail in Jasper, Ala., who managed to temporarily shorten their stay at the big house with nothing more than a humble glob of peanut butter. Taking advantage of a newbie screw, or a screwbie (ph), if you will, that is to say a recently hired prison guard, one enterprising jailbird utilized the popular sandwich spread as a type of modeling clay and used it to alter the embossed number above one of the prison's communicating doors. The fresh-faced staff member, fooled into thinking the door now led back into the cells, rather than outside to glorious liberty, waved a dozen convicts through before he noticed his error. Says Walker County Sheriff James Underwood, he made a mistake. He hasn't been there that long. This young man was a weak link, and they knew it. The prisoners, who ranged in age from 18 to 30, and in appearance from smooth to chunky...
(LAUGHTER)
BURKE: ...Have all since been recaptured, having presumably run out of supplies with which to bribe any police dogs that were chasing them.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Peanut butter featured in the news this week for one of three ways. Was it from Patton Oswalt, how a DJ in London created a whole new sound by smearing PB on his equipment, from Faith Salie, how a housewife in Alpharetta, Ga., decided to open up peanut butter camp for those kids who did not want or need peanut-butter-free zones, or from Adam Burke, how prisoners in Alabama escaped from jail using only peanut butter and their imaginations? Which of these is the real story of peanut butter that we saw in the week's news?
PELL: Wow. I think, as much as I kind of hope that peanut butter camp and parties are a real thing, I think I'm going to go with the first one...
SAGAL: You're going to go with...
PELL: ...About the DJ and the sound.
SAGAL: You're going to go with Patton Oswalt's story of the DJ in London.
SALIE: Is it because you like the sound, as I did, of Peter saying he smeared peanut butter on his equipment?
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: 'Cause that's the best reason to go for it.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: There's a joke I could make about a dog I once knew, but no...
OSWALT: Easy.
SAGAL: ...I'm not going to...
OSWALT: Steady.
(LAUGHTER)
OSWALT: This is pledge week.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: So you are going to choose Patton Oswalt's story of the DJ in London who found that peanut butter gave him the acoustic magic he was looking for.
(BOOING)
SAGAL: They're rising in rebellion here in Chicago.
PELL: No, no, no, I guess I'll go with the prison break.
SAGAL: All right.
(CHEERING)
SAGAL: Well, whether you win the prize or not, you have won the approval of your peers, and that's what counts.
(LAUGHTER)
PELL: All right.
SAGAL: All right. You've chosen Adam's story about the peanut butter prison break. To find out the correct answer, we spoke to a reporter covering the real story.
JOHN HUDDLESTON: I've seen escapes. I've never seen all to this magnitude where 12 inmates get out at one time using peanut butter or any other thing.
SAGAL: That was John Huddleston...
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: ...A reporter for WBRC Fox 6 in Alabama, talking about the peanut-butter-assisted prison break. You'll be happy to know that the prisoners have all been captured and returned to jail, and the peanut butter jar has the lids really firmly on.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Congratulations, Hannah, you got it right. You have won our prize.
OSWALT: Oh, man.
SAGAL: You have earned a point for Adam simply for telling...
OSWALT: So close.
SAGAL: ...the truth. You've broken Patton's heart.
OSWALT: I would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you meddling audience.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Thank you for playing, and it was great to have you. Bye-bye.
PELL: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PEANUT BUTTER")
TWENNYNINE: (Singing) Can I have some peanut butter? Of course you can. Can I have some peanut butter? Of course you can. Can I have some peanut butter? Yeah. Can I have some peanut butter? Yeah. Can I have some peanut butter? Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.