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 John Hodgman, Paula Poundstone and Mo Rocca. And here again is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
(APPLAUSE)
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. In just a minute, sorry, Roy Moore, Bill just wants to rhyme more in our Listener Limerick Challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-WAITWAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. John.
JOHN HODGMAN: Yes.
SAGAL: There's a great new tech accessory for the millennial in your life.
HODGMAN: Oh, no.
SAGAL: Yes. It's an iPhone case specifically designed to help you do what?
HODGMAN: Specifically designed to what?
SAGAL: I mean, we have - as you know, there are many, many different kinds of cases for your iPhone.
HODGMAN: Right.
SAGAL: There are cases that are for when you go swimming and cases for when you go hyping - hiking, rather.
HODGMAN: Hyping, yes. I often go hyping.
SAGAL: You often go hyping.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: You're a hype man.
HODGMAN: I am a hype man.
SAGAL: This iPhone is specifically designed for something that people do, but they tend - or at least they hope that they will do it once in their lives.
HODGMAN: Oh, it's a case for getting married.
SAGAL: Close. What do you do before you get married? First step in that process.
HODGMAN: You meet a nice person.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: You meet a nice person. Let's talk through this, John.
HODGMAN: OK.
(LAUGHTER)
MO ROCCA: Go to the good parts.
HODGMAN: It's an engagement - it's an engagement case.
SAGAL: Yes, it's an engagement case.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: It is an iPhone case specifically for engaging. It's called the RokShok. Why is it called a RokShok? Because you put the diamond ring in it.
HODGMAN: OK.
SAGAL: Special case holds the engagement ring in front, if you will, of the iPhone camera. So what - the way it works is you hold it out, you turn on the camera.
HODGMAN: Yes.
SAGAL: The compartment opens as you propose.
HODGMAN: And it shoots a diamond into your beloved's eye.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: And then you make your escape. No.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The idea is it is in perfect position to livestream or stream video your reaction.
HODGMAN: Oh, I get it. Right. So that you get the reaction.
SAGAL: As you get the reaction - because you want to get that reaction as it happens, right? So it basically will catch her screaming at you for popping the question with an iPhone case.
ROCCA: So is there a little arm that comes out of the iPhone to put the ring on the finger?
HODGMAN: It's like a little robot arm like they have on the space shuttle.
SAGAL: I mean, of course, because you want - of course, you - the moment in which you propose, this is something you don't want to be private. You want to share with, potentially, millions of people.
HODGMAN: Yeah, you want to livestream that.
SAGAL: It's going to be so much fun to watch when the proposal is rejected.
HODGMAN: Yeah, no. I think that's the - I hope they have documents of all of the - all the ones where they go, oh, no. Why do you have that terrible case? No, I don't want to marry you.
SAGAL: And then they knock the phone out of your hands, so you get to watch their hopes and your screen shattered at the same time.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Paula, a man in Turkey attempting to get a stuffed animal in a claw game got what instead?
PAULA POUNDSTONE: I don't know. Give me a hint, would you, Peter?
SAGAL: Well, he was clawing it and it clawed back.
POUNDSTONE: Oh. Oh. He got a crab.
SAGAL: No.
POUNDSTONE: A kitten.
SAGAL: Yes, a cat.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
POUNDSTONE: Oh, yeah.
SAGAL: He got a cat. He pulled out an actual cat from the machine.
POUNDSTONE: Wow, I love that.
HODGMAN: I know it's going to be crab or kitten. It's always one of those two.
SAGAL: The man...
POUNDSTONE: I have 14 cats, and I would so like one of them to go into one of those machines.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The man lowered the claw to this pile of stuffed animals, and one of them woke up and swatted at the claw.
ROCCA: A cat had crawled into, like, the carnival machine?
SAGAL: Yeah, the claw machines, yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAT MEOWING)
ROCCA: What did you call it - a claw machine?
SAGAL: Yeah, what do you call it?
POUNDSTONE: It's a claw machine. The claw, the claw.
ROCCA: I've never heard of that.
POUNDSTONE: You've never heard of that?
ROCCA: What is it?
POUNDSTONE: Yeah.
SAGAL: You know these machines, right? A mechanical claw, and you maneuver it.
HODGMAN: Have you ever been allowed to go to a carnival?
(LAUGHTER)
HODGMAN: I don't know what it is.
ROCCA: It suddenly got cold in here. There must be an OE (ph) coming through.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: John.
HODGMAN: Me again?
SAGAL: Yes.
HODGMAN: All right.
SAGAL: John, this year, a British bakery chain gave out these wonderful Advent calendars as a promotional gift with wonderful pictures of the Christmas season and the Christmas story. But some people are not happy with these calendars. Why not?
HODGMAN: Brexit?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: They're just in a bad mood.
HODGMAN: Yeah.
SAGAL: Well, something particular to the calendars that offended people.
HODGMAN: I don't - give me a hint.
SAGAL: Well, the Messiah comes in link or patty form.
HODGMAN: It's a sausage calendar?
SAGAL: It is a calendar in which the baby Jesus is portrayed by a sausage.
HODGMAN: Well...
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
HODGMAN: How - who would complain?
SAGAL: No, not me. The baby Jesus, by the way, made of pork is also an answer to the question, what is the least kosher thing in the world?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: So imagine this. The image in this calendar shows the Nativity. It's got the manger. It's got the Jesus and Mary. It's got the magi. But instead of the baby Jesus, it's a beautiful, fresh-baked sausage roll - as they like to have there in Britain. For some reason, people found the Lord and Savior being replaced with a giant pig in a blanket offensive.
ROCCA: It's a pig in a crash.
SAGAL: It is.
HODGMAN: (Laughter).
SAGAL: Yeah, it is. You knew this...
HODGMAN: I'd take that communion any day.
SAGAL: Exactly.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: I guess they didn't realize how many people would be frank-incensed (ph) by this.
(BOOING, APPLAUSE)
POUNDSTONE: I'm sitting right beside him.
SAGAL: Yeah.
ROCCA: Make a - make a myrrh joke.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: You don't think I'm standing here trying?
HODGMAN: That company was in the middle of a myrrh-ger (ph).
SAGAL: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: Now, that's gold.
HODGMAN: Thank you (laughter). Oh, someone separate us.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.