CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell, and here's your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Carl.
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SAGAL: Thanks everybody. Thank you so much. Thank you. Wow, I really appreciate that. But, well, let me explain why I'm a little sheepish about it. First of all, we do have a great show for you today. We got Fred Armisen. He's the star of "Saturday Night Live" and "Portlandia," basically everything funny on TV. He'll be here later.
But, well here's the thing, I usually try and start the show by saying something funny, you know, just to get it off on a right note and everything, but this week, I didn't think I needed to prepare anything because I assumed we'd be canceled after the world ended on Friday.
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SAGAL: Carl, you got anything?
KASELL: Peter, you're lucky I'm sober and wearing pants.
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SAGAL: Well, it's going to be up to you all to get us going here. Give us a call, the number is 1-888-Wait-Wait. That's 1-888-924-8924. It's time to welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!
REKIAH STONE: Hi, this is Rekiah, and I'm calling from Cricket River Ranch, Oregon.
SAGAL: You said Rekiah?
STONE: Yes. You said it right, good job.
SAGAL: Oh, thank you very much.
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SAGAL: I was just repeating what you said, so...
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SAGAL: So, Rekiah is an interesting name. What kind of name is that?
STONE: Well, my parents just like came up with it and...
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BRIAN BABYLON: It's called hippie.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BOBCAT GOLDTHWAIT: Yeah.
STONE: Not really, but...
SAGAL: Really?
GOLDTHWAIT: Your folks aren't hippies and they call you that?
STONE: No. My dad's a pastor, actually.
GOLDTHWAIT: Wow.
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SAGAL: Oh, is it one of those biblical names, perhaps?
STONE: I think it has biblical roots but it's original.
SAGAL: Oh, well that's good.
BABYLON: Somebody's name was Rekiah back then.
SAGAL: Yeah, probably.
STONE: Probably.
SAGAL: Probably. Well, welcome to the show, Rekiah. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First, it's a comedian and host of the Morning Amp at vocalo.org, the King of Bronzeville, Mr. Brian Babylon.
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SAGAL: Next, it is one of the women behind the Washington Post's Reliable Source column, Ms. Roxanne Roberts.
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SAGAL: And lastly, let me introduce you to comedian, writer and director, Mr. Bobcat Goldthwait, very happy to have him back.
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GOLDTHWAIT: Thank you. Hi, Rekiah.
SAGAL: Rekiah, welcome to the show. You're going to start us off, of course, with Who's Carl This Time. Carl Kasell 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 the prize: Carl's voice on your home answering machine. Are you ready to play?
STONE: I was born ready.
SAGAL: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Good answer. Here, Rekiah, is your first quote.
KASELL: Merry Cliffmas.
SAGAL: Yep. That was a headline from ABC News this week, talking about what story that just won't go away, until it finally destroys the country?
STONE: The fiscal cliff.
SAGAL: Yes, the fiscal cliff.
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SAGAL: You may be asking yourself why, why are we talking about the fiscal cliff for the fourth week in a row on this show. Honestly, we thought it would be over by now. They keep dragging it out like the world's worst cliff-hanger. It's amazing, it's just a mess, and yet it's still so dull.
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SAGAL: It's like fiscal cliff, you'd think it'd be exciting. You'd think like you'd go to an amusement park an there'd be, like, a ride called the Fiscal Cliff. And you're like, that's cool, let's get on it. And it turns out, it just like goes around in a flat circle, you know.
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BABYLON: It's a monorail, the whole time.
ROXANNE ROBERTS: And it moves really, really slow.
SAGAL: Really slow. And there's a sign before it and it says "you must be this boring to get on this ride."
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SAGAL: This is what happened this week. We're obligation to give you the latest. Talks between Speaker Boehner and President Obama broke down. So Boehner introduced his own thing. His own plan to get back at the president is called Plan B. This is the pill you take when you screw the country and you don't want to live with the results.
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SAGAL: So it looks like, with the latest failure it's hard to say, Congress is now going to go away until after Christmas, which give us like, what, three days before the fiscal cliff on the 1st. So it looks like we're going over the cliff. You know what we should do, though? In the movies, it's never the star that goes over the cliff it's always the stuntman. We should get a stunt country to go over for us.
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BABYLON: Canada.
SAGAL: Canada. Canada, you know.
BABYLON: Yes.
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SAGAL: Canada can do it.
BABYLON: Yes.
SAGAL: I'll tell you why Canada can do it.
GOLDTHWAIT: They would do it, happily.
SAGAL: Canada looks like us from a distance.
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SAGAL: And we know they're not doing anything on New Year's Eve.
BABYLON: Yeah.
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SAGAL: Here is your next quote.
KASELL: The purple and pink make it seem as though cooking is "girly", which it is not.
SAGAL: That was from a successful petition thought up by young named McKenna Pope. She was asking Hasbro to make what popular toy a little less girly for this holiday season?
STONE: Easy Bake Oven.
SAGAL: Yes, indeed. That's right, Rekiah.
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SAGAL: Ms. Pope, a 13 year old girl from New Jersey, wanted to buy her younger brother, about 4, an Easy Bake oven a present, to ease the pain of having to grow up in New Jersey.
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SAGAL: But she was disappointed to find out that all the ovens were pink and purple, and marketed to girls. So response to her petition, which was joined by 40,000 people, including some celebrity chefs, Hasbro has introduced the genderless Easy Bake Oven. It was very easy to do; they just had to remove the genitals from the back.
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SAGAL: Now, it's funny, we're trying to imagine these toy executives, like, OK, we've got make the Easy Bake Oven appeal to boys as well. How do we do that? It's like, well, we can paint it in cammo and equip it with missiles and tank treads.
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BABYLON: I don't know, Peter.
GOLDTHWAIT: I'm excited to know that in the future there'll be a lot of young boys who will grow up and cook with light bulbs.
SAGAL: That's true.
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SAGAL: Is this how we're going to train them?
GOLDTHWAIT: That is the best way to cook.
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GOLDTHWAIT: You know, and they tell you to stay with baked goods, but you can use pork products.
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GOLDTHWAIT: Like an Etch-A-Sketch, that's definitely gender specific.
BABYLON: For who?
SAGAL: Wait a minute.
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GOLDTHWAIT: Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
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SAGAL: All right, Rekiah, here is your last quote.
KASELL: She's beautiful on the outside, but even more beautiful on the inside.
SAGAL: That was a world leader known for his love of women, many women announcing that from now on, he's going to love just one. What former Prime Minister is getting hitched again?
STONE: Is it Vladimir Putin?
SAGAL: No, it's not Vladimir Putin.
STONE: Oh.
SAGAL: This is a guy - he's the prime minister now. You couldn't tell by Carl's brilliant and authentic Italian accent?
STONE: Was it Donald Trump?
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BABYLON: He's been Italian the whole time?
SAGAL: And who knew?
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ROBERTS: It's Super Mario.
SAGAL: No, it's not. It's Silvio Berlusconi. I'll just give it to you. It's Silvio Berlusconi, of course. I know everybody has been worried about former Italian Prime Minister, every since he was charged with soliciting a prostitute, convicted of tax evasion, was thrown out of office, his wife left him, and then the devil came to return his soul, because even the devil was like, ewwww.
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SAGAL: But the billionaire first announced an intent to return to politics. If not Prime Minister again, then maybe Pope, you know, dream big.
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SAGAL: He's also getting married again. The newest women who will get the honor of being cheated on by Silvio Berlusconi is one Francesca Pascale. She's only 49 years younger than her groom-to-be. This of course makes her his great-great-grand-bride.
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GOLDTHWAIT: What do they talk about? It's like tell me again about Furby. And she's like tell me again about the day you guys came up with the wheel.
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GOLDTHWAIT: That had to be awesome.
SAGAL: That was great. Carl, how did Rekiah do on our quiz?
KASELL: Rekiah, you had two correct answers, so I'll be doing the message on your voicemail or home answering machine.
SAGAL: Well done, Rekiah.
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STONE: I'd just like to thank my parents for, like, bringing me this far, and so many people.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Yeah, yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Rekiah, thanks so much for playing.
STONE: Thanks. Merry Christmas, guys.
SAGAL: Bye-bye. You too.
STONE: Bye.
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(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.