PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Now onto our final game, Lightning Fill in the Blank. Each of our players will have 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill in the blank questions as he or she can. Each correct answer now worth two points. Carl, can you give us the scores?
CARL KASELL: We have a tie for first place, Peter. Brian Babylon and Roxanne Roberts both have three points. Luke Burbank has two.
SAGAL: Luke, you're in third place, so you're up first. The clock will start when I begin your first question. Fill in the blank. The U.N. Security Council strongly condemned the third nuclear test by blank on Tuesday.
LUKE BURBANK: North Korea.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This week, the Pentagon announced that it will extend benefits to blank partners of service members.
BURBANK: Same-sex.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: In the State of the Union, President Obama called for high quality blank for all four year olds.
BURBANK: Preschool.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: In his final public mass, Pope Benedict presided over blank services this week.
BURBANK: Church.
SAGAL: Ash...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Most likely. Ash Wednesday. A bouncer in Australia who kicked a woman out of a pub because he thought she was quote "blind drunk," realized later she was blank.
BURBANK: A dingo.
SAGAL: No.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Actually blind. South African runner Oscar Pistorius, best known as the first double amputee to compete in the blank was arrested Thursday for murder.
BURBANK: Olympics.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Supermarkets across Europe began closely inspecting their meats after more reports of blank turned up this week.
BURBANK: I want so say dingo, but the answer is horse.
SAGAL: Indeed.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: A minor league hockey game involving the Bakersfield Condors was delayed this week when a blank attacked the team.
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
BURBANK: Condor.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: An actual giant condor.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: So this is what happens...
ROXANNE ROBERTS: Did you see that?
SAGAL: I recommend this on YouTube. It's during the National Anthem before the game, and a keeper brings the condor out onto the center of the ice. Condors are very large and apparently, they do not like to be held.
So it flaps and flaps and knocks itself out of the arms of the holder. It falls on the ice and tries to run away. It's very hard for a condor to run on the ice. So it's trying. The guy tries to catch the condor, picks it up, slips, falls. The condor gets away again, attacks the hockey team.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All these guys wearing protective equipment are ducking and diving and the condor is flapping at them and it was hilarious.
ROBERTS: It was hilarious.
BURBANK: I back the condor in this whole thing.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Yeah, everybody in that room was rooting for the condor. The team apologized for the accident. They said it's never going to happen again. They're going to change their name to the Bakersfield Fuzzy Bunnies.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Carl, how did Luke do on our quiz?
KASELL: Luke had six correct answers for 12 more points. He now has 14 points, and Luke had taken the lead.
SAGAL: Well done. All right, we have flipped a coin. Brian has elected to go second. Here we go, Brian, fill in the blank. Hamid Karzai said he was in agreement with President Obama's plans to withdraw 34,000 troops from blank in the next year.
BRIAN BABYLON: Afghanistan.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Warren Buffett and a Brazilian investor announced Thursday that they were buying ketchup giant blank.
BABYLON: Heinz.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Tuesday, the Senate voted to reauthorize the blank act designed to prevent domestic violence.
BABYLON: Violence Against Women Act.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Twenty eight million viewers tuned in last Sunday's broadcast of this year's blank awards.
BABYLON: Grammys.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: A British criminal offender being monitored by an ankle bracelet was fined $200 for blanking.
BABYLON: Dancing.
SAGAL: For Bedazzling her ankle monitor.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: An affenpinscher named Banana Joe won best in show at this year's blank.
BABYLON: Westminster Dog Show.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: A Las Vegas man who was the unofficial spokesman for the Heart Attack Grill died this week of blank.
BABYLON: A heart attack.
SAGAL: Of course.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: According to a new study, anti anxiety drugs are getting into rivers and streams and making fish blank.
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
BABYLON: Real anxious.
SAGAL: Get the munchies. Although, I would like to award the point because apparently anxiety is part of it.
BABYLON: Thank you. I need the point.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Carl, what do you think? Should he get the point?
KASELL: Yeah, let's give him the point.
All right, we're going to give it to him.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Apparently, this is the problem. All of these pharmaceutical we're taking pass through our body unchanged and through sewage plants unchanged and get in the waterways. So they're trying to figure out what they do to the fish.
So these Swedish scientists took these aquariums, put in traces amounts of anti-anxiety medication and put some perch in to see what happened to the perch. And they started eating ravenously and they started behaving more recklessly and like some of them swam down to the bottom and they're going, "Hey, hey, there's a castle down here."
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: You know what...
SAGAL: What is it doing here? It was tense.
BABYLON: You know what, Peter, you read Al Gore's book...
SAGAL: I did.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Carl, how did Brian do on our quiz?
KASELL: Brian had seven correct answers for 14 more points. He now has 17 points, and Brian has taken the lead.
SAGAL: Well done.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: How many then does Roxanne need to win?
KASELL: Seven to tie, eight to win outright.
SAGAL: OK, Roxanne, this is for the game. Fill in the blank. On Thursday, Senate Republicans blocked the nomination of Defense Secretary nominee blank.
ROBERTS: Hagel.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Wednesday, John Boehner dismissed President Obama's call to raise the blank to nine bucks an hour.
ROBERTS: Minimum wage.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: The British royal family was said to be furious that an Italian tabloid had published pictures of Kate Middleton's blank.
ROBERTS: Pregnant belly.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: A six-day manhunt for Christopher Dorner, a former blank, ended in a standoff at a cabin in California.
ROBERTS: Former policeman.
SAGAL: Yes.
ROBERTS: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: The Galapagos tortoises at the London Zoo failed to mate despite the zoo's attempt to encourage them with blank.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Johnny Mathis music.
SAGAL: No, close.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: A romantic piano player from France. On Friday, a large blank passed within 15 minutes of the Earth.
ROBERTS: Asteroid.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Because of soft tissue injuries to her joints, Lady blank-blank was forced to cancel concert dates and have hip surgery.
ROBERTS: Gaga.
SAGAL: Yeah, Gaga.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: When giving her forecast for Valentine's Day and the weekend, a meteorologist in Washington State said the weather would be blank.
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
ROBERTS: Would be sexy.
SAGAL: Close. She said it would be slow and slutty.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: I think I should get the point. That's close enough.
SAGAL: Carl, does she get the point?
KASELL: Sure.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Carl, you used to be so tough.
KASELL: I'm generous today.
SAGAL: Apparently.
KASELL: It's Valentine's...
BURBANK: Talk about slutty.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Most viewers thought meteorologist Danielle Grant had just made a slip of the tongue. Once they went outside, they realized, no, the weather was really pretty slutty. Blowing in everybody's ears, whether it knows them or not, you know.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Carl, did Roxanne do well enough to win?
KASELL: She had enough points to tie, Peter. She had seven correct answers for 14 more points. So now she has 17 points and tied with Brian Babylon.
SAGAL: Well done, there you go.
(APPLAUSE)
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.