PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Coming up, it's Lightning Fill In The Blank. But first, it's the game where you have to listen for the rhyme. If you'd like to play on air, call or leave a message at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT - that's 1-888-924-8924 or click the contact us link on our website waitwait.npr.org. There you can find out about attending our weekly live shows right here at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago and our upcoming show at the with Dolby Theater in Los Angeles on December 3.
PAULA POUNDSTONE: Woo hoo.
SAGAL: Woo hoo. And be sure to check out the latest How To Do Everything podcast. This week, Tim Gunn teaches you how to look sexy. And I, Peter Sagal, finally find something up with which I will not put. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME.
ANN ROBINSON: Hi. My name's Ann Robinson. I'm from Orem, Utah.
SAGAL: What do you do there?
ROBINSON: I work with court-ordered clients at a counseling clinic.
SAGAL: Oh, wow, so people have to see you when they don't want to see you. Do you have to go to counseling to deal with the stress you experience while counseling?
ROBINSON: Yes.
SAGAL: So you have a counselor, counselor?
ROBINSON: Yeah, it's great that I work with a lot of therapists business so that I can talk to them on my breaks.
SAGAL: I can imagine. You say I'm really depressed by my job, and they say yeah me, too.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBINSON: Exactly.
SAGAL: I do it right next to you, didn't you notice? Well, thank you for doing it. It's important work. Ann, welcome to the show. Bill Kurtis is going to read for you three news-related limericks with the last word or phrase missing from each. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly in two of the limericks, you'll be a big winner. Are you ready to go?
ROBINSON: Yes.
SAGAL: All right, here's your first limerick.
BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: Kenny G boasts - and I quote - "there's a valve I can flip in my throat." After takeoff, relax and tune into my sax. The whole flight I will hold one long...
ROBINSON: Note.
SAGAL: Yes, note.
KURTIS: Note it is.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Good news colicky babies. You're no longer the most annoying people on the plane. Musician Kenny G says he is going to break his own record for the longest continual single note ever played, and he wants to ruin your trip to Cancun at the same time. He's going to partner with an airline, and he wants to hold a note for the duration of an hour flight, using his circular breathing technique that allows him to suck in air through his nose while blowing out through the saxophone. So if you're sitting next to him on this flight, if you luck out, just pinch his nostrils shut.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Just reach over, do that, he'll have to stop playing or die.
AMY DICKINSON: No, Peter, I think he has gills. I think he has, like, little gills in the back.
PETER GROSZ: That's what the G stands for.
DICKINSON: Yeah, that's the G.
SAGAL: Yeah, Kenny Gills.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: It's not grateful, it's gills.
SAGAL: All right, here, Ann, is your next limerick.
KURTIS: Sean Connery...
ROBINSON: OK.
KURTIS: ...Is always en vogue. So we fit in, we haven't gone rogue. At Edinburgh Zoo, we apes sound like you. We chimps have a thick Scottish...
ROBINSON: Brogue.
SAGAL: Yes, brogue.
POUNDSTONE: There we go.
SAGAL: Very good.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This is amazing. A group of chimpanzees raised at a Dutch safari park recently moved to the Edinburgh Zoo. And according to zookeepers, they have actually developed a Scottish accent. It's subtle - it's subtle - I mean, they are chimpanzees. But where they once used sort of high-pitched grunts to ask for fruit, they now grunt lower in a more familiar (imitating Scottish accent) captain, can I please have some fruit?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: (Imitating Scottish accent) Could you give me some fruit now? Or I'll be hailing my poop at you.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right, here, Ann, is your last limerick.
KURTIS: When a tourist stops and his neck cranes, a local will get ankle sprains. To circumvent havoc, direct the foot traffic. Have separate slow and fast l...
(LAUGHTER)
ROBINSON: Lanes (laughter).
SAGAL: Lanes, yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
DICKINSON: Yeah.
KURTIS: I only had one letter in there...
GROSZ: She already won.
KURTIS: ...And she still got it.
GROSZ: She already won.
ROBINSON: That gave me a big hint.
SAGAL: It did.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Bill.
KURTIS: Good job, Ann.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Don't know how you pulled that one off, Ann, whoa.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, there's a kickback there somewhere.
GROSZ: Yeah, exactly. He's getting half of that message.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, honestly.
SAGAL: Don't you hate it when you're walking down the sidewalk, ear buds in, music blasting, head looking down at your phone and some telephone pole slams into you? Pay attention, you stupid pole. A group in England has a plan to keep everyone safe - two-lane sidewalks, one lane for people on the move, like you, and one for the people you hate. Coming into the theater today to do this show, I was walking across the street. I was looking at my phone...
POUNDSTONE: Staring at your flat thing.
SAGAL: Yep, and I was almost creamed by a bicyclist in perfectly legal bicycle lane.
DICKINSON: Whoa.
SAGAL: I just wasn't looking up.
GROSZ: He was looking at his phone.
SAGAL: If I had been hit by her and killed, my last words would have them please, tell them it was something else.
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: Really.
SAGAL: Bill, how did Ann do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Ann got two, and I got one.
(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Well done.
ROBINSON: Thank you so much.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I WALK THE LINE")
JOHNNY CASH: (Singing) I keep a close watch on this heart of mine. I keep my eyes wide open all the time. I keep the ends out for the tie that binds. Because you're mine, I walk the line. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.