Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - Actor Doug Jones

Episode Date: October 24, 2020

Actor Doug Jones, star of "The Shape of Water," joins us along with panelists Peter Grosz, Maeve Higgins and Eugene Cordero.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. Hey there, Mom. Get a load of this bilf. I'm Bill Curtis, and here's your host, a man now available for curbside pickup, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. And thanks one more time to our fake audience, which this week is a grateful nation realizing that finally there will be no more debates. We all know

that the difference between radio and the movies is that the movies are all about sex appeal, and nobody got our heart pounding harder than the sea monster in the Oscar-winning movie the shape of water what gills on that guy am i right so later on we're going to be talking to the man who played that character he's now starring in star trek discovery his name is doug jones but remember

just be yourself when you call in to play our games the number is one triple eight wait wait that's one eight eight eight nine two four eight8924. Now let's welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, I'm Vanessa. Hey, Vanessa, where are you calling from? Portland, Oregon. Portland, Oregon. I always ask everyone how they're doing, but you're from Portland. How are you doing? Well, I'm in college, so not super great. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, that must be tough. What are you studying out there? I'm studying public health. Oh, that is a very useful thing. How quickly can you graduate and come out and help us with all this crisis? Two years. All right. We'll try to hang on until then, Vanessa.

Welcome to the show. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First, an actor and a writer who won't be sleeping until after the election. It's Peter Gross. Hi, Vanessa. be sleeping until after the election. It's Peter Gross. Hi, Vanessa. Next, it's a comedian and writer whose comedy horror movie Extraordinary is streaming now. It's Maeve Higgins. Hi, Vanessa. Good luck in the game. And joining us on the panel for the first time, you can see him on Tacoma FD. He's a voice on Star Trek Lower Decks. It's Eugene

Cordero. Hi, Vanessa. Now, Vanessa, welcome to the show. You're going to play Who's Bill this time. Bill Curtis is going to read you three quotations from this week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain just two of them, you'll win our prize. Any voice from our show you might choose for your voicemail. You ready to go? Yeah. All right. Your first quote comes from the president this week offering his strong, unified closing campaign message.

I take full responsibility. It's not my fault. In what event did the president say, the buck stops with me, but don't give me any bucks? The presidential debate. Exactly right. It might have been the final presidential debate we ever have. By 2028, instead, we'll have battles in the blood pit to determine who will become the death chieftain.

Now, after the first debate, which was a complete cluster chat, the debate commission changed the rules for this week's final debate, saying that each candidate's mic will be muted while the other person makes their two-minute statements. And America was like, wait, there's a button you can push and mute Donald Trump? You couldn't give us that four years ago? As long as he's not the one pushing the button, I think it's just, I think that's fine. I mean, I didn't hear enough shut-ups in this one. I needed to need to hear them both well you shut up and i just i need that so president trump started off the debate making big promises he says a vaccine will be ready in a manner of weeks due to what he calls operation warp speed which you just know is going to end up creating a super villain i think it already has. Possibly. I really felt like when the second one was canceled,

I felt like palpable relief. Yeah. Because I feel drawn to watch them. I feel like a civic duty, sort of like a comedic duty to kind of like watch and know what's going on. And it, it's, it's like a relief.

It's like a snow day or something when there's no, thank God I don't have to do this. And so when there was this one, I kept waiting for Trump to be like, I'm not going to do it or something. But it's so awful, Peter, because of the technology. Now, if there's a snow day, President Trump just screams at you at home. It's really, there's no relief, man. But I love the idea. I don't know if you get this too, Eugene, like the Peter said, he has a comedic sense of duty. I never get that. It's not like if I see a banana peel, I'm't know if you get this too, Eugene. Like Peter said, he has a comedic sense of duty. I never get that.

It's not like if I see a banana peel, I'm like, oh, here I go. I don't want to, but that's my job. My audience demands it. There's the banana peel that everybody's waiting for. I mean, I was upset that in this debate there wasn't more plexiglass so that it was just covering them completely. And then there was money shooting out from the bottom and they had to grab, you know, as much cash as they could, you know, within one minute or something. All right.

Let's move on to your next quote. Your next quote, Vanessa, is from a company sued by the Justice Department for being an illegal monopoly this week. People use it because they choose to, not because they're forced to. So what are we not technically forced to use every day, but we all still use it every day? Google. Yes, Google. Very good, Vanessa. Search giant Google was sued by the Justice Department this week for antitrust violations, which brings up the question, why would the Justice Department move against a company that knows the search history of

everybody who works there? You know, like Bill Barr is like, no, guys, don't make them mad. Antitrust, of course, refers to laws that limit the growth of monopolies. Antitrust also refers to the feeling you get when your significant other tells you not to worry about the person they've been texting. When your name becomes a verb that is beyond your company's name that you automatically have a monopoly don't you like when you become a different part of speech than you started out exactly like like like like uh you know kleenex of course is the dominant giant in the facial tissue you know what are you going to do about it? I prefer a Woodco facial tissue. I also just

go, oh, I'm about to sneeze. Can somebody hand me a facial tissue? Do you know what's actually interesting? There's a quirk in copyright law that if your brand becomes the word for the object that you make, like Xerox or Kleenex

or Band-Aid, you lose the right to it. So all of these companies are constantly having lawyers sending out letters to people saying, no, your character on television did not use a Kleenex. He used a facial tissue. And it's very strange. Wow. Yeah, people always, to me, are always like, man, I just Eugene'dugene that which means that they kind of mumbled they

mumbled their way through something so now i go by eugene cordero because i can't use my actual name all right vanessa we have one more quote for you here is your last quote it's enough to make you want to slide on your webcam cover shut down your machine put it in a lockbox, and throw it into the sea. That was a writer for Slate talking about the phenomenon called FOBO, or fear of being on what? Zoom? Yes! Fear of being on Zoom when you do not want to be on Zoom. be on Zoom. After eight months of doing everything virtually, people have become terrified

that they're still screen sharing when they're doing things they no longer want to share, like eating, or undressing, or tubing. But this is more or less inevitable for all of us. We spend so much time in front of our screen for work, and for socializing, and then

for entertainment, and then when we finally get away from our screens, we end up in a hotel room with Borat's daughter and we have to lie down to tuck in our shirt. It never ends. The idea that you would be lying down on a bed as like a young woman was like standing over you and the thing you thought people would buy is like,

I have to tuck my shirt in is is is pretty ludicrous so it's like hold on let me let me tie my shoes i wasn't sure though because like you know when sometimes when your back is out you do need to lie down to get dressed so i'm willing to give rudy the benefit of the doubt oh interesting when i put on a jacket every morning i still lay it on the floor and then tumble in oh yes so uh i'm assuming that that's what he is doing, but with a shirt on a bed. But let me ask you guys, we've all been doing Zoom. We're doing this show on Zoom right now.

So have any of you had a near miss in terms of doing anything that you didn't want to be seen, being seen? Everything that I've been caught doing, I wanted to get caught doing. Yeah. That's my thing. I like getting caught.

I'm a bad boy, so I want to get caught., I wanted to get caught doing. Yeah. That's my thing. I like getting caught. I'm a bad boy, so I want to get caught. And I deserve to be punished. Bill, how did Vanessa do in our quiz? Can't get any more perfect than that. Vanessa, congratulations. Thank you so much. Thank you, Vanessa.

Take care. Bye-bye. Right now, panel, it's time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Peter, please listen to this lovely song. Hey, I'm not giving up today. There's nothing getting in my way. And if you're not talking over, I will get back up again. So that, as I'm sure you know, was the song Get Back Up Again from the movie Trolls. Oh yeah, I'm sure I did know that.

That's the song that Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg suggested all his employees at Quibi listen to. As he told them what? Ain't gonna be no more Quibi? Exactly, that they were all fired. The company's going out of business. Quibi was a $5 a month streaming service which offered highly produced five to 10 minute serialized programs

that were made specifically for your smartphone. Basically, it was long TikToks you had to pay for. But here's the catch. The shows were bad. I also love the fact that the CEO of Quibi is pulling a song from a two-hour movie to lay off everybody from his company that's only two minutes long in a little segment. That is amazingly true. He urged all of his employees on this, I guess it was actually a big Zoom call, that they're all losing their jobs. And he said, go listen to Get Back Up again from the trolls movie cheer yourself up and then you should listen to the next song on the soundtrack cobra benefits and how to use them

oh trolls no i have seen that but the problem i had with with quibi was that like i can't even tell what i'm gonna watch what i'm gonna want to look at on my phone. So, like, I don't know how they can tell. Because I realized I was, you know, spaced out for 20 minutes the other day watching some rescue foxes, like, making sounds. And I was on a deadline. I had a really busy day. But I was watching these foxes that are friends communicating with each other for a very long time and i'm not depressed right well katzenberg should have hired the foxes

i know yeah and also they spent they spent one and a half billion dollars on quibi can you imagine how many foxes they would have got foxes work for nothing it's true basically they eat they eat garbage honestly if you if there are some tv executives that if you told them they could pay Foxes work for nothing. It's true. They eat garbage. Honestly, if there are some TV executives that if you told them they could pay animals garbage and people would watch it, they would be like, that's great. They're not in a union. We don't have to make any contributions to anybody. It's not scripted. We don't have to pay writers. This will be awesome.

Coming up, our panelists get set up with a blind date in our Bluff the Listener game called 1-888-WAIT-WAIT-TO-PLAY. We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR. On the next episode of Louder Than a Riot, how a law meant to control the mob changed the mixtape game forever. Gangsta grills is the biggest thing arguably ever in the mixtape game forever. Gangsta grills is the biggest thing arguably ever in the mixtape's history. Don't tell me that what we're doing is wrong. Listen now to Louder Than A Riot, the podcast from NPR Music. From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz.

I'm Bill Curtis. We're playing this week with Eugene Cordero, Peter Gross, and Maeve Higgins. And here again is your host reminding CNN he's available if they suddenly find themselves with an opening for some reason. It's Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. 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 in the air. Hi, you are on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

Hi, this is Marshall Honecker from Dallas, Texas. Hey, Marshall, how are things in Dallas? Yeah, so far so good. All things considered, everything's going pretty well. Yeah, that's, I think, the right attitude to have. What do you do there? So usually I would be finishing on my master's degree down in College Station, but with the pandemic, the university has decided to move all the classes online. So you're an Aggie?

That's right, I am an Aggie. I don't know much about Texas A&M other than that you're called Aggies. Does Texas A&M have, like, a reputation? Is it like a party school or what? You know, that is a fantastic question. I don't know. It's a little bit difficult to put into words. So a reputation for articulateness, obviously. Well, Marshall, it's great to have you with us.

You're going to play the game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Marshall's topic? Blind date bombshell. Blind dates are full of surprises. Maybe he loves quoting Family Guy. Maybe they love quoting QAnon. Maybe it's your wife who also likes piña coladas.

This week, we heard about a real blind date shocker. Our panelists are going to tell you about it. Pick the one who's telling the truth. You win our prize, the right to never go on a blind date again. Ready to play? I'm ready if you are. All right. First up, let's hear from Peter Gross.

Blind dates raise a lot of questions. Will I be compatible with this strange person? Will I find them attractive? Will they come alone or are they going to bring three van loads of people? A man in Shenzhen province in China this week was shocked when he walked into a restaurant to meet his blind date and saw that the woman was rolling with a formidable squad. Not a sibling, not a small group of besties. No, she brought 23 of her relatives. Going Dutch is when you split

the bill and apparently going Chinese is when you bring four and a half basketball teams worth of family members. Before the date, the man agreed to pay, assuming that the evening would be a romantic dinner for two and not a test of her potential mate's generosity. And that makes sense. What better way to test someone's goodwill than by bringing a cast and a half of Hamilton to dinner? The man reacted the way many of us would by leaving the restaurant right before the check arrived. Who could blame him after her relatives racked up a bill that came to 19,800 yuan, which at about 6.6 yuan to the dollar is almost $3,000.

The woman agreed to pay for her family's food and said she learned her lesson, promising that on her next date she'll only bring 22 people. From Peter Gross, hey, it's 23 and me, said a woman on a blind date in China. Your next story of an astonishing blind date comes from Eugene Cordero. Tina De La Cruz of Auburn Hills, Michigan, showed up for her blind date last Tuesday afternoon and quickly realized that she and the fella had so much more in common. They were both tall, they both wore Nikes, and they were both in a car accident earlier that day. More specifically, they were in the same car

accident. More specifically, the accident which he had caused and fled from after giving her a bunch of fake information. You must be Ted, she said, not Bob Bobberson, which you told me you were earlier.

And let me guess, you don't live at 123 Bobberson Street in Bobtown, Bobisipi. He confessed, and they spent the rest of the date eating dinner and exchanging insurance information. There wasn't the usual first date awkward silences, he said, because she had a lot to say about, you know, suing me. There probably won't be a second date anyway, but definitely not after this, she said. I guess I will see him again in court. Two people meet cute after meeting in a crash. Your last story of a shocking blind date comes from Maeve Higgins. Incredible blind date story from Vermont this week, where finding love is difficult because only 28 people live in the entire state. That was the challenge faced by Middlebury woman Cecilia Dry earlier this year.

Quote, I knew I didn't want to be alone for the most romantic holiday of the year, Halloween. She asked her friend, a local farmer, to set up a blind date for her and that is how she met Jack. Their first meeting was safely outside. They met at a pumpkin patch and they went on to an orchard to pick apples. Cecilia was smitten, quote, he was so friendly with his big crooked smile and those shining eyes. We had a wonderful time. She did notice that Jack kept dropping apples on the ground and thought it was because his arms were thin and weak. Cecilia reached for his hand and found it to be bony and crispy. Searching in her purse for hand cream, Jack stopped her.

Sweetheart, he said, you never asked me my surname. It's O' Lantern. The reason my arms are weak is because they are twigs and the reason my hands are crispy is because they are leaves. I'm not just Jack O'Lantern, I'm a Jack O'Lantern. The date began at a pumpkin patch because that's where Jack grew up and still lives today. What may sound like a scary blind date to some actually ended up happily. Cecilia and Jack kept dating even after he revealed that he would be unemployed on November 1st and that his brain had been scooped out by a child and replaced with a candle. Their love keeps proving

the old saying that a good gourd is hard to find. In fact, they are about to be married. Quote, I'm not mad that my special guy turned out to be made out of sticks with a rotting pumpkin head, because to be honest, and if you look at the shape of my body, you can probably tell that I myself am not just a bride,

I'm a butternut squash. All right then. From Peter Gross, the story of how a woman brought her 23 relatives along on a blind date when the gentleman said he'd pay. From Eugene Cordero, two people who met on the evening that they had met before in a hit-and-run traffic accident. And from Maeve, a charming story of love between gourds that will certainly be a television special by this time next year. Which of these is the real story of an interesting blind date we found in the news? I would really love for it to be Maeve's story because I think that's hilarious,

but I think I'm going to have to go with the woman who brought 20-something family members to a first date. All right, you've chosen Peter's story of the woman who brought along her entire extended family on a blind date. Well, to bring you the correct answer, we spoke to someone familiar with the real date. The first date should be short and sweet, not inviting 22 of your family members out and running up a $4,000 bill. That was Bella Gandhi. She's the founder of Smart Dating Academy and an expert on not bringing 23 family members on a blind date. Congratulations, Marshall. You got it right. Peter was telling the truth.

Of course, you earned a point for him. And you've won our prize, the voice of anyone you might choose, which you can bring anywhere you like, because we're not going to pay either. Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thanks for playing with us today and take care. Likewise. Take care. Likewise. Take care.

And now the game where people who have done a lot finally get recognized and end up wishing they had remained anonymous. It's called Not My Job. Speaking of being recognized, actor Doug Jones is usually not,

despite playing the lead in a movie that won the Oscar for Best Picture. All of his roles involve lots of makeup. He was the sexy sea creature in The Shape of Water. He's played monsters, aliens, and heroic creatures in many other movies, including Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy. He also plays Saru now on Star Trek Discovery, which starts its third season. We are delighted he joins us now. Doug Jones, welcome to Wait, Wait, Wait for a Time. Hi. Hi, guys. Thank you for having me.

So you are, as we've said, an extremely famous movie star, but I'm assuming that when you go out in the street, nobody recognizes you, right? Yes, I'm that actor who's been on the cover of a best Oscar winning picture who can walk to Starbucks and nobody knows who the hell I am. It's great. Now, have you ever, does that ever bother you? Because you're a very successful guy and sometimes you'd like to be recognized. Do you ever like pop a dozen hard-boiled eggs into your mouth slowly just to let people know that that's you? And they're rotten. Hell boy, hell boy. No, no.

No, actually, I started as a mime back at Ball State University in Indiana. And being 6'3 and 140 pounds and having a mime back at Ball State University in Indiana and being six foot three and 140 pounds and having a mime background it's like oh the creature effects people were just all over me the minute I got to LA all right we skipped a bit why out of all things did you decide to become a mime oh right who no one chooses that do they I assume people were just you I assume people were just born into like the mime, and they had no choice. No. At my dorm that I lived in at Ball State, I was a freshman, and a senior is the one

who ran the mime troupe. The mime troupe was called Mime Over Matter. Get it? Whoa. Oh, my God. And so he saw how I talked with my hands and how lanky I was. He said, you know, you should come see one of our shows and think about auditioning for our troupe. And that's how the mime thing started with me. Wow. And the same way a drug dealer like sees a kid on the street and ropes him in.

The first fake elevator is free. But were you that kind of mime? Were you out on the sidewalk doing like, oh, there's a wind, there's a wall, that all kind of stuff? My first job out of college was working at Kings Island, a theme park in Cincinnati, Ohio. And I was a walk around mime that did just what you just said. And nobody liked me. And I don't know why I took that job, but it's like, I'm doing my art for a paycheck. Yeah. You know, Cincinnati, Ohio is kind of like on the cusp of Indiana, Kentucky. And so there's not a whole lot of people in that area that knew what a mime was. So it's like, oh, honey, look at the clown. Look at the clown.

Why aren't you talking? I don't know. So it was like, oh, it was sad. I know this is a very weird question to ask you, but can you think of like the weirdest thing you were asked to play? And I say this to somebody who has literally played the angel of death. And, and, and a sexy sea creature. So I know it's like, yeah, there's that the leading man, the leading romantic male of a movie and it's in a fish suit. That's,

that's an odd request. Yes. But I think a giant cockroach, she bug thing. I did a movie, a horrible movie called bug buster. And I had a huge fight scene with Randy Quaid, but I was a giant insect that was guarding my pile of eggs and he was coming to kill us. So we had a big knockdown drag out in a cave. And he came in there with weapons. Bullets didn't kill me. He then he pulled out like a flamethrower. I don't burn. Then he pulled out a CO2 gun. I don don't freeze so he threw all of his weapons down and said come on man you and me mano y mano so that's when it got weird right so we have a knockdown drag out choreographed fight around this cave bouncing off walls and rolling around on the ground and after i got up from that uh and i i asked my handler i said

can you go check on randy i didn't see him get up after that fight, that last take. So across from the cave, I hear, I hear, dog buddy, can you hear me? Randy quaked. Yeah. He said, do what you're doing. It's great. We can go again. I'm fine. You're doing great. The next voice that I heard was a young PA, a production assistant going, um, can I get some ice over here? I can't stop the bleeding. I did not want to be remembered as, as that young lanky fellow who killed Randy Quaid. Yes. As a bug, as the bug who killed Randy Quaid. In a bug costume. Yeah. Right.

And in, in the Shape of Water, you had a particular challenge because not only did you have to be otherworldly and alien, but you had to be attractive. Sexy. Yes. challenge because not only did you have to be otherworldly and alien, but you had to be attractive. Sexy. Yes, I did. Yes. So how did you work that out, Doug? Well, I will say this. They sculpted me a sexy ass body. Oh, they did. My skinny bones slip into this beautiful rubber muscle suit with a fine derriere. I mean, it was, in fact, every time I stepped, I stood up and walked away from our set chairs where we rest between takes, if I was in a scene with Octavia Spencer,

she would sit there and watch me walk away and just say one thing. What? Mmm! That's when you know they sculpted a fine ass. And did the latex artist lean out and go, thank you. That was smart. Exactly right.

Well, Doug Jones, it is an absolute joy to talk to you. As much fun as it has been to watch you do stuff, which is really saying something. No, you're very kind. Thank you. But we have asked you here to play a game that this time we're calling, Hey, check out the shape of this water. This time we're calling, hey, check out the shape of this water. So as we discussed, you were the lead in the shape of water,

so we thought we'd ask you about actual shaped water, that is, ice and snow sculptures. Answer two out of three questions correctly, you'll win our prize for one of our listeners, the voice of their choice on their voicemail. Bill, who is Doug Jones playing for? Lane Owens of Los Angeles, California. All right. You ready to do this? Okay, Lane. I'm rooting for both of us here. All right. Here we go. Here's your first question.

Now, one of the most notorious ice sculptures ever seen was the one commissioned by Dennis Kozlowski, the CEO who served eight years in prison for fraud and embezzlement because he spent company money on things like which of these a an ice sculpture of himself which he kept in a three hundred thousand dollar clear glass freezer for display b a full-scale ice sculpture of michelangelo's david which dispensed cold water to party guests through well his natural spigot or, a thousand tiny handmade ice sculptures of individual bird species made for his evening cocktail. I'm going to go with the A because that sounds more narcissistic. That's a very good idea. But what he really did was he commissioned the ice sculpture of

Michelangelo's David, which dispensed vodka through his little glive. Yeah, I have no idea. The question is, and there are photographs of this, but I don't know how the guests, what they had to do to the David to get it to dispense the vodka. Oh, to get it? Oh, believe you me, it's not easy. All right, here's your next question. The UK's Channel 4 came under some criticism

for its creative use of an ice sculpture. Why? A, Her Majesty did not appreciate being represented by a sculpture titled Ice Queen. B, after Boris Johnson refused to participate in a debate on climate change, they had a melting ice sculpture take his place. Or C, to counter-program a Theresa May speech in the BBC, they showed an ice sculpture of her for an hour with the caption, which seems more human? Can I go with A again? Because I do love Queen Elizabeth, and I

wouldn't want to think of her as a nice queen either. You can go with A again. I mean, it's possible. He seems to be dissuading. He seems to be dissuading. Or it could be the answer B. Yes, it's B.

Very good. Yes. Good instincts I had there. Although the melting ice sculpture of the planet did hold its own in many fine points of debate. All right, last chance. If you get this, you win it. A local news reporter in California went viral when he knocked over the carving of the ice sculptor he was interviewing on live TV at the state fair. But there was another twist to the story. What was it? A, the reporter had faked the accident because he was bored of

doing stupid human interest stories all the time. B, he was carried away by rage when he realized the ice sculpture was of his ex. Or C, the ice sculptor was his childhood enemy and he had planned this vengeance for decades. Okay, I'm going to go with A one more time. And this time it paid off, Doug. Yes, that's true. It was an elaborate stunt. He didn't want to do the stories anymore, and it worked. Now he has his own news channel on YouTube. I see.

That worked out well. It did. Bill, how did Doug Jones do in our quiz? He loved A so much, he turned out a winner. Congratulations. Yay. Oh, lame. I have a question for you. It just occurred to me as we were talking about winning. So you played the lead

in a Best Picture winning film, and when you jumped up on stage with the famous actors and the famous director, was everybody in the audience going, oh, who's that guy? Mostly. Was somebody's boyfriend? Although I had worked the red carpet outside ahead of time, and I was interviewed on E! and the whole nine yards.

So yeah, we did it all. We did it all. That's great. Doug Jones is an actor. You can see him now as Commander Saru on Star Trek Discovery. Season three is streaming on CBS All Access now. Doug Jones, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. What a joy to talk to you.

The joy has been mine. Thank you all so very much for having me. Bye-bye. In just a minute, we hit the high notes in our Listener Limerick Challenge. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to join us on the air. We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR.

Voting is brutal. And I don't give a damn how you look at it. Is this a man? It was we the people. The land of the free and the home of the brave. Not we the white male citizens. Misrepresentative democracy. A new series about voting in America from NPR's ThruLine. Listen now. From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis. We are playing this week with Maeve Higgins, Eugene Cordero, and Peter Gross. And here again is your host, a man who once left his house, Peter Sagal.

Thank you, Bill. In just a minute, Bill demands no green M&Ms in his contract, Rhymeder, in our listener limerick challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, a panel of some more questions for you from the week's news. Peter, restaurants, as you know, are struggling to survive in a pandemic, but one restaurant in Budapest has figured it out. They keep diners completely safe by seating their patrons in a what?

In one person in the restaurant at a time. No. Only solo tables. Although somebody else has done that, but no, not this question. Oh, really? Can I get a hint? Yeah, sure. You get three trips all the way around to finish your meal.

Can I get a good hint? Three trips around. Like a merry-go-round thing? Sort of. Think vertical. Oh, a Ferris wheel. A Ferris wheel. Exactly right. That's right, a Ferris wheel, because the one thing missing from the fine dining experience was motion sickness. A gourmet restaurant in Budapest offered diners the chance to enjoy a prefix gourmet meal in an open air ferris wheel car for $144 a person,

and it's sold out almost instantly. All the diners are seated in separate cars, and instead of all breathing the same air together, you slowly move into someone else's old air. I kind of hate that idea because I already have a hard time getting the waiters' attention. So I feel like I just be like, do you have any butter, butter, butter, butter, butter? And then I'd be back up the top again. And then it would take a really long time to get to the bottom. I'd be, excuse me, hi, do you have any butter, butter, butter? Or when you're at the bottom, they're like, I'm on break. I'm sorry. Yeah. I would assume that that would be a great restaurant because I remember Ferris wheels being very comfortable. Oh yes. Yeah. For a while.

It has some problems. The diners have complained of being cold, but it worked out a lot better than their first idea, which was to serve meals on a tilt-a-whirl. Maeve, slow lorises, the animal, have gained internet fame as one of the most adorable, cutest animals in the tropical forest. Well, this week we learned

they've got something else going for them. What? Something as well as being cute. They're adorable. They're absolutely adorable. Yeah. I think it's that they have medicinal properties something else going for them. What? Something as well as being cute. So like they... They're adorable. They're absolutely adorable. Yeah. I think it's that like

they have medicinal properties if you boil and eat them. No. All right. I'll give you a hint. I'll give you a hint. Oh, so that's what those adorable fangs are for.

They are deadly. They're deadly and can bite you. Yes. They're venomous creatures. Oh my God. The very sweet slow loris has a flesh-eating venom. If you don't know what a slow loris is, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

Just to understand the story, just imagine the cutest, flopsiest-eared puppy you can think of. Now imagine it holding a machete. And what's weird is that the slow loris frequently uses its highly toxic venom on one another. There's an epidemic of slow loris on slow loris crime. I usually bite other humans who are cuter than me. I'll tell you that right now. If I'm walking down the street and I'm like, is that dude hot?

I'd bite him right on the neck. I've known you for a while, Eugene. You've never even come close to biting me. You just need bigger eyes, bud. Coming up, it's lightning fell 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. You can click the Contact Us link on our website, waitwait.npr.org.

You can also check out the Wait Wait quiz for your smart speaker. It's like having Bill and I right there in your house, refusing to leave. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, this is Elise Montemayor from Newport News, Virginia. Newport News. What's the news in Newport News? Nothing much. Yeah. And what do you do there? By day, I'm a social media coordinator for a local church, but by night, well, night and afternoon mostly, I am a TikTok creator. Wait a minute. I was going to say, I was hoping you were saying by night you were a crime fighter. No. But you are, but I'll take this. TikTok, you are my first, I think, TikTok creator. I've never spoken to one. So tell me, what do you do on TikTok and how do you make things that everybody wants to watch? So on TikTok, I help

young athletes, mainly female athletes that mainly play volleyball. If they really want to play in college, I kind of teach them how to go about being a college athlete. I played college volleyball myself. Wow. That's so cool, Elise. I love that. That is the first recorded constructive use of TikTok. Yes. Congratulations. It's finally been done. Thank you. Thanks. Well, Elise, welcome to the show. Bill Curtis is going to read you three news-related limericks

with a last word or phrase missing from each. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly, then two of the limericks will be a winner. Here is your first limerick. In the 60s, this drink was just fab. If you loved it, buy all you can grab. This saccharine soda has now reached its coda, because Coke will no longer make...

Tab. Yes, exactly right. Coca-Cola has announced they're discontinuing their Tab soft drink. They are eliminating a number of unprofitable brands, like Zico Coconut Water, which was absolutely gross, but thrived for a while with its slogan, Still Better Than Tab. I didn't know they were making Tab anymore.

Well, they were for people who had nostalgia because Tab was Coke's first diet cola. It was launched in the early 60s, and it had what was available at the time, the artificial sweetener saccharin instead of sugar. I don't know if you've tried some Tab lately, but you can really taste the laboratory. But not to worry, Tab fans, while your favorite soda may be going away, you'll have the aftertaste for years to come. Okay, fair.

What a horrible name, though, Tab. This is true. It turns out that they got the name Tab by using a computer, which at that time was a large thing that took up a room, to generate just a whole bunch of three-letter words. And of these three-letter words, they decided tab was the one they would use.

And the computer was like, that was my least favorite one. I put that in as a joke. Why did you pick that one? All right, here is your next limerick. Our Swiss tale is not anecdotal. As a spreader of it, it was total. The high mountain calls gave the virus to all. COVID was spread by our... Oh my goodness, yodel?

Yes, yodel! Very good! One might say, you spiked that, Elise. Yes, yodel. A yodeling concert in Switzerland has proved to be a super spreader event after 600 people attended and masks were not required. Even if they did wear masks, it might not have helped since Swiss masks, of course, have holes in them.

Yodeling, if you're not familiar, is the traditional Swiss art form of music where you open the most diseased part of your body and push out as much virus as possible the idea is to be able to to infect somebody on another hilltop a mile away uh turns out several members of this yodeling choir had the virus and now the number of cases in the region is doubled which is just terrible because not only did they get the coronavirus they had to listen to yodeling. Was it a concert, you said? Yeah, it was a yodeling concert. Yodel-ay-dee-doo.

There you go. There you go, Bill. You're acting like you're not really good at yodeling, Bill. Yeah. I hope nobody's around you because you would have just spread the virus. Here is your last limerick. It shrunk to the size of my pinky. It was moldy, but really not stinky.

My yellow snack cakes were a silly mistake. I opened an eight-year-old... Twinkie? Twinkie, yes! Very good! You are lucky. A man who was named Colin Purringrington but is somehow not a cat bought a case of twinkies in 2012 because he thought they might no longer be available this week he was hungry for something sweet didn't have anything else said to himself hey

twinkies never go bad so he actually opened up the case opened up a twinkie and found out quote it tasted like an old sock all right now he posted some pics of the rotten Twinkies on Instagram because, of course, he did. And two mycologists asked to analyze them to figure out exactly what had made them go bad. And we're not going to define mycologists because we know our audience. These mycologists had already proven in a prior study that fungus won't grow on a marshmallow peeps, showing that even the most primitive forms of life don't like marshmallow peeps. I've got a craving for a Twinkie and a can of Tab right about now.

Bill, how did Elise do in our quiz? Elise did yaddle-day-yo! A winner! Thank you guys so much. Thank you so much, Elyse, and we'll look for you on this TikTok thing I've heard so much about. Sounds good. I'll see you all over again. Take care. Bye, Elyse.

Bye. Bye. Yodelay, yodelay, yodelay, yodelay, yodelay Yodelay, yodelay, yodelay, yodelay, yodelay Now on to 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 they can. Each correct answer is now worth two points. Bill, can you give us the scores? Maeve has two, Eugene has three, and Peter has four.

Okay, Maeve, that means you're up first, so fill in the blank. On Sunday, a judge blocked the White House's attempt to end blank benefits for 700,000 people. Army? No, no, food stamp benefits no food stamp benefits food stamp benefits in his first campaign appearance on behalf of joe biden blank sharply criticized president trump michelle obama's husband yes barack obama on monday the supreme court ruled that blank could extend their mail-in voting deadline um voters no in pennsylvania week, four men in New Jersey were arrested after it was discovered they were planning to blank. Go to New York City. No, planning to shoot bowling balls out

of a cannon. Following Facebook's lead, YouTube announced this week they were banning videos promoting the blank conspiracy theory. Fake. Fake. The QAnon conspiracy theory. This week, police in LA failed to catch a man involved in a high-speed chase, despite the fact that he blanked halfway through it. Fell? No, despite the fact that he stopped for gas halfway through the high-speed chase. They were chasing the man who was in his car after he stole something from a Home Depot, but he built up such a lead he was able to pull over at a nearby gas station to fill up.

And not only that, he didn't even pay at the pump. He went inside and paid in cash in order to get the discount. He ended up losing police again in a parking garage. Officers say they'll try to catch up to him after his trip to the McDonald's drive-thru. In the eight hours, he's going to wait in line to vote. Bill, how did Maeve do in our quiz? Well, this is hard to believe, but she is tied with Peter for the lead. One right for two more points, and four gives her that tie.

Yay! Very well done. All right, Eugene, you're up next. Fill in the blank. On Monday, the CDC recommended that all plane and train passengers wear blanks. That they wear masks. Yes, this week, U.S. officials accused Iran and Russia of attempting to interfere with blank. With the election, with the voting. Yes, on Monday, an appeals court rejected Ghislaine Maxwell's attempt to keep her deposition

in the blank case secret. Open case? No, the Jeffrey Epstein case. After being accused of stealing election signs, a man in Iowa was caught on camera stealing blank. Stickers? No, stealing all the newspapers that reported on him stealing the signs.

On Sunday, a new blank in Colorado forced the evacuation of over 3,000 people. Oh, a new wildfire. Yes. This week, a rapper was arrested for defrauding California's unemployment office after he blanked. After he dropped an album? Sort of, but no. He released a music video where he bragged about defrauding California's unemployment agency. Oh, no. a music video where he bragged about defrauding California's unemployment agency. The FBI started to suspect rapper Nuke Bizzle of fraud after he released a music video with lyrics like, you gotta sell cocaine, I can just file a claim, and here's a bullet point list of how I defrauded California for over $1.2 million in unemployment money, which

is not only incriminating, it doesn't even rhyme. If convicted, Bizzle would face up to 22 years in prison, but that sentence could be way worse if anyone hears his next single, Murder was the case that they gave me because I definitely did the murder. Oh, man. Bizzle at least spoke his truth, you know what I mean? He does. That's what the rap game is all about.

It is. That's beautiful, Eugene. Thank you. Bill, how did Eugene do in his debut on our show? He had three right for six more points. He now has nine and the lead. All right. Well done, Eugene. How many, then, does Peter need to win?

Peter needs three to win. Oh, that seems easy, Peter. Here we go. Peter, this is for the game. Fill in the blank. On Monday, President Trump called Blank's work on the pandemic a quote, disaster. Fauci. Yes, he also called him an idiot. On Wednesday, an interview with Blank was released in which he said

that same-sex couples should be protected under civil union laws. The Pope. Yes, the Pope. This week, Purdue Pharma agreed to pay an $8.3 billion settlement for their part in the Blank crisis. The opioid. Yes.

All these answers are going to be Italian style. Yes. On Tuesday, former RNC chair Michael Steele announced he was endorsing blank for president. Joe Biden. Yes. According to a new report, the iPhone 12 Pro is so expensive in India that if you live there, it's cheaper to blank. Order food from Italy. No, to fly to Dubai, purchase one there, it's cheaper to blank. Order food from Italy. No, to fly to Dubai, purchase one there, and then fly back.

On Monday, the U.S. blank hit an all-time high of $3.1 trillion. The debt. I'll give it to you. It's the deficit, not the debt, which is scary. The deficit. On Sunday, Jacinda Ardern won her second term as the prime minister of blank. New Zealand. Yes, this week, a virtual paleontology conference got off on the wrong foot Linda Ardern won her second term as the prime minister of blank. New Zealand. Yes. This week, a virtual paleontology conference got off on the wrong foot when the hosting software kept blanking.

It fell in the Maradara. No. No, the hosting software, the hosting conference software for the paleontology conference kept censoring the word bone. When the annual conference of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology went virtual this month, the scientists thought the hardest part would be trying to dig a pit with a laptop. But the real problem was the text functions built in censor, which replaced the word bone whenever you typed it in the chat with four asterisks.

It was frustrating at first, but eventually the scientists found they could get around it by replacing bone with four asterisks. It was frustrating at first, but eventually the scientists found they could get around it by replacing bone with its synonym, as in, that's a very interesting allosaurus make love to. That's like a 12-year-old boy was like, bone. And he was the person who was

in charge of it. Bill, did Peter do well enough to win? Yes, he did. Six right for 12 more points. That means with 16, he is this week's champion. Congratulations, Peter. Well done. Thank you.

Wow. In just a minute, we're going to ask our panelists to predict who will be the next person to forget their camera is on. Wait, wait, don't tell me. It's a production of NPR and WBEZ Chicago in association with Urgent Haircut Productions. Doug Berman, Benevolent Overlord. Philip Godica writes our limericks. Our public address announcer is Paul Friedman.

Our house manager is Gianna Capodona. Our intern is Darius Cook. Our web guru is Beth Novy. BJ Liederman composed our theme. Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills, Miles Dornbos, and Lillian King. Special thanks this week to Ismael Lutfi. Our search engine is Gwingle.

Technical direction is from Lorna White. Our business and ops manager is Colin Miller. Our production manager is Robert Newhouse. Our senior producer is Ian Shillock. And the executive producer of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is Michael Danforth. Now, panel, who's going to get caught with their camera on next? Eugene Cordero. On his virtual campaign rally of 12 supporters,

independent presidential candidate Kanye Kardashian West was caught cheering and celebrating the fact that he has 12 people that are going to vote for him. Maeve Higgins. Two little wild foxes speaking English very slowly and clearly. And Peter Gross.

On a prayer breakfast Zoom call, Mike Pence will share his screen, forgetting to hide the tabs he has opened for Indeed, LinkedIn, Zip Recruiter, and a Google search for jobs former vice presidents can get. Well, if any of that happens, we will ask you about it on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you, Bill Curtis. Thanks also to Maeve Higgins, Peter Gross, and Eugene Cordero. Thanks to all of you for listening. I'm Peter Sagal, and we will see you next week.

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