WWDTM: Moe Wagner

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Speaker 2 From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News quiz.

Speaker 2 I'm Bill Curtis, and today I'm your Florida man.

Speaker 2 And here's your host at the Walt Disney Theater at Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in Orlando, Florida, Peter Sagal.
Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you all so much.

Speaker 2 We are delighted to be back here in Florida, also known as America, the sneak preview.

Speaker 2 later on we're going to be talking to Mo Wagner he is the star center for the Orlando magic who had to miss almost all this season with an ACL tear sad but fortunately his butt remains uninjured so he'll be able to sit with us and answer our questions

Speaker 2 so first though

Speaker 2 Remember you need to limber up a little to avoid injury when you call in to play our games. The number is 188 WaitWait.
That's 1-888-924-8924. Let's welcome our first listener contestant.

Speaker 2 Hi, you're on. Wait, wait, don't tell me.
Hello, how are you? I'm well. Who's this?

Speaker 3 My name is Kim Holmes, and I'm calling from Chicago.

Speaker 2 Chicago!

Speaker 2 I was going to say we miss it not being home, but there was a snowstorm there this week, and we're in Florida, so that's just not true.

Speaker 3 But you could have been here on Monday when it was 60 degrees. We've experienced all four seasons this week.

Speaker 2 There you go. Well, Kim, welcome to the show.
Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First, you've seen him in Star Trek Lower Deck's Loki, and currently he's in Netflix's Man on the Inside.

Speaker 2 It's Eugene Cordero. Hi.
Hi, hi, hi.

Speaker 2 Next, he'll be at Comics Roadhouse at Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut, April 3rd through the 5th, and at the Pittsburgh Improv, April 18th to the 20th. It's Alonzo Bowden.
Hello, Kim.

Speaker 2 Hello!

Speaker 2 And a comedian you can see in Concord, New Hampshire at the Capitol Center for the Arts on April 11th. You can hear her on her weekly podcast.
Nobody listens to Paula Poundstone.

Speaker 2 It's Paula Poundstone.

Speaker 2 Well, how are you? Good enough.

Speaker 2 Kim, welcome to the show. You're going to play Who's Bill this time.
Bill Curtis, standing before us, is going to read you three quotations from this week's news.

Speaker 2 Your job, of course, correctly identify or explain just two of them. Do that.
You will win our prize, the voice of your choice, from anyone on our show you might like for your own voicemail.

Speaker 2 You ready to go?

Speaker 3 Let's go.

Speaker 2 Let's do it. Your first quote is someone with a positive take on being stuck very far from home for nine months.
We got a little more time to enjoy the view.

Speaker 2 That was Sonny Williams, who this week finally got home from where?

Speaker 3 The International Space Station.

Speaker 2 You're right. Very good, Kim.

Speaker 2 Nine months after they left for a planned eight-day

Speaker 2 stay on the space station, astronauts Sonny Williams and Butch Wilmore finally made it back to Earth on Tuesday.

Speaker 2 Everybody was thrilled for their safe return, and the ISS even waived their late checkout fee.

Speaker 2 Imagine that, they go up for eight days, they're stuck in space for nine months.

Speaker 2 That's time enough to have a baby, and I bet a little bundle of joy is gonna burst out of Butch Wilmore's chest cavity any day.

Speaker 4 You know, A,

Speaker 4 they're heroes,

Speaker 4 and they handled it so amazingly well. You never heard anything but that they were excited to be there.
Yes.

Speaker 4 But I think as Americans, we are prepared,

Speaker 4 or certainly, well, I mean, you know, people my age and up are prepared for that, for a trip to take a turn where you stay longer than you planned because of Gilligan's Island. We know that

Speaker 2 it was supposed to be a three-hour tour.

Speaker 4 A three-hour tour.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 And the tiny ship was tossed. And so.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's true. I mean, we Gen Xers were all prepared for that.

Speaker 4 Absolutely. And I'm sure it's part of astronaut training.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they all watch it. Yeah.
That's why they all bring large chests of fancy clothes. Yeah.

Speaker 2 When we say they didn't complain, I think we didn't hear them complaining. That's exactly right.

Speaker 2 I suspect there was somebody at NASA who heard a lot of, what the hell are you doing?

Speaker 2 Their splashdown, this is true. They splashed down and the spaceship was immediately surrounded by this pod of dolphins.

Speaker 2 It was beautiful, but of course, with Butch and Sonny's luck, they turned out to be the man-eating dolphins.

Speaker 2 All right, here is your next quote. Spies, state secrets, no second gunman.
That was the New York Times headline about a trove of files declassified and released this week. Files all about what?

Speaker 3 The assassination of JFK.

Speaker 2 That's right!

Speaker 2 The JFK files. This week,

Speaker 2 the JFK files were finally released, and it turns out he was murdered.

Speaker 2 Did you expect,

Speaker 2 did any of you expect anything exciting? Were all of you interested? What secrets would be finally revealed? I'm so glad no brothers got blamed.

Speaker 2 We were. We too.

Speaker 2 We were all sitting back like, oh, this will be the one moment in black history they don't erase.

Speaker 2 It is true, though, that all of those people who thought there was some conspiracy that was going to get blown open were all very disappointed.

Speaker 2 There's nothing in all of these thousands of pages about, say, the second shooters on the grassy knoll. It's just useless trivia about how the CIA works.

Speaker 2 Basically, 5,000 pages of like time sheets and memos and one expense report that says pay Lee Harvey Oswald.

Speaker 2 Do you want to hear a true thing? There's nothing in this about any conspiracy.

Speaker 2 Lee Harvey Oswald apparently did act alone, but there is all this stuff about why the CIA should have known what he was up to, including the fact that, and I'm not kidding, he was overheard after he was denied a visa to get into Cuba.

Speaker 2 He was so angry he shouted, I'm going to kill Kennedy.

Speaker 4 Wow, yeah, but that can be a red herring.

Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 All right, Kim, your last quote is from relationship expert Terry Orbuk. Research questions and make a list of topics beforehand.

Speaker 2 Now, Aubukh was advising us all to plan out exactly what you are going to say before you go on a first what?

Speaker 2 Date. Exactly right.
Yes.

Speaker 2 Apparently the latest thing in dating advice is this. Plan your conversation ahead of time.

Speaker 2 And to make sure you don't forget your list of chosen topics, write it on a 3x5 card and tape it to your date's forehead.

Speaker 2 Wow. Yeah, I mean, I usually start my first dates with like a good two-page monologue, and then I do 16 bars of my favorite up-tempo Broadway show.
Right.

Speaker 2 And it usually goes great. And then I go on my next first date with another woman.
Exactly.

Speaker 2 And I try it again. And every time I do it, my monologue gets better, but my singing gets worse.

Speaker 2 I'm glad you're workshopping your monologue. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 2 yeah. Especially there, yeah, from Bloxy Blues.
Now, the thing is, you're going to plan it out, but you've got to be flexible, you got to be nimble.

Speaker 2 For example, if you had a date set for, say, last Tuesday night, you'd want to be ready with, oh, so great, the astronauts made it back, and shame about those astronauts.

Speaker 4 Well, you know what's interesting about this proposition you're making is that basically you're saying,

Speaker 2 be prepared to say anything

Speaker 4 which would be the same

Speaker 4 as not being prepared.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but you had that written down on your path. Oh, yeah, I had that written down.

Speaker 2 My question would be: is the expert who wrote this, have they ever been on a date?

Speaker 2 Bill, how did Kim do in our quiz? What a score. Three in a row.
You won. Congratulations, Kim.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 Thank you so much, Kim. Thanks, Kim.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 And now, panel, time for you to answer some questions about the rest of the week's news. Alonzo, there's a new company out there called LongeviQuest,

Speaker 2 which is focused on figuring out if people are lying when they claim to be what?

Speaker 2 A certain age. A what? A certain age.
Just give me the the range. They claim to be 30? No.

Speaker 2 50? It's called Longeviquest. Oh.
150?

Speaker 2 Yes, 150. Oh, wow.
Wow.

Speaker 2 That's a magic number now. Or, well, I gave it to you because when people claim to be very old, this company checks out their claims.

Speaker 2 Finally, someone is leading the charge against the scourge plaguing the globe for far too long. People claiming to be super old, who are in fact only very old.

Speaker 2 I mean, why would you say you're saying these stories like on TV when somebody's 108? Exactly.

Speaker 2 So, if somebody just comes to you and says they're 108, you're actually going to go to a company to verify it like that? Well, that's what they do. Who hell cares?

Speaker 2 They fly and they sort of show up like this, this 106-year-old woman who was chosen as a torchbearer for the Tokyo Olympics. Say, they show up, this company goes out to them and says, prove it.

Speaker 2 That's elder abuse.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, if somebody's really old and maybe they missed a couple of years,

Speaker 2 I'd let that go.

Speaker 2 Once you hit 95, just call it what you want. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's not like you're going to get even more of a senior discount. I mean, that's pretty much it.
You know what? If you're 105 and you're sharp enough to lie and say 115, I'm going to give it to you.

Speaker 2 I'm going to be like, wow, okay. Boy, are we different.

Speaker 4 So the company, I would spend any amount of money to bust these liars.

Speaker 4 They're not going to get away with it. I'm tired of being lied to.

Speaker 2 The company's 34-year-old founder is fascinated. He says, Oh, is he really?

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 He's fascinated with the lessons we can learn from people who live past 100 that can all help us perhaps increase our own longevity, but he is not here to waste time with some plain old 96-year-old.

Speaker 2 I have a friend, and he recently turned 65, and he said, that's it. There's nothing left, like there's no age benefit after that.
That's true.

Speaker 2 So, again, so if you say you're 90, or if you say you're 115,

Speaker 2 what do you win? You can carry the torch at an Olympics, please. You were at the first one.

Speaker 2 Coming up, it's an as seen on TV Bluff the Listener game called 188, Wait, Wait to Play. We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait WaitWait on Tell me from NPR.

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Speaker 2 From NPR in WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR news quiz.

Speaker 2 I'm Bill Curtis.

Speaker 2 We are playing this week with Paula Poundstone, Eugene Cordero, and Alonzo Bowden. And here again is your host.
at Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in Orlando, Florida.

Speaker 2 Peter Sago. Thank you, Bill.
Thanks, everybody.

Speaker 2 Right now it's time, of course, for the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me bluff the listener game call 188 WaitWait to play our game on air or check out the pinned post on our Instagram page at WaitWaitNPR.

Speaker 2 Hi, you're on WaitWait Don't Tell Me.

Speaker 6 Hi, Peter. This is Kim, and I'm calling from Cumberland, Maine.

Speaker 6 I was born and raised in Saskatchewan.

Speaker 2 Right. So you moved from Saskatchewan, Canada, to Maine, the United States.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 2 Do you regret that now?

Speaker 6 Sometimes, yes.

Speaker 2 What do you do there in Cumberland, Maine?

Speaker 6 So I'm a primary care doctor.

Speaker 2 Oh, you are?

Speaker 2 Yeah, yep.

Speaker 2 That's the best kind of doctor as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker 6 Yeah, all about the preventative care.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly. Well, welcome to our show, Kim.
You're going to play the game in which you have to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Kim's topic? Honey, you're on TV.

Speaker 2 It's always fun to be on TV, whether it's being interviewed in the local news or maybe seen in the crowd at a football game or French kissing your brother on the white lotus.

Speaker 2 This week we heard about somebody getting on screen for a somewhat surprising reason. Our panel is each going to tell you about it.
Pick the real story.

Speaker 2 You will win our prize, the waiter of your choice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play? Yeah.
All right, let's hear first from Paula Poundstone.

Speaker 4 Just before the start of their recent soccer game, Bulgarian team Arda paid tribute to recently deceased former team member Petko Gonchev.

Speaker 4 Both teams lined up and bowed their heads for a moment of silence. Meanwhile, the 78-year-old Gonchev was running late to get home to watch the game on TV, as was his practice.
He wasn't dead.

Speaker 4 When he pulled up at his house, his wife came out crying and shouting, Petko, Petko, they announced on TV that you were dead. Gonchev was so shaken by not being dead,

Speaker 4 he downed a glass of brandy. So many people called me relatives, friends, acquaintances, and not-so-big acquaintances, Gunchev said.

Speaker 4 Like maybe Stoyan, Ivan's friend from the bar that he met that time.

Speaker 2 Petko? Yes?

Speaker 4 It's me, Stoyan.

Speaker 4 Do I know you? Yes, we met at the bar that time. I'm Ivan's friend.
Were you wearing a striped shirt? No, I had a blue shirt.

Speaker 4 Oh, yes, Stoyan.

Speaker 2 Hello.

Speaker 2 Petco, are you dead?

Speaker 2 Petco

Speaker 2 may not have been dead,

Speaker 2 but he did watch a moment of silence for himself on the TV before a soccer game. Your next story of a television tale comes from Alonzo Bowden.
Matt Collins worked for Amazon.

Speaker 2 Everyone thought Amazon Prime one-day delivery was fast. Then they saw Matt run.

Speaker 2 KCAB obtained this video from a neighbor's ring camera. Matt was dropping a package when Thor, a notorious neighborhood German shepherd, got loose.

Speaker 2 In the video, Matt ran past his truck, leaped a small garden hedge, and increased the distance between himself and Thor until Thor simply gave up. Thor wasn't the only one to see Matt run.

Speaker 2 Pete Walker, who once coached Deion Prime Times Sanders, said Matt was the fastest man he's seen since he saw Deion run a 4-2-40 in college. Pete had to find and time Matt.
Matt ran a 4-3-5-40.

Speaker 2 Now it's rumored Thor's 40 time was about 4-5,

Speaker 2 but no one's been brave enough to verify that.

Speaker 2 It turned out Matt had been a high school player, but he didn't get recruited for college and was working at Amazon to help pay for his education. Well, Matt won't have that problem anymore.

Speaker 2 Since he didn't play college ball, ball even at age 21, Matt had his full eligibility and is now a full-time scholarship as cornerback at Alcorn State University.

Speaker 2 An Amazon delivery man is caught on camera outrunning a German Shepherd and gets himself a football scholarship. Your last story of somebody getting screen time comes from Eugene Cordero.

Speaker 2 When Jason Estrellis of Alhambra, California began his day with his usual cup of coffee and switching on the local morning news. He was met with a story asking, Are we too addicted to junk food?

Speaker 2 During the segment, it showed stock footage of various people eating fast food or drinking soda. There was one noticeable snippet to Mr.

Speaker 2 Estrellis of a man drinking an extra-large soda, holding a hot dog, and wearing a green t-shirt that read, Got a bad case of bad shingles? We can cure it. Estrellis Roofing.

Speaker 2 This was,

Speaker 2 in fact, Jason Jason Estrellis himself in the video and he was shocked. I was excited at first that I was on the news until I saw what the story was about, said Estrellis.

Speaker 2 But lucky for him, more people were intrigued with the shirt than they were about his quick meal options that he chose. Business has picked up quite a bit, Mr.
Estrellis said.

Speaker 2 I hope they keep using the footage. It's free advertising.
Plus, a few customers have had hot dogs ready when I arrived to do the job.

Speaker 2 All right, here are your three choices.

Speaker 2 Somebody was surprised to see themselves on TV.

Speaker 2 Was it from Paula Poundstone, an elderly former soccer player who watched his own memorial service with a moment of silence, even though he was still alive, to watch it?

Speaker 2 From Alonzo Bowden, an Amazon delivery guy who was caught on camera and then on the news sprinting so fast he got himself a gig in a football team.

Speaker 2 Or from Eugene Cordero, a man who saw himself used as an example of an unhealthy lifestyle, but it ended up bringing him some business. Which of these is the real story of a surprise TV appearance?

Speaker 6 I think I'm going to go with Paula's story.

Speaker 2 You're going to go with Paula's story. Well, to find out the correct answer, we spoke to a reporter covering the real story.

Speaker 7 At a football match in Bulgaria, there was a minute's silence for a former player of PFC Arda who wasn't actually dead.

Speaker 2 That was Guardian reporter Paul McInnes talking about the moment of silence at the soccer game. Congratulations, Kim.
Paula was telling the truth.

Speaker 2 I took a moment to glare at the people who objected.

Speaker 2 Paula was telling the truth. You earned a point for her for doing so, but you yourself have won our prize, the voice of your choice, on your voicemail.

Speaker 2 Congratulations. Well done.
Thanks for calling and playing. Thank you.

Speaker 2 And now the game where we ask accomplished people about things they know nothing about. We call it not my job.

Speaker 2 I'm right for that one. All right.

Speaker 2 Mo Wagner was the star of his basketball league as a young man in Germany when he sent a highlight reel of himself to the coach at the University of Michigan and he soon found himself a Wolverine, or as he might say, a Wolverine.

Speaker 2 He then joined the NBA and has been the star center for the Orlando Magic since 2021. Mo Wagner, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.
Thank you, man. Thank you.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 So you grew up in Berlin, Germany, and I don't know the answer. How big is basketball in Germany? It's growing.
Definitely soccer, the... soccer or football, we call it football, sorry, Americans.

Speaker 2 The main sport, but the basketball community is growing. Obviously, with Dirk Nowitzki, we have a huge, huge representative, and basketball is getting bigger.
Now did you

Speaker 2 gravitate to basketball originally or were you playing soccer and then you passed six feet in height and somebody said no we'd like you to pick up the ball now? Actually

Speaker 2 actually

Speaker 2 funny story so yeah I played soccer. I loved soccer.

Speaker 2 I loved being outside getting dirty in the grass and playing with my friends and then at some point my mom got so sick of waiting outside in the rain watching me play all day

Speaker 2 that she forced me more or less to try out a gym sport. And because I was very tall, she was either handball or basketball.
My dad did handball, so I chose basketball. Little rebellion.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's a shame, because you could be playing uncounted millions in the National Handball League moment.

Speaker 2 Bad decision from me. I guess so.
Well, second best is always okay.

Speaker 2 Now, I was surprised by this. I had assumed that you had been scouted and found by Michigan, but in fact, as I said, you were interested in American collegiate sports.

Speaker 2 You wanted to go to America and play for an American college, specifically Michigan?

Speaker 2 Michigan was kind of like now obviously Michigan men go blue forever but back then that was kind of like

Speaker 2 back then I was just kind of the only school that offered me a scholarship so I was like sure

Speaker 2 I'll do that.

Speaker 2 But I will say both my parents

Speaker 2 went to medical school, are doctors so going to school was kind of a thing in my family and I didn't want to be the outlier on that end, at least act like I cared. And

Speaker 2 I didn't want to go to medical school, that's for sure. And also, like I said, again, it's hard to get on the radar.

Speaker 2 So, I tried to play on ESPN and have people see me to go to the NBA, and that was possible at Michigan and less possible in Germany. So, that was kind of like a surefire answer.
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 So, you had ambitions to go to the NBA, like exactly. Yeah, I hate to admit that to my mom nowadays, but I really just went to the University of Michigan to go to the NBA.

Speaker 2 You are also quite famously part of one of the very few pairs of brothers in the NBA. That's correct.

Speaker 2 Your brother

Speaker 2 also went to Michigan, came from Germany to Michigan, and then now is with you on The Magic. Correct.
And so was it like all you? You're like, dude, this is great. You're going to do this.

Speaker 2 Yeah, kind of. Like, he owes me everything, honestly.

Speaker 2 I appreciate you setting that up for me.

Speaker 2 I kind of turned from younger brother into my landlord within four years, so that's awesome. But no, obviously an amazing experience.

Speaker 2 This is a crazy, crazy lifestyle we live, and to get to share that with your family

Speaker 2 at that level is pretty cool. Now, you're 6'11, and your brother is 6'10.
So do you like torture him by holding things up out of his reach? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like, he surpassed me in about everything in life except for that little detail. So

Speaker 2 I try to rub that in every minute.

Speaker 2 Literally rubbing in the top of his head, which you can reach

Speaker 2 dollar. You can't do nothing about it.

Speaker 2 So you guys, so so you live together. You have your own like basketball house.
Exactly.

Speaker 2 We got a full court upstairs and a full court downstairs.

Speaker 2 No, like, yeah, he bought a house. I live upstairs.
He lives downstairs.

Speaker 2 So we have some separate rooms. We don't we don't bunk bed or do anything like that.

Speaker 2 There should be privacy allowed uh on the road as well. So we don't share hotel rooms or anything like that.

Speaker 2 We are still two individual grown men, but

Speaker 2 we live together. We live the same thing on the same team.
The cool thing is our mom gets to be around all year, so that's awesome, yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, can I?

Speaker 2 Can I ask you something about a story I heard? Oh, please. So I heard that you guys obviously speak German.

Speaker 2 and that you talk some smack while you're playing in German and that Luca Donczik understood what you were saying about him.

Speaker 2 What were you guys saying, and what did he pick up? I don't think he understood what we were saying, but I definitely, I mean, he's obviously from Slovenia, so he has some experience with

Speaker 2 European language, and he picked up on that pretty quickly.

Speaker 2 But he definitely didn't know what we were saying. It's pretty cool because Franz and I, obviously,

Speaker 2 we have some opinions about our teammates or opposing teams.

Speaker 2 So we utilize our native tongue.

Speaker 2 Really? You are on like the court. You're in an NBA game with your brother and you are like talking trash about the other players in German.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. What? It's the best.

Speaker 2 They can't be mad at you if they don't know what you're saying. That's true.

Speaker 2 Let's just say we're happy that there's no German referendum there. I understand.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, Bob Wagner, we have invited you here to play a game that we're calling... Even you would look up to 7-Eleven.

Speaker 2 Right, so you're 6'11, so we thought we'd ask you about something even taller, 7-Eleven.

Speaker 2 Answer three questions about the global giant of convenience stores, and you will win a prize for one of our listeners, the voice of anyone they might choose from our show on their voicemail.

Speaker 2 Bill, who is Mo Wagner playing for? Terry Bryncutter of Orlando, Florida.

Speaker 2 All right, you ready? Okay. This may be the first competition you've you've done in a few months, so let's see how rest of you are.

Speaker 2 Here's your first question. 7-Eleven is very proud of their signature drink, the Slurpee.
In fact, they celebrate the frozen drink with which of these?

Speaker 2 A, one day a year, you can bring a cookie jar from home and fill it up at the Slurpee machine. B, one day a year when franchisees can sell their own custom Slurpee flavor they develop at home.

Speaker 2 Or C, one day a year when they hold a 10-minute moment of Slurpness and they just let the machine flow out onto the floor.

Speaker 2 How big is the cookie jar? Yes, you're right, it's the cookie jar. It could be anything, in fact.
It's called Bring Your Own Container Day.

Speaker 2 And if you're interested, the only rule is it has to fit under the spigot, and it happens on one day. It is July 11th.
Get it? 7-Eleven, so get ready, everybody. Wow.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Here's your next question. Amazingly, not everyone loves 7-Eleven, like an unhappy former franchise owner in Boston who got back at the company by doing what?

Speaker 2 A, going into stores and quickly rewiring the hot dog rollers so they spun at 5,000 RPM.

Speaker 2 B, swapping out an entire shipment of coffee destined for all of the area's stores with decaf.

Speaker 2 or opening a competing convenience store which he called 612 across the street.

Speaker 2 That is a very petty way of doing that. I would go see.
There you go, yeah.

Speaker 2 He went right for that, and that's what he did.

Speaker 2 He opened 612, it's open from 6 till 12. It's better.
And seven years after he did it, it is still there. All right, here's your last question.

Speaker 2 7-Eleven stores are, unfortunately, as we all know, frequent targets of robbers, but at least one Oregon man did not get away with any money when he tried to rob a 7-Eleven with what? Weapon?

Speaker 2 A, his fingers, which he held up in the shape of of a gun.

Speaker 2 B, a pool noodle, which he stiffened by inserting 10 straws from the drink dispenser.

Speaker 2 Or C, he didn't have a weapon, so he asked the cashier, hey, do you happen to have a baseball bat behind the counter? And if so, could I borrow it?

Speaker 2 I'm gonna go with C here.

Speaker 2 I'm gonna say that for the audience listening at home, it's a little difficult because there's a whole group of opposing fans in front of him waving things at him to distract him.

Speaker 2 That was my attempt at a basketball joke. That failed.
I apologize.

Speaker 2 All right, so

Speaker 2 your choice is C. You're going to go for, you asked the guy, said, do you have a baseball bat? Can I borrow it? That feels, yeah, it feels innocent and smart at the same time.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm afraid it was A, in fact. It was the feeder gun.
Really?

Speaker 2 Yeah, the police say, quote, the clerk was not convinced.

Speaker 2 And the man left without anything. Bill, how did Mo Wagner do on our quiz? Mo, two out of three is a win.
Yes, it is.

Speaker 2 His first in a while.

Speaker 2 How did it feel? Just an honor. I know.
In a minute, you're right. May this be the first of many to come in the next year.
Thank you, guys.

Speaker 2 Mo Wagner is the Star Center for the Orlando Magic, currently on involuntary leave. Mo Wagner, thank you so much for joining us here in Orlando over here at Don Somerset.
Have a good one.

Speaker 2 In just a minute, you're going to want to bring your mustard for our Elister Limerick Challenge called 1888-WAITWAY to join us on the air.

Speaker 2 We'll be back in a minute with more of WaitWave, don't tell me from NPR.

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Speaker 2 One answer, joining the 3 million supporters of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

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Speaker 2 From NPR in WBEC Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News quiz. I'm Bill Curtis.
We are playing this week with Alonzo Bowden, Paula Poundstone, and Eugene Cordero.

Speaker 2 And here again is your host at Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in Orlando, Florida, Peter Sagan.

Speaker 2 Thank you, Bill. In just a minute, anyone sensitive to flashing lights or awkwardly forced rhymes are advised to look away.
It's our listener, Limerick Challenge.

Speaker 2 If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924.
Right now, panel, it is time for you to play a new game that we are calling.

Speaker 2 How's the guy who invented pirates booty doing?

Speaker 2 Now, the inventor of Pirates Booty, America's most popular flavor of styrofoam,

Speaker 2 is named Robert Ehrlich. And Mr.
Ehrlich lives in a small village on Long Island, and he has wanted to be the mayor.

Speaker 2 So, in honor of his fascinating career in both toddler snacks and now politics, we are going to ask you about Mr. Ehrlich, but we're going to do it rapid fire for each of you, true-false style.

Speaker 2 Here we go. So we'll start with Eugene.
Eugene, true or false? Mr. Ehrlich likes to use his professional title, Emperor of All Snacks.
Oh, please, true. No, it's false.

Speaker 2 He wants you to call him Captain Booty Head.

Speaker 2 I love this guy. Alonzo, oh, just wait.

Speaker 2 Alonzo, true or false, his first attempt to become mayor was to walk into the village hall, announce, quote, I'm the mayor now. You're all fired.
Where's my office? True. Yes.

Speaker 2 Paula, true or false. When he was told that didn't really count, he then became a write-in candidate for this week's mayoral election, and he declared victory 30 minutes after the polls closed.
True.

Speaker 2 No, false. He declared victory 30 minutes after the polls opened.

Speaker 2 Eugene, true or false, as a write-in candidate with an absolutely aggressive campaign around town, he ended up getting 1,064 votes. True.
No false. His opponent, the incumbent mayor, got 1,064 votes.

Speaker 2 He got 62. Aww, buddy.
So it was close. It was.

Speaker 4 A lot of these are trick questions.

Speaker 2 They are.

Speaker 2 That's it for the first edition of How's the Guy Who Invented Pirates Booty Doing? Ah, man. But, but

Speaker 2 given what this guy is like, we'll be playing it again before the end of the hour. Oh, I'm hoping.
Oh, man, I could play this all day. It's amazing.
He's a remarkable fellow.

Speaker 4 When my kids were little, my oldest daughter had some health problems that she wasn't supposed to have certain food, like little dietary restrictions. So

Speaker 4 she comes home one day. She was always coming home with like

Speaker 4 foods that I hadn't sent her off with all over her shirt. And so one day, somehow, this came up that she had gotten some sort of food that she wasn't supposed to have, and it was that.
Pirates booty.

Speaker 4 Which I had never heard of at the time. And I said, well, you know, I asked her about it.
She said, I was eating pirates booty. And I said, there's no such,

Speaker 4 no, there's no such thing like that. And she goes, yeah, there is.
I said, there is. I get so angry.
I go, booty is like a phrase, honey, for like a woman's butt.

Speaker 4 They would not name a snack food pirate's booty. They just wouldn't.
And then, of course, we're in the grocery store and the kids show me. And I'm like, okay.
So that's like a regular

Speaker 4 criticism that I receive from my adult children:

Speaker 4 is to reminisce about the Pirates' Booty story. So, I'm looking forward to playing the game again.

Speaker 2 You know, unfortunately, a lot of children's snacks are other words for women's butts. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Bambas.

Speaker 2 Kellogg's, badonka donks.

Speaker 2 My kids love those.

Speaker 2 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 1888-WAIT WAIT.

Speaker 2 That's 1-888-924-8924. And you can see us live most weeks back at the second most magical place on Earth, the Study Baker Theater in downtown Chicago.

Speaker 2 We concede it. We concede it.

Speaker 2 Hi, you are on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Yeah, hey, this is Eric Bowman from Kansas City, Missouri.
Kansas City, a place we love.

Speaker 2 What do you do there?

Speaker 2 I am a SEO specialist. You're an SEO specialist.
I know this, this search engine optimization, right?

Speaker 2 And the idea is that your job is to help companies show up quicker or higher up in search results, right? Yeah, we do some manipulation. Oh, do you?

Speaker 2 So let's say I wanted to be higher up in the Google results for people who are searching for quiz show hosts. What should I do to sort of goose my own ranking?

Speaker 2 Goose your own ranking?

Speaker 2 That was going to be my same question.

Speaker 2 All right, Eric, I know you get paid for that advice, so let's just move on. Yeah, boy.

Speaker 4 He was not given away.

Speaker 2 No, no, trade secrets.

Speaker 2 Eric, you're going to play the game in which Bill Curtis is going to read you three news-related limericks, but he's not going to them. That will be your job.
Do that two times out of three.

Speaker 2 You will be a winner. Ready to go? I think so.
I was an English major. Well, then, there you are.
You've trained for this. You've studied.
Here we go. Here is your first limerick.

Speaker 2 There's not much we old penguins require. A nice pool and a good fish supplier.
Old age has a perk.

Speaker 2 We are done with our work. In this part of the zoo, we

Speaker 2 retire. Retire, yeah.
There you go.

Speaker 2 The New England Aquarium in Boston has opened what we believe is the first ever retirement home for penguins. Six African penguins moved in this week so they can have sex, I mean eat in peace.

Speaker 2 According to the New York Times, the quote, geriatric penguins are mostly in their 30s, which rude.

Speaker 2 This is true, one penguin is only 14 because she's there with her 32-year-old penguin partner.

Speaker 2 She says she loves him, you know, but mostly she's waiting for him to die so she can inherit his collection of pebbles.

Speaker 2 Here's your next limb. Sometimes towers of food can be fraught slugs.
Fancy foods overwhelm and our thought bugs.

Speaker 2 But nothing's more fun than some wieners and buns. So we're serving a tower of

Speaker 2 love.

Speaker 2 Tower of love. We'll do it one more time, Bill, and we'll listen for the rhymes.
Sometimes towers of food can be fraught with slugs. Fancy foods overwhelm and our thought bugs.

Speaker 2 But nothing's more fun than some wieners and buns. So we're serving a tower of.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 I'm dying here.

Speaker 2 Nothing? Wieners and buns?

Speaker 2 I'm thinking bratwurst, but.

Speaker 2 Bratwurst. You're thinking bratwurst.
I mean, how could you not? I know.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. I'll just give it to you.
The answer is hot dogs. Hot dogs.
A tower of hot dogs. The hot dog tower is a multi-tiered tray of hot dogs, condiments, french fries, and sides.

Speaker 2 Imagine... one of those seafood towers, but the food you see is hot dogs.
Right? Now, this presentation makes sense. You might ask someone, listen, do you want eight hot dogs?

Speaker 2 And they'd say, of course not. But do you want eight hot dogs arranged in a tower reaching up as if to touch the face of God? Absolutely.

Speaker 2 And people spend money on this at a bar. Yes, they do.
All the time. The hot dog tower.
Wow.

Speaker 4 Well, they may also be with a group of friends.

Speaker 2 No, I think that's one guy by himself just going to town on that tower.

Speaker 2 That is a sculpture of food and a cry for help. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Here is your last limber. Let's see if we can get this one.
At the gym, all my muscles are aching. So this new buzzy workout I'm taking.

Speaker 2 All day I just vibrate and then I rehydrate. I'll get really fit by just

Speaker 2 thigh embalming so hard.

Speaker 4 It rhymes with baking and taking

Speaker 4 and it's it's like vibrating.

Speaker 2 Shaking. Shaking!

Speaker 2 Yes!

Speaker 2 Yes!

Speaker 2 Yes!

Speaker 2 The answer is shaking. Yes, thanks to social media.
Of course, the so-called weight loss equipment known as vibration plates are back. That's the beautiful thing about the circle of life.

Speaker 2 Every 30 years, an old scam can come back to trick a new generation of people. Oh, man, does this mean that the shake wave is coming back, too? We can only hope.

Speaker 2 Oh, man, there is nothing like watching somebody use that. Nobody, I don't think anybody ever did.

Speaker 2 But it would be fun to stand on a vibrating plate and hold the shake weight and it would shake the weight for you. Yeah.
Full body workup. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Bill, how did Eric do on our quiz? Two out of three.

Speaker 2 It's all right, man. You made it.
You did it. You got through.

Speaker 2 Thank you, guys. Bye-bye, Eric.
Take care. Yep, sounds a good one.

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Speaker 2 Now it is time for 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.

Speaker 2 Each correct answer now worth two points. Bill, can you give us the scores? Alonso and Paula each have three.
Eugene has two.

Speaker 2 All right. Eugene, that means you are in third place.
You will be up first. The clock will start when I begin.
Your first question, fill in the blank.

Speaker 2 On Thursday, President Trump signed an executive order ending the Department of Blank. Education.
Right. On Monday, a judge indefinitely blocked the ban on blank members in the military.

Speaker 2 Transgender. Right, citing safety issues, the Vancouver Auto Show barred electric car company blank from participating in the event.
Tesla. Right.
This week, cases of blank in Texas surpassed 300.

Speaker 2 Measles? Right. This week, jazz legend Herbie Hancock told the BBC the best advice he ever received was when Miles Davis told him blank.

Speaker 2 Blow harder? That's a good advice.

Speaker 2 He said that Miles Davis told him, quote, if all you see are dudes in the audience, that means your music is dead. Oh, wow.
Tough stuff, but true. Thanks.

Speaker 2 On Wednesday, the famed grand ole Blankie in Nashville celebrated its 100th anniversary. Opry? Yeah, grand ol' Opry.

Speaker 2 On Monday, it was announced that Conan O'Brien would return to the host the 2026 Blank Awards. Oscars.

Speaker 2 Right, following the marked increase of incidents, ophthalmologists are warning people not to mix up their bottles of eye drops with blank.

Speaker 2 With

Speaker 2 mouthwash? No, with bottles of glue. Oh!

Speaker 2 Many bottles of fingernail glue and eyelash glue look almost identical to eye drop bottles, and hospitals are seeing more and more patients who have accidentally dropped glue into their eyes.

Speaker 2 Wow. Helpful hand.
If you happen to do this and you glue your eyes shut,

Speaker 2 you can get help by just mashing all the buttons on your phone until it eventually calls 911.

Speaker 2 Bill, how did Eugene do on our quiz? Pretty good. Six right.
12 more points. Total of 14.
Puts him in the lead.

Speaker 2 Oh, but we have arbitrarily picked Alonzo to go next. Alonzo, fill in the blank.
On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that Blank's attempt to shut down USAID likely violated the Constitution. Mosque.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 On Mosque. On Monday, Chief Justice John Roberts offered a rare rebuke of Blank.

Speaker 2 Right. This week, Israel launched ground and airstrikes in Blank, breaking their ceasefire with Hamas.
Palestine. Good enough, Gaza.

Speaker 2 On Thursday, the EU announced they would delay implementing blanks on goods from the U.S. Tariffs.

Speaker 2 Right, this week, a college baseball player was forced to apologize after he hit a triple and celebrated by blanking. Running the home plate?

Speaker 2 No, by bending down to the third baseline and pretending to snort it like cocaine. On Tuesday,

Speaker 2 new data showed that the Earth just experienced its blankest decade ever. Hottest.
Right, on Monday, a French politician called in the U.S. to return to the blank.
Statue of Liberty.

Speaker 2 Right, we're not using it. This week, a homeowner in Los Angeles allowed a stranger to use their bathroom despite the fact that the stranger had just blanked.

Speaker 2 Robbed them? No, crashed his car into their house.

Speaker 2 You know how it is. You're driving home, you hear the call of nature, and your options either hold it or crash your car into a stranger's house and ask them to use their bathroom.

Speaker 2 The homeowner's kindness was rewarded. The guy left a great review of their bathroom on Yelp,

Speaker 2 adding, and plenty of very exciting parking. Bill, how did Alonzo do in our quiz? Six right, 12 more points.
His 15 puts him in the lead.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 How many then does Paula Poundstone need to win? Six to tie, Paula. Seven to win.
All right, Paula, this is for the game. Fill in the blank.

Speaker 2 Following a two-hour call with Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin agreed to pause attacks on blanks infrastructure. Ukraine.
Right.

Speaker 2 This week, researchers announced that they have found a way to keep blank symptoms at bay in some aging patients. Awesome.
Right. On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve chose to hold blank rates steady.

Speaker 2 Interest. Right.
The opening round of the NCAA tournament included a matchup between the Houston Cougars and the Southern Illinois Blank.

Speaker 4 Young men.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 Cougars. On Thursday, officials in LA said there's a strong chance Kendrick Lamar would be involved in the opening ceremonies of the 2028 Blanks.
Olympics? Yes.

Speaker 2 This week, two Japanese tourists were kicked out of China after they were caught blanking on the Great Wall.

Speaker 2 I don't know. They were mooning each other on the Great Wall of China.

Speaker 4 All right, and they got thrown out for that?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, they were surprised. The two men were deported after guards caught them mooning each other.
It's gonna be a real blow to the ego.

Speaker 2 Imagine realizing my butt is so hard to look at I am no longer allowed in China.

Speaker 2 Bill, did Paulo do well enough to win? She got four right, 11 more points, but not enough to catch Alonzo.

Speaker 2 There we go. Thank you, Florida.
Congratulations.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 2 In just a minute, we're going to ask our panelists to predict where Sonny Williams and Butch Wilmore, who just got back from the space station, will get stuck next.

Speaker 2 But first, let me tell you that, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is a production of NPR and WBEZ Chicago in association with Urge Dercar Productions. Doug Berman, Benevolent Overlord.

Speaker 2 Philip Goteka, writes our limericks. Our public address announcer is Paul Friedman.
Our tour manager is Shana Donald. DJ Leaderbin, composer at theme.

Speaker 2 Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills, Miles Dornbos, and Lillian King. Special thanks to Blythe Robertson and Monica Hickey.
Peter Gwynn is our Disney princess. Emma Choi is our vibe curator.

Speaker 2 Our jolly good fellow is Anna Anderson. Technical direction is with Lorna White.
Our CFO is Colin Miller. Our production manager is Robert Newhouse.
Our senior producer is Ian Chillock.

Speaker 2 And the executive producer, wait, wait, don't tell me, is Michael Danforth. Now, panel, where will Sonny and Butch get stuck next? Eugene Cordero.

Speaker 2 They'll be stuck trying to answering the limerick challenge on this show.

Speaker 2 Alonzo Bonin. They'll be stuck 199 miles away from the dealership in a 200-mile range Tesla.

Speaker 2 And Paula Poundstone.

Speaker 4 They'll be stuck on Space Mountain.

Speaker 2 If any of that happens, we're going to ask you about it on Wait Wait. Don't tell me.
Thank you, Bill Curtis. Thanks also to Eugene Cardero, Alonzo Bowl, and Paula Poundstone.

Speaker 2 Thanks to the staff and crew at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.
and our partners at Central Florida Public Media. Thanks to our fabulous audience here in Orlando.

Speaker 2 And thanks to all of you for listening at home. I'm Peter Saga.
We'll be back next week.

Speaker 2 This is NPR.

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