WWDTM: Billy Porter, Mark Ronson, Tara Dower, and more!

Speaker 1 This message comes from NPR sponsor Patagonia. As environmental progress stalls, Patagonia believes it's on businesses to step up.

Speaker 1 The company knows it isn't perfect, but it's proving businesses can make a profit without bankrupting the planet. Explore more at patagonia.com slash impact.

Speaker 3 From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz.

Speaker 5 I'm the voice so rich.

Speaker 6 Forbes, put it on a list.

Speaker 5 Chiochi Iansen, and here's your host at the Student Baker Theater in downtown Chicago, filling in for Peter Sagal, Tom Papa.

Speaker 1 Thanks, Chioki, and thank you, everybody. This week was President's Day, and we're honoring George Washington's 293rd birthday by trying to bake a cake you can safely eat with a wooden teeth.

Speaker 5 Just be careful blowing out those candles, George, or your whole mouth is going to go up in flames.

Speaker 1 And since we're already celebrating, let's keep the party going with one of our favorite guests from the past few years, actor, writer, and comedian John Leguazzamo.

Speaker 5 Peter started by asking him how it felt to finally achieve the pinnacle of show business success, his own PBS special.

Speaker 10 Yes, an overnight success after 40 years.

Speaker 1 So the series American Historia, the untold history of Latinos, I understand, was inspired by one of your many one-man shows. In this case, your own personal examination of Latino history, right?

Speaker 10 Yes, you know, it was based on Latino Latin history from morons because I learned my son was being bullied and I wanted to weaponize his knowledge and his history of his people.

Speaker 10 You know, I didn't know we finished building the railroads. I didn't realize we were the first fighters to create unions in the 1930s.

Speaker 10 And then, you know, we've been persecuted, but we've also contributed so much. We We just reached a milestone last year.
We contributed $3.2 trillion to the GDP yearly as a Latino culture.

Speaker 7 Wow.

Speaker 1 My son is a huge fan of yours, and by that, of course, I mean because of your Ice Age movies and TV shows.

Speaker 10 I'm so happy to hear that.

Speaker 10 We're about to do Ice Age 6.

Speaker 12 Wow.

Speaker 1 So you play, for those unlucky not to have seen the 4,000 4,000 Ice Age movies and TV shows and video games, you play Sid the Sloth, the prehistoric sloth, and we read that you actually got really deep into the research for his voice.

Speaker 14 Is that right?

Speaker 10 Well, you know, yeah, because I did like 50 voices for the director, Chris Wedge, and he wouldn't, he said,

Speaker 10 I just want you to do your voice. I go, I don't want to do my voice.
I want to do a voice.

Speaker 10 I'm an actor. So I did, you know, Southern voice for the sloth because he's slow.
Then I went a little more ghetto on him.

Speaker 11 Come on, what you want, what you want?

Speaker 10 And he goes, nah. So then got Discovery Channel footage, and I saw that sloth stored food in their cheek pouches, and it would ferment, and they'd get drunk.

Speaker 10 And so I started eating the sandwich, and I put it in my cheek pouches, and I walked around the house waiting for it to ferment, and it didn't.

Speaker 12 But what happened was that I got

Speaker 10 slushy in my mouth, and I called the rector, Chris, guess who this is? And he's like, I have no idea. Shit, the sloth.
I found myself. And that's how I did the hook.

Speaker 13 Wow.

Speaker 15 That's amazing.

Speaker 16 You do belong on PBS.

Speaker 17 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Next time I'm sitting watching the movies with my son, I say, you know, that's historically accurate.

Speaker 1 Among the many, many things you do, you've done these one-man shows where you play all these characters. And as you just demonstrated, you're really, really, really good at voices.

Speaker 1 Have you ever used that power for evil?

Speaker 10 Yes, of course. I mean, when I was much younger, it was great because people, you know, when the school would complain, they would call my house and I would answer as my mom.

Speaker 11 And I go, oh,

Speaker 10 he, what no he's he's fantastic oh you you you

Speaker 10 want to expel him well expel it for me and I would mess with them for hours and they wouldn't be able to expel me really

Speaker 10 did your mother know you were doing that no please well now she knows now because you blabbered

Speaker 1 you mentioned your mother we also read that like your mother to this day sees like everything you do and offers a critique afterwards

Speaker 10 yeah my mom's very judgmental.

Speaker 12 And

Speaker 10 I think I get it from her a little bit. We both watch PBS too much.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I know, man, I'm telling you.

Speaker 10 And she does, she comes to every show, and like she sits front row, and then she comes afterwards, oh, Joan, that was fantastic, but I didn't really like the punchline.

Speaker 10 It didn't really hit the way I thought it would hit. It didn't murder.
And I was like, mom, please stop criticizing. You're just my mom.
Just be unconditionally loving for once.

Speaker 1 Is she going to critique this? Is she going going to listen and go, oh, I don't think you talked about me enough?

Speaker 10 I'm not going to tell her about this.

Speaker 1 Okay, yeah.

Speaker 13 All right, that's fine.

Speaker 11 That's the only way to keep her away.

Speaker 1 Well, John LaGuizamo, it is such a pleasure to talk to you again. And this time we have asked you here to play a game that we're calling.

Speaker 19 Can We Fix It? Yes, we can.

Speaker 1 So this year, as I'm sure you know, because everybody's been celebrating, this year marks the 25th anniversary of Bob the Builder.

Speaker 17 Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 The beloved kids' show about a British contractor whose trucks are alive.

Speaker 1 So in honor of that, we're going to ask you three questions about, I guess we'd call him Mr. Builder.
Get two out of three right, you'll win our prize for one of our listeners, Bill.

Speaker 1 Who is John Leguizamo playing for?

Speaker 19 Nora Wing of Ithaca, New York. All right.

Speaker 1 Here's your first question. Ready?

Speaker 11 Go for it. I'll do my best.

Speaker 1 Bob the Builder is popular around the world, but some changes needed to be made internationally to show there, including which of these?

Speaker 1 A, in France, they had to add clocks to the background to prove that no one goes over their 35-hour approved work week.

Speaker 1 B, in Canada, Bob always includes maple syrup as a construction material in his projects.

Speaker 1 Or C, in Japan, they had to add a fifth finger to his animated four-finger hand so that kids did not think Bob the Builder was a member of the Yakuza.

Speaker 11 Oh shoot, that's, that's,

Speaker 10 I'm going to go with Canada and maple syrup because it sounds ridiculous, but police.

Speaker 1 Do you think that Bob the Builder in Canada, they just cut in things as now to like to make sure this sticks, here's some maple syrup.

Speaker 10 Can they go A, sorry, A?

Speaker 7 Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 I thought I was in.

Speaker 1 That was amazing. I thought I was in Toronto.

Speaker 1 No, the answer was actually C.

Speaker 13 You see,

Speaker 1 as is well known in Japan, if you're a Yakuza member and you displease your boss, they cut off one of your fingers. So a four-fingered animated character would have unpleasant connotations.

Speaker 13 It's dark.

Speaker 20 It is. It really is.

Speaker 11 I didn't want to go that dark.

Speaker 20 All right.

Speaker 1 Here's your next question, John. You have two more chances.
Bob the Pilder is more than just a very popular kids' TV show. Which of these is another example of Bob's cultural dominance?

Speaker 1 A, he once went to number one on the UK singles charts with a cover of Mambo number five.

Speaker 1 B, Alexander McQueen had an entire runway show of Bob the Builder-inspired designs. Or C, he had a best-selling cookbook called Can You Bake It? Yes, you can.

Speaker 18 Oh, man.

Speaker 11 I'm gonna go with A. You're gonna go with A?

Speaker 1 You're right.

Speaker 4 Yes, he did a cover.

Speaker 18 Finally!

Speaker 1 Mambo number five.

Speaker 18 Why don't we leave?

Speaker 1 All right, you have one more question. If you get this right, you win.

Speaker 1 Bob the Builder popped up in a surprising place a few years ago when people browsing the on-demand menu of Britain's Channel 5 saw a picture of Bob as the image representing what show?

Speaker 1 A, the season premiere of Britain's Got Talent, B, a documentary about 9-11, or C, the movie Eyes Wide Shut.

Speaker 10 Eyes wide shut. Sort of the sexual, all the sexuality.

Speaker 21 Yes, I know, yes.

Speaker 1 Just imagine Bob the Builder wearing one of those weird masks that Tom Cruise was having, you know.

Speaker 10 I won't picture that, so I'm going to go with A again.

Speaker 1 You're going to go with A again. Britain's got talent.
The idea of like, oh, this guy's got talent, he can build stuff.

Speaker 10 He can build things, right?

Speaker 14 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Sadly, the answer was B, a documentary about 9-11.

Speaker 10 I mean, wait, no, I meant B. I meant B.

Speaker 11 You meant B. Oh, he meant B.

Speaker 18 He meant B, Bill.

Speaker 18 He meant B.

Speaker 22 Let's give it to him.

Speaker 15 Okay.

Speaker 1 I'm sure. I mean, I thought I misheard you.

Speaker 1 And of course, you were right.

Speaker 11 I have an accent.

Speaker 10 I have a New York City accent.

Speaker 13 Exactly.

Speaker 18 Yeah, maybe.

Speaker 18 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 You know, apparently, if the way it worked was if Channel 5, you know, and this is how it works: you turn on your streaming service, there are these icons indicating the shows you could be watching.

Speaker 1 And with Channel 5, they didn't happen to have a picture to go with any given show. They just plugged in a picture from Bob the Builder.

Speaker 1 So Bob was the image for this 9-11 documentary and also something called Murdered by My Daughter.

Speaker 1 So, Bill, how did John Lequizambo do in our quiz?

Speaker 13 Two out of three.

Speaker 12 Yay!

Speaker 15 Tony, you did good.

Speaker 10 You're amazing. I'm brilliant.
I've grown on PBS.

Speaker 1 John Leguizambo is an actor, writer, and producer whose new series, Voses American Historia, The Untold History of Latinos, premieres on PBS, September 27th.

Speaker 1 John Leguizamo, a great thing to talk to you again.

Speaker 20 Thank you so much, Legozamo.

Speaker 1 Good luck with the show. We'll see you next time.

Speaker 20 Thank you. Thank you.
So fun. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Bye-bye.

Speaker 1 Before we wrap up this segment, here's a fun moment with some of our panelists. Paula, one of the most famous prehistoric animals was the saber-toothed tiger, a fierce and deadly predator.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 And scientists now believe they know why

Speaker 1 they went extinct. What was it?

Speaker 23 Because they weren't procreating.

Speaker 16 I mean, that has to be correct.

Speaker 1 That is, well. Yeah.

Speaker 23 More specifically, a lot of the males became unattractive.

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 23 The tooth.

Speaker 1 Exactly. They went extinct because of their very big teeth.

Speaker 23 Yeah, it's just not appealing to a female of any species.

Speaker 1 A saber-toothed tiger, formerly a smilodon, informally Bernie. A smilodon?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 25 That's so adorable.

Speaker 7 That's like a children's tiger.

Speaker 1 If you talk to a paleontologist and say, oh, do you work with saber-toothed tigers? They'll go, there's no such thing as a saber-toothed tiger. They're called smilodons.

Speaker 25 How do you know that?

Speaker 26 Because you talked.

Speaker 1 I have been reading a lot of books about old animals with my son.

Speaker 23 I'm not sure what level these books are,

Speaker 23 because really, there's one wherein it said, don't talk to

Speaker 23 scientists who study this and mention saber-toothed tiger because they will just lose it.

Speaker 23 That's ridiculous. I would like.

Speaker 23 Wait, wait, don't tell me it has a website, doesn't it?

Speaker 1 I believe we do, yes. Okay.

Speaker 23 I want to see a copy of the book

Speaker 23 that

Speaker 23 cautions the reader.

Speaker 25 The young reader. Yeah, I was telling me, how old is your son that you're reading together?

Speaker 7 My son is four.

Speaker 13 Yeah, oh, yeah.

Speaker 23 You're not one of those parents who's already pushing your kid to get into college, are you?

Speaker 23 All right, I want you to go to college, but here's a tip.

Speaker 25 When you get in there,

Speaker 13 do not.

Speaker 13 For the love of God,

Speaker 23 Your mother and I love you very much, but there's one thing up with which we cannot put.

Speaker 1 Coming up, it's like...

Speaker 23 Wait a minute coming up. What's the name of the book?

Speaker 1 When we come back, super producer Mark Ronson and Ultra Runner Tara Dower.

Speaker 1 One of them had their toenails surgically removed, but you're going to have to wait to find out which one.

Speaker 1 That's when we come back with more wait, wait, don't tell me from NPR.

Speaker 1 This message comes from NPR sponsor Patagonia. As environmental progress stalls, Patagonia believes it's on businesses.
to step up.

Speaker 1 The company knows it isn't perfect, but it's proving businesses can make a profit without bankrupting the planet.

Speaker 1 Out now is Patagonia's 2025 Work in in Progress report, a behind-the-scenes look into its impact initiatives from quitting forever chemicals and decarbonizing its supply chain to embracing fair trade.

Speaker 1 Explore more at patagonia.com slash impact.

Speaker 27 This message comes from LinkedIn. Running a business means you wear a lot of hats.

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Speaker 29 Support comes from UC Berkeley's online master of public health program. Now more than ever, public health needs bold, informed leaders.

Speaker 29 Berkeley's flexible online program empowers professionals to advance their careers while making a real impact in their communities. Learn more at publichealth.berkeley.edu slash online.

Speaker 3 From NPR in WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz.

Speaker 5 I'm Chioki Ianson, and here's your host at the Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building in downtown Chicago, filling in for Peter Sagal, Tom Papa.

Speaker 15 Thank you, Chioki.

Speaker 1 This week, we're celebrating President's Day by building our own team of rivals with some of our favorite guests from the past few years.

Speaker 5 I'm having so much fun.

Speaker 2 I can't wait to see what we do for Autocrats Day next year.

Speaker 1 While we prepare for that, here's our interview with Grammy-winning producer Mark Ronson.

Speaker 1 When he joined us in August of 2023, guest host Nagin Forsad asked him if he remembered the first time he heard the mega hit Uptown Funk in the Wild.

Speaker 30 I do. I remember being in an Uber and hearing it.
Like, I think I was like coming home, maybe I was a little drunk coming home from a club at two in the morning.

Speaker 30 And it was like, it was the first time I ever heard it on the radio and it was the most exciting thing ever. And I remember saying to the driver, I was like, this is me.

Speaker 30 But he's listening to like Bruno Mars going, I don't believe it.

Speaker 13 You know, he's like, it doesn't sound like you.

Speaker 30 Like, Like, I'm like, oh, no, I mean, I produced it. But anyway, no, it was so exciting.

Speaker 16 Did you have an inkling then that it was going to be this worldwide phenomenon?

Speaker 30 Well, not by the Uber driver's reaction, but I also thought of it.

Speaker 30 You know what it was? That song we worked on for a really long time, about seven or eight months, because Bruno was so such a perfectionist, I kind of am.

Speaker 30 Jeff Basker, the other producer, we are in our work.

Speaker 30 So by the time we finally stopped bickering about it and got it to a point where we all felt good, we're like, wow, if it passed this peanut gallery, at least we know, you know, we feel good about it.

Speaker 30 But well, everything that happened after that was just such a wonderful thing.

Speaker 30 I mean, when you put a song out, it's no longer yours, it belongs to everybody, and then they decide what happens with it. So that's kind of what happened with that song.

Speaker 16 So I want to talk to you a little bit about being a DJ.

Speaker 16 We talked before the show, and as you know, I have, in fact, shaken my booty, as it were, at a club where you were DJing, and it was just an incredible night.

Speaker 16 It was so fun, but it made me think you probably see a lot of weird stuff on the dance floor.

Speaker 16 Are you like basically embarrassed for everyone as you see them dancing to your music?

Speaker 30 No,

Speaker 30 if anybody's dancing, that's good enough for me.

Speaker 30 So, I mean, I have seen some, one of my favorite things, you know, in my early days of DJing in clubs in New York in the 90s, RuPaul once came into the club somewhere where I was DJing, and this was when Ru was in sort of playing clothes in a very handsome suit and came up to me and was just like at the end of the night, you're making me dance so much, you're making my booty hurt.

Speaker 13 And I just thought that that was

Speaker 30 so cool that I put that on a business card.

Speaker 18 I just made these little

Speaker 30 business cards that just said, like, you're making my booty hurt, RuPaul.

Speaker 30 Available for weddings and barnets.

Speaker 16 Well, let's talk about Barbie, another worldwide phenomenon. I want to talk to you about scoring the movie, which you also did.

Speaker 16 Now that you've scored a movie, do you find yourself scoring like dramatic moments in your own life?

Speaker 16 Or just like mundane, like you're just

Speaker 16 like chatting with the barista, and then it's like,

Speaker 30 it's funny because now I'm just so hyper-attuned to like, it could be the music in a Burger King commercial. I'm like, oh, I see why they do that.

Speaker 22 That song legit slaps.

Speaker 16 So I heard this weird factoid about you. Is it true that the song I Want to Know What Love Is was written about your mom?

Speaker 30 Yes, that is absolutely true.

Speaker 1 I would hope so, because that would have been insulting.

Speaker 12 You don't can't talk about somebody's mama like that.

Speaker 30 Yeah, my stepfather's Mick Jones,

Speaker 30 whom my mom married when I was 10, and

Speaker 30 he wrote that song

Speaker 30 for her. And it's like, I mean, it was definitely setting the bar pretty high, like as a kid, like, okay, well, you're not going to write anything as good as that for anybody.

Speaker 30 But also, what was more funny is that he had written a song. He tried to tell her that he wrote the song Waiting for a Girl Like You as well.
That was another big ballad that he had for her.

Speaker 30 And she was like, You wrote that song like five years before you met me. He's like, Right, but I was waiting for a girl like you.

Speaker 1 That's man mad right there.

Speaker 18 I know, man.

Speaker 16 Well, Mark, we've asked you here to play a game that we're calling.

Speaker 19 What about that downtown funk?

Speaker 16 So, you of course released the smash hit uptown funk. So we're going to ask you about downtown funk or stinky city smells.

Speaker 16 And amazingly, in this quiz, we only use the word urine once.

Speaker 16 Now answer two out of three questions correctly and you'll win our prize for one of our listeners. Bill, who's Mark Bronson playing for?

Speaker 19 Brad Martin of Seattle, Washington.

Speaker 16 All right.

Speaker 30 It's a 206. I have to represent

Speaker 12 Brad.

Speaker 13 let's go. Let's go.

Speaker 7 All right.

Speaker 16 Here's your first question. Most towns come to their funks naturally, but some create their own, including Lincoln, Nebraska, which in the winter smells like what?

Speaker 16 Is it A, nutmeg, which they mix in with their road salt? Is it B, new car smell from their factory that makes artificial new car smell kicking up production?

Speaker 16 Or is it C, animal pea, which they spray on their pine trees to keep people from stealing them for for Christmas trees.

Speaker 30 I'm gonna go with C because that's the funkiest.

Speaker 7 And that is correct. The answer is

Speaker 7 animal pee.

Speaker 30 The whole thing about the funk and I know that I'm not on camera for most people is like that kind of face you know and like nutmeg is not making me

Speaker 16 All right, here's your next question.

Speaker 16 Lots of cities have bad smells, but not every city has a song about how bad it smells. Which of these is a real recording? Is it A, the aroma of Tacoma?

Speaker 16 Is it B, my dear Eureka, how eureka?

Speaker 16 Or is it C, Pueblo, Colorado smells like a rotten egg made of dead skunks?

Speaker 1 Good luck punching that one up, Bronson.

Speaker 1 I'm going go with A.

Speaker 16 Yes, it is the aroma of Tacoma.

Speaker 16 Some combination of a paper mill, an oil refinery, and Tacoma's natural stank made A smell so strong it was immortalized in song. Not gonna lie, it's a bump.

Speaker 1 Do you know that that mill is closing down? So the aroma of Tacoma is going away in the next like few months.

Speaker 22 So sniff it while you got it, people.

Speaker 16 All Alright, so here is your last question.

Speaker 16 GQ magazine published a list of the best-smelling cities in the world, including New Orleans, which they praised for what combination of scents? Was it A, incense and sweat?

Speaker 16 Was it B, old beer and frying fat?

Speaker 16 Or was it C, strawberry hurricanes and puked up strawberry hurricanes?

Speaker 30 Just C sounds so good.

Speaker 7 I'm sorry, the answer is B.

Speaker 16 Old beer and frying fat got New Orleans on the good smelling list.

Speaker 16 All right, Bill, how did Mark do on our quiz?

Speaker 14 Well, he's a winner, two out of three.

Speaker 19 Mark, congratulations. We'll give you another Emmy for this.

Speaker 16 Mark Ronson is a Grammy and Oscar-winning producer, writer, and DJ who composed the score and produced the soundtrack for the Barbie movie.

Speaker 16 Mark Ronson, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

Speaker 1 Thanks so much.

Speaker 1 In November this past year, we talked to ultra runner Tara Dower.

Speaker 1 She had just become the fastest person to ever complete the Appalachian Trail, having hiked all 2,200 miles in just over 40 days.

Speaker 5 The numbers were so unbelievable, Peter had to double check them.

Speaker 1 First question, did we get the numbers right? About 2,200 miles end to end, Maine to Georgia, and you did it in 40 days, 18 hours, five minutes. Is that right?

Speaker 31 Six minutes. Oh, excuse me.

Speaker 7 Oh, you are scrupulous.

Speaker 1 So break that down. To travel that far in that period of time, how far did you have to travel per day and how much time did it take to travel, to run every day?

Speaker 31 The least amount of miles I did in a day was about 35 and the most most I ever did was 62 in a day, and I was, every day I was moving for about, on average, like 17 and a half hours a day.

Speaker 1 17 and a half hours, okay.

Speaker 1 That's kind of amazing. And how much were you able to sleep?

Speaker 31 On average, about five hours.

Speaker 1 And at what point, I mean, I guess you ran from Maine to Georgia. So

Speaker 1 were you starting to hallucinate by the time you were in New York, say?

Speaker 31 Yeah, well, the compounding exhaustion came around,

Speaker 31 I'd say Maryland, it got pretty bad. I remember some like little hallucinations I had, like little devils sitting on logs.
And

Speaker 31 I saw a white cat and a lion, and I saw my friend sitting on a log. So the hallucinations were getting pretty bad around like the middle of the trail.
Maryland is about halfway through.

Speaker 22 Well, it's must be comforting knowing like, that's not real. There's not a cat and a devil here.
Like, I might as well just keep running.

Speaker 17 Like, there's no threat, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 31 well you know i've had hallucinations during hyndra mile races that i've done and some of those have been really concerning yeah and i think

Speaker 31 give us an example i'm lucky um there was like a hunter with a huge huge ginormous gun and he was like asking me where i was going and what i was doing and i was like oh crap like is this real and it was in the middle of the night it was at 2 a.m on a trail by myself you know if you ask a hallucination if they're a hallucination they have to tell you there's a rule

Speaker 16 Do you eat while you run?

Speaker 31 Yes, yeah.

Speaker 31 I mean that's you have to like be utilizing, you have to eat wherever you can. I mean I'm eating, oh, I think it was like eight to ten thousand calories a day.

Speaker 31 So I mean you just have to like eat and run. You have to do as much as you can when you run.
And do people the only time I stopped during the day was to use a bathroom. Yeah.

Speaker 1 They have bathrooms in the trail. That's nice.
And so when you say you're eating, so you're just like people.

Speaker 22 She thought it was a bathroom. You may have been hallucinating a bathroom.

Speaker 13 You got it in someone's car.

Speaker 22 You can't guarantee that was a bathroom.

Speaker 1 So I'm trying to feel that. You're running along and like your friends are with you.
You have a lot of support, I know, in order to do this.

Speaker 1 And they'd run up to you and they give you, hand you a banana or whatever it is you're eating, and you just stuff it in your face and you keep running.

Speaker 31 Yep, yep, that's about it.

Speaker 31 Just keep moving, eat. My favorite was gummies, and I like Rice Krispie treats and

Speaker 31 goldfish. I loved goldfish.
Right.

Speaker 16 Wow, that's so unhealthy.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 13 The calories are.

Speaker 16 I was just like, I was expecting you to be like broccoli and then other forms of broccoli.

Speaker 1 A couple more questions.

Speaker 1 First of all, I understand that you said once that you are, you have decided after lots of experiences, negative, positive, but you've just decided that you're dumb with toenails.

Speaker 31 Oh yeah,

Speaker 31 I got four toenails permanently removed before I went out on the trail and that was the best decision I ever made.

Speaker 21 Wow.

Speaker 1 You were done with them. You were like you were tired of them getting bloody and coming off.
Oh yeah.

Speaker 13 They would fall off all the time.

Speaker 7 Were you playing this little piggy and you were like

Speaker 16 this little piggy goes.

Speaker 20 This little piggy gets slaughtered.

Speaker 31 Yeah, that was it. We just did eeny meeny miney mo.

Speaker 31 No, so my big toenails are always the ones during these feats, they always like fall off and it's very painful and they get infected.

Speaker 31 And so I was like, that one's coming off and then you know I asked the podiatrist if we could take them all off and he was like no but we can do we can do two at a time so I decided it's like Sophie's choice with toes

Speaker 31 what's next what's what's the next achievement and and when are you gonna be ready to do it yeah I guess tonight and to see how fast I can get through you know a pint of ice cream

Speaker 1 there you go now we're talking

Speaker 1 now we're talking well Tara we are are delighted to talk to you, and we have

Speaker 1 asked you here to play a game that this time we are calling. Try a stroll down these Appalachian Tales.

Speaker 1 So you ran the whole Appalachian Trail, but you went through it too fast this last time to hear any of the myths and legends of that particular region.

Speaker 1 So we're going to ask you three questions about folk tales from the places you ran through.

Speaker 1 And if you get two right, you'll win our prize for one of our listeners, the voice of anyone they like on their voicemail. So Joshua, who is Tara playing for?

Speaker 1 Sarah O'Dell O'Dell of Redmond, Washington.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 1 Here we go. Here's your first question about Appalachian tails.
In West Virginia, they still celebrate the Mothman.

Speaker 1 That's the mysterious creature that first appeared in 1966 near Point Pleasant, West Virginia.

Speaker 1 What was the headline in the Point Pleasant Register newspaper the day after the Mothman's first sighting? Was it A, insects seem to be rather large this year?

Speaker 1 B, couples see man-sized bird, creature, something.

Speaker 1 Or C, annual rummage sale draws record crowds.

Speaker 12 Oh,

Speaker 31 I'm going to have to say B.

Speaker 1 You're going to go B, couple see man-sized bird, creature, something. You're right.

Speaker 12 Yeah. Yes.

Speaker 1 To be fair,

Speaker 1 it was something.

Speaker 1 And there is now an annual Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant if you want to go down there and find out all about it. That's so cool.

Speaker 16 She's like, it's a hallucination.

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 1 All right, here's your next question. Now, while Mothman is probably the most famous Appalachian cryptid, he's not the only one out there.

Speaker 1 Next time you run the trail, you might also run into which of these? A, the phantom trucker who stopped to use the bathroom at south of the border and never returned.

Speaker 1 B, the lost hiker, an angry ghost who died of starvation and demands trail mix from every passerby. Or C, a Bigfoot-like creature called

Speaker 1 Woodbugger.

Speaker 18 Oh,

Speaker 18 oh man.

Speaker 31 I'm going to have to say B.

Speaker 1 You're going to go for the lost hiker, the ghost that demands trail mix from every passerby? No, it was the woodbooger. Yeah.

Speaker 20 Yeah,

Speaker 1 he's called the woodbooger because he's like the boogeyman.

Speaker 1 Not because of his texture.

Speaker 19 He's the boogeyman. Okay.

Speaker 1 Last question. If you get this one right, you win.

Speaker 1 You've heard of Sasquatch, right? There are stories of Sasquatch in the area. But in West Virginia, there is a terrifying terrifying beast that, unlike Sasquatch, walks on all fours, right?

Speaker 1 Sasquatch stands up. What do they call this mysterious creature? A, the sheep squatch.

Speaker 1 B, big feet, or C, independent Senator Joe Manchin.

Speaker 13 I would say A.

Speaker 1 You're going to go for A, sheep squatch. That's right, Tara.

Speaker 1 It's called the sea. It's called sheep squatch because of its thick white fur, or so say.

Speaker 1 Joshua, how did Tara Dower do in our quiz? Well, normally she just got the two points, but every one of the toes that she sacrificed is actually worth a quarter point.

Speaker 17 So we're just going to give you a perfect score.

Speaker 7 Nicely done.

Speaker 13 Yay!

Speaker 1 Tyra Dower is the fastest person ever to complete the Appalachian Trail. Tara Dower, thank you so much for joining us away with the bad

Speaker 1 and get some rest.

Speaker 1 Take care.

Speaker 12 Bye-bye.

Speaker 1 When we come back, one of the most fashionable people to ever walk a red carpet and the actor who made jury duty look fun. That's when we come back with more Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR.

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Speaker 29 This message comes from the Council for Interior Design Qualification. Interior Designer and CIDQ President Siavash Madani describes his fundamentals of interior design.

Speaker 32 I think interior design is about responsibility. It's not just the way a space looks or the way a space photographs.
To me, better design means functional, safe, accessible, and inclusive design.

Speaker 29 Learn more at cidq.org slash NPR.

Speaker 3 From NPR in WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz.

Speaker 5 I'm Shioki Ianson, and here is your host at the Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building in downtown Chicago, filling in for Peter Sagal, Tom Papa.

Speaker 1 Thanks, Shioke.

Speaker 1 This week, we're honoring President's Day by listing as many executives-in-chief as we can.

Speaker 5 So far, I've got Washington, Lincoln, and the guy Harrison Ford played on Air Force One.

Speaker 1 We'll keep working on our list. In the meantime, here's some great guests from the recent past.

Speaker 1 In February February of 2023, guest host Peter Gross talked with Tony, Grammy, and Emmy winner Billy Porter, who became iconic for his amazing, elaborate red carpet looks.

Speaker 5 Peter asked him about how he almost skipped acting entirely to become a Pentecostal preacher.

Speaker 33 And I preached my first sermon when I was probably around 10 or 11, and I knew immediately

Speaker 12 nope.

Speaker 12 Well, we are all.

Speaker 33 It's not the traditional, You know, it's not the traditional way.

Speaker 22 We're very happy that you were so unhappy at that point.

Speaker 22 You are a style and fashion icon. In addition to, we'll get to, you know, the performing and stuff that you do, but I'm really,

Speaker 22 as somebody who, you can't see me, Billy, but I am wearing an extremely boring outfit.

Speaker 16 Just to follow up on that, Billy, Peter's outfit right now, he bought at White Cis Man, white cisheteroman.com.

Speaker 14 He kind of looks like he's about to ask us.

Speaker 22 He looks like he's about to ask us to leave the restaurant.

Speaker 7 Adam, you can stay.

Speaker 22 But no, Billy.

Speaker 18 Oh my gosh, that's hilarious.

Speaker 22 My question was going to be,

Speaker 22 you're always sort of pushing the envelope, and every time you have a look,

Speaker 22 goes in a new direction and it's sort of stakes out new grounds, you feel sort of pressure every every time you have a new event?

Speaker 22 Like, what is it like for you to sit with a designer and think, what are we going to do next? How am I going to top my last thing? Or do you even feel that?

Speaker 33 No, I don't really feel that because it's what comes naturally for me. Good.
And I also have a styling team, Ty Hunter and Colin

Speaker 33 Anderson. and sometimes others.

Speaker 13 That's you know, I have a lot of,

Speaker 33 I choose it, but they know what I like.

Speaker 31 Yeah, what options to give you.

Speaker 14 Can I ask a question?

Speaker 1 Whenever I see people on the red carpet, there's always someone skulking behind them, like tugging at a hem or something, or you know what I mean? Like positioning the gap.

Speaker 14 Who is that person?

Speaker 13 And what's the name of that job?

Speaker 14 How did they get into that job?

Speaker 13 I just really want to tug at things for a living.

Speaker 33 That's really, that's really funny.

Speaker 33 Most of the time, it is either a publicist because they don't let a whole lot of people on the red carpet anymore.

Speaker 13 Oh, I know.

Speaker 13 Well also,

Speaker 22 Billy, many of your outfits are very large.

Speaker 7 They take up a lot of space. So

Speaker 22 you're a perfect person for the COVID era because if you're wearing, you know,

Speaker 22 are there any things, anything that you've worn on the red carpet that's like extremely fashionable and extremely stylish, but also extremely uncomfortable, that then like during the award ceremony or the event that you're in, you're just like, I'm going to change it to some sweatpants because I'm going going to sit here for three hours.

Speaker 22 I can't be sitting in this like birdcage looking cape thing or whatever.

Speaker 33 Yeah, you have to think about that and think about what you're going to take off.

Speaker 33 The hat that I wore to the Grammys that opened and closed.

Speaker 22 For people who don't know, it was this hat that sort of had this,

Speaker 22 it was like a 180 degree sort of curtain that was motorized. And he's saying it was very heavy and it motorized and it just opened up like a curtain in front of his face.

Speaker 33 It hurt so bad, it left a mark.

Speaker 7 Oh my gosh.

Speaker 33 Like, almost cut me. It left an indentation.

Speaker 14 It was so heavy.

Speaker 22 I was going to say, you're a singer, you're an actor, you're a director, you have a degree in screenwriting. Is there anything that you're like bad at?

Speaker 15 Yes, a lot of stuff.

Speaker 33 I can't draw. I can't play the piano.
That's my biggest dream. I think it's God's way of making sure I stay humble.

Speaker 33 If I could sit down and play the piano for myself while I sang, I wouldn't need nobody.

Speaker 22 So you're in this new movie, 80 for Brady, about four women in their 80s who go see Tom Brady in the Super Bowl. Can you tell us about it?

Speaker 33 First of all, it's the gayest sports film ever made.

Speaker 1 I don't know, mighty ducks.

Speaker 33 And it creates a conversation subversively. It doesn't seem like we would be together, but yet we are.
And the story reaches everybody.

Speaker 16 Did you talk him into retiring again?

Speaker 20 What do you think he should do?

Speaker 1 That was not me.

Speaker 22 What can you see Tom Brady doing next? What would be a fun, sort of like left-turn thing for him to do?

Speaker 33 I mean, I love you

Speaker 33 all, and I love Tom Brady,

Speaker 33 but I don't have the brain space to think about what he should do next.

Speaker 12 He's got it.

Speaker 18 Got it.

Speaker 17 You got it.

Speaker 13 Oh, this has been.

Speaker 33 My brain is already full up.

Speaker 22 Good. Yeah, you think about you.
You think about you, Billy Porter.

Speaker 20 And you know what?

Speaker 22 We're going to think about you, too, because we have asked you here to play a game that we are calling.

Speaker 19 And M.B.

Speaker 13 Davis as Alice.

Speaker 22 Your new movie is about a bunch of Tom Brady fans, so we thought that we would ask you about the original Brady Bunch, which is the Brady Bunch.

Speaker 13 Okay. Okay, so

Speaker 22 answer two of our three questions correctly about the most successful second marriage in TV history, and you will win our prize for one of our listeners.

Speaker 1 Bill, who is Billy Porter playing for?

Speaker 19 Kathy Kim of Los Angeles, California.

Speaker 13 All right, here we go.

Speaker 22 Here's your first question. For our younger listeners, the Brady Bunch was a sitcom about a blended family with three boys and three girls.

Speaker 22 And one source of tension was that all six kids shared one bathroom, which was especially difficult.

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 22 Was it A, each kid used a different shampoo, so there was barely room in the shower for a person? B, the bathroom didn't have a toilet, or C, the bathroom didn't have any doors.

Speaker 33 Something weird. Why do I say C?

Speaker 22 C, the bathroom didn't have any doors?

Speaker 33 Yeah.

Speaker 22 The answer is actually B, the bathroom did not have

Speaker 17 a toilet.

Speaker 22 Yep, it did not have a toilet.

Speaker 14 What?

Speaker 22 In 1970, here's why. In 1970, you could not show a toilet on television.

Speaker 13 What?

Speaker 22 Yep, that's why those kids all held it in for five years.

Speaker 22 Pretty insane. Okay, you still have two chances to win here, Billy, so we're going to keep going.

Speaker 13 Here's your next question. Okay.

Speaker 33 Okay. I watched the Brady Bunch a lot, but I didn't watch it like that.

Speaker 22 No, and I'm glad you didn't.

Speaker 18 I'm glad you didn't.

Speaker 22 In one of the most famous episodes, Peter Brady hits Marcia with a football and he breaks her nose. So how did the director of the episode film that stunt?

Speaker 22 Was it A, they used a macrame football that the director's wife had made?

Speaker 22 Was it B, Maureen McCormick, the actress who played Marcia, threw a football away from her face and then they ran the film backwards?

Speaker 22 Or was it C, they actually hit Maureen McCormick in the face with the football

Speaker 33 all right I'll say C.

Speaker 7 You'd be right

Speaker 15 very good

Speaker 22 They actually did it several times apparently because the prop guy off screen kept missing her nose

Speaker 14 Wow they had to do it over and over again.

Speaker 22 Okay, here's your last question if you get it right you're gonna see that before there were laws

Speaker 33 It's called Marshall's Laws in place now

Speaker 14 It's called Marsha's Law.

Speaker 7 It's called Marsh's Law.

Speaker 22 Very specific. You can't throw anything harder than a taco.

Speaker 22 All right, here's your last question. Nowadays, the Brady Bunch is considered a classic, but in the 1970s, the cast, they weren't really such a big deal.
For example, which of these is true?

Speaker 22 Was it A, they had to pay to park at the lot at ABC? B, the cast was not provided food except for the bag lunches that Carol Brady made during the episode.

Speaker 22 Or C, the then president of of ABC thought that all of their last names were actually Brady

Speaker 33 I think A.

Speaker 18 You'd be right again.

Speaker 13 It was A.

Speaker 22 They had to pay to park at ABC.

Speaker 20 Bill, how did the other Bill, Billy Porter, do on our quiz?

Speaker 19 Billy Porter got two out of three.

Speaker 25 You won, Billy.

Speaker 15 Great job.

Speaker 12 Oh, thank you.

Speaker 1 Billy, it was a pleasure.

Speaker 22 You are a treasure.

Speaker 1 And it was just a real joy to talk to you.

Speaker 22 Yeah. You can see Billy Porter in the new film, 80 for Brady.
Billy Porter, thank you so much for joining us on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Thank you so much.
Bye-bye.

Speaker 29 This message comes from Dignity Memorial and Memphis Funeral Home, one of their nationwide providers.

Speaker 29 Funeral director Mike Perry and retired football coach Bill Muir share their experience working together to create a celebration of life for Bill's wife, Barbara.

Speaker 34 We, as the funeral directors, will only have one time to do this and to get it right. Even like the little small details, that stuff matters to the families that we deal with.

Speaker 34 They may not remember all the words that are shared, but they're always going to remember how you made them feel. So, those details are very important

Speaker 34 because it can capture the family's heart.

Speaker 24 I can't tell you exactly how much time he spent with me asking me any number of questions about my wife and our relationship.

Speaker 24 Actually, I felt like he was my best friend by the time we were done.

Speaker 29 Find a provider near you, like Memphis Funeral Home, at dignitymemorial.com.

Speaker 1 Finally, in June of 2023, we talked with actor James Marsden, who had just starred in Jury Duty, the hidden camera sitcom, where one normal, unsuspecting guy thought he was the foreman on a real case and that one of his fellow jurors was actor James Marsden.

Speaker 1 You know what? We'll just let him explain it.

Speaker 35 Basically, it was how do we create the office with all,

Speaker 35 populate the jury duty with

Speaker 35 a bunch of the improv artists, myself playing a kind of heightened version of myself, a sort of entitled Hollywood celebrity

Speaker 35 version of myself, and one guy that thinks the whole thing is real.

Speaker 1 So, but I'm very curious as to how you got involved in this very experimental thing.

Speaker 1 I imagine they they say to you, we want you to play this arrogant version of yourself to see if we can annoy our hero enough to hate you, and the whole thing may be a complete disaster, in which case everyone will hate you for pranking this guy.

Speaker 1 And you're like, sign me up?

Speaker 35 Absolutely. Well, I mean, I guess I'd be lying to you, but I said it didn't sound fun to kind of lampoon your,

Speaker 35 like I said, the entitled Hollywood actor who just wants every conversation to be about him.

Speaker 13 Right, right.

Speaker 1 So you've been talking about it, doing a lot of interviews, and I read that you said that at certain points during the production, you actually began to worry if you were the one that they were trying to fool somehow.

Speaker 1 Like if the real thing was, let's get James Marsden and tell him that we're doing this thing with another person who doesn't know that it's fake, but in reality, that's an actor, and James won't know that it's fake.

Speaker 35 Literally true. I mean, you just, you just, I've never done a project like this, so you don't trust anyone.

Speaker 1 The final episode, or rather, the penultimate episode,

Speaker 1 you reveal everything to him.

Speaker 1 How did it feel on that day? Were you guys worried about what his reaction would be? Were you afraid, for example, he'd freak out and be angry or upset or something? Yes, yes.

Speaker 35 We were more nervous about that moment than any other moment in the show because, you know, you just think, well, if that was me, how would I react?

Speaker 35 I mean, I can't even handle a surprise birthday party, let alone being surrounded by, you know, everyone in his reality for three weeks was putting putting on a show.

Speaker 35 And that's a long time domestic somebody's human experience, three weeks of their life.

Speaker 35 So we made sure that we all ran up to him immediately afterwards and let him know that, yes, all those, you know, the kind of absurd circumstances that we put him through was fake, but the friendships and like getting to know each other, that was all very real.

Speaker 1 Right, right. And I heard that you had to spend time with him and like talk him down and like assure him that you really, after it was all over and like, no, I really like you, we're friends.

Speaker 35 So I kept in touch with him for a good, you know, a couple of weeks, months after, just checking on him to see how he was doing.

Speaker 35 And he was like, a couple weeks after, he was like, am I still being filmed?

Speaker 1 Really? He was like, James,

Speaker 14 is there a camera in the flower pot, really?

Speaker 35 There's no reason why you should believe me, but I promise you, it's all over, my friend.

Speaker 13 Oh, God.

Speaker 35 All you have to do is keep it a secret for one year now until the show comes out.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 1 No problem. You, in your remarkable and eclectic career, have played the guy who gets the girl, like in 27 dresses, and you play the guy who should get the girl but doesn't like in the notebook.

Speaker 1 You have to agree with like every right thinking person that in the notebook Rachel McAdams should have married you. I mean come on.

Speaker 12 Wow.

Speaker 35 That didn't create quite a stir in the audience there.

Speaker 1 Not as much as you might have hoped.

Speaker 35 There is a young generation now that like she should have been with you.

Speaker 36 The relationship with Noah was a toxic relationship.

Speaker 12 Well Well,

Speaker 1 James Marsden, it is a pleasure to talk to you, and we have invited you here to play a game we're calling Objection.

Speaker 1 So, as we have been talking about, you served on this fake jury, so we thought it would be a natural thing to ask you three questions about real juries. Get two of these right.

Speaker 1 You will win our prize for one of our listeners, Bill. Who is James Marsden playing for?

Speaker 19 Shane Gill of Cleveland, Ohio.

Speaker 12 All right.

Speaker 1 Ready to play?

Speaker 1 I have to. I'm going to try.

Speaker 13 Here we go.

Speaker 21 Here we go.

Speaker 1 Here's your first question. The jurors in a murder trial in Britain in 1994 arrived at their guilty verdict by doing what?

Speaker 1 A, observing that the defendant had his fingers crossed during the whole trial.

Speaker 1 B, asking a Ouija board if he did it or not. Or C, waiting for the made-for-TV movie to be produced about the trial and then seeing how that ended.

Speaker 35 I'm just gonna have a little fun and go with A.

Speaker 1 You're gonna go with A, that he had his fingers crossed the whole time on the stand. No, it was actually the Ouija board.
What?

Speaker 1 They were sequestered as you were in jury duty and they got together in one of the hotel rooms and they pulled out a Ouija board and they asked him if the guy was guilty and

Speaker 18 he said he was.

Speaker 1 Once discovered, the verdict was reversed. Okay, you have two more chances.

Speaker 1 A juror in another British case got sentenced for contempt of court. What did she do that was so bad? Was it A, every time the plaintiff spoke, the juror made the law and order dun-dun sound?

Speaker 1 B, she insisted that she outranked the jury foreman because she was the fiveman.

Speaker 1 Or C, she friended the defendant on Facebook and kept him updated on what was going on in the jury room.

Speaker 4 I'm going to go with C.

Speaker 1 You're right, that's what she did.

Speaker 1 Interestingly, in that case, the juror served two months for contempt of court, and the defendant got off entirely because of the mistrial. All right, here's your last question: get this one right.

Speaker 13 You win.

Speaker 1 Here we go.

Speaker 1 One juror in a trial a while ago said he couldn't serve in the jury because he had terrible gas, and the judge refused that request, not a good excuse, put him on the jury, and then what happened?

Speaker 17 A

Speaker 1 he eventually farted so terribly in court that the judge vomited and the lawyer fainted.

Speaker 1 B, his story was made into the classic courtroom film 12 stinky men.

Speaker 1 Or C, the man exploded.

Speaker 35 I'm going to have to go with A. I mean, all of these sound crazy.

Speaker 17 That's what happened, apparently.

Speaker 1 The judge should have listened.

Speaker 1 Bill, how did James Marsden do in our quiz?

Speaker 19 He won our game completely with two out of three right.

Speaker 1 There you go. That's the verdict.
James Marsden stars in jury duty. It's on Amazon.
Trust me, try it, and you will probably spend the rest of the night watching the whole thing.

Speaker 1 James Marsden, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

Speaker 7 Bye.

Speaker 1 That's it for our one last President's Day for Old Time's Sake Edition.

Speaker 1 We'll see you all next week, but first, let me tell you that Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is a production of NPR and WBEZ Chicago in association with Urgent Hair Productions, Doug Berman, Benevolent Overlord.

Speaker 1 Philip Godeka writes our limericks. Our public address announcer is Paul Friedman.
Our tour manager is Shane O'Donnell. BJ Letterman composed our theme.

Speaker 1 Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills, Miles Dornboss, and Lillian King. Special thanks to Monica Hickey and Hannah Anderson.
Peter Gwynn is the only chief we hail to.

Speaker 1 Our vibe curator is Emma Choi. Technical direction, Lorna White.
Our CFO is Colin Miller. Our production manager is Robert Newhouse.
Our senior producer is Ian Chillag.

Speaker 1 The executive producer of WaitWait Don't Tell Me is Mike Danforth. Thanks to everyone you heard, to all our panelists, Chiyoki Iansen, and all our guests.
And thanks to all of you listening.

Speaker 18 I'm Tom Papa and we will be back next week.

Speaker 1 This is NPR.

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