WWDTM: Happy New Year Edition!

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 ODBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me the NPR News Quiz. I'm the old acquaintance that won't ever be forgot.

Speaker 3 Bill Curtis, and here's your host at the Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sagal.

Speaker 5 Thank you, Bill. Thanks, everybody.

Speaker 5 2024 is finally over, thank goodness. But we're hoping to delay finding out what 2025 has in store by staying in bed with the lights off.

Speaker 3 And when that doesn't work, I call up my friends Jack Daniels and Jack Ambion.

Speaker 4 Jack Ambien.

Speaker 5 While we try to remain blissfully unaware that a new year has even begun, we want to salvage the reputation of the last one a little by bringing you some of the highlights of our show.

Speaker 5 Let's start with Kristen Kish, who joined us in Milwaukee, where she had just filmed her first season as the new host of Top Chef.

Speaker 3 Peter started by asking about her experience as a contestant on this show.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 5 let's jump right in. You won your season of Top Chef after fighting your way through a redemption round.

Speaker 5 And a big turning point for you in the show was when you were all challenged to prepare this seafood specialty in Seattle, the gooey duck. Correct.
And I don't know if I will ever recover watching.

Speaker 4 Okay, who knows what a gooey duck is?

Speaker 6 You guys know?

Speaker 4 Yes?

Speaker 6 No?

Speaker 6 Sound like pet Taya. Who knows what a penis is?

Speaker 6 They look identical.

Speaker 6 It is not the thing that I wanted to cook and have like my first moment dunking the gooey duck in hot water to then remove the

Speaker 4 forest skin.

Speaker 6 Yes, yes, I'll let you say that.

Speaker 6 And to slide it off, and that was my first moment, but it was the quickest thing that you could cook in 30 minutes.

Speaker 4 Wait, so you moiled eggs?

Speaker 4 Wow!

Speaker 4 Beautiful.

Speaker 5 It's a crazy procedure. You do that, you give it a fountain pen, and you move on.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 6 I'm very gay, so shocking that I knew what to do.

Speaker 4 Because.

Speaker 5 Well, you know. That makes sense.
That makes sense, though, that you're like a penis dipping in boiling water.

Speaker 4 Because

Speaker 5 I think that's the advantage you had over the rest of the contestants. Complete emotional detachment.

Speaker 4 I don't care. I don't care.

Speaker 5 So now, so you went through one top chef, hugely popular winner. You've gone on to do a lot of things.

Speaker 5 And then they called you up and they said, Padma's retiring. We want you to take over the show.

Speaker 6 Well, so they didn't even say that.

Speaker 4 I saw on it.

Speaker 6 Anyone that is a fan of the show saw that on Instagram when Padma posted it. And it was like, it caught me off guard too.
I was like, who's going to take over that job?

Speaker 4 Not me. No, certainly.

Speaker 6 It's probably going to be one of you. You all are very funny and clever and very witty and charming.

Speaker 5 I did think it was going to be me. This is awkward.

Speaker 6 and it just it happened so fast I got a call I was flying from Thailand back to New York and I was in Dubai and I got a call from my agent and it just things started rolling and how did you find the of course necessary moment at the end of every episode where someone has to go home do you use the famous catchphrase pack your knives and go oh pack your knives and go is still there and you our top chef is still there they have been there so you didn't change it you weren't like f ⁇ off well i did

Speaker 5 Did you pit your own? Did you pit your own?

Speaker 6 The first day I was like, maybe what if I do just say, go the f ⁇ home?

Speaker 4 Yeah, really?

Speaker 6 But I felt like, I was like, there's a lot of people I don't want to say that to, so I was like, you know, I'll be nice to everybody, so we can't tell, you know.

Speaker 5 There you are. You are a very positive person.

Speaker 5 You filmed the next season of Top Chef.

Speaker 5 will take place entirely here in Milwaukee and other areas of Wisconsin. Chefs all from all over the country flew here to compete.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 5 how many episodes were there? Are there? I have no idea. You know I had a lot of episodes.
No. So like 20 episodes, how many of them are entirely about cheese curds?

Speaker 6 As soon as we touched down, I had cheese curds, custard, butterburger.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 I know Wisconsin is much more than just your dairy, but your dairy is exceptional.

Speaker 4 It's true.

Speaker 5 And most people don't know this, but when you arrive at Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee, you are greeted with strings of cheese curds that they place around your neck with the traditional welcome here.

Speaker 5 It's very nice. And in Wisconsin, your dairy is exceptional, qualifies as dirty talk.

Speaker 5 Well, Kristen Kish, we are so delighted you came back to Milwaukee to join us and we have asked you here specifically to play our competition and this time we are calling it Top Chef Meet the Top Jeff.

Speaker 5 You host Top Chef, so we thought we'd ask you about the world's top Jeff, Jeff Bezos.

Speaker 5 Answer two out of three questions correctly about the founder of Amazon, and you will win our prize for one of our listeners, the voice of anyone they might choose for their voicemail.

Speaker 5 So, Bill, who is Chef Kish playing for you?

Speaker 3 Heather Rayn of Racine, Wisconsin.

Speaker 5 Did you get down to Racine while you're here? Get a Kringle?

Speaker 6 I don't I can't say anything.

Speaker 4 Oh, I'm sorry. You can't.
It's all secret. Sorry.

Speaker 6 But also, if I lose, does Heather still get the prize? Because this is like a lot of pressure for me.

Speaker 6 I want to do good for somebody else, and then if I don't do good and then she doesn't get the prize, I'm going to feel really bad for the rest of my life.

Speaker 5 Here we go. Let's see how you do.
Here's your first question. To demonstrate his personal philosophy of how one succeeds in business, Jeff Bezos once did what? A actually stole candy from a baby.

Speaker 5 B, ate an octopus for breakfast, or C, drove his Mercedes S-Class the wrong way down I-5 in Seattle.

Speaker 6 Oh, God. See, I was really bad at quizzes, and I always did C when I didn't know the answer, but there's only

Speaker 5 a lot of the copies. That's right.

Speaker 5 See, you know what's... You know what's crazy?

Speaker 4 Get back in your head.

Speaker 4 Right, right.

Speaker 6 You think you know the answer, and then you type this stuff. Someone once asked me at a food and wine festival, side note,

Speaker 6 you know, Le Cruset, Le Cruze, the cookware. Someone's like, how do you say le crusé? And I've been saying le crusée the right way my entire life.
And someone goes, how do you say it?

Speaker 6 And I was like, if I've been saying it wrong, and I go, le crusettes? And they're like, no,

Speaker 6 this is what happens.

Speaker 4 I overthink the pressure.

Speaker 5 So what happened was, is he ate this octopus for breakfast

Speaker 5 at breakfast with the head of a company he wanted to acquire. And then Bezo said, and I quote, you are the octopus I'm having for breakfast.

Speaker 5 When I look at the menu, you're the thing I don't understand, the thing I've never had. I must have the breakfast octopus.

Speaker 5 That was Bond villain. It really was.

Speaker 4 Wow.

Speaker 5 All right, here's your next question. Jeff Bezos is not the only famous member of his family.
His biological father, Ted Jorgensen, also had a claim to fame. What?

Speaker 5 A, he was the most beloved small independent bookstore owner in Seattle until Amazon put him out of business.

Speaker 5 B, he invented the male cosmetic buttock implant.

Speaker 5 Or C, he was an avid unicyclist who founded the world's first unicycle hockey club.

Speaker 5 Does C qualify as a claim to fame?

Speaker 5 I personally like B. I like the thought of white men getting BBLs.

Speaker 5 A.

Speaker 5 A. No, I thought I told you.
The answer is always C.

Speaker 6 Wait, how many do I have to get right? Two or two?

Speaker 4 You have to get two.

Speaker 5 Okay. This is is just like top chef.

Speaker 4 You lost, but you're not out of chances.

Speaker 5 You can come back and win it all.

Speaker 6 You know how I do well under pressure?

Speaker 4 I don't do very well.

Speaker 6 What happened in high school once is I was a really great free throw basketball person. They threw me on the team because I was tall for my age.
It's not because I was actually good.

Speaker 6 But I got really good at just aiming and standing in one spot. So then what happened is there was a game.

Speaker 4 We're playing our rivals. Right.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 it was tied game.

Speaker 6 Like everything that you think of like when you see something really suspenseful in a sports game. That's what's going on.

Speaker 5 All right, let's have a tie game with the steam rival. You're fouled, game's in the line, you're at the free throw line.

Speaker 4 Go.

Speaker 4 And I go, whoop, and it airballed. Oh.

Speaker 6 It was devastating. Devastating.
So this is how I feel now. So go ahead, ask your question.

Speaker 4 Ask your questions.

Speaker 4 Come on, triggers.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 5 Here's your last question. Get this right, you win.
I think I remember.

Speaker 5 You get this one right, you win.

Speaker 5 So Jeff Bezos is famous for insulting his employees whenever they displease him, which apparently they do a lot.

Speaker 5 Which of these is a real insult that Jeff Bezos has been reported to shout at his underlings? A, I'm sorry, did I take my stupid pills today?

Speaker 5 B, if I hear that again, I'm gonna have to kill myself. Or C, why are you wasting my life?

Speaker 4 Well, C, C,

Speaker 4 C, yes, C?

Speaker 4 C, you're gonna go with C. A, all

Speaker 4 All of them, all of them.

Speaker 4 What did you say?

Speaker 4 All of them.

Speaker 5 All of them is the correct.

Speaker 4 Wow. Wow.

Speaker 4 But the win! Such a win!

Speaker 5 I have had a lot of wonderful people in the show. I've never been on such an emotional journey.

Speaker 5 But hey, it's no wait intermittent. The demon does not vanish until Bill says the words.
Bill, how did Kristen Kish do in our show?

Speaker 3 Two out of three.

Speaker 4 You won. Yay!

Speaker 4 Oh, my God.

Speaker 5 Kristen Kish is a top chef winner and the show's new host, the latest season filmed in Milwaukee, will air on Bravo this spring. Kristen Kish, step yourself up, you're ready.

Speaker 5 Thank you.

Speaker 5 And just for fun, here's a panel question that we've never broadcast before. Joyelle, the movie Wicked just came out this weekend.

Speaker 4 You're excited. I saw it already.
Oh, you did? I did.

Speaker 5 I'm special. Well, maybe.

Speaker 5 Then I bet you'll be able to figure this out quickly. The New York Times is reporting that some movie theaters have had to crack down on all the theatergoers doing what?

Speaker 5 Singing at the top of their damn lungs.

Speaker 5 Did that happen at the screening you saw? No, it didn't, but I could tell like the little theater kids next to me were like vibrating.

Speaker 5 So many fans have complained about all the other fans singing at the screenings that some theaters have started posting signs saying they will have dedicated sing-along screenings, so would you please shut up at this one?

Speaker 5 The singers, meanwhile, are undeterred. I think you should be allowed to sing.
And absolutely, because if you go to like a movie at a black theater, black people are going to be talking.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 5 there should be a judge of like your tone. Like if you're not, if you're off.

Speaker 5 I was about to say to Joey L, you say you're fine with it. Wait till you hear my version of Defying Gravity.

Speaker 1 When we come back, an economist who won a Nobel and a rapper who cannot cannot win at Pickleball. That's when we're 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 Progress report, a behind-the-scenes look into its impact initiatives from quitting forever chemicals and decarbonizing its supply chain to embracing fair trade explore more at patagonia.com slash impact

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

Speaker 3 I'm Bill Curtis, and here is your host at the Studemaker Theater and the Fine Arts Building in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagold.

Speaker 10 Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody.

Speaker 4 Thank you all so much.

Speaker 1 We're spending the first week of the new year lost in nostalgia for the old one.

Speaker 5 Consider it a challenge, you baby year. Try to beat this.

Speaker 3 For example, 2025, I bet you won't be sending us a Nobel Prize winner as fun as economist Claudia Golden, who appeared with us last March.

Speaker 5 First of all, I guess it's not that long ago, so we can still congratulate you on the Nobel.

Speaker 11 Oh, thank you.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Now, Peter, how did you...

Speaker 5 I don't know that there's a statute of limitations on congratulations on your Nobel Prize.

Speaker 4 Well, I mean, you know,

Speaker 5 it was just last year, and, you know, it's still fresh. I mean, can you tell us about the experience of getting the call?

Speaker 11 Yes, the call arrived at 4.30 in the morning, and I was sleeping in a bed with the person behind me.

Speaker 5 Now, we should establish, by the way, that you are speaking to us from your home and with you and is your husband, Larry.

Speaker 4 Hello.

Speaker 11 The great labor economist.

Speaker 5 The great labor economist.

Speaker 11 That's right. He's also the father of my dog.

Speaker 4 Wow.

Speaker 11 And

Speaker 11 the call came and you have to just get into action because

Speaker 11 The person at the other end of the phone says, you have 90 minutes to prepare prepare for a press conference

Speaker 5 that doesn't sound like a prize it sounds like a threat

Speaker 5 hello this is the Nobel Committee in 90 minutes there will be a press conference and what did you do professor I said Larry

Speaker 11 take the dog out

Speaker 5 now now your the Nobel Prize in Economics or the Nobel like Memorial Medal in Economics is is awarded separately from the other Nobel Prizes.

Speaker 5 Who has better parties, the economists or all those lame scientists?

Speaker 11 We share the parties. You do? Really? Yes, we had

Speaker 11 one big party, and there was dancing, music, things that you would not expect Nobel laureates to do.

Speaker 5 That's right.

Speaker 5 That is, I, in fact. Now,

Speaker 5 I wanted to ask about your husband, who, again, I just want to let everybody know we have you on screen here, and he is sitting directly behind your shoulder, staring at us.

Speaker 5 He is also an acclaimed economist. And we recently had, I know, your good friend Janet Yellen, also an economist, Secretary of the Treasury.
She is also married to an economist.

Speaker 5 Are all economists married to other economists?

Speaker 11 This is an extraordinarily good question. It's not all economists married to other economists.

Speaker 11 There are very few female economists in various age groups.

Speaker 5 Yes.

Speaker 11 A disproportionate number of those are married to male economists.

Speaker 11 But the male economists can't be married to the female economists because there are too few of us.

Speaker 5 Oh, I see.

Speaker 11 There would have to be polyandry.

Speaker 5 By the way,

Speaker 5 answering my question about are all economists married to other economists with a breakdown of the data of the numbers of female versus male economists and thus the different proportions of marriages is such an economist way to answer.

Speaker 5 Now, before we get to the game, we heard that you asked a chat bot to predict what we would ask you about. And well, what did it say?

Speaker 11 Yeah, so I said to the chat bot, first I said,

Speaker 11 what will Peter Peter Sagal ask Claudia Golden on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me in the Not My Job segment? And the chat bot came back and said, I don't know what Peter is going to ask.

Speaker 11 So I changed the question. I said, what might Peter ask?

Speaker 4 Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 11 And then it came back and it said, How do you think your career would be different if you pursued your true passion of competitive yodeling?

Speaker 5 Where were you on that one, Peter?

Speaker 5 So the chatbot thought I would ask you about your true passion in competitive yodeling.

Speaker 11 That's what it says.

Speaker 5 Is that by any chance your true passion?

Speaker 4 No. No.

Speaker 5 Thank goodness you're safe from robot replacement. All right, so for the moment, all right.
Well, Claudia Golden, we've asked you to play a game we're calling.

Speaker 3 Economy. How about first class?

Speaker 5 You know the economy, but we're going to ask you about a guy who knows first class, Tom Stuker, who is the most traveled airline passenger in history, and he did every one of those 23 million miles in first class.

Speaker 5 Answer two or three questions about Mr. Stuker.
You will win our prize for one of our listeners. Bill, who is Professor Golden playing for?

Speaker 3 Laurie Craig of Olympia, Washington.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 5 Here's the first question for the both of you. Mr.
Stuker started his Odyssey when he bought a lifelong pass for unlimited first-class travel from United in 1990 for $290,000.

Speaker 5 As you can imagine, having flown farther than any other human being in the decades since, he has lots of advice for travelers, including which of these: A, despite what you've heard, people like it when you take off your shoes on planes.

Speaker 5 B, always lie to the chief flight attendant that you remember them. Or C, air sickness bags make great hand puppets for the kids.

Speaker 5 B. B.
You're going to say, B, hold on.

Speaker 4 Larry, can you hear me?

Speaker 5 Did you concur in the choice of B?

Speaker 5 Yes, big nod from Larry.

Speaker 4 You're both right. Yes.

Speaker 5 He says... That when you meet the chief flight attendant as you walk onto the plane, say, oh, hi, I remember you from my last flight.
You were so great. It's great to see you again.

Speaker 5 Now they of course don't remember you, but they're not going to admit that. So instead they will just treat you exceptionally well during the flight.
Word of the wise. All right.
Two more questions.

Speaker 5 Because he has earned frequent flyer miles with every flight, he's also been able to swap those miles for all kinds of goods and services, meaning that Mr.

Speaker 5 Tom Stucker once used frequent flyer miles to get himself a what?

Speaker 5 A, an entirely new face from a plastic surgeon, B, a guest spot on the TV show Seinfeld, or C, a majority ownership stake in United Airlines.

Speaker 4 Whoa.

Speaker 11 Okay, it's Seinfeld.

Speaker 5 It's Seinfeld, yes, that's right.

Speaker 5 That's why Kramer looked different in season seven.

Speaker 4 I know, yeah.

Speaker 5 No, he donated his miles to a fundraiser, and the prize was a guest spot on Seinfeld. So you can see him in the episode in which George's fiancé dies from licking envelopes.

Speaker 5 All right, here's your last question. Despite what you might think, United Airlines doesn't mind him costing them millions of dollars in free flights.
In fact, they once did what for him?

Speaker 5 A, they let him pilot the plane, part of a trip from Dallas to Hawaii, but quote, only over the ocean.

Speaker 5 B, they let him be CEO of United for a day, which is why the airline went from giving people peanuts to the much superior stroop waffles.

Speaker 5 Or C, they named not one, but two aircraft after him.

Speaker 11 It's got to be C.

Speaker 5 That's right, it is C. Next time you see United aircraft, check to see if it says Thomas R.
Stuker customer on the fuselage.

Speaker 4 Bill, how did Dr.

Speaker 5 Claudia Golden and her husband Larry do in our quiz?

Speaker 3 Well, they both may not have won the Nobel Prize, but they certainly both won this contest.

Speaker 4 Thank you so much.

Speaker 5 Dr. Claudia Golden is a Nobel Prize winner and the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University.
Dr. Golden, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 We know that 2025 is already intimidated by everything we have played so far, so let's hit it when it's down. We went to Austin, Texas last February and talked with rapper Danny Brown.

Speaker 1 Danny had moved there after revolutionizing hip-hop in his hometown of Detroit.

Speaker 3 Peter asked him about his distinct style.

Speaker 5 You do something that I don't think a lot of the people in your field do: you use different voices when you rap, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I try to use different voices, just whatever emotion I'm feeling or the motion of the song. Yeah, I try to let that convey through the voice.

Speaker 5 Do you have like names for your voices that you use? Like,

Speaker 5 these are verses that this guy's going to do? Yeah.

Speaker 5 Do you know any of those names offhand?

Speaker 4 What is this called? Adderall.

Speaker 5 Where did you get that name?

Speaker 4 It's fascinating. It's fascinating.

Speaker 5 So we were reading about you. You grew up in Detroit, and you said that you were rhyming almost as soon as you could talk, right? You're right?

Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah.
My mom used to read Dr. Seuss' books to me all the time.
So she said when I first started talking, I just talked him rhyme. Really? Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he was killing them on the playground, green eggs and ham. You feel me?

Speaker 5 You also

Speaker 5 won a lot of rap battles in high school, right? Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah. I lost a lot, too.
Did you really? Yeah. I mean, I'm the professional rapper now, so I guess I won it.
Yeah, I guess so.

Speaker 4 I'll let an ass who you're gonna do. Let him know.
Let him know.

Speaker 5 What kind of contract does that guy have? Did you have, is it like a secret weapon to winning rap battles? Because I couldn't on a bet.

Speaker 4 I mean, it was always like I was kind of quiet in school, to be honest. Really? So every time, like, some kid would rap, I'd be like, oh, it's my time to shine.

Speaker 4 That was the Adderall voice right there. That was it.

Speaker 5 So you had this huge album about 10 years ago

Speaker 5 when you were about 30 called XXX or 30, right? And you have a new album, Quarenta, Italian. Quaranta.
Quaranta, excuse me.

Speaker 4 You got a row to R. Quaranta.
See, he's battling you already. You ain't got a row.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 5 you have an album 30 when you were 30 and Italian for 40 when you were 40. Has Adele ever called to say, you're stealing my bit?

Speaker 4 No, I actually met Adele once. She did.
She was nice, yeah, at Wembley Stadium. Yeah, she was really nice.
I think I made a crude joke and she got up out of there after that. Really?

Speaker 4 For the most part, she was pretty cool. She was nice, yeah.

Speaker 5 And it was when you all first met? Yeah. Yeah, it's like first thing.

Speaker 4 I didn't know it was Adele, though. Oh,

Speaker 4 you didn't know,

Speaker 4 so like, yes, I came because I was actually opening for Eminem and she just was there to see Eminem, obviously. And she, you know, I just had the empty dressing room that she can hang at.

Speaker 4 And she just chilled. I just thought it was just a cool white lady back there.

Speaker 4 I was drinking a lot back then. Yeah.
I'll blame the alcohol. Yeah.
Is alcohol a name of one of the other voices?

Speaker 4 Adderall, there's alcohol.

Speaker 5 Speaking of which, if you don't know about your struggles with addiction and substances and drink and stuff, you can find out about it because Quran Quaranta, let me get that right, it has a lot of verses about your struggles and some regrets.

Speaker 5 I mean, it's like a, it's a, forgive me, it's like an older guy's rap album, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's a midlife crisis.

Speaker 4 Speaking of midlife crisis,

Speaker 5 we understand

Speaker 5 that you, among your many enthusiasms these days, you're into pickleball.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I actually just started playing. Really? Yeah,

Speaker 4 I actually went to an old folks' home.

Speaker 4 That's not fair, bruh. No, they was whooping my...

Speaker 4 They was killing me.

Speaker 5 So what inspired you? to go play pickleball.

Speaker 4 I mean, it started out as a joke for me to go. It was a sketch for me to go play pickleball with all these old people.
And, you know, I guess I was supposed to win, but it didn't work out like that.

Speaker 4 I was like, man, they really moving fast out there, you know?

Speaker 4 So I fell in love with it, so I'm playing.

Speaker 5 Are you planning to get good, go back to the yeah, man?

Speaker 4 I'm trying to get my revenge. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I feel like those old folks, they pride themselves on baiting young people. Yes, they did.

Speaker 4 They did.

Speaker 4 They was like, oh. Did they hustle? You were like, oh, yeah, my knees are shot, young man.
No, they was in great shape. I was like, man, it really was inspiring.

Speaker 4 I was like, I want to be like that when I get your age.

Speaker 5 When you do your 70 album, that can be all about the pickleball.

Speaker 5 Have you, in fact, like put pickleball into a wrap yet?

Speaker 4 No, but it's coming. Oh, it's yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah, in a weird way, the pickleball rap is coming for all of us, if you know what I mean.

Speaker 5 Well, Danny Brown, it is a pleasure to have you. We have, in fact, asked you here to play a game we're calling.

Speaker 3 Danny Brown Meet Dan Brown.

Speaker 5 So we are going to ask you, Danny Brown, three questions about Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code and many other bestsellers.

Speaker 5 Okay, if you get two out of three right, you will win our prize for one of our listeners, Bill, who is Danny Brown playing for? Heather Clark of Austin, Texas.

Speaker 4 Yeah, all right.

Speaker 5 Hometown, man. Hometown.

Speaker 5 Ready to do this?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I'm telling you, man.
I'm sorry, Heather. No, it's all right.

Speaker 5 Ignorance is absolutely a blessing in this game. You think you know something, that's where you go into trouble.
Here we go.

Speaker 5 So, Dan Brown is now one of the best-selling authors of all time, but before that, he tried to make it in the music business as a singer-songwriter.

Speaker 5 He only sold a few thousand copies of his album, probably because it contained songs like which of these? A, Cypher, a song whose lyrics were a string of letters the listener had to decode.

Speaker 5 B, a song about pancakes called Flap My Jacks,

Speaker 5 or C, an ode to phone sex called 976 Love.

Speaker 4 I'm going to go with C because that just seems cooler. You're right, actually.

Speaker 5 It's an underrated song.

Speaker 4 I'm really sorry.

Speaker 5 I was about to say, you know, for people who don't remember 976 numbers, it was like a crude analog OnlyFans.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 5 That was very good. You got that.
You see? Instinct, man. That's where you go with it.
After he became famous, Brown's life did change in some surprising ways. Like which of these?

Speaker 5 A, when he forgot his ID at the airport, he got through security by showing them his author photo on a copy of the Da Vinci Code.

Speaker 5 B, he got so much fan dale, he started using it as free bedding in his horse barn. Or C, he was gifted a lifetime supply of communion wafers from the Catholic Church.

Speaker 4 I'm gonna go with A. You're right again.

Speaker 5 This was around.

Speaker 5 He says he drove to Boston airport from his home in New Hampshire. He's like, oh my god, I'm in line.
I don't have my license. What am I going to do?

Speaker 5 The person in front of him, as everybody was doing at that time, had a copy of the Da Vinci Code and he said, can I borrow that? And he picked it up and said, that's me.

Speaker 4 And it was.

Speaker 5 So he got on the plane. All right, one more question.
You're doing exceptionally well here.

Speaker 5 There have been tributes to Dan Brown and his work everywhere, as in which of these. A, in 2004, Crayola Crayons unveiled the color Dan Brown.

Speaker 5 B, in 2006, a judge worked a Dan Brown-style puzzle into his ruling when Dan Brown was sued for plagiarism.

Speaker 5 Or C, in honor of his 2013 book, Inferno, Brown University went by the name Dan Brown University for an entire semester.

Speaker 4 I guess I'll go with C.

Speaker 5 You're gonna go with C, that Brown University called itself Dan Brown University.

Speaker 5 No, it was actually the judge. The judge, you see, if you knew Dan Brown, he's always like hiding codes in his books.
It's all about cracking the codes. And the judge did rule, however, that Mr.

Speaker 5 Brown was not found guilty of plagiarism. So, Bill, how did Danny Brown do in the quiz about Dan Brown?

Speaker 3 He won with two out of three. That's a winner.

Speaker 5 Danny Brown is a rapper and host of the Danny Brown Show. His new album, Quaranta, is out now.
Danny Brown, thank you so much for joining us in Western Academy. Stand up for Austinite, Danny Brown.

Speaker 1 When we come back, we continue our celebration of the year that was with two more stars, one from the NFL and one from Broadway. That's when we're back with more.

Speaker 1 If wait, wait, don't tell me, from NPR.

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Speaker 3 From NTR at WWEC Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NTR Dues Quiz.

Speaker 3 I'm Bill Curtis, and here is your host at the Studa Baker Theater in the Fine Arts Building in downtown Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sago.

Speaker 8 Thank you, Bill.

Speaker 10 Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much.
Now,

Speaker 10 this week we are challenging the new year to be as good as the old one, at least for us.

Speaker 1 Yes, it's a kind of tough love, but how else is it ever going to learn?

Speaker 3 That's right. 2025, are you going to feature something as delightful as going to Pittsburgh to talk to that city's most beloved native son, Super Bowl-winning coach Bill Cower?

Speaker 3 I think not.

Speaker 5 Our guest today needs no introduction in his hometown of Pittsburgh. Everybody comes up to him and thanks him for his 15 years coaching.

Speaker 5 the hometown team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, leading them to their first Super Bowl win in decades, which may be why he had to move to New York.

Speaker 5 Coach Bill Cower, welcome back to Pittsburgh and welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you.

Speaker 5 So I want to establish something first, that

Speaker 5 I wasn't kidding about that, that after you became the hometown hero who took over the team, brought them back to the Super Bowl and won it, it kind of got hard for you to wander around town, is that right?

Speaker 7 Yeah, I mean, kind of.

Speaker 7 So,

Speaker 7 you know, I said when I came back here, it was if I can just make three years, I can go back to my 20th high school class reunion as a head coach of my hometown team.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 ironically enough, that third year, we lost in the championship game to the San Diego Chargers. And we had the reunion.

Speaker 7 And it was on.

Speaker 7 boat on the side, the gateway clipper. And I just thought, okay, my wife says, you know, we're not going back there.
She goes,

Speaker 7 we're not going back there because you're going to sit there and just be with all your buddies. And then I go, no, no, no, we'll just stop and we'll say hi.

Speaker 4 Right. Right.

Speaker 7 So we got on the boat and we started talking. And then the boat took off.

Speaker 4 This is a scene.

Speaker 7 This is like a three-hour cruise.

Speaker 4 I'm like, oh, man.

Speaker 5 You are stuck on a boat with your high school classmates.

Speaker 7 And my wife was getting madder and madder as the night's going on.

Speaker 7 And then the guys were getting drunker and drunker and telling me all the things I did wrong in the San Diego Charter.

Speaker 7 And then they were asking why, oh, you think you're too good for us to get us tickets? So everyone wanted tickets. Like, oh, like, like, oh, now you can't talk to us anymore.

Speaker 7 So I was, so I got off the boat, my wife wasn't talking to me, and made half the people here mad. And it was

Speaker 7 just, it was kind of quit tipping on that year because we lost the championship game to a team we should have beat. So it was kind of like that was kind of my career.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 5 I love the fact that you were yourself a professional football player. You were fearless in the field, but you couldn't handle the Steelers fans in your face.

Speaker 4 I was one of them at one point. I know what they're about.
Oh, yeah, they're the worst.

Speaker 5 Now, you became a coach at a young age, so that means you had to learn quickly what I assume are the essential skills of coaching, which include doing these interviews on the field sometimes and after the game, in which you manage to say nothing.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 5 And so, is there a secret to that?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 7 Ask me a question. I know what I want to say, and your questions are relevant.

Speaker 4 Right. All right.

Speaker 5 Well, we'll try it. We'll try it.
I'm going to ask you.

Speaker 7 I'm going to ask you. Because I can...

Speaker 7 I want to control the narrative.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 5 All right. Okay.
So we're going to test you because I'm going to ask you a tough question now in front of this crowd. You're going to show me how it's done.
So

Speaker 5 I understand you have lived many years now in New York City.

Speaker 5 Is New York better than Pittsburgh?

Speaker 7 You know, one of the greatest things about New York City is the diversity. One of the greatest things about living in Pittsburgh is the upbringing.

Speaker 7 And when you combine the two of them, you recognize that your core values that you've learned came from the city of Pittsburgh.

Speaker 7 But yet it was able to allow you to sit there and go to this great city of diversity in New York City with multitudes of people.

Speaker 4 But it's that grounding that you had in Pittsburgh that's allowed you to survive. How are you? So once you take away.

Speaker 4 Can I try pressure? Yes.

Speaker 1 Coach Cowery, you have one of history's great jaws.

Speaker 5 Is it true that you once opened a can of tuna fish with your jaw?

Speaker 7 No, but you asked me one more question I can open up your head.

Speaker 4 Hey!

Speaker 4 I'm good, no, we're good. We're good.

Speaker 5 Well, Coach Cower, we are delighted to talk to you and we've invited you here to play a game that we like to play and this time we are calling it Bill Cower, meet these cowards.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 5 So you clearly have some guts as you have sewn. So we are going to ask you, Bill Cower, three questions about people who chickened out.

Speaker 5 Get two right, you'll win our prize for one of our listeners, the voice of anyone they might choose for their voicemail. Bill, who is Coach Cower playing for?

Speaker 3 Josh Smith of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Speaker 4 He's out there.

Speaker 5 Ready to go? Here's your first question. Robert Ford, or as he is known to history, the coward Robert Ford, famously shot Jesse James in the back.

Speaker 5 He was so widely condemned for that act that he spent the next few years doing what? A, finding anyone with the last name James and apologizing to them in case it was a relative.

Speaker 5 B, touring the country with his brother reenacting the murder live on stage. Or C, allowing people for a five-cent fee to shoot him in the back with a BB gun.

Speaker 4 It's hard, isn't it? It is.

Speaker 7 What was number two?

Speaker 5 Number two was he toured the country with his brother reenacting his murder of Jesse James live on.

Speaker 7 Number two.

Speaker 5 You're going to go number two. We're going to have number the second choice.
That is correct.

Speaker 4 That's what he did.

Speaker 5 They didn't have a lot of options for entertainment back then before pro football.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 5 Next question.

Speaker 5 The producer William Castle made horror movies back in the 50s and 60s, and among his many marketing gimmicks, he once offered customers refunds if his movie was too terrifying for them.

Speaker 5 So many people took advantage of the deal that Castle finally did what? A, he required people present a genuine pair of wetted pants

Speaker 5 to prove how scared they were. B, make them go to his quote refund office to get it, which he put on the top of a greased hundred-foot pole.

Speaker 5 Or C, forced anyone who asked for that refund to go sit in the coward's corner where a recorded voice would yell, watch the chicken, watch him shiver in Coward's Corner.

Speaker 4 Super weird.

Speaker 7 I'd say C.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's great, bro.

Speaker 4 So not only that, not only that.

Speaker 7 It's a Coward's Corner.

Speaker 5 Cowards and a Coward's Corner. You can have Coward's Corner in the show if you want.

Speaker 5 But no, not only did he do that, but in order to get to Coward's Corner, you had to walk down a path with the sign, Cowards Keep Walking, and they had a quote nurse to take your blood pressure.

Speaker 5 All right, last question. You can go for perfect and win it all.

Speaker 5 Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor, was not known for cowardice, but he did run away once from what?

Speaker 5 A, a group of school children making fun of him for putting his hand in his jacket like that all the time.

Speaker 5 B, a horde of a thousand hungry rabbits.

Speaker 5 Or C, a bunch of taller officers who liked to rest their drinks on his head.

Speaker 5 Hey, hey, you're going to go for A. All right, let me try your style of coaching here.
A, you think the answer is A?

Speaker 6 Peter's trying really hard to get you to think it's not A.

Speaker 4 I'll tell you what. It's B, it's B, of course, yes.
These are on your rabbits. So

Speaker 5 for relaxation one day, the emperor went out and was supposed to be in one of these arranged hunts for aristocrats where they would release the rabbits, but the rabbits, who were domestic, thought they were going to get fed, so they rushed the party of hunters, and Napoleon and his retinue all ran away.

Speaker 5 Bill, how did Coach Cower do in our quiz?

Speaker 3 It's what the Chargers score should have been.

Speaker 4 Three right for a win.

Speaker 4 Bill Cower.

Speaker 5 is the Super Bowl winning former coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Bill Cower, thank you so much for joining us.
I'm wait, Wake Beltomi.

Speaker 4 Give it up for the coach.

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Speaker 1 Finally, one of my personal highlights of the year was talking to Renee Elise Goldsberry, who I had seen on Broadway in the original cast of Hamilton.

Speaker 3 She told us that after decades of being a working actor, becoming a huge star on Broadway was a little disorienting.

Speaker 13 It was head spinning and it's also crazy because people would say things to me like thank God.

Speaker 13 Like we like I thought my career was great before Hamilton, but it just encouraged people, you know, kind of like if you thought you looked good and then you lose weight and people all of a sudden tell you now you look good.

Speaker 13 I felt like a medium-time actor, a really solid medium-time actor. And if anyone has watched Girls 5 Eva, you know what I mean.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 5 We can get into that because there's a moment in the finale of season one of Girls 5 Ever where somebody says to your character as they offer you some presumably great job, for the rest of your life, people in sweatshirts will come up to you in restaurants and ask for a selfie.

Speaker 5 And I'm like, that's probably true.

Speaker 13 is that like is that your life can you go out my life all the time I always say never

Speaker 13 never underestimate how invisible a middle-aged black woman can be

Speaker 4 so obvious do you hear me do you hear me

Speaker 4 I can hear you

Speaker 4 I hear you and I see you

Speaker 4 That's why I needed you to come on. You could see me.
I see you, girl. Thank you.

Speaker 4 How do you think I feel right now?

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 5 Girls 5 Eva is about a girl group from like the early 2000s that broke up and they're trying to get back together in the present day. And we found out you were actually in a girl group, weren't you?

Speaker 4 I was. I was.

Speaker 13 It's so funny, they make fun of me because I didn't remember that I was in a girl group until we were on Fallon and we had finished shooting the entire first season.

Speaker 13 That's how long I've been throwing random things against the wall to see if they stick. I could not remember that I was actually in a girl group.

Speaker 13 And also, it was easy to forget because we didn't have one hit. We had no hits.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 13 But we were. So when people say a one-hit wonder girl group is somehow or another a failure, I'm like, really?

Speaker 4 Because I am that in.

Speaker 5 What was the name of the?

Speaker 5 What was the

Speaker 5 name?

Speaker 13 I don't remember the name of the group. I just remember the song that we had.
It was,

Speaker 13 yes, you can, yes, you can. Find you a good man.

Speaker 13 But when you do, you gotta treat them right.

Speaker 13 Make sure your love is out of sight now.

Speaker 13 And I just had no idea how

Speaker 13 stereotypical it was to have a one hit that didn't even make it, that was only about how you could treat a man right.

Speaker 13 But that's what we do on Girls 5 Eva. We really, like, with comedy, just spoof this idea that we are defined by,

Speaker 13 you know, what we, how, how we make a man feel. And we take it to a wonderful degree.
We have songs called Dream Lover, Dream Girlfriend, because our dads are dead and you never have to meet them.

Speaker 13 Like, we just parody lyrics of that time, and it feels so good.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Well, Renee Elise Goldsberry, we are so delighted to talk to you and we have asked you here to play a game we're calling.

Speaker 3 Hey Goldsbury, let's look for some buried gold.

Speaker 5 So your name obviously put us in mind of buried gold, hidden treasure. We're going to ask you three questions about the people who search for it.

Speaker 5 If you get two right, you'll win a prize for one of our listeners, a pirate chest containing

Speaker 5 a voicemail.

Speaker 5 Bill, who was Renee Elise Goldberry playing for?

Speaker 3 Brian Holland of Southampton, Pennsylvania.

Speaker 5 All right, here we go.

Speaker 5 In 1979, a man named Kit Williams published Masquerade, a picture book that was also a complicated puzzle concealing the location of a real golden treasure buried somewhere in Britain.

Speaker 5 Now, the treasure wasn't discovered until 1982.

Speaker 5 How did the winner find it? A, he just walked up to a random bench in a public park and checked to see if there was anything under it.

Speaker 5 B, he programmed an Apple II computer to solve it and then just waited three years for it to finish. Or C, he started dating Kit Williams' ex-girlfriend who just told him where it was.

Speaker 5 Yes, that's right.

Speaker 5 So if you do want to hide a treasure in a nationwide contest, don't tell your girlfriend where it is.

Speaker 5 All right, here's your next question. Tommy G.
Thompson was a treasure hunter who found the most valuable shipwreck in America, a ship that had been carrying gold from the California gold rush.

Speaker 5 He then ran away with the treasure, and authorities say they found evidence he had been planning to disappear for a while. What did they find?

Speaker 5 A, a deluxe child's disguise kit with the fake mustache and eye patch missing. B, a book titled How to Be Invisible.

Speaker 5 Or C, a series of fake IDs, each with the name of a Harry Potter character.

Speaker 4 A.

Speaker 5 A, you're going to go for the child's disguise kit with the fake mustache and eye patch.

Speaker 5 It was actually B, a book called How to Be Invisible.

Speaker 4 And it was apparently... It's the crappiest.

Speaker 4 I see it that way now.

Speaker 5 It was a good book because they couldn't find him for two years. And this is what's

Speaker 5 interesting. They found him back in like 2010,

Speaker 5 and they still haven't found where he put the gold. So if you're out there, look around.
All right, here's your last question. If you get this, you win.

Speaker 5 In 2018, two British friends using metal detectors found $250,000 worth of ancient Roman coins, but they were very disappointed when what happened after that.

Speaker 5 A, they shipped the coins home on a boat, which sank.

Speaker 5 B, the mayor of Rome sued to get them back because they were Roman and he won.

Speaker 5 Or C, they found out the coins were actually just props from a show about friends who use metal detectors to find gold coins.

Speaker 4 C!

Speaker 4 C, that's right.

Speaker 5 Yeah, the TV show is called The Detectorists, and it is apparently quite funny. Bill, how did Renee do in our quiz?

Speaker 3 Two out of three, Renee, you're the winner.

Speaker 4 Yay!

Speaker 5 Renee Elise Goldsberry stars on Girls 5 Eva on Netflix. It's hilarious.
Season 3 is out now. Renee Elise Goldsberry, what a pleasure.
Thank you so much for joining us on Wait Wait Don't Tell me.

Speaker 13 Helping me claim my name. I love it.

Speaker 1 That's it for our Beat This 2025 edition. We'll see if the new year can live up to the standards set by the old one.
But before that, let me tell you that.

Speaker 1 Wait, Wait, Don't Tell me is a production of NPR and WB Easy Chicago in association with Urgent Haircut Productions, Doug Berman, Benevolent Overlord. Philip Godeker writes our limericks.

Speaker 1 Our public address announcer is Paul Friedman. Our tour manager is Shana Donald.

Speaker 10 BJ Liederman composed our theme.

Speaker 1 Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills, Miles Robos, and Lillian King. Special thanks to Monica Hickey.
Peter Gwynn is our big glittery ball descending on Times Square.

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

Speaker 1 And the executive producer of Wait Wait Don't Tell me is Mr. Michael Danforth.
Thanks to everybody you heard this week, all of our panelists, our special guests, and of course, Mr. Bill Curtis.

Speaker 10 Thanks to all of you for listening. I'm Peter Sagal.

Speaker 1 We'll be back next week.

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