PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Coming up, it's Lightning Fill in the Blank, but first it's the game where you have to listen for the rhyme. If you'd like to play on air, call or leave a message at 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924.
Or, click the contact us link on our website waitwait.npr.org. There you can find out about attending our weekly live shows here at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago and our upcoming show at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. And also be sure to check out the latest How To Do Everything podcast. This week: Mike and Ian tell you how to blow up a hurricane.
Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!
MITCH HANDELSMAN: Hi, this is Mitch Handelsman from Denver.
SAGAL: Hey, how are things in Denver, Mitch?
HANDELSMAN: Good, Peter.
SAGAL: Are they about - I've heard this - are they about a mile high, things?
HANDELSMAN: They are just about a mile.
SAGAL: Just about a mile high. What do you do there?
HANDELSMAN: I teach college. I teach psychology and I also play trumpet.
SAGAL: Do you really?
HANDELSMAN: Yeah.
SAGAL: I have been learning to play trumpet again. I was a very poor trumpet player in my youth but I'm relearning.
HANDELSMAN: Great.
SAGAL: So I can accompany my daughter. Do you have any tips for me as a newly, a new novice, a new re-novice trumpet player?
HANDELSMAN: Oh just the usual stuff, keep practicing.
SAGAL: I was hoping for like a shortcut of some kind.
(LAUGHTER)
HANDELSMAN: Well, I could give you lessons and you could go back to the way you were before, a really bad trumpet player.
SAGAL: That's true; I could regress. Welcome to the show, Mitch. Carl Kasell, right here, is going to read you three news-related limericks with the last word or phrase missing from each. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly on two of the limericks, you'll be a big winner. Ready to play?
HANDELSMAN: I'm ready.
SAGAL: Here's your first limerick.
CARL KASELL: Airlines charge for each knapsack and tote. Now I look like I'm fresh off a boat. I seem to be puffed 'cause my pockets are stuffed. I have shoved all my clothes in my?
HANDELSMAN: Coat.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Airlines these days are charging as much as $100 per checked bag, but they can't charge you if you are wearing your suitcase.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Sure, it makes you look like Grimace with handles, but you can stuff anything into the Jaktogo wearable luggage set: Clothes, laptop, or, if you really want to save money on the flight, your spouse.
(LAUGHTER)
PAULA POUNDSTONE: I have taken to just wearing less when I'm gone.
SAGAL: That also works.
(LAUGHTER)
LUKE BURBANK: Like this suit will go for, what, four or five days, right?
SAGAL: Right.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah.
BURBANK: It's self-cleaning. It actually is its own ecosystem.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: I just wear a Sham-Wow.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Here we go. Here, Mitch, is your next limerick.
KASELL: Of new diets I tend to be wary, but this new one's a wish from a fairy. A Halloween flick might just do the trick. I'll lose weight if the movie is?
HANDELSMAN: Scary.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: British scientists have introduced something that we're going to call the "Halloween Diet." Scary movies get your pulse going, and in turn your metabolism goes up, so you burn more calories watching them. A study of certain movies found that "The Shining" burns 180 calories, "Alien" burns 161, "Saw" burns 130. Men can lose weight by watching "The Notebook," because...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...halfway through they get up and walk out of the room to find another TV. Here is your last limerick.
KASELL: Day-Lewis as Lincoln? Rejoice. But he's made a peculiar choice. The great actor speaks in short high-pitched squeaks. He's using a really high?
HANDELSMAN: Voice.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: The eagerly new Steven Spielberg Abraham Lincoln biopic is attracting attention, and its not because of the adorable alien that Lincoln adopts.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It's because Daniel Day Lewis, as Lincoln, in the trailer anyway, speaks in a nasally high-pitched whine. According to historians, that is an accurate rendition of Lincoln's voice, based on accounts from the time. It's true. Actually, we here at WAIT WAIT, we think we're going to help scholarship. We got our hands on a recently discovered primitive wax voice recording of Lincoln speaking. Take a listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF GETTYSBURG ADDRESS)
SAGAL: So, you know, I think that maybe Day-Lewis didn't go far enough in his rendition.
POUNDSTONE: I don't understand how they know what Lincoln sounded like.
SAGAL: Well, because people wrote - I mean people wrote about him. He's a very significant figure. And people said, well his voice was very high pitched. He had a very high voice.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: You're such a skeptic, Paula.
BURBANK: They're playing the trailer for this movie a lot during football games. And I feel like, based on what I've seen so far, the movie should have been called "Angry Beard Yellers."
(LAUGHTER)
BURBANK: It's just a bunch of guys with beards, yelling.
FIROOZEH DUMAS: Are you talking about my native country?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Carl, how did Mitch do on our quiz?
KASELL: Mitch, you had three correct answers, so I'll be doing the message on your voicemail or answering machine.
SAGAL: Well done.
(APPLAUSE)
HANDELSMAN: Thank you.
SAGAL: Congratulations. Thanks for playing, Mitch.
HANDELSMAN: You bet.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
HANDELSMAN: Bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.