CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell, and here's your host at the Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake City, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Carl.
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SAGAL: Thank you everybody. Great to be back here in Salt Lake City. What a pleasure. It was the sight of our very first show in front of a live audience, back in 2000.
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SAGAL: Yes. And we got, back then, this huge, enthusiastic response. So we were encouraged by that to start touring around the country. Well, it took us 12 years to figure out that no other place in this country is quite as forgiving as Salt Lake City.
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SAGAL: So we've decided to come back once more to enjoy your low, low standards.
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SAGAL: Listeners, you can take advantage of their kindness as well. Give us a call. The number is 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924. It's time to welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!
KAREN STEIN: Hi.
SAGAL: Hi, who's this?
STEIN: This is Karen Stein, from North Hollywood, California.
SAGAL: Oh, I know North Hollywood well, used to spend some time there. What do you do?
STEIN: I am a makeup artist and I teach makeup.
SAGAL: Oh, you do. Do you like entertainment industry makeup, like horrible stars?
STEIN: Yes, I do mostly special effects.
SAGAL: Oh really?
STEIN: You know, blood and guts and stuff like that.
SAGAL: Can I ask the creepiest thing you've ever done to somebody?
STEIN: I had to paint a naked zombie once.
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KYRIE O'CONNOR: Wow.
SAGAL: That actually sounds kind of fun.
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STEIN: Well, it would have been fun if they weren't all over 50.
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SAGAL: Oh. Isn't it always true, the zombies you see naked are never the zombies you want to see naked?
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STEIN: (Inaudible) zombies.
SAGAL: Well, welcome to our show, Karen. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, a veteran of "The Colbert Report" and one of those two guys from the Sonic ads. It's Mr. Peter Grosz is here.
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PETER GROSZ: Hi.
SAGAL: Next, it is the interim editor of the San Antonio Express News, Ms. Kyrie O'Connor.
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STEIN: Hi, Kyrie.
SAGAL: Finally, a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning and the host of the new show, "My Grandmother's Ravioli," airing on the Cooking Channel this Sunday, February 19th, Mr. Mo Rocca.
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MO ROCCA: Hi, Karen.
STEIN: Hey Mo.
SAGAL: Karen, welcome to our show. You're going to play Who's Carl This Time. Carl Kasell, of course, will recreate for you from the news three quotations. Your job: correctly identify or explain two of them. Do that and you will win our prize: Carl's voice on your voicemail. Ready to go?
STEIN: Let's do it.
SAGAL: All right. Now, your first quote was a sign this week seen at a Long John Silver's restaurant in Muscatine, Iowa.
KASELL: Welcome back to Muscatine, Xi Jingping. Original menu available, fish sandwiches 2 for $3.
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SAGAL: Who is Xi Jingping, who was enjoying such a good deal in Muscatine this week?
STEIN: I don't know.
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SAGAL: Well, he's a very important person visiting the United States.
STEIN: Kim Jong Un? I don't know.
SAGAL: No, no.
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SAGAL: You're close, actually, geographically.
GROSZ: Yeah.
ROCCA: Oh, go up and to the left a little bit.
GROSZ: Yeah, a little north.
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STEIN: China?
SAGAL: China, yes, he's the next president of China. That's right.
STEIN: China, that's what I said.
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SAGAL: Yes, you said China.
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SAGAL: Mr. Xi is the vice president of China, soon to be president. It was a big deal when he came to visit. It's like, you know, when the new owner of a sports team visits the locker room.
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SAGAL: Mr. Xi insisted on visiting Muscatine, Iowa during his visit. We assume it's because he got a Groupon for the Muscatine KFC.
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SAGAL: No, actually, it's because - and this is true - 25 years ago, he came there on an exchange program and now that he's incredibly powerful, about to take over, you know, the largest nation on earth in terms of population, he wanted to go back and extract a horrible vengeance on everyone there who had mistreated him.
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ROCCA: I was hoping it would be a more charming reason. Like the only thing he knew about America was the movie "The Music Man," something like that.
SAGAL: Yes.
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SAGAL: Come here, sing to me like you do. No, he...
ROCCA: Seventy-six thousand trombones.
SAGAL: Yes, they can do that.
ROCCA: Will play for me.
SAGAL: No, he was very nice. He wanted to thank the people of Muscatine who were nice to him back when. They're very excited to have him there. They're hoping that his visit helps the Muscatine economy, perhaps by him packing the place up and bringing it with him back to China.
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ROCCA: Is Muscatine a scent?
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GROSZ: It's the smell of teen.
SAGAL: Yeah, musca-teen.
GROSZ: It's what teenagers smell like. Hormones and their first beer.
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GROSZ: I like though that, like, because he's the vice president of China, essentially, right?
SAGAL: Yes.
GROSZ: What would it take for us to send Joe Biden to China?
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GROSZ: There's no way we would send him, like, by himself to China.
SAGAL: Yeah, you never know what's going to happen.
GROSZ: Yeah, he's like: dear America, I'm staying in China.
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SAGAL: Yeah, in fact, before he went to Iowa, Mr. Xi attended a lunch hosted by Biden, who used his toast - this is true - he used his toast at the luncheon to run through criticisms of the Chinese regime. This is what he did. This is true.
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SAGAL: You know, it's like, oh, the human rights record and the trade policies. And that was better than his first draft, which was like, you know it was like, hey, it's great to finally meet Xi Jingping, I mean he's so fat it takes six 9-year-olds to make his sweaters, am I right?
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ROCCA: Is he fat?
SAGAL: No, but...
GROSZ: It's Biden.
SAGAL: It's Biden.
ROCCA: Oh, right, right.
GROSZ: Doesn't Biden know that you attack your guest's civil liberties record during the dessert course?
SAGAL: Absolutely.
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SAGAL: All right, very good. Here is your next quote.
KASELL: Killing is my business, and business is good.
SAGAL: That, as I'm sure you all know, is a classic song by the band Megadeth.
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SAGAL: Well, the lead singer and founder of Megadeth just endorsed a presidential candidate this week, a surprising one for a guy who praises Satan in his songs. Who did he endorse?
STEIN: Rick Santorum.
SAGAL: Yes, he did.
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SAGAL: Got the Megadeth - won the Megadeth caucus. Dave Mustaine is the lead signer and songwriter for Megadeth, the heavy metal rock band. He came out and said this week that he hoped first a Republican would win the White House, and that he hoped it would be Rick Santorum.
He also announced that he would be changing the band's image to reflect Santorum's values. Their hit song, "Prince of Darkness" will be remixed as "Shame on You, Prince of Darkness."
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SAGAL: Actually, this is true. What happened was after this hit the news, he backed down. He walked it back. He said, "I never used the word endorse." Because you can found a band called Megadeth and praise Satan in your heavy metal music, but endorsing Rick Santorum is just going a little bit too far.
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ROCCA: Well, I don't know, I mean he's a businessman, right. You said killing is his business.
SAGAL: Yes.
ROCCA: Maybe, is it that Rick Santorum is in favor of tax cuts for all of those who run a killing business or?
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GROSZ: Did Mitt Romney come out and be, like, I also like Megadeth?
I want them too.
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GROSZ: I've like Megadeth for years.
SAGAL: Imagine Mitt Romney going, so they're head bangers, you actually have to bang your head? Okay?
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SAGAL: How long do I have to do this?
GROSZ: Yeah. Fortunately, my skull is made out of adamantine and not bone, so...
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GROSZ: My hair is stopping my skull from feeling anything.
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SAGAL: All right, here is your last quote.
KASELL: Linsanity. Linconceivable. Lin Fuego. Linglorious bastard.
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SAGAL: Those were some of the terms used this week to describe the NBA's new breakout star. Who?
STEIN: Jeremy Lin.
SAGAL: Jeremy Lin, yes.
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SAGAL: It is amazing and really kind of heartwarming that finally a kid from Harvard finally got some recognition in this country.
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SAGAL: Jeremy Lin went undrafted by the NBA. He got cut by two teams before landing on the bench with the New York Knicks. And finally, he got his change with the team starters either away or mysteriously tripped by old Harvard sweatshirts tied around their ankles.
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SAGAL: He got a chance to start, tore it up, became a national sensation, leading to the worst puns heard in sports reporting since the debut of Bobby Really-Good-Player back in the 50s.
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SAGAL: So we heard Linderella Story, Lincredible. He plays the Linside game with rare lintelligence and linate ability, until he scores the game linning shot.
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SAGAL: Things got a little carried away. People took it a little too far. By the end of the week, there were doctors telling their patients that, you know I'm sorry, your tumor is linoperable.
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SAGAL: The CIA insisted it wasn't torture, it was enhanced linterrogation.
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GROSZ: What would that be, just shooting basketballs at someone's face?
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SAGAL: Carl, how did Karen do on our quiz?
KASELL: Karen, you had a perfect game, three correct answers, so you win our prize.
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STEIN: Yay.
SAGAL: Yay. Thank you so much for playing.
STEIN: Thank you.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.