CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell. We're playing this week with Roy Blount, Jr., Amy Dickinson, and Maz Jobrani. And here again is your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Carl.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: In just a minute, Carl plays one-on-one with LeBrhyme James in our listener limerick challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-Wait-Wait. That's 1-888-924-8924.
Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Maz, parents of children at an expensive progressive private school in Manhattan are upset that the school's teaching methods seem somewhat unstructured. They had high educational hopes for this school run by whom?
MAZ JOBRANI: High educational hopes for the school run by - is this a smart person?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: No, it's run by a group famous for doing something else.
JOBRANI: A group famous - The Rolling Stones.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: That would be awesome.
JOBRANI: They must have different techniques of teaching.
SAGAL: Yes, exactly.
JOBRANI: Come on.
AMY DICKINSON: I'm going to that school.
JOBRANI: Come on.
DICKINSON: Yeah.
JOBRANI: What's the call? What's the call? These people were famous for doing something else. Is this a corporation?
SAGAL: I'll give you a hint. The school uniform is a black turtleneck, black pants, and blue face paint.
JOBRANI: Oh, the Blue Man Group.
SAGAL: The Blue Man Group.
DICKINSON: Oh yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: If you want your kid to end up weird - yes, the Blue Man Group.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: If you want your kid to end up weird, but not quite as weird as a home schooled kid, how about a school run by Blue Man Group? Parents shell out 32 grand a year to have a bunch of bald blue men who spit marshmallows and paint onto canvases teach their kids. Now they're shocked, shocked to find out that sure, little Johnny can play a gigantic flute, but he can't read.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: I thought they don't talk.
SAGAL: That's part of the problem.
JOBRANI: Yeah, so how do they...
SAGAL: Yeah, it's like how was school today, junior? Well, the guy just stood there and waved a stick around and stared at me.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: Maybe it's a good way to get the kid to stop talking. You know, Tommy has been talking too much. Let's get him with the Blue Man Group. They'll teach him to shut up.
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: Oh boy.
JOBRANI: Who would put their kid in a Blue Man Group school?
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: Are you that big of a fan where you're like seeing the show and you're like you know what would be great, we should put Tommy - I wish there was a school. I could put Tommy in a Blue Man Group, he'd be just like that bald guy with the blue - oh my god.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Roy, Southwest boards their planes through groups. Some airlines use seat assignments and boarding number. Well the Latvian airline Air Baltic is taking a unique approach. From now on they'll be seating passengers by their what?
ROY BLOUNT JR.: By their bottoms.
SAGAL: That's where they'll do it on their seats.
JR.: Measuring their seat?
SAGAL: No.
JR.: They're measuring their width.
SAGAL: No.
JR.: Was I right to say their bottoms?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: You were not right to say their bottoms.
JR.: Oh, I see. Well then, by how famous they are. I don't know.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: They can...
JR.: Are there any famous Latvians? I don't know.
SAGAL: They can check to see what color your ring is.
JR.: Oh, your mood.
SAGAL: Yes, your mood.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
JR.: Board you by your mood.
SAGAL: Seat you by your mood.
JR.: Seat you by your mood.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: You can now fly on this airline, First Class, Business Class, Murderous Rage Class.
(LAUGHTER)
JR.: Huh.
SAGAL: At Air Baltic they're seating passengers based on shared moods. The system relies on a scientific process of asking passengers to reveal personal details about themselves - interests, hobbies and your mood during travel. However, the seating chart suffered a few early setbacks. Too many people, when asked for their hobby, listed quote, having an "entire row to myself."
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Which seems like, you know, trying to hard. If you want to get that, you should be more subtle. You should list your mood as Prying or Desperately in Need of a Shower, Murderous.
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: So they would ask you before you boarded and then seat you...
SAGAL: Yeah, and then they'd put people of similar moods together.
DICKINSON: They have obviously never dealt with someone in menopause. That's all I'm saying.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: Maybe there's a menopause mood section.
DICKINSON: Yeah.
SAGAL: You'd have to keep moving around the plane as your mood shifts, is that what you're saying?
DICKINSON: You would.
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: You would. You would.
JR.: Is there a farting section?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: My mood is gassy. Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: That's my mood all the time.
JR.: That's right.
SAGAL: Maz, librarians recently discovered a scientific paper on penguins, dating from 1910. The author hid the paper away. It has stayed hidden for a century. Why did he hide it away?
JOBRANI: Because they found out that there were secrets about the penguins.
SAGAL: Yes, what secrets?
JOBRANI: Sexual things going on.
SAGAL: Yes.
JOBRANI: Yeah.
SAGAL: The penguins were perverts.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Scientist George Levick went to the South Pole a hundred years ago. He expected to find the adorable, virtuous penguins like we might see today in like "Happy Feet."
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: But instead, they discovered a flightless, avian version of Caligula. Quote, "there seemed to be no crime too low for these penguins," said Levick, who described male penguins as hooligan rapist necrophilia child abusers.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: He was pretty upset. Good thing they never found this before they made "March of the Penguins," right? Otherwise you would have heard Morgan Freeman going, And now the Penguins - oh, my god.
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: Look away.
JR.: Stop that. Get away from her.
SAGAL: They do use their wings for something. What are they doing?
(LAUGHTER)
JR.: They sure do walk cute. I don't care. Necrophilia and all that, but...
JOBRANI: That's how they get you, Roy.
SAGAL: Actually, it turns out...
(LAUGHTER)
JR.: Come here, little fella.
SAGAL: Turns out, all that insane sexual activity, that's why they walk that way.
(LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: Oh my god.
SAGAL: Anyway, the report was quickly repackaged as an e-book, titled, "Fifty Shades of Black and White."
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.