BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm legendary anchorman Bill Kurtis filling in for Carl Kasell.
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KURTIS: And here's your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
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PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys. We have a great show for you today. We got Bonnie Raitt, that legendary singer and guitarist, coming on later to play our game. And once again, we are thrilled to have Mr. Bill Kurtis with us, filling in for Carl. Bill, the only thing more amazing than the fact you did this is that you were willing to do it again.
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KURTIS: I wouldn't miss it for the world. Thanks. I want to represent and channel Carl Kasell, who is on a cruise, as we speak.
SAGAL: He is on a cruise. He's on a cruise. He did call in after your first show with us and said you did a very good job, and he doesn't want you to get any better he said.
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SAGAL: Now, I am just amazed, still, listening to your voice. I understand this is like your professional voice though. Can you give me a sense of what you sound like, just relaxing at home?
KURTIS: Sure. It's much different. Donna, I requested Crunchberries, not plain Cap'n Crunch. Honey, you know I needs my Crunchberries.
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SAGAL: Well, if you've got a professional sounding baritone of your own, let us hear it. The number to call is 1-888-Wait Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!
NATASHA MARTINEZ: Hi, this is Natasha.
SAGAL: Hey Natasha, where are you calling from?
MARTINEZ: I'm calling from San Diego.
SAGAL: What do you do there?
MARTINEZ: I'm a fine art appraiser.
SAGAL: Oh really? I say this as a parent of three children who like to make art. Has anybody actually called you in to appraise the potential value of their children's artwork?
MARTINEZ: Fortunately, no.
SAGAL: OK.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Welcome to our show, Natasha. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, a comedian you can see at the NYU Skirball Center in New York City on November 10th, Ms. Jessi Klein.
JESSI KLEIN: Hi, Natasha.
MARTINEZ: Hi.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Next, an author, humorist and blogger at cartalk.com where it's "Worst Cars Week," Mr. Tom Bodett is here.
TOM BODETT: Hi, Natasha.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: And a comedian performing at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington, Vermont September 28th, it's Paula Poundstone is here.
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PAULA POUNDSTONE: Hey Natasha.
SAGAL: So, Natasha, welcome to our show. You're going to play Who's Bill this Time. Bill Kurtis is filling in for Carl Kasell, of course, and he is going to read you three quotations from the week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain just two of them, you'll win our prize: Carl Kasell's voice on your home answering machine. You ready to go?
MARTINEZ: Ready.
SAGAL: All right. Your first quote is from a woman named Bianca Gambill. She was talking about her impressive button collection.
KURTIS: "I have Fishermen for Obama, I got Aliens for Obama, and I got the Hipsters for Obama because my son, who is 30, thinks he is a hipster."
SAGAL: Hipsters, Fisherman and Aliens were just a small fraction of the groups being catered to where this week?
MARTINEZ: At the Democratic National Convention.
SAGAL: Exactly, the DNC, the big party, yes, very good.
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SAGAL: Thousands of Democrats got together in Charlotte to praise President Barack Obama on live television. It was weird, all these people gathered to say increasingly nice things on live TV. It was like the opposite, you know, of a Friar's Club Roast. Like, I see Michelle Obama is here tonight. Here's what I love about Michelle Obama. Basically, everything, isn't she wonderful?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: And don't get my started on her husband. This guy - I mean his ears are so big. His ears are so big he hears all our concerns and does everything he can do to make things better.
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SAGAL: The other big hit of the Democratic convention was, of course, Michelle Obama. She came out the first night and delivered a heartfelt, passionate speech about her love for her husband, and all the time she was pressing 50 pound barbells with each hand.
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POUNDSTONE: You know what, I did not believe for a second that she spends all that time with the family and does all this. Exactly, because she would have to be working with those hand weights every day.
SAGAL: Yeah.
KLEIN: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: Like pretty much 24/7...
SAGAL: It was interesting that it wasn't a sleeveless dress she was wearing; the sleeves ripped off when she flexed.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: It's unbelievable.
KLEIN: It's the only gun show that any Democrat has ever attended.
BODETT: Right.
(LAUGHTER)
KLEIN: When Michelle Obama comes out.
POUNDSTONE: And I know this is petty, but I think there was a reason for it. You know, the thing is about the conventions - I was there years ago and I can tell you there is not one thing that is not tended to. You know what I mean? It's theater. There's no real discussions, and therefore, Michelle Obama's hair, sticking up kind of funny on the side...
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: ...was by design. I swear it was.
BODETT: What side?
SAGAL: Humanizing her or whatever.
POUNDSTONE: Right, exactly, because otherwise those arms and that smile would have been so off-putting to Americans. You know what - but for her to be able to say I'm like you, she had to have sticky-upy hair.
(LAUGHTER)
KLEIN: That was the one...
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POUNDSTONE: There's no question. There's no question.
SAGAL: Here is your next quote. It was another big star at the DNC this week.
KURTIS: I was just a country boy from Arkansas and I came from a place where people still thought two and two was four.
SAGAL: That was somebody laying his folksy wisdom on the crowd on Wednesday night. Who was the Big Dog who got let out for the convention?
MARTINEZ: Bill Clinton.
SAGAL: Yes, indeed.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
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SAGAL: If the DNC was like a music festival - four days of speeches and blather - then, you know, Bill Clinton was the Rolling Stones. He strode on the stage Wednesday night, and of course went overtime. He extemporaneously put back into the speech all the text that had been cut out for time.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: But he still blew away the crowd. In fact, he came out afterwards and did an encore, just a 20-minute riff on micro loans. That's what kind of performer he is.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: And just to prove he has still got it, he delivered the speech while simultaneously hitting on Clint Eastwood's chair.
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SAGAL: He kept looking over and it's like, "Nice seat you got there." He's just like incorrigible.
KLEIN: Well it's funny, because you say that because there's something about - there was the moment when he made that reference to Michelle Obama.
SAGAL: Yes.
KLEIN: And he was, you know one of the great things about Obama is he had the good sense to marry Michelle. And then they cut to Michelle and you can see that she's, like, slipping her wedding ring off.
SAGAL: Really?
(LAUGHTER)
KLEIN: Yeah, she was into it.
BODETT: Yeah.
KLEIN: She was like, Bill, I'm backstage.
SAGAL: Are you one of those women who still find Bill Clinton very attractive?
KLEIN: I am the woman who finds Bill Clinton attractive.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The only one left.
KLEIN: No, I mean I am at the front of the line.
SAGAL: Really?
KLEIN: Oh yeah.
BODETT: I've got to say, I felt a little confused during that.
(LAUGHTER)
KLEIN: No, no, no. Honestly, you'd be gayer if you weren't. I mean...
POUNDSTONE: Yeah.
KLEIN: You know what...
POUNDSTONE: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Really?
KLEIN: Yes.
POUNDSTONE: You know what?
SAGAL: What?
POUNDSTONE: I don't even like sex and I'm attracted to Bill Clinton.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: For him you'd make an exception, Paula.
POUNDSTONE: Well, you know, because it's good for the country.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right, very good, Natasha. Here is your last quote.
KURTIS: "An apple is an apple. A banana is a banana."
SAGAL: That was a shopper in Iowa, responding to the news that what kind of food might not be much better for you after all?
MARTINEZ: Oh gosh, organic food.
SAGAL: Yes, organic food.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Who knows? It's pointless.
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KURTIS: Natasha, good.
SAGAL: Yes.
POUNDSTONE: That's very good. I wouldn't have guessed that.
SAGAL: This devastating news about organic food explains why all the aging liberals in suburbia are pointlessly trying to kill themselves by running their Priuses in a closed garage.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: They're like damn this zero emissions engine. Now, defenders of organic foods say no, no, there are still benefits. Organic foods have fewer pesticides on them, and there's the health benefits of feeling smug all the time.
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POUNDSTONE: You know what I do? Because in our grocery store, the organic stuff is right alongside the - I don't know - non-organic produce.
SAGAL: Conventional is the term.
POUNDSTONE: So I buy a little of both.
BODETT: And then you put the organic stuff on top in the checkout line.
POUNDSTONE: No, I just...
BODETT: So it looks better? No?
POUNDSTONE: No, I just buy some of both. Because I can't really afford to buy all organic, so it's kind of like a firing squad, how there's, you know, one gun that didn't have a bullet.
SAGAL: Right.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: So you can pretend that all your children ate the healthy food.
POUNDSTONE: Exactly. I say to myself I did a good job.
SAGAL: Right.
POUNDSTONE: There was some organic.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Natasha do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Natasha got three right and she wins Carl Kasell's voice.
SAGAL: Yes.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Well done, Natasha.
MARTINEZ: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.