PETER SAGAL, HOST:
It's time for our final game, Lightning Fill In The Blank. Each of our players have 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill-in-the-blank questions as he or she can. Each correct answer is worth two points. Bill, can you give us the scores?
BILL KURTIS, HOST:
Alonzo and Helen each have three, Janelle has two.
SAGAL: All right. Janelle, as you might remember you're in third place. That means you go first. The clock will start when I begin your first question. Fill in the blank. Here we go. This week, Eric Schneiderman, the attorney general of blank, stepped down following allegations of abuse.
JANELLE JAMES: New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Yes. This week Israel launched airstrikes against Iranian targets in blank.
JAMES: Syria.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Right. On Wednesday, the Mormon Church announced it was severing all ties with blank.
JAMES: Mitt Romney and his hot dog toy.
SAGAL: No.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Although they might. That's a provocation. It was the Boy Scouts. A Minnesota school bus driver charged with erratic driving says she's innocent because she only took her hands off the wheel to blank.
JAMES: Do the hokey pokey? I don't know.
SAGAL: No, to look up your mama jokes on her phone...
JAMES: Whoa.
SAGAL: ...While driving for the kids on the bus. They wanted to hear them. On Sunday, the latest film of the blank franchise became the fastest movie to reach a billion dollars at the box office.
JAMES: Avengers.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Right. This week California became the first state to mandate blank on newly built homes.
JAMES: Weed plants.
SAGAL: No.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Solar panels. On Monday, it was reported that a judge in Washington state had requested a restraining order against blank.
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
JAMES: Scott Pruitt.
SAGAL: No, his neighbor's cat.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It seems strange you'd need to file a restraining order against the cat, unless of course that cat is Garfield and you're a pan of lasagna. But Judge Michael Price says he had a solid case against his neighbor's pet. It kept peeing on his back porch. If the restraining order goes through, lawyers are expecting a flood of similar cases against cats...
JAMES: Yeah.
SAGAL: ...Most of which will be filed by that vase sitting on the edge of your bookshelf.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Janelle do on our quiz?
KURTIS: She got three right, six more points, total of eight and moves into the lead.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: So we have flipped a coin. Helen has elected to go next. So fill in the blank, Helen. On early Thursday morning, President Trump traveled to Andrews Air Force Base to welcome back three Americans freed by blank.
HELEN HONG: North Korea.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Right. On Tuesday, coal baron and convicted criminal Don blank and ship lost his primary bid in West Virginia.
HONG: Don Blankenship.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Exactly. On Monday, blank was inaugurated for his fourth term as the president of Russia.
HONG: Vladimir Putin.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Right. On Tuesday, officials in the Congo confirmed two new cases of blank.
HONG: Ebola?
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Right. Among the candidates portraying themselves as alternatives to Donald Trump in 2020, no one has a better case than the candidate named blank.
HONG: Not Donald Trump.
SAGAL: Sexy vegan - that's his real name.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: On Thursday, private space company blank unveiled their newest rocket.
HONG: SpaceX.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Yes. This week a woman in Texas collected $1.2 million thanks to an $18 bet on the blank.
HONG: A lottery.
SAGAL: Kentucky Derby.
HONG: Oh.
SAGAL: A passenger on an airplane in China was arrested after he blanked.
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
HONG: Brought a possum onto the plane.
SAGAL: No he was arrested for removing the emergency exit door because the cabin was, quote, "stuffy."
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: You know how it is.
HONG: What?
SAGAL: Stuffy - it's hot. You get overheated. You get a little cranky.
JAMES: Who needs it? (Laughter).
SAGAL: You open the door. Luckily for everyone else in the plane, the plane had already landed.
HONG: Wow.
SAGAL: The man opened the emergency door to just get a little fresh air circulating. He was detained at the airport. He spent some time in jail, where he was accused of trying to escape. But he just said the room was a little too dark, and he was just bashing a hole in the wall to let some sunlight in. Bill, how did...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill how did Helen do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Helen got five right, ten more points, total of 13 puts her in first place.
HONG: Sweet.
SAGAL: Well done, Helen. All right, how many, then, does Alonzo need to win?
KURTIS: Five to tie and six to win.
ALONZO BODDEN: Pressure. pressure.
SAGAL: This is well within your reach, Alonzo. Here we go. Fill in the blank. On Tuesday, President Trump announced he was withdrawing from the blank deal.
BODDEN: Iran nuclear deal.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Right. On Tuesday, Oliver North was announced as the next president of blank.
BODDEN: The NRA.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Right. This week Rudy Giuliani said that president Trump has the right to ignore a subpoena from blank.
BODDEN: Congress.
SAGAL: No, Robert Mueller in this case. In a surprise victory on Wednesday, an opposition alliance ended 60 years of single-party rule in the country of blank.
BODDEN: Russia?
SAGAL: No, Malaysia in this case. Three people in San Antonio suffered minor injuries after they rescued a pair of kittens that turned out to be blank.
BODDEN: Wild.
JAMES: These wild kittens.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I'm going to give it to you because hungry bobcats was the answer.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: According to a report released on Tuesday, U.S. airlines collected over $4 million in blank fees last year.
BODDEN: Baggage fees?
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Of course. This week 28 more people were affected by the multistate blank outbreak.
BODDEN: E.coli.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Yes. A zoo in Alberta, Canada is facing charges after zookeepers removed a bear from its enclosure and blanked.
BODDEN: Ate it?
SAGAL: No.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Far from it, Alonzo. They took the bear to Dairy Queen to get ice cream.
JAMES: What?
BODDEN: I hate that 'cause I did hear something about that vaguely. Yeah.
SAGAL: The handlers at the Discovery Wildlife Zoo in Alberta wanted to give their 1-year-old Kodiak bear Berkley a treat.
HONG: What?
SAGAL: They took him out of the cage, put him in the front seat of the truck - he got to ride shotgun - took him to Dairy Queen. They filmed the whole thing. As you can imagine, they're now being fined for failing to notify the Wildlife Department about doing that. And the rest of the animals in the zoo are mad because why did...
JAMES: Yeah.
SAGAL: ...Berkley get to go - ice cream and the rest of us are stuck here?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, did Alonzo do well enough to win?
KURTIS: We have a tie - Alonzo and Helen.
SAGAL: Congratulations. Well done.
KURTIS: Thirteen (unintelligible).
(APPLAUSE) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.