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 you can click the contact us link on our website, which is waitwait.npr.org.
There you can find out about attending our weekly live shows, here at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago, and you can check out the latest "How to do Everything" podcast. This week, we tell you how to care for the world's grossest plant.
Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!
ERIC ENGLANDER: Hey, this is Eric Englander from the upper west side of Manhattan.
SAGAL: Oh, I've heard of it.
ENGLANDER: It's a great place.
SAGAL: What do you do there?
ENGLANDER: I do some real estate consulting and I'm working on a tech startup at the same time. So I'm kind of busy.
SAGAL: Real estate consulting in New York?
ENGLANDER: Yes, shocking, right?
SAGAL: I'm sure that's like, oh, man, no, you can't afford it, trust me.
ENGLANDER: Yes, pretty much.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: There, I just consulted on real estate in New York. Welcome to the show, Eric.
ENGLANDER: Thank you.
SAGAL: Carl Kasell is now going to read for 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 in two of the limericks, you'll be a big winner. You ready to play?
ENGLANDER: Yeah, I think so.
SAGAL: Here's your first limerick.
CARL KASELL: Though "John Carter" aimed right for the top, it's a mess you can't clean with a mop. The exec's eyes get runny on how it bleeds money. To date, it's the world's greatest?
ENGLANDER: Flop.
SAGAL: Yes, flop, very good.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: It is official. Disney's movie "John Carter" is now the biggest flop in the history of movies. One of its many problems was the title. Filmmakers did not call the film "A Princess of Mars" - that was the name of the book it's based on - because that wouldn't appeal to boys. Instead, they called it "John Carter" because that wouldn't appeal to anyone.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: "John Carter" does not sound like a movie at all. It sounds like an old fashioned euphemism. "Oh, I was playing cricket and I took a ball right to my John Carter."
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Hurt like the dickens. Here is your next limerick.
ENGLANDER: OK.
KASELL: There's a pair of nice shoes in this box, not the rubber clogs worn without socks. We've expanded the line of that foot fashion crime and have made some acceptable?
ENGLANDER: Crocs.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Yes, it was crocs. Remember a few years ago when you found yourself having to renegotiate your relationships because significant others in your life started wearing horrible, ugly pink foam shoes? And then one day, everybody looked down at their feet and said "dear God, what have I done?"
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well the Crocs company suffered badly from the inevitable backlash against their shoes. This week, Crocs opened a hundred stores worldwide to sell their new shoes that look nothing like Crocs. Their new slogan: we'll all pretend that never happened.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
TOM BODETT: Years and years ago, I tried wearing Birkenstocks. They were popular in Alaska because everybody takes their shoes off in the house. I wore them to New York one time on a book tour. And I had this New York guy showing me around my different stops. And I'm wearing my Birkenstocks.
And at the end of the day we were just talking and I mentioned these Birkenstocks, how comfortable they were. And he says, oh, I thought there was something wrong with your feet.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
BODETT: I didn't want to say anything. Those are the ugliest shoes I ever saw. I thought you had like webbed feet or something.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: He thought you were deformed.
BODETT: Right. And I never...
SAGAL: There's no other reason you would ever wear those shoes.
BODETT: I never wore them again. They never even left New York. And that's my story.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Thank you. And here is your last limerick.
KASELL: You want babies no more, that's for keeps-a. Go snip-snip, take some rest on your sheets-a. While laid up and lame, go watch college games. I'll throw in an extra large?
ENGLANDER: No idea.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
MO ROCCA: Great performance. I got it.
SAGAL: It rhymes with keeps-a, sheets-a, comes in sizes like extra large.
ENGLANDER: Pizza?
SAGAL: Pizza, yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Great news. Who wouldn't like a nice pizza? A Cape Cod business is offering customers free pizza as part of its March Madness celebration. However, this is a catch. You have to get a vasectomy first.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Evan Cohen is the manager of Urology Associates of Cape Cod. He said the pizza giveaway is a quote, 'lighthearted way for couples to talk about contraception."
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: OK. OK, so here's that lighthearted conversation. The guy says hey, I'm hungry for a pizza. And the girl says, hey, so am I, and also, I want you to be sterilized.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: Do they use the pizza slicer?
SAGAL: No.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Carl, how did Eric do on our quiz?
KASELL: Eric was perfecto, Peter.
SAGAL: Hey.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
KASELL: Like that, huh?
SAGAL: Oh yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)
KASELL: Three correct answers, so Eric, you win our prize. Congratulations.
SAGAL: Well done, Eric. Thanks a lot.
ENGLANDER: Thank you very much.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
ENGLANDER: Have a good one.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.