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Who's Carl This Time?

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 Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Carl.

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SAGAL: Thank you everybody. Thank you. We got a great show for you today. We've got Chef Rick Bayless. He'll be by later, so sit...

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SAGAL: No, it's great. So, if listening at home, sit close to your radios because the man smells delicious.

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SAGAL: Now, you know, before we get started, one of the frustrating things about radio is that no matter how successful you might be in that medium, sometimes you feel ignored by the world at large or like a second class medium sometimes. Well, this week, we learned about a foolproof way to get a lot of attention for your radio show.

KASELL: Peter, you slut.

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SAGAL: So, while I'm waiting for my call of sympathy from the president...

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SAGAL: Why don't you 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!

LUKE BLOCK: Hey, this is Luke Block. Our mail comes through Pettigrew, Arkansas.

SAGAL: Your mail comes through Pettigrew, Arkansas?

AMY DICKINSON: What about the women?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

BLOCK: We live way away from our post office. It's one of those rural post offices, out in the middle of nowhere.

SAGAL: Oh, I see. So you're way out there doing what?

BLOCK: We do pottery and raise sheep.

SAGAL: So you are totally situated for the apocalypse?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

BLOCK: We are ready. We have been ready for so long.

SAGAL: You may not even notice it.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

BLOCK: We may not. And it's going to be an anticlimax.

TOM BODETT: That's a great slogan for your chamber of commerce: Pettigrew, it's already done here.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Luke. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, a comedian and a host of the Morning Amp on Vocolo, Mr. Brian Babylon is here.

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BRIAN BABYLON: Hey, how are you?

SAGAL: Also, a humorist who will be appearing March 16th on the Moth Mainstage at the Players Club in New York City, Mr. Tom Bodett.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

BODETT: Hey, Luke.

BLOCK: Hey.

SAGAL: And finally, it's the woman behind the advice column Ask Amy, and the author of the memoir, "The Mighty Queens of Freeville," it's Ms. Amy Dickinson.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

DICKINSON: Hey Luke.

BLOCK: Sounds like the perfect panel.

SAGAL: Isn't it though?

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SAGAL: Well, you're going to start us off, of course, with Who's Carl This Time. Carl Kasell will, of course, recreate three voices from the week's news. Your job: identify or explain them. Do that two times out of three, you'll win Carl's voice on your voicemail. Ready to go?

BLOCK: I am.

SAGAL: Here is your first quote.

KASELL: I just went in there and said, eenie, meeny, miny, moe, and Santorum came up as moe.

SAGAL: That was a voter in Georgia, one of many this week who were just thrilled to be able to take part in what democratic exercise?

BLOCK: Super Tuesday.

SAGAL: Yes, Super Tuesday, ta-da.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

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SAGAL: On Tuesday, Super Tuesday, residents of ten states spoke their feelings, and their feeling was "meh."

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SAGAL: Now, most people are saying they're bored with the GOP primary by now. It is actually a lot of fun if you look at it in the right way. And what I mean by that is you look at it like it's a NASCAR race: watch it for the crashes.

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SAGAL: It's like, is Romney going to make it around the turn? I think so. No, no, there's a microphone. No.

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BABYLON: Peter, you know what I think we need to do is just bring back Ronald Reagan. You know, just zombify him.

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SAGAL: Zombify, zombie Ronald Reagan.

BABYLON: A zombie Ronald Reagan would just jazz up...

SAGAL: He could win.

BABYLON: ...this GOP race in a heartbeat.

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BODETT: I mean, that's what they did with Attila the Hun, right? They strapped him to his saddle and just rode him into battle.

SAGAL: I think it was...

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SAGAL: But now, it was an interesting week for Romney because everybody expects him to just finally break this thing open and he never does. And instead, we find out more and more weaknesses. For example, we learned that Romney has a big problem with poorer voters. He lost to Rick Santorum among lower income people everywhere.

It's tough, you see Romney doesn't know any poor people.

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SAGAL: It's hard for him to relate. You know, when he meets one, he says things like, "Oh, I see you live in a cardboard box. Where's your summer box?"

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SAGAL: We also want to offer our congratulations to Newt Gingrich. He won his second state.

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SAGAL: No, he did. He won his home state Georgia. It's his only win, other than South Carolina. And as we now know, the truth is, he was seeing South Carolina the whole time he was with Georgia.

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SAGAL: That explains that. Anyway, after his big success in his home state, his plan is to go live in each remaining primary state for 30 years prior to their voting.

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DICKINSON: He's been fun. I've actually really enjoyed having him in the race. You know, he's like a gadfly, he really mixes it up. Nobody knows what to expect. He's been a lot fun. I don't know.

SAGAL: That's also true of the guy who stumbled onto my subway train this morning. You never know what to expect.

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BABYLON: He's fun.

DICKINSON: Kind of fun.

BABYLON: And it is nice, as long as they get off at the next stop, right?

SAGAL: Exactly.

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SAGAL: All right, Luke, here is your next quote.

KASELL: We've shown that no one can enslave us.

SAGAL: That was a man who won an election in Russia on Sunday and will now be enslaving his country himself, we assume.

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SAGAL: Who was it?

BLOCK: It's Putin.

SAGAL: Yes, it's Vladimir Putin, that's right.

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SAGAL: He actually has served two terms already as president of Russia and then he was forced by law to take a term off. So instead, he ran the country via an amusing ventriloquist's dummy named Comrade Jerry.

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SAGAL: Putin was very excited with his massive victory on Sunday; he actually teared upon election night, speaking in Moscow. So, of course, he tore off his shirt to dab his tears with it. That's what he does.

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SAGAL: Then where his tears fell, a unicorn sprang from the earth...

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SAGAL: ...carrying a Russian flag, or so we were all told.

BABYLON: Are we going to be back scared of the Russians now? Because it's...

SAGAL: Oh, I would be if I were you. I think so, yeah.

BODETT: I'm actually looking forward to being afraid of Russia again. I'm getting tired of being afraid of China.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I'm getting tired of being afraid of us, so I think it'll be nice. Very good, Luke, here is your last quote.

KASELL: Do you really think a defensive lineman grits his teeth harder because he stands to make an additional 1,500 bucks?

SAGAL: That was TJ Simers, writing in the LA Times about the latest scandal in professional football. What?

BLOCK: Oh, it was the Falcons' bounty program I think.

SAGAL: It was a bounty program, yes. I think it was the New Orleans Saints. But yes, the NFL bounty program, you're right.

BLOCK: That's right, that's right, somewhere down there.

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SAGAL: Yeah.

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SAGAL: Somewhere over the hill where they play football. People were amazed, shocked to discover that players on the New Orleans Saints and later the Washington Redskins were paid bounties to injure opposing players.

For a, quote, cart-off, if the other player was taken off the field, you got a thousands dollars. For a, quote, knock out, you got $1,500. And for a, quote, existential crisis, making the other player reconsider his life choices and go to law school after all, you got three grand.

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SAGAL: The crazy thing about this is there's all this outrage over football players getting paid to hurt members of the opposing team.

BODETT: Yeah, that's the point. I mean they're already paid millions to do exactly the thing they're doing, right?

SAGAL: Instead of seven million dollars to go tackle that guy, they're going to get seven million and a thousand dollars to tackle that guy.

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SAGAL: Oh no, we can't have that.

DICKINSON: We have also, we've pooled our earnings, so we're...

SAGAL: What are you going to have bounties for on the panel?

DICKINSON: Fifty-five bucks to have one of you two taken out, so...

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DICKINSON: Oh yeah.

SAGAL: That's it, $55 dollars?

DICKINSON: That's all we got.

BABYLON: We're panelists, for god sakes.

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SAGAL: Mitt Romney was asked on the campaign trail about this controversy, and he said, "A thousand dollars? Does money come that small?"

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SAGAL: The thing that was frustrating to me was it was like a thousand bucks for knocking the guy down. That's nothing. They should have really gone for it. Like $5,000 if you go up to Brett Favre in the game and kiss him on the lips.

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SAGAL: And you get $10,000 if Favre sexts you after the game.

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BODETT: I want to make clear I was offended by this. It goes against all my moral underpinnings. But the thing I was most disappointed with is it wasn't more money.

SAGAL: Yeah. Really?

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BODETT: Yeah, I mean if it was like ten thousand, fifty thousand that would have been a scandal. This just doesn't make sense.

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SAGAL: You're just pitying these guys for being poor businessmen.

BODETT: Yeah, exactly.

BABYLON: Well, if my team is winning the Super Bowl, I don't care. Does that sound bad? Should I have said that?

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SAGAL: Carl, how did Luke do on our quiz?

KASELL: Luke, you had three correct answers, so I'll be doing the message on your voicemail or answering machine.

SAGAL: Well done.

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SAGAL: Well done, Luke.

BLOCK: Thanks. Thank you very much.

SAGAL: Bye-bye.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.