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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.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Thank you everybody. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, good to be back at the podium. We do have a great show for you today. We're very excited about our special guest. Brooke Shields with be with us later. That's cool.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: And I'm excited in particular, because Brooke went to high school in New Jersey exactly at the same time I did. So, you know, in my mind, we were peers.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: So for me, talking to her will be like checking in with an old friend. The experience will also be familiar to her; she's had to put up with guys like me for decades.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: But first, it's your turn to act like we're old friends. Give us a call; the number is 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924. Let's welcome our first listener contestant. Hi you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!.

CARRIE GIBBONS: Hi, this is Carrie Gibbons in Mariposa, California.

SAGAL: Hey, glad to hear it. How are things in Mariposa?

GIBBONS: They are quite toasty right now.

SAGAL: Mariposa sounds like one of those fictional California towns they come up with for horror movies.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: It was a peaceful town and then it came. What do you do there?

GIBBONS: I work for the hazmat division for a nearby local government agency.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: So if the monster does appear, you're going to be putting on your suit and going to look for it.

(LAUGHTER)

GIBBONS: I am so ready for the zombie apocalypse, let me tell you.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First, a Second City and "Colbert Report" alum, Mr. Peter Grosz.

(APPLAUSE)

GIBBONS: Hi.

PETER GROSZ: Hi, Carrie.

SAGAL: Next, one of the women behind the Washington Post's Reliable Source Column, Ms. Roxanne Roberts.

(APPLAUSE)

GIBBONS: Hi, Roxanne.

ROXANNE ROBERTS: Hey Carrie.

SAGAL: And lastly, making his debut on our panel this week, a comedian, actor and director whose movie "God Bless America" is out now, Mr. Bobcat Goldthwait is here.

(APPLAUSE)

BOBCAT GOLDTHWAIT: Thank you.

SAGAL: So excited to have you.

GOLDTHWAIT: Hi. Hi, Carrie.

GIBBONS: Hi.

GOLDTHWAIT: That just felt like a really weird dating show.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: So now, which of our panelists, Carrie, would you like to ask about first?

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: Yeah, hi, Carrie.

GIBBONS: Hi.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: Do you have you hazmat suit on, Carrie?

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: What are you wearing?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Carrie. You're going to play Who's Carl This time. Of course, Carl Kasell will now recreate for you, from the pages of the week's newspapers, three quotations. If you correctly identify or explain two of them - do that; you'll win our prize, Carl voice on your voicemail. Ready to go?

GIBBONS: Yes, sir.

SAGAL: All right, here we go. Here's your first quote:

KASELL: Booo. Booo. Boooo.

SAGAL: That was the reaction.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: You really captured that. That was the reaction of the NAACP, to somebody who came to address their annual convention this week. Who was it?

GIBBONS: Mitt Romney.

SAGAL: Yes, it was.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: It was Mitt Romney.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Man, Romney might have been surprised when the group booed him, when he told them he wanted to repeal Obamacare, as he put it. And that's when he finally realized, NAACP does not stand for the National Association for the Advancement of Country Club People.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: His aides were like, "Sir, no. That would be NAACCP."

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: But in general, going to the NAACP was good for Romney. He got props for showing up and making his case to an audience that wasn't on his side. And for the first time ever, he invoked a passionate response from an audience.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Sure, it was fear and loathing, but it's a start.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: He enjoyed it. He enjoyed getting that kind of reaction. He's scheduled a bus tour of places where he can get a similar response: The National Association for Advancement of Dogs on Car Trips.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: The American Society of People with Pre-Existing Conditions.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: I thought it was kind of amazing. He seemed, like you said he got a really like - a reaction at all.

SAGAL: Yeah.

GROSZ: He seemed like the most human-like I've seen him appear.

SAGAL: Yeah.

GROSZ: Yeah, he actually seemed like he was a flesh and blood human being and not like an android created in, like, the back of the RNC headquarters or something.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: No, and like I said, he did not change his - well, I was about to say, he has not changed his positions. He did not change his current positions.

GROSZ: No. He will though.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: If he had spoken longer, by the end he would have been like: I love "Good Times." That was my favorite show.

(LAUGHTER)

ROBERTS: Now, let me ask a question. Is it ever appropriate - what do you think - for a politician to respond to a heckler?

GOLDTHWAIT: Yeah, I guess. I would prefer they didn't. You know, I don't want our leaders to be reduced to what I do for a living.

(LAUGHTER)

ROBERTS: But it had to be explained to him that it wasn't ghosts.

SAGAL: I'm sorry, what?

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: He thought that the booo was ghosts.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

GOLDTHWAIT: He wasn't really holding his own. He was frightened.

SAGAL: Yeah, I understand.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Now, we contrast him, Mr. Romney, to President Obama, who didn't even show up at the convention. He sent Joe Biden to entertain.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: That's right, send a loose cannon white guy to whip up the crowd at the NAACP.

GOLDTHWAIT: He said: I see your white and I raise your white.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Here is your next quote.

KASELL: He really inspired me to start biking, but I hate exercise, so now I'm just doing the doping part.

SAGAL: That's Cooper Lawrence, from the show "Dish Nation" on Fox, talking about what cycling star that was mired in scandal this week?

GIBBONS: Lance Armstrong.

SAGAL: Yes, Lance Armstrong.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Very good, yes.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: OK, now that you mention it, it probably was unlikely for a guy to win the Tour De France seven times in a row fueled only by Gatorade and a Jock Jams CD.

The US Anti-Doping Agency accused Armstrong of running basically a huge doping operation throughout his career. He responded by suing them. The judge wasn't impressed, and threw out his suit. He's been given 30 days to re-file that claim, but with the help of some custom pharmaceuticals, he's hoping to get it done in just 22.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: We really are kind of foolish to have believed that all that could have been done without steroids. Like, I think it kind of makes you believe that there's nothing that anybody accomplishes anymore can be done without the help of steroids.

ROBERTS: Well, wait...

GROSZ: It's like, I think Obama won the 2008 election on steroids.

SAGAL: Probably.

ROBERTS: Wait, he hasn't been convicted yet. The whole point, the reason he's suing...

GROSZ: That's true. Everybody that he cycles with and his doctors say that he used steroids. So that's true, he has not been convicted yet.

SAGAL: He's not been convicted.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: That is the one piece of the puzzle remaining.

SAGAL: Here's the problem for Armstrong. If Armstrong doesn't contest it or if he does contest it and loses, which as he says is inevitable, given the way they set him up, they will strip his titles and give them to the runners up, right, from those seven races. But as Peter points out, many of the other cyclists have already been convicted of doping.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: So they're going to keep handing the yellow jerseys down the chain until the 2001 Tour de France champion is a 72 year old guy on stationary bike in Fort Lauderdale.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: He's the only guy left.

GROSZ: It's going to be a kid on a bike route. "What did I win?"

SAGAL: No, man...

GROSZ: The tour de what?

SAGAL: Even the news boys are like, yeah, I was using EPO. I had to get up the hill.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Those papers don't throw themselves. Are you kidding me?

(LAUGHTER)

ROBERTS: See, I'm not - I want to believe there are like people that don't do that.

GROSZ: That's right; I wanted to believe that too.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: I have to tell you, I've never even been aware of him.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: I need drugs to watch a bike race.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Here is your last quote, Carrie.

KASELL: The most important news of the week is that those two actors are getting a divorce. Oh wait a minute, no, my brain has been hijacked by CNN.

SAGAL: That was a reporter on the "Keiser Report" talking about what most important news story of this week?

GIBBONS: The divorce of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

SAGAL: Yes, exactly.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: The election, tax cuts, who cares? The sudden breakup of Tom and Kat was the real top story of the week. Why? Maybe it was because we saw this relationship begin. We were there at the beginning, that fateful day when Tom Cruise jumped up and down on Oprah's couch, proclaiming his love for Katie Holmes.

That's actually why it ended. He was constantly jumping on the couch. It makes it really hard to watch TV, especially Katie's favorite show, "Desperate Housewives Who Live in My House."

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: So her contract ran out? Is that what happened?

SAGAL: Apparently, yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I mean there are all these crazy rumors.

GROSZ: That was Bobcat, by the way, for any scientologists that are listening.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: You know, this divorce was seen coming, because there was a press conference where you actually see her blinking out Morse code.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: Like a Vietnamese prisoner of war, trying to get rescued. Like send me an attorney.

(LAUGHTER)

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

KASELL: Carrie, you're a winner. You had three correct answers, so I'll be doing the message on your answering machine or voicemail.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Well done. Thank you, Carrie, so much. I think it's safe to take off the hazmat suit now.

GIBBONS: OK, great.

SAGAL: Bye-bye.

GIBBONS: Bye.

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