BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. Hey, Pixar, put me in your new movie. I'm Incredibill (ph)...
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KURTIS: ...Bill Kurtis. And here is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody.
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SAGAL: Thank you so much. We have a very, very exciting show for you all today. Later on, we're going to be talking to the amazing comedian and actor Louie Anderson. But first, we were a little put out this week when we heard a story about a new sleep aid. It's called PBS. A...
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SAGAL: ...Website, calm.com, is actually repackaging old PBS Bob Ross shows for people to use as a cure for insomnia.
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SAGAL: Oh, yeah? What about us?
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SAGAL: People have told us that without NPR, they would not have been able to sleep a wink in years. We are the broadcast version of Ambien.
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SAGAL: There are thousands of people who started listening to this show a few minutes ago and haven't been able to stay awake until now.
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SAGAL: So remember, when you want to be bored into unconsciousness, go to the professionals. If you've managed to stay awake so far, 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 are on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
JULIE TALBOT: Hi, this is Julie from Sunderland, Mass.
SAGAL: Hey, Julie. How are you?
TALBOT: Hi, I'm good. How are you?
SAGAL: Now, I like to think of myself as a Massachusetts expert, but I don't know where Sunderland is. Where is it?
TALBOT: I'm not surprised. It's a small town. We're actually not that far from the Berkshires, so we're just in the western part of the state.
SAGAL: We're actually going to be there next week at Tanglewood.
TALBOT: Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. Yeah, it's a really pretty area.
SAGAL: It is. And what do you do there?
TALBOT: I'm a stay-at-home mom, and I also do part-time office cleaning.
SAGAL: Really?
TALBOT: Yes, I do. It's just as glamorous as it sounds.
SAGAL: It did.
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SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Julie. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, it's a features reporter for The Washington Post Style section. It's Roxanne Roberts.
ROXANNE ROBERTS: Hello.
TALBOT: Hi.
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SAGAL: Next, it's a comedian starring in his own Netflix special, "Warn Your Relatives." It's Hari Kondabolu.
TALBOT: Hello.
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SAGAL: And finally, it's a humorist and author most recently of "Save Room For Pie." It's Roy Blount Jr.
TALBOT: Hi.
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SAGAL: Julie, welcome to the show. You're going to play Who's Bill This Time. Bill Kurtis is going to read for you three quotations from the week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain just two of them, you'll win our prize - the voice of anybody you like on your voicemail. You ready to play?
TALBOT: Yes.
SAGAL: All right. Here is your first quote.
KURTIS: (Imitating Donald Trump) They have great beaches. You see that whenever they're exploding their cannons into the ocean. I said, boy, look at that view. Wouldn't that make a great condo?
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SAGAL: You captured not just his voice but his spirit, Bill.
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SAGAL: And I worry. That was the president explaining why he worked so hard to make peace with what country?
TALBOT: North Korea.
SAGAL: Of course, North Korea.
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SAGAL: Yes.
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SAGAL: We now know why Trump is so obsessed with getting to be besties with Kim Jong Un. That guy controls the last piece of cheap coastal real estate in the world.
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SAGAL: He's a developer. In his second term, he's going to be spending every weekend at Pyong-a-Lago (ph).
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ROBERTS: You know where I thought...
SAGAL: What?
ROBERTS: I watched all this, and I thought this is like every first date where a girlfriend that just is hopeless always says, I met the nicest guy.
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ROBERTS: Right? And he's really smart, and he's funny. And he's kind of tough, you know, but I like that in a guy. You know, and you want to say, no, no, actually, he's not a good guy, and you shouldn't be dating him, and this is going to end poorly. And I was like, no, this one is different.
SAGAL: Yeah.
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SAGAL: I - you know, I got to say - I got to offer, you know - to fairness to Trump, this guy is different.
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SAGAL: Now, of course, for the substance of the agreement, there isn't any.
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SAGAL: They put out this statement that has nothing in it. And people were like, well, Mr. President, there's nothing in the statement. You didn't seem to actually agree to anything. And he said, oh, no, no, no. We agreed to a lot more things, he said, but we didn't have time to write them down.
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ROY BLOUNT JR: In the first flush of a romance, you don't have - you don't need words.
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BLOUNT JR: Words would only cheapen the thing.
SAGAL: You look at each other - you look into each other's eyes. You chat. You smile. You tell them all about how you won the Electoral College when nobody thought you could.
ROBERTS: You salute their generals. It's great.
SAGAL: It's awesome. All right, very good. Here is your next quote.
KURTIS: The World Cup is coming here in 2026. We have eight years to stop calling it soccer.
SAGAL: That was a soccer fan...
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SAGAL: That was a soccer fan tweeting about the fact that the World Cup in 2026 is coming where?
TALBOT: The U.S. and Mexico, right?
SAGAL: Yes, it's actually coming to all of North America. That's right.
TALBOT: Yeah.
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SAGAL: It's very exciting news. The 2026 World Cup will be hosted by us, or actually, it will be, as you said, the U.S., along with Mexico and Canada, which is a little surprising because by 2026, we will be into the seventh year of the great Americo-Mexo-Canadian (ph) War.
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BLOUNT JR: But we'll have allies. We'll have North Korea. We'll have Russia.
SAGAL: Exactly.
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HARI KONDABOLU: Do we have to pretend everybody likes soccer for, like, a month like we do every eight years or four years or whatever?
ROBERTS: You don't like it?
SAGAL: You don't even - you don't like soccer?
KONDABOLU: No, I love soccer.
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ROBERTS: So what is it? You kind of resent the fake, you know, bandwagon quality?
KONDABOLU: We don't care about soccer. Soccer - nobody talks about the MLS except in Seattle and Portland, where they don't have teams.
SAGAL: Exactly.
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KONDABOLU: But do we have to do - it's a charade. Why do we - we don't even like soccer that much, and we get the World Cup? There's tons - Portugal, I'm sure, would like it or some other crappy European country.
ROBERTS: Oh.
KONDABOLU: Like, there's so many places.
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KONDABOLU: Oh, yeah, you all loved Portugal before you came in.
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BLOUNT JR: I played soccer one time...
SAGAL: Yeah.
BLOUNT JR: ...Which was pickup soccer. And every time I was just about to kick the ball, somebody else kicked it.
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SAGAL: That doesn't seem fair.
BLOUNT JR: Who needs a game like that?
SAGAL: Yeah, I know. In baseball, when it's your turn to hit the ball, they don't, like - somebody run up and hit it instead of you. Exactly.
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SAGAL: Julie, your last quote just is a man on Twitter. He was one of many, many, many people online cheering on the star of this week's news.
KURTIS: Hang in there, trash panda.
SAGAL: Who was this unlikely hero who captured the hearts of America?
TALBOT: It was that cute little raccoon.
SAGAL: It was the raccoon.
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SAGAL: Yay for the raccoon. Love the raccoon.
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SAGAL: All day Tuesday, this raccoon slowly made its way up the side of a 23-story building in St. Paul, becoming a huge story in the Internet and, of course, on Minnesota Public Radio, which was basically invented to cover this story.
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SAGAL: The only more Minnesota Public Radio story would be, like, a walleye eating a hotdish.
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SAGAL: Now, people were watching - I don't know if - did you participate in this?
ROBERTS: Oh, my God.
SAGAL: Yeah.
ROBERTS: It - this is my favorite story of not just this week but probably the entire year.
SAGAL: We are desperate for good news.
ROBERTS: I - this cute - you know, we didn't even know it turned out to be a girl panda.
BLOUNT JR: Aw.
SAGAL: Actually, no.
ROBERTS: No, we...
SAGAL: It's a raccoon, not so much a panda.
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ROBERTS: I meant that.
SAGAL: Now, it is...
ROBERTS: No, he's a trash panda.
SAGAL: A panda would arguably be more interesting, wouldn't it?
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ROBERTS: No, no, no, no. She was adorable. And she stopped and took little naps and rests in the windows, and people took pictures. Oh, my God, I could hardly stand the cuteness.
SAGAL: Well, people were afraid of - it climbed - it took 22 hours for it to climb all the way up. And people were afraid of a tragedy if what became known as the MPR Raccoon suddenly fell, or if it only got to the roof only to discover that that was the hiding place of Garrison Keillor.
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SAGAL: And finally, 22 hours after it started its journey, the raccoon made it to the roof, where it was humanely trapped and brought to a nearby wildlife refuge, where it was promptly eaten by Casey the crocodile from Australia...
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SAGAL: ...From our show last week. Circle of life, kids.
KONDABOLU: She just wanted to be left alone. You don't climb a whole building to hang out with people.
SAGAL: It's true.
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BLOUNT JR: To get on the radio.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BLOUNT JR: A raccoon will bite you, I'll tell you that. A raccoon is not something to cuddle up to.
ROBERTS: I just think they're so - I mean, I've had glancing acquaintances with raccoons, and I - when I...
SAGAL: Is this another one of these first date stories you're going to talk about?
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ROBERTS: No, but I lived in an apartment building...
SAGAL: I think this one really is different. Oh, yes.
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ROBERTS: No, honestly - honestly, my idea - really - and as the older I get, the more I want to be around animals.
SAGAL: Yeah. They are preferable. Bill, how did Julie do on our quiz?
KURTIS: She got them all right.
SAGAL: Congratulations, Julie.
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TALBOT: Thank you so much.
SAGAL: Thank you so much for playing.
(SOUNDBITE OF AC/DC SONG, "IT'S A LONG WAY TO THE TOP (IF YOU WANNA ROCK 'N' ROLL)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.