Who's Bill This Time

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: The following program was taped before an audience of no one.

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BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. Tastes great - more billing - Bill Kurtis.

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KURTIS: And here's your host, a handsome, virile man who has so much free time, he's started writing his own intros, Peter Sagal.

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PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Bill - artfully delivered. Thanks, everybody. And thanks, as always, to our producer Mike for standing in for all the people who love us by playing that canned applause. This was the week we were scheduled to go and do our show in Buffalo, N.Y. So in honor of Buffalo, we've done two things. First, we've invited the actor Christine Baranski, proud Buffalo native, to join us for Not My Job later on. And second, I have coated myself from head to toe in spicy wing sauce.

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SAGAL: We always want to find out how you might taste, so break quarantine in your imagination by calling us at 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.

ANNA TIBERI: Hi. This is Anna, and I'm calling from beautiful Golden, Colo.

SAGAL: How are things in beautiful Golden, Colo., where I believe, if I'm not mistaken, you have some sort of brewery?

TIBERI: Yes, we have several of those, the largest one being Coors, of course. But they are gorgeous outside. I can see the mountains from my window.

SAGAL: Yes. And what do you do there when you're allowed out of your house?

TIBERI: I am an electrical test engineer for the spacecraft Orion, which is the world's only deep space human exploration spacecraft.

JOEL KIM BOOSTER: Whoa.

SAGAL: No kidding. So, wait a minute. You're helping to build the Orion, which is supposed to take us to Mars, right?

TIBERI: Yes, that is correct. So I work as a test engineer. I do software and electrical integration. And next year, we are launching for the moon.

BOOSTER: Can you hurry?

SAGAL: And how does one get a ticket? I'm just saying, if you can put in a good word for me, I can help you win this quiz - just saying.

TIBERI: I might have to do that.

SAGAL: All right. Welcome to the show, Anna. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, a comedian whose podcast is called "Urgent Care," and he's the co-host of the new "Singled Out" on Quibi. It's Joel Kim Booster.

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BOOSTER: Hello. Coming live from Hollywood, Calif.

SAGAL: Next, it's the syndicated advice columnist behind Ask Amy. It's Amy Dickinson.

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AMY DICKINSON: Hi, Anna. I'm so in awe of what you're doing. It's quite amazing.

SAGAL: And a comedian you can see at Nowhere Comedy Club, the first all-digital comedy club. It's May 7 at 10:30 Eastern - tickets at nowherecomedyclub.com. It's Alonzo Bodden.

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ALONZO BODDEN: Hello, Anna - nice to meet an actual rocket scientist. That's very cool.

SAGAL: Anna, welcome to the show. You're going to play Who's Bill This Time. Bill Kurtis is going to read you three quotations from the week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain just two of them, you'll win our prize - any voice from our show you might choose on your voicemail. You ready to play?

TIBERI: Yeah, let's do it.

SAGAL: Let's do it. Here is your first quote.

KURTIS: Lebron James got to eat, too.

SAGAL: That was someone on Twitter reacting to news that the LA Lakers are one of the many businesses who managed to get what from the federal government?

TIBERI: That would be a small-business loan.

SAGAL: Yes.

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SAGAL: A tiny, little business loan - very good, Anna. It is tough to be a small-business owner in America right now. That's why hardworking restaurateur Ronald McDonald had to move into a sewer and start eating children. Huge companies like McDonald's have been sucking up money from the new small-business loan program because they can count their separate locations as small businesses. That's how Shake Shack got millions of dollars. But come on. They need it. They live in a shack. It's not Shake Mansion.

DICKINSON: Am I wrong, or - the Lakers don't even pay their cheerleaders, right? I mean...

SAGAL: No, none of them do, I don't think.

DICKINSON: ...Isn't that, like, a whole thing? Like, listen. If they're getting the money so that they can pay those cheerleaders to do their thing, I'm all about it.

SAGAL: No. The cheerleaders get paid in exposure and sexual harassment.

BOOSTER: (Laughter).

SAGAL: That's their pay.

DICKINSON: Oh, right. And as a woman, I have to say that's compensation enough.

SAGAL: Isn't it, though? It's both different kinds of attention.

BOOSTER: What's the exchange rate on sexual harassment these days?

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BODDEN: Listen to all you non-sports fans. The cheerleaders actually do get paid. They get paid about a hundred dollars a game, which is easy to live on here in LA. That's...

BOOSTER: Yes.

BODDEN: ...Crazy money...

BOOSTER: That's about the same as...

BODDEN: ...In Los Angeles.

BOOSTER: ...Like, a Shake Shack employee, actually - weirdly.

SAGAL: I mean, it is ridiculous, though, Alonzo, that the Lakers got one of these loans for a struggling business. I mean, they're not the Knicks.

BOOSTER: (Laughter).

BODDEN: Yeah, that is true.

SAGAL: Meanwhile, in other government business news, the administration finally drew a line in the sand. They won't use the Defense Protection Act to order companies to make ventilators, but they will use it to keep meat companies going. Wait. There might be a chicken nugget shortage. Get me Mayor McCheese on the red phone.

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DICKINSON: Oh, God. But you know what? Maybe he just is keeping the meat plants open so that Rocky will have a place to train.

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SAGAL: Anna, here is your next quote.

KURTIS: As long as we can boo the Astros.

SAGAL: That was a comment about whose plan to have a season this year after all?

TIBERI: NASCAR.

SAGAL: Not NASCAR. Oh, you are a nerd, aren't you?

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DICKINSON: I love that about you, Anna.

SAGAL: It's the sport the Astros play.

TIBERI: Is that basketball?

SAGAL: No, it's not. It's not basketball (laughter).

BOOSTER: Give her one more shot - just one more.

TIBERI: Baseball. Baseball.

SAGAL: Baseball, yes.

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SAGAL: Yes, very good, Anna.

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SAGAL: Baseball is coming back. Everybody's really bored with nothing to watch, which makes them think about baseball, which is how they used to be bored with something to watch. According to the latest proposal, we might get a baseball season this year, although it'll be very different - not interesting, but different.

BOOSTER: I'm always shocked when I go to a baseball game - first of all, that I'm there, and second of all, that baseball seems largely to be about the interstitials to me. Like, there's so many, like, little skits that go on and games now.

SAGAL: Right.

BOOSTER: It's like they're trying to distract you from the baseball.

SAGAL: So here is the proposal. There will be three new leagues arranged regionally so players won't have to travel far. We'd have great new rivalries. Instead of, say, Mets versus Dodgers, we'd have Tampa Bay versus whatever that other team in Florida is.

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SAGAL: The new rules and the leagues will mean that players won't have to travel so far from home. They'll be able to spend every night back at their own homes. I don't know what that will do for the quality of play, but it will be terrible for adultery.

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BODDEN: You're going to have - you know, with this regional baseball thing, the players are actually going to have to trade regional groupies. So if you're a Chicago player...

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BODDEN: ...Who normally has one of your groupies out in LA, now you got to call someone who plays in Arizona and say - it's another draft that they're going to have to hold...

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DICKINSON: That's right.

BODDEN: ...Before the season starts - trading regional groupies for the nearest one who can be close to home but not so close that you can't get a hotel - it's going to be a whole thing. I'm not sure if baseball is ready for this. The other problem with baseball - and I don't know if you've seen this - but they've actually shown basketball players doing these incredible workouts to stay in shape. Baseball players don't train when there is baseball. You think they've been training now that there hasn't been baseball. This is going to be the slowest game, the most - how about a quick walk to first base? I'm not really up for running just yet. No, this...

SAGAL: Oh, by the way, you will, of course - and this is all for the benefit of viewers at home so they'll be able to watch it at home, of course. But just to give yourself that stadium experience, make sure you pay $12 for your own beer.

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SAGAL: Anna, here is your last quote.

KURTIS: Look at that thing, dude.

SAGAL: That was a pilot in a newly declassified video from the Pentagon. What was that thing, dude?

TIBERI: First of all, I'm really happy it's not a baseball or a basketball. Secondly, it was a UFO.

SAGAL: You're right.

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SAGAL: Very good.

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SAGAL: Oh, my gosh. I realize we have an authority here. The Pentagon has now officially released these cockpit videos showing what they are calling encounters with UFOs. They're real. They're real. How refreshing at a time when we long for physical contact that somebody - somebody - is willing to get right up close and probe us. So they didn't land none of these things. But would you? We're basically the galaxy's version of a gas station bathroom. Go if you have to, but try not to touch anything.

BODDEN: I don't think they're UFOs. I just think they're some billionaires social distancing.

BOOSTER: (Laughter).

BODDEN: They wanted to get away from the rest of us. They've got money. There's a spaceship. They'll be back.

BOOSTER: Yeah, it's just Elon.

SAGAL: Now, some of you might be saying, wait; isn't this the same video that appeared, like, three years ago, and the only news this week is it just happened to be officially released by the Pentagon? Very good point. Aliens, please vaporize those people first. We are so desperate for non-COVID news, we're, like, yes, give us this 3-year-old story that may end up with all of us being probed. And while we're at it, hey, Chilean miners, get back down there.

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DICKINSON: But Peter...

SAGAL: Yes.

DICKINSON: ...You just made me really thirsty for, like, a good toddler-down-a-well story, you know?

SAGAL: Oh, anything, please.

BOOSTER: You made me really thirsty for a good probing, Peter, so...

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SAGAL: Bill, how did Anna do on our quiz?

KURTIS: We're going to give Anna a free ride, hoping she thinks about us on the way to the moon, Anna.

SAGAL: Thank you so much, Anna, for playing.

TIBERI: Thank you.

SAGAL: You didn't need my help, but I would like a ticket out of here, please.

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SAGAL: Take care, Anna.

BOOSTER: Bye, Anna.

SAGAL: Bye-bye.

TIBERI: Thanks so much. Bye-bye.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "INTERGALACTIC")

BEASTIE BOYS: (Singing) Intergalactic, planetary, planetary, intergalactic. Intergalactic, planetary, planetary, intergalactic. Intergalactic, planetary...

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