JONATHAN COULTON, BYLINE: From NPR and WNYC, live from The Bell House in beautiful Brooklyn, New York, it’s NPR’s hour of puzzles, word games and trivia, ASK ME ANOTHER. Here's your host, Ophira Eisenberg.
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OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:
Thank you, Jonathan. You know our VIP from her roles in “The Office” and “Bridesmaids” and the hilarious Netflix series, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”, where she plays a woman who, after being rescued from a cult, moves to New York to start a normal life. And only after that kind of past would a New York apartment seem like a step up.
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EISENBERG: Our very important puzzler is comedian and actress Ellie Kemper.
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EISENBERG: Our first game is called A Few Good Answers, and here to play it are Trac-Lan Vu and Marjorie Berman.
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EISENBERG: Trac-Lan, you work at an elementary school.
TRAC-LAN VU: I do.
EISENBERG: Where you are running the theater program and are the music director.
VU: Indeed.
EISENBERG: That's very artsy of you.
VU: I try.
EISENBERG: So Marjorie is also at a public school but teaching special ed. So you guys are the perfect people to ask this question to. Do you think it is ever OK to lie, Marjorie?
MARJORIE BERMAN: I'm pretty big on honesty, so I don't think so.
EISENBERG: Yeah. Trac-Lan?
VU: I think sometimes it's OK.
EISENBERG: Oh, good, yeah. What's the biggest lie you've ever told, Trac-Lan?
BERMAN: Well, I think the most recent lie that I've been telling…
EISENBERG: Yeah. God, I like you a lot.
VU: My fiance and I just got engaged, like, a month and a half ago, but…
EISENBERG: This is where your lie comes in? Amazing.
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VU: So before we got engaged, I was trying to do research and be proactive just to figure out how much venues cost and how much things cost for a wedding.
EISENBERG: Sure.
VU: So I would send out a lot of emails and be like, hi, my fiance and I are really interested in hearing about how much this costs. And they call back or email back. And they’re, hey, congratulations. But we actually weren't engaged yet, so…
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EISENBERG: That was tempting fate. I like it. That’s good. Marjorie, nothing like that, pure honesty all the way? Never told a lie?
BERMAN: I have told lies before.
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BERMAN: I was, like, 6.
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BERMAN: And…
COULTON: Oh, come on.
BERMAN: I'm sure I've told more recent lies, but this just came to mind.
EISENBERG: OK.
BERMAN: I stole one bead…
EISENBERG: Oh, yeah.
BERMAN: From a bead store with my mom.
EISENBERG: I like how you’re justifying it - one bead.
BERMAN: I felt so bad that I told her as soon as we got home, and then it was over.
EISENBERG: What’d she do with the bead?
BERMAN: She made me bring it back and apologize.
EISENBERG: Beads of shame.
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EISENBERG: Well, in this game, we’re going to pay tribute to the Aaron Sorkin film, “A Few Good Men,” in particular, the line, you can't handle the truth. So I'll give you a clue, where the answer rhymes with truth. And you have to respond in your best Jack Nicholson impression. So for an example of that, let's go to our house musician, Jonathan Coulton.
COULTON: So if I said, I would like to host a reunion of the fictional family featured in the series, “Arrested Development,” you would reply, you can't handle the Bluths.
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COULTON: Apologies in advance.
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EISENBERG: And the winner will move on to our final round at the end of the show. Here we go. I need a detective like Sherlock Holmes to find my missing keys.
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EISENBERG: Marjorie.
BERMAN: You can't handle the sleuth.
EISENBERG: Yeah, that's a good impression.
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EISENBERG: That was good. I felt like you were a very angry Nancy Drew.
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EISENBERG: I’m thirsty for a fortified wine that goes in a Manhattan.
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EISENBERG: Trac-Lan.
VU: You can't handle the vermouth.
EISENBERG: No, you can't, but that is right.
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EISENBERG: I wish we could bring back the extinct feline mammal with giant curved canine teeth.
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EISENBERG: Marjorie.
BERMAN: You can't handle the saber-toothed tiger?
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EISENBERG: I could feel Jack Nicholson all over that. Perfect.
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EISENBERG: I'm feeling tired. I need that wellspring of longevity that Ponce de Leon was looking for.
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EISENBERG: Trac-Lan.
VU: You can’t handle the fountain of youth.
EISENBERG: Yeah, that's right.
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EISENBERG: Gosh, I'm bored. Let's go to a Minnesota city on the shore of Lake Superior.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
EISENBERG: Marjorie.
BERMAN: You can't handle the Duluth?
EISENBERG: That's correct, yes.
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EISENBERG: That is clearly not their tourism slogan, right?
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EISENBERG: Unless they’re into, like, reverse psychology. All Right, this is your last question. Verily, I enjoy seeing a Shakespearean word that's used ironically to mean indeed. Maybe I'll turn to our puzzle grew Johnson Chaneski, see if he can answer - give them a little hint.
JOHN CHANESKI, BYLINE: Rhymes with truth.
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CHANESKI: That's about as much as I can go there.
EISENBERG: Go for it, Marjorie. I feel like you’ve got a word…
BERMAN: All I can think of is truth.
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EISENBERG: You’re right, that’s a Shakespearean word. We were looking for, you can’t handle forsooth - yeah, which you guys couldn't. You couldn’t handle it. All right, let's go to our puzzle guru, John Chaneski. How did our contestants do?
CHANESKI: The winner is Marjorie, and that's the truth. We'll see you again in our final round.
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