OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:
Our next game is called Pop Culture Court. And our contestants are Justin Collins and Amanda Bakale.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: Justin, I've learned that you throw a Russian night every winter
JUSTIN COLLINS: Well, I don't throw Russia night but I participate in it.
EISENBERG: Oh, it's not your grand plan?
COLLINS: I mean, you know, we have the Russian who throws Russia night.
EISENBERG: Oh, that's - you've got a Russian involved.
COLLINS: Yeah, you have to.
EISENBERG: You have to. That's part of Russian night, I suppose. And what is Russian night?
COLLINS: A Russian friend organizes a trip for about 30 to 50 of us to a Russian nightclub in Brighton Beach and orders all the food, we bring a lot of booze and hijinks insue, basically.
EISENBERG: Got it. Amanda's a lawyer, by the way. I bet she didn't like that one bit what we were just talking about. That doesn't seem like there's rules or fair things involved in that. That sounds like chaos.
AMANDA BAKALE: I think all bets are off when booze is involved.
EISENBERG: That's true. Now, as a lawyer, you write law-theme parody musicals.
BAKALE: Yes, yes.
EISENBERG: That is an amazing offshoot of something you could do.
BAKALE: That was my biggest accomplishment in law school was producing the law school musical.
EISENBERG: And what is the title of a law school musical?
BAKALE: My favorite one was we did a spoof on teen movies and we called it "NYU 10012" because it was 90210 - was the whole thing, yeah.
EISENBERG: That's pretty good. Yeah, I like that. Are you writing them still?
BAKALE: Yes.
EISENBERG: OK...
BAKALE: Yeah, yeah...
EISENBERG: ...Well, what do you have on the burner?
BAKALE: ...There's a New York City Bar Association organization is doing a spoof of the chief judge who's retiring, so I have to write a musical spoofing her entire life.
EISENBERG: How's that going?
(LAUGHTER)
BAKALE: I haven't started yet.
EISENBERG: OK
BAKALE: I just got back from vacation, so that's next.
EISENBERG: All right, very good. Well, you're in luck 'cause in this game, we are going to describe fictional Supreme Court cases that are actually the titles of movies, TV shows and other things with the word versus in them. Let's go to puzzle guru Art Chung for an example.
ART CHUNG: After a frightening trial, Justice Sotomayor decided that the metal-clawed nightmare man did not breach his contract with the mask-wearing chainsaw killer. That would be the case of "Freddy Vs. Jason."
JONATHAN COULTON: Just remember that all the answers will have the word versus in them and the winner will move on to our final round. Here we go. In this landmark case, a Canadian musician and videogame nerd played by Michael Cera won the right to date the girl of his dreams despite the objections of her seven evil exes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Justin.
COLLINS: "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World."
COULTON: That's right.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: The legal team of Hanks and Ryan first came together to fight this case against a mountain that spews lava.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
BAKALE: "Joe Versus The Volcano."
EISENBERG: That is correct.
(APPLAUSE)
COULTON: Setting a dangerous precedent, the Supreme Court ruled that flowers are permitted to stand their ground and use lethal force to defend their turf against the undead in this game.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Justin.
COLLINS: Flowers versus the undead.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: So close it's unbelievable.
COULTON: It's a really great guess. You used context clues to figure out what the answer might be. It's some excellent detective work, but it is incorrect. Amanda, do you know the answer?
BAKALE: Roses versus zombies?
EISENBERG: Also very close
COULTON: Also very close and clearly neither one of you knows what the answer actually is. What is the answer, everybody?
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: "Plants Vs. Zombies."
COULTON: "Plants Vs. Zombies" is the name of the game.
EISENBERG: I know, you don't know because you try to have lives, OK? Don't lord it over the rest of us.
(LAUGHTER)
EISENBERG: Even before the Washington Post followed Watergate, Mad Magazine was tracking the ongoing exploits of two secret agents, one clad in black and the other in white.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
EISENBERG: Justin.
COLLINS: "Spy Vs. Spy."
EISENBERG: Yes, indeed.
(APPLAUSE)
COULTON: Face huggers and chest bursters sued creatures with heat vision and cloaking devices for the right to kill humans.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Justin.
COLLINS: "Alien Vs. Predator."
COULTON: That's right.
EISENBERG: Yeah.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: The Supreme Court didn't need to hear this case because it was just a film dramatization of an actual Supreme Court case, Hustler Magazine versus Falwell.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
EISENBERG: Amanda.
BAKALE: "The People Vs. Larry Flynt."
EISENBERG: Exactly.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: They only read the articles.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTON: This is your last clue. In this Supreme Court case, Justice Breyer opined that Bear Grylls should just come by his place for a nice, warm meal and stop hunting animals with sticks.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
COULTON: Justin.
COLLINS: "Man Vs. Wild."
COULTON: You got it.
(APPLAUSE)
COULTON: Art Chung, how did our contestants do?
CHUNG: In the case of Justin versus Amanda, Justin was our winner. Congratulations, you're moving on.
(APPLAUSE)
EISENBERG: If you think that you can prove beyond a shadow of doubt that you're a puzzle whiz, then you should be a contestant on our show. Sign up at amatickets.org. We will send you a quiz and see if our verdict is guilty of nerdy trivia expertise. Coming up, we'll release the Kraken and instead of listening to some classic albums, we'll make you guess them by describing their cover art. Now that's radio. I'm Ophira Eisenberg, and you're listening to ASK ME ANOTHER from NPR.
(APPLAUSE)
Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.