BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We are playing this week with Roy Blount, Jr., Roxanne Roberts and Luke Burbank. And here again is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. Thank you everybody.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Thank you so much. It is time now for the Bluff The Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game on the air. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
ELIZABETH NAWROCKI: Hi, this is Elizabeth Nawrocki from Erie, Pa.
SAGAL: Hey, how are things in Erie?
NAWROCKI: Oh, they're just wonderful up here.
SAGAL: I have never been to Erie. What should I know about Erie that I might not know?
NAWROCKI: It's absolutely beautiful, and we have some of the best hot dogs in the country.
SAGAL: Really?
NAWROCKI: Yeah, even though...
BLOUNT JR.: Uh-oh...
(BOOING)
SAGAL: That's - them's fighting words to a Chicagoan, you know this.
(LAUGHTER)
NAWROCKI: Even though I'm mostly a vegetarian when I...
(LAUGHTER)
NAWROCKI: I have...
SAGAL: All right, since you're the first vegetarian we've talked to since we brought this up, do you have any - as a vegetarian or are mostly vegetarian - do you have any particular hidden desire to see your vegetarian food bleed?
(LAUGHTER)
NAWROCKI: Personally no, but I'm also a theology major vegetarian, so that stigmata burger sounded pretty interesting.
SAGAL: There you go.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Elizabeth, it's great to have you with us. You're going to play in which, of course, you have to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Elizabeth's topic?
KURTIS: Don't drive like my brother.
SAGAL: Sure, there are people on public radio more qualified to give you car advice - Terry Gross, for instance, huge NASCAR fan.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: But you're stuck with us. Our panelists are going to tell you about someone who had unique car trouble this week. Pick the the one who's telling the truth and you will win our prize - Carl Kasell's voice on your car phone. You ready to play?
NAWROCKI: Absolutely.
SAGAL: First, let's hear from Roy Blount, Jr.
BLOUNT JR.: In the U.S., we wonder why so many honeybees are dying. In England, a whole lot of bees must be wondering what is wrong with people? Can't they tell when they've got a queen in their car? That question arose in Pembrokeshire, England, this week when some 20,000 bees clung to the back of a Mitsubishi for two days because they're queen had got stuck in the Mitsubishi's boot.
(LAUGHTER)
BLOUNT JR.: A beekeeper happened upon the swarmed car when it was parked. He swept most of the bees into a box. But wind blew the box away and while he was retrieving it, the bees got out and the car's driver returned and drove the car away with the bees in hot pursuit. It was the next day before another bee expert got the queen rehived along with all of her loyal followers, on whom she conferred knighthood.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: A car which was carrying a queen bee being chased by 20,000 of her loyal subjects. Your next story of transportation trouble comes from Roxanne Roberts.
ROXANNE ROBERTS: Todd Winston is such a dedicated environmentalist that he refuses to drive a gas-guzzling car, only an electric one. But the Colorado pet shop owner took his activism to a new level when he decided last year to fuel his car from just one power source, a hamster wheel.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Winston has been charging his phone with a hamster-powered generator since 2010 and thought why wouldn't this work for my car battery? So he jerryrigged a 2-foot wheel in his Boulder store and bought 50 more hamsters to power it.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: At first, all the furry little friends were spinning demons, charging his battery enough to drive about 20 miles a day. But earlier this year, he noticed a disturbing trend - half the hamsters did all the work and the other half got fat and slept all day.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Quote, "it was like a mini version of "Animal Farm," until The Colorado Daily. "All hamsters are equal but some were more equal than others.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Winston pulled the plug this week and reverted back to solar panels for his car. He's selling the hamsters and wheels as adorable echo-friendly phone chargers.
SAGAL: An attempt to use a hamster wheel and hamsters to power a car fails.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Your last story of will car trouble comes from Luke Burbank.
LUKE BURBANK: Sam Ellenby was elated to drive his 2015 Ford Fusion off the lot. He'd splurged for all the bells and whistles. Unfortunately, one of those bells and whistles is now the subject of a lawsuit between the Tampa man and the Ford Motor Company. When plaintiff began setting up the car's navigation system, the lawsuit states, he was presented with a variety of choices as to whose recorded voice would be giving the directions.
Plaintiff found it amusing that one of the voices offered was that of comedian and former AFLAC duck Gilbert Gottfried.
(LAUGHTER)
BURBANK: Plaintiff chose this option, mostly as a way to amuse his friend Brian. Plaintiff's intent was always to change the navigation voice back to something not insanely annoying. However, despite consulting the car's manual and the car's website, plaintiff was not able to change the setting and was forced to drive around getting navigation information from Gilbert Gottfried.
(LAUGHTER)
BURBANK: This caused plaintiff to become enraged pretty much anytime he was operating the vehicle. Ford should have known that Mr. Gottfried's voice posed a driving hazard and not offered it. Ford has not yet responded to the suit, which seeks $22,000 to replace the car and $600,000 for repairs to the Jack in the Box Ellenby be drove his car through after they forgot the buttermilk ranch dressing with his chicken fingers.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right, so one of these stories about car trouble is true. We found it in the news.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Was it from Roy Blount, Jr, how an unsuspecting driver in England found himself with 20,000 bees swarming his car because somehow the queen had gotten inside, from Roxanne, how an attempt to use hamsters on hamster wheels to power a car did not work out, or from Luke, how a man stuck with Gilbert Gottfried giving him his GPS navigation directions slowly went insane?
(LAUGHTER)
NAWROCKI: I think I'm going to have to go with Roy's story about the bees.
SAGAL: Roy's story about the bees? Everybody here likes that.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: You have chosen Roy's story of bees chasing a car because their queen was stuck inside. To bring you the correct answer, we spoke to someone involved with this real automotive problem.
PAUL EADES: There were about 20,000 bees right on the back of this vehicle. The queen was in between the cracks, and so the bees (unintelligible). And there were thousands of bees in there.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: That was Paul Eades. He's the vice chairman of the Pembrokeshire Beekeepers Association. And may I say he sounds just like you would imagine the vice chairman of the Pembrokeshire Beekeepers Association would sound. He is, in fact, the man who finally rescued the car from the swarm of bees by removing the queen. Congratulations Elizabeth. You got it right. Roy was telling the truth. He wins the point. You win our prize. Thank you so much.
NAWROCKI: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LITTLE QUEEN BEE")
ROY ROGERS: (Singing) There's nothing I won't do for my little queen bee. She's my love... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.