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 Amy Dickinson, Luke Burbank and Maz Jobrani. And here again is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Right now it is time for the WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME 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.
LISA FREIDMAN: Hi.
SAGAL: Hi, who's this?
FREIDMAN: My name is Lisa Freidman. I'm calling from Crown Heights in Brooklyn, N.Y.
SAGAL: Hey, Brooklyn, N.Y. That's tremendous. What are you doing there?
FREIDMAN: I'm looking for a job in film, which - we'll see.
SAGAL: OK, yeah.
LUKE BURBANK: That's the attitude.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Lisa, it's very nice to have you with us. You're going to play our game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Lisa's topic?
KURTIS: I'm not just your Uber driver, I'm your Uber friend.
SAGAL: Conversations with your Uber driver are usually limited to hello or so, murder anybody lately? This week, though, we heard a story about an Uber driver you'd want to chat with. Our panelists are going to tell you about it. Pick the real one and you'll win our prize - Carl Kasell's voice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?
FREIDMAN: Yes.
SAGAL: OK. First, let's hear from Maz Jobrani.
MAZ JOBRANI: When Wendy Sanders (ph) got into her Uber to go from City Centre to downtown Houston, she only knew her driver by his first name - Bogdan (ph). But as the drive continues, she started to suspect something unique about him. He kept getting calls in a foreign language and they all sounded urgent. When asked what the calls were about, Bogdan replied, I am the king of Macedonia. Sanders thought her driver was crazy, but to prove himself to her, he took his next call in English, and she heard the conversation from the other end. Your Highness, I apologize for disturbing you, but we are having major economic meltdown in the homeland.
While continuing to drive, King Bogdan helped solve the problem and got Ms. Sanders to her destination on time. When asked why he is driving an Uber, King Bogdan said, I see the movie "Coming To America" with Eddie Murphy where he is prince of a country looking for a wife who love him for him and not for his money. So I drive Uber in Houston and hope of meeting a bride who will love me for me. So far, my conclusion has been that not many women are looking to marry Uber drivers.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: For her part, Sanders was very impressed by the drive. In my 15-minute ride with the king, he lowered taxes, approved construction on a new highway and negotiated a ceasefire with Latvia. I rated him 5 out of 5 stars.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Your next - a woman gets into a car with the king of Macedonia. Your next story of a fun Uber driver to meet comes from Luke Burbank.
BURBANK: Ohio Uber rider Brandee Barker thought she was in for a typical ride recently, but she was shocked to find that her driver was one of the most famous voices in America, or at least was for the better part of the '90s. And no, the driver wasn't Bruce Springsteen or Howard Stern. It was a really famous voice - Elwood Edwards, the guy who says you've got mail when people check their AOL accounts. At the height of AOL's popularity, some 35 million people, and Meg Ryan, heard Edwards utter those words every day. He got the gig through his wife, who worked for the company that eventually became AOL. Edwards jotted the line down and recorded himself on cassette since he was just submitting a demo. However, the rest, as they say, is history.
Edwards says the ubiquity of the recording ended up typecasting him, which made it hard to get other voiceover work. So these days, he's driving for Uber. Barker, his passenger, had her suspicions that Edwards might be the you've got mail guy when she first heard his voice, suspicions that were confirmed when he explained she'd need to put her luggage in the back seat as his trunk was full of 18,000 AOL software CDs no one asked for.
SAGAL: You've got mail guy driving Uber - and you - the last story of an Uber driver who's uber cool comes from Amy Dickinson.
AMY DICKINSON: Georgia Height (ph) just wanted to go to the airport from her home in downtown Los Angeles. What happened between the Uber pick up and the airport drop off was either a chariot ride into the jaws of hell or the thrill of a lifetime. Jesse Mason (ph) is a Hollywood stunt driver whose main credits are driving a Toyota Supra Mark IV for several of the "Fast And Furious" movies until he was fired for making fun of Vin Diesel's diesel. Now he drives a Toyota Prius for Uber. So Mason picked up his client in front of her apartment building. At first, everything seemed normal, she said. He stopped at stop signs. He signaled for turns. But as soon as the car entered the 405 freeway, all hell broke loose.
He accelerated rapidly and started weaving in and out of traffic at high speeds. At one point, encountering a traffic jam, he said hold on and used the median as a lever to drive on two wheels, squeezing between stationary cars. Georgia said, I happened to be applying lipstick when he decided to do that and I ended up drawing it all over my face. I don't even remember if I was screaming out loud or just in my head. Entering the airport at high rate of speed, the driver delivered his rattled passenger using a handbrake reverse parallel park, squeezing in between two taxis. I think that maneuver took, like, 2.5 seconds, she said. Honestly, that part was pretty cool.
SAGAL: All right. So somewhere in America this week, somebody got into an Uber, as so many of us do, and one of three things happened. Was it from Maz Jobrani, a woman found herself being driven around by the king of Macedonia in voluntary exile, from Luke Burbank, a woman realized that the guy in front was the person who told millions of us back in the '90s, you've got mail, as the voice of AOL, or from Amy Dickinson, a woman who had a scary experience when her Uber driver turned out to be a Hollywood stunt driver? Which of these was the real story of a surprising Uber ride in the week's news?
FREIDMAN: I want to say that it was choice C because that one's definitely the most exciting, but I have a feeling that it's choice B, the you've got mail thing.
SAGAL: You think it's the you've got mail guy in the front seat.
FREIDMAN: Yes, I do.
SAGAL: All right. Well, we have for you now the Uber driver in question.
ELWOOD EDWARDS: Once in a while someone will say, I've heard your voice before. And then I'll explain to them - I'll do the welcome, you've got mail.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Well, congratulations. You did it. You were right. In fact, it was Luke's story. Although, Luke, I do believe that you made up the bit about the CDs in the trunk.
BURBANK: That was a little creative license. We don't know what was in the trunk. I'm assuming it was AOL CDs.
SAGAL: Yeah. But congratulations. You, in fact, were right. That was Elwood Edwards, the Uber driver and the guy who used to say you've got mail to AOL users. Congratulations, Lisa. You got it right. You earned a point for Luke, you've won our prize. Carl Kasell will record the greeting telling you that you've got voicemail.
FREIDMAN: Incredible. Thank you so much.
SAGAL: Thank you. Bye-bye.
BURBANK: Put this on your resume. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.