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KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We're playing this week with Mo Rocca, Faith Salie and Liz Miele. And again, here is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill.
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SAGAL: In just a minute, Captain Bill Kurtis of the starship Lim-terprise battles the Rhymulans.
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SAGAL: That's coming up in our Listener Limerick Challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-WAITWAIT - that's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Faith, a Colorado couple set out this week in the adventure of a lifetime. They quit their jobs. They sold all their possessions. They took all their money. They bought a boat to sail around the world - day one, bliss. What happened on day two?
FAITH SALIE: Un-bliss, clearly.
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SALIE: Was there something like a hole in the boat? Did it need to...
SAGAL: Well...
SALIE: ...Did it start to sink in some way?
SAGAL: No, it didn't start to sink.
SALIE: Oh, it...
SAGAL: It finished sinking.
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SALIE: It sank?
SAGAL: It did the whole...
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SAGAL: ...Sinking process.
SALIE: It sank.
SAGAL: It sank. The couple told the Tampa Bay Times they had no sailing experience...
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SAGAL: ...Before they came up with this scheme, but they had seen every single "Pirates Of The Caribbean" movie, so, you know. First day was great. Second day, they hit a sandbar and sank.
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SAGAL: It was so weird. It wasn't marked on their navigational map that was printed on that placemat from Long John Silver's.
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SALIE: Wait. Wait. Wait. I mean, I saw the Titanic. A glacier? Yeah. Or iceberg? Yes. Sandbar?
SAGAL: Apparently, what happened is that they were sailing - they didn't know how to do this, and they were sailing along, and they saw some buoys that seemed to be marking something. They're, like, oh...
SALIE: Treasure (laughter).
SAGAL: ...Maybe - yeah.
LIZ MIELE: Yeah.
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SAGAL: It's like, oh, I think if we hit that marker, we get an extra life or something.
MO ROCCA: Right.
SAGAL: That's, like...
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SAGAL: ...The level of what you're playing. And it turns out it was marking the sandbar. They hit it really hard, they tore a hole in the bottom of the boat. Boat went (vocalizing).
ROCCA: I don't understand - I mean, why is this story interesting?
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ROCCA: It's just...
MIELE: It's because you thought it was going to be about team building and becoming closer, and, really, it was about stupidity.
ROCCA: Oh, OK.
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SAGAL: Mo, actors in Hollywood, apparently, are now clamoring to star in what in the hopes that they will make it big?
ROCCA: In student films? In something that you wouldn't expect. In...
SAGAL: Well, I mean, think of it this way. I mean, in the old days, of course, they went to Hollywood to be in the movies. And then, of course, TV got big - be in TV shows, and then YouTube videos. And now...
ROCCA: Is it video games?
SAGAL: No, that's old news.
ROCCA: Yeah.
SAGAL: That's old and tired. This is the next new thing that's going to make them famous because everybody is going to use them for their amusing tweets and texts.
ROCCA: Oh, in GIFs?
SAGAL: Yes.
ROCCA: OK, right.
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SAGAL: Or jifs (ph), depending.
ROCCA: Is it jifs or GIFs?
SAGAL: It's GIFS - or jifs, depending on how much of a jerk you want to be.
ROCCA: OK, is jif jerkier?
SAGAL: Jif is more accurate, and if you insist on it, you're a gerk (ph).
ROCCA: Exactly.
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ROCCA: I was going to say, you'd have to be a gerk.
SAGAL: You'd have to be a gerk.
ROCCA: Yeah.
SAGAL: Yeah. The idea is, like, you know, we know what these are, right? These are the the little sort of animated film clips that people use to express things, like, what the hell? - or, you go girl - or, I am no longer capable of expressing myself in language.
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ROCCA: Is there sound with a GIF-jif (ph)?
SALIE: No.
SAGAL: Usually not, no. But what's happened is they've become so ubiquitous that people have seen them more than they've seen, say, a particular television show. You probably think of, like, many of them...
ROCCA: Yeah.
SAGAL: ...Like, you know, there's one with Shaq making a face, and one with some guy blinking his eyes like he doesn't understand something.
ROCCA: Oh, right.
MIELE: Yes.
ROCCA: He looks like he's, like, from "Rocky Horror" or something.
SAGAL: Yeah, exactly.
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SAGAL: And so the idea is that since all these people are accidentally becoming GIF celebrities, why not create them intentionally? So there are studios hiring writers and then actors to sort of act out in two- or three-second increments...
SALIE: What?
MIELE: So these are like real-life emojis.
SAGAL: Yeah, exactly.
MIELE: OK.
ROCCA: Can I just - choosey actors choose GIFs.
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SAGAL: Liz, officials in Kansas say they're considering changes to the state's election rules after who announced a run for governor?
MIELE: Pigeons?
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SAGAL: Um, I'm not sure - it's like, you know, it'll be interesting because, you know, when they - instead of getting a limousine to, like, a state event, they'll be driven in their mom's minivan.
MIELE: Children?
SAGAL: Well, good enough - teenagers.
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MIELE: Oh, OK. OK (laughter).
SAGAL: Yeah. Basically, on the gubernatorial ballot in Kansas is one 16-year-old, five 17-year-olds and a dog.
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SAGAL: So at the moment, Kansas law has no age restriction on candidates running for statewide office - which explains why the current comptroller is just a zygote who showed an early aptitude for accounting.
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SAGAL: This could all change, though. In the next cycle, 2020, is a new law might set a minimum age requirement of 18 for anyone running for office in the state. Nobody knew this was a problem, and then these six teenagers figured it out. They all filed to run. They're hoping to unseat the current governor, and they're running on platforms as varied as marijuana legalization and marijuana even more legalization.
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ROCCA: I think you should have to be young. I think it should be like Menudo, where you age out of it.
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ROCCA: Kansas will then be an interesting laboratory, like the states are meant to be. It'll be the state that's always run by really young people - young Puerto Ricans who age out of it eventually.
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SAGAL: And they'll get replaced by people who are so similar no one knows they've left.
ROCCA: Right.
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SAGAL: But there's also a dog - a wire-haired hunting dog named Angus Woolley. He's registered as a Republican.
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SAGAL: Things don't look good for his chances. He was seen at a debate, humping an opponent's leg.
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SAGAL: And, by the way, that is not a dog joke. That is a Republican joke.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.