BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. Hey there, Neo, do you want to take the red Bill or the blue Bill?
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KURTIS: Bill Kurtis. And here is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
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KURTIS: Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody. We got a great show for you today. We're very excited, a little hungry because later on...
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PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Later on we're going to be talking to celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson. Now, he is a guy born in Ethiopia, raised in Sweden, came to America, became a celebrity chef at a three-star restaurant, and then opened a soul food place in Harlem. That's right, he is exactly the kind of immigrant we are being warned about.
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SAGAL: Because there is some good, hard-working American who would've loved to combine the flavors of his native Sweden with African cuisine.
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SAGAL: We don't care where you're calling from, give us a call to play our games. The number is 1-888-924-8924, that's 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. Let's welcome our first listener contestant.
Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
JENNY TORGERSON: Hi, this is Jenny Torgerson from Los Angeles, Calif.
SAGAL: Hello, Jenny Torgerson.
TORGERSON: That's - yep.
SAGAL: That actually sounds Swedish or Norwegian. Is that your background?
TORGERSON: It is Norwegian.
SAGAL: Norwegian, that's exciting, so of course...
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SAGAL: It's well known that in the 19th century a lot of Norwegian farmers migrated to Los Angeles to become film executives.
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SAGAL: What did you do there in LA?
TORGERSON: I am a teacher.
SAGAL: Oh, that's awesome. Who do you teach?
TORGERSON: Pre-K.
SAGAL: Oh, that's fun.
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PETER GROSZ: Do you have a lot of kids in your class who have to go out on auditions?
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SAGAL: Well, Jenny let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up is the host of the public radio variety show "Live Wire" and the podcast "Too Beautiful To Live," it's Luke Burbank.
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LUKE BURBANK: Hi, Jenny.
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BURBANK: Jenny, if you've got any kids in your class whose names sound like a boo when they're on public radio shows, advise them to change it early.
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SAGAL: Next, a comedian co-starring with Patrick Stewart in "Blunt Talk," which just premiered its second season on Starz, it's Helen Hong.
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HELEN HONG: Hey. Hey, Jenny.
SAGAL: And an alum of "The Colbert Report" and half of the comedy blog Quality Time With Pete And Deb, it's Peter Grosz.
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GROSZ: Hi, Jenny.
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SAGAL: Jenny, welcome to the show. You're going to play Who's Bill This Time? Bill Kurtis, of course, is going to perform for you three quotations from the week's news. Your job - correctly identify or explain two of them. You've heard me say this before. You know how this works. Are you ready to play?
TORGERSON: Yep.
SAGAL: All right. Here is your first quote.
KURTIS: Senator, you whipped out that Mexican thing again.
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SAGAL: That was one of the more memorable lines from a pretty unmemorable event on Tuesday night. What was it?
TORGERSON: The vice presidential debate?
SAGAL: The vice presidential debate.
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SAGAL: Yes. We've got, I paid for this microphone, and you're no Jack Kennedy. And now we can add you whipped out the Mexican thing again to the pantheon of great debate comments. It's so presidential. We can all imagine Ronald Reagan saying, Mr. Russian guy, tear down that Berlin thing.
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HONG: I've experienced a whipping out of a Mexican thing once before.
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SAGAL: Have you now?
HONG: And it wasn't as unpleasant as he made it sound.
SAGAL: Really?
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BURBANK: I just...
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GROSZ: She's talking about churros you guys.
BURBANK: It was a real study in contrasts, just in the appearance of the two candidates because it was like Tim Kaine was clearly a little unhinged. He was like an upstart, like, high school English teacher who was trying to save the school.
SAGAL: Right.
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BURBANK: And Pence was trying to build a mall where the school was going to be.
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HONG: It looked like they were auditioning for a Just For Men before-and-after ad.
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GROSZ: Pence used to have dark hair and then Donald Trump called him and said I want you to be my running mate.
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HONG: I don't know why they keep saying that Mike Pence won the debate. I just looked at Tim Kaine and I thought, you know, that guy just seems so nice. He could play a Santa. And the only thing that...
BURBANK: He was like your little brother who gets drunk at the bar and wants to fight everyone.
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BURBANK: And you're just like, Tim. Tim, it's OK. Let's go outside. Let's have a cigarette.
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GROSZ: We just got a puppy. And the way that the puppy greets people who come to the door is the way that Kaine was, like, attacking...
BURBANK: (Imitating dog panting).
GROSZ: Yeah like, (imitating dog panting), let me at him. Let me at him. Just give us two minutes. I'd like to talk. I want to talk. I want to get in there. And then he peed on Pence...
SAGAL: In contrast, Pence was so calm. He was so in control. He was a little sorrowful but had to tell you the truth. He reminded us of, like, a funeral director trying to upsell you on a casket.
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HONG: That debate was way more entertaining than everyone thought it was going to be, though. Like, everyone thought it was going to be like a free hotel breakfast. Like, do you want dry toast or a bagel?
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HONG: And it ended up being like cream of wheat with jalapenos.
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HONG: Like, it was very spicy.
GROSZ: You just whipped out that Mexican thing.
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SAGAL: Here is your next quote. And it actually comes from someone running for president.
KURTIS: I guess I wasn't meant to be president.
SAGAL: So that was another presidential candidate facing the facts after a number of high-profile slip ups. Who is it?
TORGERSON: (Laughter) I guess it's either Donald Trump or Gary Johnson or Hillary Clinton?
SAGAL: Well, what if you...
BURBANK: You really covered your bases there, lady.
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SAGAL: No, sorry. It was Jill Stein. You lose.
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SAGAL: Well, what if you hated the two mainstream answers that we, the quiz show, kept insisting that you should choose. And you wanted to go a third way?
TORGERSON: Gary Johnson?
SAGAL: Gary Johnson, yes.
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HONG: Yay, she got there.
SAGAL: Those Americans who think that the two major party candidates are appalling have been turning to Gary Johnson. He's refreshing because he is appalling but in completely different ways.
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SAGAL: A few weeks ago, he said he did not know what the Syrian city of Aleppo was. Not where it was, but he didn't know what the word Aleppo meant. He's like, is that like the sixth Marx brother?
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SAGAL: But the argument is, he then, you know, recovered from this - from his obvious gaffes of not knowing anything about the world. He argued, and I am not kidding, that it is good if a president can't, quote, "dot the I's and cross the T's on a geographic location," unquote, because then he can't order an invasion.
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SAGAL: This was his argument. You can't launch missiles at a place if you don't know where the place is. Also what's a missile?
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SAGAL: This is also a good time to point out that Gary Johnson is a dedicated proponent of legalizing marijuana.
BURBANK: What's amazing is that he said that he stopped smoking when he ran for the campaign, which means that he must have been smoking some like time-release, heavy-duty...
SAGAL: Yeah.
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BURBANK: ...Weed that is just kicking in now...
HONG: Yeah, we need to find his dealer.
BURBANK: ...Like 3 months later. That is amazing though, he said, I guess I'm just not cut out to be president?
SAGAL: Yeah. No he...
BURBANK: And he's going still, like, go get...
SAGAL: No, he wasn't - he wasn't meant to be, that he thinks that it's not working his way.
BURBANK: He's like the Charlie Brown of the election.
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BURBANK: Like, I guess it's just not going to happen for me.
SAGAL: That does explain why he's always being interviewed by a muted trombone.
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SAGAL: (Imitating trombone) I don't know where that is.
Your last quote is the author Stephen King himself tweeting about a scourge sweeping our nation.
KURTIS: Hey, guys, time to cool the hysteria. Most of them are good, cheer up the kiddies, make people laugh.
SAGAL: Mr. King was saying that most of what or whom are good and cheer up the kiddies and aren't menacing horrors?
TORGERSON: Clowns?
SAGAL: Yes, clowns.
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SAGAL: Good for people who were tired of losing sleep over Zika or global warming or the presidential election. Now you can worry about killer clowns. It started in South Carolina and spread. They've been spotted in Georgia, Wisconsin, Florida, of course.
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SAGAL: Creepy clowns hiding in the woods, scaring people on social media, running for president on the libertarian ticket.
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BURBANK: You know, Peter, to your earlier point, I want to mention they are called Juggalo (ph) Americans.
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GROSZ: Oh, yes. I'm sorry.
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SAGAL: Police are trying to get to the bottom of this. They took a mime in for questioning but he wouldn't talk.
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BURBANK: That's why we brought this story up.
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SAGAL: And then...
BURBANK: Wait, it gets worse...
SAGAL: And then you know what they did, the police with the mime?
BURBANK: I know what they did.
SAGAL: They throw him in a box, but he was already in one.
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BURBANK: That's right. I knew that was going to happen. I knew that - you know, you guys, just when you think that he's made a really bad pun, you wait. He's always got another one.
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SAGAL: Bill, how did Jenny do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Let me calculate here. She got them all right, three.
SAGAL: Congratulations, Jenny.
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KURTIS: Jenny, congratulations.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG "THE TEARS OF A CLOWN"
SMOKEY ROBINSON AND THE MIRACLES: (Singing) Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.