CARL KASELL, host: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell. And here's your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL: Thank you, Carl.
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SAGAL: Thank you everybody, you are very kind. Thank you. So, back in 2005, we interviewed actor Tom Hanks on this show. And today, we're going to interview his son, actor Colin Hanks. Colin Hanks has a daughter born just this year. So we've got to stay on the air long enough for her to grow up and get her own TV show, so we can keep the streak going.
But we're ready to hear from you right now. The number, 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924. It's time to welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!
ALEX SHARAPOVA: Hi.
SAGAL: Hi, who's this?
SHARAPOVA: This is Alex.
SAGAL: Hey, Alex, how are you?
SHARAPOVA: I'm okay.
SAGAL: Okay. Where are you calling from?
SHARAPOVA: Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
SAGAL: Oh, Milwaukee's a great town.
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SAGAL: I was about to say that Milwaukee has the best collection of corner bars of any town I've ever been in, but maybe you already know that. I'm getting...
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PAULA POUNDSTONE: They also have shorter streets.
SAGAL: Do they really?
POUNDSTONE: So that they can have more corner bars.
SAGAL: Exactly.
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SAGAL: Every fifteen feet, it's another corner. Well, welcome to the show, Alex. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, the new interim editor-in-chief of the San Antonio Express News, Ms. Kyrie O'Connor.
SHARAPOVA: Hi.
KYRIE O'CONNOR: Hi, Alex.
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SAGAL: Next, an alum of Second City and "The Colbert Report," Mr. Peter Grosz is here.
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PETER GROSZ: Hi, Alex.
SHARAPOVA: Hi.
SAGAL: And, a comedienne performing at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on November 20th, it is Paula Poundstone.
POUNDSTONE: Hey, Alex.
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SAGAL: So, Alex, welcome to the show. You're going to start us off, Who's Carl this Time. Carl Kasell will recreate for you three quotations from the week's news. Your job: correctly identify two of them. Do that, you win our prize. Ready to go?
SHARAPOVA: Yep.
SAGAL: All right, here's your first quote. It comes from a man who is not talking about flowers.
KASELL: I enjoy flowers, like everybody else.
SAGAL: No, that man was explaining why he might have said some interesting things to the ladies who worked for him once upon a time. Who was it?
SHARAPOVA: Herman Cain.
SAGAL: Yes, Herman Cain.
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SAGAL: You got it right. Herman Cain was always a long shot. He raised even more doubts about his fitness for the presidency when it became clear that he does not know the first thing about lying about a sex scandal.
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SAGAL: Now, at first, Cain, he said he had no idea what the charges were about. Then he said, oh yeah, there was that one thing, but we didn't pay out any settlement. And then it was like, oh wait, we did pay that one women, or maybe two women a few month's salary, or maybe it was a year's salary, so they wouldn't talk about it.
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SAGAL: And oh yeah, I just remembered, maybe it did happen, but it is still a lie.
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SAGAL: I swear I was only trying to order a pizza when I told the ladies to hold the sausage. That's all...
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SAGAL: He was in the pizza business. It could have come up.
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SAGAL: Politico, the online journal that broke the story, they came to him and they said, you know, we've got this story, what is your reaction? And they tried this for ten days and they couldn't get a response.
GROSZ: And a reporter walked up to him and said, "Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?" And asked him over and over again, and Cain looked at the ground and he didn't speak. And then he looked at the guy and he said, "Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?"
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GROSZ: And then they were like, "no more questions."
SAGAL: Right.
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GROSZ: So he's a Jedi.
SAGAL: Yeah.
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GROSZ: He made more money in the 24 hours after the allegations came out than he had, like, in any other previous time.
SAGAL: Right.
GROSZ: And I think they should all do it. Romney should be, like, I also, I came on to somebody, but nobody would believe it.
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O'CONNOR: That's exactly right.
GROSZ: You did not. You don't even have sex with your wife.
SAGAL: It is true that Herman Cain does seem to have an amazing faith in his ability to talk himself out of anything, simply by wishing it were so.
POUNDSTONE: You know what it is, years of suggestive selling.
SAGAL: Really?
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, you know, "Can I get a pepperoni pizza?" "Would you like a large?" That's called suggestive selling.
SAGAL: Right.
POUNDSTONE: Did you know that? Have you ever done that job?
SAGAL: I didn't know that. No.
POUNDSTONE: You know how the go "would you like fries with that?"
SAGAL: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, that's called suggestive selling.
GROSZ: I think suggestive selling is what he's in trouble for.
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SAGAL: Very good. Alex, here is your next quote.
KASELL: Let them eat baklava.
SAGAL: That was a headline in the Wall Street Journal blog Marketwatch, talking about the economic crisis where?
SHARAPOVA: Greece.
SAGAL: Yes, Greece, very good, yes.
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SAGAL: The situation in country Greece is complicated; we're going to try to explain it to you in terms of "Grease," the beloved movie musical.
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SAGAL: So, imagine that Frenchy decides to open a hair salon.
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SAGAL: So she borrows a hundred billion dollars from Rizzo. Then Frenchy blows all the money in cigarettes and hairspray and can't pay it back. And Rizzo says, I'll forgive half your debt if you stop buying all those malts. And Frenchy says I love malts. So instead, I'll go back to the Drachma, which sounds like a cool nightclub but is really a currency. And then, all the German banks collapse.
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POUNDSTONE: Wow.
SAGAL: Clear?
GROSZ: We go together like...
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SAGAL: Yeah, and they sing a song and they...
GROSZ: Yeah.
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SAGAL: That's how it works. Now, what's happening right now is the Greeks don't know what to do. Because they could go on this austerity program, which would be brutal, or they could abandon the Euro and go back to their old currency, the hero, which is a delicious sandwich meat they have in abundance.
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SAGAL: But if they did that, the rest of Europe which loaned them all the Euros would be out of luck. Greece is basically the no-good sibling of Europe.
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SAGAL: France is saying to Germany, "You lent him money? I told you not to lend him money, he'd just blow it." And Germany says, "Well, he said he's changed."
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SAGAL: And Greece is, like, during this whole conversation is, like, just lying on the couch in its underwear, saying, "Hey guys, if the phone rings and it's the EU Central Bank, I'm not here."
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GROSZ: I would like for them to actually use Euros as currency, because then they would have to buy Euros with Euros.
SAGAL: That'd be really fun.
GROSZ: And that would be like a great, like, Greek vaudeville routine.
SAGAL: It'd be hilarious.
GROSZ: How many Euros for that Euros? Yes. How many? How many Euros do you want? How many are you going to give me for my Euros? And so on.
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SAGAL: Well, here's the thing, they're arguing over this right now at the G-20 summit in the south of France, and President Obama is having a great time. Because, as the New York Times points out, the U.S. is bankrupt and powerless, so nobody expects him to do anything. So he gets to be the fun guy at the G-20.
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SAGAL: He's been hanging out. He's been saying things like, "Hey guys, let's go to my room and watch 'Transformers' on pay per view."
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SAGAL: We can raid the mini-bar, or as you call it Sarkozy, the perfectly normal sized bar, huh.
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SAGAL: Let me give you a noogie. You know, he's having a good time.
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SAGAL: Alex, here is your last quote.
KASELL: First and foremost, I married for love. It just didn't turn out to be the fairytale I had so badly hoped for.
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SAGAL: That was somebody who was explaining her heartbreak at her divorce after only 72 days of wedded bliss. Who was it?
SHARAPOVA: Kim Kardashian.
SAGAL: Kim Kardashian, indeed, yes.
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SAGAL: Ms. Kardashian is the star of the E Network's hit show "Keeping up with the Kardashians." Recently, if you wanted to keep up with this Kardashian, you would have to marry an NBA player, televise the ceremony as a two-part special event, and then end the marriage before thing was out of reruns.
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SAGAL: The reasons for the divorce were hotly speculated on in the press. He wanted to live a quiet life back home in Minnesota and raise kids. She wanted to keep working as the leading stain on our national honor.
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SAGAL: But she's been getting - do you watch this? Do you watch the keeping up - I had the crash course in Kardashian lore this week, and it's quite amazing.
GROSZ: I cannot bring myself to view that show. I have to say.
SAGAL: The Kardashians as a family make more money per year than like the top four movie stars in Hollywood combined. They make sixty-five million dollars a year.
GROSZ: Well, they're working less, so they have...
POUNDSTONE: Why don't they buy Greece?
SAGAL: That's a thought.
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O'CONNOR: Well, you know, you've got to have a little sympathy for her, this much.
SAGAL: This much. Why? Why do you have sympathy for Kim Kardashian?
O'CONNOR: Because, well, as someone once explained to me, it's not like marriage gets any better after the first year.
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SAGAL: So maybe she made the wise choice. She got out while the getting was good.
O'CONNOR: Yeah, she just cut her losses early.
SAGAL: Yeah, I know.
POUNDSTONE: How long were the Chilean miners trapped?
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SAGAL: Longer than the...
GROSZ: Longer than Kris Humphries.
POUNDSTONE: Wow.
SAGAL: Yeah, longer than Kris.
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SAGAL: Carl, how did Alex do on our quiz?
KASELL: Alex had a perfect game, Peter. Three correct answers, so Alex, you win our prize.
SHARAPOVA: Thank you.
SAGAL: Well done, Alex.
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SAGAL: Thanks for calling. Thanks so much.
SHARAPOVA: Bye-bye.
SAGAL: Bye-bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.