UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: The following program was taped in front of an audience of real, live people.

BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT ... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. Take it easy. I'm just busting your bills.

KURTIS: I'm Bill Kurtis. And here is your host at the Studebaker Theater at the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, Ill., Peter Sagal.

Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody. My gosh.

SAGAL: It's great to see you, too. We really have such a fun show for you today. Later on, we're going to be talking to Julio Torres, formerly a writer for "Saturday Night Live" and now the creator and star of "Los Espookys" on HBO. But first, I want to address a controversy. A few weeks ago, the good people of Oregon got upset because I mispronounced the name of their state on this show. I am sorry, Oregonians. From now on, I will refer to your state properly as South Washington.

HARI KONDABOLU: Yeah. I like it.

SAGAL: ...How to pronounce your beloved home. The number to call is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924 (ph). Let's welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, You're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.

SAGAL: Hey, Alex. Where are you calling from?

ALEX: I'm calling from Syracuse, N.Y.

SAGAL: Syracuse, N.Y., is a beautiful place. We haven't been there in a while, but I do love it. What do you do there?

ALEX: I manage an arcade bar.

SAGAL: Oh, do you have a favorite classic video game?

ALEX: Yeah, I'm a big Pac-Man guy. I've got a Pac-Man tattoo.

SAGAL: Can you actually - and I've only been told in movies that this is possible. Can you actually beat the game?

ALEX: Somebody can. There was a big controversy. Somebody actually faked a high score for the past 30 years and then was found out he was lying. And his title...

SAGAL: My God, it was a hoax? It was a con? If you can't trust Pac-Man...

SAGAL: Well, I'll try to get over it. Welcome to the show, Alex. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First, it's a comedian and host of "The Breaking Bread With Tom Papa" podcast. Back on the panel, it's Tom Papa.

SAGAL: Next, a correspondent for "The Daily Show," and you can see her Oct. 8th at the 10,000 Laughs Fest in Minneapolis and Oct. 14th and 15th at The Comedy Attic in Bloomington, Ind., it's Dulce Sloan.

SAGAL: And a comedian you can see headlining at Teehee's Comedy Club in Des Moines on Oct. 9th and Comedy Works in Denver, Oct. 13 through the 15th, it's Hari Kondabolu.

SAGAL: All right, we've got everybody here. Alex, you're going to start us off with Who's Bill This Time? Bill Kurtis is going to read you three quotations from the week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain just two of them, you will win our prize, any voice from our show you might choose. You ready to go?

SAGAL: All right. Here is your first quote.

KURTIS: It's like running a golf cart into the Great Pyramid.

SAGAL: That was a NASA engineer explaining their successful mission this week to crash a spacecraft into what?

SAGAL: Yes, it worked. Now, this particular asteroid was not headed for Earth. We just wanted to test to see if knocking an asteroid off course was possible in the event one is ever headed for us. And it worked. We did it. So now that asteroid is headed right for us.

SAGAL: Did you watch this?

PAPA: Yeah. I have to say, this is pretty great. And, you know, Alex is really holding back because he is swimming in quarters this week on the Asteroids machine.

PAPA: The Asteroids machine at his place has got to be just going gangbusters.

SAGAL: Yeah, why couldn't they do that? Why couldn't they just send up a little two-dimensional triangle?

KONDABOLU: Well, that's why they did it to begin with. It's a bunch of old nerds who always wanted to blow up an asteroid from playing Asteroids. And now this was their chance...

KONDABOLU: ...To press the button 'cause it wasn't a threat. It was just to do it.

SLOAN: It felt like - like, 'cause, like, you know, people are like, the moon landing wasn't real. The moon landing wasn't - I'm like, it's obviously real 'cause Buzz Aldrin will punch anybody who says it wasn't real.

SLOAN: I don't know if you ever heard about this, but if you come up to him talking smack about that, he will knock you the hell out.

SAGAL: Famously, on camera, he did that once, yeah.

SLOAN: What a blessing. I love, like, all this space stuff. I grew up watching - you know, listening to NPR, watching PBS, and all this other stuff. This is the only thing that NASA has done where I'm going to be like, you know what? This might have been fake.

SLOAN: Because they put the camera in the front.

SLOAN: The only thing I - like, 'cause, like, it crashed 'cause it turned off?

SAGAL: Right. So you think what they did was, like, the asteroid...

SLOAN: That's the confirmation. Well, we don't get no more picture. It crashed. I'm like, no, it could just be off.

SLOAN: If you don't put the - like, if they don't, like, put a selfie stick on it...

SAGAL: Right. Well, you know what they did? This is actually - first of all, it's an interesting idea - like, it went up there, and it just pretended, and it's still up there going, shh, shh.

SAGAL: But what they did, Dulce, is they sent another spacecraft up...

SAGAL: ...Just to film it as it did it. This - it's a completely different spacecraft. It's the world's most expensive Instagram boyfriend.

SLOAN: It's all math. It's all math none of us understood.

SLOAN: It's all math. So, like, OK, we're going to calculate where this asteroid is going. And then, we're going to make it late to whatever it was trying to do.

SLOAN: 'Cause it just came up. 'Cause it's like - it's not like we did - we didn't blow it up. We just pushed it.

PAPA: How much did it move?

SLOAN: It was like, hey, get out of here. And that's - NASA. Like, that's just what happened. NASA went (groan).

SAGAL: Can you imagine when that asteroid showed up late to whatever it was going, it's like, you are not going to believe what happened.

SLOAN: Girl, I was just - listen, I was just going through space, minding my business. And then, all of a sudden, this little, like, silver thing just bumped into me and didn't even say excuse me or nothing.

SLOAN: I was going to bring a present to this party. I'm so sorry. I got bumped into by a whole damn machine.

SAGAL: All right, Alex. For your next quote, here is one of many enthusiastic reactions to an election that happened this week in Europe.

KURTIS: This will end in catastrophe.

SAGAL: Yes, that was a foreign minister in Spain talking about the election of the fascist leader Giorgia Meloni as prime minister of what country?

SAGAL: It's a-me, a-fascism. Giorgia Meloni...

SAGAL: ...The leader of a hard-right party that is a literal descendant of the original fascist party, was elected the new prime minister of Italy. But come on. Hasn't a - has a fascist Italian prime minister ever done anything bad?

SLOAN: No. They've only ever been helpful.

KONDABOLU: She prefers to go by Mussolina (ph).

SLOAN: Listen, this - y'all been asking for equality.

SLOAN: This is what it looks like.

SAGAL: I'm so glad we live in a world in which women can be just as terrible as men.

SLOAN: We've been telling y'all the whole time.

SAGAL: The good news is that, according to experts on Italian government, the government of Italy is kind of designed to be so completely dysfunctional that even though she's prime minister, she can't really do anything bad. So a lunatic is driving the car, but don't worry, we took out the steering wheel.

PAPA: At least Olive Garden still can have all-you-can-eat breadsticks.

SAGAL: That's really all it comes down to.

KONDABOLU: It's weird because, like, a lot of their stance - their political party stance is the idea of, like, refugees are coming to Italy. They're...

KONDABOLU: You know, one thing I read was that refugees are the reason for the crime and prostitution problem in Italy. And I don't know if you can - I've seen a few films, and I'm not sure if they can really claim that unless they're claiming that what they don't like about this crime is that it's unorganized.

SAGAL: Yeah. You know, I was about to say...

KONDABOLU: I feel like you can't really...

SAGAL: No one associates criminals with Italians. What are you talking about?

KONDABOLU: There just isn't a hierarchical structure to this crime.

SAGAL: Yeah, I know. I know. All right, Alex, here is your last quote.

KURTIS: I just twerked and played James Madison's flute.

SAGAL: That was someone who twerked and played James Madison's flute, a 200-year old crystal flute, in fact, in concert in Washington this week. Who was it?

SAGAL: Yeah, turns out, "Lizzo And The Crystal Flute," not just a beloved children's book.

SAGAL: So, yeah, Lizzo was - did a concert in Washington. And before she did the concert, she was invited to see the Library of Congress' flute collection, the largest in the world. And here you are thinking they had things like books. And then, during her concert, they brought out this 200-year-old crystal flute, which had never been played, and she played a few notes. It was amazing. Turns out this was in James Madison's will, right?

SAGAL: And it was a perfectly preserved, this flute. There was even a little smallpox in the mouthpiece.

KONDABOLU: I mean, she's the most famous flute player since George Galway (ph). And I had to Google that to make this reference right now.

SAGAL: Bill, how did Alex do on our quiz?

KURTIS: Alex is so hot. He got them all right.

SAGAL: Alex, thanks so much for playing.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE SOUTH")

CUNNINLYNGUISTS: (Rapping) I swing in from the South Pole down. That's how we do it in the South.

SAGAL: Right now, panel, it is time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Hari, there's a new app on the market that will help dog owners find other dog owners. And it definitely won't ever be used for anything sexual - it won't - despite the fact that the app is called what?

SLOAN: You know what it's called.

KONDABOLU: Does it have the word dog in it?

SLOAN: Say it. Say it.

KONDABOLU: Does it end with the word style?

KONDABOLU: All right. And this is - and NPR...

SAGAL: It's in the Apple App Store. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for us at NPR.

KONDABOLU: OK. Is it Doggy Style?

SAGAL: It is Doggy Style.

SAGAL: Doggy Style the app was invented - it was invented to connect dog owners who all live in the same area so they can set up, like, doggy play dates and other meet-ups, doggy walks. The company hopes it will be much more successful than their last app, which helped women sell their horses. It was called Reverse Cowgirl.

SAGAL: The app seemed like a great idea until the first time you mention it to somebody, and they're like, wait. You need a dog for this?

PAPA: There's nothing worse than when your dog watches, though.

PAPA: That's always a weird feeling.

SLOAN: That's why I'm a cat person.

PAPA: What are you doing to Mom?

SAGAL: What are you doing to Mom?

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WALKING THE DOG")

RUFUS THOMAS: (Singing) Mary Mack dressed in black, silver buttons all down her back. High to low, tip to toe, she broke the needle, and she can't sew - walking the dog, just walking the dog.

SAGAL: Coming up, it's safety first, second and third in our Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play. We'll be back in a minute with more of WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME! from NPR.

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 Dulce Sloan, Hari Kondabolu and Tom Papa. And here again is your host at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago, Ill., Peter Sagal.

SAGAL: Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much. 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.

ERIN MOCKY: Hi, Peter. This is Erin Mocky (ph) calling from Milwaukee, Wis.

SAGAL: Hey. Milwaukee is one of my favorite places. What do you do there?

MOCKY: I work for a company that manufactures probiotics and food cultures. It's really exciting stuff. I even get free yogurt.

SAGAL: Is this, like, the good-biome stuff? The idea is, like, it's supposed to, like, improve your gut flora. Or is that something else?

MOCKY: Well, I'm actually in the livestock side of things, so I'm not as well versed in the human health side. But...

SAGAL: So wait a minute. You're trying to improve the gut flora of livestock.

MOCKY: Correct. Yes. Yeah, so that we can - yeah - to make them healthier.

SAGAL: Isn't forcing a dairy cow to eat yogurt a little cruel?

SAGAL: Yeah. Think about it. Think about it. Well, welcome to the show, Erin. You're going to play our game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction.

Bill, what is Erin's topic?

SAGAL: You cannot be too careful behind the wheel of a car. That's why, to this day, I still drive anywhere sitting in a rear-facing infant car seat.

SAGAL: Our panelists are going to tell you about another way drivers are staying safe. Pick the one who's telling the truth, and you'll win the WAIT WAITer of your choice on your voicemail. You ready to play?

SAGAL: All right, Erin, first, let's hear from Hari Kondabolu.

KONDABOLU: Cars get safer every day, with new features to protect you from the dangers of the open road and a cold butt. But what about protecting you from yourself? Not to worry. Engineers at Toyota have invented the Moral GPS. It doesn't just tell you where you are. It tells you where you shouldn't go. For example, if you're leaving one bar and typing the address of another, it says things like, really, don't you have work tomorrow? Go home. And it then highlights a route home. But this robotic buzzkill can do more than just that. Through machine learning, it finds out where your exes live. And if you attempt to drive to their houses, it immediately initiates a U-turn and sends you right back home. Moral GPS will also refuse to show routes to casinos, strip clubs and IKEA because you're too old to live like that anymore. Quote, "an accident starts to happen long before you get in the car," says chief engineer Tad Matsui (ph). It starts when you say to yourself, if I hurry, I bet I can make it while they still have those free wings during happy hour.

SAGAL: Moral GPS that prevent you from going to places that just aren't good for you. Your next story of auto safety comes from Dulce Sloan.

SLOAN: In an attempt to appeal to young drivers and their parents, Fiat is developing a new line of subcompact cars called the Fiat BMP. Designed to keep new young drivers safer on the road, Fiat has created a new impact system with a spring-loaded barrier running around the entire circumference of the car. These new impact dampeners will distribute the force of any impact around the car and away from the passengers inside. In addition, the car has an open cockpit to allow 360-degree visibility and to keep youngsters off the road if there are hazardous conditions like rain or snow. Fiat had a demonstration of the car At Simen Highschool (ph) in Carlsbad, Calif. The students were very impressed, but the teachers and parents on site were more than a little skeptical. School football coach Martin Hughes (ph) stated, they ain't fooling nobody. These are damn free range bumper cars. This is ridiculous.

SAGAL: The new Fiat BMP, which seems to be just a bumper car you can drive on the street. Your last story of how to survive while you drive comes from Tom Papa.

PAPA: As self-driving cars become commonplace and we are promised that they will run our errands, pick us up and drive us to make-out point, everyone is wondering, will they also run us over and kill us? Well, some Japanese researchers have come up with an eye-popping solution - fitting the car with giant googly eyes. Big cartoon eyes that look something out of a disturbing Pixar movie are put on the front of the car, enabling pedestrians to know that they've been spotted by the car's onboard detection systems. If the car is looking at you, you know it sees you and you can act accordingly. If, however, its googly eyes are looking up at a really sexy billboard, pedestrians will know that the car is a pervert.

SAGAL: All right. One of these is a safety feature of a kind that you might be able to get in a car soon. Is it from Hari Kondabolu, Moral GPS that sort of just keeps track of what's good for you destination wise - from Dulce Sloan, a new car from Fiat, which really is just a bumper car - or from Tom Papa, googly eyes put on the front of autonomous cars so you know if they can see you? Which of these is the real story of a new automotive safety feature?

MOCKY: Oh, I want it to be true, So I'm going to guess C.

SAGAL: You're going to guess C. That would be Tom's story of the googly eyes on the front of autonomous vehicles, right?

SAGAL: OK. Well, to bring you the correct answer, we actually have for you now the sound from a promotional video for the real automotive innovation.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: We introduce gazing car - robotic eyes on cars (inaudible) for pedestrian. Safety.

SAGAL: That was from a promotional video for the gazing car design team. So you did win. You earned a point for Tom just for telling the truth in an entertaining way. But I am thinking, like, autonomous cars are scary. Wouldn't it be more scary if it sort of pulls up and its eyes slowly move to gaze at you?

PAPA: Yeah. Or if it just starts leering at you when it sees you getting into another car.

SLOAN: Really? You're going home with her?

SAGAL: Congratulations, Erin. Thanks for playing.

MOCKY: Thank you so much. You have a great one.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CAN'T TAKE MY EYES OFF OF YOU")

LAURYN HILL: You're just too good to be true. Can't take my eyes off of you. You be like heaven to touch. I want to hold you so much.

SAGAL: And now the game where we invite on really inventive and original people to do the same old thing. It's called Not My Job. Julio Torres has always been as much a designer as a writer. He convinced his family in El Salvador to pay for sending him to New York, and once there, became a comedian, a writer for "Saturday Night Live," and now the creator, writer and star of "Los Espookys," an indescribably delightful TV show now starting its second season on HBO. Julio Torres, welcome to WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.

SAGAL: So anybody who's watched your skits on "SNL" or your comedy special knows you are obsessed with design and objects. Has that always been true? Did your dolls come to life when you were a small child?

JULIO TORRES: Yeah. I mean, my - I played with Barbies a lot when I was a kid. Like, my - I always, like, had these ideas for, like, Barbie houses. And then my mom would help me make them out of cardboard.

TORRES: Because I always wanted, like, very specific window shapes and very specific door shapes.

SAGAL: Right. And now, as you may know, they make houses for Barbie, like the - yeah.

TORRES: Yeah, but they're always like - I don't know why Barbie architecture is always so, like, sexy.

TORRES: It's always like these heart-shaped tubs and like sexy little elevators. And I'm like, no, like, my gals are - have no time for that.

SAGAL: What were you your Barbies doing rather than romancing Ken in the heart-shaped tubs?

TORRES: I think in my mind, the cardboard houses were very, like, bare bones New York lofts.

SAGAL: Really? Kind of like bleak in a way.

TORRES: Very like meatpacking kind of gals.

SAGAL: There's a sketch you wrote for "Saturday Night Live" about Barbie's Instagram feed.

SAGAL: In which three people, especially a character played by Donald Glover, pitched captions for Barbie's Instagram feed. And Donald Glover's captions are incredibly dramatic interior monologues that - about Barbie having basically an ongoing existential crisis.

SAGAL: And I'm assuming that's what you did with your Barbies.

TORRES: Well, there were definitely times where I played the Barbies as if they were slowly realizing they were dolls.

SAGAL: Is what happened is like the Barbie was, like, living in its dream house and looked around and said, what am I doing? I'm a doll.

SAGAL: I am so amazed that some of your sketches for "Saturday Night Live" got on the air because they're so specific, which makes them brilliant. Also, Wells for Boys is kind of amazing. And I'm wondering, did you come up with anything for them that was just too weird for them to broadcast?

TORRES: I don't think too weird, but definitely not funny.

SAGAL: Oh, yeah. That's another problem.

TORRES: I definitely wrote a lot of like, that's interesting. Is it comedy? Probably not. Therefore...

SAGAL: You can remember any of the examples of the ones they just didn't like that you loved?

TORRES: There was this - I remember this one where a woman was throwing a dinner party and she kept being - she kept getting headaches because she could hear the sound of silver.

SAGAL: The sound of silver? You mean like silverware or the metal silver?

TORRES: Like all of it. And she - it was like giving her headaches. And it was definitely more eerie and cinematic than it was funny.

SAGAL: Yeah. Although headaches, usually, in my experience, comedy gold. Am I right, guys? Yeah? Yeah?

SAGAL: I know. So let's talk about "Los Espookys," your show. It just started the second season. This is a true story. So on our staff at WAIT WAIT, we have a number of people, including myself, who love the show, and some people who haven't watched it. There's nobody in-between. And those of us who love the show were trying to explain it, what it is to those who hadn't seen it, and we all failed. We just couldn't do it. So can you explain what "Los Espookys" is?

TORRES: Yeah. Yes. "Los Espookys" is a half-hour television show.

TORRES: And it is about a group of friends in a made-up Latin American country who create false supernatural and horror experiences. But in their world, supernatural things also happen naturally. And none of it is troublesome to anyone.

SAGAL: Right. It's like nobody ever stops and goes, wait a minute, something just actual supernatural just happened. They just go about their day.

TORRES: So like, for example, like the very, very first episode of the show, a priest hires them to orchestrate a fake exorcism so that he can show off to the other priests.

TORRES: But also, my character can speak to the moon.

TORRES: That has nothing to do with anything.

SAGAL: Which he never mentions. I see. When you pitched this to HBO, did they have, like, any questions? They were like, OK, sounds good?

TORRES: You know, HBO is sort of like, in my experience, they're sort of like a cool aunt that is just sort of like, you know, as long as you're happy and you seem healthy, they're like, I don't want to pry.

SAGAL: Whatever you're doing, if it's making you happy. Well, Julio, it is a joy to talk to you, and I love everything that you do, but we're going to see how you do at this, a game we're calling...

SAGAL: So your show is "Los Espookys," but we were thinking about another show that is altogether ooky, "The Addams Family." Answer two to three questions about the '60s spookiest monster-based sitcom that was not "The Munsters," and you'll win our prize for one of our listeners. Bill, who is Julio Torres playing for?

KURTIS: Bethany Matthews (ph) of Phoenix, Ariz.

SAGAL: Here we go. So here's your first question. The Addams Family began even before the TV show as a series of cartoons by Charles Addams - thus the name - in The New Yorker starting in 1938, but it actually stopped appearing in The New Yorker when the TV show started in 1964. And the question is, why? A, Charles Addams couldn't handle the pace of writing both, saying, quote, "I'm not made of creepiness." B, the editor of The New Yorker banned them because anything on TV was too lowbrow for his magazine, or C, The New Yorker cut out all cartoons that year, saying, we shall not laugh until there is peace in Vietnam.

TORRES: So I'm going to go with B.

SAGAL: You're right. That's what happened.

SAGAL: Editor of The New Yorker, William Shawn, famously a snob, would not have the cartoons if they were associated with television.

TORRES: I mean, look at their logo, for crying out loud.

SAGAL: I know. Next question. Dutch Masters Cigars, big sponsor of the TV show, which led to a running gag of Gomez Addams - right, the father? - putting out lit cigars in his pocket. How did the show pull off that trick? A, all of that actor's suit pockets were lined with asbestos. B, Dutch Masters made trick cigars for the show that only looked like they were burning, or C, they would always cut away to a close up of a pinstriped ashtray.

TORRES: Oh, OK. Well, C sounds fun.

SAGAL: Right? At the last minute, pinstriped ashtray. Right?

TORRES: C is how I would solve that problem, but I'm going to say B.

SAGAL: No, it was actually A. The great John Astin, who played Gomez Adams, had a suit with asbestos pockets so he could put out the lit cigar. Entertainment magic. It's amazing. All right. Last question - if you get this right, you win. Although it only ran for two years, the TV show "The Addams Family" was credited with many firsts, such as which of these? A, the first use of computer animation, as the hand playing Thing was all digital. B, it featured the first married couple on TV who were actually hot for each other. Or C, it featured the first on-camera actual murder.

TORRES: I'm going to say - wait a minute, how do you measure - you can't say that this is the first couple that was hot for each other. How do you measure that?

SAGAL: Well, have you ever seen other '60s television?

TORRES: OK, if the answer is B, I am contending that.

SAGAL: All right. So you're saying that even though, say -

TORRES: I'm saying that the answer for this quiz is B.

TORRES: But that is a - that's a problem.

SAGAL: We will accept your correct answer under protest.

SAGAL: Bill, how did Julio Torres do on our quiz?

KURTIS: He got two out of three, and that is good enough to win. Congratulations, Julio.

SAGAL: Julio Torres is one of the creators and stars of "Los Espookys," now in its second season on HBO. It is inexplicable, but trust me, you should watch it. Julio Torres, thank you so much for joining us on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, as well as everything else you do. Thank you so much, Julio.

TORRES: Thank you. Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE ADDAMS FAMILY")

VIC MIZZY: (Singing) They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky. They're altogether ooky, the Addams Family.

SAGAL: In just a minute, we reveal the secret to getting rid of roaches for good in our Listener Limerick Challenge. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to join us on the air. We'll be back in a minute with more of WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME from NPR.

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 Hari Kondabolu, Dulce Sloan and Tom Papa. And here again is your host at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago, Ill., Peter Sagal.

SAGAL: In just a minute, Bill attends Rhyme-y (ph) and Michele's high school reunion on our Listener Limerick Challenge game. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news.

Tom, the CIA is investing in a new technology that, if it works, will bring back what?

PAPA: If it works, it'll bring back the dead.

KONDABOLU: Oh, no. That's not good.

SAGAL: Not quite - not so much dead as extinct.

SAGAL: The CIA is investing in a biotechnology company that believes they can bring the woolly mammoth back via cloning. And if they do that, the woolly mammoths will protect the tundra and stop global temperatures from rising.

SAGAL: Sure, we could do all of that. Or I could just keep bringing my own bags to the grocery store.

SLOAN: Why do we need a new - can we eat it?

SAGAL: That's what we did the first time. There is...

SLOAN: I'm down for new meat.

PAPA: Oh, then, you're going to love woolly mammoth fingers.

SLOAN: I mean, we've all - like, listen, after eating chicken enough times, you're like, bro, I get it.

SLOAN: I don't - why do we need a new animal? Why can't we use the CIA to save the ones we're losing now?

PAPA: Because none are as cool as a woolly mammoth.

SLOAN: We have a Snuffleupagus.

KONDABOLU: What about the other animals that live there already? Aren't they going to be like, what the - what do we...

KONDABOLU: And are they going to eat them? Like, what's going to happen there?

SLOAN: What do woolly mammoths eat?

PAPA: Yeah, it's going to be hell up there.

KONDABOLU: Man, the poor mastodon - nobody thought about the mastodon as an option.

SAGAL: That's true. No, I know. Mastodons are too old, apparently.

SLOAN: You want to see the world burn. OK. I see you.

PAPA: No. Granted, I mean, it's to stop global warming. It's to get these guys up there and...

SLOAN: It's - no, what stops global warming...

SLOAN: ...Is all the stupid stuff that we're doing to the environment, not a new animal. We're bored.

PAPA: Dulce, you're acting like the CIA can't be trusted.

SLOAN: Know what? And no one trusts the CIA more than me.

SAGAL: Tom, if you are single and you are tired of dating apps and the bars, the hottest new place to find a date, we are told, is where?

PAPA: A little poke'll do you.

SAGAL: I will. I'll help you. It's a place you can get a large bunch of Swiss chard and a soulmate.

PAPA: Oh, at the buffet.

SLOAN: Where do they sell vegetables?

SAGAL: What buffets do you go to where they have, like, big platters with Swiss chard?

SLOAN: Where do they sell vegetables at?

KONDABOLU: Is that French Laundry?

PAPA: Oh, at the farmers market.

SAGAL: The farmers market, Tom.

SAGAL: More and more people are apparently turning to farmers markets to find love. It makes sense. If you meet someone there, you know you already have at least one shared interest - paying way too much for vegetables.

SAGAL: Apparently popular farmers markets can see over 7,000 visitors a day. The likelihood of running into someone who's also in the market, as it were - very good. The likelihood of literally running into someone is also pretty good because, oh, my God, why are you people all walking so slowly, right? Jeez.

KONDABOLU: I get recognized at farmers markets a lot, and I think it's because of all my NPR appearances.

KONDABOLU: It's kind of where my people are.

SAGAL: It really is. Some farmers markets are even capitalizing on this trend. They're setting up, like, matchmaking events at the farmers market, with - like, they put out some wine. They have music 'cause nothing's going to get you in the mood like a glass of pinot and eight middle-aged men with fiddles playing Woody Guthrie covers.

PAPA: I always thought there was people doing dirty things in the bouncy castle...

PAPA: ...'Cause they always put it at the end of my farmer's market, and there were never kids there.

SAGAL: If the bouncy castle's rocking, just walk away.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SHE THINKS MY TRACTOR'S SEXY")

KENNY CHESNEY: (Singing) Plowing these fields in the hot summer sun, over by the gate - Lordy, here she comes with a basket full of chicken and a big cold jug of sweet tea.

SAGAL: Coming up, it's Lightning Fill in the Blank, but first, it's the game where you have to listen for the rhyme. If you'd like to play on air, call or leave a message at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Or click the contact us link on our website, waitwait.npr.org. You can catch us live, in person most weeks here at the beautiful Studebaker Theater in Chicago, and in Boston October 20 and at Carnegie Hall in New York City December 8 and 9. And you can catch the WAIT WAIT stand-up tour. Kalamazoo, Mich., Portland, Ore. and Eugene, Ore., are now on sale. Tickets and info for all of that at nprpresents.org.

Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.

RACHEL KAZEZ: Hi. This is Rachel Kazez from Chicago, Ill.

SAGAL: What do you do here in town?

KAZEZ: By day, I'm a therapist, and on the side, I run a small business helping people find therapy, and I'm a race announcer for endurance sports.

SAGAL: Oh, my gosh. What kind of endurance sports? Are you doing, like, ultra races, Ironman, what?

KAZEZ: I just did my first Ironman recently, actually. And I mostly do things like half marathons, marathons, 5K, 10K. I read your memoir. It was awesome.

SAGAL: Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. And I'm not going to make fun of you anymore.

SAGAL: Rachel, welcome to the show. Bill Kurtis is going to read you three news-related limericks with the last word or phrase missing from each. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly in two of the limericks, you will be a winner. You ready to play?

SAGAL: All right. Here's your first limerick.

KURTIS: Our wiretap network will contrast Earwolfs and Gimlets, well-trod paths. It's our spies' PR scheme to record you and stream. Yes, the CIA now has a...

SAGAL: "The Langley Files" is the CIA's new podcast. It's finally here. It's meant to show people that, actually, working for the CIA is really, really quite dull. Finally, a boring podcast. The first episode features an interview with CIA director Bill Burns, who says that the job is mostly patient, quiet work, while also taking credit for some of the CIA's recent successes, including Putin's plans to invade Ukraine and their assassination of Queen Elizabeth.

SLOAN: Yo. I don't think the CIA knows what it's doing anymore.

SLOAN: Why is the CIA telling - having a podcast? You're supposed to be telling secrets.

SLOAN: You be telling secrets. Like, I thought the whole point of the CIA was to murder people and to be quiet.

SAGAL: Right. Well, the management - remember, the management of the CIA is still mainly white men, and eventually, all white men have to have a podcast.

SLOAN: These white men are bored. Get a mistress, bro. This is stupid.

KONDABOLU: I wonder if the NSA is going to have a podcast.

KONDABOLU: Imagine if it was just snippets of our phone conversations.

KONDABOLU: That'd be amazing - the best of you.

SAGAL: Here is your next limerick.

KURTIS: To kill a disgusting fridge grazer, I brought in an AI appraiser. We'll bring on the fight with some amplified light. It will zap every roach with a...

SAGAL: ...A tiny laser designed to kill cockroaches, eliminating the one remaining reason to buy a magazine.

SAGAL: The laser - done. They just killed the industry. The laser has different power levels. At a lower level, the roaches are simply sort of warded away. At the useful level, the bugs can be tracked and killed with a laser controlled by artificial intelligence. This is great. Burning household pests used to be a helpful clue that your kid was a future serial killer. Now it's for everyone.

PAPA: But then you got to pick up the bodies. And the good thing about roaches is when I lived in New York, like, you would come in - I mean, we were riddled with roaches. But when you turn the light on, they all hid.

PAPA: So you could pretend you didn't have roaches.

SAGAL: What you'd have to do - I had this problem, too, when I lived in New York - 'cause you'd have to sort of just sort of - without going into the room, you just reach in, turn on the light and just wait a second before you turned into the room.

SAGAL: And you were like, oh, no roaches here.

SAGAL: You'd say it loudly so the roaches knew not to come out again. Yeah.

SLOAN: We lived different lives in New York.

SAGAL: Yeah, I guess so. Yeah.

SLOAN: But wait. But y'all aren't thinking about - is the smell.

SLOAN: You think burnt hair is bad? You think burnt roach won't be terrible?

SAGAL: Well, it's not entirely inhumane. On the lightest setting, the laser just zaps the roach's bikini line.

SLOAN: Love a summertime roach.

SAGAL: It's true. Here is your last limerick.

KURTIS: These kids and their dang flipping phones just stare like some worshipping drones. I just wish they would wake, find flat rocks by a lake and spend quality time skipping...

SAGAL: For some, skipping stones is just a fun way to spend time with loved ones without actually having to talk to them. But for Kurt Mountain Man Steiner, it's his life. This week, we learned that the professional stone-skipper set a world record of 12 skips.

SAGAL: Wow. I'm just kidding. The world record is 88 skips. But for a moment, I wanted all the dads listening to feel really good about themselves.

SAGAL: Eighty-eight. And you can see it on video.

SAGAL: It's not easy, and it's - it takes over your life. For Steiner, it turned into an obsession that ended his marriage. What can we say? He was out of rocks, and his wedding ring was a little small, but otherwise perfect. It's a big cost to play a sport where the top prize in the top competition, as far as we can tell - this is true - you get a trophy and a pound of fudge. That's what you get.

SAGAL: Although, no one's knocking a pound of fudge, especially after a divorce.

KONDABOLU: I have a feeling she left him.

KONDABOLU: I have a strong suspicion that it was her call.

KONDABOLU: This is what it was for - fudge?

SAGAL: Fudge. Fudge. Bill, how did Rachel do on our quiz?

KURTIS: Fantastic. Rachel, you were really good. All right.

SAGAL: Thank you so much for playing, Rachel. Maybe we'll see you at a race one of these days.

KAZEZ: That'd be amazing. Thank you so much.

SAGAL: Now on to our final game, Lightning Fill In The Blank. Each of our players will have 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill-in-the-blank questions as they can. Each correct answer now worth two points.

Bill, can you give us the scores?

KURTIS: Dulce and Hari have two apiece. Tom has three.

PAPA: Oh, it's mine to lose.

SAGAL: All right. I'm going to arbitrarily choose Hari to go first. So, Hari, fill in the blank. After devastating parts of Florida midweek, Hurricane blank made landfall in the Carolinas on Friday.

SAGAL: Following the announcement of Liz Truss' temporary budget, the blank fell to record lows against the dollar.

SAGAL: Yes, the pound sterling.

SAGAL: This week, Russia granted citizenship to former U.S. security consultant blank.

SAGAL: On Tuesday, the funeral for Shinzo Abe, the assassinated former prime minister of blank, was held.

SAGAL: This week, the Buffalo Bills scored a safety against the Miami Dolphins after the Dolphins attempted a punt and their kicker blanked.

KONDABOLU: Ran out of bounds.

SAGAL: No. Hit the teammate right in the butt with the punt, which knocked the ball out of bounds.

SAGAL: This week, New York announced it was advancing plans to ban blank-powered cars by 2035.

SAGAL: This week, a woman in Sweden who wanted the word...

SAGAL: ...Meow tattooed inside her lip was heartbroken after the tattoo artist blanked.

KONDABOLU: Turned into a cat and scratched her face.

SAGAL: No, she tattooed the word meow on the outside of her lip.

SAGAL: The woman shared the mistake on TikTok, where she showed everyone her lower lip, which had the word meow tattooed on it in giant block letters. She said she's feeling better about things now that she's getting laser removal, and her lip just says, ow.

SAGAL: Bill, how did Hari do on our quiz?

KURTIS: He got five right, 10 more points, total of 12 and the lead.

SAGAL: You're up next, Dulce.

SLOAN: I don't know nothing.

SAGAL: Well, we'll find out.

SAGAL: On Thursday, officials in Russia announced Putin's plan to annex four regions in blank.

SAGAL: On Tuesday, the S&P 500 officially fell into blank market territory.

SLOAN: One of them animals.

SAGAL: Yes, and, specifically, a bear. Amid another missile launch, Vice President Harris made a visit to the DMZ in blank.

SAGAL: On Monday, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that President Biden's blank relief plan would cost about $400 billion.

SAGAL: Student debt relief, right.

SAGAL: Much to the dismay of residents in Emeryville, Calif., the famous blank cafe has announced it will close.

SAGAL: Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe.

SAGAL: On Wednesday, McDonald's announced they were launching a blank meal aimed at adults.

SAGAL: Best known for the hit song "Gangsta's Paradise," rapper blank passed away at the age of 59.

SAGAL: This week, an Australian man who was in his kitchen...

SAGAL: ...Baking when two robbers broke into his house blanked.

SLOAN: Hit him with a pan.

SAGAL: Close. He picked up a knife and said, well, you've f'd my cheesecake. Game on.

SLOAN: So he went full Dundee on them.

SAGAL: He absolutely did. The two thieves had already ransacked his garage when they were chased out of the home by the furious baker who brandished the knife while yelling, well, you've f'd my cheesecake, game on, which, spoiler alert, is also how this season of "The Great British Bake Off" ends.

SAGAL: Bill, I think Dulce did pretty well.

KURTIS: She did very well - five right, 10 more points, total of 12 - ties Hari.

SAGAL: So how many, then, does Tom Papa need to win this?

KURTIS: Tom, five to win.

SAGAL: All right. Here we go. This is for the game. On Tuesday, the Senate advanced a bill aimed at averting a blank.

SAGAL: On Wednesday, a judge sentenced one of the blank rioters to 86 months in prison.

SAGAL: On Monday, Cuba passed a referendum legalizing same-sex blank.

SAGAL: On Wednesday, the Yankees' Aaron Judge tied Roger Maris' blank record.

SAGAL: In a single season, yes.

SAGAL: This week, a woman checking in on her Southwest flight...

SAGAL: ...Was informed that her suitcase was over the weight limit. So she blanked.

PAPA: So she threw it off the plane.

SAGAL: No. So she took her chicken suit out of the bag and put it on.

SAGAL: Bill, did Tom Papa do well enough to win?

KURTIS: So close - four right, eight more points, 11 - one short.

KURTIS: Hari and Dulce tied for the win.

SAGAL: Now, panel, what historical artifact will make the news next? Tom Papa.

PAPA: As seas continue to rise, we're bringing back Noah's Ark.

SLOAN: Kim Kardashian wore Marilyn Monroe's dress. Lizzo played James Madison's crystal flute. And RuPaul will wear Thomas Jefferson's wig to the MTV Music Awards.

KONDABOLU: Tucker Carlson will wear Christopher Marlowe's codpiece, and there will still be room.

KURTIS: Well, if any of that happens, panel, we'll ask you about it on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.

SAGAL: Thank you, Bill Kurtis. Thanks also to Tom Papa, Dulce Sloan and Hari Kondabolu. Thanks to our fabulous audience here at the Studebaker. That's for all of you for listening at home. I'm Peter Sagal. We'll see you next week.

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