Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - Behind the scenes with Peter and Lillian

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

Peter asks Producer and Editor Lillian King why some questions don't make the show. PLUS: Lillian plays those questions!Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey everybody, it's Peter, and I am welcoming you to yet another midweek podcast drop. A lot of people assume that because I am the host of the show, I have all the power. I have no power. Let me introduce you to someone who has all of the power, producer Lillian King. Hello everybody, it's me, Lillian. I have about one twelfth of the power. Well, she has more power than me, and the reason for that is because while I get up and gab into a microphone,

it's all recorded. And then Lillian gets to decide what makes the air. That's true. And a lot of it does not make the air. Why is that true, Lillian? Because as far as I'm concerned,

everything I say is pure gold and the people should be given it. I would neither agree nor disagree. But I would say that that's what we're doing today, Peter. We're going to give the people some of the stuff that didn't make the show. This is not stuff that you cut from the show in your immense power because it was bad. It's just that we didn't have time for it. Yeah, that's true.

We're not going to make the audience listen to a whole podcast with bad panel questions. Failed, miserable jokes. That would be fun. Maybe we can do that if the audience demands it. But in the meantime, what's up first? Well, this first panel question was from a couple weeks ago from our show with Mo Rocca, Helen Hong, and Shane O'Neill. Now, why didn't this make the show? I sort of made the decision that while I personally love hearing you get huge amounts of groans after jokes, I decided that maybe it would be better if there were more laughs than groans. But now we can hear the groans. All right.

Moe, as millions of children are about to find out, what is now much smaller than it used to be. Oh, gosh, I don't know, like tooth fairy compensation? I don't know. As they're about to find out, there's something that's... Something seasonal, something coming up quite soon. Oh, Halloween candy. Yes, Halloween candy, yes. Candy companies are reducing the size of our favorite treats. I do not mind, really, that my Three Musketeers bar is now just two Musketeers, but I'm just not comfortable eating the new premature baby Ruth. I love the ones that take a little time to process. Series of emotions. Does this mean that instead of apples, there'll be little

crab apples? Yeah, like little tiny little apples. Who gives apples? So if it's like a fun size, it's now like a less fun size? Less fun size. Now it's like a mildly diverting size. There's nothing to it. Imagine how mad your neighborhood

creeps are. They didn't find out the news until they had bought full-size razor blades. Wait, so is this like because of inflation? No, that's what you'd think. Right, right. It's actually the fun police. It is. But what it is, according to the candy companies,

is they're not making the candy smaller as so much as healthier smaller candy has fewer calories that's that's right that tiny little kit kat isn't just a match stick of sadness it's a health food so now it's just a bag with a single m exactly just m that's it it is it is weirdly impactful that now and laters are just called tomorrow isn't promised. I found some of those groans not to be so, shall we say, dismissive, but kind of like the kind of yummy noises. Like if you eat something like you really want, and you're like, oh, that's great.

There's a lot of different versions of groans that we've heard on the show. I have a whole folder filled with groans. Do you ever want to listen to them? Like you have a folder of audio clips of just groans. Pretty much. Like if it's a groan that ends in applause, which is a weird emotional arc, you know, sometimes you might need that. There's development. Things change during the course of that groan. It's like a journey. Yeah, it's beautiful. Well, what do we have next? This next one is from our show in Boston with Amy Dickinson, Josh Gondelman, and Alonzo Bowden.

All right. And why did we cut this? This question worked really well as a whole unit, but instead of shredding it to death to try to squeeze it into the show, I just let it go. All right. Amy, authorities say we don't want prisoners getting their hands on cell phones in prison. This week, we found out what could happen when it does. One prisoner in a maximum security prison in Georgia got himself a contraband cell phone and then did what with it? He called someone.

Yes. Well, that's amazing. And then by calling a number of people, he was able to accomplish what? He ordered something. He is a criminal, so he... He stole some money on a phone? Like he scammed... I think this is as close as we're going to get.

Yes, he stole $11 million. And he stole it in the form of gold coins. I have had a phone for 15 years. Exactly. That guy should get the genius grant. Right.

Guy's name is Arthur Cofield. He got a contraband cell phone. He ended up, what is it that he did? He impersonated a billionaire. He called the billionaire's bank. He said, oh, I want to withdraw $11 million. Great. Wait a minute. Wait. Could you please send that money? Thank you. I'm the billionaire. Send it to this place in Colorado that sells gold coins. Great. He bought the gold coins with the stolen money. Then he managed to get the coins shipped back to Atlanta, where he had somebody else use the gold coins to buy him a mansion. And he

did that with his phone, and all you've done is play Bejewel. Wait, he just called the bank? I mean, you can do that and go like, hello. That is the accent I would use. Hello, I am

a billionaire. Sorry, I dropped a billionaire. Hello. Sorry, I dropped my monocle. One moment. That is absolutely... How long did this take him? This took a couple of weeks to pull off. Two weeks of work.

And eventually they found out he did it, and it was all written up in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, an amazing description of the crime, and when the inmate's mother read about it, she was like, oh, and you didn't once call me. And what's perhaps most shocking is that Cofell did this at the age of 29, making him a leading candidate for Forbes' 30 under 30 serving 30. I hope that the time when they picked him up the second time when they caught him and they set his bail, he was like, you take gold corn? So the next two questions, if I'm not mistaken, and I probably am not because you just told me this is the case, we have heard them before, yes? Yes. The next two questions are questions that we did air, but they had way more meat to them. Right.

And sometimes we just can only afford in our time budget to offer the radio listeners a little sliver, a moose boosh of the madness that actually occurred. Yeah, exactly. We just don't have time for all of the fun. But I'm happy that all the fun existed. And now we will hear, you know, some more fun. It's fun. It's fun. And the first question you're going to hear, everybody, is from a show we did with Emmy Blotnick, Alzo Slade, and Adam Felber. And then we're going to move to a different show we did with our panelists Tom Papa, Dulce Sloan, and Hari Kondabolu.

Alzo, McDonald's has just announced a major change to their menu. They'll now be offering, for a limited time, a brand new Happy Meal for whom? For old folks. Exactly, for adults. Yes. I was just being facetious. Yeah. Before you ask, adult Happy Meal does not mean you finally get to see Mary McCheese in the nude. No, it's part of a promotion with a fashion brand, and it is supposed to bring back childhood memories of your parents finally giving up and taking you to McDonald's again. So, an old folks happy meal. Right.

What's the prize? The prize? Well, that's interesting. Dentures. Gold-plated dentures. No, just like the ones for kids, it includes McNuggets, fries, and a toy. But the toys are like reimagined versions of the old characters. So for example, it's Ron McDonald now.

Is my mother dating him twice? Did they make the ball pits deeper? For grown-ups? Is my mother dating him twice? Did they make the ball pits deeper for grown-ups? No? It's very sad when a tall person is in a shallow ball pit. Speaking from experience. I was about to say. I don't know, Emmy.

I don't think it's that you're exceptionally tall. I'm very tall. I think it's that all the other people in the ball pit with you at the time were children. I'll think about this. I feel like old folks shouldn't be eating at McDonald's. Why not? Because it's bad. But if you are what you eat, and McDonald's is full of preservatives,

then it would stand to be that you would just... Live forever. Exactly. Tom, if you're single and tired of dating apps and the bar scene, the hottest new place to find a date, according to Block Club Chicago, is where? The hottest place to find a date nowadays is at vaccination sites. No.

A little poke will do you. No. Valid point. Oh, yeah. I guess everybody's in the mood. They're already stripped down to their... Help me, Peter. I will, I hope.

It's the place you can get a large bunch of Swiss chard and a soulmate. Oh, Swiss chard and... Oh, at the buffet. Where do they sell vegetables? What buffets do you go to where they have big platters with Swiss chard? What else do you put on the big waffles? Where do they sell vegetables at? It's a French laundry.

Oh, at the farmer's market. The farmer's market, Tom, yes. Thank you. More and more people are apparently turning to farmer's 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. Yes.

Apparently, popular farmer's markets can see over 7,000 visitors a day. The likelihood of running into someone who's also in the market, as it were, is 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. I get recognized at farmers markets a lot and I think it's because of all my NPR appearances. It's kind of where my people are. It really is. That is a Venn diagram that is a circle. Yeah. Some farmer's markets are even capitalizing on this trend.

They're setting up, like, matchmaking events at the farmer's market. Like, they put out some wine. They have music. 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. I always thought there was people doing dirty things in the bouncy castle.

They always put it at the end of my farmer's market and there were never kids there. If the bouncy castle's rock and just walk away. This is a terrible idea though. You do not want to meet your loved one at a farmer's market. That's where you get things that you don't actually use. If you meet somebody there, like seven weeks later, you're going to find them at the back

of your refrigerator, all rotten. Listen, you're at the farmer's market to shop organic, so you need to meet organic, okay? What does that mean? That means I'm not here for your little goofy, I don't want to be here for your wine and chips. Don't, don't. It's got to be organic. It's got to be natural.

Don't mess with it. No fertilizers, no pumps. I don't trust y'all to do this right, okay? Don't be like, hey, this is the singles night at the farm. What's going to happen is a bunch of women are gonna show up. That's what always happens at these singles events. It's a bunch of women and there's no men.

So what you need to do is leave it alone. Don't tell the men. No, no, no, no. Tell all the men. The women are gonna just show up anyway. Because we're there to get groceries. The men are there to get ass. Like, pay attention. Oh, man.

That's another weird thing about my farmer's market. The ass booth. It's artisanal ass. Don't play with Tom Poppins farmer's market. Long fermentation. Fermented ass. Who't play with Tom Poppins. Long fermentation. Fermented ass. Who wants that? We're cutting all of this.

Go ahead. Yes, we are. That's why these people paid good money. You will not hear this on Saturday. No, you won't. Lillian, thank you so much for the work you do protecting America from my flaws. I'm glad somebody's doing it.

So I just want to, before we end, I just want to let the audience know, since they just met you, I want to tell them this amazing thing about you that I just recently discovered that I feel that everybody should know. So, okay, here's the thing. Lillian King, our producer, is an indcribably delightful, professional, magical, American girl. Thank you so much. You were great. The power of editing, everybody. Thanks for listening and have a wonderful day. Yes, queen.