Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - Best of WWDTM October 2020

Episode Date: October 17, 2020

This week we share some of our favorite moments from the past year, featuring Sarah Cooper, Dan Riskin, Padma Lakshmi, and Adam Rippon.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm not going to settle in and spend time with you. It's just a courtesy visit. I'm Bill Curtis, and here is your host who's convinced that if he just walks around his house in the other direction, he'll reach the West Indies. Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. It is the week of Columbus Day when we celebrate the fact that when the Europeans showed up, the people living here made the mistake of leaving the door unlocked.

If only they had simply safe home security, none of this would have happened. As we reflect on whether or not just to give it all back to the original inhabitants and see if they can do any better, we thought we'd demonstrate one of the few upsides of American civilization. Wait, wait's not my job segment. I was really hoping we'd feature more limericks. Sorry, Bill. Now on this show, we like to inform and entertain,

and when necessary, defend the honor of bats. The pandemic has been blamed on bats. We decided to get someone on to speak in their defense, biologist Dan Riskin. The first thing we need to know, why is he spending so much time with bats anyway? Well, I really like them. I did my PhD on vampire bats and I've studied bats all over the world. And I'm kind of famous for being the guy that put vampire bats on a treadmill. So if that doesn't get me free credit, I don't know what to do. I have so many questions, but why did you put vampire bats on a treadmill? Well, so most bats are really bad on the ground. If you take a normal bat and you put it on the ground,

it just flaps its wings and gets back in the air. But vampire bats land on the ground, they sneak up on a sleeping cow, they drink its blood, and then they take off and fly away. And so they walk really, really well. And so I was curious to know whether these bats, which have secondarily evolved the ability to walk well, walk the way other animals

do. And so I put them on a treadmill like you do for a biomechanics study. And I recorded them with a high speed camera while they walked at different speeds. But when I sped the treadmill up, they switched to this running gait and nobody knew they had that. And so this was my great big discovery is that vampire bats could run. Were the bats grateful for the workout or did they try to attack you and drink your blood? We had one escape in the room. And I'll tell you, I have this new respect for vampire bats based on that. They're so smart. Like if you've got a dog cornered in a room, you know how it would react and look at you and how it would try to get around you. Vampire bats look into your eye. They see through your soul and they

are way smarter than dogs. And so they're doing calculations. They're taking off. They're zipping around the room. It's very hard to catch a bat. You only made them faster, Dan, by giving them so much exercise. I've unleashed an evil I wasn't ready for. I want to go back to bat basics because I like bats a lot. But primarily, I don't know a lot about them. I think they're just adorable. And I also know they come from itsy bitsy to very, very big.

Well, you're right. Bats are really diverse. I think that's really what makes me interested in them now is that there are more than 1,400 different species. And the smallest one weighs less than a penny. The biggest one has a six-foot wingspan. And there's a whole range of bats in between. But the thing that got me started was I was in high school, and picked up a book on bats and it talked about their genitals. And when I was in high school,

I figured out that I could get away with reading about obscure animal genitals and mating habits and how big their parts were. And I thought it was hilarious because I had a high school sense of humor. And it turns out that a lot of scientists have the same sense of humor that i did when i was in high school you were pretty popular in high school then not not popular i was desperate in high school too but i wasn't that desperate wait you guys you're not asking the important question is there something unusual about bat genitals well i don't know i can't speak for everyone on the panel but it's different from me for sure so these bats um some of them some of the males don't have fangs either good thing this is radio some of these bats they can weigh like a huge percentage of their body

weight it's really impressive and it's funny in high school and it's still funny now okay hold on hold on no we have to get back to the news because one of the reasons we wanted to have you on the show was just to ask, are bats in fact the cause for this global pandemic? They've been blamed for it. Is that unfair? was a bat. But it's not the bat's fault. It's just bad luck that we have a receptor on our cells that's very similar to the receptor that's on these bat cells. And if the bats were alone in the woods, in their pristine ecosystems, and they weren't coming into contact with people, there would have been no problem. And so this is a time when we have to really embrace bat conservation and the conservation of wild animals and keep wild places wild so that we're not coming into contact with wild viruses or we could just have the bats wear masks it's tricky it's tricky because they echolocate so that would really mess up with their their call structure that's true do bats not like even vampire bats don't attack humans i wish i

could say that but technically well they do so that's the thing that's the scariest thing he's talking he's talking about how cute it is and he's got all these great attributes all i can think of is the one sneaking up on the cow and sucking its blood of course they're horrifying roxanne loves these bats no these are horrible creatures also he told us he taught them to run my god we are in deep trouble has a bat ever bitten you uh oh yeah well sure i mean i catch the bats and i'm working with the bats and they don't like being caught by a giant human and so they they bite in self-defense if you have been bitten by a vampire bat are you yourself now a bat Are you going to turn into a bat now? I wish.

He's a bat. Dan's a bat. This guy shows up on our show talking all nice about, he's a bat. I'm playing for the other team, clearly. No wonder you're such an enthusiast. That's why we should lend bats money. So you're an expert on bats, I know, but I understand you're also an expert on parasites. Yeah, I had my PhD on vampire bats, which technically are parasites because they feed on blood.

Can you tell us about a particularly gross parasite you've had some experience with? Well, sure. I mean, out of all the parasites. His name was Brayden and he was my ex and I wasn't talking to you, Joel. and he was my ex, and I wasn't talking to you, Joel. Fortunately, I've not had any interactions with Brayden, but I have had a bot fly. So I was in Belize, and I got a mosquito bite,

and unbeknownst to me, when the mosquito bit me, it dropped off this egg, which then molted into a larva, and then the larva went down into the hole that the mosquito had made, and then it started growing. And so I got back to Canada, where I and I got this mosquito bite on top of my head and it starts growing. And anyway, I don't know what Braden's like, but I felt like that was pretty good. I have a last question, Dan. Roxanne, can I ask, is the question, how are we ever going to sleep again? is the question, how are we ever going to sleep again?

Well, Dan Riskin, we've invited you here to play a game we're calling All the Flavor of Guano with None of the Calories. You're an expert on bats, but if you spell bat backwards, you get tab, a vaguely disgusting soda we were shocked to learn is still being made. Oh, God. We're going to ask you three questions about that diet cola, get two right, and you win our prize for one of our listeners. Bill, who is Dan playing for? Sam Trotter of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

All right, here is your first question. When Tab was created, some at the Coca-Cola company were skeptical. Which of these is a real quote from one of Coca-Cola's ad people in the 1960s? Is it A, quote, if God had wanted Coca-Cola to have saccharin in it, he would have made it that way in the first place? B, quote, this is unfit to wash my dog with, and I hate my dog. Or C, this will be popular until the mid-80s tops, but by the time a young Bill Clinton takes office in 1993, it will have been replaced by other beverages. I'm going to go with B. No, actually,

it was A, if God had wanted Coca-Cola to have saccharin in it, he would have made it that way in the first place. I guess this guy was not quite clear on where Coca-Cola actually comes from. Oh boy, oh boy. All right, that's okay. You still have two more chances. Don't worry about it. Here we go. Next question.

In 1992, Coca-Cola debuted Tab Clear, and the company's chief marketing officer said they had a very specific goal for it. What was the mission of Tab Clear? A, to set the stage for their next product, Tab Clearasil. B, to make a drink so unliked and unpopular it would kill off Pepsi's similar product, Pepsi Clear, by association. Or C, to quote, finally defeat water once and for all. B. That's right. They tried to kill off Pepsi's similar product, Pepsi Clear, just by association, and it worked.

Pepsi Clear is no more. Last question. If you get this right, you win. Tab's name came about when they had a computer randomly generate words for them to choose from. There were other contenders. Which of these was almost the name of Tab? Was it A, Abzu, B, Zap, or C, Zuff? Zap. You're right. Zap is correct. But so was Abzu and Zuff.

They were all names considered for the product that became Tab. Bill, how did Dan do? So smart. He's two out of three. It means he's a winner. That means you get to go back home before midnight. Dan Riskin is an evolutionary biologist and bat expert. His book, Mother Nature is Trying to Kill You, is available anywhere books are sold.

Dan Riskin, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thanks for having me. Thank you. You know, sometimes our show runs long, and we don't get to share with you everything that happens. So here's a question we haven't broadcast before. It's Peter and panelist Tom Bodette. Tom, smart speaker technology is still popular for some reason. And if you really love it, you can now have it where? You can have it in your glasses.

Yes, exactly right. You can have your smart speaker on your face. If you wish your smart speaker could come with you wherever you are and scream the weather directly into your ears, then the Amazon Echo Frames are for you, you freak. The glasses have tiny speakers near your ears so you can have all the amenities of your Echo at home wherever you are, all while appearing to everyone around you as if you're insane. You remember Google Glass? That's when they put, you know. Yeah, yeah.

Well, Amazon is rethinking one of the most tech failures of all time by repeating it exactly. If they want to do that right, this is a pair of computer glasses I would buy. It's loaded with the latest facial recognition software. And as you're walking up to people, it tells you what their name is. Oh, God. I would pay $1,000 for that. Any amount of money. Maybe a little bit about him.

This is Leo. He's your second-born son. Yeah. Just a little bit. The frames alert you out of nowhere when you get any app notification at all, so that everlasting stream of nonsense is even closer to your brain.

You can also listen to music for three hours until the batteries die, but don't worry, the sound quality sucks. According to the Washington Post, quote, nobody asked for this. I've had reviews like that. When we come back, the secret work of art that would solve your problems if only you could see it, and Padma Lakshmi, the only person in the world who looks fantastic while she is eating.

We'll be back in a minute with more Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR. I'm Rodney Carmichael. And on this episode of Louder Than a Riot, did bias against rap lyrics seal the fate of No Limits Mac Phipps? This guy should be incarcerated. And I know that his music got him incarcerated, but they got the wrong guy. Listen now to the Louder Than a Riot podcast from NPR Music.

From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis, and here's your host, who's still not entirely convinced the world is round, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. We are sailing across the ocean of news for this year, still hoping against hope that it will be flat and we will mercifully fall off the edge. That's right. Back in March, if you can remember back that far. Life seemed pretty good, and we were excited to learn about a secret from the entertainment industry that would make our lives even better. Here's a Bluff the Listener game featuring our version of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, meaning the Paula, the Luke, and the Maz Jobrani.

Hi, this is Liz Colandini from Burke, Virginia. Burke, Virginia? I don't know where that is. What part of Virginia? So it's actually like 20 minutes outside of D.C. if there's no traffic. Oh, I see. But I know some people in Virginia who would say, that's not really Virginia, that's northern Virginia. Oh, yeah, well, we're the cool part of Virginia. You're the cool part. Liz, it is great to have you with us. You're going to play the game in which you must

try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Liz's topic? What do we want it now? What do we want? I don't know. This week we heard about a piece of art or entertainment being held back under lock and key, and the people are demanding access to it. Is it that episode of Hannity where he admits he voted for Hillary?

Our panelists are going to tell you. Pick the one that's telling the truth and you'll win our prize, the weight-waiter of your choice in your voicemail. Ready to play? Yep. First up, let's hear from Luke Burbank. For over five centuries, art fans have been wondering, what exactly was the Mona Lisa smiling about in da Vinci's classic

painting? Well, we may finally have an answer. She was stoned out of her ever-loving mind, at least according to an article published last week in the Oxford Art Journal by Hallie Sadal, a prominent Renaissance scholar. Her evidence for this? An earlier portrait of the Mona Lisa, painted the day before the famous one, by da Vinci, which is similar in every way, except that in this version, Mona Lisa appears to be holding, as the Italians would say, de ginto de marijuana, a big old fat reefer in her right hand. According to the research paper, Lisa Gerardini, the Italian noblewoman who we think of as the Mona Lisa, suffered from terrible migraines and only found relief through cannabis. Da Vinci, being a noted inventor as well

as artist, had designed the first indoor grow operation, complete with skylights and a complex system for irrigating the plants. Now, no one has actually seen the painting where Mona Lisa is holding the joint. Sadal, the art expert, found one mention of it in a diary that was kept by one of da Vinci's assistants, which suggests that the canvas was actually turned around so da Vinci could paint on the other side. She believes the leading candidate for this masterpiece in the front, party in the back, is da Vinci's painting of Saint John the Baptist because of the microscopic cheese crumbs embedded in the paint, indicating the artist may have had the munchies at the time of painting. A long-lost version of the Mona Lisa, which might explain what that smile means.

Your next story of in-demand media comes from Paula Poundstone. Writer-director Ben Meckler recently attempted to view the digital release of the movie Cats on his home screen. Partway through, he tweeted his cry for help. Quote, I desperately need a tell-all book about the making of Cats. It could really help me get through this, end quote. Fellow writer Jack Waz responded with a tweet that, I, Paula Poundstone, will not be allowed to use the exact term because of broadcast radio restrictions, but I will read part of the controversial term and you fill in the rest with what is a golfer aiming his ball towards on a golf course. Here is writer Jack Wise's tweet that started a movement. Quote, a visual effects friend of a

friend was hired in November to finish some of the 400 effects in the Cats movie. His entire job was to remove CGI butt that had been inserted a few months before, which means somewhere out there, there exists a butt cut of cats, end quote. Soon, hashtag release the butt cut was trending. Now that it has been unleashed, this public demand for anatomically correct animated movie animals surely won't stop there. Online pleas of hashtag where are bucks privates will follow the home release of Call of the Wild. And that of the new King Kong will be dogged by hashtag release Kong schlong. The probably mythical but much demanded but cut of cats.

And finally, let's hear about something that people desperately want to see from Maz Jobrani. Finally, let's hear about something that people desperately want to see from Maz Jobrani. Before George Lucas sold his Star Wars franchise to Disney, he had an out-of-the-box idea. What would it be like to do a podcast featuring all of his favorite characters being interviewed by Yoda? And he would call it a Yodcast. Believe it or not, the Yodcast happened. And the tapes are hidden somewhere deep in a bunker in Burbank because Disney does not want them to see the light of day. Why, you ask?

Interestingly enough, one other out-of-the-box idea Lucas had was to have his golfing buddy Joe Pesci be the voice of Yoda in the Yodcasts. As one could imagine, the 10-episode series quickly went from a podcast for all fans to a podcast for adult fans. The Burbank Gazette was able to obtain some clips of the series where Pesci is heard saying, Hmm, your name, what is, why am I talking like this? To which the director replies, that's how Yoda talks. He flips his sentences. To which Pesci replies, How about I come over there and flip a couple of sentences up your... And it goes downhill from there. When he interviews Luke Skywalker, Pesci is heard saying, What's the Force mean to you?

What kind of stupid question is that? Later, he asks Han Solo, When Chewbacca goes... Do you actually understand that crap? Although fans are clamoring to have the podcast released, Disney executives deny the tapes even exist. When the Gazette tracked down George Lucas and Joe Pesci on the golf course and asked them, Pesci replied,

you better get out of my face before I use the force to smack you over the head with this golf club. All right, then. One of these things, Liz, might actually exist, and if it does, people want to see it. Was it from Luke, a version of the Mona Lisa in which she is holding a spliff of some kind, from Paula Poundstone, the butt cut of cats,

which is, I guess, the more anatomically correct version, and from Maz, a Yoda podcast with a very profane Yoda as voiced by Joe Pesci. Which of these really might be out there just tempting the fans? Well, I actually know the answer because I want to see the cat butts. You want to see the cat butts? Yes. So you're choosing Paula's story of the special cut of cats before they erased the cat butts. That is correct.

Well, to bring you the real answer, we spoke to someone deeply involved in the real story. The decision was made to no longer include the butts in the movie Cats, so a visual effects producer was brought in to erase all the realistic cat butts. That was Jack Waz, the man behind the movement called Release the B***. Congratulations, Liz. You got it right. You knew it all along. I hope you are able to see Idris Elba's fake cat butt before you die.

Thank you. You also earned a point for Paula, and you've won our prize, the voice of your choice on your voicemail. Thank you so much, Liz, for playing with us today. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Meow, meow, singing by the Alley Cat Blues. When Padma Lakshmi made her Netflix show, Taste the Nation, she thought it would be just a celebration of American regional cuisine. What she didn't know was that by

the time it was broadcast, it would be a kind of wild fantasy about a strange world in which we could travel around and talk to people. The first question for Padma Lakshmi is, does she really have a superpower, being a super taster? Yeah, I mean, it sounds more impressive than it is. It's like, you know, the human version of when dogs can hear whistles that humans can't. Did you know there was something different about you growing up? Did you know that you were special? I don't know about special, but definitely my family thought I was weird or strange because even when I was a toddler, I really enjoyed very spicy foods and, you know, very spicy for Indian cuisine. And so I would always seek out really spicy pickles and chilies in my grandmother's kitchen.

And they kept moving those jars higher and higher on the pantry shelves. And then I would just climb them like a monkey. And basically, you know, one time I was there and the glass was oily and it slipped from my hand and it fell. And I was just hanging there for a really long time because if I jumped down, I would have jumped onto glass and oil. And, you know, my aunt saved me. But I've always had a very keen sense of taste and smell, which is not always great if you're dating me. But yes, like my partner tastes like four showers a day. We were talking earlier on the show about what we've been eating during

the pandemic. How have you been doing? Have you been cooking at home? I assume you're quite a good chef. Yeah, I was cooking at home. In fact, I was cooking five minutes ago. You know, the first thing I did in pandemic was go out and buy like 25-pound bags of rice and lentils, whereas my daughter was hoarding Cheerios and my partner was hoarding weirdly dried apricots and peanut butter. And we still have like 47 boxes of cereal, and I'm pushing the cereal. I'm pushing an all-carb diet because I need space in my pantry. Is it possible that he got like the dried apricots and peanut butter because he thought it might make him smell a little better? One can hope.

I consider myself a decent cook, but I've gotten so bored with my own cooking, I just can't think of anything that interests me to eat anymore. I'm like, can they invent a new animal or something? I get sick of my own cooking, believe me. The other day I was like, can somebody else cook, please? Your daughter was like, I'm going to make a Cheerios casserole that you are going to love.

It's topped with dried apricots. Totally. You must have been at some time in your career in a situation where somebody lovely who you love has made you some dish and it's terrible and you're not going to tell them that, what do you say? I don't say anything. You know, just like I made it my mission to not ever lie to my daughter

and I just talk around difficult questions, I just don't say anything. I mean, I'm thinking of a particular Passover dinner at, you know, some, my daughter's father's relative's house. And I just didn't say anything. I just, you know, I hope she doesn't listen to this show. Oh, if she's an older Jewish woman, she absolutely does. I'm sorry. So I wanted to talk to you about your show, Taste the Nation, which is awesome. You travel the country and you immerse yourself for the episode in various communities and talk about their food as part of their culture. And it's great. What do you do if you're eating somebody's cooking and you really don't like it? On this show, because I've created the show

and I'm choosing where to go, I'm going there for a particular reason. I have to say, though, in the Native American episode, I was very nervous. I was kind of shaking in my boots about that pack rat. It was my first rodent. Sure. I'd never had anything like it.

I've eaten a lot of funky stuff over the years, as you can imagine. I had pack rat glazed with a sumac agave sauce, and it was divine. We're going to have it for Thanksgiving if I can catch it. You should have it. You should have your in-laws over and have it for Passover. Exactly. You're saying pack rat?

Is that what you're saying? Because I don't know what kind of – I just know rat. I don't know. You should describe a pack rat for everybody. a pack rat is a very small desert animal it nests in bushes it has a tail it's furry you need about eight of them to be full if you're just eating the legs I can tell you this from personal experience now and you know when it's done because you boil it until the tail falls off. I don't know anything about your personal life, nor do I want to pry.

But the one thing I would guess could break up a relationship between a Jew and a non-Jew is Manischewitz wine. Like, you drink this stuff? I got to tell you, at that first Passover dinner, the way the food was, I was begging for a goblet of Manischewitz. Oh, that's really bad food then. When someone says pass the Manischewitz, you're like, you must hate my food. Totally. Well, Padma Lakshmi, it is a delight to talk to you, but we have invited you here to play a game we're calling Top Chef Meet Top Ref. So you know and work with the best chefs in the world.

What do you know of the top refs? We're going to ask you three questions about sports referees. Answer two correctly and you'll win our prize for one of our listeners, the voice of anyone they might choose for their voicemail. Bill, who is Padma Lakshmi playing for? Christopher Price of San Diego, California. All right. One of the pioneers of refereeing was hockey ref Fred Waghorn, who was responsible for what important innovation in refereeing. Was it A, he introduced the striped uniform because, quote, I find it quite slimming. B, he was the first ref to eject a player by picking him up and carrying him off the rink. Or C, he was the first ref to introduce whistles to the game to replace the traditional referee's cowbell. Hmm.

I'm going to say he introduced the whistle. You're exactly right, Padma. That's what he did. Apparently, at that point, referees used cowbells to indicate, like, the start and stop of play. And fans started bringing their own cowbells to confuse them. So he said, aha, nobody else will have a whistle. All right. Next question. use them. So he said, aha, nobody else will have a whistle. All right, next question. Joey Crawford is a legendary referee in the NBA, but he was suspended for part of a season because he did

what? A, he grabbed the ball from Chris Paul after Paul missed two free throws and said, let me show you how to do it. B, he challenged Tim Duncan, who was sitting on the bench, to a fist fight. Or C, he called a technical foul on Steph Curry just because his drooly mouth guard was really gross. Wow. I'm going to say the first one. You're going to say the first one, that he walked up to Chris Paul, took the ball, and said, let me show you how to do it, after Paul missed some free throws. Yeah.

No, it was actually number two. He did challenge Tim Duncan to a fist fight. This was after he had already called two technical fouls on Duncan for laughing at him. It's all bad. But this is not for you, because there's one more question, if you get this right. Oh, great. NFL referees went on strike right before the 2012 season, resulting in the league bringing in replacement refs who were not very good. In fact, one of those refs had done what before he got his chance at the NFL?

A, he had his driver's license revoked because of his poor eyesight. B, he applied to be a ref in the English Football League because he didn't know they meant soccer. Or C, he had been fired from the Lingerie Football League for incompetence. I'm going to go with number one. You're going to go with number one, that he had his driver's license revoked, that he was so blind that they actually took away his license to drive, and yet he got a job refereeing in the NFL. Okay. Yeah. It was actually number three. It was the Lingerie Football League. In fact, there was an entire crew of referees from the Lingerie Football League who ended up in the NFL and were blamed for some of the worst things that happened during that brief period of time.

Bill, how did Padma Lakshmi do in our quiz? Dismally. Padma got, technically, she got one out of three. But let's give her an extra point for bringing such spice to our show. Very well done. You're a winner, Padma. Thank you. Padma Lakshmi's new show is Taste the Nation on Hulu.

It's wonderful, but warning, it will make you hungry for food that's hard to get right now. Padma Lakshmi, thank you so much for joining us. And wait, wait, don't tell me. An absolute joy to talk to you. Thank you so much. Thank you guys for having me on. I'm such a huge fan of the show.

You give me great joy. I'm going to go back to cooking show. You give me great joy. I'm going to go back to cooking my chicken. All right, go do it. Bye. Bye-bye, Pablo. When we come back, figure skater Adam Ripa off the ice and comedian Sarah Cooper in her own voice. We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR.

in her own voice. We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR. Voting is crucial. And I don't give a damn how you look at it. Is this a man? It was we, the people.

The land of the free and the home of the brave. Not we, the white male citizens. Misrepresentative democracy. A new series about voting in America from NPR's ThruLine. Episodes drop October 15th. From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis and here is your host, who just walked into the guest bathroom

and claimed it for Spain, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. We're celebrating Columbus Day in the manner of its namesake. Namely, we're walking around pretending we discovered things that other people already knew about. For example, did you know that figure skater Adam Rippon is charming, funny, and opinionated? Of course you did. He was the star of the 2018 Winter Olympics. Two whole years later, he joined us to tell us how he was spending his time in lockdown doing Sean T's workouts. Am I supposed to know who Sean T is? Yes, you are. Who is Sean T? I'm sorry, I don't know.

Well, I mean, I'm sure if you saw an infomercial, it would all come rushing back to you like it was yesterday. But like, I remember these infomercials. It was like, try the insanity workout. It was like a 90-day workout. And they took people, they took actual just like whales from the ocean and they turned them into people. And I'm hoping to be one of those whales. Speaking of your athletics, you of course

became very well known in 2018 as a skater. Did you start skating early? Like all the, all the figure skaters do when you were a little kid? I started when I was like 10 years old. So it was kind of later in life to be like an elite athlete, especially in a sport like figure skating where like, it's such, there's so many hours you need. It's not just about like being in physical shape. It's like, there's such a skill involved to just being on the ice for so many hours.

So it was kind of late. And I think that's why I went to the Olympics pretty late too. I was 28 when I went. Yeah. That's like, that's like a grandfather to the Olympics pretty late too I was 28 when I went yeah that that's like that's like a grandfather at the Olympics right oh yeah it's like it was like one step away from being like asking for a pension um because my my teammates were um 17 and 18 um yeah so did they think that you had wisdom I told them I had wisdom because like, because you know, when, when these younger kids are coming up, like they were better than me. So like the only thing I had

going for me was that maybe I wasn't a virgin. Like that was probably. And I remember once your competition ended, uh, in, in Korea during the Olympics, you then became a commentator, right? You were talking about other skaters. So I was offered this position to be a commentator the day after I was done competing. Wow. But I didn't know I was offered the job. They just assumed that I would accept it. So they announced it. And then once it was like announced that I was commentating, I had a few like calls and it was like from the Olympic committee and from like us figure skating, who was like our governing body of the figure skaters.

And I of course was like, they're calling me to congratulate me. I'm like, that's like for all the things I've done, like of course they're calling to congratulate me. I'm like, that's like for all the things I've done, like, of course they're calling to congratulate me. They were calling me to tell me that now that I was like, I was a media personnel. I was, um, I had 24 hours to leave the Olympic village. Oh no. Yes. So I turned the job down. That's so aggressive. It was very aggressive. Yes. I did. Because if I couldn't be in there,

I wanted to support my teammates. Like I went there as an athlete. I wanted to like have lived that full experience as an athlete. You know, you go there to represent your country. And I wanted to do that to my best. What's funny is I could have sworn I saw you doing commentary. But of course, I'm wrong. I guess I just saw you on TV talking a lot. I was probably just running my mouth like usual. Adam, we were researching you and looking, of course, for controversy in your Olympic career, and we found one. It turns out that you were accused at one point in your career of having a fake butt. I was.

I mean, what an allegation. Wow. Why would anybody think that? So they thought I was wearing pads so that I would, if I fell like, you know, you're protected. But no, I wasn't wearing pads. I just have a fat ass. So the accusation, though, was that you were using an illegal safety device, not that you were trying to make yourself look more bountiful than you actually were to impress the judges. I interpreted it as like Kardashian situation.

Yeah, that there were implants. Yeah. Yeah. I went full injection. Cause I thought, you know, what would make me lighter is something dark matter into my hips. So did you have, when you were skating, did you have any, did you have like a signature move? I understand like something that, Oh yes, we're going to go watch Adam do this. That's what he does. I have one element named after me. And it's called a rip-on lutz. And basically it was a jump. A what? A rip-on lutz.

A rip-on lutz? Yes. And what is a rip-on lutz? Well, a rip-on lutz is when you do a jump, but instead of putting your arms like into your chest, you put them over your head. Oh. Right. Not to be confused with a poundstone lutz, do a jump, but instead of putting your arms into your chest, you put them over your head. Oh! Not to be confused with a

poundstone, Lutz, which is the same move with two diet sodas in your hand. And you know, I had to make that clarification. Well, Adam Rippon, it is a pleasure to talk to you. We have invited you here to play a game we're calling Rippon, Try These

Ripoffs. That's right. Your name's Rippon... Rip-On? Try these rip-offs. That's right. Your name's Rip-On. We're going to ask you about rip-offs, namely people who steal other people's ideas or products. Answer two out of these three questions correctly, you'll win our prize for one of our listeners, the voice of anyone they might choose in their voicemail. So, Bill, who is Adam Rip-On playing for?

Sutro Bridge of San Francisco, California. Okay, here's your first question. A lot of companies like to rip off expensive brands with cheap imitations. There was once a brand of fake Air Jordan sneakers that you could tell apart from the real ones only by noting what subtle difference? A, the asterisk after the name Jordan. B, the leaping Jordan icon is not wearing any pants. Or C, the sneakers were made of balsa wood. I'm going to say the leaping Jordan wasn't wearing pants. You went right for that and you were right. Exactly right. If you carefully examine it, you can see sort of the crease between

the buttocks. He was not wearing pants. Very good. Very good, Adam. All right. Next question. A lot of fake products and brands originate in China. In fact, Adam. All right. Next question. A lot of fake products and brands originate in China. In fact, if you went to China, you could find fake versions of which of these? A, American movie stars, such as, quote, Angelina Wowie and George Clooney. B, entire European cities like Paris, London, and Venice. or C, fake African wildlife, which are all just dogs with things like rhino horns and elephant trunks attached with Velcro. Oh, wow. The terrible thing is I could see all of these things happening, but I'm going to go with fake African wildlife. I'm afraid it was actually fake cities. You can go to China and see complete replicas of the centers of Paris with the Eiffel Tower,

Venice with canals, to save you the trip. It's true, yeah. We should all go. Let's go now. Let's just go now. Yeah. All right. Now, you still have one more chance.

If you get this right, you win everything, Adam. Here we go. Okay. Now, The Asylum is a very well-known studio that produces mock busters. Those are the direct-to-video ripoffs of big Hollywood movies that used to be meant to confuse people who were browsing at video stores. Which of these is a real movie made by The Asylum? Was it A, Snakes on a Train,

B, Transmorphers, or C, The 18-Year-Old Virgin? Is it Transmorphers? It is! In fact, all three of them were real. Those were all rip-off mockumentaries made by the asylum. Bill, how did Adam do in our quiz? Two out of three, and you won the crystal ball, Adam.

Adam Rippon is a former Olympic figure skater. He's the host of Useless Celebrity History, which is streaming right now on Quibi. Adam Rippon, thank you so much for joining us. You're such a delight to talk to. What a pleasure. Oh, my pleasure. Thank you so much and take care. One of the wonderful things about the great times we're all living in

is how we've gotten to meet some fantastic new talents. Just cherries on a cake of pure joy. If you stare at your phone half as much as I do, you've probably seen Sarah Cooper. She's a comedian and writer who hit it big by simply lip-syncing the president's speeches. and writer who hit it big by simply lip-syncing the president's speeches. The big question we had for her was, what's it like to rehearse these videos, having to watch the president over and over again? It really is awful. It's really terrible.

It's even worse for my husband because he has to listen to it and he has no use for it. I'm actually listening for a reason and he just gets to hear the same thing over and over and over and over again. And it's like being drilled into his brain. And you've said that you've heard from fans of the president who like your videos. Yes. That's the weirdest thing about this. I've only been called the C word twice. That hardly counts in this day and age, really. I would think I would be called that every hour or something, but it really hasn't happened that much, knock on wood, of course. Well, I was going to congratulate you on being sort of an overnight success, but it turns out that's not true. You've been doing a lot of really cool things for a while,

but you started as like a Googler. You were at Google doing Google things? Yeah, I was a user experience designer for Google Docs. Was that your background, computer engineering? That's what you were supposed to be doing with yourself? No, no, no, not computer engineering, just digital design, graphic design, buttons. You designed the buttons, the little buttons. I make the buttons.

Right, you make the buttons. That's nice. And how did you get from that to this? Well, I started trying stand-up before I joined Google, actually, and then I went broke because that's what happens when you try stand-up comedy. You're actually paying to perform, so I wasn't making any money. And my Google job was my fallback career from my failed entertainment career. So then I kept doing stand-up and I kept writing while I was at Google,

and I wrote 10 Tricks to Appear i kept writing while i was at google and i wrote 10 tricks to appear smart meetings while i was at google and that was a viral blog post and that's kind of what got me back out of google was writing about my time at google right and what people were doing in meetings if people can look it up uh the title again is 10 things you can do to look smart in meetings which i assume that's not even remotely the title again is 10 things you can do to look smart in meetings, which I assume came from. That's not even remotely the title. Nice try, Peter. And you just said it 20 seconds ago. Peter, you need to read that blog post. What is the actual title, Sarah? It's 10 tricks to appear smart in meetings.

10 things to do to seem brainy at gatherings. I got it. And I'm assuming that you sat through a lot of meetings as you were coming up with these, right? Yeah, I sat through a lot of meetings. And two weeks after the article came out, I was in a meeting with a VP. And he was pacing around the room, which is one of the tricks to pace around the room, make it look like you're about to leave. And then he asked the presenter to go back one slide. Which is another thing on the list, yes. He did both of them at the same time, and then he looked over at me and he winked.

I was like, oh, that's how you become a VP at Google. And on the basis of that thing, which much like your career work, went hugely viral and popular on the internet, you got a book contract and you wrote a hundred things you can do i gotta ask you you're like all right you signed a book you're gonna write 90 more things like when did you start to panic about coming up with another one like 13 14 i actually it was really easy it wasn't that hard it was actually hard to like narrow it down and now would be a good time to plug my 2021 calendar, which is 365 tricks to appear smart in meetings.

You get one every single day. The best thing about that is there's going to be a 2021, everybody. We're going to do it. Congratulations. I had no idea. That's the thing that sucks is, man, meetings have changed. Is there anything you can do to appear smart on Zoom meetings? Yeah, there's a lot of things. I mean, I think

the background is important. Like, you guys have books. You've got to have books back there to look smart. Oh, oops. Look like you're reading. I'm in bed. You have laundry. I'm in my closet, so I have all the clothes that I own behind me. Sorry.

Peter's now on a beach. That's very nice. I'm on a beach. That's very nice. I'm going with the blank wall. I'm dying to know, though, so you're doing these videos, you're getting calls from producers, executives, agents, and they're saying,

we see you taking that idea and doing what with it? I want to do a show where it's a black woman who fails up. Okay? Because it's all white guys failing up. It's a black woman who fails up. Yes! It's a black woman who fails up. Okay. Cause it's all white guys failing up. It's a black woman who's a black woman who just messes up and she just, for some reason keeps getting promoted. It's not real. It's not real. It's like my second, my second book, how to be successful without hurting men's feelings. That was also a science fiction. Cause it can't be done. You just can't do it without hurting men's feelings. Well, Sarah Cooper, it is a pleasure to talk to you. But now it is time to play a game that this time we're calling

Dubbing Trouble. We are all amazed by how perfectly your lip syncing matches Donald Trump's voice, but it made us think of the times when that hasn't worked out so well in dubbed movies. So we're going to ask you about misadventures in dubbing. If you get two right, you'll win a prize for one of our listeners. Bill, who is Sarah Cooper playing for? Ann Easton of Los Angeles, California. So your first question, TV edits of popular movies have famously creative solutions

for replacing swear words. Which of these was the famous catchphrase spoken by Bruce Willis in the TV edit of Die Hard 2? Was it A, yippee-ki-yay, Mr. Falcon? B, yippee-ki-yay, mothers and truckers? Or C, yippee-ki-yay, mubbata-wubbata? I'm going to go mothers and truckers. Mothers and truckers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it was actually Mr. Falcon.

Nobody knows why they did that. There's nobody in the movie with the name Falcon. It's just what they came up with. Wow. All right, next question. Some of Marlon Brando's dialogue in The Godfather had to be dubbed over in post-production, and the question is why?

A, at this point in his career, Brando was addicted to helium, and many of his lines were delivered in a very high-pitched voice. B, he kept calling Al Pacino's character Al Pacino. Or C, the stray cat that Brando was holding purred so loud during filming

that it ruined several takes. Okay, well, you know, C seems the most likely. I'm definitely A, heliumium. Marlon Brando? No. Plus, he's a method actor, so he wouldn't have been doing Helium, playing that character. So I'm going to go with the cat. You're going to go with the cat. You're exactly right, Sarah. That's what happened. The cat that he's famously stroking in the movie was a stray cat on the set that he picked up and adopted. So we have one more chance, and if you get this right, you win. Sometimes even

titles get dubbed. For example, the movie Airplane is known in Germany as which of these? Translated back from the German. A. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a pilot now. B. The unbelievable journey in a wacky airplane. Or C. You are under arrest if you call me Shirley. I'm just going to go with C. And you are right to do so, Sarah. We remember the Germans are very careful people.

They like to describe things exactly. So yes, an unbelievable journey in a wacky airplane is an excellent description of that movie. Bill, how did Sarah Cooper do on our quiz? Sarah Cooper's our champion. Good going, Sarah. Congratulations, Sarah. Sarah Cooper is a comedian and author. Her most recent book is How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men's Feelings, and you can follow her on Instagram. It's Sarah CPR. Sarah Cooper, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you. That does it for our Columbus Day weekend show. We hope we didn't leave you riddled with disease.

Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is a production of NPR and WBEZ Chicago in association with Urgent Haircut Productions, Doug Berman, Benevolent Overlord. Philip Godeka writes our limericks. Our intern is Darius Cook. Our web guru is Beth Novy. BJ Liederman composed our theme. Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills, Miles Dornbos, and Lillian King. In 1492, Peter Gwynn sailed the ocean blue. Technical direction is from Lorna White. Our business and ops manager is Colin Miller. Our production manager, that's Robert Newhouse.

Our senior producer is Ian Chilog. The executive producer of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is Mike Danforth. Thanks to everybody you heard on this week's show. That would be all our panelists, all our guests, and of course, Bill Curtis. And thanks to all of you for listening. I'm Peter Sagal. Stay safe, stay healthy, and we'll be back with a new show next week. This is NPR.