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Who's Carl This Time

CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell, and here's your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, filling in for Peter Sagal, it's Peter Grosz.

(APPLAUSE)

PETER GROSZ, HOST:

Thank you, Carl. Thank you so much everyone. Welcome everybody to WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME! I'm Peter Grosz, filling in this week for Peter Sagal. Now, you might know me from my appearances as a panelist on the show or perhaps from the two times that I've guest-hosted before or maybe, maybe you know me from the times that I've been on this show doing my dead-on Carl Kassel impersonation.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: OK, here's an example.

KASELL: Hi, everybody. It's me, Carl Kassel.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: See? Carl, doesn't that sound exactly like you?

KASELL: That sounded nothing like me.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Well, if you'd like to hear what your voice sounds like on the radio, please give us a call. The number is 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924. It's time to welcome our first listener contestant. Hi there, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!

MATTHEW TARPY: Hi, this is Matthew Tarpy, from Skokie, Illinois.

GROSZ: Matthew, a local boy from Skokie.

(APPLAUSE)

TARPY: Yes, I am.

GROSZ: Matthew, you just got what we call a smattering of applause in the audience.

(LAUGHTER)

TARPY: It's the story of my life.

GROSZ: Oh yes.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Are you sure you're not from a place like Northbrook?

(APPLAUSE)

GROSZ: Well, Mathew, we will treat you kindly. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much...

TARPY: Thank you. I have to say, if I win can I get you doing Carl doing my voicemail?

(LAUGHTER)

TARPY: Let's just see if you win first, pal.

(LAUGHTER)

TARPY: Oh well, we skipped ahead.

GROSZ: Yeah, right. Let me introduce you to our panel, Matthew. First up, it's co-host of The Morning Amp on vocalo.org and a comedian performing at the TBS LOL Lounge in New Orleans on July 6th through the 9th, it's Brian Babylon.

(APPLAUSE)

TARPY: Hey Brian.

GROSZ: Next, it's the comedienne whose CD "I Heart Jokes" is out now, she's performing at Jonathans in Ogunquit, Maine on July 13th and 14th, Paula Poundstone.

(APPLAUSE)

GROSZ: Finally, it's the man behind the podcast that is taking over the world, Too Beautiful to Live, Mr. Luke Burbank.

(APPLAUSE)

LUKE BURBANK: Hey Matthew.

GROSZ: OK, welcome to the show, Matthew.

TARPY: OK.

GROSZ: You're going to play Who's Carl This Time. Carl Kasell is going to read you three quotes from this week's news. And if you can correctly identify or explain two of them, you're going to win our prize: Carl Kasell's voice on your home answering machine or voicemail.

TARPY: That is totally awesome.

GROSZ: Awesome. Matthew, here's your first quote.

KASELL: Hey, Latinos, Obama is really, really double promising to do it. So, you know, we should really totally vote for him again.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: That was a writer on the Latino news site Guanabee expressing some skepticism about President Obama's big statement on new rules for what last week?

TARPY: Immigration.

GROSZ: That's right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

GROSZ: Very good.

(APPLAUSE)

GROSZ: Last Friday, of course after years of inaction on immigration, President Obama flexed some executive muscle and he issued an order ending the deportation of illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children. It was easily the biggest thing he's done for kids since he ordered those drone strikes on vegetables.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Marco Rubio, who was kind of seen as the top choice to be Mitt Romney's VP, he was planning on making a really big splash with a similar piece of legislation that really mirrored the executive order that Obama came out with. But now, Rubio has nothing. He's got nothing really to kind of talk about.

So maybe this is Obama's brilliant new campaign strategy: he's using legislation to strategically take out Romney's potential running mates. Because the new VP front-runner Tim Pawlenty, his greatest asset will be rendered useless when Obama introduces the Dockers Act.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Offering amnesty for boring middle aged white guys.

(LAUGHTER)

BRIAN BABYLON: Well, you know who I think Mitt Romney should pick.

GROSZ: Who's that?

BABYLON: A classic Republican, Abe Lincoln the Vampire Hunter.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: Because I think that's when Republican was Republican, baby. That's what I want to see.

GROSZ: That's the party's roots you think.

BABYLON: Yeah.

BURBANK: But what about vampire babies who are brought here without any knowledge on their part...

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: Who then grow up and want to go to college. We can't have that.

GROSZ: But my question is Obama just blatantly because it seems this is kind of a pander...

BABYLON: So the thing with the gay marriage thing he did like a month ago.

GROSZ: Exactly. But it's kind of like that's the only thing that's popular is when he panders, which is no surprise because that's what pandering is.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: But you kind of wonder, like, what his next move is going to be. And we think to really, really, get everybody in America on board he's going to deport LeBron James.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

PAULA POUNDSTONE: What if it turns out, though, apparently he can just fix things and he was holding back the whole time?

GROSZ: But that's his style.

POUNDSTONE: You know what I mean? Like you know what I think he's going to come out and do? There's been all this talk about the economy, all this thing about people being out of work. He's just going to give people jobs.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Yeah, he might issue an executive order.

POUNDSTONE: It's going to turn out he could have done it the whole time.

GROSZ: Maybe it's like a murder mystery, "he could have done it the whole time."

POUNDSTONE: Yeah. No, I see him more like Wizard of Oz, like if he had just, you know, you had the power the whole time.

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: The next time he walks out to the rose garden, we're going to see that he's got little red shoes on.

(LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: Just click your heels.

GROSZ: All right, Matthew. Matthew, your next quote is a pressing question about a big story this week.

KASELL: If they left the eurozone, would it make their yogurt cheaper?"

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: So Matthew, what country voted for a party that would actually keep them in the eurozone?

TARPY: Greece.

GROSZ: That's right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

GROSZ: So after months and months of turmoil and uncertainty, it looks like there's finally, finally some stability in Greece. The newly elected prime minister says he is committed to staying in the eurozone, and that's great news for the rest of Europe, because for week, Greece was threatening to drop out of the eurozone and join the ESPN Zone.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Because they offered a very generous bailout in the form of Buffalo wings.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: And dipping sauce.

GROSZ: And dipping sauce, exactly.

BABYLON: Yes.

BURBANK: Which is bottomless, thank you very much.

BABYLON: It is.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Of course, this election doesn't, you know, totally solve Greece's problem. You can't just have one election and then, you know, wave a magic wand. Things are still pretty bad. And just to give, you know, some perspective on this, Greece the country is now less solvent than a community theater production of "Grease" the musical.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Just to lay it out.

BABYLON: I'm curious on how Germany comes off as, like, you know, just, like, sort of the responsible big brother who has all the cash. Like, OK, I'll give you some more money, but this time...

GROSZ: Yeah, well they're not super keen on giving that money anymore. And, you know, Chancellor Angela Merkel has to kind of smooth things over. So if they bail out Greece, and not just Greece but Spain and Italy, she's going to not call it a cash infusion, she's going to call it a cash invasion.

BABYLON: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: But that's something the Germans can get behind.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Too soon? Is it too soon to make a World War II joke?

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: That's what I'm sensing from our audience today.

BURBANK: You know when you ask them is in the middle of Oktoberfest.

BABYLON: Yeah.

GROSZ: Exactly.

BURBANK: When the entire nation is drunk.

GROSZ: That's a great idea.

BABYLON: Do you think when those countries get together, like they talk about other countries that are broke? Like, here they come.

GROSZ: Oh hey, hey, Greece, how you doing? That is such a nice coat, Greece.

BABYLON: Yeah.

BURBANK: You know Greece, like, shows up at the meeting, and they need cab fare.

GROSZ: Yeah.

BURBANK: The cab is still idling.

GROSZ: All right, Matthew.

TARPY: Yes.

GROSZ: Here's your last quote.

KASELL: Hey, I just met you and this is crazy, but I've got a keyboard, so buy me, maybe?

GROSZ: That was a writer on the website C-NET, talking about what tech giant's new attempt to bring down the iPad?

TARPY: Oh that would be our good friends at Microsoft.

GROSZ: That's right, Microsoft.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

POUNDSTONE: Boy, this Matthew, he really knows his stuff.

GROSZ: He's sharp. America meets the Surface, Microsoft's new entry into the tablet market. And we can say with confidence this is a product that people are going to be talking about. As in the sentence: "Hey is that an iPad?" "No, it's a Microsoft Surface."

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: They unveiled this thing on Monday, the Surface, and there are still lots of questions, way more questions than answers here. Like, just a few minor things, things like how much is it going to cost? What can it do? When and where will it be available?

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: This is kind of like a television network announcing: "This fall on ABC watch our TV show staring someone you know, sometime between 8 and 11 p.m. on one of those days between Sunday and Saturday."

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: But I'm curious on like the name "Surface" sounds, all right it sounds corny, but iPad, when it first came out was a bad name.

POUNDSTONE: There's no depth to Surface.

BABYLON: It was a bad name.

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: iPad is bad.

BABYLON: Because iPad was like a hipster lady product that people - you know what I'm saying? Like what is an iPad?

POUNDSTONE: Yeah, iPad was not a good name.

BABYLON: Yeah.

BURBANK: Surface is almost this kind of meta thing, like it's almost like you're naming it after the thing that it's going to wind up being. Like, oh, it's just going to be a surface in my house that I chop vegetables on or something.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: You know what they should have called it? Xbox.

GROSZ: Yes.

BABYLON: Call it Xbox and then, you know, lots of people would buy it.

GROSZ: Start with that. Carl, how did Matthew do?

KASELL: Matthew had three correct answers, Peter, so Matthew, you win our prize.

GROSZ: Congratulations, Matthew.

TARPY: Woo-hoo.

(APPLAUSE)

GROSZ: Thank you so much for playing.

TARPY: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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