PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Now it is time to move onto 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 he or she can, each correct answer now worth two points. Bill, can you give us the scores?
BILL KURTIS: Helen and Maz each have two, but Mo has four.
SAGAL: Oh, my gosh.
MO ROCCA: Wow.
MAZ JOBRANI: Whoa.
ROCCA: That's a very unusual turn of events.
SAGAL: It is a little bit. Well, that means that Helen and Maz are tied. We have flipped a coin, and Helen has elected to go first. So, Helen, the clock will start when I begin your first question. Fill in the blank. On Tuesday, President Trump signed an executive order reviving both the Keystone pipeline and the blank pipeline.
HELEN HONG: DAPL.
SAGAL: Yeah, DAPL is good enough.
HONG: DAPL. Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Dakota Access Pipeline.
HONG: Yes.
SAGAL: According to a new report, over half of blank has emerged from drought conditions.
HONG: California.
SAGAL: Yes, indeed.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Tuesday, Russia, Iran and Turkey all vowed to support the cease-fire in blank.
HONG: Syria.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This week, the initiation fee for Mar-a-Lago, blank's Palm Beach resort, doubled to $200,000.
HONG: Trump.
SAGAL: Yes, Donald Trump.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Sunday, the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons won a place in this year's blank.
HONG: Super Bowl.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Best known for her roles on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and her own sitcom, blank passed away at the age of 80.
HONG: Mary Tyler Moore.
SAGAL: Yes, indeed.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Thanks to a dialing mix-up, residents of Westport, Ireland have had to deal with many callers looking for blank.
HONG: Are they looking for potato chips with breathalyzers in them?
SAGAL: They are not. They're looking for the Babestation brand phone sex line.
HONG: Oh.
SAGAL: So this is what happened.
HONG: (Laughter).
SAGAL: So there is this company in England called Babestation that advertises many different phone lines you can call to talk to people about the subject specifically of your choosing. And a bunch of Irish people were like, yay. And they dialed the number but forgot to put in the international code. So instead of ringing hot young coeds ready for action, callers are reaching Irish grannies ready for more soup.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Helen do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Pretty good. Six right, 12 more points. She has a total of 14 and the lead.
SAGAL: All right. That was a pretty good job there, Helen.
(APPLAUSE)
HONG: Thank you.
SAGAL: Maz, you're up next. Fill in the blank. On Wednesday, a House committee announced it would investigate blank's influence on the recent election.
JOBRANI: Russia.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Monday, U.S. officials announced that the country was pulling out of the blank trade deal.
JOBRANI: The blank trade - the - NAFTA. No, TPP, TPP, TPP.
SAGAL: Right, I'll give it to you.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership. This week, a North Korean defector said that blank's control of the country was crumbling.
JOBRANI: Kim Jong Un.
SAGAL: Right. After suffering from pneumonia, former president blank was released from the ICU on Monday.
JOBRANI: George Bush.
SAGAL: Right, George H.W. Bush.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This week, a man in Texas was caught on security camera leaving the store with a blank shoved down his pants.
JOBRANI: With a thing of Pringles.
SAGAL: An electric guitar.
(LAUGHTER)
HONG: Wow.
JOBRANI: Whoa.
SAGAL: He walked somewhat stiffly. For the first time in 14 years, the blank sisters will go head to head at the Australian Open finals.
JOBRANI: Williams.
SAGAL: Yes, the Williams sisters.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: After one of his teammates was found guilty of doping, the IOC stripped Jamaican sprinter blank of one of his Olympic gold medals.
JOBRANI: Usain Bolt?
SAGAL: Yes, but he didn't do it. His teammate did on the relay. A town in Canada is saying that a driver still needs to pay for a parking ticket despite security cam footage showing blank.
JOBRANI: The driver still needs to pay for the parking ticket.
SAGAL: He's got to pay it, even though...
JOBRANI: Despite the fact...
SAGAL: That there is film of blank.
JOBRANI: There's film of him putting money in the meter or that he wasn't there. It was a ghost.
SAGAL: No, none of those things. There's film of a raven swooping down from the sky, grabbing the ticket from the windshield and tearing it to pieces.
(LAUGHTER)
HONG: Wow.
JOBRANI: Wow, hilarious.
HONG: Wow.
SAGAL: Remember this next time you get a parking ticket. According to the police in the Canadian city of Yellowknife, all parking tickets, regardless of what happened to them after they're put in the windshield, need to be paid within 10 days or the driver will incur penalties. According to their statement, a department spokesman said this applies to all tickets regardless of whether they've been torn apart by ravens, sliced in half by a pendulum or sealed alive in a cellar along with a cask of Amontillado.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Maz do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Oh, he had six right, 12 more points, tied now with Helen at 14.
(APPLAUSE)
JOBRANI: Whoo (ph).
SAGAL: All right. So how many, then, does Mo Rocca need to win?
KURTIS: Well, five to tie, six to win.
SAGAL: All right, Mo, you can do this. Fill in the blank. On Tuesday, President Trump said he had compiled his shortlist to fill the empty blank seat.
ROCCA: Supreme Court justice.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Tuesday, Israel announced plans to expand Jewish settlements in blank.
ROCCA: The West Bank.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This week, McDonald's introduced two new sizes of blank.
ROCCA: Of Big Mac.
SAGAL: You're right. After Kellyanne Conway's talk about alternative facts, George Orwell's blank jumped to the top of Amazon's best-seller list.
ROCCA: "1984."
SAGAL: Of course.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: The day after a pizza delivery guy had his car stolen, he found it returned to the same spot with blank.
ROCCA: With a whole lot of pizza in it.
SAGAL: No, he found his car returned with a full tank of gas and, quote, "a really good album" in the CD player.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: Nice.
SAGAL: This week, the name of the eighth movie in the blank series was announced.
ROCCA: "Star Wars."
SAGAL: Yes, "The Last Jedi." "La La Land" and "Moonlight" led the nominations for this year's blank.
ROCCA: Academy Award.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: After being charged by police for standing while driving, a British man countered that he actually was blanking.
ROCCA: That he was - was on someone's - he was sitting, but he was sitting on someone's shoulders.
SAGAL: No, he was sitting normally. He's just really tall.
ROCCA: Oh, you know, come on. But the thing - the problem with that is that's such a mundane answer for an eighth question.
SAGAL: Well, excuse me, Mo, but you would not say that if you had seen the picture of this guy driving his car, small car down the street with, like, his upper torso coming out of the sunroof.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: And the police saw this and said, guy's driving standing. We're going to arrest him for reckless driving. They said, quote, "it's pretty obvious he was showing off, demonstrating his height by standing up in an open-topped car." Bill, did Mo do well enough to win?
ROCCA: What an earth-shattering story.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: There's a tall guy in a car.
(LAUGHTER)
KURTIS: Mo...
HONG: Mo is throwing shade.
KURTIS: ...Don't feel bad. You won.
ROCCA: Oh, my God.
(APPLAUSE)
KURTIS: Sixteen total points.
SAGAL: Yay.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Still going to complain, Mo?
ROCCA: I'm sorry. I take it all back.
SAGAL: All right. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
