PETER SAGAL, HOST:
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. Click the contact us link on our website, WaitWait.npr.org. There you can find out about attending our weekly live shows here at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago and our upcoming show in St. Louis, Mo...
(APPLAUSE)
PAULA POUNDSTONE: Oh, really? You're going there after what you've said?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Yeah, I know - on May 9. And don't bring me none of your silly bagels. You can also play our new smart speaker quiz. Just ask your smart speaker to play the Wait Wait quiz, and you can win one of our voices on your voicemail. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME!
JANNA LOWENSON: Hi, everybody. This is Janna from Waltham, Mass.
POUNDSTONE: Hey, Janna.
SAGAL: I know Waltham. How are you?
LOWENSON: I just broke my leg and had surgery. So I'm just hanging out.
SAGAL: Yikes.
POUNDSTONE: Oh, no.
SAGAL: Yikes. How'd you break your leg?
LOWENSON: I had the audacity to go walking.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Oh, no. That's why you should never do that. You were just walking along, and it just went snap?
LOWENSON: Yeah, a little bit of snow, a little bit of wet, and a little bit of Uggs.
SAGAL: Oh, Uggs. That's the problem. They're from Australia. They don't have snow there.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I hope you're feeling up. And welcome to the show, Janna. 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'll be a big winner. You ready to play?
LOWENSON: Yeah.
SAGAL: Here is your first limerick.
BILL KURTIS: I will bring a new life to this earth. So I'll look like the millions I'm worth. I'm like Meghan Markle with lip gloss and sparkles. I look really glam giving...
LOWENSON: Birth.
SAGAL: Yes, birth. Childbirth isn't just beautiful. It's now fabulous.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: More and more women are getting stylists to come in and get them gussied up for postpartum glamour shots. One New York spa will send a stylist to do your makeup and your hair in the delivery room. It's part of a - it's part of a special beauty package called hey, how did you get in here?
(LAUGHTER)
BRIAN BABYLON: Now this - does Obamacare cover?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Here is your next limerick.
KURTIS: On Mars, there's no planes where the brush blooms. But no life - here a big-fingered hush looms. The rover has found roundish bumps on the ground. And some say those are pictures of...
LOWENSON: Mushrooms.
SAGAL: Yes. Get ready for some Martian risotto, as mushrooms might be growing on Mars. A recent study in the Journal of Astrobiology and Space Science shows photos that they say could be mushrooms growing on Mars. Although, one of the many skeptical internet commenters said, quote, "the journal and article are both garbage," unquote, or so says what is I'm sure a real scientist who calls himself Zebelkroid (ph).
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SAGAL: The photos show several clusters of the fungi taken shortly after Curiosity left the Utopia basin and moved into what NASA is calling the Trader Joe's flats.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The mushrooms, or alleged mushrooms, were located next to an outcrop of fingerling potatoes and a free sample of lemonade.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The rover couldn't stay in Trader Joe's flats, though, because there was no place to park.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right. Here is your last limerick.
KURTIS: With robots, bees get what they wish. Buzz, buzz, sting now becomes glug, glug, swish. It's just the beginning. Perhaps they'll learn swimming. For bees can now speak with some...
LOWENSON: No...
SAGAL: Yes.
LOWENSON: Fish?
SAGAL: Yes, fish.
KURTIS: Fish. Wow, are you good.
SAGAL: That's right. Thanks to science, bees are now talking to fish. Scientists have devised a way - I'm not kidding - to use robots to translate bee language to fish and vice versa so that in the experiment, the bees and the fish start behaving the same way. The result is Twitter's worst unlikely animal friendship video.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: No, it's easy. It's actually based on the fact that bees and fish have a lot in common. Hey, you guys like moving in a group then suddenly changing direction? Us, too.
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: How do you - how do you think the birds feel about this?
SAGAL: Yeah.
BABYLON: Because, you know, for so long...
SAGAL: They're ganging up, man.
POUNDSTONE: Left out.
BABYLON: ...It was like the birds and bees.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah.
BABYLON: You know, you have the birds and the bees conversation. And then they're like oh, you talking to these fish, man? What happened to...
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: (Unintelligible).
SAGAL: Bill, how did Janna do on our quiz?
KURTIS: She got them all right. She's a winner and quick.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Congratulations. Thank you so much, Janna. Thanks for playing.
LOWENSON: Have a good day, guys.
SAGAL: Bye bye.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHY CAN'T WE BE FRIENDS?")
WAR: (Singing) Why can't we be friends? Why can't we be friends? Why can't we be friends? Why can't we be friends? Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.