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. Or click the Contact Us link on our website. That's waitwait.npr.org. There you can find out about attending our weekly live shows back at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago and our upcoming shows in Newark, N.J., on September 12 and our show July 18 at the beautiful Blossom Music Center just outside of Cleveland located within Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
Hi, you are on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
CANDICE: Hi. My name is Candice (ph). I'm from Norfolk, Va.
SAGAL: Hey - Norfolk, Va. Do you call it Norfolk? I always sort of liked Norfick (ph) - Norfolk.
CANDICE: A lot of the locals call it Nawfick (ph).
SAGAL: So you're not from Norfolk originally.
CANDICE: No, I was raised in Florida.
SAGAL: Do you ever miss Florida?
CANDICE: Nope.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Oh, so you are from there?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Candice. 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 winner - you ready to play?
CANDICE: I am ready.
SAGAL: All right. Here's your first limerick.
BILL KURTIS: My stomach I like to keep flat. So it's coffee I drink by the vat. I've recently learned it gets calories burned with a heat-making, brown kind of...
CANDICE: Fat.
SAGAL: Yes, fat.
KURTIS: Fat.
SAGAL: There you go.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: New research has found that drinking coffee can stimulate a substance in the body known as brown fat, which is not the stuff left over in the pan after you make bacon but rather cells that produce heat that then burn off the other kind of fat that you get from eating all the bacon. So the idea is that coffee helps you lose weight. This cannot be true because if it were, I would have vanished decades ago.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: On the other hand, won't it be fun if coffee becomes the new health drink? It'll be great when it replaces Gatorade, and the team wins the big game and dumps a big urn of hot coffee on the coach.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right. Here is your next limerick.
KURTIS: In their enclave, the real ones are crying. We can see the young fellow is trying. But his costume is poor. And he's got a weak roar. So he doesn't seem much like a...
CANDICE: Lion.
SAGAL: Yes, a lion.
KURTIS: There you go.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: You're good, Candice. An employee at a zoo in Japan finally got the role of a lifetime when he was asked to play the escaped lion during the zoo's emergency drill, you know, the same way every time your building has a fire drill, somebody has to play the fire.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: So you have to find this on the Internet. It is amazing. You'd think they choose, like, a convincing lion costume. But no. It's a guy. And, like, he's playing the smiley lion in the school play. He's got this mascot costume on with the big, plastic, smiling lion head. He's walking around on two legs with a - you know, cheerfully waving at people, being a lion. Everyone on Twitter applauded the employee's job playing the lion except, of course, for the zoo's real lions, who called his performance derivative and unrealistic.
(LAUGHTER)
LUKE BURBANK: You know who would've crushed at that gig? - Gritty.
SAGAL: That's true.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Here is your last limerick.
KURTIS: Our athletes are strong until the finish. Like Popeye, their strength won't diminish. A dark, leafy green makes them tough, mean and lean. Yes, our doping entails eating...
CANDICE: Spinach.
SAGAL: Yes, spinach.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
KURTIS: Yep.
SAGAL: Very good.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Performance-enhancing drugs along with unflattering shorts has been a longstanding problem in professional sports.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: And every year, new drugs are added to the list of banned substances. Well, German scientists are suggesting spinach should be added to the prohibited list presumably because the scientists are a team of 7-year-olds.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: They've also banned broccoli, brussels sprouts and cooties.
(LAUGHTER)
FAITH SALIE: So it's not a - it's spinach.
SAGAL: Spinach.
SALIE: It's not like spinach is found in some other drug. It's actually spinach.
SAGAL: No, it's actually - there's a chemical similar to a steroid naturally found in spinach. And it's so effective scientists merely exposed to the chemical compound were able to suddenly bench-press 5 pounds.
BURBANK: So "Popeye" was a documentary?
SAGAL: Yeah.
SALIE: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
BURBANK: That's crazy.
SAGAL: Yeah, Well there was that...
SALIE: Do you have...
SAGAL: There was that scene that I don't - didn't understand when I was a kid where Bluto makes him pee in a cup.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Candice do on our quiz?
KURTIS: She did 3 and 0 - good, Candice.
PAULA POUNDSTONE: All right.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Thank you so much for playing. Take care, Candice.
POUNDSTONE: Bye bye.
CANDICE: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'M POPEYE THE SAILOR MAN")
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (As Popeye) I'm Popeye the sailorman. I'm Popeye the sailorman. I'm strong to the finish 'cause I eats me spinach. I'm Popeye the sailorman. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
