PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Now 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 they can. Each correct answer now worth 2 points.
Bill, can you give us the scores?
BILL KURTIS: Luke and Maeve each have 3. Tom has 4.
SAGAL: All right, we have flipped a coin. Luke has elected to go second. So, Maeve, you're up first. The clock will start when I begin your first question. Fill in the blank. After serving 14 terms, New York Representative blank became the 20th House Republican to decide against seeking reelection.
MAEVE HIGGINS: What?
(LAUGHTER)
HIGGINS: Tell me the name.
SAGAL: It's Peter King.
HIGGINS: Peter King.
SAGAL: If I tell you, it doesn't...
HIGGINS: Oh, OK.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: OK. This week, former Massachusetts Governor blank announced he was running for president.
HIGGINS: Indeed he did.
(LAUGHTER)
HIGGINS: It's, like, Peter.
SAGAL: No.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It's Deval Patrick. On Tuesday, record-breaking cold weather blanketed 30% of the continental U.S. in blank.
HIGGINS: Florida.
SAGAL: No.
(LAUGHTER)
HIGGINS: Well.
SAGAL: Snow is what we were looking for.
HIGGINS: Oh. Oh.
SAGAL: After libraries in Chicago announced they were eliminating blanks, book returns jumped 240%.
HIGGINS: Borrowing.
SAGAL: No, they eliminated...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...Late fees. On Wednesday, People magazine named blank the sexiest man alive.
HIGGINS: Michael B. Jordan.
SAGAL: No.
(LAUGHTER)
HIGGINS: Oh...
SAGAL: John - it was John Legend.
HIGGINS: OK.
SAGAL: Bill Kurtis was robbed again.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: After being told that his cat was too fat to ride with him...
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
SAGAL: ...In the passenger cabin of an airliner, a man in Russia blanked.
HIGGINS: My guess is he sued the airline.
SAGAL: No. He found...
HIGGINS: But he should have, morally.
SAGAL: No, this is what he did. He found a lighter cat, tricked the airline into weighing that cat, then swapped the lighter cat out for his fat cat and brought it onto the plane.
(APPLAUSE)
HIGGINS: So complicated.
SAGAL: Viktor the cat weighs 22 pounds. That's well above Aeroflot's weight limit for pets in the cabin. The airline has a strict no-thick-boys policy.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: But instead of following those restrictions, Viktor's owner delayed the flight, found a cat that looked like a thinner version of Viktor, had them weigh that, you know, at the front desk, got the approval, swapped that cat out for Viktor again and got to enjoy a flight in business class with the added perk of having his cat's butt in his face the whole time.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Maeve do on our quiz?
(LAUGHTER)
KURTIS: Maeve made history. She got zero points for zero right.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: All right. Luke, you're up next. Fill in the blank. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on whether to terminate the Obama-era blank program.
LUKE BURBANK: Oh, DACA.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: After undergoing brain surgery, former President blank is now recovering in Atlanta.
BURBANK: Jimmy Carter.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This week, the Pentagon announced it would leave 600 U.S. troops in blank despite Trump's pullout order.
BURBANK: Syria.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Tuesday, former South Carolina Governor blank dropped his GOP presidential primary challenge.
BURBANK: Mark Sanford.
SAGAL: That's his name.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
BURBANK: Trail name, Sneaky Dog (ph).
SAGAL: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: This week, the Financial Times issued a correction to say the Salt Lake City Tribune does not have a full-time jazz music reporter but does have two full-time blank reporters.
BURBANK: Beehive.
SAGAL: No, they don't have full-time jazz music reporters, but they do have full-time Utah Jazz basketball team reporters. On Monday, blank announced the 737 Max would resume commercial service in January.
BURBANK: Boeing.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: A town in the U.K. is preparing for...
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
SAGAL: ...Their annual festival in honor of Charles Dickens, or as locals call it, blank fest.
BURBANK: Dick Fest.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: The headline...
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: ...The Ulverston England paper reads, quote, "Dick Fest Set To Return." It's not a warning to Fire Island residents. Dick Fest is short for Charles Dickens Christmas Festival, which celebrates all things Dick, which, again, is short for Charles Dickens.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Luke do?
KURTIS: Well, six right, 12 more points, total of 15. That's how you do it, Maeve.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Oh, Bill. How many, then, does Tom need to win?
KURTIS: Six to win.
SAGAL: All right. Here we go, Tom. This is for the game. Fill in the blank. According to a new memoir, former U.N. Ambassador blank said that she was pressured by Rex Tillerson and John Kelly to undermine the president.
TOM BODETT: Nikki Haley.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Wednesday, the White House hosted Turkish leader blank despite protests from lawmakers.
BODETT: Erdogan.
SAGAL: It's pronounced Erdogan, but yes.
BODETT: Erdogan.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Public transit, schools and many businesses were shut down as pro-democracy protests continued in blank.
BODETT: Hong Kong.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: After resigning under pressure, the president of blank was granted asylum in Mexico.
BODETT: Bolivia.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This week, Disneyland had to close its Tarzan's Treehouse attraction after a rope bridge broke when a dad blanked.
BODETT: Tried to swing like Tarzan.
SAGAL: No, he jumped on the bridge to show his kids how safe it was.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: This week, two patients in China were diagnosed with blank.
BODETT: Oh, the black fever, the plague.
SAGAL: Yeah, the black plague.
BODETT: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Thanks to a lot of hard work, anthropologists have...
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
SAGAL: ...Perfectly reconstructed the face of a Scottish man who lived 600 years ago and discovered that he was blank.
BODETT: He was short, round and bald.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I'll give it to you. He was ugly.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: He was a funny-looking guy.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Scientists used skeletal remains and high-tech computers to reconstruct the medieval man's face. And after posting the results online, the Internet responded with a resounding, oh, God, unreconstruct him. Unreconstruct him.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The man has this large face with very crowded-together features right in the middle. His teeth are in bad shape. But anthropologists say he might actually be beautiful if only he'd take off those glasses and let his hair down.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, did Tom do well enough to win?
KURTIS: He got six right, 12 more points. By one point, Tom Bodett wins.
SAGAL: Congratulations.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Well done, Tom. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
