Librarian Mychal Threets talks rebooting Reading Rainbow and our panel eats goo

0:28Hey, just a quick note for our listeners. and, of course, the warm comfort of knowing we will be there for each other when things start to sag.

0:39From NPR to WPEC Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm the reason everybody's throwing Super Bill parties this weekend. Bill Curtis. And here's your host at the Studebaker Theater at the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody. You're very kind. We do have a great show for you today. Later on, we're going to be talking to Michael Threats. He is the new host of the rebooted Reading Rainbow. This will be a treat for those of you who spent your childhood in libraries instead of playing sports or getting invited to fun parties, which let me check our latest audience data.

1:28That is, it's all of you. So you'll enjoy this. But first, we want to see if your reading has prepared you to answer some questions about the week's news. So give us a call at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Now let's welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, it's Nathan from Overland Park, Kansas. Overland Park, Kansas. Heard of it. What do you do there? I'm a paralegal. You're a paralegal, which I always thought sounded cooler than it is. Yeah, it sounds a lot cooler than it is. Yeah, it's like you have paratrooper, that's cool, right? So paralegal, I figured, would be somebody who leaps in and drops in from airplanes to do law.

2:09Yeah, all I do is keep lawyers on target. Really? Yeah. Do you have to physically grab them sometimes and just point them right? It hasn't happened yet, but it wouldn't surprise me. I bet. Well, Nathan, welcome to our show. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, it is a humorous woodworker whose podcast, The Bodette Problem, debuts soon. Listen to the pilot over at hatchspace.org. It's Tom Bodette. Hi, Nathan. Hey, Tom.

2:39Next, he's the co-host of the podcast, The Nightly, and is performing at the Fittler Club in Philadelphia, February 20th and 21st. It's Josh Gondelman. Hello. How are you doing? Thank you for all your power work. And joining us again, the co-host of the Handsome Podcast and producer of the Apple TV doc, Come See Me in the Good Light, nominated for an Oscar this year, it's Tig Notaro. Hey, Tig. How's it going? So welcome to the show, Nathan. You're going to play Who's Bill this time. Bill Curtis is going to read you three quotations we found in the week's news. Your job correctly, identify or explain just two of them.

3:19Do that. you will win our prize, the choice of your voicemail from any of us. Are you ready to go? Yep. All right. Here is your first quote. It's Starbucks versus Dunkin'. That was an ABC reporter summing up the big game happening this weekend. What's the game? It's the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl. That's right. Yay. The Super Bowl. It's not just a matchup between two cities, Seattle and Boston. It's a contest between two different brands of terrible coffee. The Seahawks versus the Patriots It's not the marquee matchup the NFL hoped for For example, out of more than 100 players on both rosters Not a single one of them is engaged to Taylor Swift Look, it's not that exciting Because everybody's on the same side of this I, like everyone in America, am a New England Patriots fan And so there's just no tension They truly are America's team Everybody loves them, and everybody is on board with the thing I just said.

4:19But here's a question. You are a genuine Patriots fan. Yeah. And everybody hated the Patriots for a long time. And that just made me stronger. I understand that. Chicagoans, you understand that. Yes. Yeah, you thrive in their hatred. So then the people associated with the hated Patriots fan, namely Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, they left and moved on to other things and much, much younger women. and we'll see Bill Belichick Bill Belichick is an innovator on the field and off most people criticize an old man for dating a woman half his age he said no I'm going to date a woman one third my age people said it couldn't be done mathematically I know I didn't know the Super Bowl was this weekend you didn't you didn't come up in your social schedule nor theirs apparently You represent that swath of our audience.

5:11Yeah. Yes. People think I'm going to be interested in the Super Bowl. I remember when we first got our handyman at our house. Yes. And he's from Philadelphia, and he's very into all of the Philadelphia teams. The term is sports. Yes, of the sports teams. And I remember the first time when he came over, he was like, hey, did you see the, you know, whatever, Philly game? And I was like, oh, wrong lesbian. Let me get my wife. And my short hair throws people off. Sure, of course. And they direct a lot of sports talk to me. But it's Stephanie. You're so outside of it. You're going like, hey, did you see the baseball Philadelphia?

5:54Yeah. You couldn't get the licensing rights to say the name of the team. That's the last time I talked sports. I understand. It went well. Your next quote is the slogan for a new government mascot. Mine, baby, mine That is what Coley says And Coley is the new government mascot Encouraging us to mine more what? Coal? Coal, yes This week, the U.S. Department of the Interior Debuted Coley The talking lump of coal And his sidekick, Canary

6:32They have kind of a love-hate relationship Well, Canary is dead. He's looking a little wobbly. So this is all real. You may think we have made this up. Coley is a cartoon lump of coal with eyes and a mouth. He's wearing work boots, a safety vest, and a hard hat. He's very adorable. And so is his catchphrase, we just have three hours of oxygen left down here.

7:02I hate to correct you, Peter, but because this is a Trump regime project, it's not actually a lump of coal. It's a baseball in blackface.

7:15Come on! I can't believe you hate that joke more than you hate the New England Patriots. When I was growing up, our parents would threaten us with a lump of coal. at Christmas if we didn't behave ourselves. This is not a social icon of reward, should I say. Our children were told that if they didn't behave, they would get a lump of coal. And our son, Max, earnestly asked, well, if that does happen, can I still play with it?

7:54Yeah, we call him Coley. Yeah, I was about to say, maybe that's where Coley came from, some bad child. I mean, Coley, I don't know what it is. My son isn't bad. Okay, your son, I'm sure he's. We were just threatening him. I understand. He was a lovely child. Meanwhile, Coley is definitely looking at a trademark lawsuit from E. Coley, the mascot of diarrhea. It does seem like if you're diarrhea, you'd want a mascot. You would, yeah. Yeah. If you're diarrhea, you're sitting around with your marketing people and you're going, look, we got to do something about my reputation. Right, yeah. Generations of negative PR.

8:28All right, your final quote is from an article in the New York Times about the hottest new dining trend. Waste no time chewing. That's about the growing group of people who are taking all their meals in the form of what? A shake? Yeah, or liquid, or goo, it is often called. People apparently want to maximize their nutrition while saving time and effort, so they're eating packets of goo instead of food. It is a powerful rebuttal to those who believe you're supposed to enjoy your life. Nutrient goo, according to the Times, is more popular than ever, even for people with teeth. And is that the name of the product, nutrient goo?

9:13Yeah, the Times calls it goo. But it's called nutrient goo? Yes. Great marketing team. From the people who brought you diarrhea, here's nutrient goo. They just left Gouttrian sitting right there on the table. I know, I know. The New York Times called them aspirationally branded meal replacement. Why do we only get the parts of the future that stink? It's really true. Like, truly, I thought we were going to have flying cars by now, and instead it's just like, oh, no pizza soup. Yeah. I mean, this is something that the astronauts were doing in like 1962, right? And so what is, I mean, it's just because it's catching on now.

9:58The idea is like everybody's so busy. Everybody's got so much to do. Nobody wants to take the time to have to make or apparently chew a meal, right? They just want someone to mama bird their food for them. So it's to save time. Yes. Right. What's everybody so busy doing? Unemployment's going way up. Everybody's got more time they've ever had in their lives. People should, there should be like a long meal trend. They're inventing goo. Yeah, exactly. card. Bill, how did Nathan do in our quiz? Perfect score, Nathan. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you so much.

10:35Right now, panel, time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Tom, there's a new travel trend that is said to refresh your perspective and bring you peace when you're flying. Intentionally sitting where? Oh, I saw this story. In the middle seat. Yes, in the middle seat. Some people are actually really into getting that dreaded middle seat on airplanes. One of these perverts wrote on TikTok that the middle seat was, quote, like a midair cuddle that you don't deserve, but you are privileged to have. Oh, that's a very sad person. Did you read that in the Epstein files or is that somewhere else?

11:17I agree with him because the thing we all want in a plane is to have the guy in the middle seat, extend his arms and say, come on, sweethearts, I want to be the middle spoon. You know, I've been stuck in the middle seat. Many of us have. Things don't always go our way. Yeah. And I do find that there's a certain thing you have to do, like you've got to bring your world in very close. Right. It's like you've got to erase the id and just accept life as it just came at you. and there's something very spiritual about that. I admit. You sound like somebody talking how they got through 30 years in prison.

11:57Well, it's like that. It's like that, yeah. Have you ever flown on a plane where in the middle seat there's like these little scratch marks on the tray? You're working? Yeah. The days that you spend there. The hours of the flight. I got trouble on the left, trouble on the right, nothing left to do, nothing left to do. I got trouble on the left,

12:21Coming up, a secret is revealed in our Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT-TO-PLAY. We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR.

12:34From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis. We are playing this week with Tig Notaro, Josh Gondelman, and Tom Baudette. And here again is your host at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sago. Thank you so much, Bill, right now. Thank you, everybody. Right now it is time for the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game in the air. Hi, you are on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, Peter. My name is Laura, and I'm from Durango, Colorado. Oh, Durango is a beautiful place. I have been there.

13:12What do you do there? Well, I spend most of my time embarrassing my eight-year-old son. Okay. Let me ask you a question. What does he find about you that's most embarrassing? Annoyingly positive pep talks, youth slang from his generation out of context. Uh-huh. Oh, that's the worst. Do you ever try to make like a 6-7 joke? I oh totally in fact I'm working on making that fall right out of style. Yeah, you're Keep at it Well, welcome to the show Laura you're gonna play our game on which you must try to tell truth from fiction Bill What is Laura's topic? It's a secret a secret got out this week and it's not just that the nutrient goo everybody's eating is made of people Our panelists are gonna tell you how somebody's beans got spilled pick the one who's telling the truth and you'll win the wait waiter of your choice in your voicemail.

14:06You ready to play? Yes, sir. Let's hear first from Josh Gondelman. Spectators at a recent boxing match were exposed to a moment of hair-raising violence, literally. Heavyweight Kingsley eBay landed an uppercut so ferocious it knocked his opponent's toupee clean off his head. The crowd was shocked, even though we can all agree that being bald is a cool and hot way for a guy to look.

14:37And the competitor himself, Jarrell Miller, whose nickname is Big Baby, perhaps because of his smooth scalp, was surprised as well. I wasn't sure it was coming off, but I felt a draft, like AC hitting my scalp, Miller said. Sure enough, I look at the jumbotron and my hair is flapping and the crowd is going crazy. Undeterred by his follicular malfunction, Miller tore the wig the rest of the way off his head and threw it into the crowd. He went on to win the fight in a tight split decision, fittingly emerging victorious by a hair. A boxer's secret that he's bald is revealed when he gets hit so hard his toupee flies off in the middle of a bout.

15:16Your next story of someone's cover being blown comes from Tig Notaro. This week, Berta Martin found something shocking in her parents' attic. When she was looking for potential critters running around, all she found were wooden toys and a box labeled yearbooks. She decided to take an old trip down memory lane and look at the yearbooks. However, when she opened the first one, she was shocked to her core. There was a full page picture of her mother with, quote unquote, most likely to be late printed across the page. This was particularly shocking to Berta because her mother is the Miss Manners, aka Judith Martin, aka the reason your elbows do not touch the dinner table.

16:06In the yearbook for the next year, her mom was, quote unquote, most likely to flip off the teacher. And there was a huge picture of her double birds out on a motorcycle. Berta brought the yearbook downstairs to her mother and Miss Manners just said, yeah, I was awesome then. Now please set the table for dinner. Miss Manners' daughter discovers that her mother was once a delinquent. Your last story of a secret spilled comes from Tom Beaudet. Justin and Hayley Bieber made headlines with their red carpet appearance at last Sunday's Grammy Awards. Justin's Captain Underpants performance later in the show left few secrets to hide, except for one.

16:55On Sunday, after the awards show, Justin Bieber skipped the after party because he had a shift as an Uber driver. It's the only way I can unwind. I love driving people to the airport, explained Bieber. So after the Grammys, Justin slipped into the night, into his Yukon, and into his alias, Uber driver Vladislav. He was enjoying his quiet evening of being just a regular guy until he got a ride request from a customer named Anastasia Chekhov. When Ms. Chekhov entered the vehicle, she said, Hello, Vladislav. How was your night? Justin turned to face her. Haley? Haley looks hard at the father of her child.

17:42Are record sales this bad? It turns out that both of them were craving some hoi polloi face time and ended up with each other. Haley said she was just relieved that Justin was wearing pants. So one of these secrets got out this week. Was it from Josh Gondelman, a boxer revealed to the world that he was bald when his opponent hit him so hard his toupee flew off? From Tig Notaro Miss Manner's daughter discovers That her genteel mother Wasn't always like that Or from Tom Bodette Justin Bieber secretly drives An Uber under an alias And was discovered when he picked up His wife Which of these was the real secret revealed this week?

18:32I think I'll have to go with Josh's story Just to support Poupee wearing men everywhere Alright All right, you're gonna go with Josh's story about the boxer whose toupee flew off when he got hit that hard. Well, we actually have here some tape of the person whose secret was revealed. I've had here before, so thank God, I don't think it goes back, but it's cool. That was boxer Jarrell Miller talking about how he had his toupee knocked off this week. I think you accidentally played Miss Manners. It's possible, yeah. That's what she really sounds like. You've never heard her, have you? You've only seen her picture.

19:15Congratulations, Laura. You got it right. You earned a point for Josh, and you've won our prize, the voice of your choice, on your voicemail. Congratulations. Thank you so much for playing. Thank you.

19:32And now the game we call Not My Job. When Michael Threatz was a kid, he really loved his local library, So much so that when he grew up, he got a job there. And he loved that job so much that he started a TikTok celebrating the joys of reading. And he was so good at that that he was selected to be the host of the new version of the beloved kids program, Reading Rainbow. Michael, from one book nerd to another, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

20:01So congratulations on Reading Rainbow, which just was relaunched by PBS on YouTube. It's very exciting. This must have been a thrill for you to get this job. Did you grow up on Reading Rainbow like so many did? Oh, I absolutely did. LeVar Burton is one of my all-time favorite human beings in the entire world. That's how I saw myself as a reader. I was like, hey, this guy makes it so fun. He's having all these zany adventures. I was homeschooled, so my mom and dad raised us on Roots. So I was like, why is a Roots guy on Reading Rainbow? And that came to terms, and I was like, well, that's cool.

20:32This is even better. I'm the biggest LeVar Burton fan in the entire world. He has that effect on people. How has the torch passed? Did LeVar Burton knight you with a bookmark or hand over the animated butterfly to you? How did it work? I wish it was that special. I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Burton. I'm just trying to make him proud with my obnoxious enthusiasm for libraries and literacy and books. And I hope it's coming across well on YouTube to all the kid viewers out there. And it is genuine, I think. Nobody doubts that. You've talked a lot how the library was your sort of safe space as a kid.

21:12Did you have a favorite book when you were a kid? You know what? You're not going to be able to see it because my camera is blurred. I have a full tattoo sleeve of my favorite books, so I love Where the Wild Things Are. I'm a big fan of Richard Scarry books. Sure. Of Streg and Nona, of Frog and Toad. But one of my favorite books is Bud Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. and it's because that was the first book where I saw myself look like a character in the books. Well, how old were you when you got your first book tattoo? I think I got my first book tattoo when I was 24. So it's been almost 12 years.

21:45And what was the first book you had tattooed? The first one was, that is a good question, it was actually, it was either Where the Wild Things Are or I have a library card of Arthur Reed from PBS tattooed on me. Wow, wow. And when you walked into the tattoo parlor at the age of 24 and you said, I would like this library card with Arthur the Aardvark, Arthur Reeds, did the guy just look at you and say, oh, what a cliche? You know what he really did? I think because I showed him my, like, at the time I had close to 40 library cards. I just brought in my library card collection and he was like, okay, you're all about it.

22:22That's okay. Whatever works. It's okay. The giant biker across the room getting a tattoo of DW on his chest kind of nodded. Oh, yeah. Mr. Ratburn, let the meat take. You spent so much time at your hometown library. Eventually, you went back and got a job there, and you eventually became head librarian, right? I did, yes. I got my library card at that same library as a kid. Excuse me, I became a shelver. I went to college, got my bachelor's degree, got my master's degree, became a children's librarian and then a marketing librarian, and then I eventually became the supervising librarian of that same thing.

22:59Wow. And once you acquired that immense power, what is the first thing you did with it? Did you shush someone? Oh, yeah. You know what? I think a lot of people learn that once you become a library person, you're not a true library person until you've been shushed by someone visiting the library. And I've been shushed by anywhere from 12 to 15 people talking to the visitors at the desk, other co-workers, and they're like, sir, this is a library. You work here. I like to go into libraries just to shush everybody. I just like to just be like, shh, shh, shh. Even if nobody's saying anything. Yeah.

23:43I just love to shush in a library. We're creating a new Rick Steves. We're just going around the world shushing people. Shushing people. We have covered on this show the fact that many libraries report that very weird things show up in books being returned that have been used as bookmarks. Has this happened to you? Have you pulled out odd things out of books? I have. I pulled, I mean, definitely quite a few receipts. I pulled someone's social security card out of a book before. I'm like, oh, I know way too much about this person. I pulled some baloney. Baloney? Out of a library book before. Wait, what are we talking about?

24:24People use, I mean, people are reading a book and they like have to close the book. So they grab what is near to hand and put it in the book as a bookmark. Okay, thank you. Yeah. What's the context of this power social? Yeah, I understand.

24:41Let's say you have a little kid, however old, who doesn't like to read, says they don't anyway. Do you have like a magic book that you have in your pocket, metaphorically speaking, to whip out and like convert that kid into a reader? You know what? I don't have necessarily a magic book, but I think I love, I found that so many kids always have what they love on their person. Either they have a Spider-Man hat or nowadays they have K-pop Demon Hunter shirts or the Super Bowl is coming up. They'll be rocking their Patriots jerseys or their Seahawks jerseys. and I just start talking about that and I'm like did you know that there's football books there's basketball books there's actually books about k-pop demon hunters um I'm pretty sure there's someone out there trying to write a bad bunny book um as we as we speak yes um so I think the magic of books is just saying you know what you can read you can read graphic novels you can read dog man one thousand times and they're like are you sure because every other adult says that's not okay.