WWDTM: Delroy Lindo

22:55So it was proof that I was not only gainfully employed, but I was sufficiently gainfully employed that I could send her some money. That's nice. You know, I don't think you're doing that well, and I would like to adopt you.

23:11I want to talk to you about Sinners, which is an amazing film, one of the biggest movies of last year, which will hopefully reap a lot of awards. This is a movie, again, filled with music, brilliant music, and you play a musician, a singer and piano player. Did you have to learn? Was that a talent you brought to the table when you walked on set? No, I received a lot of instruction. I had one, two, three brilliant musicians, New Orleans-based musicians, who worked with me on my relationship to the keyboard. Right. And I also had instruction on the harp, the harmonica. So I had a lot of instruction.

23:55Yeah. Do you still play now that the movie's all wrapped in the past? No, I have. God bless them. The producers gave me one of the keyboards. I've been so busy, frankly, I haven't had a chance to get back to it. I don't know, man. If you don't practice, you may not... Absolutely. Yeah, I know. It's true. I want to ask you this before we move to our game, which is we understand that one of your legacies as your youth in Britain is that you're a big fan of soccer. I am. Man you, right? All day long. All day long, man you. I mean, you're a pretty prominent guy. Has the team honored you? Have they had you there?

24:33I mean, they have a lot of fans, but you're pretty... Man, they have not. And give them a call. I will. On my behalf. If only I'd known. Are you then very excited for the upcoming World Cup? I am. Yeah. I really, really am, yeah. Very, very much so. I'm not sure. I don't have tickets yet. Anybody in the audience who has influence there can give me a call. Yeah, I'm really excited. I'm really excited. Yeah. It's a sad thing when someone like you has to ask us. Yeah, right. Do you have any divided loyalties? You grew up in England. You live here. Is where your career has been? Are you going to be rooting for?

25:12Actually, that's a really good question. And I would say the answer, do I have divided loyalties? I would say I'd like to see the English team do well. I'd like to see the American team do well So I guess I've got my feet On both sides of the fence there Okay, you're going to be torn If it comes down to those two teams It will not Yeah, I was about to say, no, no way It's not going to happen, man No, it's not I'm hardly a fan, and even I know That is not going to happen It's not going to happen Well, Delroy Lindo, it is a pleasure to talk to you And we have invited you here today to play a game, and we are calling it Sinners Meet the Saints.

26:00So you star in the movie Sinners, as said. So we thought we'd ask you today three questions about Saints, specifically the New Orleans Saints of the NFL. Which, if you're not a fan, in this last season, 2025, improved on the prior year's 5-12 record by going 6-11. So if you answer two or three questions correctly, you will win our prize. One of our listeners, the voice of anyone from our show they might like on their voicemail. Bill, who is the great Delroy Lindo playing for? Kevin Harmon of Detroit, Michigan. Here's your first question. The Saints have been playing in the NFL since 1967, and for the first few decades, they weren't very good.

26:38After a 1-15 season in 1980, disappointed fans in New Orleans started calling them what? A, the New Orleans Aints. B, the New Orleans Taints or C, the Houston Saints? I'm going to say the New Orleans Taints. I wish it were, but it was the New Orleans Ain'ts, I'm afraid. They took the S off. New Orleans Ain'ts. They ain't very good. Here's your next question. You still have two more chances. The Saints are credited with an innovation in pro football. What was it? A, they were the first team to hire a choreographer for their end zone dancers. B, they were the first team to have a fan in the stands wear a paper bag over his head from embarrassment.

27:24Or C, they were the first team to make uniform pants tighter to increase fan appeal.

27:32Am I allowed to ask for the right answer from somebody in the audience? You are welcome to poll the audience, but the audience is yelling B. I'm going with B also. That is B, yes. The man?

27:49First to put a bag on his head out of embarrassment while watching a football game was named Mike Dilberto. He was a Saints fan and sometimes broadcaster. He was the first to do it, but hundreds soon followed. All right, here's your last question. You get this right, Delroy. You win it all for one of our listeners. The Saints at one point seemed to have a rather unlikely fan. Who was it? A, Pope Francis, who regularly accidentally tagged the team while trying to tweet about the other kind of saints. B, a very popular burlesque dancer in NOLA who changed her name to the nude Orleans saint. Or C, a man who remained loyal to the team despite proposing to three different women on the jumbotron on three different occasions and getting rejected by all of them.

28:40The Pope. The Pope is right, yes. Pope Francis, a devout man devoted to the Catholic saints, but not very good at Twitter. He kept tagging the New Orleans saints whenever he would praise the saints of the Catholic Church. Bill, how did Delroy Lindo do in our quiz? Two out of three is a winner, which proves don't F with Delroy. There you go.

29:10Delroy Lindo, one of our great actors. He appears in Sinners, which will be up for a lot of awards, a million other things we have loved and admired over the years. Delroy Lindo, thank you so much for joining us. Have a great day. Thank you so much. Come on, Delroy. Great.

29:32in just a minute lizards they're just like us that's in our listener limerick challenge game call 1-888-wait-wait to join us in the air we'll be back in a minute with more wait wait don't tell me from npr

29:57From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis. We're playing this week with Roy Blunt Jr., Paula Poundstone, and Joyelle Nicole Johnston. And here again is your host at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sagal. Thank you so much, Bill. In just a minute, New Year, old game. It's our Listener Limerick Challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Joya, last month we lost an automobile engineer named Jim Moylan. He died at the age of 80.

30:37Now, Mr. Moylan was an unheralded hero because he was the man who brought us what huge advance in car design?

30:49Airbags? No, not airbags. You use it far more often, I hope, than you use your airbags. Seatbelts. Nope. The brakes. That's right. Until Mr. Moylan came around in the 1980s, people would just drive their cars. And if they needed to stop it, they would just point it at some hard object and hope that it was anchored to the ground. I use my sunroof a lot. Not the sunroof. I'll give you a hint. Every time you find yourself not having to try to stretch the gas line all the way around your car, you can say a little thank you to him. Oh, the little arrow? The little arrow, yes. The little arrow on the dashboard that tells you which side of the car the fuel tank is on.

31:38I didn't know that existed. Did he have a trademark on that or a patent? Well, he was working for Ford. He came up with it. where would we be without this? Trying to pump gas into blank sheet metal? That's where, right? You're thinking, okay, maybe I'm just supposed to punch through it like the top of a juice box. Back in the 80s, Moylan worked for Ford Motors, and one day he got soaked in the rain, right, as he walked around to fill up his car to find out that the gas cam was on the other side. So he wrote a memo to his bosses suggesting that they put little arrows on the fuel gauge on the dashboard telling the driver which side the fuel cap was on.

32:19And they did it. Brilliant. So that's how we get what is still called the Moylan arrow, as well as the Moylan umbrella. The irony is I've had my car for five years and I still use that arrow. Yes, that's the thing. We all do. I never have seen that. I didn't even know. I'm going to go home tonight and find out whether I've been filling up the car on the right side.

32:47Paula. Sure. I'm sure, like a lot of people, you would like a Brazilian butt lift, but... Just a matter of money. That's the only thing. It's the only thing that's kept me. And you do it, you do it, but you just can't stand the idea of synthetic fillers in your body. Well, good news, you can now inject yourself with fat harvested from what? I don't know. Is it from another animal, I assume? No. Well, technically, yes, an animal, but no. From a person? Yes, from a dead... Oh, you can get celebrity butt fat? Only if... Oh, my God, I would love that. Would you really? What celebrity do you have in mind?

33:30No, I would not love that. The whole Brazilian butt thing. No, it's not celebrities. Although it could be a celebrity, they just have to be dead. Oh, God. Yes, they're harvesting fat from dead people for Brazilian butt lifts. Well, they're not using it. That's the point. Yeah. They're not shaking it. Yeah. No, it sounds macabre to have dead people's fat injected into your bottom. It does? But it can be beautiful. Imagine the healing power you could give a grieving family by letting them slap grandpa's ass just one more time.

34:03I wonder how soon Right Yeah, I mean, how long does it last? Yeah, does it expire? You gotta get that, is it, like, fresh? Well, technically, does it expire again? Right This makes me want to, like, scribble in an addendum on my organ donor card, right? Yeah, right Yes, use my heart, use my lungs, whatever But if you inject my fat into a skinny, rich person's buttocks, I am going to haunt them I could be so skinny in the casket That's true Here's the funny though If your own butt fat Has value after your death Can you put it in your will? I would like to divide my butt equally To each of my beloved children One badonk To make money Yeah and leave that to your people Yeah I know Do you have to insure it?

34:57Like how violinists insure their hands you would insure your violin. If you had a fabulous butt, you would insure it. What do you mean if?

35:12If some other person. I don't know if y 'all have seen the NPR calendar.

35:28Coming 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. You can see us most weeks right here at the Studebaker Theater in downtown Chicago. Or you can catch us on the road. You can find tickets and information about all our live shows at nprpresents.org. Hi, everyone. Wait, wait, don't tell me. Hi, Peter. This is Maren. Hey, Maren. Where are you calling from? Olympia, Washington. Olympia, Washington. I love Olympia, Washington. I have good friends who live there.

35:58It's a lovely place. What do you do there? I am a program analyst for U.S. Department of Transportation. Oh, really? Okay. That's good. And how are things in transportation these days? Things are going. Yeah. They're transporting. What more need you say? Well, welcome to the show, Maren. Bill Curtis is going to read you three news-related limericks with a last word or phrase missing from each. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly, two of the limericks will be a big winner. You ready to play? Yes. Here is your first limerick. There's a species of colorful lizards who seem to be game-playing wizards.

36:34When searching for partners, they're brave, strong, or smarter. For mates, they play rock, paper, scissors. Right, a new study finds that the side-blotched lizard, when they're not wondering why we didn't name them literally anything else, plays rock, paper, scissors. Sort of. So the way it works is males of this species can grow up to be either orange, blue, or yellow. And when it comes to being chosen by mates, orange always wins out over blue, blue always wins out over yellow, but yellow always wins out over orange, right? It's a complex evolutionary adaptation that ensures the survival of their species and helps them decide who is the designated driver.

37:19I think it's a fascinating story about evolution. And furthermore, scientists observed that because orange beats blue, right, blues will sometimes team up to defeat an orange. In some cases, even dying while protecting an ally in the fight to mate. lizards not do the poly thing?

37:42No, no, as far as I know, they do not. All right, Maren, here is your next limerick. There is free use of Spot, Dick, and Jane. With Miss Marple, they're sipping champagne. Sam Spade, Nancy Drew, they're all joining the crew because they're all in the public. Domain? Domain, yes. This film, music, and literature that was copyrighted in 1930 has now entered the public domain. You know what that means. Get ready to see your beloved classic turned into a slasher film, porn, or slasher porn. Nancy Drew books are on the list along with the Dick and Jane children's books. Well, it's going to be called Dick and Jane now.

38:25Yeah, it is. Don't change the title.

38:35Other works include The Little Engine That Could. All of a sudden, everything sounds dirty in this content. What's interesting is that whenever this happens, it happened a couple of years ago with Winnie the Pooh. The first thing that people do is make a horror movie. Oh, yeah. Winnie the Pooh, horror movie slasher. Oh, they did? Yeah. Nancy Drew, serial killer. The New Testament? Absolutely. It ends badly. Yeah. Here is your last limerick. My weekends no longer are fun days, so I'm getting a head start on Monday. I am not at my best with two days of rest, so I'm starting my work week on... Sunday!

39:24Yeah, Sunday. More and more workers are getting a head start on the work week by working on Sunday. They say it's a way to... I see we have some dedicated Christians in the room, and I appreciate that. Day of rest. Former workers are getting a head start on the work week by working on Sunday. They say it's a way to alleviate the nerves and big workload they are walking into on Monday. Perfect. No more Sunday scaries now. You have Saturday scaries. People say it gives them the chance to work without the distraction of phone calls, slacks, and interruptions from their colleagues constantly saying, Mondays, am I right?

39:59I've done a lot of work on Sundays, but it's from putting it off all week. Yeah, that's the problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wrote many a fine book report on Sundays when I was growing up. There you go. Wait, they're going to work from Sunday and then? They go into work on Monday, yeah. But then just Saturday is their only day off? No, but these people start slacking on Thursday. I hope so. Slack at your jobs, people. Yeah. And she means don't work. she doesn't mean get on slack. I didn't even know slack was a job thing because I don't have a job. Exactly. Bill, how did Maren do in our quiz? Winner, winner, winner.

40:39Congratulations. Well done, Maren. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for playing.

41:02Now 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 two points. Bill, can you give us the scores? Roy and Paula each have two, and Joyelle has four.

41:20Big money, big money. Well, you're leading going away, so Roy and Paula are tied. Roy, why don't we say you should go first? Here we go. The clock will start when they begin your first question. Fill in the blank. During his court appearance in Brooklyn, New York on Monday, blank pleaded not guilty to drug and weapons charges. Oh, the president of Venezuela. Right, Nicolas Maduro. This week, the White House said it's still considering using military force to take control of blank. Greenland. Right. On Monday, BYD overtook Tesla as the number one seller of blanks. Electric cars. Right. This week, a Salvation Army bell ringer outside a supermarket in Florida took a break from collecting donations to blank.

41:59To rob the store. No, to try to impale the store manager with the stand that the donation bucket was hanging from. On Thursday, researchers said that regular exercise may be as effective as therapy at treating blank. Moping around. I'm going to give it to you. It's depression. After 19 years of marriage, Keith Urban finalized his divorce from blank on Monday. Nicole Kidman. Right. Great. This week a man in Italy sued a restaurant after their promotional TikTok video showed him blanking. Oh, chewing really in an awful manner with his mouth open. No, more embarrassing. The TikTok video they put out to advertise their restaurant showed this man having an affair.

42:40Oh! The man thought he was far enough away from his house when he chose the restaurant where he'd have dinner with his mistress, but didn't realize they were filming a promotional video for TikTok, which his wife saw shortly after it was posted. Boy. The next time he cheats, he's sworn to do it somewhere where there are too many people around him for him to be picked out of a crowd. You know, like a Coldplay concert.

43:02That was a fun day. Bill, how did Roy do in our quiz? Well, he got five rights, ten more points, totaled of twelve, which puts him in the lead. All right. You're up next, Paula. I'm ready. Fill in the blank. On Monday, the Justice Department revealed that they'd released only about 1 % of the blank files. EPSI. Right. On Thursday, the House agreed to vote on an extension to blank subsidies. The ACA tax. Yes. Obamacare. This week, the number of available blanks in the U.S. hit their lowest level in a year. Available jobs? Yes. On Monday, Pete Hegseth said he was cutting Senator Blank's military retirement pay.

43:39Kelly. Right. This week, police again have arrested someone for possessing a bag full of drugs that were stored in a bag labeled blank. A bag full of drugs. No, it was labeled... No, no, Paula, they're smarter than that. It was labeled definitely not a bag full of drugs. Damn it. According to a new study, users of blanks regained their lost weight after about 18 months. Those shots, like those Olympic kind of things. Yeah, all GLP-1s, they're called. Citing health concerns, NASA announced that the current crew of the blank would return to Earth earlier than expected. The crew up on the space shuttle.

44:13Right. This week, a thief who stole two mandolins from a music store in New Jersey returned them along with a note that read blank. Uh, um, uh, I stole these accidentally. No, the note with the stolen and returned mandolins said, quote, Sorry, I've been drunk. Merry Christmas. The owners of the music store were shocked to find the two stolen mandolins returned to the store along with a note that blamed the theft on the thief being drunk. Can you imagine how drunk you have to be though to suddenly think it's a good idea to start a Mumford and Sons cover band? Bill, how did Paula do in our quiz?

44:48Six right, 12 more points and total of 14. Yay, all right. Yes. My favorite part of the game. How many does Joyelle need to win? Five to tie, six to win. Here we go. All right, Joyelle, here we go. This is for the game. This Tuesday marked the fifth anniversary of the insurrection at the blank. Oh, the Capitol. Right. On Monday, a senator from Ohio proposed a law making dual blank illegal. Citizenship? Yeah. This week, the CDC warned that doctors' visits for the blank have reached the highest level in 25 years. Doctors' visits for... The blank. Plague. Ha! The flu. On Monday, board members for the Corporation for Blank voted to dissolve the organization.

45:31Hilton. No, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This week, a man in China sued his employer after they fired him for blanking while at work. Taking a nap. No, taking four-hour bathroom breaks. The company says they fired the employee. He was probably taking a nap at Puneer. It could be, but he says not. The company says that they fired the employee because he was regularly taking four-hour-long bathroom breaks while on the clock. Fair, okay. But when they're that long, aren't you technically taking work breaks from pooping? That's the kind of employee I support. Absolutely. Bill, did Joyelle do well enough to win?

46:07Two right, four more points, eight? No, is the word for Joyelle. There you go. But it's Paula. Think about Paula, the winner. In just a minute, we're going to ask our panelists to predict, now that we have a new food pyramid, what will be the next new food to go on sale? But first, let me tell you all that, wait, wait, don't tell me. It's a production of NPR and WB. Chicago, in association with Urgent Haircut Productions, Doug Berman, benevolent overlord. Philip Godeka writes our limericks. Our public address announcer is Paul Friedman. Our tour manager is Shana Donald, thanks to the staff and crew at the Studebaker Theatre.

46:42BJ Liederman, composer, our theme. Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills, Miles Dornbos, and Lillian King. Special thanks this week to Mohanad Elshechi and Monica Hickey. Peter Gwynn is definitely not a bag full of drugs. Emma Choi is our visual host. Technical direction is from Lorna White. Our CFO is Colin Miller. Our production manager is Robert Newhouse. Our senior producer is Ian Chilog, and the executive producer, wait, wait, don't tell me, is Mike Danforth. Now, panel, thanks to our new food pyramid, what will be the next new food product on the market? Joelle Nicole Johnson. Pig feet, hog miles, and chitlins.

47:13Ooh. Roy Blunt, Jr. A variety of meat-flavored M &Ms. And Paula Poundstone. Beef tallow ice cream. There you go. Well, if any of that happens, we're going to ask you about it on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you, Bill Curtis. Thanks also to Joelle Nicole Johnson, Roy Blunt Jr. and Paula Passo. Thanks to our fabulous audience here at the Student Baker Theater in downtown Chicago, Illinois. Thanks to all of you for listening wherever you might be. I'm Peter Sagal. We'll see you next week.

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