WWDTM: Happy New Year Edition!

0:04From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm the old acquaintance that won't ever be forgot. Bill Curtis. And here's your host at the Studebaker Theater of the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. Thanks, everybody.

0:292024 is finally over, thank goodness. But we're hoping to delay finding out what 2025 has in store by staying in bed with the lights off. And when that doesn't work, I call up my friends Jack Daniels and Jack Ambien. Jack Ambien. While we try to remain blissfully unaware that a new year has even begun, we want to salvage the reputation of the last one a little by bringing you some of the highlights of our show. Let's start with Kristen Kish, who joined us in Milwaukee, where she had just filmed her first season as the new host of Top Chef. Peter started by asking about her experience as a contestant on the show.

1:11So let's jump right in. You won your season of Top Chef after fighting your way through a redemption round. And a big turning point for you in the show was you were all challenged to prepare this seafood specialty in Seattle, the gooey duck. Correct. And I don't know if I will ever recover watching. Who knows what a gooey duck is? You guys know? Yes? Yeah, no? It sounds like pate or something? Who knows what a penis is? They look identical. It is not the thing that I wanted to cook and have my first moment dunking the gooey duck in hot water to then remove the... Forrest skin? Yes, yes, I'll let you say that.

1:59And to slide it off, and that was my first moment. But it was the quickest thing that you could cook in 30 minutes. Wait, so you moiled a... Wow! What a fuck! Hey! Beautiful. It's a very easy procedure. You do that, you give it a fountain pen, and you move on. And I... I'm very gay, so shocking that I knew what to do with it. Yeah, exactly. Yes! Well, you know... That makes sense, though, that you're like a penis dipping in boiling water. Yeah, that's right. I think that's the advantage you had over the rest of the contestants. Complete emotional detachment. I don't care. I don't care. So now, so you went to the one Top Chef, hugely popular winner.

2:45You've gone on to do a lot of things. And then they called you up and they said, Padma's retiring. We want you to take over the show. Well, so they didn't even say that. I saw anyone that is a fan of the show saw that on Instagram when Padma posted it. And it was like, it caught me off guard too. I was like, who's going to take over that job? Not me. No. Certainly. It's probably going to be one of you. You all are very funny and clever and very witty and charming. I did think it was going to be me. So this is awkward. And it just happened so fast. I got a call. I was flying from Thailand back to New York.

3:18And I was in Dubai. And I got a call from my agent. And it just, things started rolling. And how did you find the, of course, necessary moment at the end of every episode where someone has to go home? Do you use the famous catchphrase, pack your knives and go? Oh, pack your knives and go is still there. And you, our top chef, is still there. They have been there since season one. You didn't change it? You weren't like, f*** off? Well, I did. You did? No. Did you pitch your own? Did you pitch your own? The first day I was like, maybe what if I do just say, go the f*** home? Yeah? Really? Yeah. But I felt like, I was like, there's a lot of people I don't want to say that to.

3:53So I was like, I'll be nice to everybody. So we can't tell, you know. You are. You are a very positive person. So you filmed the next season of Top Chef will take place entirely here in Milwaukee and other areas of Wisconsin. Chefs all from all over the country flew here to compete. And how many episodes were there? Are there? I have no idea. You're not. A lot of episodes. So like 20 episodes. How many of them are entirely about cheese curds? As soon as we touched down, I had cheese curds, custard, butter burger. And I know Wisconsin is much more than just your dairy, but your dairy is exceptional.

4:36It's true. And most people don't know this, but when you arrive at Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee, you are greeted with strings of cheese curds that they place around your neck as a traditional welcome here. It's very nice. And in Wisconsin, your dairy is exceptional qualifies as dirty top.

4:56Well, Chris and Kish, we are so delighted you came back to Milwaukee to join us, and we have asked you here specifically to play our competition, and this time we are calling it... Top Chef, meet the Top Jeff. You host Top Chef, so we thought we'd ask you about the world's top Jeff, Jeff Bezos. Answer two out of three questions correctly about the founder of Amazon, and you will win our prize for one of our listeners, is the voice of anyone they might choose for their voicemail. So Bill, who is Chef Kish playing for? Heather Reign of Racine, Wisconsin.

5:33Did you get down to Racine while you're here? Get a Kringle? I can't say anything. Oh, I'm sorry. You can't. It's all secret. Sorry. But also, if I lose, does Heather still get the prize? Because this is a lot of pressure for me. I want to do good for somebody else. And then if I don't do good and then she doesn't get the prize, I'm going to feel really bad for the rest of my life. Here we go. We'll see how you do. Here's your first question. To demonstrate his personal philosophy of how one succeeds in business, Jeff Bezos once did what? A, actually stole candy from a baby, B, ate an octopus for breakfast, or C, drove his Mercedes S-Class the wrong way down I-5 in Seattle?

6:18god see i was really bad at quizzes and i always did see when i didn't know the answer but there's only so he ate the octopus he ate the octopus that's right there you go yeah see you know what's you know what's crazy get back in your head right right you think you know the answer and then you someone once asked me at a food and wine festival side note late um you know le crusade le crusade the the cookware yeah someone's like how do you say le crusade and i've been saying le crusade the right way my entire life. And someone goes, how do you say it? And I was like, have I been saying it wrong?

6:48And I go, Les Crusettes? And they're like, no, I would, I, this is what happens. I overthink. I overthink. So what happened was, is he ate this octopus for breakfast at breakfast with his, with the head of a company he wanted to acquire. And then Bezos said, and I quote, you are the octopus I'm having for breakfast. When I look at the menu, you're the thing I don't understand the thing I've never had, I must have the breakfast octopus. That was Bond villain. It really was. Wow. All right. Here's your next question. Jeff Bezos is not the only famous member of his family. His biological father, Ted Jorgensen, also had a claim to fame.

7:31What? A, he was the most beloved small independent bookstore owner in Seattle until Amazon put him out of business. B, he invented the male cosmetic buttock implant. Or C, he was an avid unicyclist who founded the world's first unicycle hockey club. Does C qualify as a claim to fame? I personally like B. I like the thought of white men getting BBLs. A. A. No, I thought I told you. The answer is always C. Wait, how many do I have to get right? Two? You have to get two. This is just like Top Chef. You lost, but you're not out of chances. You can come back and win it all. You know how I do well under pressure?

8:15I don't do very well. What happened in high school once is I was a really great free throw basketball person. They threw me on the team because I was tall for my age. It's not because I was actually good. But I got really good at just aiming and standing one spot. So then what happened is there was a game. We were playing our rivals. Right. And it was tied game. Like everything that you think of like when you see something really suspenseful in a sports game. That's what's going to happen. All right. Let's go. Tied game with this team rival. You're fouled. Game's in the line. You're at the free throw line.

8:47Go. And I go, whoop, and it air balled. Oh. It was devastating. Devastating. So this is how I feel now. So go ahead. Ask your question. Ask your question. Yes. Come on, triggers. All right. Here's your last question. Get this right, you win. I think I'm ready. You get this one right, you win. So Jeff Bezos is famous for insulting his employees whenever they displease him, which apparently they do a lot. Which of these is a real insult that Jeff Bezos has been reported to shout at his underlings? A, I'm sorry, did I take my stupid pills today? B, if I hear that again, I'm going to have to kill myself.

9:31Or C, why are you wasting my life? Well, C. C, yeah, C. C, you're going to go with C. A, A. All of them, all of them. What did you just say? All of them. All of them is the correct answer. For the win! Yes! For the win! I have had a lot of wonderful people in the show. I've never been on such an emotional journey. But hey, it's no, wait a minute. The demon has not banished until Bill says the words. Bill, how did Kristen Kish do in our show? Two out of three. You won. Yeah. Oh, my God. Kristen Kish is a Top Chef winner and the show's new host. The latest season filmed in Milwaukee will air on Bravo this spring.

10:16Kristen Kish, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you. broadcast before. Joelle, the movie Wicked just came out this weekend. You're excited. I saw it already. Oh, you did? I did. I'm special. Well, maybe then I bet you'll be able to figure this out quickly. The New York Times is reporting that some movie theaters have had to crack down on all the theater goers doing what? Singing at the top of their damn lungs. Did that happen at the screening you saw? No, it didn't. But I could tell like the little theater kids next to me were like vibrating. So many fans have complained about all the other fans singing at the screening is that some theaters have started posting signs saying they will have dedicated sing-along screenings.

11:05So would you please shut up at this one? The singers, meanwhile, are undeterred. I think you should be allowed to sing. And absolutely, because if you go to like a movie at a black theater, black people are going to be talking. So there should be a judge of like your tone. Like if you're not, if you're off. I was about to, I was about to say to Joelle, Dale, you say you're fine with it. Wait till you hear my version of Defying Gravity.

11:37When we come back, an economist who won a Nobel and a rapper who cannot win at pickleball. That's when we're back with more Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR.

11:56From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis, and here is your host at the Studebaker Theater and the Fine Arts Building in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody. Thank you all so much. We're spending the first week of the new year lost in nostalgia for the old one. Consider it a challenge, you baby year. Try to beat this. For example, 2025, I bet you won't be sending us a Nobel Prize winner as fun as economist Claudia Golden, who appeared with us last March. First of all, I guess it's not that long ago, so we can still congratulate you on the Nobel?

12:40Oh, thank you. Yeah. Now, Peter, how did you... I don't know that there's a statute of limitations on congratulations on your Nobel Prize. Well, I mean, you know, it was just last year, you know, it's still fresh. I mean, can you tell us about the experience of getting the call? Yes, the call arrived at 4.30 in the morning, and I was sleeping in a bed with the person behind me. Now, we should establish, by the way, that you are speaking to us from your home and with you, and is your husband, Larry. Hello. The great labor economist. The great labor economist. That's right. He's also the father of my dog.

13:27And the call came, and you have to just get into action because the person at the other end of the phone says, you have 90 minutes to prepare for a press conference. That doesn't sound like a prize. It sounds like a threat. Hello, this is the Nobel Committee. In 90 minutes, there will be a press conference. And what did you do, Professor? I said, Larry, take the dog out.

14:05Now, the Nobel Prize in Economics, or the Nobel Memorial Medal in Economics, is awarded separately from the other Nobel Prizes. Who has better parties? The economists? or all those lame scientists? We share the parties. You do? Really? Yes, we had one big party and there was dancing, music, things that you would not expect Nobel laureates to do. That's right. That is, in fact. Now, I wanted to ask about your husband who, again, I just want to let everybody know we have you on screen here and he is sitting directly behind your shoulder staring at us. He is also an acclaimed economist. And we recently had, I know, your good friend, Janet Yellen, also an economist, Secretary of the Treasury.

14:56She is also married to an economist. Are all economists married to other economists? This is an extraordinarily good question. It's not all economists married to other economists. there are very few female economists in various age groups. Yes. And a disproportionate number of those are married to male economists. Right. But the male economists can't be married to the female economists because there are too few of us. Oh, I see. There would have to be polyandry.

15:37By the way, answering my question about are all economists married to other economists with a breakdown of the data of the numbers of female versus male economists and thus the different proportions of marriages is such an economist way to answer. Now before we get to the game, we heard that you asked a chatbot to predict what we would ask you about. And well, what did it say? Yeah, so I said to the chatbot, first I said, what will Peter Sagal ask Claudia Golden on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me in the Not My Job segment? And the chatbot came back and said, I don't know what Peter is going to ask. So I changed the question.

16:21I said, what might Peter ask? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it came back and it said, how do you think your career would be different if you pursued your true passion of competitive yodeling?

16:43Where were you on that one, Peter? So the chatbot thought I would ask you about your true passion in competitive yodeling. That's what it said. Is that, by any chance, your true passion? No. No. Thank goodness. You're safe from robot replacement right now. For the moment. All right. Well, Claudia Golden, we've asked you to play a game we're calling... Economy? How about first class? You know the economy, but we're going to ask you about a guy who knows first class. Tom Stuker, who is the most traveled airline passenger in history, and he did every one of those 23 million miles in first class. Answer two out of three questions about Mr.

17:29Stuker, you will win our prize for one of our listeners. Bill, who's Professor Golden playing for? Laurie Craig of Olympia, Washington. All right. Here's the first question for the both of you. Mr. Stuker started his odyssey when he bought a lifelong pass for unlimited first-class travel from United in 1990 for$290 ,000. As you can imagine, having flown farther than any other human being in the decades since, he has lots of advice for travelers, including which of these? A, despite what you've heard, people like it when you take off your shoes on planes. B, always lie to the chief flight attendant that you remember them.

18:11Or C, air sickness bags make great hand puppets for the kids. B. B. You're going to say B. Hold on. Larry, can you hear me? You concur in the choice of B. Yes. Big nod from Larry. You're both right. Yes. He says that when you meet the chief flight attendant as you walk onto the plane, say, oh, hi, I remember you from my last flight. You were so great. It's great to see you again. Now, They, of course, don't remember you, but they're not going to admit that. So instead, they will just treat you exceptionally well during the flight. Word to the wise. All right. Two more questions. Because he has earned frequent flyer miles with every flight, he's also been able to swap those miles for all kinds of goods and services, meaning that Mr.

19:00Tom Stuker once used frequent flyer miles to get himself a what? A, an entirely new face from a plastic surgeon. be a guest spot on the TV show Seinfeld or see a majority ownership stake in United Airlines. Whoa. Okay, Seinfeld. It's Seinfeld. Yes, that's right. I feel like Kramer looked different in season seven. I know, yeah. No, he donated his miles to a fundraiser and the prize was a guest spot on Seinfeld. So you can see him in the episode in which George's fiance dies from licking envelopes. All right, here's your last question. Despite what you might think, United Airlines doesn't mind him costing them millions of dollars in free flights.

19:43In fact, they once did what for him? A, they let him pilot the plane, part of a trip from Dallas to Hawaii, but, quote, only over the ocean. B, they let him be CEO of United for a day, which is why the airline went from giving people peanuts to the much superior Stroopwafels. or C, they named not one but two aircraft after him. It's got to be C. That's right. It is C. Next time you see United Aircraft, check to see if it says Thomas R. Stuker, customer on the fuselage. Bill, how did Dr. Claudia Golden and her husband Larry do in our quiz? Well, they both may not have won the Nobel Prize, but they certainly both won this contest.

20:29Thank you so much. Dr. Claudia Golden is a Nobel Prize winner and the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Dr. Golden, thank you so much.

20:52We know that 2025 is already intimidated by everything we have played so far, so let's hit it when it's down. We went to Austin, Texas last February and talked with rapper Danny Brown. Danny had moved there after revolutionizing hip-hop in his hometown of Detroit. Peter asked him about his distinct style. You do something that I don't think a lot of the people in your field do, is that you use different voices when you rap, right? Yeah, I try to use different voices. Just whatever emotion I'm feeling or the emotion of the song, I try to let that convey through the voice. Do you have names for your voices that you use?

21:25Like, these are verses that this guy's going to do? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Do you know any of those names offhand? One is just called Adderall.

21:38Where did you get that name? That's fascinating. That's fascinating. Yeah. So we were reading about you. You grew up in Detroit, and you said that you were rhyming almost as soon as you could talk, right? Mm-hmm. You're right? Yeah. Yeah. My mom used to read Dr. Seuss books to me all the time, so she said when I first started talking, I just talked him rhyme. Really? Yeah. Yeah, he was killing them on the playground, green eggs and ham. You feel me? You know what I mean? Yeah. You also won a lot of rap battles in high school, right? Yeah. I lost a lot, too. Did you really? Yeah. I mean, I'm the professional rapper now, so I guess I won it.

22:13Yeah, I guess so. I was going to ask who you lost to. Let him know. What kind of contract does that guy have? Is there like a secret weapon to winning rap battles? Because I couldn't on a bet. I mean, it was always like I was kind of quiet in school, to be honest. Really? So every time like some kid would rap, I'd be like, oh, it's my time to shine. That was the Adderall voice right there. That was it. So you had this huge album about 10 years ago when you were about 30 called XXX or 30, right? Yeah. And you have a new album, Quarenta, Italian. Quarenta. Quarenta, excuse me. You got a row to R.

22:53Quarenta. See, he battling you already.

22:59So you album 30 when you were 30 and Italian for 40 when you're 40. Has Adele ever called to say you're stealing my bit? No, I actually met Adele once. Did you? She's really nice, yeah, at Wembley Stadium. Yeah, she was really nice. I think I made a crude joke and she got up out of there after that. Really? But most part, she was pretty cool. She was nice, yeah. And it was when you all first met. Yeah. Yeah, it was like first thing. I didn't know it was Adele, though. Oh. You didn't know. Did it tell you? Wait a minute. I came because I was actually opening for Eminem, and she just was there to see Eminem, obviously.

23:32And she, you know, I just had the empty dressing room that she can hang at. And she just was chilling. I just thought it was just a cool white lady back there. I was drinking a lot back then. I'll blame the alcohol. Yeah. Is alcohol a name of one of the other voices? Adderall, there's alcohol. Speaking of which, if you don't know about your struggles with addiction and substances and drink and stuff, you can find out about it because Cuaranta, let me get that right, it has a lot of verses about your struggles and some regrets. I mean, it's like a, forgive me, it's like an older guy's rap album, right?

24:07Yeah, it's a midlife crisis. Speaking of midlife crisis, we understand that you, among your many enthusiasms these days, You're into pickleball. Yeah, I actually just started playing. Really? Yeah. I actually went to an old folks home. That's not fair, bro. No, they was whooping my, they were killing me. So what inspired you to go play pickleball? I mean, it started out as a joke for me to go. It was a sketch for me to go play pickleball with all these old people. And, you know, I guess I was supposed to win, but it didn't work out like that. And I was like, man, they're really moving fast out there.