WWDTM: Rose Matafeo

0:03From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. Filling in for Bill Curtis, I'm the voice silkier than Peter Sagal's nightgown. And here is your host at the Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Chiyoki. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, everybody. So Bill Curtis is off on assignment for a few weeks, and we cannot tell you where he is. But if you notice, one of the masked singers has a lot of gravitas. You'll know why. Meanwhile, we are delighted. We've got Chokia Janssen back to keep on keeping score. Later on, we've got comedian Rose Mattafeo joining us.

0:50But right now, it's your turn. Give us a call. The number is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Let's welcome our first listener contestant this week. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, my name is Michelle Kanya from Knoxville, Tennessee. How are things in Knoxville these days? Colder than we like it. Full of snow. Oh, too bad, he said from Chicago. I'm so sorry. What do you do there? I'm an online athletic trainer, and I work as a teaching assistant in a blended pre-K classroom. Well, that's really cool. Well, Michelle, welcome to the show. Let me introduce you to our panel this week.

1:26First up, it's the comedian you can see at the Miami Improv from January 24th through the 26th. For all dates, go over to mazjobrani.com. That's right, it's Maz Jobrani. Hi, how are you, Michelle? Thank you. Next up, she's a comedian who will be at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on January 30th, and who hosts the trivia podcast, Go Fact Yourself. It's now on LAist in Southern California. It's Helen Hong. Hi. Hi, Michelle. Hi, everybody. Hi, Helen. And he's an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning journalist and comedian and host of the new Nat Geo show, What X Does to Your Body. It's Alzo Slade.

2:04What's up, Michelle? How you doing? Doing good. How are you? So far, feel good. So, Michelle, welcome to the show. You're going to play Who's Chayuki? This time, Chayuki Ianson, filling in for Bill Curtis, is going to read you three quotations from this week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain just two of them, you will win our big prize. Any voice from our show you might like for your voicemail, are you ready to go? I hope so. Okay. Your first quote is from Victor Willis, who is the lead singer of the group The Village People. Our song YMCA is a global anthem that hopefully helps bring the country together.

2:38The Village People will undoubtedly bring the country together next week with their performance at what event on Monday? The inauguration. Yes, the inauguration of our next president. The Village People will be one of many entertainers who have been lucky enough to be chosen to play at Monday's inauguration, performing a very favorite song of President-elect. By the way, Mr. Wallace also insists that the song YMCA is not, in fact, a gay anthem. Also, he says their hit in the Navy is about military readiness.

3:19and Macho Man is just about a guy who likes nachos, but there was a typo. Do the gays know that the Village People are not a gay iconic group? I don't think so. I don't think so either. I'm sorry if you are gay and listening. I'm sorry. We should have warned you. Yeah, no, as you know, this has been a big song. President Trump loves it. He loves to play it at his rallies. He loves YMCA. He loves it. They sued him the first time around did they really yeah, I think the village people he was playing it and they send a cease and desist letter But I guess the check ran out of money. Yeah, the check is talking.

3:56Yeah They also said they also said that this is the last Living member yes, the last mr Willis who is the lead singer what is the last of living member the rest of course so it's just why yeah pretty much Why are you doing this? Yeah? It actually makes sense, Helen, that on Monday that the big song would just be, why? Why? And we all remember the big story last time, the first time he was inaugurated, was Trump insisting, falsely, that he had the biggest crowd in inauguration history. So you know his people are trying to make it true this time. So be wary. if anybody in the D.C. area gets an invite promising a free vacation in exchange for watching a short presentation.

4:49I tell you what, a lot of the folks that, you know, the people from Florida, the Floridians that are going there, they're not going to stay long because I don't think they understand how cold it is during inauguration. That's the coldest I've ever been when I went to Obama's inauguration. Ever. And if I could do it all over again, I would not. Really? It wasn't worth it. No. Do you have any advice for the people who will be, and it's supposed to be very cold in Washington on Monday. Do you have any advice for the people who might be attending this? Do the YMCA dance and that'll warm you up. Exactly.

5:21Don't go. Stay your ass home. Yeah. All right. Here is your next quote. It's from the CEO of a big national chain. When you lock things up, you don't sell as many of them. So, what a revelation. What chain might soon stop putting some of the most common items behind lock and key? Target? No, not Target. It's a chain of drugstores. CVS. Oh, I'll give it to you. It's the other one. It's Walgreens. You had a 50 % chance, right? They're all the same. They're all the same. Keep going. Great news for our listeners with herpes. Walgreens may soon be doing away with their locked cabinets. In recent years, Walgreens and other stores, they've been locking up everything from toiletries to snacks to prevent shoplifting, and we assume, you know, to allow the possibility for meet-cutes between employees and desperate customers looking for Tide Pods.

6:13But Walgreens' CEO admitted finally this week on an earnings call that locking up merchandise, brace yourself, leads to fewer sales. Who would have thought that having it announced over the PA in the store that you need the laxative case unlocked would be a deterrent to purchasing it. Nothing deflates buying a razor than standing in front of the razor case and just hearing customer service to razors, customer service to razors, and then just be like, you know what? I can be hairy for another week. I get surprised sometimes at the items that are locked up. Absolutely. I'm like, why is deodorant locked up?

7:02If somebody gets the deodorant, that means they're going to smell better. They should steal it. We should be helping them. We should be giving it away. Let's smell better than this town. You know, forever, like I'd go to the barbershop and dudes would be coming in selling soap and lotion and socks and I'd never understood where they got it from.

7:21Now I know. Did they suddenly stop? Yes, they have stopped. I see. And of course, the problem is They come and they unlock the case. That's nice. Thank you. And they don't leave. And it is so nerve-wracking trying to decide which toothpaste you might want with the employee just standing there. That's why I've been brushing my teeth for the past month with wood glue. Well, you know, as soon as they start unlocking, you're going to see me at barbershops again. All right. Here is your last quote. I've seen a quarterback eating a hot dog, but I've never seen anyone do that. That was Fox Sports announcer Tom Brady after cameras caught Eagles wide receiver A.J.

8:04Brown doing what on the sidelines during a game? Reading a book. Yes, that's right. He was reading a book. The self-help book, Inner Excellence, is suddenly the number one seller on Amazon after Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown was seen reading it on the sideline between plays. Coaches knew something was up when Brown said, after he put the book down, that instead of being a wide receiver, now he wanted to be a wide giver. And this is actually an interesting story. So this book, Inner Excellence, a self-help book, was self-published by the author in 2020. And it is now instantly the number one best-selling book on Amazon.

8:46So, you know, this inner improvement thing, it works. The author's methods for success, in case you want to follow along, are, in essence, give the best of what you have that day, be present, and get an NFL player to read your book on live national TV. I haven't seen anybody read a book in a long time. Anywhere. Anywhere. Yeah. Much less on the sideline of a game. I feel like y 'all need new friends.

9:15Everyone's on their phones. If he were like scrolling on his phone, I'd be like, all right, yeah, yeah. But he brought out a book. I'm thinking if I'm on A.J. Brown's team and he's supposed to be giving like, you know, the speech to rile us up. Yeah. And he's reading a book before the speech. And then he comes in the circle and he says, guys, we have the power within ourselves to go out onto the field and defeat the opponent. Yeah. Guys, the playbook was inside us the whole time. Oh, my God. Choki, how did Michelle do in our quiz? Well, Peter, you might want to sign up for Michelle's services because she gets results.

9:52Nice. That's great. Congratulations. Thank you. Take care.

10:11Rhino panel, time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Also, a high-ranking Polish general has been fired after a shipment of anti-tank mines he was in charge of were found where? In his kitchen. No. Not his kitchen, but at a place that has a lot of model kitchens for you to shop. At an Ikea? At an Ikea. No. What? That's awesome. So this general who's in charge of logistics for the Polish army had this shipment of munitions on a train. And the soldiers who were unloading the train missed one car, which kept going in the train until it arrived at an Ikea warehouse where the employees were like, okay.

10:53And they unloaded it. And they were probably like, okay, anti-take mines, I guess they go in the outdoor furniture department. And it turns out it was a good thing. They sold a lot of them under the name Boomlanding. Can you imagine? You know, Ikea has the arrows so you can walk through the whole store. And then you get to this part and you say, look how many anti-tank mines you can fit in a 250-square-foot apartment. Oh, yeah.

11:25Coming up, our panelists fall madly in love in our Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-Way-Way-To-Play. We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR.

11:36This message comes from WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart. Get WISE. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply.

11:57From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Chioki Ianson filling in for Bill Curtis. We're playing this week with Helen Hong, Maz Jobrani, and Alzo Slade. And here again is your host at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Chioki. Thank you, everybody. Nice. Nice. 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. Or you can check out the pinned post on our Instagram page, at Wait, Wait, NPR. Hi, you are on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

12:36Hi, Peter. Hi, panel. This is Olivia from Washington, D.C. Hey, Olivia. That's great. What do you do there in Washington? I work in abortion rights, which is always an exciting time.

12:53But when I'm not doing that, I am just kicking it with my cat and playing curling. I'm sorry, you said playing curling? I do play curling. Shout out to the Potomac Curling Club in Laurel, Maryland. Well, that's great that you're a curler. You must be so excited for the impending invasion of Canada then. Well, welcome to the show, Olivia. You're going to play our game in which humans try to tell truth from fiction. And Echoki, what is Olivia's topic? Have I told you lately that I love you? Valentine's Day is only a few weeks away, and we're already seeing proof that true love still exists. In fact, we saw an amazing story about an unusual expression of love in the news this week, and our panelists are each going to tell you about it.

13:38Of course, only one of them is telling you about the real story. Pick that. Panelists, you will win the wait-waiter of your choice in your voicemail. Are you ready to play? So ready. First up, let's hear from Helen Hall. Researchers in England have discovered a new language invented by a couple to celebrate their love and to trash talk others in public. Lisa and Jim Newman have been together for 14 years and in that time have created an entirely new language that only they understand. Early on, I tried to tell her what I loved about her in Klingon, which we both speak fluently. But there was no word for the light that glints off your hair when it's slightly greasy after a day and a half of not showering.

14:19So we made one up. Linguists, in fact, cannot believe the complexity of the invented language, which also has an individual word for a whiff of your musty beard makes me feel like Uhura flirting with Spock in the Man Trap episode of the original series. Their language, in fact, is so complex and realistic that they were cast as aliens in the latest Star Trek show, Strange New Worlds, only to later reveal that what they were talking about on camera was how lame that show is compared to Deep Space Nine. A couple so deeply in love that they have invented their own language, completely inscrutable to anybody else.

15:01Your next true or false story of true love comes from Maz Jobrani. You've heard the phrase, don't get too attached. Well, a couple just did the opposite when they got magnets implanted under their skin so when they hold hands, the magnets actually pull their skin together and they stick. I know. Yuck. Sadie Rindu and her fiancé, Hannah Hansman, both in their 20s, wanted to get, quote, closer and express their love. And voila, every time they hold hands, the magnets go click. What the hell is wrong with 20-year-olds? How much closer can hands get when they hold each other? Did they consider just intertwining their fingers like the rest of us?

15:48Rendu stated, the magnets aren't painful to use or to the touch. If anything, you could forget it's there. Really? How about when you go to open the fridge and the outside of your hand gets stuck on the metal door? Or how about when you try to give someone a quarter, but it won't disconnect from your hand? A couple so much in love that they installed magnets and they hold hands. they are really holding hands. Your last walk down Lover's Lane is from Alzo Slade. As people become more self-conscious about their role in global warming, having a sustainable household has become increasingly attractive.

16:25One couple in Tallahassee, Florida didn't think their love could run any deeper until they made the commitment to sustainability. Ruby and David Summers said it started when David mistook Ruby's toothbrush for his. He felt like he could feel her spirit when he was brushing. They decided to just have one toothbrush. They said, since we swap saliva when we kiss, it's basically the same thing, right? They now share and recycle many items between them that most of us would find strange. Ruby loves when David leaves his used dental floss on the bathroom counter. When she uses it, they not only are being sustainable, but she feels as if they're sharing a meal when she finds a piece of spinach or corn.

17:08They also enjoy sharing each other's bath water. There's nothing that says love like sitting in the tub of your partner's floating dirt.

17:22So one of these is a real story of the deepest, deepest kind of love that we saw in the news. Was it from Helen Hong, a couple who have invented their own extraordinarily complex language? From Maz Dobrani, a couple who actually had magnets installed subcutaneously, so when they held hands, they were truly bonded? Or from Alzo Slade, a couple that decided to take sustainability as far as it could go? You know, I think Maz's story of magnet implants is going to become the hot romance trope of 2025. You really? All right, that's your choice. It's Maz Jobbani's story of the couple that installed magnets in their hands.

18:08To bring you the real story, we actually spoke to a reporter who covered it. They say they can't even feel the magnets, but it's become a fun party trick. That was Rania Shimona from Fox 2 Detroit reporting on that real couple. Congratulations, Olivia. You got it right. You have earned a point for Maz just for telling the truth, and you've won our prize. The voice of your choice on your voicemail. Thank you so much. Take care. Oh, but it only gets better If we stick together

18:43We can make it better Oh, we sing together And now the game we call Not My Job. Rose Mattafeo got her start doing stand-up comedy in New Zealand as a 15-year-old. Since then, she's gone on to win Best Show at the Edinburgh Festival, write and star in her own comedy series, Starstruck, and she has a new comedy special on Max. But most importantly, she, like so many other ambitious people, has found her way to the pinnacle of entertainment jobs, game show host. Rose Mettafeo, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hello. Thank you for having me. So you are, I think, the first great comic I've talked to out of New Zealand.

19:31And you were very successful there before you went to the UK with your show in 2020, right? You won all these awards and had TV shows and stuff. Is that right? Oh, yeah. But as you say, I sat when I was 15. So it was kind of child labor vibes. I was thrown into the comedy minds to start stand-up as a teenager. Yeah, I started quite young. There's not many people in New Zealand, so I think I just, you know, they eventually give you an award if you can't have it long enough. Right. Is it true, by the way, that, like, you, like, everybody in New Zealand knows each other because it's so relatively small?

20:05Like, we read, for example, that the prime minister of New Zealand, either before or after she was prime minister, used to, like, open up your shows for you. Yeah, well, she did Jacinda Ardern. She was the Minister of Arts and Culture, so it did make sense that she kind of knew some of us and she did do a sort of monologue that we did improv comedy based on. So I know it's horrible to make generalizations, and New Zealand is a large place. It's a metropolitan capital of the world, all of that, but it is true that lots of us do know each other, yeah. And I'm a metaphor for a few times. It's really cool.

20:44I mean, when your prime minister is doing, yeah, monologues for you and like a hundred seater, you're like, yeah, that country's quite small, isn't it? Yeah. Well, Donald Trump is the opening act of this show. Absolutely. He's got a killer five men. He's coming out. I mean, I assume that you went to the UK eventually. You relocated there because everybody in New Zealand had already seen you. So there was nobody left to come see your show. You think that's a joke. That's kind of true. So my nan would come to my shows all the time to the extent where she would start coming back to shows with heckles for jokes that she had heard before.

21:19That's harsh. Was your grandmother just as funny as you? No, she's really not funny at all. She won't be listening to this, so that's good. No, she's very funny. But, you know, in that way, they don't really know that they're funny. What's very sweet is my grandmother is so lovely and sweet that the heckle that she came up with for one of the jokes was, I think I was mocking her for the way she pronounces. For some reason, a certain generation pronounces muesli as muesli. And I was, you know, really ripping into her for that because, you know, my comedy is cutting edge. You started it. And then she's the kindest person that her heckle was, well, next time I'll make you something else.

22:10And her version of absolutely taking me down was just offering me another breakfast option. You have a new special. It's on Max. I've watched it. It's called On and On and On. I have a question for you that comes from a very American perspective. Go on. It seems that in... I forgive you. Thank you. It seems that in this comedy special, which is very funny and charming and original and different and surprising, that you taped in, you are from New Zealand, you taped it in London in front of a British audience, but you seem to be wearing a University of Minnesota shirt. Don't get me started on this.

22:46I've never had, not many people are like, you know, hey, great to watch the special, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. You usually get those kind of comments. I have never got a public reaction as big as the fact that I have accidentally worn a University of Minnesota shirt that I found in the middle of Malmö in Sweden in a second-hand shop. And I was like, that's a cool yellow T-shirt with my last name initial on it. I'm going to wear that. I won't be living that down for a while. Go Gophers, I guess. Golden Gophers. They're called the Golden Gophers. Go Golden Gophers. You best believe I was straight to the Wikipedia page to see if there had been any massive controversies at the University of Minnesota.

23:31Yeah, it was. You're looking for massive controversies. You've never been to Minnesota, have you? Maybe I could get like an honorary doctorate or whatever people get. I've never been offered one of those. Really? So maybe the University of Minnesota can step up and offer one of those little hats or something. I just want to wear that little hat that people tend to wear. I don't know. Right. So I want to talk to you about something close to my heart. You are hosting a game show now, the greatest job you could ever have. Taskmaster Junior, which is based on a show, Taskmaster, which has a bunch of comedians doing silly tasks for points, except in your version, instead of comedians, it's kids, right?

24:10I was asked, alongside Mike Wozniak, to be the Taskmaster, who's the person who gives out the points and sort of judges. Yeah. Five children, gives out points. That's a hard job. I had to really yes, it is how to do that You're ranking little oh look I work. Oh, yeah Yeah, so so so you're very the conceit of the show is the taskmaster That's you are very imperious figure sitting in a big chair. You don't smile much and you are like rating these children You have sent these children out to do these difficult tasks of discovering this or figuring out that or competing in this and then you have to judge them.