BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We're playing this week with Roxanne Roberts, Adam Burke and Mo Rocca. And here again is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: In just a minute, Bill is simply having a wonderful Christmas rhyme. Our Listener Limerick Challenge is coming up. 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 - Roxanne, in a stunning break with tradition, a hundred-year-old organization recently announced they were opening their doors to gay members. Who is suddenly accepting of all lifestyles?
ROXANNE ROBERTS: A hundred-year-old - more than a hundred-years-old organization.
SAGAL: Yeah. They're at least...
MO ROCCA: Oh, I know what it is.
SAGAL: ...Since the turn of the 19th - turn of the 20th century.
ROCCA: I know what it is.
ROBERTS: You know?
ROCCA: Yes. Think of, like, (unintelligible).
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: I need a hint.
SAGAL: You need a hint.
ROBERTS: Yes.
SAGAL: All right. At the pride parade, their float is just a car with a bunch of bodies in the trunk.
ROBERTS: The Mafia?
SAGAL: Yes, the Mafia.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: After decades denying...
ROBERTS: What was that?
ROCCA: Oh. I...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Yeah. So let's (unintelligible). Let's go back and say, Mo...
ROBERTS: What the hell?
SAGAL: ...What was that sort of horsey...
ROCCA: I thought it was gonna be the Rough Riders.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: No. I think the Rough Riders were gay from the jump, Mo.
ROCCA: And also, that's 1898.
SAGAL: All right.
ROCCA: So I'm way off. All right.
SAGAL: I mean, seriously, isn't Rough Riders a gay bar in Chelsea? I mean...
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: It's in the West Village.
SAGAL: All right. Fine.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: After decades denying that there were any gay people in their ranks, the Italian Mafia recently began welcoming members of all sexual preferences into the family, which is more than can be said of some actual families. So congratulations, grandpa. You're now a worse person than a guy who literally buries his enemies in concrete.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It's so nice now that the Mafia doesn't care who you sleep with - a man, a woman, the fishes.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: So what happened, I should tell you, is a powerful crime boss discovered that his own son doubled as a popular drag queen, presumably, we hope, under the name Gal Capone.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: But they're fine. They're just like...
ROCCA: I thought it was going to Cosa Nostra.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It actually - it'll be great because this will change the entire, like, rank of all the Mafia cliches. Like, you come to me on the day of my son's wedding to his partner, Craig.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Leave the gun. Take the cannoli. I made it myself from a recipe on "Queer Eye."
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Roxanne, this week, we learned something incredible about our ancient ancestors. They, like us, would sometimes drink from what?
ADAM BURKE: Sadness.
ROBERTS: Drink from the milk carton.
SAGAL: No.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Just imagining prehistoric milk cartons - have you seen Ug (ph)?
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Let's see. They would drink out of the...
SAGAL: They apparently especially used these when the order was to-go.
ROCCA: A McDonaldland glass.
(LAUGHTER)
BURKE: Straw.
SAGAL: No, not a straw.
BURKE: Really?
ROBERTS: Hands?
ROCCA: Paper cups.
SAGAL: I'll give it to Mo - disposable cups.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
BURKE: Yes.
ROCCA: Oh.
SAGAL: Although, they were made of clay.
ROBERTS: Wait. There's no such - wait...
ROCCA: I was trying.
ROBERTS: There's no such thing as disposable cups in prehistoric times.
SAGAL: And yet, Roxanne...
ROCCA: They were...
SAGAL: There were. That's discovery.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: They were made of papyrus.
SAGAL: They were not made of papyrus. They were made of clay.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: They were made - they were disposable.
BURKE: They were made out of mammoth skulls.
SAGAL: They were discovered at sites dated to 4,000 years ago. They're apparently these clay cups. And...
ROBERTS: Then why were they disposable?
SAGAL: Because...
ROBERTS: This is...
ROCCA: Because it was through a prehistoric drive-through.
BURKE: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
BURKE: Haven't you seen the - the documentary The Flintsones?
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: I don't believe this. I...
SAGAL: Well, apparently, archeologists say that these were cups. They were cheaply and simply made cups that - they would just drink from them. And then they throw them in the ground. We found the remains. It was not until 3,000 years ago that we began to use reusable clay cups right after the invention of sinks to pile them up in.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Are we sure this just wasn't a frat party, you know, a site where they found and they all broke the glasses?
SAGAL: Is it true that they do believe that they were used for mead pong.
(LAUGHTER)
BURKE: Phi Beta Cro-Magnon.
SAGAL: When the cups were convenient, it was really tough to get your order at Starbucks when they have to carve the cunieform form of your name into the cup.
(LAUGHTER)
BURKE: I'm not Ug. I'm Ug.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CUPS (PITCH PERFECT'S WHEN I'M GONE)")
ANNA KENDRICK: (Singing) When I'm gone, when I'm gone - you're gonna miss me when I'm gone. You're gonna miss me by my hair. You're gonna miss me everywhere. Oh, you're sure gonna miss me when I'm gone. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.