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Panelist Round

BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. And here is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago, Peter Sagal.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Bill. Thanks everybody.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Today, we are avoiding summer entirely and staying inside, where it is nice and cool. Not only do we avoid the risk of sunburn, we avoid exercise as well.

KURTIS: Yes, we definitely prefer consuming calories to burning calories. Sadly, they won't let us eat on the radio because it makes unpleasant noises. So instead, we just talk about food, a lot.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

SAGAL: Luke, a new kind of veggie burger sold out in one hour during a trial at Whole Foods. People say it's the veggie burger everybody's been waiting for because unlike other veggie burgers, this one does what?

LUKE BURBANK: It bleeds.

SAGAL: It does...

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: ...Luke. It does bleed. The new Beyond Burger is what it's called - bleeds bright red beet juice when you bite into it.

ROXANNE ROBERTS: That's disgusting.

SAGAL: So they're well on the way to perfectly simulating the real burger experience just as soon as they can figure out a way to make it give you heart disease.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Based on this success, they're about to launch their next innovation, a veggie chicken patty that begs for its life.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: But here's the thing, it's weird to think that, like, carefully simulated bleeding is what vegetarians crave.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I - I know a number of vegetarians. I thought you loved your vegetables. I didn't think you secretly resented them for not having flesh.

(LAUGHTER)

ROY BLOUNT JR.: Beets have feelings.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: They're feeling pretty beat.

BLOUNT JR.: Hey, hey...

(GROANING)

ROBERTS: What are they calling this, the stigmata burger?

SAGAL: No, it's - oh...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: It's a miracle.

BLOUNT JR.: Well, they can make waffles that bleed. You can make anything that bleeds if you can...

SAGAL: That would be alarming.

BLOUNT JR.: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: The good news is you don't have to eat bloody waffles anymore if you're not hungry.

SAGAL: That's true.

BURBANK: We know that now.

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: That's what the research shows.

SAGAL: I like a waffle that bleeds, a pancake that screams - (shouting).

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: That would be an incredibly effective diet plan...

SAGAL: It really would be.

BURBANK: ...If all of...

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: ...All of your food was just deeply upsetting as you tried to eat it.

SAGAL: I know.

(LAUGHTER)

BLOUNT JR.: Or it really asked you to eat it. You know, that would be even worse if it had its own masochistic thing about it...

SAGAL: Please, please...

BLOUNT JR.: Eat me.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

SAGAL: Maz, we have alcoholics, we have drug addicts, we have sex addicts...

FAITH SALIE: And that's just the panel.

SAGAL: I know.

(LAUGHTER)

MAZ JOBRANI: Hey.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Well, no, according to scientists just this week, we found out that they're going to have to make room for addicts of what?

JOBRANI: Addicts of people who like Benghazi hearings.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I don't think...

JOBRANI: Perfectly reasonable guess.

SAGAL: I think even they are done. They're like, I can't take anymore.

JOBRANI: Enough. What - jeez, addicts of - it's something new?

SAGAL: Well, let me give you a hint.

JOBRANI: Give me a hint.

SAGAL: Imagine a guy totally down and out, he's begging in the street, and you ask him why he can't stop. And he says it just tastes so Gouda.

JOBRANI: Oh, cheese, yes, yes, yes, yes.

SAGAL: Cheese.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Cheese. It is possibly - it is possible to be addicted to cheese. One doctor has called cheese dairy crack, and it's because - this is - here's the science - protein fragments in cheese called casomorphins, they're like morphine...

JOBRANI: (Laughter) Casomorphins.

SAGAL: Casomorphins. It's like you have Queso Fundido.

JOBRANI: Like Q-U-E-S-O?

SAGAL: No, it's C-A-S-O.

JOBRANI: It's like casomorphins with chicken.

SAGAL: Yeah, exactly.

JOBRANI: Dairy crack?

SAGAL: Dairy crack.

JOBRANI: That sounds like what you would call the milkman's pants when he bent down. There's the dairy crack.

SAGAL: So next time your friend says, I've quite cheddar, like, you know, 10 times already, I definitely do not have a problem and he's, like, shuddering, do him a favor and check him into Brie-hab (ph).

JOBRANI: Hey, get out of here.

SAGAL: Thank you.

SALIE: You know, that's right. Too much - too much of that stuff can turn you into a Munster.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And it's a hard addiction to, like, warn people about. How do you make a commercial about cheese addiction? This is your brain, and they crack an egg into the thing. This is your brain on cheese. And you're like, that looks really good.

(LAUGHTER)

ADAM FELBER: You know what would be good with that egg? Some cheese.

SAGAL: Some cheese, yeah, that would be awesome.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

SAGAL: Mo, the Great Barrier Reef, the Taj Mahal - these are UNESCO cultural heritage sites. They're the world's greatest treasures, part of our heritage. Now, officials in Italy are applying to have what named to the list?

MO ROCCA: Something in Italy that they want protected...

SAGAL: Yes.

ROCCA: ...By UNESCO.

SAGAL: Yes.

ROCCA: OK, well, it's obviously not going to be something that is obvious. I mean, it's not going to be like, St. Peter's or...

SAGAL: Oh, I see you've listened to the show.

ROCCA: ...Uffizi.

SAGAL: No, it's not going to be that. I'll give you a hint.

ROCCA: OK.

SAGAL: It's especially valuable to world's culture when topped with pepperoni.

ROCCA: OK, the world's first pizza parlor.

SAGAL: No, not - it's pizza itself.

ROCCA: Pizza - pizza.

SAGAL: Pizza itself.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: UNESCO provides protection for the great cultural institutions. There is something called the intangible cultural heritage list. And the Italians want to put Neapolitan pizza on it. But in order to do that, you have to show that whatever it is that you're trying to protect is under threat. And pizza is totally under threat from Pizza Hut and Domino's...

PAULA POUNDSTONE: Oh, boy, is it.

SAGAL: ...And the city of Chicago, which has been trying to drown real pizza in 8 pounds of melted cheese.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: But mainly...

POUNDSTONE: You know...

SAGAL: ...Pizza's under threat from all the people that want to eat it.

POUNDSTONE: I ordered a pizza at a Chicago...

SAGAL: Yeah.

POUNDSTONE: ...Restaurant one time. And it had this enormous list of ingredients that you could have on your pizza on the menu. And on the list was cheese and tomato sauce. And so I said to the waitress - I go really? If I don't say cheese and tomato sauce, that doesn't come on my pizza? And she said no. I said so if I say mushroom pizza, you'll just bring me a crust with mushrooms on it? And she said yes. And I said, well, OK then cheese, tomato sauce and mushrooms, please. She brings me the pizza - I swear I'm not making this up - I bite into it, it had walnuts in it.

(LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: So I call her back over and I go there are walnuts in my pizza. And she goes yeah, we put walnuts in the pizza.

ROCCA: You had...

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: You had to tell them when you don't want walnuts.

POUNDSTONE: Yeah. Chicago should be arrested by Italy.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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