Lightning Fill In The Blank

Transcript

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Now on to our final game, Lightning Fill in the Blank.

CHARLIE PIERCE: Now on to our final game, Lightning Fill in the Blank.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: 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. Carl, please can you give us the scores?

CARL KASELL, BYLINE: Luke Burbank has the lead, he has four points. Amy Dickinson and Charlie Pierce are tied for second, each has two.

SAGAL: So we have flipped a coin. Charlie has elected to go second, so Amy, you're up first. The clock will start when I begin your first question. Fill in the blank, this week officials used intermittent ping signals to search for the missing blank.

AMY DICKINSON: Malaysian 777.

SAGAL: Yes. On Thursday, the Obama administration announced that 7.5 million people have now signed up for blank.

DICKINSON: Obamacare.

SAGAL: Yes. Voting along party lines on Thursday, the House approved Paul Ryan's blank.

DICKINSON: Budget.

SAGAL: Yes. As part of its internal investigation on the ignition switch recall, this week automaker blank suspended two engineers with pay.

DICKINSON: GM.

SAGAL: Yes. A bald 50-year-old man with a goatee was able to travel to Spain and back without incident despite blanking.

DICKINSON: Looking like Salvador Dali? No.

SAGAL: No. Despite accidentally bringing his younger, blonder girlfriend's passport.

DICKINSON: Oh.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Nirvana and Kiss were among the groups inducted into the blank on Thursday.

DICKINSON: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

SAGAL: Yes. Zookeepers at the Kansas City Zoo were forced to hide indoors after a blank escaped from its enclosure on Thursday.

DICKINSON: Oh, there was like a tiger on the loose?

SAGAL: No.

DICKINSON: The monkeys.

SAGAL: No.

DICKINSON: But...

SAGAL: Not a monkey, it's a chimpanzee, it's an ape.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: People write in if I make that mistake.

DICKINSON: Oh my God.

SAGAL: And you said Tiger.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: A competitor in a triathlon in Australia was unable to finish the race after she was blanked partway through.

(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)

DICKINSON: Attacked by a Pekinese?

SAGAL: No.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: She was hit on the head by a falling unmanned drone. A drone filming the event fell out of the sky right on top of the triathlete, who was knocked to the ground, but she is recovering. Meanwhile, the drone operators of the world have finally found a way to get people to stop talking about how they just did a triathlon.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Carl, how did Amy do on our quiz?

KASELL: Amy had five correct answers for 10 more points. She now has 12 points and Amy has taken the lead.

SAGAL: Well done. All right.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: All right, Charlie, you're up next. Fill in the blank. On Thursday, CBS announced that blank would be taking over David Letterman's spot on the Late Show.

PIERCE: Stephen Colbert.

SAGAL: Right. This week both the men's and women's teams at UConn won blank championships.

PIERCE: The national basketball championship.

SAGAL: Yes. Police expecting to find a burglar at a home in Massachusetts instead found blank.

PIERCE: A duck.

SAGAL: Yes, a soot covered duck. On Monday, Maryland became the 25th state to pass a bill decriminalizing possession of small amounts of blank.

PIERCE: Marijuana.

SAGAL: Indeed. Scientists determined this week that a scrap of papyrus claiming that Jesus had a blank is not a forgery.

PIERCE: A wife.

SAGAL: Indeed. A plane was forced to make...

(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)

SAGAL: ...An emergency landing after its fire alarm was triggered by blank.

PIERCE: Spiders.

SAGAL: No. Farting...

PIERCE: Snakes.

SAGAL: ...Farting cows.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Get these mother farting cows off...

LUKE BURBANK: Here we go.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...This over-farted plane. The plane was carrying 390 cows, something to think about the next time you're complaining about being seated next to a baby.

(LAUGHTER)

PIERCE: I was going to say, could they fit in the overhead?

SAGAL: No. The cows were releasing enough methane to set off the fire alarm which forced the plane to make an emergency landing. The cows all jumped down that yellow slide. That was fun to watch.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And then all 390 of them blamed it on the dog.

(LAUGHTER)

PIERCE: You know what was really hilarious, though? Watching them try to use the lifejackets.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Yeah, yeah. Who are these cows that were flying around the country? I did not realize this, but apparently sometimes you ship cows by airplane.

DICKINSON: Livestock.

SAGAL: Livestock? I didn't know that. I thought you put them on trains or trucks.

PIERCE: That's what happens when you use, like, Priceline.com.

SAGAL: Yeah.

PIERCE: You get on a cow plane. Yeah, I got a great - I got a great rate, but it's on the cow plane.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Anyway, how well did Charlie do on our quiz?

KASELL: Five correct answers, 10 more points. He now has 12 points and he's tied with Amy Dickinson.

SAGAL: All right. So we have two ties.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: How many then - how many then, Carl, does Luke here, my good friend, need to win?

KASELL: Five correct answers.

SAGAL: Here we go. In honor of the anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, this week blank spoke of the Johnson Presidential Library.

BURBANK: The president.

SAGAL: Yes.

BURBANK: President Obama.

SAGAL: President Obama. Even though his own investigation cleared him, a new poll shows that voters don't trust the findings on New Jersey governor blank.

BURBANK: Chris Christie.

SAGAL: Right. On Thursday, Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that she is blanking.

BURBANK: Retiring.

SAGAL: Or resigning, yes. Once again, gastrointestinal illness has struck people vacationing on a blank.

BURBANK: Cruise ship.

SAGAL: Yes. A team of firefighters in England was able to save a 17-year-old man who had blanked.

BURBANK: Popped a really bad zit.

SAGAL: No. Got stuck in a child's swing. According to British tabloids, this week, actress blank and her husband held an official uncoupling ceremony.

BURBANK: Gwyneth Paltrow.

SAGAL: Indeed. As part of the royal trip to New Zealand, this week blank had his fist ever playdate.

BURBANK: Prince George.

SAGAL: Yes. A showing of the movie "Noah"...

(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)

SAGAL: ...In Great Britain had to be canceled last week after blank.

BURBANK: Flooding.

SAGAL: Yes, the movie theater flooded.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: The flood was a shock to theatergoers, but it really shouldn't have been because the whole day before, ushers had noticed the projectionist herding tiny pairs of cockroaches, ants, rats into a huge popcorn bucket.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Carl, did Luke do well?

BURBANK: Let's all drown in the lobby.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Carl, did Luke do well enough to win?

KASELL: He needed five to tie, he had seven correct answers.

SAGAL: Whoa.

DICKINSON: Whoa.

SAGAL: Well done.

KASELL: So with 14 points, Luke Burbank is this week's champion.

(APPLAUSE)

PIERCE: Boo.

DICKINSON: Wow.

SAGAL: In just a minute, we'll ask our panelists what we will do now that, thanks to Heartbleed - the Heartbleed bug, we can't go on the Internet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.