Panel Round Two

More questions for the panel: Hookup Holiday; Armed With Only His Legs; Hey Boo Boo, Smile!; Trick or Trick.

BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: 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 Alonzo Bodden, Luke Burbank and Kyrie O'Connor. And here again is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you Bill.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Thank you so much. In just a minute, Bill seduces you with his poetry. It's our Listener Limerick Challenge. 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. Kyrie, forget Valentine's Day...

O'CONNOR: OK.

SAGAL: ...According to experts, social scientists, the people who figure this stuff out, the best holiday for finding love - or at least a one night stand - is what?

O'CONNOR: Probably not President's Day.

LUKE BURBANK: Well, during the Clinton administration you had a shot.

(LAUGHTER)

O'CONNOR: Well, then every day was President's Day.

SAGAL: Well, as of this weekend you'll only have to wait about 363 days.

O'CONNOR: Well then it's got to be Halloween.

SAGAL: It is in fact Halloween.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Maybe it's the rush from all that sugar or the way you look in that sexy Ebola nurse costume, but according to psychologists at the Universe of Westminster in England, Halloween is our sexiest holiday. It's apparently because our attraction to each other is heightened by fear. You know how you clutch each other in moments of fear? And Halloween is the season of haunted houses, scary movies, etc.

O'CONNOR: Well, I think everybody just goes for the guy with all the Snickers.

(LAUGHTER)

ALONZO BODDEN: Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Luke, a member of the British Secret Service - their protective detail around the Prime Minister - is in a bit of hot water after letting what run into British Prime Minister David Cameron?

BURBANK: Was it like an animal of some kind?

SAGAL: An animal? No.

BURBANK: Was it a car? Was it a vehicle?

SAGAL: No.

BURBANK: OK, so is it a mineral?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: No.

BURBANK: All right. Can I have a hint?

SAGAL: Yeah. Thankfully the agents subdued him before he could start telling the Prime Minister about his half marathon?

BURBANK: A jogger.

SAGAL: Yes.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: So the scene was captured by a bystander's video.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: The security guards were escorting the Prime Minister across the sidewalk to his car. But they're all standing around and they did not see this guy running down the sidewalk until he ran straight into the most powerful man in Britain. And then, of course, the guards sprang into action shouting, shorts fired, shorts fired.

BODDEN: That's amazing on both ends that they wouldn't see him and that he would see like five burly guys surrounding a guy and say I'm going to run right through the middle of that.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Kyrie, after a number of incidents, the U.S. Forest Service has had to issue an official warning to hikers on our public lands not to do what with the Bears?

O'CONNOR: I actually know the answer to this. Take selfies with them.

SAGAL: That's right.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Bear selfies are becoming more and more popular among visitors to our national parks. The U.S. Forest Service realized they had a problem when park rangers kept finding these detached arms holding iPhones.

(LAUGHTER)

BODDEN: Do they really have to protect people from people from themselves? I mean, isn't that a Darwin thing that we - if you want to take a selfie with a bear, I think we should allow it.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Alonzo, just in time for Halloween, the Wall Street Journal printed a suggestion to help many parents improve the eating habits of their kids during that holiday. What?

BODDEN: Can I get a hint on this?

SAGAL: Well, it's as easy as taking - oh, you know, how would you put it?

BODDEN: Candy from a baby. So they're suggesting you take it away?

SAGAL: Yes. They're basically suggesting you steal their candy.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Now what makes this interesting...

BODDEN: Can I stop you right there and say there's nothing better than Wall Street bankers telling you to steal candy from kids.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: But it's not - they're not suggesting doing it like a banker would, just by walking up and going, it's mine. Give it back. They're saying you have to be devious. What they suggest - the Wall Street Journal - is that you tell your kids there's something called the switch witch.

O'CONNOR: Oh God.

SAGAL: This works with younger, impressionable children, or stupid ones if they're older. It's like the tooth fairy. There's the Easter bunny, there's the tooth fairy, there's the switch which. And the switch which comes at night and takes all the candy kids got trick-or-treating and replaces it with something else like apples or vegetables or school supplies or a lifetime of resentment.

(LAUGHTER)

BODDEN: I can't help but think this literally sounds like the test they would give to a new higher on Wall Street. Can you lie to a child and steal his candy? We'd love to have you work here.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: If you can do this - it's like the new gangs. You have to go out and kill somebody - here. So the only problem with this is the kids are going to figure it out. They're going to try to defeat the switch witch by just eating all the candy the first night, or worse, they'll start adopting the tricks of drug mules to smuggle their candy.

BURBANK: I think that's a Hershey Kiss - could be a butterscotch.

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: If any kid goes for that switch witching, they are - and I just did a study in my head of this - 90 percent more likely to take a selfie with the bear.

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: Is it not the best and brightest?

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