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Panel Round Two

CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT, WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR news quiz. I'm Carl Kasell. We're playing this week with Brian Babylon, Jessi Klein, and Luke Burbank. And here again is your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Carl.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Thank you so much. In just a minute, Carl tries to find some common ground between the Limocrats and the Rhymepublicans in 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. But right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Luke, some good news for Hallmark and other peddlers of Holiday crap, this November 28th, for the first time ever, some Americans will be celebrating what? First time in our lifetimes anyway.

LUKE BURBANK: Oh, yeah, yeah, right. This is Thanksgiving and also Passover?

SAGAL: Passover?

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: It's a Jewish Holiday, but I don't remember which one it is.

SAGAL: It's - what's the Jewish Holiday that traditionally comes around the time of Christmas?

BURBANK: Complaining?

(LAUGHTER)

JESSI KLEIN, COMEDIAN: Wow, Luke.

BURBANK: Hanukkah.

SAGAL: Hanukkah, yes. Very good, Luke.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Hanukkah. So, yes, on November 28th this year we will all be celebrating Thanksgivukkah...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Thanksgiving and Hanukkah on the same day. Much like a total eclipse of the sun or Hailey's Comet or a good Woody Allen movie, this year we're going to witness something very rarely seen, the convergence of Thanksgiving and the start of Hanukkah, Thanksgivukkah. It hasn't happened since 1888. But like any Holiday, Thanksgivukkah comes with its own traditions. There are cards, candles, T-shirts and something called a menurkey, which is a turkey-shaped...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: No. You've got one in your basement. It's a turkey-shaped menorah. Get it out. It's time.

BRIAN BABYLON: It's custom.

SAGAL: It's custom. But no Thanksgivukkah dinner is complete without a Turduckechewitz. That's a turkey, stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a chicken, stuffed with Manneschewitz and guilt.

BABYLON: I'm - just help me out - help me out and probably people who are listening who want to do the right thing. So during - because, you know, you're supposed to say Happy Holidays. You're not supposed to say Merry Christmas because people don't believe that. So are you - is it OK just to go with Christmas this year because Hanukkah's going to be over with?

SAGAL: Hanukkah's going to be done by the time we get to Christmas.

BABYLON: So we can just go Christmas crazy this year.

Go full stop Christmas, it's totally fine.

SAGAL: Yeah, you can go - yeah. What about Kwanzaa?

BABYLON: Oh, ain't nobody doing that, man.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Luke, the Brooklyn restaurant Eat, which at this point probably already annoys you...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...is trying a new kind of dinner. They're offering a four-course prefixed meal with one rule, diners must not do what the whole time?

BURBANK: Have their cell phones out?

SAGAL: No. That's old school. This even takes it further. It has to do with communication though.

BURBANK: It's with communication. They promise not to be too loud.

SAGAL: Even (unintelligible)...

BURBANK: They promise to whisper. They promise not to talk.

SAGAL: Exactly right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

BURBANK: Oh, they have to eat like people who have been married for a long time.

SAGAL: Exactly.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Well, this is what they've got there at this restaurant called Eat. The chef there was inspired by Buddhist monks. They eat in silence. According to reports, customers are taking it very seriously.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: One even went outside to sneeze.

(LAUGHTER)

COMEDIAN: Brian, I just want you to know, not all white people are like this.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: You know what...

COMEDIAN: I mean, some are and, like, it's not cool.

BABYLON: I'm believing it.

BURBANK: It just feels like a really bossy restaurant, like eat, shh.

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: Pay.

(LAUGHTER)

COMEDIAN: Pay.

SAGAL: Brian, one of the inventors of the iPad has turned his attention to the home. He has just released what he calls a more polite version of what?

BABYLON: A polite version - something in the bathroom?

SAGAL: Sometimes it's in the bathroom. It's on the ceiling.

BABYLON: A polite...

SAGAL: Usually it's near the kitchen or in the living room, bedrooms, kids' bedrooms especially.

BABYLON: I will say a smoke detector?

SAGAL: Exactly right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: A more polite smoke detector.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: The new alarm is called the Nest Protect, and it warns users about both smoke and carbon monoxide, but replaces those shrill annoying beeps with a calm, polite, yet authoritative voice. In other words, it's less Sagal and more Kasell.

(LAUGHTER)

KASELL: Hey guys, I know you're busy, but it looks like someone tried to dry out their pants in the oven and now we're all gonna die.

(LAUGHTER)

COMEDIAN: That is relaxing.

SAGAL: Yeah.

COMEDIAN: But it's very relaxing.

BABYLON: I'm just curious. Now, we've all been there and a lot of people probably have this problem with their home right now but you blocked it out. What noise does it make when you change the battery?

SAGAL: It goes beep and then about 45 seconds later it goes beep again. (Unintelligible).

BURBANK: And within about an hour, everybody who has a smoke detector that the battery's going down, you turn into Jack Nicholson at the end of "The Shining."

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: You're, like, trying to rip it down from the ceiling and it's, like, wired and you're taking the battery out, it's still beeping.

SAGAL: Yeah. Now this is also - we all know that this is, you know, big problem with smoke detectors, you like burn some toast or whatever and the smoke detector goes off. It's awful.

BABYLON: They're sensitive. They're real sensitive.

SAGAL: Right. And so you got to open the windows and it's terrible. This one, if there's a false alarm you can walk under it and wave your arm and it turns off.

BURBANK: That's so safe because nobody waves their arm in a fire.

SAGAL: Exactly right.

(LAUGHTER)

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