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Lightning Fill In The Blank

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Now on to our final game, Lighting Fill In The Blank. Each of our players has 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill-in-the-blank questions as he or she can. Each correct answer now worth two points. Bill, can you give us the scores?

BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: Peter and Mo each have three. Jessi has two going into this.

SAGAL: All right. Jessi, you are in third place. You're up first. The clock will start when I begin your first question. Fill in the blank. This week, the CEO of blank fired 15 employees over the company's faulty ignition switches.

JESSI KLEIN: GM.

SAGAL: Right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: On Tuesday, the EPA announced a comprehensive plan to cut blank by 30 percent.

KLEIN: Coal emissions.

SAGAL: Yeah. Greenhouse gas, coal.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: A new report from the National Research Council states that NASA'ss plan to send a manned flight to blank by 2030 will fail.

KLEIN: Mars.

SAGAL: Right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Hoping to reverse the trend of vanity sizing, a Japanese clothing line is offering a new size blank.

KLEIN: Oh, teeny tiny and huge or something.

SAGAL: No, they came up with the new size fat.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: On Tuesday, the Kepler spacecraft discovered a blank 17 times the size of Earth.

KLEIN: A planet.

SAGAL: Yes.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Former Miami Dolphins quarterback, Dan Marino, has now removed his name from a concussion lawsuit against the blank.

KLEIN: The NFL.

SAGAL: Right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: A woman in Japan has asked her husband for a divorce because he blanked.

KLEIN: He lactated.

SAGAL: No. Although, that would be cause.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: No. The woman asked her husband for a divorce because he admitted to her that he did not like the movie "Frozen."

(LAUGHTER)

KLEIN: What?

SAGAL: The couple had already seen the movie several times in the theater before the husband admitted to his wife he just didn't really care for it. She then told him, quote, "If you don't see what makes this movie great, then there's something wrong with you as a human being." The couple is now only speaking through their parents who advised both parties to take this dispute and just get some counseling.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Bill, how did Jessi do on our quiz?

KURTIS: She got five right for 10 more points. So Jessi now has 12 and the lead.

SAGAL: Very well done.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: We have flipped a coin, and Peter has elected to go last. So, Mo, you're up next. Fill in blank. This week, the New York Times reported that millions of images are collected daily for blanks facial recognition program.

MO ROCCA: The NSA.

SAGAL: Right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: On Tuesday, President Obama proposed spending $1 billion to bolster U.S. military presence in blank.

ROCCA: Afghanistan.

SAGAL: Eastern Europe. Sprint has agreed to pay $32 billion to buy rival wireless company black.

ROCCA: T-Mobile.

SAGAL: Right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: A Florida man who stole a GPS unit was arrested when he got lost and blanked.

ROCCA: He was arrested for stealing a GPS?

SAGAL: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: So he gets arrested for stealing a GPS when he got lost and the GPS - something found him. I don't know what to say.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: No, he called 911.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: This week, Ann B, Davis, known for playing Alice the maid on blank, passed away at the age of 88.

ROCCA: Died.

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: Oh, sorry.

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: Alice from "The Brady Bunch."

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Yes. Yes.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Donald Sterling has agreed to the $2 billion sale of the blank.

ROCCA: The Clippers.

SAGAL: Right. The Los Angeles Clippers.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: A North Carolina man burned his house down when he attempted to blank and blank at the same time.

ROCCA: He attempted to smoke and make a frittata.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: No. Actually he was trying to smoke and blow his nose. The man held a lit cigarette to his mouth, right. And he says, oh, I've got to blow my nose. So he grabs a tissue, brings it up to the lit cigarette. Screams ah, drops the flaming Kleenex and his house goes up in smoke.

PETER GROSZ: Ah, my frittata.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Like, how does a tissue that's been lit by cigarette burn?

SAGAL: Well, I mean, you know, little things can start fires.

GROSZ: Does he live in like an oily rag museum or something?

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: The curator of the old newspaper factory.

ROCCA: It was like a Molotov snot rag.

SAGAL: Exactly.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSZ: Snocktail.

SAGAL: Bill, how did Mo do on our quiz?

KURTIS: Well, he got four right for eight more points, giving him 11 points. But Jessi has the lead with 12.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: All right then, Bill. How many does Peter need to win?

KURTIS: He needs five to win.

SAGAL: Here we go, Peter. This is for the game. This Wednesday marked the 25th anniversary of the crackdown on the protesters in blank.

GROSZ: Tiananmen Sqaure.

SAGAL: Right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: On Thursday, the G7 met in Brussels to discuss the unrest in blank.

GROSZ: Ukraine.

SAGAL: Right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: This week, Seattle raised it's blank to $15 an hour.

GROSZ: Minimum wage.

SAGAL: Right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: A US Airways flight from Los Angeles to Philadelphia was forced to make an emergency landing in Kansas City after a service dog blanked.

GROSZ: Went to the bathroom on the plane.

SAGAL: Right in the aisle. You bet.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: On Monday, officials in California released a report claiming that blank farms are an environmental disaster.

GROSZ: Wind.

SAGAL: No. Pot farms. Senior advisor for the Tampa Bay Rays and baseball legend blank passed away on Thursday.

GROSZ: Oh, Don Zimmer.

SAGAL: Don Zimmer. Yeah.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: A veterinarian at a zoo in Spain knocked out an escaped gorilla with a tranquilizer dart, but the guerrilla blanked.

GROSZ: Abdicated.

SAGAL: No, the guerrilla...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Everybody's doing it in Spain. No. The guerrilla they shot with a tranquilizer dart turned out to be a zoo employee dressed as a guerrilla conducting an escaped animal drill.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: You know, the zookeeper was running around the zoo dressed as a gorilla...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...Doing what they do - trying to foment a rebellion among the animals...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...When the veterinarian shot him in the leg with a tranquilizer dart. The vet told the newspaper that reported this that the dart had enough tranquilizer to knock out a 400-pound gorilla.

KLEIN: That's a fun day.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: So despite the fact that the zookeeper probably won't wake up until the real apes have taken over the Earth, at least he'll be dressed for the occasion.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Bill, did Peter Grosz do well enough to win?

KURTIS: Well, Peter needed five. He got six points, which gave him 15 points. And he's the champ this week.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Congratulations.

GROSZ: The Brooklyn kid. The hometown kid wins in Brooklyn.

SAGAL: In just a minute, now that we know that the hurricane naming system is flawed, we'll ask our panelists to predict what will be the new system for identifying hurricanes. But first, let me tell you that support for NPR comes from NPR stations. And Esurance with an app that lets users manage their car insurance policies, update payment info and handle claims at esurance.com. Arizona State University, with more than 60 campus agrees now available 100 percemt at online.asu.edu. And Carbonite, providing automatic cloud backup for small business computers and servers. Details at carbonite.com. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.