BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We are playing this week with Bobcat Goldthwait, Helen Hong and Faith Salie. And here, again, is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill.
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SAGAL: Right now, it's time for the WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME Bluff The Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game on the air. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
GREG PARRISH: Hello, Peter.
SAGAL: Hi, who's this?
PARRISH: This is Greg Parrish.
SAGAL: Hey, Greg, where are you calling from?
PARRISH: Gakona, Alaska.
SAGAL: Gakona, Alaska. That sounds like the punchline to a joke. Well, Gakona, Alaska. Where is Gakona, which I've never heard of?
PARRISH: It's in interior Alaska in the Copper River Valley, about four hours east of Anchorage.
SAGAL: And what do you do out there in the remote interior of Alaska?
PARRISH: My wife and I do scenic rafting and fishing trips for the legendary salmon that run here.
SAGAL: Are you there all year? 'Cause it can get kind of wintery.
PARRISH: No, sir. We run a business up here about six months of the year and live in North Carolina six months of the year at the moment.
FAITH SALIE: Perfect life.
HELEN HONG: Wow.
SAGAL: We're all dying of envy here.
SALIE: I know.
SAGAL: You sound like you have the perfect life.
SALIE: Plus he's got a lot of Omega-3 in that body.
SAGAL: Oh, yeah. Well, Greg, it's nice to have you with us. You're going to play the game in which you have to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Greg's topic?
KURTIS: I want a do-over.
SAGAL: Not everything goes great on the first try. For instance, did you know that Robert Frost's famous poem "The Road Not Taken" was originally called "That Time I Got Lost?"
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SAGAL: This week, we heard about something else getting a second chance. Our panelists are going to tell you about it. Pick the real story, you'll win our prize Carl Kasell's voice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?
PARRISH: Yes, sir.
SAGAL: All right. Well, then let's hear your first story of a second chance from Bobcat Goldthwait.
BOBCAT GOLDTHWAIT: When Jeffrey Striker (ph) died, he had one simple request. He wanted to be buried dressed as Batman. In fact, it was a stipulation in his will. So you can understand why his family was so shocked when they arrived at Striker's wake and saw that he had been dressed in the wrong year Batman. Striker was a big fan of the 1960s television show starring Adam West, and the funeral director, Charles Hunter, had him dressed as "Dark Knight" starring Christian Bale. Striker's mother Florence said, it's hard enough losing Jeff and now this. He hated the new Batman. It's been a bad week. Funeral director Hunter said, I'm 32 years old. I've never even seen the television version.
But before you could say holy embalmment, Hunter apologized and asked if he could make it up to his family. He asked if he could add one more day to the viewing, free of charge, and then Striker would be dressed as the correct version of the winged, caped crime fighter before being lowered into God's bat cave. The family agreed and Striker's wishes were granted. Striker's son Chad said, there are two silver linings to this story. Sure, it was stressful, but the extra day made it so that some of the family members who were at Comic-Con and had missed the first wake still got to see Dad off. And two, at least he wasn't dressed as the Clooney Batman.
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SAGAL: A man who wanted to be buried dressed as Batman got a second chance at being dead when the funeral director made it up to him. Your next story of someone getting a chance to redeem themselves comes from Helen Hong.
HONG: "The Star-Spangled Banner" is famous for being spectacularly botched in public. Luminaries from Christina Aguilera to Roseanne Barr have delivered famously flubbed versions of our national anthem. But not everyone lets a tangle with the patriotic tune keep them down. At a Little League game in Sanders Creek, Ohio, city councilman Jeff McCrory (ph) mumbled out a mangled rendition of the song, which included re-imagined lines such as all the bad parts we watched and twilight's last feeding. I'd say he only got about 12 percent of the words right, reported one spectator. Through the perriest (ph) flight. What does that even mean? Councilman McGrory was mortified. And after repeated requests to redeem himself and repeated rejections, he decided to take matters into his own hands.
At a playoff game on Sunday, just as the anthem was about to be sung by a local church choir member, loud feedback could be heard near third base. It was the councilman who was wearing a headset microphone and lifting a boom box over his head, a la John Cusack in "Say Anything," while belting out the national anthem. He had clearly studied up and nailed every single word with some of it even in tune. All appeared forgiven until the end when McCrory went for a grand finale. While crooning and the home of the brave, he launched a bottle rocket that unfortunately careened into the American flag, which promptly caught on fire.
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HONG: And fell into the stands. No one was injured, but the game had to be canceled. Officials expect the next Little League game in Sanders Creek to be over capacity as everyone wants to know how McCrory will screw it up next.
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SAGAL: A guy screws up "The Star-Spangled Banner" at a Little League game, comes back and screws it up in a completely different way. Your last story of a second chance comes from Faith Salie.
SALIE: Question - what's 400 pounds, completely terrifying and has one bronze ball? Answer - a statue of Lucille Ball in Celoron, N.Y., that's being replaced this weekend by a prettier, less demonic-looking Lucy. In 2009, the original statue was installed in the comedian's hometown. It doesn't say "I Love Lucy" so much as it says "I Fear Lucy." One hundred percent of everyone agreed that its face, with a grimacing rictus, makes the television icon look like the serial killer doll Chuckie. Even its creator, Dave Poulin, called it, quote, "by far my most unsettling sculpture."
So in honor of the star's 105th birthday, a new artist will unveil a new Lucy in Lucille Ball Memorial Park. Carolyn Palmer spent nine months sculpting what she hopes is a playful and glamorous figure. To be fair, Poulin, the creator of Scary Lucy, did offer to perform a do-over for free, but everyone told him to take his ball and go home.
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SAGAL: All right, here are your choices. From Bobcat Goldthwait, the story of a man who only wanted to be buried in a Batman suit was buried in the wrong one but got a second chance when he was put in the right one; from Helen Hong, the story of a guy who screwed up so badly singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at a Little League game that he went back and tried again and screwed up entirely differently; or from Faith Salie, how a statue of Lucille Ball in her hometown was so awful and terrifying that it was replaced just a few years later this week by a better one. Which of these is a story of a second chance in the week's news?
PARRISH: Oh, my goodness. I don't know. I kind of have to go with the Batman. People are pretty crazy about the comic.
SAGAL: You're going to go with Batman, Bobcat's story of Batman. Well, to bring you the real story, we spoke to someone who knew something about it quite intimately.
CAROLYN PALMER: The other Lucy put Celoron on the map, and the old Lucy is now only 75 feet away from mine.
SAGAL: That was Carolyn Palmer. She is from palmersculptures.com, and she is the creator of the new, less frightening Lucy sculpture in Celoron, N.Y. I'm so sorry. I'm happy for Lucy that she gets a better statue. I'm sorry for you that you didn't win our prize. I am happy, though, for Bobcat for winning a point by fooling you. You, sir, have the advantage of living in a beautiful place and doing a wonderful thing. So thank you so much for playing our game.
PARRISH: Thank you.
SAGAL: Bye-bye. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.