PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Now it's time for some more questions from this week's news. And the panel we're playing with right now is Adam Burke, Negin Farsad and Adam Felber.
(APPLAUSE)
ADAM BURKE: Hello.
NEGIN FARSAD: Hey.
ADAM FELBER: Hey.
BURKE: Hi.
FARSAD: Hi.
SAGAL: All right - you guys haven't had a chance to warm up - you ready to jump right in?
FELBER: Totally.
FARSAD: Let's do it.
SAGAL: Here we go.
FELBER: We've never been on a panel together.
SAGAL: Really?
BURKE: Oh, yeah. That's true.
FELBER: I've never sat down with either of you guys.
FARSAD: Feels weird.
SAGAL: I've never had to...
FARSAD: I don't like it.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I've never had to differentiate between the Adams before.
FELBER: Right.
BURKE: It's got, like, that fresh panel smell.
(LAUGHTER)
FELBER: Yeah, it sure does.
SAGAL: Adam Burke, the success of the game Pokemon Go has inspired a number of knockoff versions where players can go around trying to catch things other than Pokemon. This week, what group released their version of a virtual reality hunting game?
BURKE: So things you would go out and hunt?
SAGAL: Well, you know how Pokemon Go works, right?
BURKE: Yeah.
SAGAL: You hold your phone to the...
BURKE: Clearly.
SAGAL: And you see the monsters and catch them.
BURKE: AR.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BURKE: Isn't that just called LSD?
(LAUGHTER)
BURKE: By the way, it's a bacchanal backstage. It's crazy. If you've never been to an NPR party, people are using library cards to cut up lines of Claritin. It's like...
(LAUGHTER)
BURKE: There's a wet cardigan competition. It's mad.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BURKE: I still have no idea what the answer is.
SAGAL: You still have no idea.
FELBER: But you're stalling eloquently.
SAGAL: You could call it Pope-emon Go.
BURKE: Oh, is it to find saints? Is it the Catholic Church?
SAGAL: No. Well, yes - the Catholic - the big Catholic Church, the Vatican.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: They're playing Pokemon Go, their own version. It's just like Pokemon GO without all the false idols. The...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The Vatican has tried to use video games for education and tourism before, like their disastrous version of "Tetris" in which every shape was a cross.
(LAUGHTER)
FELBER: Yet...
SAGAL: Hard to play.
FELBER: But is this the kind of thing where they walk around the Vatican, and it's, like, if you turn on your phone and look through it, you can see, like, a bleeding, dying saint or something?
SAGAL: Yeah, yeah - exactly.
FELBER: Yeah.
SAGAL: You can walk around, and there are, like - you can see holy figures, you know, from church history and the saints. And you can - there are blessings around from the pope. You can...
FELBER: ...Catch them in little balls.
SAGAL: Yeah, no. Yeah - exactly.
FARSAD: So then do you go to heaven if you win?
(LAUGHTER)
FARSAD: Like, what do you get?
SAGAL: I don't...
BURKE: You got to catch them all, you know?
FARSAD: Right.
SAGAL: The game is available, of course, on PrayStation...
FARSAD: Oh.
FELBER: Oh, boy.
SAGAL: ...And Xbox 3:16.
FARSAD: OK.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Negin, after a number of complaints, Kleenex has announced it will stop marketing their extra-large tissues as tissues for whom?
FARSAD: Oh, like, people who do cocaine, and they have a lot of, like, run-off from it?
(LAUGHTER)
FELBER: Yeah. That's reasonable. Ring that bell.
BURKE: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Kleenex presents "Scarface" tissue.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: No.
FARSAD: Wait. Can you - OK.
SAGAL: You're going too far. It was perceived that this was sexist to market large-sized tissues in what way?
FARSAD: To women?
SAGAL: Try the other.
FARSAD: To men.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: We got you there, Negin. They're called - they were called man-size tissues, which was a problem because...
BURKE: If you're a man like me, you cry a lot.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Yeah.
BURKE: I think there should be other designations of tissues. You know what I mean? - like, extra, absorbent widow-strength tissue. You know what I mean?
SAGAL: Yeah. No.
BURKE: Just like...
(LAUGHTER)
BURKE: It's a real thick...
SAGAL: No, they were called man-size tissues. And they had really - ones for really insecure men - Magnum tissues.
(LAUGHTER)
BURKE: Or, like...
FELBER: Those are ribbed.
(LAUGHTER)
BURKE: No, no, no. But, like, for real masculine men, for proud boys, it's just an empty box.
(LAUGHTER)
BURKE: You cry in your own face, dammit.
(LAUGHTER)
BURKE: You open it up. It's just a picture of your dad looking at you disapprovingly.
(LAUGHTER)
FARSAD: (Singing) The cat's in the cradle and the silver...
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.