© 2024
Virginia's Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Bluff The Listener

BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz.

(CHEERING)

KURTIS: I'm Bill Kurtis. We're playing this week with Jessi Klein, Helen Hong and Luke Burbank. And here again is your host at the San Diego Civic Theatre in San Diego, Calif., Peter Sagal.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody.

(CHEERING)

SAGAL: Right now it is 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 are on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.

CARRIE PHILLIPS: Hi, Peter. This is Carrie Phillips, and I'm calling from Corvallis, Ore.

SAGAL: Oh, Corvallis. It's beautiful up there.

(CHEERING)

PHILLIPS: Yes, it is.

SAGAL: What do you do up there?

PHILLIPS: Well, I'm fairly recently retired, and so I spend most of my time doing all those things you don't have time for when you work.

SAGAL: There you go. What sort of things are you spending your time doing now that you don't have to work?

PHILLIPS: Hiking, paddling, road trips, doing the crossword puzzle - you name it.

SAGAL: Wow. I do those things instead of working, so...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Carrie. You're going to play our game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Carrie's topic?

KURTIS: Unimoon (ph)? What the hell is unimoon?

SAGAL: We were wondering the same thing. We came across the term unimoon in the news this week. What does it mean? Well, our panelists are each going to tell you, but only one of them is telling you the truth. Pick the real definition of unimoon, and you will win our prize. You ready to play?

PHILLIPS: I think so.

SAGAL: All right. First, let's hear from Jessi Klein.

JESSI KLEIN: For decades, researchers have been trying to improve upon existing methods of hormone birth control. This week, a group of reproductive scientists funded by Pfizer held a press conference to announce an exciting, new pill being released under the name Unimoon. The scientists heralded Unimoon as the first birth control pill that can reduce your period to literally just one minute.

(LAUGHTER)

KLEIN: During the press conference, a female reporter asked if the one-minute period fell on a specific day of the year. A spokesman responded, well, with Unimoon, your period does occur every day but just for a minute.

(LAUGHTER)

KLEIN: At this point, another female reporter raised her hand. So you mean we would get our period every single day? There'd be no days of the year we don't have our period. That's correct.

(LAUGHTER)

KLEIN: But it's only for a quick minute, and a minute is just 60 seconds.

(LAUGHTER)

KLEIN: A female reporter followed up. We know how long a minute is, thank you.

(LAUGHTER)

KLEIN: Is there any predictability with Unimoon as to what minute of the day your period might strike?

(LAUGHTER)

KLEIN: One of the men from the all-male team of scientists stepped forward again. No, there isn't currently any predictability. It could come at any time, day or night.

(LAUGHTER)

KLEIN: Another female reporter posed the question, is there any reduction of symptoms of PMS with Unimoon? No, there is not, the male leader of the research team responded. And truthfully, some of the symptoms might be way worse.

(LAUGHTER)

KLEIN: But again, your period is only a minute a day, so we think it balances out. At this point, there was a murmur amongst the female reporters in the room, and the spokesman stepped forward again. Everyone here seems cranky, so we're going to end the conference early, he said.

(LAUGHTER)

KLEIN: But please remember to check out Unimoon. It's just 10 pills a day, twice a day with a meal. You're welcome.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Unimoon - an amazing new form of hormonal birth control that reduces your period to just one minute every day. Your next story of a unimoon explained comes from Luke Burbank.

LUKE BURBANK: By all accounts, the wedding of Irene O'Brien and Mel Maclaine was a beautiful affair. They danced, they drank and they promised to stay together forever, starting right after they got back from traveling the world without each other on solo honeymoons. In one of its most valiant efforts to date to convince us something is actually a thing, The New York Times wedding section reported this week that the new trend of solomoons, also known as unimoons, are a thing where couples take their honeymoons apart from each other. In the case of O'Brien and Maclaine, they say they realized they didn't really have the same trip in mind. He wanted to get drunk in France with his buddies and watch the Northern Ireland soccer team. She wanted to not do that.

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: So she went and visited Niagara Falls. Other couples profiled about this very real thing, which you know is a real thing because the sociologist The New York Times got to talk about it is the staff sociologist for the dating app Bumble...

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: Other couples profiled said their solomoons or unimoons were the result of incompatible work schedules or just a desire to have some space from each other after the stress of the wedding. You remember that, right? The wedding - the thing where you said your heart had found its other half, and you slow-danced to Toni Braxton.

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: I mean, does that not apply when the Northern Ireland soccer team is playing, you guys?

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: The unimoon - the new trend of going on your honeymoon without your new spouse. The final definition of unimoon comes from Helen Hong.

HELEN HONG: K-Pop fans worldwide are crazy for Uni Moon (ph), a rising star who has sold 19 million albums and counting. The fresh k-pop face is set to embark on a worldwide tour this summer, which will be a not-to-be-missed spectacle because Uni Moon is actually a bleating goat...

(LAUGHTER)

HONG: ...That has been auto-tuned to high k-pop heaven.

(LAUGHTER)

HONG: BTS and Girls' Generation are great, but they can be divas, said a music producer who asked to remain anonymous. They demand fancy hotels and restaurants when traveling, and their hair and makeup bills are outrageous. With a goat, it just needs to sleep in a barn and eat hay.

(LAUGHTER)

HONG: Uni Moon's music videos feature the goat's head with a holographic body of a human dancer flanked by background dancing goats.

(LAUGHTER)

HONG: The logistics of how to take goats on a worldwide pop tour are still being worked out. But needless to say, the concert experience may end up being the greatest of all time.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: All right. Here's what's true. Unimoon was in the news. Here's what might be true. From Jessi Klein, Unimoon is a new birth control pill that does such a wonderful thing for women - reducing their period to just one minute every day. From Luke Burbank, the new trend of newly married couples splitting up immediately to take their honeymoons by themselves - thus, a unimoon. Or from Helen Hong, Uni Moon, the new hit K-Pop act that's really just an auto-tuned goat. Which of these is the real definition of what a unimoon is?

PHILLIPS: I think I'm going to have to go with Luke's story about the separate honeymoons.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: All right.

PHILLIPS: That sounds like modern life.

SAGAL: You're going to go with Luke's story of the weird tradition of people's exchanging vows and then immediately taking off and not seeing each other for weeks. To bring you the correct answer, we spoke to someone who is very-well versed in what unimoon is.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JESSICA CARBINO: A unimoon is a honeymoon in which the bride or the groom go on a honeymoon by themselves rather than going together.

SAGAL: That was Dr. Jess Carbino. And you know what her job is? She's the lead sociologist at Bumble.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: You're right. Luke was telling the truth.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: That means he gets a point. You win our prize - the voice of anyone you may like on your voicemail. Congratulations.

PHILLIPS: Thank you.

SAGAL: Thank you and take care.

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