CARL KASELL, Host:
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 Amy Dickinson, Paula Poundstone and Alonzo Bodden. And here again is your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, Host:
Thank you, Carl.
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SAGAL: Thank you, everybody. In just a minute, Carl causes a mini-scandal when he tweets a picture of his limerick to a fan.
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SAGAL: If you'd like to get in on that action, give us a call at 1-888-Wait- Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news.
Amy, the Obama administration, as represented in this case by Michelle Obama, came up with yet another scheme to try to get Americans to do something they have consistently refused to do. What?
AMY DICKINSON: Well, does it involve eating healthier?
SAGAL: Yes. It is in fact eating healthier.
DICKINSON: Okay.
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SAGAL: Americans won't do it. First, we had the four food groups, and that failed because that implied the four groups were equally important, and besides, everybody ignored the fruits and vegetables group, to concentrate on the much more popular deep-fried meat group.
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SAGAL: Then the USDA, the government tried the food pyramid. That had the good stuff down in the bottom where the pyramid was wide and the bad stuff at the top, less of it. But Americans reacted to that by creating actual food pyramids.
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SAGAL: Many feet across, which they devoured. Remember when Applebee's Restaurant came out with the all you can eat Great Pyramid of Cheese?
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SAGAL: So the new approach, this just came out this week, Michelle Obama introduced it. It's a picture of a plate with portions marked out. Lots of vegetables, lots of fruits, lots of grains, less protein, even less dairy. Americans looked at that, they looked at the picture and they were a little scared. But then they realized that real plates are three dimensional.
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SAGAL: So you could fit a lot into that little space if you just went up.
DICKINSON: Right. Is there a height requirement?
SAGAL: There isn't.
DICKINSON: Yeah. Oh good.
SAGAL: So McDonald's immediately came out with its four-foot high meat tower.
DICKINSON: Tower, right.
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SAGAL: It just fits right in the space.
DICKINSON: Right.
PAULA POUNDSTONE: You know, my son has a concept of eating that sadly I totally relate to, which is, you know I'll say to him, well you didn't eat your salad, and he'll say I'm full for that.
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SAGAL: Oh, like there's a little pocket in the tummy.
POUNDSTONE: His salad section is full.
SAGAL: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: And yet, his sugar and fat section...
SAGAL: Oh yeah.
POUNDSTONE: Is still able to load in. I'm full for that, as he's grazing in the freezer. I think he thinks it's science when he says it too.
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SAGAL: Alonzo, a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research suggests that one reason realistic TV ads work so well is that a few weeks after we see them we think what?
ALONZO BODDEN: That it could happen to us.
SAGAL: Even worse.
BODDEN: That it did happen to us.
SAGAL: Yes, that it did happen to us.
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SAGAL: It's called the false experience effect. Vivid realistic ads end up as vivid realistic memories.
BODDEN: Wait a minute, are you telling me...
SAGAL: Yes.
BODDEN: When I opened that beer, that wasn't a frozen train that came speeding through the wall?
SAGAL: No.
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SAGAL: Nor did those bikini models appear.
BODDEN: Oh man.
POUNDSTONE: Why do you mean realistic?
SAGAL: Well in the sense that, you know, if there's an ad that shows an experience. What they did was they showed an ad for popcorn to a group of people. Then they did not show the ad for - they sort of had a text ad for popcorn. Then they took those people and they mixed them up. And some of them they gave popcorn to and some of them they didn't. They waited a couple of weeks. They called them up and they said hey, how was that popcorn that we gave you? A significant portion of the people who saw the ad but did not eat any real popcorn said, oh yeah, it was delicious.
POUNDSTONE: That's just social awkwardness.
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SAGAL: Really? So you think they're like, oh I don't want to make the researcher feel bad for not giving me popcorn. I'll say oh, the popcorn, it was great.
POUNDSTONE: Absolutely.
SAGAL: Yes, thank you.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah.
SAGAL: Thank you so much.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah, that's exactly what that - these studies always just bother me.
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SAGAL: I agree with you. I do find this thing hard to believe, because I'm pretty sure it was me that used the Old Spice body wash and teleported to a boat.
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SAGAL: That happened. I know that happened. Amy, this week, former Illinois government Rod Blagojevich has been on the stand at his own corruption trial. He confirmed that he considered appointing himself to President Barack Obama's Senate seat so that he could do what?
DICKINSON: Hmm. I can't imagine, because he was government at the time.
SAGAL: Yeah, but this is something that governors can't do, but he thought a senator could. I'll give you a hint. Basically, he believes that one Rod Blagojevich, armed with the power of the U.S. Senate equals a team of elite Navy Seals.
POUNDSTONE: Oh geez.
DICKINSON: So he could go get Osama bin Laden.
SAGAL: That's what he wanted to do.
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POUNDSTONE: Oh man.
DICKINSON: Oh, you know what, we knew.
SAGAL: That's what he says he wanted. That's why he wanted it.
DICKINSON: We knew he was a patriot.
SAGAL: He was.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah.
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SAGAL: When the fate of the world is on the line and the terrorist mastermind must be caught, there's one man you would never, ever, ever think of calling to do the job, Rod Blagojevich.
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SAGAL: But in 2008, that's what he wanted to do. He wanted to take President Obama's Senate seat himself and he says he wanted it so he could go get bin Laden.
POUNDSTONE: You know what, that makes him the right man for the job, and I'll tell you why.
SAGAL: Please.
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POUNDSTONE: Because bin Laden would never have suspected.
SAGAL: That's true.
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POUNDSTONE: Yeah.
BODDEN: I got to tell you that makes hotness delusion look mild.
SAGAL: It really does.
POUNDSTONE: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.