Opening Panel Round

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

We want to remind everyone to join us here most weeks at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago. For tickets and more information go to wbez.org, and you can find a link at our website, waitwait.npr.org.

There you can also find out about the upcoming WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME! cinema event happening on May 2nd of next year: We'll be beaming the show live to movie theaters across the country. It's WAIT WAIT on the big screen, or as we like to call it...

CARL KASELL: Attack of the 50-foot Radio Show.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: But now some questions for you guys about the week's news. Roxanne, with the Lincoln biopic a big hit in theaters, ABC is developing a new historical sitcom based on the early life of whom?

ROXANNE ROBERTS: Is it a former president?

SAGAL: It is not a former president.

ROBERTS: Is it of the era of Lincoln?

SAGAL: It is not.

ROBERTS: So, basically, you're saying it could be anybody.

SAGAL: I am, in fact, saying that.

(LAUGHTER)

BOBCAT GOLDTHWAIT: Is it someone who drove a Lincoln?

(LAUGHTER)

ROBERTS: OK, I'm going to - the early history of Joe Biden. The early history of...

BRIAN BABYLON: That would be a horrible sitcom.

ROBERTS: Justin Bieber.

SAGAL: Yes, Justin Bieber.

ROBERTS: No.

SAGAL: Yes.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

GOLDTHWAIT: Wow.

(APPLAUSE)

ROBERTS: I tried to pick a young person.

SAGAL: You got it. It's Justin Bieber. Canadian toddler Justin Bieber...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: The number one sex symbol among people who do not know what sex is...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...rose to stardom at a young age. Now ABC wants to examine the pre-pop star days in "The Justin Bieber Story: Zero and a Half Men."

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: You may be thinking, hasn't he always been famous, his whole life? Well, he had those 9 months in utero, after all, and didn't have a big hit until "Push It," his sexy jam about his time in the birth canal.

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: I would be on that show like his crazy middle-aged black friend, who just...

(LAUGHTER)

BABYLON: Come on, Justin, man, you got to believe in yourself. OK, yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDTHWAIT: That's pretty good.

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