Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
WWDTM: Billy Porter, Mark Ronson, Tara Dower, and more!
Sat, 22 Feb 2025
This week, we celebrate one last President's Day with special guests Mark Ronson, Billy Porter, Tara Dower, John Leguizamo, and James MarsdenLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts and guests this week?
From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm the voice so rich, Forbes put it on a list. Chioki Ianson, and here's your host at the Studebaker Theater in downtown Chicago, filling in for Peter Sagal, Tom Papa.
Thanks, Chioki. And thank you, everybody. This week was President's Day, and we're honoring George Washington's 293rd birthday by trying to bake a cake you can safely eat with wooden teeth.
Just be careful blowing out those candles, George, or your whole mouth is going to go up in flames.
And since we're already celebrating, let's keep the party going with one of our favorite guests from the past few years, actor, writer, and comedian, John Leguizamo.
Peter started by asking him how it felt to finally achieve the pinnacle of show business success, his own PBS special.
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Chapter 2: What did John Leguizamo discuss about his career?
Yes, an overnight success after 40 years.
So this series, American History of the Untold History of Latinos, I understand was inspired by one of your many one-man shows. In this case, your own personal examination of Latino history, right?
Yes, you know, it was based on Latino, Latin history from morons because I learned my son was being bullied and I wanted to give him, weaponize his knowledge and his history of his people. You know, I didn't know we finished building the railroads. I didn't realize we were the first fighters to create unions in the 1930s.
And then, you know, we've been persecuted, but we've also contributed so much. We just reached a milestone last year. We contributed $3.2 trillion to the GDP yearly as a Latino culture.
Wow. My son is a huge fan of yours, and by that, of course, I mean because of your Ice Age movies and TV shows.
Yes, I'm so happy to hear that. We're about to do Ice Age 6.
So you play, for those unlucky not to have seen the 4,000 Ice Age movies and TV shows and video games, you play Sid the Sloth, a prehistoric sloth, and we read that you actually got really deep into the research for his voice. Is that right?
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Chapter 3: How did John Leguizamo create Sid the Sloth's voice?
Yeah, because I did like 50 voices for the director, Chris Wedge, and he said, I just want you to do your voice. I go, I don't want to do my voice. I want to do a voice. I'm an actor. So I did, you know, Southern Boys for the Sloth because he's slow. Then I went a little more ghetto on it. Come on. What you want? What you want? And he goes, nah. So then I got Discovery Channel footage.
And I saw that Sloth stored food in their cheek pouches. And it would ferment and they'd get drunk. And so I started eating a sandwich. And I put it in my cheek pouches, and I walked around the house waiting for it to ferment, and it didn't, but it happened. Then I got slushy, slushy in my mouth, and I called the doctor, Chris, guess who this is? And he was like, I have no idea.
It's Sid the Sloth. I found myself, and that's how I did it.
Wow.
That's amazing. You do belong on PBS.
Yeah. Next time I'm sitting watching the movies with my son, I'm going to say, you know, that's historically accurate. Among the many, many things you do, you've done these one-man shows where you play all these characters. And as you just demonstrated, you're really, really, really good at voices. Have you ever used that power for evil?
Yes, of course. I mean, when I was much younger, it was great, because people, you know, when the school would complain, they would call my house, and I would answer as my mom, and I'd go, oh, he, what? No, he's fantastic. Oh, you want to expel him? Well, expel it for me. And I would mess with them for hours, and they wouldn't be able to expel me. Really? They tried to expel me, yeah.
Did your mother know you were doing that?
No. No. Well, now she knows now, because she blabbered.
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Chapter 4: What are some fun moments with panelists?
How do you know that?
Because I have been reading a lot of books about old animals with my son.
I'm not sure what level these books are. Because really, there's one wherein it said, don't talk to scientists who study this and mention saber-toothed tiger because they will just lose it. Yeah. That's ridiculous. I would like, wait, wait, don't tell me it has a website, doesn't it? I believe we do, yes. Okay. I want to see. A copy of the book. That cautions the reader. The young reader.
I'm assuming, how old is your son that you're reading this book to? My son is four. Oh, yeah. You're not one of those parents who's already pushing your kid to get into college, are you? All right, I want you to go to college, but here's a tip. When you get in there... Do not. For the love of God, yeah. Your mother and I love you very much, but there's one thing up with which we cannot put.
Coming up, it's like... Wait a minute, coming up. What's the name of the book?
When we come back, super producer Mark Ronson and ultra runner Tara Dower. One of them had their toenails surgically removed, but you're going to have to wait to find out which one. That's when we come back with more Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR.
Thank you.
From NPR in WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Chioki Ianson, and here's your host at the Studebaker Theater in the Fine Arts Building in downtown Chicago, filling in for Peter Sagal, Tom Papa.
Thank you, Chioki. This week, we're celebrating President's Day by building our own team of rivals with some of our favorite guests from the past few years.
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Chapter 5: What does Mark Ronson say about Uptown Funk?
I just made these little DJ cards.
Business cards that just said like, you're making my booty hurt, RuPaul. Available for weddings and bar mitzvahs.
Well, let's talk about Barbie, another worldwide phenomenon. I want to talk to you about scoring the movie, which you also did. Now that you've scored a movie, do you find yourself scoring dramatic moments in your own life? Or just like mundane, like you're just like chatting with the barista and then it's like, meh, meh, meh, meh.
It's funny, because now I'm just so hyper attuned to like, it could be the music in a Burger King commercial.
I'm like, oh, I see why they did that.
That song legit slaps. So I heard this weird factoid about you.
Is it true that the song, I Want to Know What Love Is, was written about your mom?
Yes, that is absolutely true.
I would hope so, because that would have been insulting. You don't talk about somebody's mama like that.
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Chapter 6: How does Mark Ronson view his work as a DJ?
Or is it C, animal pee which they spray on their pine trees to keep people from stealing them for Christmas trees?
I'm going to go with C because that's the funkiest.
And that is correct. The answer is animal pee.
The whole thing about the funk, and I know that I'm not on camera for most people, is like that kind of face, you know, and like nutmeg is not making me.
All right, here's your next question. Lots of cities have bad smells, but not every city has a song about how bad it smells. Which of these is a real recording? Is it A, the aroma of Tacoma, Is it B, my dear Eureka, how Eureka? Or is it C, Pueblo, Colorado, smells like a rotten egg made of dead skunks?
Good luck punching that one up, Bronson. I'm going to go with A. Yes, it is the aroma of Tacoma.
Some combination of a paper mill and oil refinery and Tacoma's natural stank made a smell so strong it was immortalized in song. Not going to lie. It's a bop.
Do you know that that mill is closing down? So the aroma of Tacoma is going away in the next few months. So sniff it while you got it, people.
All right, so here is your last question. GQ magazine published a list of the best smelling cities in the world, including New Orleans, which they praised for what combination of scents? Was it A, incense and sweat? Was it B, old beer and frying fat? Or was it C, strawberry hurricanes and puked up strawberry hurricanes?
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Chapter 7: What is Mark Ronson's connection to famous songs?
Oh, excuse me.
Oh, you are scrupulous.
So break that down. To travel that far in that period of time, how far did you have to travel per day and how much time did it take to travel, to run every day?
The least amount of miles I did in a day was about 35. And the most I ever did was 62 in a day. And every day I was moving for about, on average, like 17 and a half hours a day.
17 and a half hours. Okay. That's kind of amazing. And how much were you able to sleep? On average, about five hours. And at what point, I mean, I guess you ran from Maine to Georgia. So were you starting to hallucinate by the time you were in New York, say? Yeah.
Yeah. Well, the compounding exhaustion came around, I'd say Maryland, it got pretty bad. I remember some like little hallucinations I had, like little devils sitting on logs and I saw a white cat and a lion and I saw my friend sitting on a log. So the hallucinations were getting pretty bad around like the middle of the trail. Maryland is about halfway through.
Well, it must be comforting knowing, like, that's not real. There's not a cat and a devil here. Like, I might as well just keep running. There's no threat, you know? Yeah.
Well, you know, I've had hallucinations during 100-mile races that I've done, and some of those have been really concerning. Yeah. And I think...
oh give us an example i'm lucky um there was like a hunter with a huge huge ginormous gun and he was like asking me where i was going and what i was doing and i was like oh crap like is this real and it was in the middle of the night it was at 2 a.m on a trail by myself you know if you ask a hallucination if they're hallucination they have to tell you that's a rule Do you eat while you run? Yes.
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