PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Right now, panel, it's time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Peter, please listen to this lovely song.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GET BACK UP AGAIN")
ANNA KENDRICK: (As Poppy, singing) Hey. I'm not giving up today. There's nothing getting in my way. And if you knock, knock me over, I will get back up again.
SAGAL: So that, as I'm sure you know, was the song "Get Back Up Again" from the movie "Trolls." That's the song...
PETER GROSZ: Oh, yeah. I'm...
SAGAL: Yep.
GROSZ: ...Sure I did know that.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: That's the song that Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg suggested all his employees at Quibi listen to as he told them what?
GROSZ: Ain't going to be no more Quibi.
SAGAL: Exactly - that they were all fired.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: The company's going out of business.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE SOUND EFFECT)
SAGAL: Quibi is a $5 a month streaming service which offered highly produced five- to 10-minute serialized programs that were made specifically for your smartphone. Basically, it was long TikToks you had to pay for. But here's the catch - the shows were bad.
EUGENE CORDERO: I also love the fact that the CEO of Quibi is pulling a song from a two-hour movie to lay off everybody from his...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Exactly.
CORDERO: ...Company that's only two-minutes long, you know, little segments.
SAGAL: That is amazingly true. He urged all of his employees on this - I guess it was actually a big Zoom call - that they're all losing their jobs. And he said, go listen to "Get Back Up Again" from the "Trolls" movie. Cheer yourself up. And then you should listen to the next song on the soundtrack, "COBRA Benefits And How To Use Them."
(LAUGHTER)
MAEVE HIGGINS: But the problem...
GROSZ: Oh, "Trolls" - no, I have seen that.
(LAUGHTER)
HIGGINS: But the problem I had with Quibi was that, like, I can't even tell what I'm going to watch, what I'm going to want to look at on my phone. It's, like, I don't know how they can tell - because I realized I was, you know, spaced out for 20 minutes the other day watching some rescue foxes, like, making sounds. And I was on a deadline. I had a really busy day. But I was watching these foxes that are friends communicating with each other for a very long time. And I'm not depressed.
SAGAL: Right.
GROSZ: (Laughter).
SAGAL: Katzenberg should have hired the foxes.
HIGGINS: (Laughter) I know. Yeah. And also, they spent $1.5 billion on Quibi. Can you imagine how many foxes they would have got? Foxes work for nothing.
SAGAL: That's true.
HIGGINS: They basically - they eat garbage.
GROSZ: Honestly, if you - there are some TV executives that if you told them they could pay animals garbage and people would watch it, they would be, like, that's great. They're not in a union.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: We don't have to make any, like, contributions to anybody's...
SAGAL: It's not scripted. We don't have to pay writers. This will be awesome.
GROSZ: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE JAM SONG, "THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT")
SAGAL: Coming up, our panelists get set up with a blind date in our Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play. We'll be back in a minute with more of WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME from NPR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.