Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
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Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! is an hour-long weekly news quiz (radio game show) produced by Chicago Public Radio and distributed by National Public Radio in the United States, broadcast on weekends. The show is hosted by Peter Sagal, with scorekeeper Carl Kasell and a panel of three (drawn mostly from Roy Blount, Jr., Tom Bodett, Amy Dickinson, Sue Ellicott, Adam Felber, Kyrie O'Connor, P.J. O'Rourke, Paula Poundstone, Charlie Pierce, Roxanne Roberts, Mo Rocca, and Richard Roeper). The program debuted in 1998 with host Dan Coffey (of "Ask Mr. Science"), but was revamped and Coffey replaced.
In addition to the panelists, Wait Wait... listeners participate by telephoning or sending e-mails to nominate themselves as contestants. The producers select several listeners for each show, and call them to play games on the air with questions based on the week's news. The prize for winning any game is to have Carl Kasell record a greeting on the contestant's home answering machine. These games include:
- Who's Carl This Time? – The contestant must identify the speaker or explain the context of three quotations read by Morning Edition news-reader Carl Kasell (or his substitute). Two correct answers constitute a win. (In a variation of this game, Carl Kasell's Countdown, three popular songs are played and the contestant must identify the related news story.)
- Bluff the Listener – The contestant hears three odd news stories read by the panelists, and must determine which one is weird but true and not a product of two of the panelist's imaginations.
- Listener Limerick Challenge – The contestant must identify the last word or phrase in three news-related limericks read by Carl Kasell. Two correct answers constitute a win.
- Not My Job – A specially invited guest takes a three-question multiple-choice quiz on a topic unrelated to the celebrity's field. Originally, the guests on these segments were NPR personalities and reporters, but the pool of guests later expanded to include mostly celebrity guests, ranging from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (answering questions on the history of Hugh Hefner and Playboy magazine) to author Salman Rushdie (answering questions on the history of PEZ). Two correct answers constitute a win and the prize goes to a randomly selected listener who contacted the show but was not chosen as a contestant.
- NPR Geek Game – Snippets are played from lighter news stories on Morning Edition and All Things Considered. The contestant must identify from which stories those snippets were pulled, potentially outing him/herself as an "NPR Geek" in the process.
In between games, Peter Sagal asks the panelists questions from the week's news and the panelists earn points by giving correct answers. A panelist also earns a point if a contestant chooses his/her story in the Bluff the Listener game, whether that story was true or made-up. At the end of the show, the panelists take a Lightning Fill-In-The-Blank quiz. Each panelist is given eight questions, (seven of which being drawn from the week's headlines, the last one based on a frivolous story) and are scored 2 points for each correct answer. After the quiz all the points are totaled and the panelist with the highest score is declared the week's champion. Panelists do not receive prizes for winning.
The show typically closes with the Panelist's Predictions, during which each panelist provides a headline that is designed more to make the listener laugh than to actually predict a real news story. That segment usually ends with Carl Kasell stating that if any of those come true "...we'll ask you about it on Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!"
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! is produced by Chicago Public Radio, and was recorded in a studio at WBEZ radio until May 2005, when the show switched formats to being recorded in front of an audience at Chicago's Chase Auditorium on Thursday nights. A few times a year the show travels to various cities in the United States and produces a road show in front of a live audience.