Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!



One of the few American attempts at the quintessentially British Panel Game format. Based loosely on the BBC program The News Quiz (which also inspired Have I Got News for You), Wait, Wait airs weekly on NPR and features NPR News's former anchor Carl Kasell as announcer/scorekeeper. The host is Peter Sagal. Rotating panelists include Tom Bodett, P.J. O'Rourke, Paula Poundstone, Paul Provenza (director of The Aristocrats), and Mo Rocca (formerly of The Daily Show, currently of CBS Sunday Morning). Call-in contestants compete for the prize of getting Carl Kasell to record an answering machine (or cell phone voicemail) greeting; panelists are scored on their performances but don't get anything for winning.

Segments include:
 * Who's Carl This Time?: Carl reads quotes from the news and the caller must identify who said them.
 * Bluff The Listener: The panelists each read an odd "news story". Only one panelist has a true story, and the listener guesses who.
 * Not My Job: At the midpoint of every episode, a celebrity call-in guest is brought in and quizzed about a topic far outside their expertise (except when they had John Hodgman on, of course; Ken Jennings also confounded them). Stephen King, for instance, got questions about Teletubbies and the like, while Lewis Black stumbled through three questions on Miss Manners. And, more recently, Leonard Nimoy had to answer questions about not being the other Spock (Dr. Benjamin, child care specialist) either.
 * Listener Limerick Challenge: Carl reads most of a news-inspired limerick; the caller has to complete it.
 * Lightning Fill-In-The-Blank: The final "speed round" in which panelists quickly go through questions on the rest of the week's news.

Tropes:
"Peter Sagal: Of course, this means we no longer need to have Carl on an 8 second delay.
 * Are You Sure You Want to Do That?: If someone guesses the incorrect answer for their question, Peter Sagal will urge them to change it.
 * Ascended Extra: Peter Sagal was originally one of the show's regular contestants, before being promoted to host.
 * Berserk Button: After a caller displayed doubts in a "Bluff-the-Listener" story of a alcoholic recovery/shooting camp, panelist P.J. O'Rourke got angry, saying that, as a Republican, his party is largely made up of drunks with guns.
 * Panelist Paula Poundstone has often displayed anger over the idea of swearing and humor being bad, including moments where she became very angry over a Curse Free Week in California, and when a school district banned "Three-Stooge-Like behavior."
 * Paula also has a marked tendency to question the various 'studies' that form the basis of the out-of-segment questions, often triggering a rant about people being paid to do these things.
 * One of Paula's most famous moments on the show was her pretend berserk button response to host Peter Segal continuing to milk humor out of the Dick Cheney hunting accident. ("You know what, I don't know why you keep bringing that up. The victim has apologized. What more do you want?")
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Mo Rocca is planted firmly in this territory.
 * Cool Old Guy: Show announcer and judge Carl Kassel
 * Did Not Do the Research: In 2006 Harry Shearer did the "Not My Job" segment, which that week had questions about the infamous 1980 variety show Pink Lady and Jeff. The research staff failed to realize that Shearer is heavy into pop culture, especially bad pop culture, and had been part of a PL&J parody sketch on Saturday Night Live. (Of course, no one admits to watching SNL in 1980...) It made for the shortest "Not My Job" clean sweep in the show's history.
 * Early Installment Weirdness: The show started in January 1998, but was relaunched in May of that year with several changes: Peter Sagal took over hosting from Dan Coffey, they introduced the "Not My Job!" segment with guests, and so forth. Some other differences from the early years:
 * For quite some time, scores in the Not My Job round were given nicknames after the first person to achieve that score. For instance, a Stamberg (named after the first guest), meant no points were scored.
 * The round was also much harder to play since the questions had no central context and were instead based on quotes made during the week (closer to the interstitial questions between rounds).
 * For the first few years, the guests were mainly NPR contributors since the show was done in-studio and those were the only people they could get. Their first major guest was John Mc Cain back in 2000... at least two years after the show started.
 * Carl's voice as a prize was more or less a placeholder since they really couldn't afford anything better. By the time they could, the message was such a beloved prize that they kept it that way (and it helped prevent any breaking of NPR's rules about contests.)
 * In the earliest shows, the final round was either an "essay" question had each contestant make up a funny story (scored by Carl out of 10 points), or Lightning True-False, before being replaced with the current Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank round.
 * Funny Answering Machine: The prize offered to most contestants.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: Subverted when the panelists realized that that they could say "hump" (as in dogs hump legs) and lampshaded it as much as possible.
 * After the FCC lifted the ban on "fleeting obscenities," Peter and Carl had this exchange:

Carl Kasell: Damn straight, Peter!"

"Son: Why are they upset?
 * Golden Snitch: There are only seven to nine points available before the speed round; in Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank each panelist has eight questions worth two points each.
 * A Good Name for a Rock Band: After a story about a lack of good names for new rock bands, Peter Sagal suggests some names based on the week's news, including: The Joe Lieberman Experience, Bart Stupak Shakur, Mega-Death Panel, and Joe Biden and the Big Folk-ing Deals.
 * Gretzky Has the Ball: During the 2010 World Cup, panelist Tom Bodett admitted that he knows nothing about Soccer, which becomes a problem when his son asks him about the game.

Tom: Uh, he was off-sides."

"Son:What's the yellow card for?

Tom:Uh, he's special."

"Peter Sagal: "In just a minute, Carl tells us about his favorite Transformers, Optimus Rhyme.""
 * Homemade Sweater From Hell: Mo Rocca got into a bit of trouble when he invoked this and had an online knitting group up in arms.
 * I Am One of Those, Too: Hilariously, Kevin Smith had actually read the random book on which they based his Not My Job quiz. They even let him explain one of the ridiculous stories in it. (The book in question, incidentally, was a strange-science book called Elephants on Acid.)
 * Incredibly Lame Pun: Every week, to introduce the Listener Limerick Challenge.

"Maz Jobrani: The British are so polite. Was the button that announced it was wrong just a 'never mind.'
 * It seems to get lamer every week, sometimes achieving Beyond the Impossible levels, causing Peter to at one time crack, "Look, if you got better ones, send 'em in, OK?"
 * N-Word Privileges: With the N-word in question being "nerd". Peter Sagal claims the right to mock nerds due to (nominally) being one himself.
 * Same thing with making New Jersey jokes.
 * Panel Game: A rare American one.
 * Quintessential British Gentleman: A story about a British Airways flight that accidentally announced it was going to crash led to this exchange between the panelists:

Adam Felber: When we said 'water landing' we meant another round of drinks!"


 * Scotireland: During a show around St. Patrick's Day, Peter notes (being radio, we can't see) that Carl is wearing a kilt, noting that it's traditionally worn by the Scottish.
 * Self-Deprecation: "Visit our blog which has been called 'sophomoric', 'a threat to NPR's integrity', and 'reason to review our intern hiring process.'"
 * When teenage fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson played Not My Job she was asked questions about "stuff old people like". One of them was about NPR.
 * Shout-Out: One week after their somewhat unflattering portrayal of fans of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, they brought on a fan and former Wait, Wait intern for a brief interview, and used the show as the basis for that week's "Not My Job" questions... for guest contestant Bill Clinton (who got them all right, but they weren't very hard either).
 * Small Reference Pools: Averted, naturally -- this is NPR, after all.
 * Sound to Screen Adaptation: CBS ordered a pilot for a television version.
 * In a nod to the format's British origins, in December 2011 Wait Wait aired a version of the show on BBC America as a Christmas special, with one British panelist (presenter and comedian Nick Hancock) and a British Not My Job guest (Neil Gaiman). The format was altered to eliminate the audience call-in segments, since it was being taped in advance, so the panel got more questions and Carl's return-from-commercial intros for Peter were beefed up with jokes. A not-quite-identical audio version ran in the weekly slot on NPR.
 * Stealth Pun: Henry Winkler (AKA Fonzie from Happy Days) came on to play Not My Job. For all three questions, the correct answer was "Aaaaaaaaaay!". Winkler figured it out on the third question, managing a two-out-of-three victory.
 * Stupid Statement Dance Mix: One recap episode featured Mo Rocca's various stutters and hesitations mixed together into a raging techno beat.
 * The Windy City: Chicago is the home base of the show, though they do a few road episodes a year too.
 * The guests usually call in, but when the show is on the road, they always have a local celebrity come in to be the show live (such as ZZ Top while they were in Houston). The person they're playing for is also from the city.
 * Wrong Genre Savvy: If Peter Sagal urges you to change your answer, your answer is wrong. Celebrity guests playing "Not My Job" frequently haven't listened to the show and think it's a trap.