‘Wait Wait’ Quiz Show Gives Dignified NPR a Chance to Cut Loose

With its stuffy subtitle, “The NPR News Quiz,” the game show “Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me!” may sound deadly dull but at least educational and good for you--the radio equivalent of eating your spinach.

In this case, however, the name can be deceiving, as the subversive program uses limericks, impressions, skits and jokes to attack the news of the week, skewering everything from “the silly things politicians do, to Britney Spears’ latest bon mot,” said host Peter Sagal.

“It’s National Public Radio, without all that dignity,” said the actor, essayist and playwright, adding that he hates snobbish listeners who believe “public radio shouldn’t be for the masses, it should be for the elite. Their ideal public radio show is so abstruse, so good for you, the only person interested in listening to it is the host.

“We think public radio listeners are intelligent, but they also like to be entertained,” Sagal continued. “It’s our news, dammit. We ought to be able to make fun of it.”

The hourlong program, heard locally on KPCC-FM (89.3) Saturdays from 11 a.m. to noon, is entering its fifth year on the air. And this Thursday, the troupe will record a live show at 7:30 p.m. for an audience in Pasadena, at Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium.

The fast-paced show features several segments with its regular panelists answering questions and joking about the big or offbeat news stories of the previous week, dissecting current events and homing in on their most bizarre elements the way any group of listeners might, Sagal said. “We try to generate the ideal water-cooler conversation.”

Regular panelists include humorist Roy Blount Jr., BBC correspondent Sue Ellicott, writer and comic Adam Felber, political satirist P.J. O’Rourke, Esquire writer Charles Pierce and Washington Post Style section writer Roxanne Roberts, while veteran NPR newsman Carl Kassel serves as the show’s official judge and scorekeeper. They’re joined by five listeners a week who call in to play the game, finishing esoteric limericks based on a news item, or guessing who Kassel is impersonating when he reads a quote from a newsmaker.

The contestants are each vying for the grand (and only) prize: Kassel will record the outgoing message on their home answering machines.

“We ain’t ‘Wheel of Fortune,’” noted Sagal, who instead welcomes comparisons to the Groucho Marx game show of the 1950s and ‘60s, “You Bet Your Life.”

“Wait Wait” senior producer Rod Abid compares the program to “To Tell the Truth,” the vintage game show that gathered bons vivants of the day to chat and joke around. The game and prizes were almost secondary to the show’s conviviality. And unlike “Hollywood Squares,” the “Wait Wait” personalities aren’t given the questions ahead of time to work on their quips.

“We rely on our panelists to be fast and smart and funny, and they come through for us,” Abid said.

One of the show’s most popular segments is “Not My Job,” in which celebrity guests answer questions on behalf of listeners. On recent shows, John Mahoney of “Frasier” was quizzed about ketchup, author Salman Rushdie answered questions about Pez candy and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was tested on people who died in 2001.

“We found out she had a really great sense of humor,” said Kassel, the news reader on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” now in his 52nd year of broadcasting and, one might think, too dignified to be mixed up in an endeavor like this.

Still, Kassel said he relishes the chance to cut loose, even reciting poetry or singing “What’s New, Pussycat?” for game winners’ answering machines.

“I remember the old quiz programs, when radio was a big deal in the ‘40s and ‘50s,” he said. “I always loved those programs, and always wanted to be a part of them.”

NPR created “Wait Wait” in 1998, when the network was trying to diversify its weekend programming, and aimed to make an entertainment show that would appeal to the listeners of NPR news.

“If you’re listening to NPR news all week, it might be nice to get a little reward at the end,” said Torey Malatia, president and general manager of Chicago Public Radio, whose station WBEZ-FM co-produces the show with NPR and serves as its home base.

He said it took a couple of years of tinkering with the format and the personalities to get the chemistry right. Sagal, originally a panelist on the show, was made host a few months after it began in 1998.

“When the show started, it was laboring under the horrible expectation we had to be funny,” Sagal said. Then he and the others realized that the show would work best if they simply concentrated on the things that made them laugh.

“Wait Wait” is now one of the network’s fastest-growing shows, heard on 200 stations by about 1 million listeners per week. Those figures are about double what they were two years ago, Abid said.

When he first got the job, Sagal--who was literary manager of the Los Angeles Theater Center when he lived here from 1987 to 1992--said he was simply an NPR junkie who liked to critique the shows he was hearing.

“I listen to these people and think, ‘I’m clever. They should give me an hour a week to talk about whatever I want to,’” he said. “Be careful what you wish for.”

And even though the show is based in Chicago, Sagal is the only one on the air working there. Kassel is at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., while the panelists are spread throughout the country from Massachusetts to Los Angeles, brought together for their Friday tapings by static-free phone lines.

Sitting in the Chicago studio with his headphones on, Sagal said, “I hear the voices in my head. It’s a little bit like Joan of Arc, but I never got to put on the armor.”

Kassel said he didn’t even meet Sagal until a few months into the program. But everyone gets together for the troupe’s live shows, of which they do about six to 10 a year. At those events, the program’s rabid fans clamor for Sagal, and especially Kassel, like rock stars.

“People were screaming and yelling. I couldn’t believe it,” Kassel said, recalling one show in which he and Sagal opened by running down the aisle to the stage. “It really was like a rock concert.”

Thursday’s live show at Caltech will be taped and broadcast on March 2. Tickets are $20, $25 and $35 per seat, with KPCC members getting a $2 discount. And, yes, tour T-shirts will be sold.

“I really like it when we get to see” the listeners, Sagal said. “We habitually say tasteless things that never get on the air. And it’s nice to get a reaction to what we’re doing.”