I absolutely love that show! You can get the podcast free on Itunes, and I have each one going back to June. I don’t often have time to sit down and listen straight through for an hour, so I am just slightly backlogged… 
To answer the question, one of my mom’s coworkers won, about two years ago. No clue whether or not Carl Kassel ever called, I’l have to ask her later today.
No.
Yes.
But better question, what would you get him to say? What could you get him to say? Is there just an official script? Could you get Carl Kassel to say “fuck”?
Yes! But my local NPR station stopped carring it 
. (I could probably find it online but it’s just not the same.)
I know what you are talking about and have always wondered who really wanted this as a prize. What an odd prize. I couldn’t even be bothered to dial the phone for this.
betenoir,
If you follow the link provided upthread, and click on the link that says “hear a message from score keeper Carl Kassel” you can hear a selection of messages. Many of them feature some variation on “this is Carl Kassel of National Public Radio”. Some are silly, some are fake news releases. I think one of them simply says “Jennifer and I have eloped” I doubt he’d swear, but I suppose anything is possible.
(no idea on the logistics, Auntie Pam)
I haven’t won his voice yet, but I won his soul three years ago:
I was in the Halftime Sports Bar in Great Falls, playing Hold 'Em. The guy sat down next to me smelling pretty bad (like sulfur and hot poop), but he had cash, so the dealer let him play. He lost his first two hands, won his third, and went all in on his fourth–unfortunately losing that one too.
So he leans over to me and say, “Oy mate, ‘ow about spottin’ me twenty? I’ll give you this 'ere card. If I lose, you can keep it. If I win, I’ll giv’ya back fifty bones. Whaddya say, mate?” I look at it and it’s just a business card that says, “Soul of Carl Kassel; N.P.R.; Contract #187,387” I figure it for a minute and say, “Sure, why the hell not. I’m up $120.”
So we play the next hand. Slick Willy next to me loses, stands up and says good night to the table, and shakes my hand with a wink. A half hour later, the place closes, and I head home with this thing in my pocket.
I’ve still got it, but I don’t know what to do with it. It’s sitting in my index card holder right now. I don’t want to collect it since I think he’s pretty good on NPR, but then again, I don’t want to lose it neither. So just what the Hell am I supposed to do with basically what I can call “a futures” to collect on Carl’s soul when he dies?
Tripler
Or is it an “option”? I don’t know. . . I just have it, that’s all I know. . .
Thank you Dewey Finn.
Everyone else may continue to have fun in the No Homers club.
No, and yes. I’m afraid that if I won, I’d have to admit that I don’t know how to change the message on my voicemail.
I love all the panelists, but especially Paula Poundstone. I’m reading her book right now, and it’s really funny. She came up with one comeback on the show once that related to her court troubles, and I wish for the life of me I could remember it…I just laughed and laughed.
And then there was the episode with (I think) Roy Blount doing a mouse voice…I nearly drove off the road it was so funny! I usually only get to listen to it when I’m driving, but today I got the radio at work to tune NPR in, so there is hope for the future.
Hey, I don’t see Tom Bodett on their panelist roster…what’s up with that? Did they forget to leave a light on for him?
Says You! went to an hour this season, which may be why your station dropped it. You’re right that lots of NPR stations stream it, and archived shows are available online. WGBH radio carries it at 8:00 on Saturday evenings.
Come back to the fold. Last night Carolyn refered to Rachel Ray as “the Barney of the Food Network.”
No.
Yes.
Love the show. Closest I’ve come was that I was an answer on the “lightning round” at the end.
Maybe they’re just slow in updating the Web site? (Years slow, but still…)
GT
That was the greatest musical choice ever made by anyone ever in the history of music choosing.
I listen to the show every week on podcast because I am just that much of a geek.
Care to explain further? I want to know more about this.
A friend and I started a campaign to deal with the odious marketing excess of a very large company in a humorous way. At this point we’re pretty much at 14:59 of our 15 minutes but for a while it was a hot news item (I had CNN filming in my garage, we were called to testify at the state capital, etc).
On the scale of Cosmic Social Importance what we’re doing ranks a bit lower than Ghandi and a bit higher than that guy with the world’s biggest ball of yarn. Probably a bit closer to the yarn, but it’s a story that is fun enough to have made us minor celebrities for a while.
Was it the one where someone was wondering for some reason whether there are snack bars in courthouses and she just said, “Yes”?
Great show, that. There were some other quips from everybody, but that one brought at least 30 seconds of laughter. Priceless moment.
Good memory there, cher3!
I’m going to be on a plane then a boat this week, and I have been looking forward to catching up on my WWDTM and This American Life podcasts that I’ve had piling up.
Paula is by far my favorite. I was driving through Duluth, and she did a line that had me laughing out loud so hard I was leaning over my steering wheel. I suddenly became self conscious and looked over at the car next to me. HE was laughing too! We both were alone in our cars, and we gave each other the thumbs up.