I sometimes enjoy the show, but the host, Peter Sagal, is the smuggest bastard I have ever heard. I just want to slap him silly.
Who was the MacArthur genius grant recipient who won the quiz and started singing “IIIIIIIIII won!.. IIIIIIIIIIII won! Salmon Rushdie couldn’t win but IIIIIIIIIIII won!”?
Priceless.
I was going to mention this, I think it was newsstands, though. Paula’s delivery was beyond perfect; she answered “Yes” before Hanks finished talking.
She was one of the best guests EVER. She was at least as funny as the panelists!
I listen to the podcast every week and I have to agree, the Neko Case interview was one of the best in recent times.
From the replies, some of you have heard this past week’s episode with Senator McCaskill. Did it sound like PJ O’rourke was totally sauced to anybody else? He seemed slower than normal and his speech was a bit slurred.
I’ve been a contestant, and [smug]I won the prize[/smug]. I have Carl Kasell’s voice on a CD (that’s how they do it). I haven’t put it on my answering machine for reasons which are too boring to go into. I had to nag them several times for my prize to actually be sent, however. I guess old Carl is kinda busy.
The segment I won was the most difficult (in my opinion), Bluff the Listener, where you have to pick the right idiotic story out of the three impossible stories told by the panelists. Mine was about car tires with some scent built in.
Getting on the show was surprisingly easy. I sent them an email saying I would be interested, and a few weeks later a producer called and asked me about myself, and then I guess I passed the audition because she booked me right then for that week’s show. They tape on Thursday afternoon, I think it was, so I was at work. In those days I had an office, so I could close my door.
Anyway, it was great fun. You should all try it. And I love listening to the show, although some weeks are better than others. It’s pretty much the only laugh-out-loud I do all week.
Roddy
You can’t do that joke justice by describing it, but I was on my way to the grocery store and that line had me just roaring with laughter.
Yes she was. My favorite moment was when they talked about her new furniture line coming out, and somebody said, “Paula, how DO you deep fry an ottoman?” and without missing a beat, she said, “Aw honey, that’s easy. You just dip it in egg first.”
I’m a fairly regular listener, loved the WTF moments last week.
Paula and Tom B. are my favorite panelists, although Carl does manage to steal the show pretty frequently.
I like SY, too. I went to a set of tapings this summer – got the tickets as a premium for renewing my membership. I would have bought tickets, though. It was pretty entertaining, although they didn’t have the A Team panels.
I listened to Whaddaya Know for a while, but it got old quick. Yeah, small towns are quaint and stuff. Next.
Love it. If you go to the website you can hear the answering-machine messages that Carl recorded for some folks.
I love that show. I remember listening when Paula actually won for the first time. I actually clapped for her.
The Neko Case part was a driveway moment for me.
If they ever come your way, make a point to see the show live. We saw them at the Biltmore in Phoenix a few years ago, and it was great. I make a point to get each weeks podcast, in case radio gets outlawed.
God yes, I was nearly dying while trying to hold in audible laughter, lest my fellow commuters think I’m losing it more than I actually am. 
The Neko Case and Paula Deen (didn’t she actually win that one?) interviews were great as well. Go back far enough in the archives - or find the more recent ‘best of’ show that included it - and you can hear a funny one with Pres. Obama back when he was our junior US Senator here in Illinois. He talks about how they write their name inside their desk, and the panel kind of runs with that topic - you really have to hear that part.
If someone has a pointer to the “crap a pineapple” joke I’d appreciate it.
I do love this show!** I’m a Paula, Roy, and Roxanne fan as well. I wish they’d make their full archives available as podcasts - would love to listen to the early shows. (I think they’re only available streaming right now.)
Fans might also want to check out the classic radio quiz show Information Please from the '30s and '40s - kind of a spiritual forebear of Wait, Wait…. It’s a little higher on the “quiz” component, but still has plenty of laughs (Oscar Levant and Franklin P. Adams can be brilliantly funny panelists).
**Okay, I love it but for two things: 1) the awful shouting/braying laugh of one of the male panelists, though I can’t remember which one it is. Adam Felber, I think? And 2) Peter Sagal makes waaaay too many jokes about the supposedly brilliant intelligence of public radio listeners. :rolleyes:
You probably don’t dare make light of current events for a savvy, serious-minded audience like NPR listeners unless you leaven it with a degree of My, Aren’t We The Smart Alek. Anyway, I get the feeling it’s a put-on, and Peter is only pretending to take himself that seriously.
It’s strange how all of the Berlusconi jokes are just Mussolini jokes with the name replaced…
I stream Wait, Wait through npr.org every week while I’m folding laundry. (6 people worth of laundry - guh.) It’s refreshing to listen to a show which includes jokes you actually have to have a brain cell or two to appreciate.
I love this show. I was between computers for awhile in summer '08 and crashing with my parents, so I subscribed to it with my mom’s iTunes so I could listen to it. My mom has only the vaguest idea of how everything computer-related works, and a few months ago she called me to ask if I had anything to do with the hilarious news show that magically appeared on her iPod every time she synced it. She’s now a huge fan. (I also subscribed her iTunes to Savage Love. She has yet to ask me about that.)
I saw them a few years ago in Millennium Park. It was excellent, and at least a couple of the jokes were in such bad (but hilarious nonetheless) taste that they didn’t make the final cut.
Neko Case was definitely one of the best NMJ guests in awhile. Does anyone else think they’ve started giving more hints in that segment? It’s so hard that I always felt bad for the people the guests were playing for, so few guests ever won. But it feels like lately Peter is giving more hints and more guests are winning.
Roy is my favorite panelist, but I like pretty much all of them.
There’s a similar program on BBC Radio 4 (without celebrity guests and caller participation) called “The News Quiz.” It can be found via “Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4” on iTunes - the show alternates every couple months with other topical comedy shows, “The Now Show” and “That’s Why They Call It the News.” Naturally these are UK-focused, typically, but it’s interesting learning about the goings-on there via these shows.