Friday, October 09, 2009

Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!

I attended the NPR radio show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! last night in Boston, with son #2, in the absurdly overdecorated Wang Theatre. Somebody's making some serious bucks there - 3000 people at roughly 50 bucks a head... I only hope some of it goes to WBUR, our local station. Impressions: Carl Kasell is surprisingly spry and graceful at age 75; Peter Sagal looks a little like a Jewish version of Jack Nicholson; the bell is not rung by Carl, but by a producer.

Guest was actress Ashley Judd (who was not very funny, but very, very earnest and rather pleased with herself, and gave the host a heart attack by being in the loo when it was her turn to appear); panelists were Roxanne Roberts, Charlie Pierce, and Tom Bodett. (I would have preferred to see Mo Rocca and Paula Poundstone, but at least the obnoxious and unfunny P. J. O'Rourke wasn't there.) No real side-splitters, although the funniest line of the night was after the show taping ended, when somebody asked host Peter Sagal if he ever does bar mitzvahs. He replied that he did one once, but it didn't work out very well.

If you want to hear my own appearance on Wait, Wait back in 2003, go here and click on the "Bluff the listener" link. They gave me some Wait, Wait gear in honor of the event, but I didn't get Carl Kasell's voice on my home answering machine.

3 comments:

isohedral said...

In the episode you reference, I hear Dale Bumpers answering questions about Bob Hope, but no reference to you. Do I have the right show?

I saw a taping in Seattle years ago, with Dan Savage as the guest. I thought Sagal looked a bit like Salman Rushdie.

Jeffrey Shallit said...

Sorry - I meant "Bluff the listener". Fixed on the blog entry now.

isohedral said...

I was going to complain that the caller for the Bluff The Listener game was "Hans from New York City". But I suppose you were the callee, not the caller. Nicely done.