Q&A with Peter Sagal of “Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me!”

Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me! is the weekly NPR news quiz/game show that brings levity to the latest world events. This Thursday, Wait, Wait… cast members Peter Sagal and Carl Kasell visit Milwaukee for the first time and record a live taping from Riverside Theater.

The show features a variety of segments including “Not My Job,” in which Sagal interviews and challenges a celebrity or somewhat well-known figure. This week’s celeb will be Randy Sprecher from the local Sprecher Brewery—Sagal expects they’ll chat about beer.

Panelists play a vital role in the competition aspect of the show. Each week, the three panelists have opportunities to earn points based on their knowledge of current events and their ability to “Bluff the Listener” in one particular segment. They tend to lend a nice balance of hilarity and absurdity to the show. This week’s panelists include Charlie Pierce, Faith Salie and Mo Rocca.

And then there’s Carl Kasell—the man with the voice. Kasell is the show’s scorekeeper who also offers the most coveted prize: Carl Kasell’s voice on your answering machine.

Now approaching their 15th year on NPR, Wait, Wait… is the most entertaining and irreverent way to digest your daily news. I was lucky enough to chat with Peter Sagal about his time with the show. You can listen to the full recording below and find out how Peter did in my “Bluff the Sagal” challenge.

[audio:https://urbanmilwaukeedial.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Peter-Sagal-EDITED.mp3|titles=Peter Sagal, “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me”]

TCD: What took you so long to come to Milwaukee?

Sagal: It’s like one of those movies where the hero is looking for love and never notices the beautiful girl right next to him. Or maybe it’s the beautiful girl who never notices the loyal guy right next to her and in the end it’s like, “It was always you.” We’ve been traveling all over the country and we never realized the place we really belonged was Milwaukee.

TCD: Some listeners might be surprised by the amount of research and prep that goes into a taping. Can you describe the process?

Sagal: We spend all day researching and writing and reading articles, trying to find funny things and trying to actually learn something about the news so we can make intelligent jokes about it. It’s harder than it looks. We read a lot of really dumb stories on the Internet looking for the stories that are just so dumb they can’t be believed.

TCD: What are some of the sources for these stories?

Sagal:  I spend a lot of time reading the major papers — The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times. I like to find the details coming out of real stories that are buried way down at the end of the story. So it’ll be a major story about something and you go way down to the end of it at the 18th inch of the column on the second page and there’s going to be some bizarre little detail that the writer wanted to get in. And that’s where we make our living. We almost read the stories in reverse. We all have our secrets that we don’t share because we have a sort of informal competition of who can find the goofiest stories by the end of the day.

TCD: Do you ever get comments when you do live tapings from people you meet after the show talking about how you look different from the picture in their mind?

Sagal: My joke is that you have to accept that upon meeting somebody for the first time who just knows my show, they’re not going to hear anything I say for the first 30 seconds because they’re all staring at me saying, “this is what he looks like?” And any words coming out of my mouth are irrelevant. I could be saying “We have to leave, the building is on fire,” and they’ll just be sitting there going, “Wow, he just doesn’t sound bald.”

TCD: Do any of the panelists take the scoring seriously or study before the show to prepare?

Sagal: Yes, Roxanne Roberts dammit! And I’m happy to totally narc her out on that point. She plays to win ladies and gentlemen.

TCD: Do you have any favorite guests from the past or any future guests you hope to see?

Sagal: There have been the people who I’ve admired my whole life who have been on the show and been really charming and I had the chance to talk to them—people like Elvis Costello or Dick Van Dyke or President Bill Clinton for that matter. My particular favorite is when people come on and you don’t expect them to be funny, and they’re really funny. A great relatively recent example is Neko Case or even Martha Stewart who came on just this last week was really fun because she swore and I love how game she was. If people are willing to go along with what we do, it’s really great.

TCD: What does Carl Kasell sound like in real life?

Sagal: The great thing about Carl is what you hear with Carl is what you get. He is genuinely that pleasant. That’s what he sounds like. That’s his personality. He’s this really fun, charming older gentleman who loves his job and loves his life and has a great time. He’s got a terrible temper, that’s usually when he gets drinking. He’ll trash a hotel room like you wouldn’t believe. And he attracts groupies like a young Mick Jagger, it’s really something to see.

TCD: What can Milwaukeeans expect from a live taping of the show versus the on-air radio show.

Sagal: The live tapings have a lot of appeal. You hear a lot of stuff that doesn’t get broadcast either because it’s too weird, too blue, too strange. We tend to record almost twice as much stuff as we broadcast. There’s a lot of stuff that you don’t get to hear, some of it just goes off the rails in funny ways. Nobody’s ever come up to me and said, “that was dull,” and a lot of people have come up to me saying, “you should figure out a way to broadcast the whole thing.” And I’d say, if we did that there would be no incentive to come to our live shows.

WUWM presents Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me! this Thursday, Nov. 15 at the Riverside Theater. Tickets are still available and I highly recommend that you do not miss out on this experience. You will never process your news the same way again.