Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me

Through my vast, mostly untapped connections, I managed to score a last-minute comp ticket to a taping of NPR's Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me. This is generally taped on Thursday nights in the basement of the Chase building in the loop, an odd location for a quirky show.

The show focuses on current events, and features several types of quizzes and contests between phone-in callers and guest panelists. This week, we were honored with the presence of Boston Globe writer Charlie Pierce, Washington Post columnist Roxanne Roberts, and comedian Paula Poundstone. Unfortunately, Carl Kasell was away on vacation, so Corey Flintoff graciously stepped in as our scorekeeper, announcing to us, "I want America to know, that I am, like, totally ready to lead."

That of course set the stage for this week's comedic fodder, featuring the infamous Paris Hilton presidential campaign ad, a spoof of McCain's spot comparing Obama to major celebrities.

The first thing I noticed was how much of the live show would be drastically edited and polished into a one-hour segment. The taping lasted about 2 hours, and only an hour of that would make the cut to air. This should reassure anyone who calls in on taped radio shows, because it means your awkward pauses and incorrect answers often get edited out of the show. In an effort to make everyone a winner, you are also supplied with ample hints to answers, and opportunities to guess again.

Awkward pauses aside, the redactions also mean that many of the less appropriate jokes are cut. Pierce's line about Bush making it to the locker room in time to see the wrestling team's clean & jerk will not make the air. Nor will Sagal's comments about breaking up with himself via Slydial, because "it's not me, it's me," "I just don't have any chemistry with myself," and "a man's got needs." I'm willing to bet that a lot of the political banter that was overtly anti-Bush and anti-McCain will also get cut. (NPR lives up to its reputation as a liberal bastion!)

It also appears that sitting in front of a computer all day at work is doing wonders for my knowledge of current events. I recognized a broad variety of stories in the quizzes, from the guy who called 911 after a Subway worker didn't make his sandwich properly, to the $79B surplus in the Iraqi government's budget, to the impending foreclosure of the Shire, a fantastic neighborhood in Oregon inspired by Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Particularly now that I know how difficult it is to sound stupid on air, I am tempted to submit my name as a live caller. Good thing this isn't common knowledge, otherwise we'd have a serious moral hazard problem on our hands.

After the show, a few minutes was spent re-recording selected lines from the script, bits that weren't clearly spoken the first time around. You could hear the producers through the headsets, giving Sagal directions and page numbers of sections to redo. The audience tried to laugh politely at the jokes for the second time around.

The show will air on Saturday morning (check your local station listings for times). If you listen carefully, you might hear my notoriously distinctive laugh.