Peter Sagal and Carl Kasell

The first audio collection from NPR’s “oddly informative news quiz” spotlights the “Not My Job” segment of the show, with celebrity guests including Tom Hanks, Terry Gross, Jeopardy Grand Champion Ken Jennings, and Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

Each week, 2 million listeners tune into Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the hour-long news quiz from NPR and Chicago Public Radio. They test their knowledge of the week’s dumbest news against some of the best and brightest in the news and entertainment world. Host Peter Sagal and scorekeeper (and veteran NPR newscaster) Carl Kasell join panelists including author and humorist Roy Blount Jr., Washington Post columnist Roxanne Roberts, Boston Globe writer Charlie Pierce, and comedian Paula Poundstone.

Always a high point of the show, the “Not My Job” segment features a celebrity guest who must answer three questions on a topic totally outside his or her area of expertise. Nice guy Tom Hanks is asked about Hollywood’s biggest louts. Magician Penn Jillette can’t escape three questions about Ben Franklin. Jeopardy Grand Champion Ken Jennings is almost (but not quite) stumped by “What in the world does Ken Jennings not know?” And Barack Obama, Democratic Senator from Illinois, takes the floor for three questions about the superstitions of Baseball Hall of Famer Wade Boggs.

Introduced by Sagal, with hilarious interjections from panel members, the first-ever Wait Wait audio is fast paced, funny—and oddly informative.

PRAISE FOR Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!

“The program’s rabid fans clamor for Sagal, and especially Kasell, like rock stars.”
     —Los Angeles Times

Original radio broadcast; 2 hours on 2 CDs
978-1-59887-070-1 (1-59887-070-X) CD Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! The Best of “Not My Job”

PETER SAGAL began hosting Wait Wait in 1998. Before that, he was a playwright, screenwriter, stage director, actor, extra in a Michael Jackson video, travel writer, essayist, ghostwriter, and staff writer for a motorcycle magazine.

CARL KASELL, the show’s official judge and scorekeeper, has been a newscaster for NPR’s Morning Edition since its inception in 1979.


A production of NPR and Chicago Public Radio.