As host of NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me — the weekly news quiz show with an emphasis on hilarity and ridiculousness — Peter Sagal immerses himself in the news, keeping tabs on the dizzying 24-hour information cycle and all its attendant trivia, factoids and minutiae. So naturally he knows a thing or two about the city that will host this week's live taping. Or, at least a thing. How about a thing?
"What do I know about Nashville?" Sagal asks the Scene rhetorically from the WBEZ-FM office in Chicago. "Nothing. Nothing!" And then, just to further underscore that fact, he mentions an upcoming visit to "central Tennessee." (Guffaw, snicker.) "I'm embarrassed," Sagal admits of his Music City and, indeed, Middle Tennessee knowledge gap. "I've never even seen the Altman movie the whole way through." Cue outdated-yet-still-effective sound of needle screeching across a record! This guy hosts a show on NPR about things that actually happen in the world, and he's never even seen Nashville? The legendary film directed by the legendary director who directed a film about an NPR show? Hey, at least Sagal's honest — which is more than you can say for a lot of the politicians/criminals he and the show's panel make fun of (gently, as a rule).
After evolving from a studio-only show to a studio show with an occasional live taping, Wait Wait has further evolved into its current format: always live — usually in Chicago, with an occasional out-of-town taping in a place where its host has "never set foot." These trips for away games — always played to a packed house — tend to be whirlwind trips, allowing little time to take in the surroundings: "We fly in Wednesday, work like maniacs on Thursday, do the show and fly out Friday to get back to our various families," Sagal says.
So basically, rock 'n' roll all night and party every day, right? "It is very much like being on tour with a band," Sagal says, "without the groupies or drugs, because we are, after all, NPR." Pressed further on the question of groupies, though, Sagal finally concedes: "We do have groupies. ... The groupies who tend to identify themselves to me tend to be Jewish ladies in their 50s, who come this close to pinching my cheek, but they don't quite do it." Imagine what the hotel rooms must look like afterward!
But it wasn't always such a glamorous life. Just as many rock bands start off with less-than-auspicious demos, Wait Wait too went through some growing pains. "It wasn't a very good show," resident scorekeeper and voice mail message-leaver Carl Kasell says of the early days. "We were just beginning — we didn't know how to go about it, and we tried different games and finally came up with what we have today."
What they have today is a solidly entertaining, incidentally informative, giggle-triggering mix of rapid-fire trivia, call-in quizzes, fill-in-the-blanks, find-the-fake-story games and, of course, haiku based on current events. Oh, and famous people call in to get grilled on subjects they know nothing about in an attempt to win prizes for people they don't know.
"There were times when we would try to get celebrities on the show ... [and] they wouldn't return our calls," Kasell says. "But now they call us, and that's quite an accomplishment, really." The personalized outgoing voice mail messages Kasell records for the show's lucky winners — often thanks to multiple-choice wizardry by the likes of Kevin Bacon or RuPaul — are written by the winners themselves, then recorded by Kasell and sent out on a CD. An opportunity for mischief if there ever was one! But Kasell says the winners rarely challenge his boundaries: "It's their phone, you know — it's their family and their friends who are calling in. They try to keep it clean."
"Clean" is what it will be hard to keep their hands when the Wait Wait crew descends on Nashville: The Scene has challenged — nay, strongly urged — Sagal and his cohorts to partake in our fair city's signature delicacy, hot chicken. "I'm emailing everyone now," Sagal says above the sound of keyboard clicks. "We love to eat good local stuff." That leads into a lengthy discussion of Chicago Italian beef, barbecue — "the Rendezvous does not have the best dry-rub ribs in Memphis. Just sayin' " — and good places to grab a gyro in Chicago's near west suburbs. "Frankly," Sagal says, "food is much more interesting than my radio show."
Roughly 3 million NPR listeners might disagree with him on that point. But if Sagal's a first-timer, his North Carolina-bred cohort Kasell is no stranger to Music City. Should the Wait Wait folks end up honky-tonkin' on Lower Broad one night, might Kasell — a former DJ who once fielded a call from Roy Clark, calling to request his own song — hop up and join the band? "Oh sure," he says with a chuckle. "I'll get onstage with anybody." Even a guy who knows nothing about Nashville.
Email arts@nashvillescene.com.
