Popular National Public Radio show ‘Wait, Wait …’ to record from Paris Las Vegas

Calling "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me!" a quiz show doesn't quite do the wildly popular public radio program justice.

Sure, there's a panel of guests -- writers and entertainers and such -- answering questions based on the previous week's news events, and a special guest each week attempting to win a prize for a home listener.

But fans of "Wait, Wait ..." know that all of these quizzy trappings are just the chocolate coating that disguises the show's much-desired nougaty center.

Namely: It's the only way there is to get veteran National Public Radio newsman Carl Kasell to record a message on your answering machine.

Seriously. But more about that later.

For now, just be aware that the Peabody Award-winning "Wait, Wait ..." comes to Paris Las Vegas today to record a show that will air this weekend on public radio affiliates across the country (locally on KNPR-FM, 88.9 at 10 a.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday).

Featured panelists will be comedian Paula Poundstone, humorist Adam Felber and "CBS Sunday Morning" contributor Faith Salie, while Wayne Newton will be special guest for the show's signature "Not My Job" segment.

"Wait, Wait ..." last came to Las Vegas in 2002 to record a show at Sam's Town, "way on the east side of town," host Peter Sagal recalled during a recent phone interview.

"Now, we've made it to the Strip," he added with (presumably) mock excitement. "We made it!"

If nothing else, the show's return is a nice way to thank Las Vegas for all of the material the city has given it through the years.

"Lord knows we have had a lot of fun with Las Vegas over the years and with -- I'm trying to say it right -- Nev-a-da," said Sagal, whose mispronunciation of the name last time around was loudly commented upon by audience members.

Sagal was a panelist on the very first "Wait, Wait ..." show in January 1998 and, he said, "quickly became host" in May of that year.

"I really have no qualifications for this job other than doing this job," added Sagal, who also is an author, essayist, playwright and screenwriter.

"I honestly thought I'd do this for a couple of years as my day job while I continued my rise to the top of American theater, a stepping stone on my way to a Pulitzer."

Now, Sagal helps to write each week's "Wait, Wait ..." and, he said, "it's great. What I say is that more people listen to one edition of the radio show than have seen all of my plays, ever, cumulatively."

The success, and the admirably deliberate goofiness, of "Wait, Wait ..." stems, in part, from its precarious beginnings.

When Sagal became its host, "our future was not assured," he recalled. "We didn't know how long we had, and we made a decision to basically just enjoy ourself. It was classic Belushi 'Animal House': They're going to get us no matter what we do, so we might as well have a good time. So, we did stuff that amused us.

"What's incredibly gratifying is that so many people find what we find funny to be funny. If that had not been the case, we would not have survived."

The show -- a production of NPR and Chicago Public Radio -- now airs on 550 NPR member stations nationwide. Also key to its success, Sagal maintained, is that killer grand prize: Kasell recording a message on winners' answering machines.

"I think if you were to do a scholarly study, when they start to have seminars at Harvard about our show, they will discover that prize is actually the secret of our success," Sagal said. "The reason is because the prize is both priceless and worthless. You can't buy it anywhere, but you can't sell it, either.

"I think if we had offered something valuable -- not meaning to diss Carl, but if it was something of traditional value like a set of encyclopedias -- we would have been just another silly game show that wouldn't have gone anywhere. But the fact that we offer something very silly like that immediately announces to the world that we're really about something other than giving people chances to win stuff. We have other goals."

Which are?

"I always tell people we are a comedy show pretending to be a quiz show," Sagal said. "We are a quiz show in exactly the same way Jon Stewart is a news person. It's just a way for us to make jokes about people who are more important than we are."

Yet, some pretty important people have made guest appearances on the show. Among them: Then-Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, along with Tom Hanks and a raft of actors, singers, entertainers and celebrities.

And when they do, it's Sagal, as the show's host, who interviews them, typically with questions they probably haven't been asked elsewhere.

Sagal said that, while he has enjoyed talking with just about everybody who has been gracious enough to play along, he particularly enjoys interviewing "people who are funny and charming in ways you didn't necessarily expect them to be funny and charming."

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, for instance, who, Sagal said, "was absolutely hilarious."

And, more recently, indie singer and musician Neko Case, who was, in typical "Wait, Wait ..." fashion, quizzed about Necco wafers.

"We love her stuff and are big fans of her music," Sagal said, "but she was so funny we were thinking of making it permanent: 'Now, here's 15 minutes with Neko Case ... ' "

Sagal said he particularly enjoys talking to people whom "I loved, growing up: People like Leonard Nimoy and George Takei of 'Star Trek,' and Carrie Fisher and (a few weeks ago) Dick Van Dyke."

Better still, he added, is discovering that such people are exactly as charming and as gracious as anybody could have hoped.

In addition to visiting Las Vegas with "Wait, Wait ...," Sagal's professional ties to Las Vegas include having done research here for his first book, a collection of essays called "The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them)."

Sagal professed to like Las Vegas and even sounds sincere when saying that he does. It probably doesn't hurt, Sagal said, that "I'm so nervous around money I can get a real adrenaline rush with a couple hundred bucks. I don't need to be gambling away the house to be excited."

Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@review journal.com or 702-383-0280.