Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! Stats Page
Show Details: 2013
2013-01-05
- Paula Deen 2
- Sam Kass 3
- Neko Case 2
2013-01-12
- First Tied: Kyrie O'Connor 17 (3 / 7)
- First Tied: Adam Felber 17 (3 / 7)
- Third: Paula Poundstone 14 (2 / 6)
2013-01-19
- First: Peter Grosz 17 (3 / 7)
- Second: Mo Rocca 16 (2 / 7)
- Third: Roxanne Roberts 14 (4 / 5)
2013-01-26
- First Tied: Maz Jobrani 15 (3 / 6)
- First Tied: Amy Dickinson 15 (3 / 6)
- Third: Roy Blount, Jr. 11 (3 / 4)
2013-02-02
- First: Faith Salie 15 (3 / 6)
- Second: Charlie Pierce 14 (4 / 5)
- Third: Brian Babylon 10 (2 / 4)
2013-02-09
- First: Kyrie O'Connor 17 (5 / 6)
- Second: Paula Poundstone 11 (1 / 5)
- Third: Tom Bodett 10 (2 / 4)
Paula tried to not have Peter to say that she was in third at the beginning of the Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank round. Unfortunately, Peter mentioned that she was in third and Paula ran with it by continually saying that she was in third.
2013-02-16
- First Tied: Brian Babylon 17 (3 / 7)
- First Tied: Roxanne Roberts 17 (3 / 7)
- Third: Luke Burbank 14 (2 / 6)
- Al Gore 3
Carl Kasell was a little bit generous with handing out points to Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank answers, which lead to a bit of humor related to Roxanne's last question of the round.
2013-02-23
2013-03-02
- First: Jessi Klein 12 (2 / 5)
- Second Tied: Mo Rocca 11 (3 / 4)
- Second Tied: Alonzo Bodden 11 (3 / 4)
Mo Rocca was in great form for the Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank round, particularly after Peter asked Bill Kurtis if Mo did well enough to win. Bill Kurtis simply answered, "No." At which, Mo said that Bill should have built up the suspense and then said Carl would normally have said, though in a semi-whiny manner: "He needed five correct answers, but he only had four. So, the winner this week is Jessi Klein."
2013-03-09
- First: Roy Blount, Jr. 17 (3 / 7)
- Second Tied: Paula Poundstone 13 (3 / 5)
- Second Tied: Firoozeh Dumas 13 (3 / 5)
2013-03-16
- First: Faith Salie 12 (2 / 5)
- Second: Paula Poundstone 11 (3 / 4)
- Third: Bobcat Goldthwait 4 (2 / 1)
If Peter hadn't accepted Bobcat's answer of "Exacto Knife" during the Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank round, Bobcat would have repeated Paula's incredibly hilarious zero correct answers from 2008-03-29 and scoring two points.
2013-03-23
- First: Amy Dickinson 17 (3 / 7)
- Second: Charlie Pierce 13 (3 / 5)
- Third: Tom Bodett 10 (2 / 4)
Another instance in which all three correct answers for the Not My Job round were "B". Bill Kurtis okay'd Tom Bodett's answer of "statue of a car" during the Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank round when the proper answer was a full-scale snow sculpture of a VW Beetle after some questioning of "statue of a car" versus "snow sculpture".
2013-03-30
- First: Adam Felber 18 (2 / 8)
- Second: Kyrie O'Connor 16 (2 / 7)
- Third: P.J. O'Rourke 11 (3 / 4)
Carl Kasell introduced Tom Bodett as "filling in for Drew Carey, filling in for Peter Sagal". Tom Bodett went all folksy during the intro portion, with Carl trying to translate it into NPR-speak. Tom Bodett was bleeped twice while asking and explaining the second Not My Job question.
Tom Bodett followed Peter Sagal's bad punnage regarding the Listener Limerick Challenge round at the beginning of the second panelist round. In this case, Tom based his puns on his famous Motel 6 ad line. At the beginning of the Listener Limerick Challenge, Tom said, "it's Rhyme Time" almost in the same manner he says "It's Mime Time" on The Animaniacs.
2013-04-06
- First: Roxanne Roberts 17 (3 / 7)
- Second: Brian Babylon 14 (2 / 6)
- Third: Peter Grosz 9 (3 / 3)
2013-04-13
- First: Faith Salie 15 (3 / 6)
- Second: Alonzo Bodden 13 (3 / 5)
- Third: Luke Burbank 12 (2 / 5)
Faith Salie asked if "Batman & Robin" movie is the one which Batman had nipples. At which, Mark Bittman responded with, "that answers the first question" and Peter stating, facetiously, that he will never invite Faith Salie back on to the show. Mark was in fact right that it was the correct answer to the first question and was the only question Mark answered correctly.
At the beginning of the Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank round, when Carl provided the panelist's scores and standings in which Luke was third with 2 points, Peter said, "Luke you're definitely going to go third". Luke actually went first. Funnily enough, Luke ended up coming in third at the end of the round.
2013-04-20
- Jeff Bridges 1
- Arne Duncan 2
- Al Gore 3
- Erykah Badu 3
- Melinda Gates 2
The Not My Job segment with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan featured the interesting discussion with Paula Poundstone. The show also included additional Not My Job content with former Vice President Al Gore that didn't make it on air.
2013-04-27
- First: Amy Dickinson 17 (3 / 7)
- Second: Roy Blount, Jr. 14 (2 / 6)
- Third: Maz Jobrani 9 (3 / 3)
- Kal Penn 3
2013-05-04
- First: Mo Rocca 18 (4 / 7)
- Second Tied: Paula Poundstone 13 (3 / 5)
- Second Tied: Tom Bodett 13 (1 / 6)
This show was taped at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts for a live cinecast to many cinemas around the United States. The same show was also shown at additional cinemas on May 7th and in Canada on May 11th.
I attended the live taping at Skirball Center, sitting at the end of row F with a center view of the main show's setup.
2013-05-11
- First: Charlie Pierce 14 (4 / 5)
- Second: Brian Babylon 12 (2 / 5)
- Third: Roxanne Roberts 10 (2 / 4)
Peter let Eric Schmidt use Google search to find out answers to his second and third Not My Job questions. No one should let Peter use the phrase "gangster banging" again.
2013-05-18
- First: Tom Bodett 15 (3 / 6)
- Second: Kyrie O'Connor 14 (2 / 6)
- Third: Bobcat Goldthwait 9 (1 / 4)
During the Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank round, Bobcat answered a question with "relocation", in which the official answer was "witness protection". Bobcat was not given a point for it until the audience groaned and Bill Kurtis reconsidered and give Bobcat the point. Later in the round, Tom answered a question about making permitting women to "bare their breasts" in public with "breast feeding". Since the latter requires the former, Tom did get the point for his answer.
2013-05-25
- First: Adam Felber 16 (4 / 6)
- Second: Mo Rocca 14 (2 / 6)
- Third: Faith Salie 12 (2 / 5)
Another instance in which the Bagnoli surname was used in Mo's bluff. Peter pronounced the name of the "Kokomo" Indiana Indian tribe differently than Mo Rocca used in his bluff as "KOH-koh-mo", instead of "Kuh-koh-MO". Mo was extremely quick to correct Peter.
The audience tried to help out Michele with the second Not My Job question by yelling out "C", which Michele chose. Both the audience and Michele were wrong, the correct answer was "B".
During the second panel round, Mo asked, kind of forcibly, "Well, how the heck does it work?" when discussing about 3D pizza printers. This lead to a nice bit of laughter from Adam. Mo also made a really good/bad pun by saying "it's a place for you can Czech (check) each other out", as the city of Prague is in the Czech Republic.
The listener contestant went into another voice when completing the first Listener Limerick. Hilarity ensued.
When Bill Kurtis was about to say how many questions Adam needs to answer correctly to win, Mo said "Oh God, please lose...". Adam laughed and said something like "That's so wrong(?)" After answering six correct, Adam said that he was rooting for Mo, then Faith.
2013-06-01
- First Tied: Roy Blount, Jr. 16 (4 / 6)
- First Tied: Ken Jennings 16 (4 / 6)
- Third: Amy Dickinson 15 (3 / 6)
On the 2006-02-25 show, Paula called Adam Felber "the Ken Jennings of the panel...". Well, in this case, Ken Jennings is now the Ken Jennings of the panel... at least in terms of actually being Ken Jennings.
Peter noted that it was Ken Jennings's first time on the show, which is true in that it is Ken's first time being a panelist; but, Ken Jennings has been on the two twice as a Not My Job guest on 2006-02-25 and 2006-10-07.
Deepak Chopra + Oprah Winfrey = Oprah Chopra.
In the edited version of the show, it seemed that Amy had six Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank questions and answered five of them correctly Amy's sixth correct answer was probably edited out. Another case in which all three panelists had six correct answers.
2013-06-08
- First: Roxanne Roberts 19 (3 / 8)
- Second: Tom Bodett 15 (3 / 6)
- Third: P.J. O'Rourke 12 (2 / 5)
During the Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank round, Peter asked P.J. "Queen Elizabeth recently celebrated the 60th anniversary of her what?", P.J. answered "reign". Peter said, "not technically" and said the correct answer was "coronation" and P.J. didn't get a point. That led to the audience booing, in which Peter and Bill reversed their decision and allowed the answer.
2013-06-15
- First: Faith Salie 14 (4 / 5)
- Second: Luke Burbank 12 (4 / 4)
- Third: Bobcat Goldthwait 9 (1 / 4)
- Buzz Aldrin 3 *
Even though Buzz Aldrin only answered one Not My Job question correct, Bill Kurtis decided to give Buzz all three correct. This isn't the first time that either the host or the scorekeeper overruled and allowed the Not My Job guest to win the prize for the listener even though the guest didn't answer 2 or 3 questions correctly. The last time was on 2005-06-25, in which Maj. Robert Bateman didn't answer the first two Not My Job questions correctly, in which Peter gave an exception and said if Maj. Robert Bateman answered the third question correctly, he would win the prize and promptly did so.
2013-06-22
- First: Paula Poundstone 14 (2 / 6)
- Second: Jessi Klein 13 (3 / 5)
- Third: Alonzo Bodden 10 (2 / 4)
The first listener contestant, Affan, gave Peter a hint on how to pronounce his name correct with the question, "do you know what a baby deer is". Peter answered with "A baby deer is a doe? No, a baby deer is a fawn", to which the panelists, including Paula, razzed Peter. Peter then said "Welcome, a doe" to comedic effect before the first question of the round. Also, Affan guessed "poop less" as the answer for the second question of the same round.
For the third Not My Job question, Booker T. Jones said that he had heard Bon Jovi sing a song with the name "Funyuns" at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which was option "B". Although the researched correct answer was "C", Booker didn't initially get a point for the question, but Bill Kurtis gave him the point.
During the Listener Limerick Round, Peter noted that the luxury hotel for dogs should be called "The Fur Seasons"; in which, the audience groaned at the pun. Paula stepped in to say that was the fourth time Peter had gotten that reaction. That prompted Peter to ask Paula, "are you keeping count!?!".
A portion of Jessi's guess for her last Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank question was bleeped.
2013-06-29
- First: Mo Rocca 17 (5 / 6)
- Second: Kyrie O'Connor 12 (2 / 5)
- Third: Brian Babylon 11 (1 / 5)
Mo Rocca is right to be shocked at starting the Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank round with 5 points, as it does not happen too often.
2013-07-06
The first three Not My Job guests in this Best Of show are the same as the ones from the 2012-11-24 Best Of show.
2013-07-13
- First: Paula Poundstone 15 (3 / 6)
- Second: Amy Dickinson 13 (3 / 5)
- Third: Maz Jobrani 12 (2 / 5)
Carl Kasell returns back to Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
Peter and the three panelists had a fair amount of fun with the "p" in "comptroller" in regards to Eliot Spitzer, and Paula had fun with the secondary pronunciation of "comptroller" with non-related words. Paula went the offensive with the two studies featured in the second panelist round. Paula's coughing while Peter did the info blurb between the second panelist round and the Listener Limerick Challenge lead to funny banter between the two.
2013-07-20
- First: Faith Salie 16 (2 / 7)
- Second: Alonzo Bodden 14 (4 / 5)
- Third: Charlie Pierce 10 (2 / 4)
The first listener contestant either hung up or the phone call got dropped while the panel and Peter discussed the answer to the third question. This was noted, with some humor, by Peter and the panel.
Carl paused a bit while trying to calculate how many questions Alonzo Bodden needed to answer correctly to win. In the aired/podcast version, Carl only stated how many was needed to tie with Faith. Also, in the edited version of the show, it seemed like Alonzo Bodden only answered four questions (out of six) correctly. Carl stated that he had answered five correctly. Audience groaned when Peter said that the driver that picked up a stranded Dave Matthews, didn't "crashed into him".
2013-07-27
- First: Kyrie O'Connor 18 (2 / 8)
- Second: Maz Jobrani 12 (2 / 5)
- Third: Paula Poundstone 11 (3 / 4)
In the radio/podcast version of the show, it seemed that Maz Jobrani only answered four of the five aired questions correct; while, Carl noted that he answered five correct.
2013-08-03
- First Tied: Brian Babylon 15 (3 / 6)
- First Tied: Roxanne Roberts 15 (3 / 6)
- Third: Bobcat Goldthwait 7 (3 / 2)
All three panelists were tied with three points each at the beginning of the Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank round. Bobcat's first attempt to answer his third question got bleeped.
2013-08-10
2013-08-17
Many of the segments and both Not My Job segments are the same ones aired during the similarly themed Best Of show on 2009-08-22 (and repeated on 2010-11-27).
2013-08-24
- First: Paula Poundstone 16 (2 / 7)
- Second: Kyrie O'Connor 15 (3 / 6)
- Third: Adam Felber 14 (4 / 5)
The third choice for each of the Not My Job questions was Bruce Springsteen, who's nickname is "The Boss". Tony Danza actually answered the third question with Bruce Springsteen, which was not correct.
Also, the CEO of Cisco Systems is actually John Chambers, not Sandy Lerner as noted as the correct answer for the second Not My Job question. Sandy Lerner is one of Cisco's co-founders, but was never the CEO for Cisco.
2013-08-31
- First: Charlie Pierce 15 (3 / 6)
- Second: Tom Bodett 13 (3 / 5)
- Third: Amy Dickinson 10 (2 / 4)
2013-09-07
- First: Alonzo Bodden 16 (2 / 6)
- Second: Adam Felber 14 (4 / 5)
- Third: Neko Case 6 (2 / 2)
Peter almost said "Fucking, Australia" instead of "Fucking, Austria" (which is coincidentally funny since the Not My Job plays on people confusing Australia and Austria). Baz came back and said "there's not Fucking in Australia". They decided to move on afterwards in case someone slipped and used the word in the other manner. And yes, the name/word "Fucking", along with the phonetic spelling "Fooking", made it into the transcript for the segment on NPR.org.
During the Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank round, Adam Felber whispered the correct answer to Alonzo Bodden for Alonzo's last question and Alonzo repeated it and he didn't get a bell ding for it nor did Carl consider it a correct response when totting up the points (started with 2, six correct for a total of 14 points). Alonzo Bodden did the same for Neko Case and she got points for it. Neko Case uttered an expletive for the answer to her last question. At the end of the segment, Carl stated that Alonzo had 16 points.
2013-09-14
- First: Faith Salie 15 (3 / 6)
- Second: Mo Rocca 11 (3 / 4)
- Third: P.J. O'Rourke 10 (2 / 4)
P.J.'s default answer for Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank seemed to be "twerked" and for his panelist prediction. Faith's response to coconuts being investigated for vote rigging was "bananas". Faith ended up with a Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank question whose answer was "twerking".
Part of Peter's explanation of Faith's last Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank question had an expletive and was bleeped.
2013-09-21
- First: Paula Poundstone 15 (3 / 6)
- Second: Roy Blount, Jr. 12 (2 / 5)
- Third: Jessi Klein 8 (2 / 3)
In the radio/podcast version of the show, it appeared that Jessi only had answered two Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank questions correct even though Carl noted she had answered three correct.
2013-09-28
- First: Kyrie O'Connor 12 (2 / 5)
- Second: Brian Babylon 11 (3 / 4)
- Third: Tom Bodett 9 (3 / 3)
2013-10-05
- First: Roxanne Roberts 16 (4 / 6)
- Second: Charlie Pierce 15 (3 / 6)
- Third: Maz Jobrani 12 (2 / 5)
Maz Jobrani answered six Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank questions correctly (including the last one in which Maz's answer of "(David) Cameron's cat" was accepted by Peter Sagal and a bell ding given). Carl stated that Maz had only answered five questions correct. This will not Maz's first run-in with an incorrect answer/point count, as it also happened on the 2012-06-12 show. Unlike the outcome of 2012-06-16's show, Maz would have still come in third place with the correct score count.
2013-10-12
- First: Jessi Klein 15 (3 / 6)
- Second: Luke Burbank 12 (2 / 5)
- Third: Brian Babylon 11 (3 / 4)
Jessi Klein stated that her win this week was her first win on the show; but, she actually won for the first time on the 2013-03-02 show (taped on 2013-02-28).
2013-10-19
2013-10-26
- First: Mo Rocca 16 (4 / 6)
- Second: Roxanne Roberts 14 (2 / 6)
- Third: Peter Grosz 8 (2 / 3)
In the radio/podcast version of the show, Mo's edited Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank only had him answering 4 out of 6 questions correctly; even though, Carl stated that Mo answered 6 correctly at the end of the round. That meant that Mo had to have answered the two other (unaired) questions correct.
2013-11-02
- First Tied: Paula Poundstone 14 (2 / 6)
- First Tied: Faith Salie 14 (4 / 5)
- Third: Tom Bodett 12 (2 / 5)
Due to some people taking offense to the Polish Union story/bluff from the previous week's Bluff the Listener segment (for the record, it was Peter Grosz's bluff), Wait Wait had comedian T.J. Jagodowski on the line to crack jokes at NPR and NPR listeners. T.J. Jagodowski and Peter Grosz are featured together in TV adverts for Sonic.
Carl Kasell gave a bell ding to Tom's answer of "go cup for his drunken streets (sic)", even though the proper answer would have been "beer".
2013-11-09
- First: Kyrie O'Connor 15 (3 / 6)
- Second: P.J. O'Rourke 10 (2 / 4)
- Third: Bobcat Goldthwait 9 (3 / 3)
2013-11-16
- First: Roy Blount, Jr. 17 (3 / 5)
- Second: Mo Rocca 14 (2 / 6)
- Third: Amy Dickinson 11 (3 / 4)
At the beginning of the Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank round, Mo Rocca had 2 points while Roy Blount, Jr. and Amy Dickinson had three points. According to both the podcast version of the show and the transcript, Roy answered five questions correct and would have had a total of 13 points and came in 2nd after Mo Rocca. Carl stated that Roy had a total of 17 points, which would have required Roy to answer two additional questions correctly for a total of nine questions, one more than the usual maximum of 8 questions.
The scoring and ranking reflects the official scoring as stated by Carl Kasell.
2013-11-23
- First: Charlie Pierce 17 (3 / 7)
- Second: Faith Salie 12 (2 / 5)
- Third: Brian Babylon 9 (3 / 3)
During the Who's Carl This Time? round, the listener contestant had someone in the background and helped provide an answer to the question.
2013-11-30
Returning from the first break in the program, Peter Sagal "pressed" one of the buttons in the studio recording room which caused the beginning of All Things Considered's theme to play. It was cut short and Peter reacted with "that's awful".
2013-12-07
- First: Kyrie O'Connor 17 (3 / 7)
- Second: Alonzo Bodden 14 (2 / 6)
- Third: Adam Felber 11 (3 / 4)
2013-12-14
- First: Faith Salie 15 (3 / 6)
- Second: Maz Jobrani 13 (3 / 5)
- Third: Paula Poundstone 12 (2 / 5)
Peter made a note about Maz Jobrani's use of an Indian accent during Maz's bluff in that the staff should be prepared for a wave of listener letters. Maz noted that he even toned down his accent. Maz asked if he could attempt an accent during the Listener Limerick Challenge round.
The "Guess the Newsmaker" segment made its return to the show after a long hiatus.
2013-12-21
- First: Roxanne Roberts 17 (3 / 7)
- Second: Roy Blount, Jr. 15 (3 / 6)
- Third: Tom Bodett 14 (2 / 6)
2013-12-28
Excluding the two Not My Job segments, the fan favorite segments in this show are the same ones that aired in the 2009-08-29 Best Of... episode.