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Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!

Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! is NPR's weekly hour-long quiz program. Each week on the radio you can test your knowledge against some of the best and brightest in the news and entertainment world while figuring out what's real news and what's made up. On the Web, you can play along too.

It takes more than a couple brain cells to make this show what it is... so let's give credit where credit's due.

Peter Sagal — Host

Prior to becoming host of Wait Wait in 1998, Peter had a varied career including stints as a playwright, screenwriter, stage director, actor, extra in a Michael Jackson video, travel writer, essayist, ghostwriter and staff writer for a motorcycle magazine. He has written two books — The Book of Vice: Naughty Things and How to Do Them (Harper Collins, 2007) and The Incomplete Book of Running (Simon & Schuster, 2018). He has contributed essays to Opera News, AARP the Magazine, Saveur, Finesse, and is the "Road Scholar" columnist for Runner's World. He has traveled to many places and done many things but is now happiest where he lives, north of Chicago, with his wife, Mara Sagal, one dog and two sons.

Bill Kurtis – Official Judge and Scorekeeper

For many, Bill Kurtis was the face, the voice, and the hair of the news in Chicago. Along with his co-anchor, Walter Jacobson, Bill brought authority and integrity to CBS-affiliate WBBM. Since then, he's produced and hosted such shows as Investigative Reports, American Justice and Cold Case Files; and was also the narrator of Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy. Essentially, if you hear Bill Kurtis saying your name, you've either committed a terrible crime, or you're Will Ferrell. Bill is also the founder of Tallgrass Beef Company, where, every night, he lulls his grass-fed cows to sleep by reading them a bedtime story.

Carl Kasell — Scorekeeper Emeritus

Carl – an all-around genius and great guy – had a five-decade career in broadcasting. After 30 years as a signature voice of NPR's morning newscasts, Carl embraced an unexpected comedy role, as the Official Judge and Scorekeeper of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, which premiered in January 1998. In 2014, he announced he would become Scorekeeper Emeritus and continued to record custom voice mail greetings for the show's lucky winners. (Listen to some of them here). Carl died in April 2018 at the age of 84. You can read Peter's appreciations of him here and here.

Join host Peter Sagal, Bill Kurtis, and a riotous, unruly guest panel Saturdays at 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. on 91.1 WSHU, 89.9 WSUF1260 WSHU and 1340 WYBC. Hear encore broadcasts Sundays at 1 p.m. on 89.9 WSUF1260 WSHU and 1340 WYBC.