Posted on: Friday, November 8, 2002

Program featured nationwide on NPR

• 'Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me!' quiz show coming to Hawai'i

By Wanda A. Adams
Assistant Features Editor

Never listened to "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!"?

It's a quiz show based on current events, featuring a panel of stumpees, head stumper/host Peter Sagal and judge/scorekeeper Carl Kasell. They play an ever-changing round of games, some involving listeners and guests, including "Who's Carl This Time," in which Kasell portrays a news figure and the panel has to guess who; "Listener Limerick," in which callers have to fill in the blanks of a news-linked limerick; "Fake News Stories," in which panelists have to guess which of three news stories actually happened and "Panelist Predictions," in which the panel tries to forecast the news.

The show's games and questions are devised by the staff and executive producer Doug Berman, who scan the Internet for likely stories all week long, finalizing the show the day before it's played. Panelists are not told the subject matter in advance.

The pace is lightning fast and, except when they're on the road, the panelists broadcast from studios wherever they happen to live and can't even see each other.