Wait Wait
Another favorite podcast of mine is a show co-produced byChicago Public Radio and NPR called Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me.

Self-described as “the oddly informative news quiz,” the show takes a humorous spin on the week’s news, involving a panel of comedic talent (regulars include Roy Blount, Jr, Paula Poundstone, Charlie Pierce, PJ O’Rourke, Mo Rocca, Roxanne Roberts, Sue Ellicott, and Adam Felber), call-in celebrity guests, and call-in listeners, going through a series of news-related quiz segments, including things like:

  • The Listener Limerick Challenge, in which a call in listener tries to fill in the final word of a news-related limerick
  • Not My Job, in which a celebrity guest is asked questions about a topic completely unrelated to his/her actual expertise
  • The Bluff the Listener Challenge, in which the shows panel mixes one true story in with two completely made up one and asks a call-in listener to “tell truth from fiction”
  • Who’s Carl Kasell This Time?, in which announcer and scorekeeper Carl Kasell imitates a figure in the week’s news, and a call-in listener tries to identify the person or event being replicated

I often listen on my commute in to Boston or on planes – and more than once have found people staring at me because I keep breaking out into convulsive laughter.

To subscribe to the podcast, put this url in your feedcatcher: http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=35
or visit the NPR podcast directory page for links to subscribe in iTunes and MyYahoo, and download links for the latest episode (mp3).