This episode originally aired on May 27, 2026.
As of late, the news is no laughing matter.
Yet, Peter Sagal has carved out a career helping us exercise our brains and our funny bones as host of NPR’s weekly quiz show, “Wait Wait...Don’t Tell Me!"
But that’s not his only gig. He’s an author, marathoner and more.
And he’s coming to Columbus on June 7 for an evening of storytelling at the Southern Theatre.
Sagal is talking with us on this hour of All Sides.
Guest:
- Peter Sagal, host of NPR’s “Wait Wait...Don’t Tell Me!"
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. If you're exhausted by the 24-hour news cycle, Peter Sagal might be one of the only people who can make it make sense, or at least make it funny. For nearly 30 years, he has hosted NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," turning the week's most chaotic headlines into a mental workout for our brains and our funny bones. In those 28-plus years of the show, political comedy has shifted from Peter's early days on the mic to a more high-stakes satire of today. Joining us to discuss politics, comedy, and his upcoming visit to Columbus, we have, wait, wait don't tell me, host Peter Sagal. Peter, welcome to All Sides.
Peter Sagal: It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
Juravich: Before we talk about political comedy and your upcoming show here in Columbus, I wanted to ask you about your most recent show for NPR because it was a special one. It was an emotional one. You said goodbye to official judge and scorekeeper, Bill Kurtis, who retired after 12 years with the show. I wanted play a little audio of Bill. This is a montage of him introducing himself. I borrowed this montage from NPR's morning edition.
Bill Kurtis: I'm the voice so rich, it makes you sign a prenup. I'm voice so hot, the mic drops itself. I'm so soothing, lullabies listen to me to fall asleep. I'm a man with a voice so smooth, you could go curling on it.
Juravich: Peter, how much are you going to miss those intros?
Sagal: I'm a tremendous amount. I'm getting a little verklempt again, which is a word that Bill Curtis did not know despite his 60 years of broadcasting. So, you know, just lifelong learning lesson there. Yeah, I'm gonna miss everything about Bill, although I should say and stress for everybody. He's fine, he's still here. I'm hopefully gonna see him this weekend. It's been an amazing run.
I have had an extraordinarily extraordinarily lucky career. I have good fortune everywhere, and among the highlights is I've gotten to work with two giants of the news industry. Long-term listeners there will remember that for the first sort of half of our run, from when we started in 1998 to when he retired in 2014, my co-host, judge, scorekeeper, guiding light, patron saint, The Guardian Angel was Carl Kassel. Beloved to NPR listeners for his reading the headlines and the news at the top of the hour, just like Corva Coleman just did He was an amazing partner and taught me a lot and then you know, we had an eminent gentleman of the news and his place Was taken by an even more dare.
We say eminent gentlemen of the News legendary anchor Bill Curtis. In fact One of the funny things about this introductions is that when Bill first came on the show, he would say, I'm legendary anchorman Bill Curtis and that got tired. And then we started doing like puns on his name. I'm the Bill, you're happy to come see, come do Bill Curtis.
Juravich: Did he write them or did you guys write them?
Sagal: He did not. He was enthusiastic about them. I was talking to one of our producers who's responsible for that. That would be Jennifer Mills. And she said they just ran out of all possible puns on the word bill. Every concept, every conceivable variation of that syllable they had run through. And then I couldn't tell you which was the first, but they just started doing the ones that you heard.
And or the kind of ones that you heard and they were just off and running and every week I had nothing to do with it I should say I contribute some somewhat to the show but not that and so every week we'd find out what that week's introduction was at the readthrough and it would generally crack everybody up Bill most of all he loved it he just loved being able to introduce himself that way to the world every week
Juravich: So you only had two announcers or, you know, official judges and scorekeepers in 28 years of the show. I mean, that's impressive. Is it a testament to how lovable and enjoyable of a gig Wait Wait is?
Sagal: I think it's a testament to me, actually, and people are so desperate to stand next to me in any way. No, of course not. I think I think there were two different men, obviously, in two different circumstances. And it's funny because I've had a chance to reflect on this, obviously with Bill's departure. Carl Castle, as again, longtime listeners will remember, was the morning edition newscaster and a beloved voice. So many people came up to Bill and said, you've been waking me up every morning for 10 years. They'd say. But, you know, Carl, for all his dignity and his seriousness and the fact that he would deliver all this news in that amazing voice he had, his life was, shall we say, it was compact, let's just say. He'd get up very early in the morning, he'd say 1.05, he would wake up and if you asked him Y105 and not one, he'd say, I'd like to sleep in.
And he'd go into the studio and he'd read the news and he, you know, compile the news headlines and he write them and he check the wires and he update them and you do that for six to seven, eight hours and then he go home. And so when we came along, we gave him a chance to get out in front of an audience. Eventually, of course, our show was not immediately in front a live audience. And to be funny. Here's, here's the deep dark secret. All serious people want to be funny.
And then all funny people want it to be taken seriously. But that's another question. And the thing that I learned from Carl was that he just loved every second of doing it. He just enjoyed it immensely. Anybody who came to see our shows in those days, he'd wait forever. Talk to everybody. He has a smile on his face. Whenever I would feel, ah man, I'm crabby. I don't feel like being charming this week. I'd look at Carl and realize how lucky we all were to do this gig.
Juravich: So I'm sorry going. Oh, no. I was just gonna say Bill Curtis said that in his retirement I mean he he is in his 80s. So I mean, he's he's allowed to retire but he is Yes, but he said it was time to hand over things to a new generation of voices I mean obviously that that question leads to who is going to replace him. What's wait wait gonna do? What are you guys?
Sagal: That is a good question, which I'm not going to answer.
Juravich: I knew you weren't going to answer but you added a yet. You have a plan?
Sagal: I will say this, I'm not going to answer yet, our plan this week obviously we're off, there's a what we call an evergreen show, a clip show, so people will be able to hear Bill one more time and they'll hear him again obviously in future shows in different ways. But next week we're flying to Austin to do a show, sold out show at the Bass Auditorium on the campus of University of Texas and we figured that will be the great time to introduce the next person to take on that role. I will say this, we had Carl. We had Bill and even more, shall we say, classic anchorman character with the perfect hair for him. We realized that you can't continue down that spectrum, that robe. Once you've had Bill Curtis, you really, that's done, the goat.
And so we felt not only for the benefit of the show, but for the benefits of the audience, we should go in a different direction. Somebody with a different set of skills and different kind of charm. And I ask the audience to trust me when I say, we've got that. And I think the show will seem better and newer and different and fresher for everybody, which I think is important after 28 years in the air.
Juravich: Is it a familiar voice? Someone who listens every week have heard them before?
Sagal: Every week I've heard them now. I'm going to be coy
Juravich: I mean
Sagal: I mean, come on, I never have any secrets. Let me enjoy this one. You'll find out in a week.
Juravich: Keep your secret, I can wait a week.
You're listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking with Peter Sagal, host of NPR's most popular show, one of the most popular shows, wait, wait, don't tell me. Peter, as I'm sure you are aware, the news can feel bleak at times. You know, there's a little- Really, I had no idea. I know, right? There's a war with Iran, there's president with authoritarian tendencies, people are stressed about gas prices. What, nobody told-
Sagal: I just basically read you know the the weird news and people smuggling animals in their pants it's a great way to live i recommend it for everybody.
Juravich: I know, this is all new news. How do you stay funny when the news is relentless?
Sagal: That is a good question. And believe me, that has been a question that we have had to deal with. And wait, don't tell me myself and my colleagues and friends who put on the show. And there were sort of two questions. How do we deal with it? Because we're human beings living in the world, reading the news in many ways, affected by the news, just as other people are to some degree. But we also have this job of doing this show for people.
And one of the things that we have come to understand. Is that our role, I think, is not to explain the news, not to analyze it, and not to, and here we get into weirder areas, not to even to express people's frustration, anger, fear, whatever they may be feeling reading the news. But to comfort people, to give them a break. And that feeling that we've had has been reinforced by so many conversations with listeners, both in person, in other ways. People come up to me and they talk to me about it when they recognize my voice or very, very infrequently in my face. Because it's tough, the news cycle.
Juravich: Right? Yeah.
Sagal: And we all know and love our public radio listeners. We are them. We know that they see paying attention to the news to be almost a civic obligation. So they would never like give themselves a break. So we show up every weekend for an hour and we lighten the load, if you will. And we take that very seriously because frankly, it works for us too. I think that if I had the kind of job where instead of what I get to do, which is make light of things and joke about things and talk to fun people about things, if I, you know, had to analyze it, had somehow come up with new ways to describe what was going on in a useful and constructive way, I would have lost my mind years ago. So I'm very happy to be doing this job, which believe me, provides the same psychic benefit to us as it does, I hope, to our listeners.
Juravich: Yeah, I mean, hosting this show, I'm definitely immersed in the news. And I find I find your show. I listen to every episode. I don't think I've ever missed an episode. You are my palate cleanser at the end of the week. That is exactly.
Sagal: Yes, exactly. A little mousse bouche, a palate cleanser. We're the piece of toast you have between courses to clean the palate for whatever horror is coming next. Because it always makes me smile.
Juravich: It brings down the blood pressure, you know, a little bit.
Sagal: Yeah, you know that's that's, that's in this world one tries to find a niche where you can be moderately useful and I think I found mine.
Juravich: Yes. Thank you for being my palate cleanser. Yes. So very recently, "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" ended its run on CBS. The network said it was cost-cutting measures, but there are many who think it was political motives involved too. When you hear about something like that, something as long running as "The Late Show" being canceled, does that give you pause as a host of a comedy show?
Sagal: A little bit. I mean, as I'm sure you know, and your listeners know, the bail fly of the government has come for NPR and public radio in general and that they completely exed out all federal funding for public radio. So as somebody once said in some film, that happened, I will say that we have never. Ever gotten any pressure from our managers or bosses at NPR to moderate anything we say or do, which is great and I think is a credit to them. It's a complicated question. I think that, let me put it this way, for many, many years people would ask me, well, what good do you think satire does, political satire in terms of like, you know, the the world, the government, the politics, civic engagement.
And my answer quite firmly was it doesn't do any good at all, at least in terms of making change in the world. And my argument for that was not only doesn't it, it shouldn't because how awful would it be? I would say in the before times, if we had a leader of any kind, a governor, a president, mayor who took being made of fun of seriously right was bothered by it and I would run off examples of people who were made savage fun of and didn't mind it at all Bill Clinton we started in 1998 says you can imagine our our first year was filled with jokes about his shall we say extracurricular pursuits and when he came on the show some years later. First of all, I was lighted to hear he never listen to us because they have nothing to apologize for and I asked him though I said did you were made fun of a lot we all remember that those were there for the Clinton years did it ever bother you and he said absolutely not it was great he he did a event with the with the "Saturday Night Live" actor who Darrell Hammond who used to imitate him in pretty savage ways George HW Bush reached out to Dana Carvey who made savage fun of him on "Saturday Night Live" not gonna do it wouldn't be prudent.
And they did events together because these were men, although certainly women have had their share of it, ask Hillary Clinton, who understood that that's part of what makes America great, is that we have these very, very powerful people and the rest of us get to make fun of them. And further, you don't want them to care about it because they have an important job to do and you don't want them thinking when they have important job, life, death, war, peace, to be thinking, oh, well, I could do the right thing, but what will they say about me on? "Saturday Night Live" or god forbid wait wait don't tell me uh... And i was very confident in that case in the fact that satire shouldn't affect the decisions of the powerful and responsible among us because what would that be like now we know
Juravich: Now we know. Yeah. I mean, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel both have been attacked by President Trump. Do you ever worry that you'll make a joke on weight weight that won't land well for someone in power?
Sagal: I'm sure we don't worry about that. Like for the reasons I said, I think our bosses at NPR and our member stations are all very protective of our right to say what we want as I think they should be. As I've said, there's a grand American tradition of people like me making fun of the far more important people. But... I think that anybody in my position, anybody with any kind of job, and you've seen this absolutely from Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers and Colbert during his last run, to start thinking about that immediately ties your hands. It's like trying to play a difficult sport with your legs chained together. You can't operate out of fear of of complication because fear of consequences, I should say, Because then you won't be funny. I mean humor is a lot of things we could spend the entire hour talking about what makes things funny, but there's a certain bravery to it. The worst thing you can say, the worst thing comedians ever say about each other is, oh, that was very safe, you know?
Juravich: Yeah, John Stewart from "The Daily Show" joked recently that President Trump must not have cable because he because John Stewart has not been attacked like many other hosts have as much.
Sagal: Yeah. Yeah, it's funny how that works. Yeah. So does I mean, we know he stays up late and yet he doesn't apparently watch Seth Myers. Yeah. It's very strange.
Juravich: So do you think maybe the president and his administration don't listen NPR?
Sagal: Oh, I know they don't.
Juravich: Yeah, a little bit.
Sagal: Well, I mean, as you well may know, depending if you were working during the 2016 election, NPR could not get an interview with Donald Trump when he was a candidate for the Republican nomination and then after he was the Republican nominee, they couldn't do it. It was they got interviews with all the other nominees in the Republican and Democratic side, but not Donald Trump. And so they actually, my colleagues at NPR News, conducted an. They did a story. Why won't president or at that time candidate Donald Trump talk to us? And the answer was he had never heard of NPR. He didn't listen to NPR and as far as he was concerned if he didn't Listen to something it wasn't important He has a very shall we say Personally curated view of the media that's important
What's happened since then obviously, I don't know if he started listening to NBR. I think he should I think his mood would be improved by some of our great musical cultural programming, like the Thistle and Shamrock, but certainly there are other members of his administration who did know about NPR and did not like it very much and have, as we've discussed, moved to take back the funding that had just been voted on by the Congress. So here we are.
Juravich: Your show has a lot of staple segments, The Limerick's, Not My Job, Bluff the Listener, but you added one more recently that you called The Trump Dump. Yes. Can you tell us, how did that come about? I mean, explain what The Trump dump is, but how did you come up with that?
Sagal: I mean, it really came out of necessity in the same way, like those bill introductions that we don't have any more bill puns. What are we going to do? It was a little different because something that we dealt with starting in the first administration was that there was this absolute flood of news, whatever you say, which you will about Donald Trump as president, but he generates a lot of content.
Juravich: There's a lot going on.
Sagal: Lot going on. And, you know, any given week during the first administration, he would do eight things, any one of which could lead the show, right? Be there our top news story that we wanted to talk about. And we would deal with that some way. Sometimes we do like our top news segment is who's Bill and soon to be who is somebody else. And we would do maybe one story and then we do another story about the administration. Maybe sometimes we do three. This time, it's even more overwhelming.
And we also discovered that there's something different about the energy of the second Trump administration. Maybe it has to do with its efficiency. Maybe it's has to with how many different things they're getting themselves into and affecting in our federal government, in our cultural and civic life. But we found that if we stressed too many of them or dwelled on aspects of them, our show would cease to be that respite that we've been talking about so what do you do well We found out that there was one way of handling it that seemed to maintain people's mood, which was to just list off the craziest things we could find. And it's amazing. There's enough of them, you know, that every few weeks we can just list off a dozen of nutty things.
The joke always is, you now, we set it up as like, oh, they did this crazy thing. Is that true or false? And they would say false. They couldn't have done that. And we're like, right, it's false. The thing they did was crazier. And we have found that it kind of satisfies that urge. I will tell you that, and feel free to argue with me listeners if you ever have a chance, that our listeners want two things. They want a respite from what's going on in the news, but they also wanna know that we know it's happening. That we wanna know like, yeah, that's going out there. But in the meantime, Look who smuggled what in their pants to the airport. And I think if we can hit that sweet spot, we're successful and the Trump dump has helped us. Yes, we know, we're watching. We read that too. Here you go. Now, back to the goofy animals.
Juravich: We're talking this hour with wait, wait, don't tell me host Peter Segel. Peter is also an author, a screenwriter, a marathon runner and much more. And Peter is coming to Columbus very soon. He will be here for an evening of storytelling on Sunday, June 7th at the Southern theater for tickets. Visit kappa.com coming up. We are going to talk with Peter Segal about his show in Columbus and about the joys of running and why you'll never find him wearing headphones. That is when all sides continues on 89 seven NPR news.
Speaker 6: You know, every day on Up First, NPR's Golden Globe-nominated morning news podcast, we bring you three essential stories. At the heart of each story are questions. What really happened? What really mattered? What happens next? At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and to follow the facts. Follow Up First wherever you get your podcasts and start your day knowing what matters and why.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Of late, the news is no laughing matter. Yet Peter Segel has carved out a career helping us exercise our brains and our funny bones as the host of NPR's weekly news quiz show, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. And this is certainly an interesting time to make a career out of political comedy. Peter Segal will be visiting Columbus soon, not with Wait, wait, but with his own stage show. And he joins us today. Thanks again for being on All Sighs, Peter.
Sagal: Ah, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Juravich: So, listenership to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me has grown exponentially, I mean, so much. From 50,000 listeners a week on nine stations to more than 5 million listeners on 700 stations. Did you ever imagine 28 years ago that the show would grow in this amazing way?
Sagal: No, not at all. I mean, my story, which I'll get into a little bit on when I come to Columbus is that this was not the plan. I was a writer, I was screenwriter as a playwright, as you mentioned, that was my anticipated career, I thought I'd be going out to Hollywood eventually and taking advice. But that didn't well, what did have happened? Probably not. But I was at one day, I got a phone call from a friend in the theater who said, Hey, I know these people who are putting together a new show, a new day for NPR. They're looking for funny people who read a lot of newspapers. I thought of you. Would you be interested?
I said, yes, of course I'd be interested. I listen to public radio and I'm sure many of the listeners will understand what I mean when I say, if you listen to Public Radio, eventually say to yourself, I could do that. I could go on the air and talk and serious tones about serious topics. So I put in my hat in the ring as it were and was hired as a panelist. And then way back when they offered me the job of host 11. The changes needed to be made. And I initially thought, you know, okay, this will be a fun little adventure.
I'll host a show on public radio. Then I'll do something else. And boy, it'll make my obituary even more interesting many years from now when the time comes. When I came to Chicago and took over the show, things were not going well. Let's just say that the reaction to the first episodes was not entirely positive around the system. Um, and we, myself and my colleagues at the time, sort of had this choice, which was we could try to write the ship and figure out what they wanted and provide it. You know, public radio listeners, they tend to be very serious, maybe some serious questions, but like a nice prize, maybe a set of encyclopedias.
And or we could screw around and do whatever amused ourselves until they stopped us. And we chose the second path, assuming that they would stop us us soon, shortly, any minute now. And 28 years later, we're kind of waiting for something to stop us. We've just been, the personnel has changed in many ways, gotten better, fresher, funnier as we've gone along in terms of the people I work with, both on stage and behind the scenes. And we just keep doing stuff that we find funny.
I promise you, we never say to ourselves, well... You know, the people want us to do this, let's do this. We just amuse ourselves. And I'm so grateful that either we are in tune with the American people or the American people is just as messed up as we are. Either works.
Juravich: You have said before that putting your show in front of a live audience was kind of like the decider where you're like, wait, this is going to work. Like listen to the people laughing. So yeah, did that decision come pretty quickly?
Sagal: It was it was surprisingly difficult to arrange and in retrospect we started the show in studio Where much like I'm talking to you now? I'd be in one place our panelists would be in other places talking to me who was based in Chicago with no one else around obviously an audience of anybody else And looking back and that what we were what were we thinking? Well, maybe we are anticipating a lot of podcasts these days, but it turns out who knew that if you have people in front of you who might laugh when you make jokes, A, it sounds better, and B, your jokes get better, because comedians of every stripe, we're insecure, we like reinforcement, we like applause, we like letting people know that we're doing okay right now, and if you give us that opportunity, we'll leap up for it like dolphins jumping for herring.
So the show sounded better. And it was better as soon as we got in front of a live audience. And it took us a few years to arrange. It took a lot in terms of, like, organizational ability. In fact, if you'll allow me, the person who did that, Rod Abid, our senior producer at that time, the one who did all of that, is a a an Ohioan, a proud Cleveland native. And sadly, he just passed away from a developing disease about three months ago. So I just want to shout out to our old friend and boss Rod Abid, son of Ohio, who really saved our show by putting in all the work to rearrange it, to re-engineer, to take a bicycle, take it apart and make a car, basically, to take show that had been designed to do in the studio and do all the things that were necessary to get everybody physically together in front of an audience.
And so we are very, very grateful to Rod and everything he did for us and we'll miss him. But yeah, that really, I think if we hadn't done that, if Rod hadn't been able to engineer that way back in the early 2000s, then you wouldn't be talking to me now unless I had accused of some terrible crime.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News.
We are talking with Peter Segel, the host of one of NPR's most popular shows. Wait, wait, don't tell me. And Peter is coming to Columbus very soon. He will be here for an evening of storytelling on Sunday, June 7th at the Southern Theater. For tickets, visit CAPA.com. The evening will also include an audience Q&A, so all the questions that you wish I was asking right now this hour, you can ask for yourself at the show.
Sagal: You see what I mean? Everybody's listening thinking I could do that. I could do a better job. Exactly. Yes. That's how I got into
Juravich: It's like Amy. Why aren't you asking him this? So you do it you go to the show you do It um all right, so you're traveling not with I mean you travel all the time with wait wait Don't tell me you're traveling just with you. This is you
Sagal: I apologize for everyone who hopes that I bring Paula Poundstone with me. I'm sorry she's otherwise engaged. It's just me. I'm Sorry. It's Just Me.
Juravich: Stop apologizing for yourself, but that you're doing, yeah.
Sagal: You know, we had this dog, when I met my lovely wife, she had a dog who adored her and liked me. I mean, otherwise I don't think we would've gotten married if her dog didn't approve of me. And I used to get home sometimes and she would be still out and the dog would come up and it would look at me like, oh, hey, hey how are you? And it would like look behind me to see if my wife was coming and be disappointed that she wasn't. And I always feel like that's exactly what happens when I walk on stage with that ball of poundstone and everybody else, but sorry, sorry dogs.
Juravich: For the people who do come to your show to see you, it's called an evening of storytelling. So what can the audience hear? What can they expect to hear?
Sagal: Well, I've been doing this for 28 years. I've traveled all over the country, from Maine to San Diego, from Seattle to Miami. I've talked to everyone that, I talked to two, let me think, I have talked to presidents and one woman who would have been president, Hillary Clinton, if somebody hadn't picked up that monkey's paw in 2016 and said, hey, could something interesting happen? And I've talked to scientists and Nobel winners and artists and people who make sculptures out of bubblegum wrappers. And I'm got stories to tell about that. I also have some conclusions I would hope that after 28 years of doing a job like this and talking to the people that I've talk to and covering the news that I have covered from, as I said, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, or I don't know if we should still call it that, the Bill Clinton scandal that started just a week after our show debuted.
To whatever will happen between now and June 7th, there'll be something. There's always been all kinds of stories to talk about and I've drawn some conclusions and I made some mistakes and I'll be telling people about all of those things.
Juravich: Do you do a lot of these solo stage shows?
Sagal: I do every now and then not a lot i'd i'd get asked to do it by uh... By various organizers or presenters it's always a pleasure to do with uh... Because i have a inflated sense of myself and feel like uh... It's nice for me to talk uh... Without having to like i don't know go out of my way to entertain people and and of course kidding uh... You know what's weird is is a i said earlier that all serious people to be taking taken All serious people want to get laughs, which I think is true. But I also said that all funny people like to be occasionally serious. And there are some things I like to talk about that are hopefully entertaining, interesting, and worth people's time, but maybe not the most hilarious things that I've picked up over the years. I mean, I've had this very weird perspective on, oh gosh, the last almost 30 years of American history. The one phrase I use is I've been front row at the sideshow. And there are some things I've seen and some observations I've come to and some conclusions I've came to that I'll be happy to share.
Juravich: So you do some of these stage shows, you said not a lot, but some, is there a reason why Columbus?
Sagal: Because the good people of Columbus wanted to see me. Yeah, I'm very happy to to come out I think it's a lovely thing the the people at Kappa or CAPA Yeah, it'd be an interesting thing for me to be there and I've actually like had a really great time in Columbus We've done our show there not recently But we've done a show there a bunch of times and I find it just a lovely city with a remarkable Culture, of course the university helps a tremendous amount. And so it's always a pleasure to visit
Juravich: You were here in 2018 and, wait, wait. Don't tell me you did a show. And we would love for you to come back. How do I make that happen?
Sagal: I will share your invitation to the powers that be. I remember once we were there and we actually talked to your governor, John Kasich.
Juravich: That was that year. Yeah, John, yeah, it was really.
Sagal: Oh, yeah. And it was really fun. He was on stage. Yeah, he was on stage with us. I've met a couple of governors sitting governors, more than a few actually, now that I think of it, maybe as many as 10. And he was very charming. What I will say one of the one of The great things about my job is all the people who listening to this just said, What do you mean, John Kasich is charming? He was a whatever. Yeah. Because you hear about people, if you're a news consumer. In the context of their job and further in the context of the very, let's just say angry media environment in which it seems as if everybody is either a hero or a villain, depending on what side you're on and who you're talking about.
And that's, I guess, dramatically fun. It's fun to have heroes and villains. That's why we go to the movies and stuff. In real life though, it can get exhausting. And one of the things that I love to do is I love talk to people like at the time, Governor Kasich or others, including the presidents I mentioned and Hillary Clinton and a lot of other prominent people and not necessarily get into what makes them heroes slash villains to various audiences, but who they are as people, you know? Like for example, when we talk to John Kasich, we didn't really talk about whatever was roiling Ohio politics at the times or whatever decisions he had made that either thrilled or. Good people of Ohio, we talked about his youth and we talked about the way he somehow got himself into see Richard Nixon when he was 16 years old.
And like, why is 16 year old would want to do that? I remember talking to Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona sitting centered at the time, we didn't talk about all the things that again, we're either infuriating or pleasing the people of Arizona that he was doing we talked about his weird habit of marooning himself on desert islands for weeks at a time for his mental health. I mean, And my hope is, is that when something like that happens, when we talk to some of these people, or maybe even people you've never heard of, you may not change your opinion of them if you had one, but you at least now know you were having that opinion about a real human being who was more than the soundbites in the news by them or about them. And I think that's a kind of public surface. So I'm always happy to do that when we can.
Juravich: And if I'm remembering correctly, I think John Kasich had listened to NPR, had heard of your show, so there was that element too.
Sagal: Yes, yes, it is certainly true that there are certain kinds of politicians of both parties who will come on our show, and certain kinds who won't. And we were very fortunate that Governor Kasich was one of those who would. And yes, I don't know if he remembered our show. One problem we have sometimes is people who know NPR but don't our show think they're getting regular NPR?
Speaker 5: Mm.
Sagal: You know, they think they're getting Steve Inskeep or somebody and they get me and they're a little surprised So I always like to talk to people beforehand and say no We're the goofy ones
Juravich: We're going to ask you some weird questions that are not your job.
Sagal: That are not your job, yes. Exactly, and some people love it. Like during the last couple of years of the Biden administration, we had two senior officials, Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury, who came on our show and they did it so that they would be able to talk about different things, and I love that as well. Janet Yellen, for example, the Treasury Secretary, talked about her, we made her, because that's what her staff wanted, by the way. That happens sometimes. Would you have her on? Because there's some interesting things about her. We talked to her about her candy crush.
And speaking of addictions, one of my favorite stories about her that she shared was that prior to going to college, back when she was concerned that she would be asked to smoke marijuana in college and she didn't want to seem like she didn t know what she was doing. So to practice for that, you know, bar off day when somebody might pass her a marijuana cigarette, she practiced on regular cigarettes, too, so that she wouldn't, you know, cough or anything, and she ended up getting addicted. Cigarettes and having a four-pack a day habit for a while. But that's the kind of thing I think we really need to know about our senior leaders, the dumb stuff.
Juravich: This is the pressing news we need.
Sagal: Yes, exactly.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking with Wait Wait Don't Tell Me host Peter Sagal. Peter is coming to Columbus. He will be here for an evening of storytelling on June 7th at the Southern Theater. For tickets, visit kappa.com. Coming up, Peter's bio on the NPR website has many titles, including author, Jeopardy contestant, wedding officiant, and magician's assistant. So we're gonna ask him about a few of those titles. That is when All Sighs continues on 89, 7 NPR news.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Today we are talking with someone who needs no introduction for true public radio fans, the host of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, Peter Sagal. Peter, thank you again for joining us today.
Sagal: It is absolutely my pleasure thank you so much for having me
Juravich: So I said, you need no introduction, but this is how the NPR website describes you. Peter Sagal is, has been, and perhaps someday will be again, a husband, father, playwright, screenwriter, author, journalist, columnist, marathoner, Jeopardy contestant, podcast host, documentary host, foreign correspondent, wedding officiant, and magician's assistant. That's a lot. You have a diverse- Yes, did you-
Sagal: What you didn't even mention the one that gets the most attention which is an extra in a Michael Jackson music video But we can get to that I did
Juravich: I did yeah, I didn't know that I that wasn't in there alright Well that I was gonna say we don't have time to talk about all those titles before the end of the show But yeah, go ahead. Tell me about that one you were in
Sagaleles: I was about to say that is a resume of either somebody with a lot of different interests and skills or an utter failure at everything. Gosh. Oh, yes. I brought it up. I should tell you that I was an extra on the set of the Michael Jackson music video. Remember the time, by the way, whenever you say, oh, I was in action on Michael Jackson Music Video. Everybody assumes you were a dancing zombie in "Thriller." I should point out those were not extras. Those were professional dancers and they should be treated with respect. And no, I was not that.
You may remember, viewers of Michael Jackson music videos, might remember that and remember the time the late Mr. Jackson plays himself. And he's kind of on the go in a version of ancient Egypt that was ruled over by African-American luminaries of the 1990s, people like Magic Johnson and Imam. And at one point he runs through this marketplace and I was supposed to be the snake charmer. In the marketplace. And if you're saying to yourself... You were supposed...
Juravich: You were supposed to be?
Sagal: I'm supposed to be and if you've said if you if you said to yourself my gosh But I've watched that video 10,000 times that video and I've never seen a snake charmer That's because they never got around to filming my snake charmers scene So although I was paid if I remember correctly around 94 dollars for my day of work Oh boy as a non-union extra. It was yes. I was a I was the scab in the union and the extras union I am NOT on screen. So that was 94 dollars that you know, just didn't make it to the screen But I was on set all day. I did meet michael jackson uh... And shook his hand which used to be more impressive to people than it is these days depending on your point of view uh... Split it so it's a good story i guess i guess but yes i i i've had an interesting and eclectic career trying and occasionally failing at various things
Juravich: Well, let me ask you about one of the other things listed in your bio. Magician's assistant, what's that all about?
Sagal: Magicians assistant. So when I was growing up, my brother Doug Segal was an enthusiastic birthday party magician of the kind you often see in the suburbs, especially in the 80s. You know, he was 15, 16 years old and he was performing magic for for various birthday parties of like five to seven year olds around our suburban New Jersey town. And he needed a beautiful assistant, lacking one. I was hired. So I used to travel around with my brother and stand there. Of course, people can't see me because it's the radio. And do that kind of, oh, look at that, with both arms pointing, you know, gesturing to one side. Oh, wow. That, I mean, I'm just gonna say, he ended up going into another career because that didn't work out.
How much that was due to me, I don't know. I still, to this day, am a huge fan of magic, which is a vibrant and wonderful art form. And I think it's succeeding because it's one of those things that you really have to go to in person. And people are like very excited about doing that, given how many other things we don't do in person Um, so I still follow a lot of magicians, uh, I have friends who are magicians. Some of the great magicians in fact, in the country right now, I'm lucky enough to know, but I'm just going to tell everybody if you are a magician and you see me at your magic show, do not pick me to help out, do you not do it?
And I don't know why this is true. It may be because I had that early exposure to magic. It may because I learned how some, not all of the tricks are done, but I will ruin your trick. Without meaning to do so. It happens all the time. They say, you, sir, come on up. And I'm like, no, don't. They said, no. Come on up, come up. And I stand there and they say, pick a card. And then all of a sudden, all the doves fall out of the attic dead. I don't know how I do it, but I do it, stay away from me if you're doing a magic show.
Juravich: So we'll put you down as a poor magician's assistant.
Sagal: Yeah, I'm a very yes, no, I just I'm I'm accursed. I'm cursed to working magicians.
Juravich: Are you going to do a magic trick on when you're here? No.
Sagal: No again, I mean again I am I am death to all mystery and magic I am if they sent me somehow I found my way into Hogwarts all Magic would end. I mean, it's just I just have this field around me that allows for no mystery supernatural And or inexplicable activities. Don't try it
Juravich: What about being a Jeopardy! Contestant, when was that?
Sagal: Funny you should mention that because we just had ken jennings in the show so i uh... Graduated college from uh... And had no prospects for a career i went out to hollywood to be become a big holly wood guy as you may notice that didn't happen uh... But uh... I had met somebody the prior summer who had been one of the early jeopardy champions again in chuck forest with jeopardy heads and he said are you going to l a should be on jeopardy it's easy money And I was like, great. And he said, but one thing you should do is you should practice the timing of the buzzer.
We have a Jeopardy-centric culture now, people, everybody knows this at the time, it was less well known, that you had to time your buzzing in correctly to when then Alex Trebek had finished speaking, otherwise you wouldn't be able to answer the question. And because I had gotten through, gotten pretty far in my life without ever doing any preparation, hard work or anything else like that, just relying on my native wits, I said, I don't need to practice. So, when I did appear in Jeopardy! Rather than answering the questions to which I knew the answer, because I didn't buzz in correctly, I attempted to answer the questions, to which I did not know the answer or, if you follow the Jeopardy logic, to which I did know the question, and thus, flamed out spectacularly and thus have walked around pretty much for the last, oh, 30 years with the shame of Jeopardee Loser.
However, however, this was back in the day when Runners got GIFTS? And, you know, saying, and thanks for there being here. And I got an armchair I still have. Wow. I can sit in it whenever I like.
Juravich: Your Jeopardy Chair.
Sagal: My jeopardy chair, we call it the jeopardy chair and I can sit in that armchair whenever I like and just contemplate my failures and it's fun. I recommend it.
Juravich: When you had Ken Jennings on, did you ask him to let you be, you could go on Celebrity Jeopardy, you could redeem yourself.
Sagal: You know, it's funny, I, I mentioned that because, you know, everybody who goes on Jeopardy, especially if you dreamed of going on Jeeparty and you lose, they tell you, you say, well, you've been on Jepparty, and we can't have you back because that's how it, that's like, that's the rules or something. That's the roles. And but you can go on Celebrity Jeopard. So when Ken Jennings was on the show, I don't know if this made air Ken, by the way, is a good friend. I've known him since before he was the host of the show. Uh, I said so. What does it take to count as a celebrity in this day and age just asking for me?
And he said if you are asking peter if you'd like to be on celebrity jeopardy that might be able to be arranged And I was suddenly struck with such terror. Oh, no that I would screw it up again That I I mean, you know, I mean it was an early trauma is what i'm saying Just you know my nightmares are me standing there with a buzzer in my hand clicking it to no end as Alex Trebek continues to ask questions to which I know the answer. I mean, for certain brainiacs who imagine themselves to be pretty good at this trivia thing, that is literally a nightmare. And I lived it. And I'm terrified of living it again.
Juravich: Oh, I think you should give it a try. I think it'd be great. You're ready. You know how to do the butt. You'll practice this time.
Sagal: Practice this time. Also, I'm pretty old now and there are a lot of things I just don't know, like popular music.
Juravich: But you know so much about the news. Just lean on Ken and be like, listen, give me a news category and...
Sagal: If there was a category like, you know, Ken, could I have things smuggled in their pants through customs for $1,000, I think I'd do pretty well.
Juravich: Before we run out of time, I just wanted to pivot real quick to something I mentioned earlier. You are a long-time runner, a marathoner. You have many under your belt. I think 16 is what I read, 16 marathons. At last count, yes. All right. And you gave running and life advice in your book, "The Incomplete Book of Running." Do you still run as much as you used to?
Sagal: I run a lot. I try to run most days because I went ahead and remarried and had children again, which seemed like a good idea at the time. And my idea is to stay alive to, you know, if not walk them down the aisle at their weddings, I will hopefully roll or something. So I'm trying to stay in good health. I haven't run a marathon in a while because marathoning takes a lot of time and also I'm old. Did I mention that? Well, when you have, when do you have?
Juravich: When you have young kids, you have no time for training for a marathon.
Sagal: Yeah, exactly. So but I am I'm running a half marathon this weekend. So I'm still trying to keep at it and still trying to do it.
Juravich: In Chicago or are you going somewhere else?
Sagal: Uh... Yes actually no it actually this half marathon unable to do without too much disruption to make sure because it almost literally goes right by my house
Juravich: Oh, just jump in line. There you go. Basically, I walk up the street, start it, run by the house, walk home.
Sagal: Lie down. It's very convenient. But yes, I'm out there and depending on how much my schedule works out in Columbus, I am sadly in and out. I do hope to go for a run. I've had some lovely runs by the river there in Columbus. So I have to do that again before I go home.
Juravich: Alright, we'll try to get the weather to cooperate for you, if we have the chance. Do you plan on writing another book, you know, perhaps the complete book of running, instead of the English version? Yeah, finish it up.
Sagal: "The Complete Book of Running," I mean that was an homage, that title to the great book by Jim Fix, which was published during the 70s and many people credit with starting that running boom back then, which my father had on his shelf and was very sort of influential in me before I ever thought I could run a mile. I write a book every 10 years, whether people want it or not, damn it, and I'm thinking about my next. In all honesty, these days, my thinking is a lot about, believe it or no, the Constitution and U.S. Civics because
Juravich: You hosted a show on PBS about the Constitution. I did.
Sagal: I did. About 10 years ago, I hosted a show on PBS called "Constitution USA," and I learned a tremendous amount about the Constitution, although not enough, I should say. It's been kind of a revelation to me in subsequent years how much I didn't understand, and have been getting back into that area talking to experts. I just finished curating the first round of some really interesting conversations at the Chicago Humanities Festival about the constitution with various experts and thought leaders.
And I'm really interested in that again, because I think there's a general interest in the U.S. Constitution, how the design of our government might have gotten us to the place where we are now, and if it will help get us out. And that's a conversation that I'm extremely interested in having. And that might be the subject. That's the thing, usually I write books and did this in both cases, both of my books. Because there were things I didn't understand and wanted to understand them. And I thought writing a book about them would help. And certainly the issue of constitutional government is one of those things that's harder and harder to understand. So I'm thinking about diving into that next.
Juravich: Well, hopefully you can help us all understand, because I think we all need a lot of help.
Sagal: If you show up to see me on the 7th, I will explain it all. It will take about 15 minutes, so there will still be lots of time for questions and amusing anecdotes about Bill Curtis.
Juravich: This has been All Sides on 89.7 NPR News, and we have been talking today with the host of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, Peter Sagal. Peter, thank you so much for joining us.
Sagal: Oh, thank you so much for having me, and I hope to visit those. I hope those who can make the trip out to the theater on the 7th. It would be great to see you all.
Juravich: Yes, Peter is coming to Columbus very soon. He will be here for an evening of storytelling on Sunday, June 7th at the Southern Theater. For tickets, visit CAPA.com.
You've been listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich. Thanks for joining us.