Friday Podcast #2: Wait wait, it's the Friday Podcast!

After opening up with a nice barrage of geekieness with TWiT, this week I aim to do a podcast with a little more general appeal.

From National Public Radio, Wait Wait... don't tell me! Wait Wait is a radio news quiz show that airs on NPR. The podcast is the quiz show minus commercials in a spicy podcast sauce.

What do they quiz you on? The News! All of it. From pop news to politics to some of the weirdest news reports I have ever heard of, this show has em all. The questions are posed to the hopeful competitors in a variety of games they can play for the ultimate in news quiz prizes, the announcer's voice on your home answering machine! If you win one of the games, the announcer will create a custom outgoing voice mail greeting just for you. Impress your friends with your fancy prize with each call you dreamily screen to voice mail.

In order to win the prize, you first have to win one of the Wait Wait games. One caller could be faced with answering two out of three questions about the news for the price. Another might have to complete limericks on news topics give by the announcer. Yet another caller might have to guess which story out of three outlandish news events is the real one. Yet another prize hopeful would have to cheer on a celebrity guest as the famous person puts it all on the line to win the prize for them. The questions make you think, laugh, and in some cases wish to that it can't be true.

Above and beyond hearing people compete for the vocal talent of announcer Carl Kasell, a highlight of the show and podcast is the celebrities that come on the show.

Each and every show has a 3 person panel of celebrities that try to help the contestant, provide some hilarious commentary, and try to win points so they can be deemed panel champ for the week. They don't win any prize; they do it for the NPR news quiz glory of being deemed champion. I personally am a huge fan of panelists Tom Bodett, Paula Poundstone, and Mo Rocca.

While the panelists can be known to a few people here and there, every episode has a celebrity come on to play a news game called Not My Job. It's a two out of three question game that they play on behalf of a randomly drawn Wait Wait listener. If they win for the contestant, the celebrity gets nothing, but the listener gets Carl on their home answering machine. The folks who come on to play this game come from all over the place on the celebrity spectrum. They've had presidential candidates (including my top pick, Mike Gravel), Ted Koppel, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Tom Hanks, James Lipton, and tons more on to play the game. It's a great chance to hear some more about big names in the news and to hear them sweat through the questions, which are tailor made to be on a topic they would know very little about to make it even better for those listening.

For my house, this is hands down our favorite podcast. I know my wife doesn't normally dig my techie podcasts much, but she loves this one. It has wide appeal and really should be a standard entry on your podcast list.

Name:
Wait Wait... don't tell me
Length:
50 mins
Frequency:
Weekly
Site:
http://www.npr.org/programs/waitwait/index.html
Audience:
All ages.
Rating:
10/10

With my two main favorites out of the gates, next week I am going to pick a random podcast from the Internet and review it for you, good or bad. I am pondering making this the format for the Friday Podcasts. One week will be a new podcast to me, the next week will be a pick of the week out of my normal podcast lineup. Also if you have any podcasts I should check out, leave me a note and I'll get em on a review!