Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! Kicks Off “Alzo Era” in Return to Austin

Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, NPR’s weekly news quiz that attracts millions of listeners across the country, returned to Austin Thursday for a taping at UT’s Bass Concert Hall. The episode debuted award-winning journalist Alzo Slade as the show’s official judge and scorekeeper, a position held by Bill Kurtis since 2014. 

Slade, who grew up in Austin and guested frequently on Wait Wait before his promotion, introduced himself as “the man who, for some reason, thought now was a good time to start a career in public radio.” He and host Peter Sagal, who has helmed most of the show’s nearly 1,500 episodes since its 1998 debut, were joined by a panel including comedians Tom Papa, Rachel Coster, and Brian Babylon.

“It’s fun to come here and do something comedy related that isn’t related to Joe Rogan,” Papa said. He later called Rogan a “good guy,” without a hint of irony. 

Sagal greeted call-in contestants with comically easy questions about Backrooms, the “tarps off” trend sweeping Major League Baseball fandom, and President Donald Trump’s administration, often riffing with the panel for minutes at a time between questions (the mention of shirtless baseball fans incited a long debate over what constitutes a “weird” areola). Olympic bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor, who previously joined the show in 2022, returned for a “Not My Job” segment called “sledder meet slider,” where she fielded multiple-choice questions about fast-food chain White Castle. 

Sagal, Slade, and the panel held court on 4chan creeps, ranch dressing, and rumspringa, but a customarily heavy dose of political humor (with a steep NPR listener-base slant) was the order of the day. 

“The flesh-eating screwworm has arrived in Texas,” Sagal said, “and came in a narrow second in the Republican Senate primary.” 

The live version of the show gave the overwhelmingly white and middle-aged crowd of nearly 3,000 a chance to experience quirks that don’t come through the radio and, most notably, to hear jokes too racy for the air. 

“The question, when the president goes up to perform like that, is ‘Do you open with the fake assassination or do you save it for the end?’” Sagal said after a question about the upcoming concert series celebrating America’s 250th birthday, which he referred to as “Woodstock for people who wanted to send the National Guard to Woodstock.”

After a lightning fill-in-the-blank round that covered the hantavirus, the Los Angeles mayoral race, and the recent Martin Scorsese AI scandal, Papa emerged as the winner among the panelists. During the final segment, Sagal asked contestants to predict the next trend in MLB, which panelists met with speculations of various degrees of increased nudity.

Once taping concluded, Sagal, naturally funny and charismatic even without a script in front of him, opened the floor for questions from the crowd. Audience members asked whether Coster travels with an allergist (her nonstop coughing during taping became a gag in itself), if end-of-show predictions have ever come true, and where panel members had been the night before. 

Asked about dream guests and top cities to visit on the road, Sagal may have been pandering when he said he has always wanted Texan George W. Bush on the show (maybe not, given the political leanings in the crowd) and mentioned Austin as a favorite destination. 

“It’s still a little weird,” Sagal said, referring to the city. “There are no more pedicabs, just Waymos, but I did see one Waymo smoking a joint.” 

His good-natured jabs at Austin mirrored comments he made before taping began, when he spoke directly to the crowd about retaining identity in an age of political turmoil: “This is your chance to let America know that despite all the shit that’s going down in Texas, Austin is still here.”

Listen to the Austin show here.

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