The New Vice President
From our November 2007 issue: In his new book, Peter Sagal, the smart and impish host of NPR's Wait Wait . . . Don't Tell Me!, turns his attention to porn, gluttony, swingers' clubs, and other forms of behavior that he'd never, ever have the nerve to do on his own.
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In fact, anyone who doesn't keep up with current events of the nontabloid variety may not get the humor in Wait Wait. The program's features include a segment called "Not My Job," in which guests ranging from Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer to KISS guitarist Gene Simmons answer questions about an unfamiliar subject area. Patrick Fitzgerald, for example, was asked about scooters the Segway scooter, Scooter the Muppet, and former New York Yankees player Phil "Scooter" Rizzuto. In another segment, called "Who's Carl This Time?" Kasell adopts silly voices and the occasional bad accent as he quotes the week's prominent newsmakers. Each show ends with a lightning round, as the three guest panelists compete to answer the most fill-in-the-blank questions; at Millennium Park, Felber went eight for eight to win the week's show, and Roberts high-fived him as if he'd just hit a walk-off grand slam. Through it all, Sagal keeps the quips flying as he banters with the show's panelists and listeners calling in to the program. The week prior to the Millennium Park show, one bit involved the news that Arizona senator and foundering presidential candidate John McCain was going to stop wearing "gay sweaters."
"I had no idea that a sweater had a sexual orientation," remarked panelist Kyrie O'Connor, the deputy managing editor of the Houston Chronicle.
"Apparently it's not their choice; it's how they're made," Sagal ad-libbed, earning the evening's biggest laugh and two thumbs-up from comedian Paul Provenza.
"One of the problems I had adjusting to the new gig is that a playwright has absolute control," Sagal says. "Radio shouldn't be that. The show gets its glory through improvisation. At the same time, I'm nervous enough and enough of a control freak that I go into the show with as many jokes, ideas, riffs as I can." His colleagues credit Sagal with consistently coming up with clever ideas to keep the show fresh and funny, such as Fitzgerald's thank-you gift (in a mocking reference to President Bush's recent commutation of Libby's prison sentence, the show presented Fitzgerald with a kick scooter engraved with the dedication: "This one will stay where you put it"). But that drive has a downside.
"He has a deep angst in him, a deep sense of worry," Albrecht says. "He worries that he's not attractive enough and he's hot, hot, hot! He worries about not being successful enough. He worries about not being a good enough dad. He worries about not having enough friends."
"I don't think he sits back and enjoys his success as much as I want him to do," Roberts adds. "Smart men are always unsatisfied. They're very ambitious and they always expect more of themselves. The inevitable question is, What next?"
Sagal says he wishes he could do more writing. When he first started hosting Wait Wait, he planned to do some writing on the side but found it impossible to squeeze in (he took extended breaks from the show to finish his book). But after seeing Denial and one of his one-act plays performed in New York earlier this year, Sagal says he feels a renewed appetite for his old creative pursuits. "There have been a couple times in my life where I've been able to do remarkable things creatively, not by the lights of the world, but by my own lights," he says. "Every now and then I get to do that on the radio show when something goes incredibly well. If I could wish for anything, it would be a life in which I could devote myself a lot more to going after that again."
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