The following is a list of episodes of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! , NPR's news panel game, that aired during 2024. [1] All episodes, unless otherwise indicated, feature Peter Sagal as host and Bill Kurtis as announcer/scorekeeper, and originate from the Studebaker Theatre at Chicago's Fine Arts Building. Dates indicated are the episodes' original Saturday air dates, and the job titles and backgrounds of the guests reflect their status and positions at the time of their appearance. On some occasions, member stations alter the episodes for their donation drive breaks, which only impact the show's airing within their broadcast area.
Date | Guest | Panelists | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
January 6 | Wait Wait 25th anniversary "best of" episode part 10, with encore segments including interviews with musician Brad Paisley and basketball star Damian Lillard Previously unaired segments, including interviews with television journalist Bob Woodruff, [2] and news commentator Rachel Maddow [3] | Guest host Negin Farsad | |
January 13 [4] | Singer-songwriter Jason Isbell | Joyelle Nicole Johnson, Maeve Higgins, Peter Grosz | |
January 20 [5] | Actor David Oyelowo | Faith Salie, Tom Bodett, Helen Hong | |
January 27 [6] | United States Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen | Shane O'Neill, Dulcé Sloan, Tom Papa | Guest judge/scorekeeper Chioke I'Anson |
Date | Guest | Panelists | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
February 3 [7] | Kristen Kish, former chef and host of Season 21 of Top Chef | Brian Babylon, Josh Gondelman, Joyelle Nicole Johnson | Show recorded in Milwaukee, WI (Riverside Theater) [8] |
February 10 [9] | Actress/producer Lena Waithe | Adam Burke, Negin Farsad, Maz Jobrani | |
February 17 [10] | Musicians Corin Tucker & Carrie Brownstein of rock band Sleater-Kinney | Amy Dickinson, Hari Kondabolu, Dulcé Sloan | Guest host Tom Papa |
February 24 | "Best of" episode featuring actors Ray Romano, Rosie Perez, & Nick Kroll, musician Steve Earle, and Vanity Fair magazine editor Radhika Jones | Guest announcer Chioke I'Anson |
Date | Guest | Panelists | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
March 2 [11] | Rapper/singer Danny Brown | Karen Chee, Alzo Slade, Peter Grosz | Show recorded in Austin, TX (Bass Concert Hall) |
March 9 [12] | Economic historian Claudia Goldin | Josh Gondelman, Maeve Higgins, Roxanne Roberts | |
March 16 [13] | Actor/comedian David Alan Grier | Adam Burke, Paula Poundstone, Mo Rocca | Guest announcer/scorekeeper Andy Richter |
March 23 | Business executive and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs | Adam Felber, Helen Hong, Hari Kondabolu | |
March 30 | "Best of" episode featuring actors John Stamos & Gabrielle Dennis, education activist Malala Yousafzai, political consultant David Axelrod, and beatboxer Kaila Mullady |
Date | Guest | Panelists | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
April 6 [14] | Actor Chris Pine | Emmy Blotnick, Alonzo Bodden, Adam Burke | |
April 13 [15] | Former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach/CBS NFL studio analyst Bill Cowher | Negin Farsad, Maeve Higgins, Mo Rocca | Show recorded in Pittsburgh, PA (Benedum Center) |
April 20 [16] | Philosopher/gender studies scholar Judith Butler | Faith Salie, Maz Jobrani, Roy Blount Jr. | Guest announcer/scorekeeper Helen Hong |
April 27 [17] | Actress/singer Renée Elise Goldsberry | Alonzo Bodden, Shantira Jackson, Jason Isbell [18] |
Date | Guest | Panelists | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
May 4 [19] | Gum wrapper sculptor Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. | Josh Gondelman, Joyelle Nicole Johnson, River Butcher | |
May 11 [20] | Singer/songwriter Chappell Roan | Tom Papa, Brian Babylon, Meredith Scardino | |
May 18 [21] | Actress/singer–songwriter Maya Hawke | Faith Salie, Adam Burke, Negin Farsad | Guest host Alzo Slade |
May 25 [22] | Chef/food writer J. Kenji López-Alt | Jessi Klein, Shantira Jackson, Luke Burbank | Show recorded in Seattle, WA (Paramount Theatre) Guest host Tom Papa [22] |
Date | Guest | Panelists | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
June 1 | "Best of" episode featuring musician Bob Seger, actresses Dakota Johnson & Michelle Rodriguez, filmmaker John Wilson, and long-distance runner Molly Seidel | ||
June 8 | Radio host/comedian Charlamagne tha God | Shane O'Neill, Alzo Slade, Karen Chee | |
June 15 [23] | Singer/actress Michelle Williams | Alonzo Bodden, Helen Hong, Paula Poundstone | Show recorded at Chicago's Millennium Park (Jay Pritzker Pavilion) [24] |
June 22 [25] | Disabled athlete/adventurer Erik Weihenmayer [26] | Maz Jobrani, Adam Felber, Negin Farsad | |
June 29 [27] | Bassist/composer Christian McBride [28] | Peter Grosz, Joyelle Nicole Johnson, Dulcé Sloan | Show recorded in Philadelphia, PA (The Mann Center) [29] |
Date | Guest | Panelists | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
July 6 | "Best of" episode featuring actors Ellie Kemper, H. Jon Benjamin & Richard E. Grant, director Rian Johnson, and costume designer Ruth E. Carter | ||
July 13 [30] | Journalists Zach Stafford & Sam Sanders | Paula Poundstone, Emmy Blotnick, Tom Papa | Guest announcer/scorekeeper Chioke I'Anson |
July 20 [31] | Track & field athlete Allyson Felix | Shantira Jackson, Hari Kondabolu, Roy Blount Jr. | Guest host Karen Chee [32] |
July 27 [33] | Singer/musician & punk icon Kathleen Hanna | Meredith Scardino, Mo Rocca, Peter Grosz |
Date | Guest | Panelists | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
August 3 | TBA | TBA, TBA, TBA | Show recorded in Vienna, VA (Wolf Trap) |
August 10 | "Best of" episode | ||
August 17 | "Best of" episode | ||
August 24 | TBA | TBA, TBA, TBA | |
August 31 | TBA | TBA, TBA, TBA | Show recorded in Minneapolis, MN (Orpheum Theatre) |
Date | Guest | Panelists |
---|---|---|
September 7 | TBA | TBA, TBA, TBA |
September 14 | TBA | TBA, TBA, TBA |
September 21 | TBA | TBA, TBA, TBA |
September 28 | TBA | TBA, TBA, TBA |
Date | Guest | Panelists |
---|---|---|
October 5 | TBA | TBA, TBA, TBA |
October 12 | TBA | TBA, TBA, TBA |
October 19 | "Best of" episode | |
October 26 | TBA | TBA, TBA, TBA |
Date | Guest | Panelists |
---|---|---|
November 2 | TBA | TBA, TBA, TBA |
November 9 | TBA | TBA, TBA, TBA |
November 16 | TBA | TBA, TBA, TBA |
November 23 | TBA | TBA, TBA, TBA |
November 30 | "Best of" episode |
A panel show or panel game is a radio or television game show in which a panel of celebrities participate. Celebrity panelists may compete with each other, such as on The News Quiz; facilitate play by non-celebrity contestants, such as on Match Game and Blankety Blank; or do both, such as on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. The genre can be traced to 1938, when Information Please debuted on U.S. radio. The earliest known television panel show is Play the Game, a charades show in 1946. The modern trend of comedy panel shows can find early roots with Stop Me If You've Heard This One in 1939 and Can You Top This? in 1940. While panel shows were more popular in the past in the U.S., they are still very common in the United Kingdom.
Maurice Alberto "Mo" Rocca is an American humorist, journalist, and actor. He is a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning, the host and creator of My Grandmother's Ravioli on the Cooking Channel, and also the host of The Henry Ford's Innovation Nation on CBS. He was the moderator of the National Geographic Society's National Geographic Bee from 2016 until its final competition in 2019, as the 2020 and 2021 competitions were cancelled and the competition was ended in 2021. He is also the host of the podcast Mobituaries with Mo Rocca from CBS News. He is a regular panelist on the radio quiz show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! is an hour-long weekly news radio panel show produced by WBEZ and National Public Radio (NPR) in Chicago, Illinois. On the program, panelists and contestants are quizzed in humorous ways about that week's news. It is distributed by NPR in the United States, internationally on NPR Worldwide and on the Internet via podcast, and typically broadcast on weekends by member stations. The show averages about six million weekly listeners on air and via podcast.
Robert Francis "Bobcat" Goldthwait is an American comedian, actor, director and screenwriter. He is known for his black comedy stand-up act, delivered through an energetic stage persona with an unusual raspy and high-pitched voice. He came to prominence with his stand-up specials An Evening with Bobcat Goldthwait—Share the Warmth and Bob Goldthwait—Is He Like That All the Time? and his acting roles, including Zed in the Police Academy franchise and Eliot Loudermilk in Scrooged. Since 2012, he has been a regular panelist on the radio-quiz show, Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!.
Paula Poundstone is an American stand-up comedian, author, actress, interviewer, and commentator. Beginning in the late 1980s, she performed a series of one-hour HBO comedy specials. She provided backstage commentary during the 1992 presidential election on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She is the host of the podcast Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone, which is the successor to the National Public Radio program Live from the Poundstone Institute. She was a frequent panelist on NPR's weekly news quiz show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me, and a recurring guest on the network's A Prairie Home Companion variety program during Garrison Keillor's years as host.
Peter O. Phillips, better known by his stage name Pete Rock, is an American music producer, DJ and rapper. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest hip hop producers of all time, and is often mentioned alongside DJ Premier, RZA, and Q-Tip as one of the mainstays of 1990s East Coast hip hop production. He rose to prominence in the early 1990s as one half of the critically acclaimed group Pete Rock & CL Smooth. Early on in his career, he was also famed for his remix work.
Alonzo Bodden is an American comedian and actor known for winning the grand prize in the third season of the reality-television series Last Comic Standing. He had been the runner-up in the previous season.
Paul Provenza is an American television presenter, actor, radio panelist, stand-up comedian, filmmaker, and skeptic based in Los Angeles. He has appeared on several podcasts and in recent years has interviewed other stand-up comedians. In 2005 he became a director, in 2010 an author and in 2011 he started producing for comedy festivals and television.
Peter Daniel Sagal is an American humorist, writer, and host of the National Public Radio game show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! and the PBS special Constitution USA with Peter Sagal.
Kyrie O'Connor is a writer and editor.
Faith Coley Salie is an American journalist, writer, actress, comedian, television, radio, and podcast host. She is a contributor to CBS Sunday Morning and a panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!. She hosted Science Goes To The Movies on PBS and CUNY TV. She is a storyteller for The Moth, with her story viewed over 4 million times. Her first book, Approval Junkie, "a collection of daring, funny essays chronicling the author's adventures during her lifelong quest for approval," was published by Crown in April 2016. Salie adapted it into a solo show which she performed Off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theater in New York City in 2021. The play premiered at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta in 2019.
Hari Karthikeya Kondabolu is an American stand-up comedian and writer. His comedy covers subjects such as race, inequity, and Indian stereotypes. He was a writer for Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell and the creator of the 2017 documentary film The Problem with Apu.
Negin Farsad is an Iranian-American comedian, actress, writer, and filmmaker based in New York City.
Little Mix The Search is a British reality television music competition that was announced in October 2019, and began airing on BBC One on 26 September 2020, concluding with the final on 7 November 2020. The series was judged by British girl group Little Mix, with the winning act from the series joining them on The Confetti Tour (2022). In August 2021 it was announced that the show had been put on an "indefinite hold" after one series.
Laci Risë Mosley is an American actress, comedian and podcaster. She performs improv comedy at UCB Los Angeles and co-starred in the Pop comedy series Florida Girls. Mosley is best known for her podcast Scam Goddess, which focuses on historical and contemporary scams and cons. She was a cast member on Florida Girls, A Black Lady Sketch Show, Lopez vs Lopez, and the iCarly revival series.
Shantira Jackson is an American writer, producer, actress, and comedian. Her writing credits include Busy Tonight, The Amber Ruffin Show, Saved by the Bell, and Big Mouth.