Behind the scenes with Peter Sagal of 'Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me'

[CHEERING] TOM CRANN: We are live from the Minnesota State Fair on what is just about a perfect Friday MPR day at Dan Patch Park. A lot here named for the great Dan Patch, one of the great race horses of all time. They call it the harness racing. Dan Patch was legendary. He lived for 20 years, 1896 to 1916. How are you all doing? This is a great crowd today.

[CHEERING]

Fans of Wait Wait-- Don't Tell Me, I am sure. I want to go back to May of 1998. The new MPR weekend quiz program was called Wait Wait-- Don't Tell Me. It was trying to drum up some new listeners, as public radio shows do. They created a segment that was called "Suck Up to Minnesota," in which they asked questions about Minnesota. The hope was maybe someone here would hear the show and decide this new show belonged on public radio.

Well, take it from me. It wasn't long before we started carrying Wait Wait-- Don't Tell Me. But it takes a while to be accepted here in Minnesota. It can take years. It can take two and a half decades. So we've had 25 years to think it over. But I want to ask this crowd of Minnesotans, does Wait Wait-- Don't Tell Me belong on public radio?

[CHEERING]

All right. It's official. Took 25, 26 years. Peter Sagal, welcome. Thanks for coming out.

PETER SAGAL: It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you, everybody.

TOM CRANN: And Jennifer Mills.

JENNIFER MILLS: Hi. I'm thrilled to be here.

TOM CRANN: Pride of Shoreview, a writer and producer with Wait Wait. And we are happy to have you here as well. We'll take some of your questions here. We have Heidi and Jess with microphones. We'll do that. But first, we want to get into the conversation-- The. Reason you're here. The reason you're here is two shows at the Orpheum Theater.

PETER SAGAL: Yes, indeed.

TOM CRANN: One last night and one tonight. Tell us about tonight's show, who the panelists are and what people can expect.

PETER SAGAL: OK. So hello, everybody. It's a pleasure to be here.

[CHEERING]

This, to me, is a dream come true. I, as I often mention, lived in Minnesota for three years in the early '90s. Jennifer, of course, grew up in Minnesota.

JENNIFER MILLS: Couldn't be prouder.

PETER SAGAL: And so I think I'll just say-- I'll speak for the both of us. Appearing at the Minnesota State Fair is basically the goal of our entire lives? Would you go so far--

JENNIFER MILLS: Absolutely.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah. Did you ever dream as a little girl, coming here and eating cotton candy, that someday you'd be an attraction?

JENNIFER MILLS: I had this exact dream. Yes.

PETER SAGAL: [LAUGHS] But you asked about the show. Yes, we're doing two shows at the Orpheum Theater. And people might be wondering, well, how do you do two shows when you only broadcast one show a week? Good question. For those who was thinking that.

TOM CRANN: Yes, I was wondering that.

PETER SAGAL: So over the years, we've had a situation such as we have here in Minnesota where more people want to come see the show than we can fit into the theater for one night. And we've tried various ways of doing a second show, and what we've arrived at works pretty well. So we did our weekly show last night, Thursday night. That will be broadcast this weekend on Minnesota Public Radio--

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: --and other less important systems.

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS]

PETER SAGAL: And then tonight--

TOM CRANN: They all are, Peter. No.

PETER SAGAL: What we found is what our audience wants is they want us to talk about the week's news, and they want our panelists to be just as stunned by the stupidity of it as they are. So we had one panel last night. We're flying in a whole new panel who have never heard our questions. And we have-- so we have a couple of different games. Last night, we had Nate Berkus, Minnesota--

TOM CRANN: Minnesota's own.

PETER SAGAL: Minnesota's own. Nate Berkus, who is charming as heck. And tonight, we have Mary Theisen-Lappen, the medal-winning--

TOM CRANN: Wrestler.

PETER SAGAL: --weight-- the weightlifter.

TOM CRANN: Oh, weightlifter. Yeah, exactly.

PETER SAGAL: --from the Olympics. He's going to come and tell us all about weightlifting and Minnesota pride and Minnesota's sticktoitiveness. But the best part, in my view, is-- our panelists are comedians, generally speaking. And they always have a little bit of trouble adjusting to the public radio standard for politesse. So tonight, since we're not going to be broadcasting a good part of the show--

[LAUGHTER]

--they get to go nuts.

TOM CRANN: Oh, so it'll be blue. It'll be blue all night.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah, it'll shock the conscience of good Minnesotans. At least that's my hope.

JENNIFER MILLS: Can I add a note about the two night show? Our amazing executive producer, Mike Danforth, also a Minnesota native of--

PETER SAGAL: Yes, who's also from Minnesota.

JENNIFER MILLS: It was his mother's idea to do these two night shows. Another Minnesota native.

PETER SAGAL: I did not know that.

JENNIFER MILLS: Yeah, he was talking about this issue with his mom, and she came up with the idea.

TOM CRANN: I just had this idea as you're talking-- why don't you do a show from here?

PETER SAGAL: From the state fair?

TOM CRANN: From the state fair. Yeah. Do your show from here next summer, or upcoming summer.

PETER SAGAL: We could call it Wait Wait on a Stick.

TOM CRANN: That's right. Exactly, because that hasn't been used before.

PETER SAGAL: No, not yet.

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: Wait Wait Don't Eat That.

TOM CRANN: Yes, we can take it there. There you go.

PETER SAGAL: Can I-- before we move on-- and I know you have a lot of things to talk about.

TOM CRANN: No, no.

PETER SAGAL: But I want to talk about something you referenced, which is "Suck Up to Minnesota"--

TOM CRANN: Yeah, yeah.

PETER SAGAL: --which is a feature we did on the show in the early days. And I'm going to take complete credit for it. And the reason was-- as I said, I lived here for three years. And I left with a lot of things-- indelible memories, a sense of a career, and a wife, who I have since misplaced. But that's--

[LAUGHTER]

--not important. What's important is that her parents, I don't believe, had a lot of confidence that I would be able to support her and our, at that point, very young family. So it was very important to me that they could hear the show so that then they would maybe worry about me less.

JENNIFER MILLS: Did you pitch the segment as "Suck Up to My In-Laws?"

PETER SAGAL: Not only did I do that. But when we introduced it, it's like, now time for a game. And Carl Kasell, blessed of memory, would say, suck up to Minnesota. And I would come on the air and say, hey, everybody, as you may my in-laws live in Minnesota. And it's very important to me that they hear the show so that they don't worry about me anymore.

And so thus, we are now going to suck up to Minnesota. And then I would ask a question, usually to Roxanne Roberts, who is from Minnesota--

TOM CRANN: Oh. I did not know that.

PETER SAGAL: --about some extraordinary superlative about Minnesota-- its health, its beauty, its-- just--

TOM CRANN: Sure. It's all superlative. Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah.

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: And the answer was always yes, Minnesota is the best.

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS] I don't know how that worked.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah, well, it worked because--

TOM CRANN: Go figure, yeah.

PETER SAGAL: --because you guys are Midwesterners, and you're very vulnerable to being flattered.

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS] And especially by people from bigger cities.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah, yeah, so it was like, oh, yeah. So it worked, and now we're on Minnesota. It didn't really change my in-laws' opinion of me, but it was a good try.

TOM CRANN: Well, here's what I want to talk about is the logistics of doing this on the road because normally you're at-- or most of the time, at Chase Auditorium in Chicago.

PETER SAGAL: Yes.

TOM CRANN: You live in Chicago. You have panelists from other places. But when you're on the road like this, how does it work?

PETER SAGAL: How does it work? Mills, you want to take this? You're the producer.

JENNIFER MILLS: It works because of one man, Colin Miller, that has a million details in his head. And somehow, all of us from around the country just, like, wake up and we're in the same hotel lobby. And it's like, oh, how did this happen? But we usually just-- we work from coffee shops or our hotel rooms, and we have a lot of Zoom meetings. But the best part is like getting to know the city that we're in so that we can suck up to that city, too. And then we just do it.

TOM CRANN: And when I listen to the shows on the road, it seems like the crowds go more wild for you. They cheer more lustily.

JENNIFER MILLS: We put something in the water.

TOM CRANN: Don't you think?

JENNIFER MILLS: Yeah.

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: It's because we don't come as often to wonderful places like the Twin Cities, as often as we should. And absence makes the heart grow fonder. And also, memory can sand down the unpleasantness of your memory.

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS]

PETER SAGAL: So we always wait five-- I think, at this time, it was, like, seven years. And we come back. And by that time, people are like, oh, yeah, I think that was OK. We should go back.

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS] They'll pay money to see it. Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: And by the time they were reminded why they probably just should have stayed home and listened in their pajamas on the weekend morning while getting something useful done while they're listening-- by the time they remember that, it's too late. We have their money.

JENNIFER MILLS: Don't tell them that, Peter.

PETER SAGAL: It's true.

JENNIFER MILLS: That's our biggest secret.

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS]

We have satisfied customers here in the audience who went last night.

PETER SAGAL: I have to say have validated my faith in Minnesotans, that all of you have taken the trouble to get to the Minnesota State Fair, surrounded by amusements and delicacies and distractions of every variety. And yet, you have chosen to come here.

JENNIFER MILLS: I think they all just wanted somewhere to sit for a second.

TOM CRANN: Well, that's it. Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: That may well be the case. And there is some shade, so it all makes sense.

TOM CRANN: And to watch a live radio show here on MPR News, we're with Peter Sagal and Jennifer Mills of Wait Wait-- Don't Tell Me in this noon hour, coming to you live from the fair. Peter Sagal, in the promo, you told us last time you came to Minnesota, you slipped on the ice and got a black eye?

PETER SAGAL: That's true. That's a true story.

TOM CRANN: True story. I was going to ask if--

PETER SAGAL: This was not the last time. It was the time before that. It was 2013. It was depth of winter. It was something like 7 degrees. A proper Minnesota--

TOM CRANN: Right, yeah.

PETER SAGAL: --February. And I decided to go for a run. I was running across the bridge across Hennepin Avenue at the Walker Art Center. You all know it. And all of a sudden, I was on the ground. And all of my stuff-- my iPhone and my headphones and everything was arrayed around me. I don't know how I got onto the ground. And I stood up, and my head was dizzy. And I put my hand up to my head, and my hand stopped 2 inches from my forehead because that's how big the lump was already.

TOM CRANN: And you had a show to do.

PETER SAGAL: We had a show that night. And so they did two things. They took me to the hospital, and they called somebody who could fly up and maybe take over on short notice. And we went to the hospital. And they said, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, that's going to hurt there. I was like, thank you.

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS]

PETER SAGAL: And I said--

JENNIFER MILLS: And it was the best show that we ever did. So now we hit him on the head every time.

TOM CRANN: Every time. Good.

PETER SAGAL: Good. Yeah, it's a-- mild concussions help comedy. Now, what they told me was-- hematoma. I can only say that word with the Minnesota accent. That's a hematoma.

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS]

PETER SAGAL: And what they said was it's basically blood, and it will drain down into your face and you will get the biggest black eye you've ever had. And that's what happened. And it was so gross. It was so repulsive that I bought the biggest pair of drugstore sunglasses I could find. And I wore them through the show.

And I came out, and I said, hey, everybody-- it was in the State Theater, I think, that time. And I said, hey, everybody, I'm wearing these sunglasses because I've got this enormous black eye. And they said, show it to us. And I said, no. And I said, I got it in a fistfight with Garrison Keillor.

[LAUGHTER]

And I said, you should see how he looks, and then we just did the show.

TOM CRANN: Exactly. That's good. Peter Sagal here with us. We're live here on MPR News from the State Fair. And Jennifer Mills, I want your perspective on the fair. Here's what I'm wondering. You live in Brooklyn now, right?

JENNIFER MILLS: Yes, I do.

TOM CRANN: And when somebody says they've never-- they have no idea what's-- because I grew up in New Jersey. I never went to the state fair. Peter grew up in New Jersey. Did you even know where the state fair is?

PETER SAGAL: I couldn't tell you.

TOM CRANN: I couldn't tell you. But-- whereas it's such a ritual here for everybody. So I want to know what you tell people. What's the elevator speech if someone says, what's the Minnesota State Fair?

JENNIFER MILLS: Well, first of all, idiots, I say, you got to go. You got to go right now. I mean, I love the state fair. I love feeling sick at the end of the day and heat stroke, all that stuff. But my biggest memory of being a kid and coming here was my dad being like, good news, children. You can drink as much milk as you want.

TOM CRANN: Ooh, wow. Yeah.

JENNIFER MILLS: Yeah, and you think what your parents think. You're like, cool, we're going to go be hot and drink a ton of milk. And managed to absolutely love it.

TOM CRANN: Sure.

JENNIFER MILLS: It evens out.

TOM CRANN: I've never gotten that-- the all you can drink milk. Even as a kid, that's not an attractive--

JENNIFER MILLS: Oh, you got to try it.

TOM CRANN: I know. But on a hot day, that could just lead to--

JENNIFER MILLS: It's very refreshing.

TOM CRANN: --stomach upset, occasional stomach upset. It's very refreshing? Which-- like, the 12th or 13th glass? Which is the most refreshing?

JENNIFER MILLS: [LAUGHS]

TOM CRANN: So also, Jennifer, I want from you the view inside the process, the writers' room, although I imagine these days people work in different places. So it's a Zoom writers' room. But we hear-- there have been plays written about it by Neil Simon, and there have been lots of depictions. We've heard lots of things about Saturday Night Live. It can be cruel, it can be cutting. What's the Wait Wait-- Don't Tell Me writers' room like?

JENNIFER MILLS: Sure. Well, if you came in as an unsuspecting spectator, it's just, like, a 45-minute-long scream. Everyone's just screaming in this big cloud. But the more time you spend in it, the screams start to make sense. And it really is just a very playful, fun, supportive atmosphere, and hopefully, the joy comes out in the show. But I think--

TOM CRANN: But these are screams of delight. When you say screams, these aren't screams of agony.

JENNIFER MILLS: Agony sometimes. Lots of different screams.

PETER SAGAL: I would say they're screams of affection.

TOM CRANN: OK.

PETER SAGAL: You're great!

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS]

JENNIFER MILLS: And we spend, like-- I think we spend 70% of the time just talking about our lives and having fun with making fun of each other and that. And then we're like, oh, shoot, we have to make a show. Quick. Think of something funny.

TOM CRANN: Yeah. And tell me about the schedule to that show that you recorded on Thursday. How long are you working on it to put together an hour of gags?

PETER SAGAL: Oh, usually, about a 3 o'clock on Thursday, we're like, oh, man, we need to do something.

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS]

JENNIFER MILLS: Where's Peter? Quick.

PETER SAGAL: Get him. Get him back from the bar. No, we start on Monday.

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: We all start on Monday morning. We start looking for funny news stories. We have a meeting. We go over the prior week's show. We start planning for this week's show. So who's the special guest? Oh, OK. What funny thing could we use as a theme for the quiz? Here's some other funny stories. What news stories do we anticipate this week? Tuesday, more of that. We send stories around. We have a meeting. We say, what have we got so far? What do we need? Wednesday, we do it again. We do a rough draft of the script. And what the script is is it's questions and answers.

TOM CRANN: Right.

PETER SAGAL: So, like, somebody was found with what in their pants? Well, 40 eels.

JENNIFER MILLS: And it's always eels.

PETER SAGAL: It's always eels. And then someone tries to write jokes about eels in pants that we haven't heard before, which is more challenging than you'd think.

TOM CRANN: I would imagine after 25 years, yeah.

PETER SAGAL: And then on Wednesday, we make some final content decisions. What's going to be the bluff story? We talk about our guest. Our fabulous producer and vibe curator Emma Choi does a wonderful PowerPoint presentation about our guests, suggesting what we might talk to them about. Thursday, we get up. We write a rough draft of the script, working from what we had yesterday. We do a read-through.

At about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, we look at each other. We say, oh, my god. This is going to be a disaster. We throw it out. We write something else. We make it great. We walk into the theater, and it's 7:30. We start the show. And here's the great part.

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: Once we start the show, a lot of what we have prepared gets thrown-- goes right out the window--

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: --because I think part of the charm of our show is our panelists have no idea what we're going to ask them about.

TOM CRANN: The question I asked three different people who are listeners to the show who don't work at-- well, two who don't, and one who does. And the question they want to know is, how much is scripted, the reaction from the panelists?

PETER SAGAL: The reaction from the panelists is not scripted at all. It's all off the top of their adorable heads. And a lot of times--

TOM CRANN: It's amazing because sometimes it's so quick.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah. Well, a lot of times I'm all set. I've got all these jokes. They go in direction A. And then one of the panelists-- often, if not always Paula Poundstone-- will take it to direction W. And my job-- or not even a letter, really. Like, direction Nordic 23.

TOM CRANN: Yeah, right.

PETER SAGAL: It's, like, whatever. And my job is to just follow her into that breach--

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: --because I can't go, no, I've got some jokes about another thing. You have to be quiet. So it's weird because we do all this preparation. And yet, we know, from long experience, that the pleasure of our show is when it's completely unprepared.

TOM CRANN: Right. And tell me who make-- without the names, what kind of a person makes the best panelist? And you can offer names, too.

JENNIFER MILLS: Oh, yeah. There's so many funny comedians in the world, and we spend a lot of time looking for great comedians just head on. But the people that we end up really loving on the show are people who are just fun to talk to. So before anyone ever has a chance to be on the show, a couple of us spend maybe a half an hour talking to them. And if they're just fun to hang out with on a bus, then that's the best quality.

PETER SAGAL: Yes, because we spend a lot of time on a bus.

JENNIFER MILLS: We love buses. I don't know why I chose bus.

PETER SAGAL: We really do. We just get on buses with people.

TOM CRANN: Do you travel from place to place on a bus if it's close enough to Chicago?

PETER SAGAL: Now that I've achieved my-- what I thought was my life's goal of appearing live on stage at the Minnesota State Fair, I have to move on to goal number 2--

TOM CRANN: Which is doing your show from the state--

PETER SAGAL: --to get one of those custom tour buses--

TOM CRANN: OK, yeah.

PETER SAGAL: --with, like, the airbrushed Mustang.

TOM CRANN: Yes.

PETER SAGAL: Not the car, the horse on the side and maybe, like, our name in cool lightning font. That would be excellent.

JENNIFER MILLS: I regret bringing up buses.

TOM CRANN: No, no. No. But here's what you want. You want to take that bus, next summer, from Chicago to here to the state fair-- and it has a cool airbrushed picture of Dan Patch on the side.

JENNIFER MILLS: Ooh.

TOM CRANN: Yeah, I think that's what you need to do.

PETER SAGAL: Dan Patch, of course, was a harness horse.

TOM CRANN: A harness horse.

PETER SAGAL: Harness. race horse--

TOM CRANN: A harness-- couldn't think of the word, harness.

PETER SAGAL: --famous, which know about from the song in Music Man--

TOM CRANN: That's right, yeah.

PETER SAGAL: --where Professor Harold Hill says, can you imagine somebody sitting down on Dan Patch?

TOM CRANN: Sitting down on Dan Patch. Exactly. And everyone's here at Dan Patch Park as we talk to Peter Sagal and Jennifer Mills about Wait Wait-- Don't Tell Me. You hear it on MPR News-- I should say Saturdays at 11:00, Sundays at 1:00. We have it Saturdays at 11:00, Sundays at 1:00.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah.

TOM CRANN: Peter, I want to talk to you about the role the show plays. We have been hearing about news fatigue for a few years now. I have no idea why. Those of us who work in newsrooms-- these are tough times. They're nonstop times. And now, on the weekend, for a little light entertainment, how about more news or making fun of the news? So how do you balance that? How do you see the show in this time of fire hose of news?

PETER SAGAL: Well, in a weird way, it's not up to us. It's not up to me. It's up to our audience. It's up to you guys because we're very responsive to what you tell us. Sometimes just by clapping and/or by listening, and a lot of times, to our faces. And the consistent message has been, thank god for you guys for giving us a break from the torrent. Let's just use that word--

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: --of news. And public radio-- God bless it. I love it. By the way, I just want to say-- I'm very proud of this. Minnesota Public Radio was the first public radio system I ever paid to join as a member--

TOM CRANN: Oh, wow. Wow.

PETER SAGAL: --in 1992.

TOM CRANN: And you enjoyed it more as a member, as we always say, right? Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: I know. Never got my tote bag. These sons of-- anyway--

[LAUGHTER]

TOM CRANN: Oh, stop it. Stop it. We've got one for you, by the way.

PETER SAGAL: I've got plenty of swag now. It's all right.

TOM CRANN: We do literally have one.

PETER SAGAL: And so NPR listeners tend to take things seriously. That's part of our charm, right? We're very serious. We listen to the news almost as a sense of civic duty. But again, especially these days, it can be very wearing. And what people tell us is they actually look forward to our hour of NPR programming where we take over the airwaves and just are gloriously dumb--

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS]

PETER SAGAL: --just stupid, silly. It's just fart jokes and dad jokes and dad fart jokes and jokes about dad farting. And people love it, and--

JENNIFER MILLS: Sorry, dad.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah, I know.

TOM CRANN: He likes that a little too much, doesn't he? That genre of joke.

PETER SAGAL: I do. A little bit.

TOM CRANN: Yeah. Do you ever have to pull him back?

PETER SAGAL: I do.

TOM CRANN: And the writers--

PETER SAGAL: And I love a poop joke. And--

[LAUGHTER]

I studied poop jokes at Harvard. And--

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS] We can tell.

PETER SAGAL: And-- I know. And I got to tell you that-- to be serious for a second, people come up to us and they say how much it means just to get them through the week. Other people have come up and told us that it has got them through terrible illnesses or divorces or, even worse, deaths of a spouse or a parent. Just tough times. And it's such a privilege, I think, is the best word? And I'm using that word in the good sense.

JENNIFER MILLS: But then other people tell us, you guys suck. Stop doing this.

PETER SAGAL: Do they really? I never hear from those guys.

JENNIFER MILLS: Oh, sure. Well, you don't read the email. You don't read the all--

PETER SAGAL: So my assumption has been that we're public radio celebrities, meaning that the people who know us love us and nobody else has any idea we exist--

TOM CRANN: Who we are. Yeah, yeah.

PETER SAGAL: --which is a pretty good level of fame, I have to say.

TOM CRANN: But-- yeah, I want to talk about your level of fame. And I want to talk about the fact that you've been with the show, now, on the show-- you were on the very first episode as a panelist, right?

PETER SAGAL: I was, yes.

TOM CRANN: And very shortly after, you became the host. And that's 25 and a half, almost 26 years now?

PETER SAGAL: More than 26. We broadcast in January of 1998.

TOM CRANN: Did you see that? Did you--

PETER SAGAL: No.

TOM CRANN: And what has that been like to be on one of the most popular public radio shows for 26 years?

PETER SAGAL: It's kind of surreal. And to this day, I still have trouble believing it on an essential level. Like, when I come out in the beautiful Orpheum Theater and it's packed with people who are excited to see us, I'm like, what?

TOM CRANN: What are they all doing here?

PETER SAGAL: But--

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: --I was a Public Radio listener.

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: And I listened to all-- I listened to Garrison, I listened to Car Talk. I listened to My Word. I listened to all these shows. And it never occurred to me that I would enter that pantheon of public radio-- I don't know, what's the word-- institutions.

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: And it never occurred to me that this would end up being my career. Remember, I was here studying to be a playwright. I thought I was going to change the world through my art. And instead, I changed the world through my farts--

[LAUGHTER]

--and bad puns.

TOM CRANN: We saw that one coming.

PETER SAGAL: I know, sadly. But I have to tell you that back when I was a young and pretentious artist, I had this dream of making everybody, through my art, so uncomfortable with the truths that I would reveal to them--

TOM CRANN: Oh, yeah.

PETER SAGAL: --right?

TOM CRANN: Mm-hmm.

PETER SAGAL: And it's actually better to make people happy. This is my life lesson to all of you.

[CHEERING]

It's better to make people happy than annoy them, even if you think they deserve it.

JENNIFER MILLS: That's so nice, Peter. I've never heard you say that.

PETER SAGAL: I have depths that we haven't even--

JENNIFER MILLS: That's beautiful.

TOM CRANN: Does he practice that in the office and in the writers' meetings?

JENNIFER MILLS: Oh, I think for sure. I mean, we're all-- we love being at work. It's kind of, like, gross sometimes. But it's great.

PETER SAGAL: We had an employee-- a colleague, I should say-- many years ago, who's since left and gone on to other things, who said to a friend of hers, it's so great to have a job where you just laugh all day. And I keep thinking of that because it remains true. I recommend it if you can get the work.

TOM CRANN: Now, you've also talked about that the other side of comedy-- yes, you're making people happy and laughing. But you say what you can do Steve Inskeep and Scott Simon can't do it.

PETER SAGAL: Exactly.

TOM CRANN: And you can tell truths through the comedy about the news. Tell me about that.

PETER SAGAL: We used to have a marketing slogan. And it was Wait Wait-- Don't Tell Me. We say the things on the radio that normally you just shout at the radio. And there really is a permission slip that comedians get.

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: And that's one of the reasons why Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel and John Oliver are so successful as well, and popular because I have friends who are journalists. Those two gentlemen you just mentioned are good friends of mine, and many other people who work in NPR and elsewhere. And they are obligated to, as frustrating as it might seem-- to follow strict rules of objectivity. Just the facts, no opinions, no judgment. And that's important. And I will defend their right to do it.

But we, because we're jokesters, to get on the radio and say, that guy-- he's terrible. And, ha, ha, it's just a joke, but it's still true. So I think that's another reason why people enjoy us.

JENNIFER MILLS: And we're really lucky because it's not all up to us. We have these incredibly smart panelists that can also say stuff, and it's like you said it, not us.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah, exactly. Oh, he doesn't work for NPR. He can say that.

TOM CRANN: He can say that. Now, are there times where panelists have surprised you with how far they've gone since you don't pre-rehearse what they--

PETER SAGAL: Oh, yeah.

JENNIFER MILLS: Yeah, yeah. That's the beauty of editing, is that we don't censor them. Say, do what you do. Go out there and do it. We'll snip it up a little bit. But yeah.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah.

TOM CRANN: Can you think of an example?

PETER SAGAL: We'll save you from yourselves.

JENNIFER MILLS: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: I have been saved from myself more times than I can count.

TOM CRANN: Have you?

PETER SAGAL: Oh, yeah.

TOM CRANN: Can you think of an example there?

PETER SAGAL: Oh, see, if I were to tell you-- on the radio--

TOM CRANN: Just between us, yeah.

PETER SAGAL: --what my beloved colleagues kept anybody from hearing me say on the radio--

JENNIFER MILLS: And it works both ways.

PETER SAGAL: --that would defeat the entire purpose, would it not?

TOM CRANN: That's right. Yes, alas.

JENNIFER MILLS: It works both ways, though, because sometimes you're trying to save yourself, and we put you in danger. And that is often very funny, too.

PETER SAGAL: [LAUGHS]

TOM CRANN: Should we take some questions here--

PETER SAGAL: Oh, absolutely.

TOM CRANN: --from people have come out to Dan Patch Park? We're live here on MPR News with Peter Sagal and Jennifer Mills. So Heidi has a mic.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: We love you!

PETER SAGAL: We love you back.

TOM CRANN: Jess has a mic. Yes.

HEIDI: Tell me your name and where you're from. And then ask your question, please.

LISA OLSON: Hi, Lisa Olson from Zimmerman. My question for you, Peter, is what is the most surprising or shocking response you've gotten from someone in the public when they realize and recognize you for the important work you do? And then lastly, pronto pup or corn dog?

TOM CRANN: OK.

PETER SAGAL: OK. First of all, I just want to thank you for your accent.

[LAUGHTER]

It's perfect.

TOM CRANN: And there's more where that came from here.

PETER SAGAL: It's why I came here.

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: I just want to hear you talk. I want to hear you give me a recipe for something with cream of mushroom soup. I want to live in that world.

JENNIFER MILLS: I'll give you some, Peter.

PETER SAGAL: Thank you. But the question was, like, what's the most shocking reaction?

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: It's been a little-- all right. There's a couple stories I could tell. There was one woman who was working in an airport lounge who, when I checked in, recognized my name. And she went, oh, Peter Sagal, and then she went, oh. And I said--

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS]

PETER SAGAL: --what's wrong? She said, you have a wedding ring.

JENNIFER MILLS: [GASPS]

PETER SAGAL: And I said, yes, I do. And she said, well, I heard your marriage broke up, and I was hoping-- and I was like, no, no. No, no. Remarried, happily.

JENNIFER MILLS: She's lovely, by the way.

PETER SAGAL: Yes. Once, many years ago, we were doing a show in Miami, and I went out with our long-term production manager, Robert Newhouse. And we went to one of those restaurants that was very, very hip in the 2010s-- late 2000s. It was one of those places where a server, who came up, and very elegantly and graciously standing perfectly straight, said, have you dined with us before? And we said, no. And she said, well, we do things a little differently here.

And she went on about-- in this very elegant, restrained, high-end way-- about the kind of dishes they serve and the ones that are for sharing all that. And then she brought us the first course. And she was like, so what brings you to Miami? And we said, well, we're here to do a radio show. And she said, oh, what radio show? And I said, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, at which point, she became 12.

[LAUGHTER]

She was like, what? What? Wait? You-- and she just lost it-- the entire pretentious restaurant thing. Went nuts, went crazy. Gave me a big hug, gave Robert a big hug. Told us how much she loved the show. We ended up giving her free tickets. It was awesome.

JENNIFER MILLS: Did you get a free dessert?

PETER SAGAL: We did-- I think she did, in fact, get a free dessert. And it was pretty-- I mean, we've had wonderful people. People have burst into tears. People have hugged me. People have, again, expressed how much our show has meant to them. But I will always remember that because we totally wrecked her entire professional demeanor, and I took some pride.

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS] Have you ever had the opposite? Because we all have. All of us on the radio-- you meet somebody, and then they have a bone to pick or a beef or--

PETER SAGAL: Oh, I'm sorry. I can't hear you.

[LAUGHTER]

Don't mutter. You're on the radio.

TOM CRANN: It's never happened. Yeah, it's never happened, huh?

PETER SAGAL: No, I literally didn't hear you. I don't know what you asked me. I'm sorry. I'm trying to come up with a funny response, but I have no idea.

TOM CRANN: No, has it happened before where the opposite happens, where someone comes up and they have a beef, they have a bone to pick? I've heard that expression. Ooh, I have a bone to pick with you.

PETER SAGAL: I've heard that. Yeah, no. Again-- maybe you've had different reactions. You write emails. Never. And again, it's because if you know who I am, chances are you enjoy it. And then everybody else just has no idea who I am. I mean, we're not important enough to hate.

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS]

PETER SAGAL: Right? There's no point in it.

TOM CRANN: Oh, I could show you some emails.

PETER SAGAL: Oh, I'm sure.

TOM CRANN: Yeah. Apparently, we are to some people.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah.

TOM CRANN: But no, you're right. The overwhelming response is almost always positive and appreciative, which is always nice, especially when you're at the Minnesota State Fair, as we are now, with Peter Sagal and Jennifer Mills, talking about Wait Wait-- Don't Tell Me. They are doing another live show in Minneapolis tonight at the Orpheum Theater. They did one last night. Now, tonight's show is sold out. It totally sold out.

PETER SAGAL: It is. Yeah. Much to our delight, satisfaction, and still, after all these years, surprise. Thank you, Minnesota.

TOM CRANN: So we have another question from the audience, if we could.

HEIDI: Yes. Sir, what's your name, and where are you from?

FRED WAGNER: Fred Wagner from St. Louis Park. My question is, if you could get anybody in the world to come on your show as a guest, who would it be and why?

PETER SAGAL: Well, Mills is more involved in the booking of guests than I am. What do you think? Who's your white whale?

JENNIFER MILLS: I would say today, for today's show, Tim Walz.

TOM CRANN: Oh, yeah? Yeah.

[CHEERING]

JENNIFER MILLS: And Lord knows we tried.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah. As soon as Tim Walz got on the national radar, quite recently, I had heard of him, of course, because I follow Minnesota news. People said, this guy would be great for Wait Wait. And I'm like, yeah, he pretty much is just-- he's a living embodiment of a dad joke, a dad joke in human form.

JENNIFER MILLS: He's perfect.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah. We were talking-- I mean, it's weird. I used to say-- when people would ask me that question, I used to say, well, the artist in the world who I most feverishly admired the point of feeling that I would have nothing I could articulate intelligently in front of that person was Elvis Costello. A huge Elvis Costello fan. I've seen him many times over in the campus of the University of Minnesota back in the early '90s. What's the name of the hall-- Northrop Hall, I want to say?

TOM CRANN: Northrop. Yep. Yep.

PETER SAGAL: Northrop Hall.

TOM CRANN: Yep.

PETER SAGAL: And then we had Elvis Costello on the show.

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: And now I don't know what to say. I was talking with Colin, our manager extraordinaire. And we both agreed that it would be great to get one of the remaining Beatles on the show since we grew up huge Beatles-- so if anybody knows them, that would be-- if you can give us the number, that would be pretty awesome.

TOM CRANN: But you've had Tom Hanks fairly early on.

PETER SAGAL: Many times.

TOM CRANN: And as I was remembering, looking things up to do this, he subhosted.

PETER SAGAL: He did.

TOM CRANN: He did. Now, how recent--

JENNIFER MILLS: He hosted the week before I started, I missed him by this much.

PETER SAGAL: Well, I missed him because I wasn't there.

TOM CRANN: How did you get Tom Hanks to sub on Wait Wait-- Don't Tell Me?

PETER SAGAL: So the story is-- this is what happened. It was the fall of 2016. I had a book that was way overdue. So I went to our executive producer, Mike Danforth of Minnesota. And I don't call him that, but he's from Minnesota. And I said, Mike, I got to finish this book. The only way I'm ever going to get it done is if I take a good chunk of time off the show.

So we have a two-week break at the end of 2016. I'll just take the rest of the month off because January of 2017-- and finish my book over those six weeks because I figured, what would we be talking about, Hillary Clinton's latest pick for her cabinet? How dull would that be? And that's not how things worked out, as you may remember.

So I came back to Mike. And I said, Mike, I don't think I should take the month off because things are very different. He said, well, you have to take the first week off. And I said, why? He said, because I've already arranged for Tom Hanks to host the show. And I said, no, come on, really. And he said, no. Tom had been a fan of the show. We knew that.

TOM CRANN: Right. And you had him on as a Not My Job--

PETER SAGAL: He's a Not My Job guest. He was our first A-list guest. We had heard he was a fan. We got a message to him. He came on the show. And apparently, Mike called him up and said, would you like to host it? And he said, yeah.

TOM CRANN: Wow.

PETER SAGAL: And I asked his assistant some time later-- I said, why did he do that? He goes, Tom Hanks gets asked to do things all the time.

TOM CRANN: Yeah, yeah.

PETER SAGAL: And she said, because he wanted to.

TOM CRANN: Wow.

PETER SAGAL: And it was amazing for me because-- have you ever had one of those dreams where it's your life, but you've been replaced by someone extremely unlikely? Like, oh, my god the scarecrow from Wizard of Oz is living in my house and married to my wife. So I turned on the radio, and Tom Hanks was doing my job.

JENNIFER MILLS: And he insisted on wearing all of your clothes.

PETER SAGAL: It was even weirder. It was even weirder, yeah.

TOM CRANN: Yeah. that's strange.

PETER SAGAL: But-- yeah. Hasn't happened since.

TOM CRANN: Did he stay at your house?

PETER SAGAL: He did not stay at my house. But, yeah, people have told me that I'm a better host of Wait Wait than Tom Hanks, which I guess is--

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

[APPLAUSE]

PETER SAGAL: --I guess is nice to know?

TOM CRANN: I'll take it. Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah.

TOM CRANN: I would take that if I were you. Yeah, absolutely.

JENNIFER MILLS: Somewhere, Tom Hanks is just tearing up.

PETER SAGAL: I think he's OK with it.

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS]

PETER SAGAL: He could be the second best host of Wait Wait.

TOM CRANN: There you are. Yeah. So we're talking with Peter Sagal, whose voice you undoubtedly recognize, and Jennifer Mills, who works on the show as a producer, writer. But here's-- Jennifer, here's what I want to talk to you about. I went and found your daily-- or weekly, which is, OK, a bit more of a relief. You don't do it every day. But you do it once a week. You write the Jennifer Mills News as a newspaper about your life and your--

PETER SAGAL: We've got some fans. We've got some regular readers in the week.

TOM CRANN: Yeah, anyone reads Jennifer Mills News? This is so--

JENNIFER MILLS: My valued readers, thank you.

TOM CRANN: It's terrific and clever and witty. And tell me how you started it and how you've kept it up what, 22 years?

JENNIFER MILLS: 22 years. Yeah. Thank you. The weekly paper-- it comes out every Friday. And it started here in Minnesota when I was 16. I was going to the Perpich Arts High School.

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

JENNIFER MILLS: And they--

[CHEERING]

Yay. They let us print whatever we wanted. And I was like, I got to take advantage of these endless printing privileges. So I started a newspaper so that I could use the printer, and it just kept going.

TOM CRANN: Can I just read some of the headlines that just--

JENNIFER MILLS: Oh, I would be honored.

TOM CRANN: --tickled my funny bone here, I will say. "Woman Regrets Party Hat."

JENNIFER MILLS: I did.

TOM CRANN: OK. But you did buy a hat for the 4th of July?

JENNIFER MILLS: Yes.

TOM CRANN: And you regretted it.

JENNIFER MILLS: Yes.

TOM CRANN: So--

JENNIFER MILLS: Too much glitter.

TOM CRANN: "Woman Gets Steamer. I Can't Wait."

JENNIFER MILLS: I steamed this shirt right before I came.

TOM CRANN: But then the next week, "Woman Exchanges New Steamer for Smaller Size." Quote, "IT was too heavy."

JENNIFER MILLS: Hurt my wrist.

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS] And then can I hand this to you and have you read "Poetry Corner"-- one of your "Poetry Corner?" Can you, please? We could do "Twister's Delight," or we could do the-- I love the "Pizza." if I can find it here.

JENNIFER MILLS: Oh, please. You choose. I'd love to know.

TOM CRANN: How about "Pizza?"

JENNIFER MILLS: Great.

TOM CRANN: All right.

JENNIFER MILLS: This is the "Poetry Corner" from the 23rd.

TOM CRANN: Every issue has a "Poetry Corner" of Jennifer Mills News.

JENNIFER MILLS: "Pizza" at the bottom here.

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

JENNIFER MILLS: "Pizza" by Jennifer Mills. Oh, pizza, how I love you? I'll love you my whole life. I love you so much it hurts to cut your slices with a knife.

[LAUGHTER]

TOM CRANN: Jennifer Mills from the Jennifer Mills News.

PETER SAGAL: I feel I should intervene. Thank you, yes. We know how to do it, beatniks. We know how to do it. Snap your fingers. The Jennifer Mills News is actually one of the most delightful things--

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: --I've ever come across. It is an ongoing art project that is 20? Say it again?

JENNIFER MILLS: 22, I think. 22, 23.

PETER SAGAL: 22 years. Every week, just-- Jennifer Mills publishes the Jennifer Mills News about 39-year-old career woman on the go in New York City, and it is the highlight of my week.

JENNIFER MILLS: Peter, thank you.

PETER SAGAL: It's great. Everybody go subscribe.

JENNIFER MILLS: It sounds horrifying the premise is awful, but hopefully, it's not a selfish--

TOM CRANN: No, it is--

PETER SAGAL: Yeah, that's the thing. So you describe it, you're like-- so it's like getting one of those boring Christmas letters, but every week? And you're like--

JENNIFER MILLS: Yeah, because she's sick. I get it.

PETER SAGAL: No, it's amazing.

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: And the suspense, the excitement. Oh, the week that you pried open the painted closed door in your little apartment and found a closet you didn't know about?

JENNIFER MILLS: Oh, that was wild.

PETER SAGAL: That was like-- that was the equivalent of, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor--

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: --in The New York Times. For the Jennifer Mills News, oh-- we followed up on the closet for weeks.

TOM CRANN: What was the headline? Do you remember the headline on that one?

JENNIFER MILLS: "Secret Closet Found."

TOM CRANN: Wow.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah, it was one of those huge banner headlines.

TOM CRANN: There you go. Header, yeah.

PETER SAGAL: It was amazing.

TOM CRANN: How about "Woman Puts Too Much Stuff in Pockets?"

JENNIFER MILLS: Yes. I went on a walk. And my pants started falling down because I had the keys, the phone, and the whole thing.

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS] You should look for it. Jennifer Mills News. Sign up for it. It truly is delightful.

JENNIFER MILLS: JenniferMillsNews.org. Thank you.

TOM CRANN: That's it. JenniferMillsNews.org, trusted journalism since 2002. So do you have a proofreader?

JENNIFER MILLS: No.

TOM CRANN: You're the proofreader. All right. We have another question here. Heidi has a Wait Wait-- Don't Tell Me fan.

HEIDI: Yes. Tell me your name and city, please, and then ask your question.

KATHERINE POINDEXTER: Katherine Poindexter from Minneapolis. I was at the show last night. Wonderful job-- which means I have a question about ducks?

PETER SAGAL: Sure.

KATHERINE POINDEXTER: I'm wondering if you actually know the origin of the Duck Duck, Gray Duck for Minnesota?

TOM CRANN: Oh, yeah.

JENNIFER MILLS: Oh, my gosh. That moment.

PETER SAGAL: So this is what happened. So--

TOM CRANN: Tell us about it. I heard about this. Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: So ducks came up in the context of our show. This is one of the things that we did not plan on. We had written all this material and these jokes, and instead we ended up spending a good-- I think-- would you agree, 50%?

JENNIFER MILLS: So much duck content. Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: Talking about the fact that Bobcat Goldthwait had driven across the country with four ducks, sneaking them into luxury hotels--

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS]

PETER SAGAL: --on the way.

JENNIFER MILLS: Storing them in the bathtub.

PETER SAGAL: It was extraordinary. And so ducks became a topic. And at some point in the show, somebody on stage said, oh, you know, when you play Duck, Duck, Goose. And Minnesotans, normally, a peaceful people-- hard to rile up. Ready to see the other person's side of things because that's just how you were all raised-- stood up in fury and shouted, Duck Duck, Gray Duck.

JENNIFER MILLS: And they started chant-- the whole auditorium-- duck, duck, gray duck, duck-- of chanting. It was glorious.

PETER SAGAL: And our panelists were taken aback.

TOM CRANN: Did they even know what was going on?

PETER SAGAL: They didn't know what was going on. And I intervened, because I remember, I had lived here. And I was married to a Minnesotan, and I knew this. I was like, that's what they call it here. Duck Duck, Gray Duck. And they also call sledding, sliding. I don't know why, but that's what they call it here. But to answer your question, I don't know the origin, so could you enlighten us?

JENNIFER MILLS: So--

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

JENNIFER MILLS: --it used to be a children's game where we would learn the colors by shouting out yellow duck, green duck, blue duck. And then when you say, gray duck, that's when you would chase them around.

PETER SAGAL: See, I didn't know. See, I've learned something new.

JENNIFER MILLS: Even I forgot that. What a beautiful memory.

TOM CRANN: You grew up playing Duck, Duck, Gray Duck?

JENNIFER MILLS: Oh, sure.

[LAUGHTER]

TOM CRANN: I did not know-- I'm here 29 years, and I did not know-- and here is something that you might not Jennifer-- that Peter and I are roughly the same age. I think we're about six months apart.

JENNIFER MILLS: Yeah.

TOM CRANN: Born in the late '70s. And we also grew up about 10 miles from each other.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah.

JENNIFER MILLS: Oh, you guys could've had a little kid podcast.

TOM CRANN: In the state of New Jersey.

PETER SAGAL: In New Jersey. Yeah, if-- oh, we didn't have podcasts then. We hardly had radios back then.

TOM CRANN: The AM. We had John Gambling on WOR.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah, and here's the problem of growing up in New Jersey. And this is why I much prefer talking about my time in Minnesota.

TOM CRANN: There's only one problem? Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: Which is, what have we got like Duck, Duck, Gray Duck. Where's our beautiful local color and our traditions and our charming accents?

JENNIFER MILLS: You guys got a bridge. Come on.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah, we have pizza. And-- you mean, like, the Pulaski skyway?

TOM CRANN: Skyway?

JENNIFER MILLS: Yeah, you got that thing.

PETER SAGAL: Yea. Yeah, that's-- yeah, that's great.

TOM CRANN: We have the Statue of Liberty, which New York has unduly claimed.

PETER SAGAL: But nobody knows that.

TOM CRANN: Nobody knows that. It's actually-- It's over the line in New Jersey. Yeah, yeah. But no one-- Yeah,

PETER SAGAL: And Alexander Hamilton was killed there?

TOM CRANN: Yeah, right? Pizza and bagels. My brother, who's still in New Jersey, says that's it.

PETER SAGAL: We make a lot of paint? Anyway--

TOM CRANN: Yeah, make a lot of paint. A lot of--

PETER SAGAL: So be grateful for what you have, Minnesota. Character.

TOM CRANN: Yeah, it's true. It's true. So it's--

[APPLAUSE]

--an amazing place and an amazing place to be today. We could not have lucked out with better weather for this day at the Minnesota State Fair, which means it'll get a little crowded, as you can see.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah, but it's pretty awesome.

TOM CRANN: Pretty awesome, isn't it? 72 and sunny and low humidity. This is wonderful. We're here with Peter Sagal and Jennifer-- as well, Jennifer Mills of the Jennifer Mills News and Wait Wait-- Don't Tell Me. Pride of Shoreview. your shirt, we should say, for those on the radio, says, I heart Shoreview.

JENNIFER MILLS: We got a great waterslide. You guys got to check it out.

TOM CRANN: Well, you know what else is in Shoreview. The very transmitter. We are reaching listeners in the Twin Cities on.

JENNIFER MILLS: Oh, that's awesome. My parents are also in transmitter-- or, in transmitter. My parents are in Shoreview.

TOM CRANN: No, when you go there-- like, the Target at 69 and-- I don't know if that's officially Shoreview-- and you can't use your clicker on your car because the transmitter gets--

JENNIFER MILLS: Really.

TOM CRANN: It used to. Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: I just want to say, this is the most Minnesotan conversation I've been a part of in years.

TOM CRANN: Really.

PETER SAGAL: Oh, yeah. Shoreview-- you got a transmitter there. The funny thing is, if you go there, you can't use the little remote because the-- oh, that's interesting.

[LAUGHTER]

Oh, yeah. Oh, the weather. The weather is so nice.

JENNIFER MILLS: Oh, Peter, you're fitting right in.

PETER SAGAL: Back in '91, we had that snowstorm on Halloween. Remember that?

JENNIFER MILLS: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: I showed up, by the way--

TOM CRANN: Were you here in--

PETER SAGAL: I showed up in the spring of '92. And literally, every single person I met was like-- hi, I'm Peter. I just moved here. Oh, yeah. You're lucky you came here now because last--

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS]

PETER SAGAL: --Halloween, '91, we got a blizzard. It was something. We got, like, four feet of snow on the 31st. We had to stop trick or treating. My kids were pretty upset about it. Let me tell you.

JENNIFER MILLS: That Halloween ruined my costume. I remember it now.

TOM CRANN: What was your costume?

JENNIFER MILLS: I made a zombie costume with marker and went out for one second, and the snow melted it all. It just melted it.

PETER SAGAL:

TOM CRANN: But here's the thing. Since then, hardly anyone ever talks about it.

PETER SAGAL: No, really?

TOM CRANN: Really. Yeah, right? Has anyone ever mentioned the Halloween blizzard? But anyway, it is a landmark, and it's not a blizzard today. And here's, Peter, what I want to talk to you about is something I found, because you're widely interviewed on YouTube. And usually I don't listen to a lot of interviews before I do it. But I got some ideas. And you were on-- I guess this wasn't an interview. It was a piece you did for the News Hour not long ago.

PETER SAGAL: OK.

TOM CRANN: OK. And you talked about how we can't bear our own thoughts. And that when you run, as you do quite regularly, you don't often listen to podcasts or music in your earbuds, that you want your own thoughts. Tell us more about that, for someone who works in audio.

PETER SAGAL: So first of all, I have this other existence. In addition to being a public radio guy, I'm also-- I became a sort of bizarre, minor athletic celebrity as a midlife crisis marathoner. I don't know how it happened, but it did.

TOM CRANN: And how many now? 15, 16?

PETER SAGAL: I've run 16 marathons, including the Twin Cities marathon, 2013.

TOM CRANN: Wow. OK.

PETER SAGAL: And one of the things I love about the Twin Cities marathon is every marathon you sign up for, you get a shirt as part of your entry fee. Only in Minnesota-- only in the Twin Cities do they make you finish the race before they give it to you.

TOM CRANN: Oh, there you go, yeah. We're not giving these free shirts out. Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: Oh, yeah, this is Minnesota. Yeah, you know. You got to earn it.

TOM CRANN: Yeah.

[LAUGHTER]

PETER SAGAL: So beautiful race, by the way. Alan Page playing his trombone. It's just an amazing thing. I'd recommend it. At any rate, I ended up writing a book about running, The Incomplete Book of Running, available still in your bookstores. It's not too early to think about your holiday gift giving. And one of the things I feel very strongly about is you should run, and other things, if you're not a runner, without headphones, even though I fail because there's so many things I've got to keep track of.

And the reason is all of us spend almost all day in our lives pumping other people's thoughts into our brains. Everybody listening to me right now, quite literally, is doing that. And I do it, too. This is not judgment, by the way.

TOM CRANN: No. And we do-- you do this for a living.

PETER SAGAL: I'm one of those people who, if I have to walk, like, two flights of stairs, I'll bring my phone so I'm not bored during it.

TOM CRANN: [LAUGHS]

PETER SAGAL: It's bad. I'm not proud of this. So I think it's really important, even though it seems terrifying, to actually think, to let your mind go and see what happens. And at first, you're like, oh, my god. I'm so bored. I can't believe this. There's nothing going on. I'm not hearing anything. I'm not watching anything. Oh, my god. Oh, my god.

And then all of a sudden, these thoughts that you haven't had in a while, your opinions about things, your memories of other things will come out. And I highly recommend it. You're an interesting person. Spend some time with yourself, you know? Because--

[CHEERING]

--trust me, you're fascinating. You're entertaining. The things that you remember, the things that you think, the conclusions that you draw will surprise you as long as you let them happen. There's an old Kurt Vonnegut story called-- I think it's called "Harrison Bergeron" about a dystopian future where this horrible, fascist regime tries to make everybody equal.

And the smart people have a handicap. Like, strong people have to carry around weights so they're no stronger than anybody else. The smart people have headphones that blare noises at them at random intervals to keep them from ever having a coherent thought, to make them as dumb as the rest of us. Kurt Vonnegut never imagined we would do that to ourselves voluntarily.

TOM CRANN: We're living in that time.

PETER SAGAL: Now we're living in that world. So yes, highly recommend it, unless, of course, it's my show. You are always allowed to listen to my show under any circumstances.

JENNIFER MILLS: Peter, our show.

PETER SAGAL: Excuse me. Yes.

[CHEERING]

You're right. I apologize.

TOM CRANN: Here's one thing I noticed maybe-- I don't know-- 10 or 12 years ago. A friend of mine who listens religiously to your show came over and had earbuds in and was listening to it, but it was not when we broadcast it-- Saturdays at noon, Sundays at 1:00. And then he said, no, I never listen on the air. And he's my age. He said, I never listen on the air. I listen always to the podcast.

And that's when a light bulb went off for me. This is changing. This world is changing. What would you say or what do you know about how many people listen to you on demand, versus broadcast live-- or, quote, "live?"

JENNIFER MILLS: I don't know the breakdown. But I think, in general, we have, like, five million listeners a week of our episodes.

PETER SAGAL: Yeah, that sounds-- that's basically what I say, so I hope it's true.

JENNIFER MILLS: Peter, I'm so proud of you. That's so many listeners.

PETER SAGAL: Yes, I'm proud of you. It's your show, too, Jennifer.

JENNIFER MILLS: [LAUGHS]

TOM CRANN: But you don't know how many of those are on demand and how many are broadcast?

PETER SAGAL: Since the rise of podcasts, as you can imagine, the ratio has been changing as more and more people listen on podcasts because you can listen whenever you want, and that's how people listen to audio now. But what's really great is I think for a lot of people, they still listen on the radio because it's become part of a family ritual.

People tell me this all the time, that, oh, yeah-- especially when they're talking about when they were kids. Oh, yeah, my father and I-- he would take me to soccer practice, and we'd always make sure to leave by this. Time so we could listen to your show on the way. And again, I love that. I love that people make time to listen to our show with family members, with friends. That makes me, again, very happy that we can play that role in people's lives.

TOM CRANN: And you've been on the show long enough that you are probably meeting people who listened with their parents.

PETER SAGAL: Those people-- like, grown women come up to me and say, when I was a little girl, my father and I-- our big thing together was to listen to your show going to soccer practice or going to whatever. Here's my dad. It's his 60th birthday. I took him here to see it together. And you just--

JENNIFER MILLS: I love that.

PETER SAGAL: It's just the best. I just-- I love, having children myself, the idea that it's some way for parents to bond with their children and vice versa. Having had teenage daughters, it's some way for dads and daughters to avoid the extraordinarily awkward experience of trying to talk to each other. That's all good, and I'm glad we play that role.

TOM CRANN: We have just about a minute, 30 seconds. Do we have time for one more? Can we get a quick question before the end here?

HEIDI: Yep, I got a question.

TOM CRANN: Yes, ask one. Yeah.

HEIDI: Can you say your name and where you're from?

TOM CRANN: Quickly. Yeah.

KATIE LARSON: I'm Katie Larson from Burnsville. I was wondering if you still did Sandwich Mondays, which I know has been gone for a long time, what, at the Minnesota State Fair, would you want to review?

PETER SAGAL: Oh, my god.

JENNIFER MILLS: It's coming back. And actually, right after this, with you guys, Peter's going to try the deep-fried ranch, so that'll be on social media.

PETER SAGAL: Very briefly, we had this thing-- we had this thing. Somebody-- we got a-- I think it was, like, the Kentucky Fried thing, the Double Down where they had the sandwich where the pieces of bread were chicken. They said, would you like one? And we said, yes, we would. And our producer Ian Chillag said-- and he called it Sandwich Monday, and we just started eating really weird foods every Monday--

TOM CRANN: And you'd review them online.

PETER SAGAL: --and then riffing on them, reviewing them online. And it was awesome. And then one day, Ian said, yeah, I don't want to do it anymore.

TOM CRANN: OK, well--

PETER SAGAL: So it was lost because no one else is as good as he is at doing things like that. But we're bringing it back--

JENNIFER MILLS: Yeah.

PETER SAGAL: --due to popular demand.

TOM CRANN: Well, excellent. We want to thank you for that question, getting it in that quickly. Look-- and we're just down to about 8 seconds. Peter Sagal, Jennifer Mills, thank you very much, from Wait Wait-- Don't Tell Me.

PETER SAGAL: Thank you. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, everybody, for coming out.

[CHEERING]

ANNOUNCER: Support comes from M Health Fairview, whose Ridges, Southdale, and University of Minnesota Medical Center hospitals were named as three of the top 10 hospitals in the state by US News and World Report. MHealthFairview.org. Programming is supported by the law firm of Schwebel, Goetz, and Sieben, serving Minnesotans for 50 years by helping individuals and families whose lives have been devastated by accidents resulting in injury or death. More at Schwebel.com.