Every year SF
Sketchfest brings the latest and greatest in comedy acts to San Francisco for
three weeks all over the city. I checked the schedule to see which acts I would
be interested in and discovered the live taping of an NPR show I had not heard
of. Since I listen to Wait Wait Don’t
Tell Me the NPR News Quiz often, I was curious of what would go down at the
Casto Theater on a Wednesday night for a show a friend described to me as a
puzzle game show with musical accompaniment from Jonathan Coulton. I am happy
to report that my ticket to a floor seat in the auditorium was well spent.
Ask Me Another is a quiz show that
focuses on brain teasers with celebrity guests. Host Oprah Eisenberg pits
contestants to figure out word games like creating a new word by adding the @
symbol – the hints were both words, and I could not figure out most of them.
Coulton oversaw a musical quiz of the 1980s with hints set to parts of a
certain Huey Lewis and the News hit. Special guests included Mythbusters host Adam Savage, who talked
about learning how to crack a whip before quizzing contestants on which myths
were busted on his show, and Danny Pudi, an actor from the show Community who blew kisses to the Polish
women in the audience before playing a game about action movie one-liners. The
radio program closes with the winners of previous sections of the show
answering rapidly with the threat of elimination if the next person in line can
respond correctly. This time the Jeopardy-themed final had answers all
involving cosmic entities, and I suppressed my desire to blurt out the final
answer that reminded me of the time I watched space station footage on my local
television set.
The live taping
provided some more entertainment in the interactions with the hosts and guests
you could not tell on radio. Eisenberg warmed up the audience with a comedy
routine mentioning her husband’s unsuccessful attempt to hide his browsing
history from her, and Coulton sang a song about IKEA before the program
started. During an intermission I got to shake Coulton’s hand, regretting that
I had no physical album to bring to sign, and I took a picture of New York
Times technology columnist Farhad Manjoo, the first guest and contestant on the
show that night. Danny Pudi in addition to blowing kisses dig a little jig on
stage, and Eisenberg needed a few tries to rerecord a line about just needing a
landline to participate in the show. It was great watching the radio show crew
without needing to fly to New York to see one of their regular shows.
The NPR program Ask Me Another is an excellent variety
show with puzzles, celebrity guests, and musical accompaniment. It is available
to download in podcast form, so I look forward to hearing what they actually
will air next month. By then I should be through with the backlog of the other
NPR quiz show I listen to on long commutes.
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