Though there are some deviations from time to time, episodes of ''Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!'' feature the following format:
Opening tease As with other NPR programs,
Wait Wait offers a one-minute top-of-hour billboard teasing the program that will follow the network's hourly newscast (which traditionally starts at one minute past the hour). In this minute, the host offers a humorous comment on the week's news, mentions the identity of the week's interview guest, and sets up an out-of-context reading by the announcer of a quote or game title from the episode.
Who's Bill This Time? The contestant is asked to identify the speaker or explain the context of three quotations from that week's major news stories as read by the announcer (usually Bill Kurtis). Each answer is followed by a humorous discussion of the story by the host and the panelists. Two correct answers constitute a win for the contestant. Before Kasell's retirement, the segment was known as "Who's Carl This Time?" and he read the quotations. Whenever Kurtis is absent, his first name is replaced by that of the person filling in for him in the game's name.
Panel questions In two separate segments each week, the host asks the panelists questions regarding less serious stories in the week's news, awarding them one point for each correct answer. The questions are phrased similarly to those featured on
The Match Game or
Hollywood Squares to allow the panelists to offer a comedic answer in addition to their real guess as well as a hint from the host if needed. A discussion of the story often follows the answer.
Bluff the Listener Each panelist reads an unusual story, all sharing a common theme. Only one of the three stories is genuine; the contestant wins the prize by choosing it. A sound bite from a person connected to the authentic story is played to reveal whether the contestant's guess is correct. Regardless of the outcome, the panelist whose story is chosen scores one point.
Not My Job A celebrity guest calls in (or occasionally appears onstage) to be interviewed by the host and the panelists as well as take a three-question multiple-choice quiz. In
Wait Waits early years, "Not My Job" guests were mainly pulled from NPR's roster of personalities and reporters; the pool of guests later expanded to include guests of greater celebrity. When the show tapes live on the road, the NMJ guest is often someone of local celebrity, as is the chosen listener. As the segment's title suggests, the guests are quizzed on topics that are not normally associated with their field of work. For example, former U.S. Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright was asked questions on the history of
Hugh Hefner and
Playboy magazine, while author
Salman Rushdie was asked about the history of
Pez candy. Often, the subject matter of the quizzes serve as an oblique yet comic juxtaposition to the guests' fields of work, such as when
Mad Men creator/producer
Matthew Weiner was quizzed on ways people try to cheer others up ("Glad Men") in a March 2015 appearance.
Listener Limerick Challenge Kurtis (or the announcer) reads three
limericks connected to unusual news stories, leaving out the last word or phrase of each. The contestant wins the prize by correctly completing any two of them. Philipp Goedicke writes the limericks.
Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank In the Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank, each panelist has to answer as many questions as they can in 60 seconds with each correct answer earning the panelist 2 points. At the end there is a question whose answer gets an expanded clarification by Peter or whoever is guest hosting; this question usually deals with an especially odd or obscure news story from the week.
Panelist Predictions Each panelist is asked to give their prediction of a story that may appear in the following week's news, often being prompted with a question that relates to a previously mentioned story. Sagal (or the week's host) does not award points, but quips that if any of the stories are correctly predicted, they will be asked about it on the following episode, which signals the end of the show. == Television ==