In the past three years, I have had the opportunity to go to three live tapings of Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!, one in Seattle and two in Portland, my fair city. Since, I can never go to too many Wait Wait live tapings, I knew I had to head back up to Seattle when they announced that they were coming back to do two shows. As I was trying to find a way to make sure that I could queue up to purchase tickets the moment they went on sale to the general public, the awesome gang at Wait Wait said that they would hook me up with tickets to both shows. To say that I was ecstatic would be a significant understatement. At that point, I immediately booked my hotel room and submitted my request for time off from work and started the two month wait.
Fast forward to this past week, I made the trek up to Seattle, made a quick stop to drop my stuff off at the hotel and moseyed my way down to the Moore Theatre. After picking up my tickets, I anxiously waited for the doors to open down to the main floor. While waiting, I pulled out my not-so-little steno and started prepping it to take notes during the taping. At that time, I only knew that Luke Burbank would be on the panel and that Greta Gerwig would be the Not My Job guest. Once the doors opened, I made my way down to my seat, which was a pretty darn good aisle seat in the center section and found out that Negin Farsad and Hari Kondabolu would be two other panelists.
Back in August 12, 2006 when Luke filled in for Peter Sagal for three shows, the tradition of the audience chanting “Luuuuuuke!” started when he is introduced or mentioned during the taping. The tradition continues today, though varies depending on the size of the crowd and the location of the taping. Since this show was taped in Luke’s home turf of Seattle, it was quite pronounced. Of course, there are always a portion of the audience that think people are booing Luke rather than chanting his name.
Overall, the show had a lot of funny moments created by the various jokes that Peter and/or the panelists make regarding the questions that were asked to the listener contestants and to the Not My Job guest. For the Lightning Fill-in-the-Blank round, Hari ended up getting the short straw when it came to the starting order; as, the questions that he was asked were some of the more tough questions out of the pool asked. Hari was only able to correctly answer one of the eight questions. More on this later on.
