Throwback Thursday: Winning Carl Kasell’s Message on Wait Wait 5 Years Ago Today

It all started over seven years ago when I sent in an e-mail to Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! asking if I could be a listener contestant and that it would make for an awesome birthday present and added a small note about my Wait Wait Stats Page. I later found out that I was selected to be the listener contestant for the Not My Job round when Monica Seles was on as the guest back in 2009. Unfortunately, she kind of goose egged and I didn’t get to win Carl Kasell’s voicemail message. Fast forwarding to April 2011, I got a call from one of the Wait Wait producers who asked me I wanted to be a listener contestant on the coming week’s taping. The producer kind of felt bad about the whole Monica Seles not scoring well on the game. So, I …

Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me! at the Warner Theatre

On Thursday, May 15th, NPR and WBEZ held a very special live taping of Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! at the Warner Theatre in Washington, DC. The live taping marks Carl Kasell’s final show as the the official judge and scorekeeper of Wait Wait. With huge thanks to Ian Chillag and the Wait Wait team, they had set aside two tickets to the show for me. Originally, a friend of mine that works for a certain automaker with US headquarters around Herndon, VA with a logo that contains a set of four rings, was going to go with me. Unfortunately, work beckoned and he was not able to attend. So, I put the call out to DC Tens fans (for those that don’t know: Tens are fans of a certain podcast called “Too Beautiful To Live”, hosted by a certain Wait Wait guest host …

Wait Wait Stats Page Version 3.1 is Now Live

I have been working on a couple of changes and new features for the Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! Stats Page over the past weeks and decided to publish the changes the weekend that Carl Kasell’s farewell show airs. Now that that day has arrived, I have finished making last minute changes and pushed out the new version. The first change to the Stats Page now includes Carl Kasell’s new title, SE for Scorekeeper Emeritus, included after his name on the Stats Page. Once an official announcement has been made on the long-term replacement for Carl, I will make the necessary code changes to reflect that. The new feature that I have added to the Stats Page is the addition of a new graph for each of the panelists. The existing graph displays a scoring breakdown for each panelist (if the panelist has any scoring …

Carl Kasell to retire from Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! this Spring

The news that Carl Kasell will be hanging up his Wait Wait scorekeeper’s hat this Spring hit me like a brick wall. Carl has been the scorekeeper and the magical voice of all of the winning listener contestant’s voice mail greetings ever since the show started over 16 years ago. I have had the honor to have met and chatted with Carl Kasell twice, once when Wait Wait was in Portland back in September 2011 and again in Chicago back in July 2012. In addition to getting to meet Carl Kasell twice, I also won a message recorded by Carl when I was on the show as a listener contestant. I really hope to have the chance to attend one of the celebration shows, either in Chicago or in Washington DC, to say thank you and salute Carl.

The voice of Carl Kasell has arrived

When I got home tonight, I saw a package that was addressed from Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! and Chicago Public Radio in the pile of today’s mail. Within the package was a CD with an audio track containing the greeting that I requested Carl to record for me. Below is the picture of the CD that I received:   The following is the text of the greeting that I requested: Good day, I am Carl Kasell and you have reached the mailbox for Linh Pham. Linh is probably too busy geeking out or is out somewhere making a fool of himself. Just joking, okay maybe not. Please leave a message after the beep. Simple and reflects my quirky and ackward mannerisms :) Thank you, Carl, for recording the greeting!