Ask Me Another : About
Airs Saturdays at 3pm on 93.9 FM and Saturdays at noon on AM 820
Puzzlemaster Will Shortz and Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! host Peter Sagal walk into a bar... No, it's not the start of a joke. It's the essence of Ask Me Another, a rambunctious hour that blends brainteasers and local pub trivia night with comedy and music. Host Ophira Eisenberg invites in-studio guests and listeners alike to stretch their noggins, tickle their funny bones, and enjoy witty banter and guitar riffs from house musician Jonathan Coulton.
For an hour, listeners can play along as Eisenberg puts questions to a rotating band of puzzle gurus, audience members and special mystery guests, who then takes a turn in the contestant's chair facing trivia games written especially for him or her. What you'll hear resembles the casual intimacy of game night at a friend's house: one where scores are forgotten in favor of hilarious gaffes.
The puzzle gurus behind Ask Me Another include John Chaneski, who devised tough questions and answers for "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" before becoming one of the "puzzle guys" on the radio program "A Way With Words"; Art Chung who has written for and produced television game shows including "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?," "Cash Cab," "The World Series of Pop Culture," and "Stump the Schwab"; and actor/writer Will Hines who has performed and taught improvisational comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre for years, and obsessively reads books on compiling baseball statistics, a task he will never have to do.
Ask Me Another is recorded live at The Bell House in Brooklyn, NY.
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http://www.npr.org/programs/ask-me-another/
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Ophira Eisenberg
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Latest Stories from Ask Me Another
Last updated: Thursday, June 20 2013 09:33 AM
(R) 208: He Blinded Me With Science
Friday, June 14 2013 03:30 PM
(Rebroadcast) Science takes center stage this week as we play games about scientific discoveries both intentional and accidental. We'll get brainy with our Very Important Puzzler, host of WNYC's Radiolab Jad Abumrad, as he talks about his quest to become a science vampire. Plus, we roll the dice on clues about our favorite board games and find out the premises of fake TV show adaptations, from Finding Emo to Oy! Story.
215: Lizz Free Or Die
Friday, June 07 2013 01:47 PM
Word nerds, unite! This week’s show will whet your appetite for wordplay with a game that mashes up famous names and food items into portmanteaus. Our Very Important Puzzler, comedian and co-creator of The Daily Show Lizz Winstead, is a bonafide game fanatic who shares the definitions of her own, made-up vocabulary. Plus, get tongue-tied in Italian and find out which of your friends have “aptronyms” for names. It may even be you.
214: Hook, Line And Thinker
Friday, May 31 2013 01:33 PM
You can always count on Ask Me Another to cover a wide range of useful knowledge. In this episode, learn the middle names of former Presidents while solving famous murder mysteries from the movies. And this week's Very Important Puzzler, author Dan Kennedy, will teach you about his eclectic interests, including trout fishing, fighting forest fires and blurring the lines between fiction writing and real life.
(R) 204: So A Girl Walks Into A Bar...
Friday, May 24 2013 01:43 PM
(Rebroadcast) This week's versatile V.I.P., Rosie Schaap, has had spells as an author, an ordained minister, a fortuneteller, and a bartender — which serves her well during a delectable drinking game. And with quizzes covering highfalutin children's literature, crossbred celebrities and a geologist's favorite Queen song, this week's contestants show a little versatility, too.
AMA Favorites 002: The "Ophira Plays Favorites" Edition
Friday, May 17 2013 01:43 PM
This week, Ask Me Another leaves the decision making up to host Ophira Eisenberg, as we revisit some of her favorite games from the past two seasons. Ophira's motto: the weirder, the better. We'll analyze literary classics and bestsellers based on one-star Amazon reviews, flip through the pages of etiquette manuals published in the early 1960s, and even attempt the impossible: play Pictionary...on the radio! Plus: a tribute to a Billy Joel classic, reading advertising slogans like Valley Girls, and a quiz all about Starchild, Demon, Space Ace, and Catman — otherwise known as the rock band KISS. It's a trip down Ophira's memory lane — no flashback sequence necessary.
213: Frankly, We Heart Boston
Friday, May 10 2013 02:33 PM
For our first-ever show on the road, we chose a city near and dear to our hearts: Boston. In this rousing hour, taped live at the Wilbur Theatre, we poke a little 'pun' at the local accent, imagine famous songs as if they had been written about Boston neighborhoods, and sing everyone's favorite Fenway Park anthem. Plus, we step up our own game, bringing you three guests and hometown heroes: film critic Wesley Morris, young adult author Lois Lowry, and the wit of Capitol Hill, former Congressman Barney Frank. We have to hand it to Bostonians—they are not ones to shy away from the puzzle hot seat.
212: The Human Guinea Pig
Friday, May 03 2013 01:03 PM
This week, go grocery shopping with celebrities, learn to pronounce some really long German words, and have a little 'pun' with animal noises. Plus, find out about one man's quests to read the encyclopedia from A to Z, live his life according to the Bible, and achieve bodily perfection—author of The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically, A.J. Jacobs. How do you quiz the V.I.P. who knows everything?
203 (R): Send In The Clowns
Friday, April 26 2013 02:43 PM
(Rebroadcast): Ever wanted to run away with the circus? This week’s show might be the next best thing, as Seth Bloom and Christina Gelsone, The Big Apple Circus’ husband-and-wife team of globetrotting masked comedy masters, pay a visit. Plus, we’ll follow a famous clown around the world, give some military officers a word game salute, and find out there’s nothing original left in Hollywood.
211: Always Bet On Black
Friday, April 19 2013 01:03 PM
This week, test your trivia prowess in games about celebrities who share the same name, tech companies that sound like Star Wars planets, and musicians whose names sound delicious. Plus our Very Important Puzzler, comedian, actor and author Michael Ian Black, reveals how becoming a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle launched his career. Hear him break out his best Valley Girl accent in the game "Just Do It?," and since he's a poker enthusiast, we up the ante with a card-themed quiz.
210: Meme Me Up, Scotty
Friday, April 12 2013 01:53 PM
On the Internet, you have limitless opportunities. You can leave scathing reviews of literary classics on a public forum. You can make a video of a cat doing a silly dance or falling down...and your work can entertain millions of people. Or, you can order many, many Jonathan Coulton CDs. This week's V.I.P., Mike Rugnetta, is the host of the PBS web series Idea Channel, and he has a few ideas of his own about the intersection of technology, philosophy, art and culture. We put him to the test to see exactly how well he knows his Internet memes. Plus, we attempt the unthinkable: Pictionary on the radio. Can it be done? Tune in to find out.
(R) 201: Fifty Shades Of Dr. Ruth
Friday, April 05 2013 01:33 PM
(Rebroadcast) This week, we revisit the 20th century with Billy Joel, write novels the Robert Ludlum way, and catch words with a subtle silent "t". Plus, we talk "Fifty Shades of Grey" with our V.I.P. (that's "Very Important Puzzler"), superstar sex doctor Dr. Ruth Westheimer.
209: Chess For Success
Friday, March 29 2013 05:23 PM
The "Frankenstein-Dracula," the "King's Indian" and the "Fried Liver" are all famous ways to do what? As this week's V.I.P., International Grandmaster of chess Maurice Ashley, knows, they're all strategies to begin a chess match. In this episode, Ashley divulges his own chess-playing strategy that combines Zen-like meditation with CIA-like mind games. Plus: anagrams for foodies, cartoon characters with speech impediments, and gender-bending pop songs. Ready to play? Check and mate.
AMA Favorites 001: Lights! Camera! Answers?
Friday, March 22 2013 01:23 PM
This week, Ask Me Another goes celluloid by revisiting some favorite movie games from the past two seasons. We'll mash up plots, contemplate why some films have such ridiculous titles, and even get a little Randy. That's right: did you know that any movie can be Randy Newman-ized with a jaunty tune? Plus: overseas American films get lost in translation, and monsters and villains attempt online dating. Celebrate your inner cinephile, you connoisseurs of IMDB. We're bringing the lights, camera and action to the radio. (This episode contains previously-aired material.)
208: He Blinded Me With Science
Friday, March 15 2013 01:03 PM
Science takes center stage this week as we play games about scientific discoveries both intentional and accidental. We'll get brainy with our Very Important Puzzler, Radiolab host Jad Abumrad, as he talks about his quest to become a science vampire. Plus, we roll the dice on clues about our favorite board games and find out the premises of fake TV show adaptations, from Finding Emo to Oy! Story.
(R) 112: The Puzzle Master Takes On The Puzzle Grasshopper
Friday, March 08 2013 02:43 PM
(Rebroadcast) What famous fantasy novel follows a group of rabbits in search of laundry detergent? How about Watership Downy? This week on NPR's hour of puzzles, word games, and trivia: famous works of art and literature are slapped with product placement, we honor "Weird Al" Yankovic's timeless tunes, and one of Ask Me Another's own puzzle gurus challenges the puzzle world master, Will Shortz, in an anagram showdown for the ages.
207: Special Pundits Unit
Friday, March 01 2013 02:03 PM
In the Ask Me Another justice system, contestants are quizzed by two separate yet equally important groups: the puzzle gurus, who investigate pop culture and word oddities, and the score keepers, who prosecute the answers. This week, hear their stories as we test our V.I.P., political pundit Keli Goff, on her favorite series, Law & Order. Plus, celebrate history's greatest thinkers, from Confucius to Carly Rae Jepsen.
206: The Guttenberg Bible
Friday, February 22 2013 02:33 PM
You may know this week's V.I.P. (Very Important Puzzler) Steve Guttenberg from such iconic films as Diner, Cocoon, and Three Men and a Baby. But he wears plenty of other hats: author, reality show contestant, even Guinness World Record holder. In this episode we'll explore all things Gute. Plus, we'll dine out on some soft rock, give movies the Randy Newman treatment, and find out that Mark Twain isn't all he's cracked up to be.
(R) 113: How To Be Black
Friday, February 15 2013 05:03 PM
(Rebroadcast) If you love playing around with palindromes, quoting Downton Abbey's Dowager Countess, and spotting factual errors in the news (Editor's note: "What factual errors?"), then this episode will make you so happy, you'll want to clap your hands. Plus, this week's hilarious V.I.P., Baratunde Thurston, has some advice for the Area Man or Woman in all of us.
205: Sharpen Your Wits (And Your Pencils)
Friday, February 08 2013 04:23 PM
"Shake it like a polar bear ninja!" If you suspect that these are not the correct lyrics to Outkast's "Hey Ya!", then this week's game of mondegreens (misheard lyrics) is for you. We'll also visit the world of late-night infomercials, learn how to tell the difference between Michael Caine and Anthony Hopkins, and root for our favorite gluttonous, envious, lustful basketball team: the Phoenix Sins. Plus, V.I.P. David Rees teaches us how to sharpen pencils the artisanal way.
204: So A Girl Walks Into A Bar...
Friday, February 01 2013 02:33 PM
This week's versatile V.I.P., Rosie Schaap, has had spells as an author, an ordained minister, a fortuneteller, and a bartender — which serves her well during a delectable drinking game. And with quizzes covering highfalutin children's literature, crossbred celebrities and a geologist's favorite Queen song, this week's contestants show a little versatility, too.
About Ask Me Another
Ask Me Another is a rambunctious hour that blends brainteasers and local pub trivia night with comedy and music. Host Ophira Eisenberg invites in-studio guests and listeners alike to stretch their noggins, tickle their funny bones, and enjoy witty banter and guitar riffs from house musician Jonathan Coulton.
Hosted by Ophira Eisenberg
Show Archive
Show Archive