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Emma Choi (3:37)

Hey, it's Emma Choi, visual host at Wait Wait here with Peter Sagal. Hey, Peter.

Peter Sagal (3:42)

Hello, Emma. How are you?

Emma Choi (3:44)

I'm good. I'm excited because we're here for another Peter ama Ask Me Anything.

Peter Sagal (3:49)

Yes, not Peter American Medical association, which I thought was the first time we did it and I was excited for my late mother. But anyway, we've got it all cleared out. It's Ask Me Anything. So that would be me, the me referenced. So let's go.

Emma Choi (4:02)

Okay. So we asked you, our listeners, for your questions for Peter about anything, and we got a ton of them. Thanks to everyone who left a voicemail or submitted a question through Instagram. Some of them are about the show, some are personal, and some of them are just kind of fun and weird.

Peter Sagal (4:16)

But it's gonna be great fun and weird. Okay, let's do it.

Emma Choi (4:20)

So in no particular order, this is the first one. This question came through Instagram from PollyPocketKid. Question is, if you had to listen to one song only for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Peter Sagal (4:32)

Wow. What's funny is that that is almost literally true right now because my 3 year old, almost 3 year old, loves Wheels on the Bus.

Emma Choi (4:43)

That's a classic.

Peter Sagal (4:44)

It is a classic. And it's gotten to the point where he's very musical. He loves music of all kinds and he likes to go to music class. And I'm always saying to him, hey, let's listen to some music. And I'm putting on all kinds of music, hoping that he'll bounce and he'll yell, no, Wheels on the Bus. So I can say that I am both living that dream nightmare and that the answer to the question is anything from Wheels on the Bus. I don't know. I've never thought about that. I have like a lot of favorite songs that I love, some famous, some obscure, but I can't imagine having to only listen to one for the rest of my life.

Emma Choi (5:18)

It doesn't have to be the song, Peter, Just a song. What's a song?

Peter Sagal (5:22)

A song you wouldn't like a song. Here's a song that I love that not many people know about. So I'm just gonna say it so people go listen to it. Even though I think that if I listen to it all the time, I would get sick of it. Yeah. It's called A Little Bit of Everything by the band Dawes Dawn D A W E S. Can I say one more thing? And I say, yeah, sure. Like the song that right now I cannot get enough of. Like, literally, like, if it comes on, I will stop and listen to the whole thing. And often end up with tears in my eyes. You ready for this? Golden from K Pop Demon Hunters.

Emma Choi (5:52)

Everyone loves that song.

Peter Sagal (5:53)

It's a great song.

Emma Choi (5:55)

It is, like, that's great.

Peter Sagal (5:56)

To me, it's like the defying gravity of 2025. It is like a song for all the nerds and losers. Like, I. Let's just say was. And I just think it's great.

Emma Choi (6:06)

Well, I'm so happy for you, Peter.

Peter Sagal (6:08)

Thank you.

Sponsor Announcer (6:09)

Thank you.

Emma Choi (6:09)

We can put that as a joint. A joint choice.

Peter Sagal (6:11)

It's a good choice.

Emma Choi (6:12)

Okay, next question. Okay.

Peter Sagal (6:13)

Yes.

Emma Choi (6:14)

This question comes from Brooke Glassclow. And the question is, which guest has surprised you in the most, good or bad way?

Peter Sagal (6:22)

One of the great things about what we do, and Emma, you should know this as well as anybody, because you help us do it, is when we get something surprising. We always want to get something surprising from our guests. And sometimes that's as simple as hearing them express something about themselves that you didn't expect. I love it when very serious people show up and have a sense of humor. That makes me really happy because, you know, it's nice to know that I'm trying to think of, like, the most surprising thing that anybody has. Oh, I have to think of something, Emma, that you were absolutely key to, which was when? Not so much when they surprised us, but when we surprised them. And that's when we had rza. If I'm not mistaken, it was rza.

Emma Choi (7:10)

Oh, I knew you were gonna say rza.

Peter Sagal (7:11)

This was truly one of the great moments in our history. And I think, if I may be so bold in Emma's career, when we had RZA from Wu Tang Clan, you know, musical genius, right? And we were asking him about the usual things you might talk to RZA about. We've as Staten island and hip hop and so on. And so forth. And I said to him, we heard. I mean, you are into so many things and so good at many of them, but we did hear you have an, I will say, an unexpected enthusiasm. Tell me if it's true for hgtv.

Emma Choi (7:39)

Yeah.

Peter Sagal (7:39)

Who told you that? I have a very talented producer whose job it is to research our guests. And until this very moment, I thought she was pranking me.

Sponsor Announcer (7:50)

No, that's.

Peter Sagal (7:51)

That's, that's. That's like me and my wife favorite pastime. Yo. And I. I love it when, like, they. They say something about themselves that nobody knew because they didn't know that anybody else knew it. And that always makes me laugh.

Emma Choi (8:05)

It's so weird because it was on People's Magazine. 10 Things yous Don't Know. That's my favorite source when I'm doing guest research. It was on People magazine and I heard that I'm like, rza. You've said this before.

Peter Sagal (8:15)

I have a feeling. I have a feeling that when you're talking, when you're like somebody like rza, who's as famous as he is and has been for as long as he been. He's kind of forgotten what he's confessed, which nonetheless makes it just as delightful when we get him to confess it again.

Emma Choi (8:29)

Next question. This one's from Edwin McGovern. What do you feel has changed the most about the show over the years?

Peter Sagal (8:35)

Thankfully, not me. Well, although I have in my own way.

Emma Choi (8:39)

No, you've grown.

Peter Sagal (8:40)

I've grown. I think I've grown. I've matured. The way it's changed, quite seriously, is the fact that we have wonderful newer people on the show, including yourself, Emma, who I can never get over, is actually younger than the show, which.

Emma Choi (8:58)

Only a year.

Peter Sagal (8:59)

I know. Only a year, but still. And as well as other producers on the show and panelists on the show who are so great at knowing things and seeing things and saying things that I simply can't know or see or say. And I honestly believe that if this show was just me, God forbid, it would have faded away long ago because, you know, I've only got so many things to say. But having these people come in, especially thanks to, you know, the producers, group of guests, and our producer, Jennifer Mills, who's always looking for new talent for our panel. You know, it is great. It is a wonderful feeling for me when I'm on stage to look to my left and see some amazing, new, talented person who I don't know well yet, but I can be confident that is going to be Surprising and weird and funny. And I am usually just as delighted and surprised by them as we hope our audience is. So that's the thing that's changed, is I think we've expanded without any dis to our OG panelists, many of whom still are on the show, like Tom Beaudet, the week we're speaking. It's always great to hear from these new people who are generally awesome.

Emma Choi (10:13)

Yeah, I think so, too. That's nice. All right, next question. Here's a question from Ashley. Vdl. What hobby or sport did you try but fail miserably at?

Peter Sagal (10:25)

Oh, God, we don't have enough time.

Emma Choi (10:27)

I know. I was gonna say you told me.

Peter Sagal (10:29)

Some of these stories because I am. What's the word? Both athletically and artistically limited. And also I have terrible adhd. So I will get very enthusiastic about something for a little while and then just, like, immediately give it up. My garage is filled with sports equipment for stuff I didn't pursue, and, gosh, things that I have tried over the years but gave up on. I was a bread baker for a while. I haven't done that in a long time.

Sponsor Announcer (10:58)

I know that.

Peter Sagal (10:58)

Yeah.

Emma Choi (10:59)

Was that during the pandemic?

Peter Sagal (11:00)

No, actually, I was a bread baker long before the pandemic. I was already failed at that by the time the pandemic came around. I've tried surfing, I've tried soccer. I've tried golf. God help me. And none of those things have stuck.

Emma Choi (11:13)

Running, stuck, running, stuck.

Peter Sagal (11:14)

And it's interesting to me, out of all the things I've tried in my whole life, especially in terms of athletics, which I was never very good at, the one thing I've been consistent at is running. And I'm not quite sure why. I think it's because maybe there's a phrase actually, which I use in the book I wrote about running, which is, those who can't play sports, run. Those who can't run, run long. And that's basically it. It's the great athletic pursuit for people with no athletic talent.

Emma Choi (11:41)

Yeah, I think that's true.

Peter Sagal (11:42)

One of the other great things about running is you don't have to apply yourself mentally, which I might have also said I have difficulty with. So you just get up and go, okay.

Emma Choi (11:51)

Well, speaking of running, this question came through Instagram, through Megan Saves the Day. When you run, do you listen to music, podcasts, or adjust your thoughts and don't say, wait, wait, don't tell me.

Peter Sagal (12:04)

In the book I wrote about running, I will reference it again. I write rather passionately that I Think people should not be listening to anything when they run. Which more than anything else I said in the book, including my call for the sacrifice of firstborn to the God baal, brought back a lot of pushback. People are like, I have to listen to something. It's so boring. And my argument has been like, we spend our days, we spend all of our days pumping other people's thoughts into our heads. Somebody listening to this right now is doing that. And believe me, I am not saying this from a position of, like, superiority. I do it all the time. And so I argue and generally believe that it's important to take a moment of the day and running is a good time to do it, to just be alone with your thoughts, see what's been in there, see if anything comes out, rather than constantly blocking the exits by pumping things in, if you follow the metaphor. So that's what I argue, that's what I believe. And when I do that, I benefit from it in just the way that I recommend. My thoughts flow. I sometimes come up with interesting or creative ideas or perspectives, or I just end up more relaxed than I otherwise were. Do I still sometimes run with headphones and listen to the day's news podcast or whatever? Yes, because I am like everybody else. I'm sort of an addict. For distraction, I mentioned the adhd, but I will say that the times when I do put them away and run with just the air in my ears, it's always better. And maybe what I need to do is listen to this once it's edited and recorded and put in the podcast feed to remind myself of that. But of course not. Listen to it while running. Yeah.

Emma Choi (13:41)

If you're listening to this right now and you're running, turn it off or stop running.

Peter Sagal (13:45)

Do one people a lot of times say to me, they say, peter, I read your book, and I think you're right about. And I'm sorry to say that I do listen to things when I'm running. I listen to your show and I say, well, you have special dispensation. You are allowed to listen to that.

Sponsor Announcer (13:56)

Yeah.

Peter Sagal (13:56)

Literally. Yes.

Emma Choi (13:57)

Don't listen to anything except, like, and subscribe.

Peter Sagal (14:02)

And if it's a long run and it extends beyond the show, listen to it again for the nuance.

Emma Choi (14:07)

Exactly. Okay, Peter, this one came in through the voicemail inbox. This is Butch from Phoenix, Arizona.

Peter Sagal (14:14)

Okay. If you had to cast yourself in a Hollywood movie about the history of. Wait, wait, don't tell me. What actor working in Hollywood today would you cast as yourself? Thanks. Oh, I love this question. It depends. Let me think. So if, like, these days, I should be played, depending on, like, how I'm doing in life and in physical health, I would be played either by Stanley Tucci if I'm doing well, or Jason Alexander if not so much. Okay. All my life.

Emma Choi (14:47)

You can't just choose bald men.

Peter Sagal (14:49)

Yeah, bald men. Well, you know, I mean, it is true. They can do hair pieces. I think if you were gonna do, like, the early days. I don't know who's like. I mean, like, Josh G. Too old now, maybe.

Emma Choi (15:01)

Did you have hair in the early days?

Peter Sagal (15:03)

I had. This is actually kind of funny. I have been balding for pretty much my entire life, since I turned, like, 19 or so. But for many years, I would bald just from. This is more than anybody wanted to know. I balded, like a lot of men do, from the middle of the back of my head outward. Meaning sort of like a monk's tonsure naturally grew.

Emma Choi (15:25)

Yeah.

Peter Sagal (15:26)

I was about to say leaving. And this is the key thing. A little fringe of hair at the front, a little bit.

Emma Choi (15:32)

Peter.

Peter Sagal (15:32)

I know. And because of that, when I looked in the mirror, because I can't see the back of my head, I would see some hair. Not a lot, but some. But the thing was, to everybody else, I looked ridiculous because I was bald. Except for this little tuft or two tufts of hair. And your friend and mine, Doug Berman, used to make fun of me for this. He's our founder and benevolent and has.

Emma Choi (15:58)

A great head of hair.

Peter Sagal (15:58)

And has a great head of hair. Urgent Haircut Productions, he calls his company. And one day he actually gave me, as a present, a college T shirt. What's the college? Tufts.

Emma Choi (16:12)

Oh.

Peter Sagal (16:14)

And I have this very vivid memory. I know that we're completely off topic of the answer to the question. I have this very vivid memory. It was around 2003 or 4. Right. So I'm not that long into the show, but it'd been going on and. And we were in Las Vegas, and I just. I realized he was right, that I was fooling myself. It was time to embrace who I am. And I went to a barber and I said, I would like you to remove these tufts, please, and just, you know, cut the hair back and just let me be. Finally admit what I am and who I am. And I remember the barber saying to me, it's going to be fine. He knew. He knew that it was a good thing for me to do, but an emotional thing for me to do. But getting back to the question, who would I cast as Myself. I don't know, man. I mean, if I was casting it, you know, Tom Cruise, maybe. No, I. I was gonna say.

Emma Choi (17:08)

I was gonna say the same thing.

Peter Sagal (17:09)

I know. Thank you. I was going to ask you, Emma, but I'm just terrified of the answer, so I don't know.

Emma Choi (17:13)

Well, I was gonna say, you know, if we. I think we have the technology now to combine Jason Alexander's two into like.

Peter Sagal (17:19)

One sort of composite ethnic bald guy.

Emma Choi (17:23)

Yeah, exactly. Next question. Oh, actually, before I do this question, I just wanna say a fun fact about you, which is my favorite fun fact about you.

Sponsor Announcer (17:33)

Okay.

Emma Choi (17:33)

Which is that you were the writer of Dirty Dancing 2 Dirty Dancing, Havana Nights.

Peter Sagal (17:38)

Yes, the original writer. The original writer who was massively rewritten to make the cinematic masterpiece that we.

Emma Choi (17:45)

All know and love, which is incredible. I think about this fact, I think once every two weeks. So this is a fact about.

Peter Sagal (17:51)

That's more often than I think about it. But. OK, go on.

Emma Choi (17:54)

Mbrunk98 wants to know where and when would Dirty Dancing 3 be set if you wrote the script?

Peter Sagal (18:00)

Here's the funny thing. First of all, I can't answer the question because what everybody needs to know about that, if they're interested, is when I wrote the first draft of the movie that then became Dirty Dancing to Havana Nights, I did not know I was doing it. I was writing. Well, what I mean to say is I was commissioned, this is a long time ago, by a Hollywood producer to write a movie. And the movie we came up with, again too long to get into, was set in Cuba at the eve of the Cuban revolution, which it turns out was like an incredibly interesting time and place that's never been adequately told and should be a movie that's not Dirty Dance. Oh yeah, it was an absolute drama. It was centered as Dirty Dancing 2 eventually was, on the experience of a 15 year old girl or late teenage, who the model for the story was 15 at the time. But be that as it may, a young American girl living in Havana who has a romance with a young Cuban guy who turns out to be involved in the revolution. And my screenplay was based as best as I could in the actual events and personalities of the time and the amazing story that transpired, blah, blah, blah. And then it was put on the shelf like most scripts are. And then it was taken down and transformed into Dirty Dancing 2 basically as a money making opportunity because they had the rights to Dirty Dancing too. And somebody said to the producer who had hired me to write that screenplay, hey, you've got that screenplay about The Cuban Revolution, early 2000s. Everybody loves Cuban music. Let's take that screenplay, take out all the history, all the politics, all the drama, make it about dancing and romance and call it Dirty Dancing, too. And so that's what happened without, by the way, any of my. Yeah. Here's a weird thing, though, about that. If people are interested, like I said, every line of dialogue I wrote, almost every plot point absolutely removed, you know, in favor of stuff that made it Dirty Dancing 2. But if you do see the movie, and I don't know if I can recommend that, there is a scene toward the beginning in which the protagonist, the female lead, attends a class at a real place. It was called the ABC School. It was a private school for the children of Americans, British people and Canadians in Havana. English School, Right. And there's a scene in which a teacher remonstrates with the lead for not paying attention or something. And that actor had that part in the movie because I wrote that part for myself when I was writing the movie. I was a young guy. I assumed I'd be on the set, right. And I had also had some acting experience, so I wrote myself a cameo and I described the character as I looked at the time, balding guy, early 30s, nerdy. And I assumed, again, I'd be on the set hanging out with the director, you know, giving thoughts, and then I would play this role. Well, obviously I wasn't, but somebody got to play the role. So there is an actor in Puerto Rico, I assume, where the movie was filmed, who owes his, you know, his residual check to my ego, but to Amy.

Sponsor Announcer (20:48)

Well, that's.

Emma Choi (20:48)

Who would play you in the movie.

Peter Sagal (20:49)

That's a good idea. I never thought of that. I should look him up. But the.

Emma Choi (20:52)

There you go.

Peter Sagal (20:53)

But the answer to the question is, I don't know, because I didn't mean to write Dirty Dancing 2. It wasn't my idea, but they should know that. I do believe that there is going to be an actual sequel to Dirty Dancing written by the original writer of Dirty Dancing, a woman named Eleanor Bergstrom, who wrote that movie about her own experience as a young woman in the 60s going to one of these Jewish summer camps, summer resorts. So it might be coming your way, and you'll find out.

Emma Choi (21:20)

That's amazing.

Peter Sagal (21:21)

Isn't it true?

Emma Choi (21:21)

Wow.

Peter Sagal (21:22)

What a story. It's amazing.

Emma Choi (21:24)

Okay, awesome. Well, I have one last question for today.

Peter Sagal (21:27)

Yes.

Emma Choi (21:28)

It's from Dan the Fancy Man.

Peter Sagal (21:29)

Dan the Fancy Man.

Emma Choi (21:30)

And he wants to know what's your favorite underdog condiment, One that never receives Top billing.

Peter Sagal (21:35)

But should an underdog condiment.

Emma Choi (21:38)

It's a great question.

Peter Sagal (21:39)

Oh, here it is. Ready? Harissa. Harissa. Oh, interesting. You know, harissa, when I was in, I got to live in France very briefly in the 90s, I got this writing fellowship in the south of France. It was glorious. It was amazing. And I wasn't wealthy, you know, I was a starving writer who got to go live in France. So we ate street food a lot. And one of the best things to get was a merguez sandwich. Sandwich Merguez avec harissa, which was. And we're in the south of France, which is a huge North African influence, especially like in street food. And it's this deliciously spicy paste from, I believe, Algeria, certainly North African, that is just amazing and tasty. And in the 30 years since I was there, maybe more. I have looked around in America for a brand of harissa that may be even close to what I enjoyed. And I've come to realize that it wasn't specifically it may not have been specifically the brand of harissa they were using at those street stalls, but the fact that I was in the south of France, that actually made it taste that good. But, yeah, there you go. I had an answer for that one. Harissa, everybody. If you can find good stuff, it's great.

Emma Choi (22:44)

Ok, well, if you find something good, send Peter's way, please.

Peter Sagal (22:49)

If there's a good harissa out there, I want to try it.

Emma Choi (22:51)

Yes, you do. Okay, cool. Well, that's all the time we have for this bonus episode, but like I said, we had a bunch of questions for you, so we're going to have you answer some more of them in our next video bonus episode in two weeks.

Peter Sagal (23:02)

Oh, I can't wait.

Emma Choi (23:03)

It'll be Peter AMA Part two. Yeah, it'll be awesome. Just make sure you're signed up for Wait Wait plus to hear it. But for now, thank you for your questions, everyone. And Peter, thanks for hanging out.

Peter Sagal (23:13)

Oh, it's always a pleasure, Emma.

Emma Choi (23:15)

It really is. Well, thanks, Peter. I'm Emma Choi, and thanks for listening to and supporting. Wait, wait, don't tell me. From npr.

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