Those of us of a certain age will remember clustering around the television set in the early 1980s trying to outdo the participants on Quiz Time , a show hosted by Siddhartha Basu on Doordarshan. This was followed a decade or so later by the slicker Mastermind , and by the time Kaun Banega Crorepati rolled around, quizzing — on and off television — had become something else altogether. Big bucks, big money, with a good dose of spectacle thrown in. While most of us may not be in the pro-league when it comes to quizzing, many do enjoy exercising their memory and wits just for kicks. My long commute gets a bit easier to bear when I’m figuring out a clue on Ask Me Another , trying to guess the word on Says You , or laughing over a twist in the news on Wait, Wait...Don’t Tell Me!
Engaging
Ask Me Another (AMA) is one of the American National Public Radio’s most popular shows, hosted by stand-up comic Ophira Eisenberg and musician Jonathan Coulton and taped weekly in front of a live audience in New York. For 50 minutes or so, you can listen in while contestants grapple with questions related to pop culture and a wide range of trivia, mixed in with smart (and sometimes smart-alecky) quips and repartee from the hosts. Every show features a special guest, usually television actors or comics, who also take part in the ‘nerdy games’. Despite its decidedly American focus, the show is engaging and I often find myself answering right along with the participants when the game features movie or literary trivia.
Few holds barred
Wait, Wait.. is another hugely popular offering from the NPR stable that takes the form of a humorous quiz based on the week’s news. Currently hosted by writer and actor Peter Sagal with Bill Kurtis serving as score keeper, and live-recorded before a Chicago audience, the show features a set of celebrity panellists and a special guest, along with listeners who call in to participate. A recent episode included among the panellists comic Hari Kondabolu, with actor Henry Winkler appearing as the special guest. The questions are based on (sometimes bizarre) quotes from fairly prominent news stories. Both Sagal and Kurtis can be extremely irreverent, with few holds barred — and the panellists play along admirably.
I’m still on the lookout for an Indian quiz podcast — and given the popularity of quizzing across the country, the time would seem ripe for one. Prasanna Karmarkar, a longtime Hyderabad-based quizzer and one of the conveners of K-Circle, notes that the success of these podcasts is due in large part to their draw as original live shows. The design of the games and their focus on ‘sound first’ allows a listener to vicariously participate in the game and enjoy the satisfaction of knowing or discovering each answer. Additionally, the popularity of both AMA and Wait Wait depend to a large extent on the personality of the host and their chemistry with the audience. “One needs a voice for radio, and the right personality, over and above the content,” says Karmarkar.
The combination of arresting vocal presence, audible audience engagement, and the stimulation of tantalising questions — hard enough to be worth the effort yet accessible enough to promise an answer — is what makes these audio quiz shows work. We’ve had those elements on television, drawing huge audiences. A podcast shouldn’t be too far behind?
(A fortnightly series on podcasts.)
The Hyderabad-based writer and academic is a neatnik fighting a losing battle with the clutter in her head.
