Ask Me Another

Sundays Noon - 1 p.m.
  • Hosted by Ophira Eisenberg, Jonathan Coulton

Exciting puzzles, word games, and trivia played in front of an audience.

Ways to Connect

Jesse Tyler Ferguson

By editor • Feb 26, 2021

In the pilot of Modern Family, which will have aired 12 years ago this September, Mitchell Pritchett — played by Jesse Tyler Ferguson — brings home his adopted daughter, Lily. Today, as a new father himself, Ferguson is able to reflect on being a real dad versus playing one on TV.

"The great thing about having babies on TV is when they start crying, someone sweeps in and takes them away from you. And there's not that person in real life," Ferguson laughed, "but it's been a joy. It's so much fun."

Gettin' Greasy

By editor • Feb 26, 2021

Comics Samantha Ruddy and Luke Mones are hopelessly devoted to hearing Jonathan Coulton remix classic Grease songs to be about, you guessed it, Greece!

Heard on Home Cooking With Modern Family's Jesse Tyler Ferguson & Superstore's Nico Santos

What's The Word?

By editor • Feb 26, 2021

Comics Samantha Ruddy and Luke Mones compete in this game about words that are spelled and pronounced the same, but have different meanings.

Heard on Home Cooking With Modern Family's Jesse Tyler Ferguson & Superstore's Nico Santos

Viral Moments

By editor • Feb 19, 2021

Believe it or not, there have been some things on the internet that AREN'T terrible. Actors Sunita Mani and John Reynolds (Save Yourselves!) compete in a game about delightful "viral" internet moments.

Heard on Kyra Sedgwick: Empty Nest, Barn Full Of Goats

Kyra Sedgwick

By editor • Feb 19, 2021

Kyra Segwick's acting career has spanned nearly four decades but it all started on the soap opera Another World when she was just 16 years old. "I felt like a misfit toy. Because suddenly you're different from everyone else. But I was dead serious."

You Made This

By editor • Feb 19, 2021

From the film Save Yourselves! actors Sunita Mani and John Reynolds play a game about commonly-known things that are named after less commonly-known people. Will they know John Philip Sousas from Adolphe Sax? Or will they PHONE it in?

Heard on Kyra Sedgwick: Empty Nest, Barn Full Of Goats

Broadway Brands

By editor • Feb 5, 2021

Kulap Vilaysack and SuChin Pak (Add to Cart podcast) work together in a music parody game that changes the lyrics to popular showtunes to be about brands.

Heard on Keegan-Michael Key: Key & Peele & Penguins & Shakespeare

TV On TV On The Radio

By editor • Feb 5, 2021

In this meta audio game, hosts of the podcast Add to Cart, Kulap Vilaysack and SuChin Pak, hear clips from fictional TV shows that appear within real TV shows.

Heard on Keegan-Michael Key: Key & Peele & Penguins & Shakespeare

Move To The Music

By editor • Feb 5, 2021

Lets face it, moving is a total drag unless you have a friend willing to help you in exchange for pizza. Brendan Scannell and Matt Wilkas (Bonding) play a music parody game where lyrics from songs about moving are changed to be about moving into a new home.

Heard on Keegan-Michael Key: Key & Peele & Penguins & Shakespeare

Ken Jeong

By editor • Jan 29, 2021

Jeong's first taste of comedy began with a mock-male beauty competition in high school called the "Mr. Buccaneer Pageant."

"That was where I discovered my own comedy bug," Jeong told NPR's Ask Me Another host, Ophira Eisenberg. "I was posing like Arnold Schwarzenegger and just doing all these things and I got a standing O. And I ended up singing a Lionel Richie song, The Commodores' 'Three Times a Lady' on piano, and that got another standing O."

Erroneous Atlas

By editor • Jan 29, 2021

Road trip! Comedians Cameron Esposito (Queery podcast) and Beth Stelling (HBO Max Girl Daddy) navigate a multiple-choice game about maps.

Heard on Ken Jeong: Mask Me Another

Film At 11

By editor • Jan 29, 2021

Ophira and Jonathan pretend to be news anchors reporting on bizarre scenarios based on movie plots while comedians Cameron Esposito (Queery podcast) and Beth Stelling (Girl Daddy on HBO Max) try to guess the film.

Heard on Ken Jeong: Mask Me Another

Michelle Buteau

By editor • Jan 22, 2021

On New Year's Day 2020 Netflix released the first season of the socially-distanced reality series The Circle, hosted by this week's Ask Me Another guest, comedian Michelle Buteau. In The Circle, contestants live in isolation and can only communicate via the internet: a premise that became everyone's reality about two months later.

Buteau confessed she wasn't initially onboard with the concept: "A competition, and you can catfish people? Absolutely not, sir! Rude!"

The Titular City

By editor • Jan 22, 2021

Documentary filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Love Fraud) guess the names of cities that are named after objects, or visa versa. What was that joke about Hungary and Turkey, again?

Heard on Michelle Buteau: 'The Circle' And Van Halen.

Is It A Lizard?

By editor • Jan 22, 2021

From the Showtime docu-series Love Fraud, directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady answer the most important question of all: Is it a lizard?

Heard on Michelle Buteau: 'The Circle' And Van Halen.

Bowen Yang

By editor • Jan 8, 2021

In high school, comedian Bowen Yang was voted "most likely to be on Saturday Night Live," a prophecy he shrugged off in his interview with NPR's Ask Me Another host Ophira Eisenberg. "It wasn't specifically that people were like, he's going to end up on that show. It was just like, "Oh, Bowen he does improv in the cafeteria every other Friday... he tries to get us to come back to school and watch him do short form improv.""

This, That, Or The Other

By editor • Jan 8, 2021

From Funny or Die's Call & Response Baron Vaughn and Open Mike Eagle suss out if something is a defunct startup, a video game world, or an esteemed contemporary dance company.

Heard on Mayim Bialik & Saturday Night Live's Bowen Yang: Our Best New Show Of 2021.

Prom Songs

By editor • Jan 8, 2021

Remember when we told people to dance 6 inches apart instead of standing 6 feet apart? Comedian Baron Vaughn and musician Open Mike Eagle compete in a music parody game about slow prom songs changed to be about things you learned in high school.

Heard on Mayim Bialik & Saturday Night Live's Bowen Yang: Our Best New Show Of 2021.

Slang Game

By editor • Dec 18, 2020

Jonathan Coulton's kids Theo and Eleanor help their dad and Ophira Eisenberg translate and navigate the latest teen slang. It's "lit!" Are the kids still saying that?

Heard on Andrew Bird: Mandatory Fun Office Holiday Party

NPR Christmas Carols

By editor • Dec 18, 2020

Three out of six women who work at NPR named Carol make their Ask Me Another debut as they lend their vocals in a music parody game that changes the lyrics to Paul McCartney's polarizing song Wonderful Christmastime to be about other things that rhyme with time.

Heard on Andrew Bird: Mandatory Fun Office Holiday Party

Andrew Bird: Hark!

By editor • Dec 18, 2020

Andrew Bird's latest album, Hark!, is full of holiday music — but when the Grammy-nominated musician was asked if he'd ever attended an office Christmas party, his immediate answer was, "I'm glad to say, I haven't been to any."

NPR's Ophira Eisenberg spoke to Bird as part of Ask Me Another's "Mandatory Fun Virtual Office Holiday Party" episode. Bird eventually did recall an early gig performing at an architects' office: "I don't miss those days of getting those sideways glances like, 'Oh look at that chair. Oh, it's a musician.'"

Nnamdi Asomugha: From The Silver & Black To The Silver Screen

By editor • Dec 11, 2020

Usually, when guests come on NPR's comedy quiz show Ask Me Another, Ophira Eisenberg and Jonathan Coulton ask them the questions. Nnamdi Asomugha flipped the script: He interviewed Ophira and Jonathan right back, asked them to make his game tougher, and even made up a trivia question for them to answer.

An actor and former professional football player, Asomugha isn't afraid of a challenge. He played defense with the Oakland Raiders as a shutdown cornerback, which he described as "one of the most difficult positions in all of sports to play."

Jam Bands

By editor • Dec 11, 2020

Actor Richard Kind and comedian Ray Ellin are treated to a music parody game where Jonathan Coulton plays songs by jam bands rewritten to be about fruits you could theoretically use to make jam. Next week: a game about jellies and preserves, because yes, they're a different thing.

This, That, Or The Other: Craps, Supergroup, Or G.I. Joe?

By editor • Dec 11, 2020

When comedy clubs across the country shut down, comedian Ray Ellin quickly adapted. The executive producer of Comedy Central's This Week at the Comedy Cellar founded Comedy Cloud, which produces digital standup shows with comics across the country.

Ellin joined NPR's Ask Me Another with actor Richard Kind — who's starred in shows like Mad About You, Spin City and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Rosie Perez: The Flight Attendant

By editor • Dec 4, 2020

This summer, New Yorkers riding the subway heard a familiar voice: Actor Rosie Perez, speaking in English and Spanish, encouraging them to wear a mask.

Perez told NPR's Ask Me Another host Ophira Eisenberg that she and Chris Rock were both contacted by Governor Cuomo's office.

"We did not know that we were going to be asked to do the MTA campaign," she said. "We were just asked to come to his press conference, remember he was having his daily-held press conferences? And I remember Chris backstage, he goes, 'This is big, this is big,' and I go, 'Yeah!'"

More, More, Moray

By editor • Dec 4, 2020

What has more eyes, a starfish or a scallop? Big Mouth's Ayo Edebiri and her fellow "Iconography" podcast host Olivia Craighead compare animals and guess which has more of a thing.

heard on: Rosie Perez, Fortune Feimster & Big Mouth's Ayo Edebiri: Fight And Flight

Yeahs In History

By editor • Dec 4, 2020

In this audio quiz, Big Mouth's Ayo Edebiri and her fellow "Iconography" podcast host Olivia Craighead identify songs with the word "yeah" in them. Ohhhhh yeahhhhhhh.

heard on: Rosie Perez, Fortune Feimster & Big Mouth's Ayo Edebiri: Fight And Flight

Check-In: Video Games

By editor • Nov 20, 2020

Jonathan Coulton's been playing The Last Of Us Part II, which puts players in a post-apocalyptic world of isolation and disease. It must be nice to be able to escape reality like that.

Heard on Rachel Bloom: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Sane Current Guest.

Rachel Bloom: I Want To Be Where The Normal People Are

By editor • Nov 20, 2020

Before Rachel Bloom's interview on NPR's Ask Me Another even started, the show's house musician Jonathan Coulton stopped to express his admiration of her "songwriting talent that makes me angry and jealous."

"You know that somebody's good when you kind of can't stand it," Coulton said.

Bloom made her name by creating hilarious songs, like her breakout hit "**** Me, Ray Bradbury" and "The Sexy Getting Ready Song" from her CW musical comedy series, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

Sheepless In Seattle

By editor • Nov 20, 2020

Late Night with Seth Meyers' Karen Chee and illustrator Jonny Sun play a game about romantic movies and animals. Try playing at home by developing a crush on that anthropomorphic fox from Zootopia!

Heard on Rachel Bloom: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Sane Current Guest.

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