All-American Endorphin Producer
For starters, there is The Voice: the trumpet-like clarity, throaty laugh, and splayed-out Sudbury vowels, with a steady drip of sardonic delivery. The quick wit and bubbling warmth clinch the deal. This can only be the inimitable comic Paula Poundstone.
The person on the phone sounds the same as the standup comic or everyone’s favorite radio panelist on the NPR news quiz program, “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” She talks easily and honestly, and improvises freely. The only difference is the sound of running water; this multitasking mother of three seems to be doing the dishes as we talk (but I’m too polite to ask).
“Standup is my first love,” she offers. “People come out for an evening to laugh, to allow me to say whatever I want.” She dons a professorial tone. “There’s scientific evidence that laughter is good for all of us. To enjoy the sound of an audience’s laughter, you get a chemical boost from that. I consider myself a proud member of the endorphin production industry.”
Poundstone’s frequent appearances on “Wait Wait” are no less a source of pleasure for her, or endorphins for her listeners. The weekly show features three panelists, usually humorists, who compete, in a lighthearted way, for points by answering questions about current events.
Well, maybe not so lighthearted. “I’m studying extra hard this week. I am on the verge…I could possibly win…five in a row! Statisticians go wild about such things.” (As of this writing, she had eked out a three-way tie.)
But she admits, a bit more subdued, “I do hold the record for losses. It’s a cold hard fact. At a special 10-year anniversary gala for the show’s participants, the producers stood up and read various ‘Wait Wait’-related statistics – how many radio stations carried it then, how many now, how much larger the show has grown. We all kind of clapped.”
“Then they asked, ‘How many times has someone got none right in the Lightning Round?’” She scanned the room with everyone else. “It happened only once, and it turns out to have been me.”
“Which gives you some idea of why I always lose!”
Poundstone has famously mixed it up with some of the guests who come on for the “Not My Job” segment. She is still amazed that Supreme Court Justice Breyer made an appearance, and she was equally dumbfounded to learn that the justices don’t get issued robes, “not even like Little League.”
Another time she bantered with the healthy-eating guru Michael Pollan about the virtues of junk food, such as what she called “creme, c-r-e-m-e,” of the sort you would find in a Ring Ding. “I’ve never known if he left the show in a huff,” she muses.
Poundstone’s standup routine is similarly irreverent and interactive with the audience, and it is an act that last year landed her in the Comedy Hall of Fame as one of only 15 women out of a total of 86 inductees. For now, the HOF is a virtual site with comedy archives. “There was no tearful induction ceremony for me,” Poundstone says a tad wistfully.
When asked about her standup routine, she catches a spark of memory. “There was a place I played maybe 20 years ago [it was 21], I was being very silly one night, and I took the mic stand and put my nose in the clip. The crowd’s looking at me funny, so I say, ‘I’m one of the few performers who would do this for you. If you can get Johnny Cash [who followed her] to clip the mic stand to his nose, I’ll donate $1,000 to the theater.’”
Cash came out in his usual serious black get-up, all business, but Poundstone couldn’t stick around for his show. “Years later, I was doing a radio interview, and the host says to me, ‘You never paid Johnny Cash.’ They showed me a copy of a newspaper article, so I took out my checkbook and wrote out a check for $1,000 to the theater.”
Sure enough, you can Google that article, in the Hartford Courant. Not that Poundstone is convinced. “For all I know, they made up the article. I still can’t imagine him doing it.”
The person on the phone sounds the same as the standup comic or everyone’s favorite radio panelist on the NPR news quiz program, “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” She talks easily and honestly, and improvises freely. The only difference is the sound of running water; this multitasking mother of three seems to be doing the dishes as we talk (but I’m too polite to ask).
“Standup is my first love,” she offers. “People come out for an evening to laugh, to allow me to say whatever I want.” She dons a professorial tone. “There’s scientific evidence that laughter is good for all of us. To enjoy the sound of an audience’s laughter, you get a chemical boost from that. I consider myself a proud member of the endorphin production industry.”
Poundstone’s frequent appearances on “Wait Wait” are no less a source of pleasure for her, or endorphins for her listeners. The weekly show features three panelists, usually humorists, who compete, in a lighthearted way, for points by answering questions about current events.
Well, maybe not so lighthearted. “I’m studying extra hard this week. I am on the verge…I could possibly win…five in a row! Statisticians go wild about such things.” (As of this writing, she had eked out a three-way tie.)
But she admits, a bit more subdued, “I do hold the record for losses. It’s a cold hard fact. At a special 10-year anniversary gala for the show’s participants, the producers stood up and read various ‘Wait Wait’-related statistics – how many radio stations carried it then, how many now, how much larger the show has grown. We all kind of clapped.”
“Then they asked, ‘How many times has someone got none right in the Lightning Round?’” She scanned the room with everyone else. “It happened only once, and it turns out to have been me.”
“Which gives you some idea of why I always lose!”
Poundstone has famously mixed it up with some of the guests who come on for the “Not My Job” segment. She is still amazed that Supreme Court Justice Breyer made an appearance, and she was equally dumbfounded to learn that the justices don’t get issued robes, “not even like Little League.”
Another time she bantered with the healthy-eating guru Michael Pollan about the virtues of junk food, such as what she called “creme, c-r-e-m-e,” of the sort you would find in a Ring Ding. “I’ve never known if he left the show in a huff,” she muses.
Poundstone’s standup routine is similarly irreverent and interactive with the audience, and it is an act that last year landed her in the Comedy Hall of Fame as one of only 15 women out of a total of 86 inductees. For now, the HOF is a virtual site with comedy archives. “There was no tearful induction ceremony for me,” Poundstone says a tad wistfully.
When asked about her standup routine, she catches a spark of memory. “There was a place I played maybe 20 years ago [it was 21], I was being very silly one night, and I took the mic stand and put my nose in the clip. The crowd’s looking at me funny, so I say, ‘I’m one of the few performers who would do this for you. If you can get Johnny Cash [who followed her] to clip the mic stand to his nose, I’ll donate $1,000 to the theater.’”
Cash came out in his usual serious black get-up, all business, but Poundstone couldn’t stick around for his show. “Years later, I was doing a radio interview, and the host says to me, ‘You never paid Johnny Cash.’ They showed me a copy of a newspaper article, so I took out my checkbook and wrote out a check for $1,000 to the theater.”
Sure enough, you can Google that article, in the Hartford Courant. Not that Poundstone is convinced. “For all I know, they made up the article. I still can’t imagine him doing it.”