Bill Kurtis, the veteran broadcast journalist known for his rich voice, is retiring from the irreverent National Public Radio news quiz show “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” after serving as its judge and scorekeeper for a dozen years.
Kurtis, 85, said in a statement that was sent to NPR’s editorial staff on Monday that there was no better way to stay young than to give voice to jokes written by people who are fearless in taking down anything and anyone.
“What an incredible chapter ‘Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me’ is in my life,” he said. Before joining the show in 2014, Kurtis was a co-anchor of “CBS Morning News” and narrated the true crime docuseries “Cold Case Files” on the A&E Network.
A representative for NPR declined to comment on Tuesday beyond the note sent to the staff.
“Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me,” which started in January 1998, is a weekly hourlong quiz program that asks contestants, including call-in listeners and celebrity guests, to test their knowledge of current events in a series of lighthearted, comic segments. Winners — and with Kurtis’s generous score-keeping, the odds are often in contestants’ favor — receive a custom voice mail greeting recorded by one of the show’s regulars.
The humorist Peter Sagal has hosted the show since its beginning. The show’s first scorekeeper was Carl Kasell, another broadcast journalist with decades of experience. He died in 2018 at the age of 84.
Kurtis, who had earlier narrated the Will Ferrell comedy “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” quickly fit into the role, using his deep and full voice to find the comic potential in even the most mundane headlines. (Listen to him describe a ham sandwich.)
“Almost immediately Bill proved he had the right blend of gravitas and goofiness to succeed on ‘Wait Wait,’” the note to the NPR staff said, pointing to his opening introductions each week.
“I’m the voice of your aunt’s sexual awakening,” he would say. Or: “I’m the voice so creamy, you better take some Lactaid.” And: “I’m the voice so rich, it makes you sign a prenup.”
On the March 7 episode, Kurtis introduced himself as a “voice so powerful, I command the clocks to spring forward.”
Sagal said in the same note to staff members that he could never believe that a newsman of Kurtis’s stature would “stoop to doing our silly little show.”
After hundreds of shows, Sagal said, “I still can’t quite believe it, but am incredibly grateful to have been wrong.”
Kurtis’s last show will be May 23.
Derrick Bryson Taylor is a Times reporter covering breaking news in culture and the arts.
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