Acclaimed Radio Show ‘Says You!’ is Bound for Bama

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – A live performance of acclaimed National Public Radio show “Says You!” will take place Nov. 13 at 5 p.m. in the grand gallery of the Alabama Museum of Natural History, located in Smith Hall on The University of Alabama campus. The performance will benefit Alabama Public Radio.

Alabama grammarians can join the fun and get tickets for the performances by going to the “Says You!” website at www.saysyou.org and following the “Bound for Bama” ticket links. Tickets are $20 with profits going to benefit Alabama Public Radio.

The NPR word game show celebrates its eighth season with the Tuscaloosa live performance.

The show has been called “marvelous” and a “return to the heyday of radio” by both The New York Times and Time magazine. It’s a parlor game played out before a live audience, and the audience is often called upon to participate with the two teams of celebrity panelists. The players include television personalities Barry Nolan, Arnie Reisman, and Paula Lyons, radio icon Tony Kahn, producer Francine Achbar, and columnist and critic Carolyn Fay Fox.

Richard Sher, the show’s host and creator, says the idea for the program came to him while playing Trivial Pursuit with friends. “I got this question,” he remembers, “What do you call the band of low pressure that surrounds the Earth at the equator? And I thought- what a dumb, useless thing to ask. Who cares? And then I found out that the answer was ‘the doldrums.’ And it hit me that for a successful quiz question, it’s not important to KNOW the answer. It’s only important to LIKE the answer.”

After an initial trial in Boston, the show debuted nationally in 1997 and soon grew to more than 100 stations. It has received critical acclaim and has a dedicated following of wordsmiths, puzzlers and folks who like to laugh at clever conversation.

For information and follow-up, please contact Alabama Public Radio at 205/348-6644 or 800/654-4262 or at www.apr.org.