How far can Seattle smart aleck go? To top of NPR quiz show

It's not every day that a former Seattle Times employee enjoys a meteoric rise to host of a big-time radio show. Or temporary host: National Public Radio correspondent Luke Burbank begins three weeks filling in for Peter Sagal on "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me!" at 10 a.m. Saturday on KUOW-FM 94.9.

I caught up with the witty Nathan Hale High School grad, 30, as he prepped for the show in Chicago.

Q: So "Luke Seattle" not good enough for you?

A: No, sadly, depending how you look at it, my actual name's Luke Burbank. If I was going to change my name to a neighborhood, I think I'd name myself "Rick Shoreline."

Q: What did you do at The Seattle Times?

A: I was an "agate monkey," I think was the term, in the Friday and Saturday night high-school sports den. So my job was to sit there with a headset on like a Time Life operator while the coach of the Montesano girls volleyball team called in and read me off the names and scores.

The computer system they used to use there, it was the kind of computer that you felt like you should open the back up and there would be a parrot inside, like from "The Flintstones," and he would look up and go, "It's a living."

Q: While Peter Sagal's gone you could try renaming it "Go Ahead and Tell Me Already."

A: What I did right away, just to kind of show the staff that it was a new regime, was I used a bunch of ropes and pulled down a statue of Peter Sagal in the newsroom, and there was a lot of celebrating in the streets.

Unfortunately, I also don't have an exit strategy. People have already described the show as a bit of a quagmire. I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm excited about it. My main goal is to not get the show literally taken off the air.

Q: Aim high. Does judge and scorekeeper Carl Kasell stay with you, or is it a Johnny Carson/Ed McMahon kind of deal, and you get NPR's equivalent of Doc?

A: I get the real life Carl Kasell with me, which is great. Carl is going to be the Gandalf to my Frodo. Carl Kasell, let me tell you, is like a deity in the minds of the NPR listeners. I've been on the panel a couple of times now as a warm-up for this, and after the show — they do it in front of 500 people in this big auditorium in Chicago — there are more hot 20-year-old girls that want to talk to Carl Kasell. It is disturbing on so many levels, including the fact that I'm just jealous.

Q: You've been through a lot as a reporter for NPR. Any favorites?

A: I think I'm like the kid from Life cereal. "Give it to Luke. He'll cover anything." They put me on the Michael Jackson trial, which I think they thought was a scut assignment but I thought was awesome. I hung out there for a month and just observed. I was in the courtroom. I got to see Michael Jackson up close and personal, which by the way is somehow more disturbing than seeing him on TV.

Q: What's more frightening: covering gang shootings in Compton or working with P.J. O'Rourke?

A: O'Rourke, no question. They live by a certain code in Compton, which once you learn it you're OK — which is basically just stay behind something that seems dense enough to absorb a bullet. With O'Rourke, with Paula Poundstone, with Mo Rocca, all these people, you just don't know what they're going to say.

The thing that's challenging to me is, the host job is not really to be the funniest person on the show, but to be the facilitator of all these other people being hopefully somewhat funny. And I'm the oldest of seven kids. We would go to Burgermaster at Northgate Mall, and we'd get like four orders of fries to share between all the kids. So kind of laying back and waiting for other people to have their moment is not my strong suit. Plus, I think O'Rourke is packin'.

Q: How has life in Seattle prepared you for NPR?

A: Actually, NPR is like a giant Seattle, as a company, as a corporation, in that people in Seattle tend to be very nice. People in Seattle tend to smile to your face and then send a letter to your city that your dog was barking, and then you get a letter and you don't know which neighbor sent it — this is something that happened to me when I lived in Hawthorne Hills. And NPR is like that. They're very good people, everyone's very nice, a lot of people wearing polar fleece, but you've got to kind of watch your back a little bit.

Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com