A live stage where the audience brings the trivia.
Stephen Dubner hosts this live game show at Joe's Pub in New York City, bringing audience members onstage to tell the room something interesting, unusual or puzzling. Their facts run from Egyptian mice mummified as afterlife cat food to a Park Avenue apartment that allegedly lost several hundred square feet.
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Tell Me Something I Don't Know is a trivia game show where the audience supplies the trivia. Stephen Dubner hosts from the stage at Joe's Pub in New York City, and the premise is plain: people come up from the crowd and tell the room something interesting, unusual or puzzling. The stage episodes start with a spoken refrain, a chain of questions about why anyone reads, travels or pays attention. Its answer is partly amusement and partly getting outside one's comfort zone, but mostly the urge to find out stuff. The facts swing wildly. One guest lays out a Manhattan real-estate saga involving a billionaire developer, his estranged wife and a 78th-floor unit at 432 Park Avenue that, by her account, lost several hundred square feet to him and his girlfriend. Another reports that Egyptians, who revered cats, mummified mice so the cats would have something to eat in the afterlife. Constanza Ocampo-Rader, a professor of anthropology at Carleton College, raises the subject of eating cat while acknowledging how horrifying that sounds to North American ears, and draws a double take almost at once. The show is curious about the people, too. Sass Goldberg explains a palindrome of a name: born Sari, nicknamed Sassy as a feisty baby, a name that later went on two New York fast-food restaurants. Dubner also peppers some guests with quick personal questions, from what they collect to what they overspent on without regret to what they believed for years before learning they were wrong. One guest collects Broadway cast albums, a couple hundred of them on vinyl. Another claims to be the opposite of a hoarder. A food conversation covers why a cook should listen for the sizzle in a pan and rules that anything on a stick ought to be grilled meat or frozen. One guest recalls first hearing another language, Hebrew, in 1969, and calls that moment the reason for becoming a linguist. The room laughs often, and the questions come fast. Each episode is built around a theme, and the titles show the reach: 'All About Bugs (of the Animal and Computer Varieties)', 'Farming Without Sun or Soil and Eating Manna From Heaven', 'Mind Games', 'Jon Batiste, Gail Simmons, and Strange Smells' and 'An Astronaut, a Catalan, and Two Linguists Walk Into a Bar…'. Not every installment happens on a stage. 'Extra 7: Corrosive Energy Drinks and Peruvian Cat Stew' moves to a studio in Midtown Manhattan, takes phone calls from around the country and seats a radio and television host beside Dubner, with AJ Jacobs also checking facts. Even its sign-off carries a joke, about a survey of dog people and cat people that never said whether the preference meant owning the animal or eating it. What a listener takes away is a pocketful of odd facts, each attached to the person who brought it.
Made for: Suits a listener who likes trivia with a person attached to every fact and a live room reacting, and who is happy to jump from cat mummies to Park Avenue floor plans in one sitting.
What sets it apart: The facts come from people called up out of a New York audience rather than from a panel of experts. Guests get quizzed about their own lives as well as their facts, and someone is on hand to check the claims.
Journalism wrapped in a game-show package. Host Stephen J. Dubner (of “Freakonomics Radio”) and a celebrity co-host invite guests on stage in front of a live audience to tell us something we don’t know. The co-hosts — a mix of leaders in science, academia, sports, media, and comedy — grill the guests, and by the end we’ve all gotten a bit smarter. Each episode has a new topic, a new co-host, and new guests. There’s also a real-time human fact-checker to keep everyone honest. Think of the most crackling dinner-party conversation you’ve ever heard. Produced in association with Stitcher.
The Ghost Army had rubber tanks; your inner skeptic gets a live fact check and a laugh.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A live fact-swapping show jumps from English and French to a disputed apartment story at 432 Park Avenue.
Joe's Pub gives this single episode the feel of a smart parlor game, with Stephen Dubner hosting and John McWhorter, Columbia linguistics professor, author, and podcaster, beside him as co-host.
A call-in fact show follows strange claims into questions of culture, evidence, and belonging.
A studio edition of Tell Me Something I Don't Know turns fact-hunting into a lively look at how knowledge picks up context, bias, and baggage.
A loose live conversation turns Goldberg's curiosity into a window on acting, routine, and performance.
Curiosity works here less like a theme than a stage habit. Stephen Dubner begins by asking why people read, travel, go to school, and pay attention, then follows actress and producer Sass Goldberg through a conversation that keeps slipping between craft and small human detail.
Angela Duckworth's quick answers make curiosity feel personal, practical, and lightly revealing.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know treats curiosity like a live game, with Joe's Pub giving the conversation a bright, public charge. Stephen Dubner starts from a broad question about why people read, talk, travel, go to school, and pay attention, then settles into the night's…
Gail Simmons turns food, cake pops, and primates into a lively exercise in curiosity.
A live round of questions turns curiosity into a kind of social sport, with Stephen Dubner steering the room through odd facts, personal preferences, and quick comic turns at Joe's Pub in New York City.
Funny guests, clues, points, and public self-incrimination.
Kid questions, expert claims, sneaky fibs.
Héctor and Beto dissect Mexican grammar, slang, and news in native-speed Spanish conversations.
Small habit changes meet hands-on AI experiments.
"Tell Me Something I Don't Know" at Joe's Pub in New York City turns a live crowd into a fact contest about Spain, New York skyscrapers, nanotechnology, and spaceflight.
["At Stitcher Studios in Midtown Manhattan, Stephen Dubner runs a live fact game with Michael Smirconish and A.J.
Stephen Dubner opens Tell Me Something I Don't Know at Joe's Pub in New York City with Sass Goldberg and A.J.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know records its "Mind Games" episode live at Joe's Pub in New York City, with Stephen Dubner hosting and Angela Duckworth co-hosting.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know stages a live Joe's Pub episode around the human senses, with Stephen Dubner opening the night and Gail Simmons joining as co-host.
Stephen Dubner and John McWhorter host a live Tell Me Something I Don't Know competition about animal and computer bugs at Joe's Pub in New York City.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know, hosted by Stephen Dubner with Alex Wagner and A.J.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know: How to Count to Infinity features Stephen Dubner, Mary Roach, and A.J.
Stephen Dubner and Alex Guarnaschelli host a live food-themed fact competition featuring John McWhorter, Michelle Humes, Dan Pashman, and Barry Joseph.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know, hosted by Stephen Dubner with Hari Kondabolu, presents live explanations of secrets, teeth, fantasy sports, pronunciation, and music markets.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Womb to Tomb features Stephen Dubner, Alexandra Petrai, and AJ Jacobs evaluating audience claims about life, sex, pregnancy, death, parenting, and aging.
Jonathan Winfield of the Bristol Bioenergy Centre explains how microbial fuel cells use urine and other wastewater to generate electricity while cleaning the liquid and removing pathogens such as salmonella.
Stephen Dubner hosts Tell Me Something I Don't Know from Philadelphia with James Altucher, fact-checker Mike Maughan, and audience contestants.
Stephen Dubner hosts a Minneapolis edition of Tell Me Something I Don't Know with Krista Tippett and fact-checker Maggie Ryan Sanford.
Stephen Dubner hosts Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Behavior Change: Ultra Egghead Edition in Philadelphia with Angela Duckworth, Colin Kammerer, Ayelet Fishbach, David Laibson, Max Bazerman, Katie Milkman, and Kevin Volpp.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Three Sheets to the Wind brings Stephen Dubner and John Moe to Minneapolis's Pantages Theater for audience presentations judged on novelty, usefulness, and demonstrable truth.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Medicine uses a Boston panel and live fact-checking to examine medical claims from autopsies to portable MRI scanners.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Getting There uses Stephen Dubner's Chicago game-show format to test surprising facts that are unknown, useful, and demonstrably true.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Family Matters uses Stephen Dubner's live game-show format to test family-related claims before Amy Chua, Liza Donnelly, and Gary Gullman.
Stephen Dubner's Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Cities uses a Boston game-show panel to test facts about urban life, including Chinese replica cities and municipal politics.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Politickling examines political life through Anupam Jena’s study of more than 500 world leaders, who died nearly three years earlier than election runners-up.
Stephen Dubner hosts Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Rivalry, a live game show where contestants present facts judged unknown, useful, and demonstrably true.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Music brings Stephen Dubner together with David Haydu, Faith Saley, Danny Goldberg, and Dan Zanes and Friends for a live music-themed knowledge competition.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Wannabes uses a Washington, D.C.
Stephen Dubner hosts Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Oh My God, a live game show about religion featuring comedians John Fugelsang, Tammy Sager, and Iman Ali.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Money Money Money uses Stephen Dubner's game-show format to examine debt cancellation, currency, fraud, incentives, and informal savings.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know: “Stupid Stuff” uses Stephen Dubner’s live game-show format to test surprising claims about everyday designs, risky activities, historical food safety, and urban legends.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Under the Hood features Stephen Dubner, Seth Godin, Faith Saley, and Nicholas Negroponte judging hidden mechanisms behind ordinary systems and behavior.
Stephen Dubner hosts Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Collections with panelists Tim Ferriss, Anne Pasternak, and Eugene Mirman judging contestants' surprising facts.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Wordz features Stephen Dubner, Erin McKee, and contestants presenting claims about language, advertising, education, technology, and housing.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Athletes' Feats uses a live quiz to examine unusual sports traditions, including a 1844 Canada-USA cricket match watched by more than 10,000 people in New York City.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Perfection uses a live game-show format to test whether unusual claims are surprising, worthwhile, and demonstrably true.
Stephen Dubner hosts the sixth and final first-season episode of Tell Me Something I Don't Know, with James Martin, Annie Duke, and Hannibal Buress judging audience facts under the theme “Fool Me Once.” Tom Whipple describes a robotic rectum from Imperial College London, while Liz Sales recounts the World War II Ghost Army’s use of inflatable tanks and sound recordings to make 1,100 soldiers appear to be 30,000.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Passion Plays uses Stephen Dubner's audience-fact game to examine unusual passions, including misophonia, social robots, monk beer, baseball umpiring, and mattress buying.
Stephen Dubner hosts Tell Me Something I Don't Know, where audience contestants present facts judged on surprise, value, and demonstrable truth.
A live game show where guests share surprising facts, with this episode featuring an aeronautical engineer explaining bird strike testing on jet engines.