01 · THE SEGMENT
How to run a wild card segment
A wild card segment works because nobody, including the host, knows what is coming. Write questions on slips of paper or cards, mix them, and let the guest draw. Keep it to three to five questions near the end of the episode, when the guest is relaxed.
- Give the segment a name and a sound cue so listeners recognize it
- Let the guest draw, not the host
- Allow one pass per episode
- Answer one yourself so it is not an interrogation
- Cut any card that falls flat in the edit
02 · HYPOTHETICALS
What would you do if...
- You can master one skill overnight. Which one?
- You have to live in one decade of the past. Which one, and why?
- You can only eat food of one color forever. Which color?
- Your life gets a theme song. What is it?
- You get a free billboard for a month. What does it say?
- You wake up as the boss of your company. What changes first?
- You can ask one historical figure one question. Who and what?
- You have to replace your hands with something else. What?
- You get to delete one app from everyone's phone. Which one?
- You can only speak in questions for a day. How does it go?
03 · WOULD YOU RATHER
Would you rather
- Would you rather know how you die or when you die?
- Would you rather always be ten minutes late or two hours early?
- Would you rather lose your sense of taste or your sense of smell?
- Would you rather be famous for something embarrassing or unknown for something great?
- Would you rather read minds or be invisible, but only on Tuesdays?
- Would you rather live without music or without movies?
- Would you rather have a rewind button or a pause button for your life?
- Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or ten duck-sized horses?
- Would you rather never use social media again or never watch TV again?
- Would you rather give up coffee or give up your phone for a month?
04 · CONFESSIONS
Small confessions
Keep these light. The goal is a laugh, not a secret they regret sharing.
- What is a popular thing you secretly find boring?
- What is the most childish thing you still do?
- What is a lie you told as a kid that you got away with?
- What is the most useless thing you are really good at?
- What is a song you know every word to and are slightly ashamed of?
- What did you pretend to understand in a meeting this year?
- What is your worst cooking disaster?
- What is a habit you would hide from a first date?
- What is the dumbest way you have hurt yourself?
- What is something you still do not know how to do as an adult?
05 · RAPID FIRE
Rapid fire, no thinking allowed
- Best smell in the world?
- Most overrated food?
- First concert you went to?
- Window seat or aisle?
- The last thing you bought?
- A word you overuse?
- Your go-to karaoke song?
- Favorite way to waste an hour?
- Best advice in five words or fewer?
- Your most-used emoji?
06 · ABSURD
Questions that make no sense
- If you were a kitchen appliance, which one and why?
- What would your pet say about you in a job reference?
- What is the most suspicious thing about pigeons?
- Which vegetable would win in a fight?
- What would be the worst name for a boat?
- If clouds had a flavor, what would it be?
- What does your houseplant think of your life choices?
- Which fictional villain would make a good roommate?
- If your fridge could talk, what would it complain about?
- What is the official sport of your hometown, if you invented one?
Keep the best answers, lose the dead air.
Record the segment, then trim the pauses by editing the transcript in Hilite.