Various Colbert-related musings

Advisory: Sorry, this report contains no personal Stephen interactions. No questions, no dancing . . . I was just a newbie then! It was . . . six weeks ago! (Gulp!)

So to refresh your memory about the show:

The Word: Back Off, Old Man

Tip/Wag: Quitters Edition, with a full-body wag (for Rumsfeld not resigning before the elections)

Guest: Dan Rather

PROLOGUE

I had a trip scheduled to Washington, D.C., in November since this summer. In September I discovered the Report and was instantly hooked; in October I discovered these boards and realized that I really wanted to go to a taping. Around that time, the generous C. (a grad student from NJ) posted here that she had an extra ticket for Nov. 13!

Nov. 12 finally came and I flew to NY and checked into the budget-minded West Side YMCA, about a 15-minute walk from the studio. Of course I walked to the studio that night to see the outside, and it made me laugh just to see it (giddy anticipation?). It’s in a nondescript modern red-brick building on a nondescript street, with no windows on the first few floors:

A dark blue awning out front says “The Colbert Report” in very stern-looking capital letters. Just like a real serious show!

Right next to the studio is a more lovely turn-of-the-century red-brick building, with three stories of Palladian arched windows and a concrete stairway going up to the front door (glass, so you can see in), and a blue awning of its own with a big C on it. That’s where the staff’s offices are (including Stephen’s), and during the workday, sometimes people fortunate enough to work there will be hanging out on those stairs. The offices look nice inside—exposed brick walls with framed artwork on them.

[I didn't know at the time that the "Charlene" music video was filmed on the studio's roof, but now that I do, it all looks familiar!]

STANDING IN LINE

“The” day came and I showed up around 2:30 p.m. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they had a totally covered area for ticketholders to stand in to protect us from the elements.

The weather was actually fine—I was prepared for anything, but it was neither super-cold nor raining.

I do think someone could make money selling merchandise and/or food next to the line—100 people four days a week, a captive audience of hungry TCR enthusiasts. Many people were there in pairs, and often one member of the pair would peel off to bring back some food from a nearby eatery (tip: lots of inexpensive eats on Ninth Avenue).

I’m sure that if there were Colbert merchandise available there, a lot of people would shell out [perhaps there will be soon?]. Right now you don’t get anything to take home as a souvenir of this experience, not even a ticket stub.

C. met me in line around 2:45 p.m. We were #5 and #6 in line. She turned out to be from the Philippines, and cannot even vote in this country! But she is a big fan of both TDS and TCR. We were both thrilled (and nervous!) to be about to have this experience.
ENTRY…

At 6pm they finally opened the door to the holding room (and we got nervous again!), and the assistant audience coordinator (I am going to call her Erica, which might or might not be her name), took our tickets and gave us each a blue laminated card with a number on it as we filed in (since the audience is admitted to the set in the same order that you are in line).

[not my actual ticket, cause I was #6!]

We had to show ID and pass through metal detectors and then wait in the very small holding room that barely fit us all, for another 40 minutes. There were about three dozen chairs and the rest had to stand. Although standing in line to see TCR is a joyful experience, C. and I were still happy to get a chair after four hours of it.

The holding room was pretty spare except for an early poster for the Report on the wall–the one with a blue background and “It’s what Lincoln would have watched.” There was also a “You may be taped or recorded” sign with a lot of writing on it that basically said “Once you pass through this door, we own your image in perpetuity throughout the world forever.” On the inside of the ladies’ bathroom door there was an “America 101” sign–left over from a segment? I had a drink from the Colbert Report water cooler.

THE SET…!

Finally, around 6:40, the magical door marked “Closed Set—No Entry without Authorization” swung open, and Erica admitted us to the set. The VIPs were admitted first (in our case, they seemed to be not necessarily VIPs but some sort of class—I guess the separate admission makes sure they can all sit together but don’t hog all the primo front-row spots–which I appreciated!).

We went in right after the VIPs and so got to sit in the front row of the section in front of Stephen’s desk. We were thrilled!!

The whole scene was basically like a very small fringe theater that holds 109 people—much smaller, as everyone says (and lower-budget, I suspect) than it appears on screen. Nice padded chairs on 4-5 rows of risers.

photo from WonkyEar

We could see everything on the shelves in crisp detail and I had to fight the urge to take a picture of it (strictly not allowed).

I did not take this picture

A Mrs. Colbert sash from the 10/30 show was still wrapped around one of the cameras . . . I guess it will be there forever! 
 

AUDIENCE PREP…

Erica was super nice, making us feel welcome and needed. Beforehand in the holding room, she told us, “Stephen feeds off your energy, and you’re a part of the show, so show him the love—that’s how we get the Emmy nominations so we can lose to Barry Manilow.” She showed us how to clap up high so it’s extra loud.

Once we were seated, someone — I think the audience coordinator, Mark Malkoff (a 30-year-old Stephen look-alike who is also a comedian in his off-hours) — introduced the various staff members, including the director, Jim Hoskinson (“he almost won an Emmy”), and the stage manager, Mark McKenna, who’s in his 40s perhaps.

Stage manager Mark explained to us how the show would proceed and referred to its different “acts” (like a play)—basically the time between each commercial break. He told us he would wave a paper in the air three seconds before each act was to begin, and that was our cue to start clapping and cheering wildly “so the audience at home thinks something really funny was happening here during the break.”

Sometime after 7, Pete Dominic, the warm-up comic, came out and did a great job for 10–15 minutes (although he let the two jocks next to me touch the desk just because they started a “USA! USA!” cheer when he came out, and I doubt that meant as much to them as it has to many fangirls).

I didn’t take this photo either

STEPHEN!

Right after Pete wrapped it up (I think he gets a signal when Stephen is ready, so the audience isn’t kept waiting), Stephen came running out and high-fived the front rows twice, as he always does. Then he faked being winded and told us that his eight-year-old son had asked him, “Daddy, are you old?” and he’d said, “No, I’m young and vital!” so now his son always says that to him.

Then he did a quick Q&A with us. Erica had said, “He likes to get new questions, and we’ve done 180 shows, so be creative and come up with something he hasn’t heard before.” That part went by too fast; he was standing right in front of me when he was taking questions from our side of the audience, and I was mesmerized by his eyelashes.

He took only two or three questions, and unfortunately, I don’t think our audience was too inspired—the questions were “Can I get a picture with you?” (no, Stephen said kindly, because then everyone would want one; also, the guy only had a cameraphone, so the quality would suck!), “Can you do your ear trick?” (which he did—where he curls his ear under and then pops it out), and perhaps there was a third one but I can’t recall.

He ended up between the two sections of the audience and said, “We’re about to begin, so show me some of that love you were practicing.” While we clapped, he hugged a lucky woman who was sitting on the aisle (second row, left section!). Then he headed for his desk and on the way jumped in the air and clicked his heels together.

THE SHOW!When Stephen launched into the show, he got tongue-tied on the third news teaser (which was about Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer) …and put his hands over his face—“Oh no!” We laughed and applauded wildly. He said of our applause, “Save it for the real show—no, give it to me now.” Then he ran through all three teasers again (not just the one he’d flubbed) and I laughed just as much as the first time even though I’d already heard them. There’s something about his delivery that just prompts laughter without even having to think about it.

Then the opening metaphor: “I’m gonna drop the Truth on you like Denise Richards’s laptop on an old lady’s head. This is The Colbert Report!” (thanks, NoFactZone.net!)

I was thrilled with the show we got (I still think of it, completely unreasonably, as “our show”). Dan Rather was the guest, and there was also a “Tip of the Hat/Wag of the Finger,” which included a full-body wag!

I think it was at that point that I leaned over to C. and whispered, “Great show? Or greatest show ever?” (Of course, I was just kidding: “greatest show ever” has to be reserved for shows like Barry Manilow and the Shred-Off.)

In the interview, Dan Rather pretended to be a fawning sycophant, complimenting Stephen on his “impressive” career in news, etc., and talking about “guys like us.” It was hilarious. When the interview was over, it took a while for the aging Dan to walk off the set, and the audience kept clapping for him until he had completely exited, as befits a legend with a 40-year career in news. That was nice.

Here’s another image from “our show”:

Killer is supposed to “torture” Stephen by simulating waterboarding (as a Fox News reporter had earlier done), but Stephen caves as soon as he hears the bottle open …

It’s just amazing when all of this is unfolding for you!

COMMERCIAL BREAKS

Stephen was often doing something funny during the breaks. When he wasn’t conferring animatedly with the staff or swigging bottled water, he would make funny faces at various audience members—C. and I both got a “Colbert look.”

During one break, he stood up behind the desk and lip-synched to a whole song that was playing during the break (it might have been Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me,” which was played at another taping, but I don’t think so – but something like that)—complete with seductive pouting, dramatic pointing, and spinning around in a circle, while we started clapping to the music to egg him on. (A DVD of collected “Colbert Report breaks” would be at least as hilarious as the show!) By the end, some of the gel had worked its way out of his hair, and he looked very boyish and adorable—not at all like his harsh right-wing persona. More like his TDS field-report persona.

Right after he finished, the two makeup/hair people moved right in, fixing his tie, patting his face, straightening his tie, making sure every hair was in perfect place before the cameras rolled again. While they were adjusting him, he was keeping time with the music, bouncing his hands over their heads, so we would keep clapping.

OUR UNRULY AUDIENCE

I realized that Mark the audience coordinator has a hard job sometimes. During one of the breaks, I was startled when he suddenly appeared in front of our section and said very sternly to someone in one of the rows behind us, “You’re giving that to me right now.” Someone had just tried to take a surreptitious photo of the set during the break, even though they’d told us beforehand that it was strictly prohibited. Mark had to confiscate the camera for the rest of the show, and I’m sure he deleted the picture.

He also had to tell the two male Philly Eagles fans who were sitting right next to me not to yell things out, as they had at the beginning of the show. They had started a “USA! USA!” chant, which was fine—Stephen picked it up, then ad-libbed, “I only wish there was something we could go burn down.” (Which in turn showed up on the “Notable Moments” of the episode, as recorded by NoFactZone. Talk about interactive!)

But right after the chant they also yelled, “We love you Stephen!” (You can hear the “Stephen” on the tape of the show.) They meant well, but I realized that it’s a fine line between what’s OK and what’s not. When I hear the crowd yelling words at home, it distracts me from Stephen because I’m thinking, “What did they say?” I think the staff was also concerned that it could encourage other people to yell things, so it could get out of hand.

Mark was as nice as can be, while still being firm, and he came up to them after the show too and said he hoped they would come back and he didn’t want them to be upset, but the director said it just wasn’t OK to yell things, or something like that. I thought he handled it really well, but geez I’m sorry our audience really gave them some problems. At least we do seem to be cheering loudly on the tape of the show.

Next: Finale (oh noooooooo it’s almost over!!!)

[EDITED to add:

**According to Mark’s MySpace page, “Friday Night Intervention” is his “live talk show set in a theater,” and it features “a combination of my videos and celebrity sit-down interviews. Some past guests include ‘Perfect Strangers’ star Mark Linn-Baker, Conan O’Brien announcer Joel Goddard, and MTV’s ‘Remote Control’ host Ken Ober.” Could be fun to check out sometime!

p.s. He’s married.
________________________________

FINALE: A GLIMPSE OF THE OFFICESIt was pouring rain when we exited around 8:15, and my “New Jersey friend” C. needed to catch a bus back home at a reasonable hour so her aunt wouldn’t worry, so I took her to dinner at a nice Indian restaurant a block from the studio, then walked her to the Port Authority bus terminal.

On my way home I of course had to walk by the TCR studios one more time. (It was only one block out of my way. Well, maybe two.) The rain had finally stopped and everyone was gone except the security guard at the front desk (it was after 10 p.m.), but the lights on the first floor had been left on, so I peered in through the glass door to see what I could see.

The front area (by the window by the door) seemed like sort of miscellaneous prop area, with lots of things in baskets on shelves and two skulls sitting on top of a bookshelf. On the wall in the middle area was the famous “CALLED OUT” whiteboard! … which still has those words on it in big letters just like in this picture:

… from the segment this summer where Stephen calls Jon out for refusing to apologize to Geraldo Rivera, then pins a mustache on him (then rips it off, then pins it back on).

Underneath “CALLED OUT” it now says, “Interns—Where are you?” and lists their five lucky interns, including “Colin” (I think) and “Julia.” Behind the front desk there was another poster for the show, I think sort of a SciFi/Godzilla theme with Colbert as a sort of god/monster/king of Truthiness.

Ohhh sigh, that is the end of my story, Nation! All in all, it was a total blast and I would love to do it again. There was a lot to take in (I’d never been to a taping of anything before, except NPR’s radio show Weekend Edition Saturday), and I’m sure I would observe new things the next time around.

My concluding impression is amazement that a 30-minute show taped on an inexpensive set in a tiny little studio in a nondescript building on a nondescript street … goes out and blankets the world and has such a huge impact on all of us fans, not to mention the political scene and the (other) media. I guess it’s just MAGIC !!!!