Various Colbert-related musings

[Note: This was done fast and shouldn’t be regarded as an official transcript! It's definitely not up to my usual high standards -- many of the things in quotes are probably in fact at least slight paraphrases (I was typing in real time and didn't rewind to hear it again to get it exactly). Also, I tried to focus on new topics that I hadn't heard covered elsewhere. Terry asked fantastic questions, including some I’ve been wondering about for a long time. Brava!!!!!]
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[Terry has Stephen read from the Homosexuals chapter. Hilarious.]

Terry opens by referring back to Stephen’s comment in her last interview with him (12/7/05), in the show’s first months, when he said the show was at an unsustainable level of output, with everything focused on him, and noted that his head writer had stayed till 4am the night before. She noted that two years later, the show is still at that level and asks how in the world he managed to do a book and audiobook as well: “Do you know what your children look like anymore?” He made a few (sort of) tongue-in-cheek, slightly weary-sounding remarks about bleeding from every body part and having a sketch artist in to sketch his kids, but he admitted they were still working “very hard” to put on the show. He talks about how they wrote the book — on nights and weekends, and how Jon Stewart was always asking if he was OK. He says he got addicted to the adrenalin of working 24 hours a day and the hardest part has been adjusting to not doing that.

Terry plays clip of Stephen’s challenge that if the liberal Paul Krugman’s book outsells his, he’ll stop doing the show, then notes that Bill O’Reilly did the same thing with Hillary Clinton a few years ago: When O’Reilly’s book came out at the same time as Hillary’s, he said if Hillary’s book outsold his, he would stop doing his show. Stephen laughs and says he didn’t know that and is thrilled that he had somehow managed to channel O’Reilly anyway. He says the words “No Fact Zone.”

They discuss how they developed the Stephen character at first, then how it has evolved over time with things like the Green Screen Challenge or the bridge naming or the Metaphor-Off – which has nothing to do with politics or and isn’t something O’Reilly would do.

She asks if he thinks he has a role in the current debate over war with Iran. Stephen says no emphatically. “People who make decisions don’t pay attention to what knowledgeable people say. Why would they pay attention to us? … I don’t want to be part of the debate.”

They discuss BKAD and members’ reluctance to appear on it, Nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel’s edicts against it, etc. Stephen is a little disingenuous in my view in saying that Wexler just announced that he likes prostitutes and cocaine, as if it wasn’t Stephen’s repeated pleading and charm/charisma that seduced him into finally agreeing to say it.

Breaking the wrist
–”I love the way you incorporate bad things that happen to you, into the show, like breaking your wrist.”
–They found that there were tons of movies that glorify wrist violence — after they had had Stephen decry wrist violence.
–It was the day before the book was due and he was “soooo tired.” Had stayed up all night proofreading the book.
–When he fell, he was in “a tremendous amount of pain” he thought he might have shattered his hip due to calcium depletion .
–Stephen: “I lay down on four people in the audience. They were so sweet–they pet me while I lay there and moaned.”
–He was in pain all throughout that night’s show [he gives the wrong date, June 27, again--he doesn't even know!] and had an ice pack on.
–He didn’t go to the doc immediately but tried to tough it out. It just kept getting more swollen. Finally went to the doc & found out it was broken.
–Terry asks when he realized this could be content for the show. “In the parking lot leaving the doctor,” says Stephen. He says it’s harder to find fodder for the show in the summer because Congress is on vacation etc., and the main news story was the Iraq war, which was tragic; so they were thrilled at the wrist development.
–He was prescribed a pain pill called “flurbyprofen” by his doctor.

O’Reilly interview on the Report
–Re Stephen’s “sexual predator” remark – that was so brave to do that, taking satire to someone’s face; was that hard?” “The entire interview was hard … expecting him to come on with his persona from the show, but he dropped it completely. I didn’t want to attack a human being but have a tennis match with his persona.” They cut a lot out of the interview because it wasn’t usable. “

Losing the Emmys
–“My real enemy is the Great American Songbook.”
–They play the clip of Stephen singing with Tony Bennett on the show. Stephen says: “What would you rather have – a golden statue or to sing with Tony Bennett? I think I won.”
–Tony chose the song; Stephen didn’t know the lyrics ahead of time.

WH Correspondents Dinner
–“You really took the gloves on.” “I think I put the gloves on, the comedy gloves.” Satirists’ job is not to get angry about the things they’re talking about, but to distill it into comedy. Stephen talks for a bit about this concept.
–Plays his “photo op” joke from the speech: Terry: “Did you have a sense of what it would feel like to say this stuff w/Bushies right there? Was it hard to do it?”
Stephen: “Saying the words was pretty easy because I really liked all the jokes….had no fear because he liked the jokes. … I do have to keep driving forward in moments of silence,” though he heard plenty of people laughing at the time.
–Terry talks about how he nailed the press. Plays “the one about the intrepid reporter…fiction” comment. “Do you think press expected you’d be criticizing them? What was the reaction in the room?” Stephen says he couldn’t say, “It all felt very much of a piece.”
–Terry: “Do you think Bush was briefed about the Colbert persona?” Stephen guesses so.
–Difference between doing it in the show, where people know what Stephen does, and in an audience that expects standup comedy as opposed to a performance piece. “Not their fault if they didn’t care for it.” He does think they were a little surprised.

Discussion of his childhood, trauma, college theater.

Catholicism
–Terry: “What do you tell your kids God is?” Stephen: “‘God is love’ is pretty good.” Terry: “But then there’s the plagues and stuff…” Stephen says his son asked what hell is. He said, “Hell is the absence of God’s love,” and goes on to explicate further. Very nice glimpse into how real-Stephen talks about religion.

Naming things after Stephen
–What’s that like for you, and do you get free ice cream, free rides on Air Colbert? “I get some stuff like that, yeah. I got a lot of B&J’s coupons at home.” He talks about how it’s really cool to send your kid to the supermarket freezer case to get ice cream with their dad on it!!!!!

Future???
–I really like what I’m doing, it asks everything of me. “It’s hard to imagine anything that I would enjoy more.”
–One line Kissinger refused to say: “Where are my pancakes? I was promised pancakes.” Stephen: “I did a full-court press with the cameras on.”

Terry: “I just want to say, I love it when you insult NPR!”
Stephen describes something in the book on NPR that is hilarious. And that is the end!