Colbert Report

Last night I went to see the Colbert Report. We had tried to go in May and we were literally the first people in line who did not get in. That was especially annoying because I had let two people in front of us earlier when we were moving from one line to another and they were the last to get in.

To compensate us for taking a day off of work and wasting it waiting in line they sign us up for VIP tickets. Which are pretty awesome. We go yesterday, we go into a short VIP line, we wait outside the studio for about 45 minutes and then they let us in to the "loading area." We wait in there for about another 45 minutes then they start letting people into the studio. As we were VIP ticket holders we got to just walk right in and bypass the line and everything.

So then we get into the studio - it's weird seeing it in real live when you've been seeing it on TV. All of the stuff is there - the wall of memorabilia, the portrait, the fake fireplace, the desk, O'Reilly's microwave... So we sit in the studio for another 20 or 30 minutes or so. Then the warm-up guy comes out. He's mildly funny. Not really all that great but better than one would expect for a warm up guy. I talk to him a bit about being Swiss, how many official languages there are in Switzerland (for the record, four), my "Jesus look-alike contest winning", my divorce... About 30 minutes in you can start to see him sweat. He's not used to going that long.

Another 15 minutes go by and the intern or assistant or whatever comes out and says that they are running a bit late and they will give out t-shirts in return for answers to Colbert trivia. The questions are: Who was the first guest (Stone Philips), what is Stephen's middle name (Tyrone), and then finally my question - what is the building manager's name? I raise my hand and my wife is screaming for them to come see me because they are on the other side of the audience looking for someone with an answer. He finally comes over to me and I say "Todd." He asks me to spell it and I do and he says "nope, sorry." Then I remember - it's "Tad." I correct myself and he gives me a t-shirt, which my wife promptly swiped and claimed as her own. They run out of t-shirts and go back in to get more and come out with a few more. I know some of the answers but I don't want to take more than one t-shirt. Pigs get slaughtered.

They run out of t-shirts and still are not ready so they come out with some of the wrist strong bracelets and a piece of Colbert Report stationary. They start to ask questions and my wife offers to wrestle a nice woman in the audience who gave us nuts in the loading area for the piece of paper or a bracelet. The guy is thinking it over but before he can say yes...

The stage manager comes out and gives us a quick run-down. Yell and scream when he does the "festive paper waving" and laugh whenever we want. The Stephen comes out and asks if there are any questions people want to ask him before he goes into character and says all "those terrible things." People ask him questions - like how tall is the Empire State Building and other random pointless, stupid questions. No one came out with anything witty or clever like they had asked us to. At one point he is literally 6 inches from my face when he is groping the woman sitting next to me in response to one question.

I resist the temptation to touch his hair.

He goes to his desk and they start. While they are preparing he's making faces into the camera, wiggling his eyebrows and just being a general goober. He does the intro section and then the stage manager does the festive paper waving and we all clap and yell and scream. They do the opening credits in real time. They have them on the screen and he is quickly changing clothes while they are on. The credits end and he continues with the show.

He does the word. "November Surprise" about the elections. Then they go to another commercial break and I thought they would do that in real-time as well, but 5 minutes go by, then 10 and they are all just huddled around his desk spraying his hair and going over some papers. After a little while Stephen comes out and says that they had technical difficulties with a few lines from the Word and they need to reshoot it. So they do. It's literally like one sentence. He stands up and screams that he nailed it. They go to another short huddle break, but this one is maybe 5 minutes. He comes back and does Colbert Platinum and then introduces his guest. At this point he stands up and says that the interview is pre-taped and he will be watching it along with us.

We watch it on the monitors, he stands over at the side of the studio. I'm not going to give out details about the interview, even though it has already aired, but it did not seem real to me. The big hullabaloo seemed completely staged to me. Unless both Branson and Colbert are completely unflappable (which is a distinct possibility) it seemed totally staged. Neither one flinched or anything. I guess it could go either way. I really don't know.

Then Colbert comes out in a bathrobe and a towel and ends the show. We feel a little bit gypped because we didn't get to see an interview. We leave, go to the train station and go home, with a t-shirt but without a wrist strong bracelet or a piece of stationary. The other woman my wife was offering to wrestle got a bracelet but I don't think anyone else did.

It was totally worth it and we will definitely be going back as soon as they will let us. They have rules about how often you can see the show. And it looks like it is booked solid for the next year anyway.

Here are some clips from the show. Actually this is the entire show:















Look for me in the closing credits audience shot.