Hubster Victoria has sent us this wonderful “Taping ReporT” of her trip to the August 2nd, 2012 taping of “The Colbert Report”.
On Thursday, August 2, 2012, I had the pleasure of attending my 2nd Colbert Report live taping. My first one was 6 months ago back in January. Like last time, I went with my parents. However, this time, our friend Bob also attended with us. Last time, not knowing, we arrived around 5:20pm and made it in by the skin of our teeth. We were literally the last 3 tickets to be given out and about 10 people behind us got turned away. So this time, I made sure to arrive early. We got on the line around 3:30pm and there were 4 people ahead of us. Yes! We are definitely getting in! There was also already a large standby line and in the end, there were about 15 people on the list. But from what I can tell inside the studio, nobody from the list made it in. Bob had only seen a couple of clips of the show courtesy of me, so I had to give him a Readers Digest version of what to expect, what the show is about and to remember…he is playing a character! This, at least, made the time go by faster while waiting on-line. They let us in at 5:30pm and they had the typical video playing. But still, always fun to watch.
At 7:00pm, they let us into the studio and we ended up in the 4th row center. We had a perfect view of the desk and I was ready to go! Who am I kidding? I was ready at 6:00am that morning! I had every intention of asking him a question. I had a few in mind and I kept rehearsing how I was going to ask it. More on that later. Shortly after, our warm-up guy comes out and he was hysterical. He picked on a family I was talking to while we were waiting in the other room. He also went after a number of young couples…well, at least he thought they were couples. Turned out they were all friends. He had plenty to say about that. Then…he went after my father! He asked him if that was his wife sitting next to him, which it was. He wanted to know where they were from (NYC, born and raised), what he did for a living and how long they have been married. He picked on him for a while and then he hypothesized that he’s a “cool guy and must go home and smoke pot!” Cool guy, yes. Pot, no, sorry. But it was still funny! He said he assumed all the kids were grown and on their own, but my parents pointed down the aisle to me (Bob was sitting in between me and my parents). “Ok, here we go,” I thought! And I was right! He asked me my name, age and what I did for a living. I told him that I’m a Graduate student and immediately following that, he looked at Bob and started in on him. “You can’t be with her, right…because you’re too old! You are probably the creepy neighbor on the cul-de-sac named Jim!” Luckily, Bob has a great sense of humor and had fun with it. According to us, Bob’s new name is now Jim! He then asked the young guy behind me if he was single and proceeded to try to make a love connection. “You should meet up with her (me). She’s a Graduate student! When she’s done, you will never have to work again!” And with that last comment, it was time to start the show! He was great and we really enjoyed getting “picked on.”
As usual, the music starts to play and Stephen comes running out, around the table, high-fiving the production staff and everyone in the front row. And we begin the “Stephen chant.”(One of the things I taught Bob earlier). Stephen looks adorable as usual and it was so exciting being there in person again. He thanks everyone for coming, gives his “humanize me” mantra and the question and answer session begins.
1. What Olympic sport would you like to create?
Answer: Lounging.
2. What inspired you to become a comedic actor as a kid?
Answer: Stephen went on to explain how he had no aspirations to be an actor, but actually wanted to be a Marine Biologist. But due to his ear surgery, he couldn’t. He said, pointing to the ear, “this is just a prop. Water goes in and never comes out. It just stays in their swishing around so I wouldn’t be able to stay underneath water for too long.” Then he showed his ear trick!
3. What guest have you had on that didn’t understand you are playing a character and became very upset.
Answer: I’m so sorry, but I cannot remember his name. It was a man and it was early on in The Colbert Report. He said they were at the table doing the interview, Stephen said something and the man began to yell and scold him! He totally did not understand what was happening. If I ever do find out what guest it was, I will let you know .
4. Who was the baby that was underneath the desk the other night?
Answer: It was an actor baby. The mother was with the baby under the desk and the father was backstage. When Stephen handed the baby over to “The Norquist,” everyone in the audience was laughing and clapping. After it was over, he jokingly said to the audience that he loved how everyone was so happy he was handing over a baby to be eaten by The Norquist. It was very funny!
5. How did you meet Jon Stewart?
Answer: He said that Evie had known him first when she acted in NY. When Stephen and Evie saw that Jon was taking over The Daily Show, Evie stated, “But he’s not funny!” She remembered him back in NY, sitting in the corner at the bar, alone, quiet, nursing his beer. So she had no idea he could be funny. When the promotion began for The Daily Show, there was going to be a party, but none of the cast was going to be there. Stephen thought this was odd, so he essentially went anyway and crashed the party!
Then…the show began. Now, remember I said I wanted to ask a question? Every time he would say, “Anyone else?,” I would freeze! Even when he looked in my direction, I couldn’t do it! I didn’t want it to sound like, “RYKMALIQPOMDFUGD!!!!” So, I said to myself, “Next time!”
The ladies touched up his makeup and hair. He played with her hair, as usual. And as they were doing this, he sang along with “Fell in Love with a Girl.” He was mouthing some of the lyrics and bouncing up and down. Then he started to fling the WristStrong bracelets. He picked up the first one, looked directly in my direction with this huge smile on his face and flung it. It landed right behind me! Damn! Oh well! Next time! He flung a bunch of them and ended with the prospective knife flinging. He decided against it and put it away! HA!
He stated that there was going to be no Table of Contents tonight. Because there were too many jokes, they don’t want to cut out the jokes, so they cut out the Table of Contents. He didn’t do the Table of Contents last time and I was hoping I would get to see it this time. But, to no avail. Next time! The show begins, the cheering starts and the studio is filled with “Stephen Stephen Stephen” chants! Once again, I taught Bob well! I must say right up front … Stephen was absolutely perfect! No character breaks at all. They didn’t have to redo anything. Last time I attended, there were also no character breaks, but they had to redo a scene a few times because Mike D of the Beastie Boys kept flubbing his lines. But this time, there were no issues at all! When he did his beer endorsement and threw it over his shoulder, there was a large mattress on the floor behind him. Hence, why it didn’t shatter and splatter into a million pieces. When the whole scene was over and they went to commercial, someone came from backstage and dragged the mattress away. This is what they probably used last time when Stephen threw all of his Apple gadgets over his shoulder. It was a complete joy watching Stephen watch his Better Know a District segment. I decided to watch him the entire time since I knew I would be watching the show anyway later. Stephen was hilarious! He totally cracked himself up at times and as he would say certain lines in the video, Stephen would mouth them to himself as he was watching, such as, “Are you a Congressman or a Corngressman?” He did this a few times. Other times, he just sat there, watching intensely, but with a little smirk on his face! That alone was worth standing on-line for 3 and a half hours! During the first break, it only lasted a couple of minutes. They looked over their papers and it was over. However, for the second break, right before the interview, they were looking over everything for a while. Let’s put it this way, we got to hear 2 long songs played. But I enjoyed the wait, because it was fascinating seeing him and the cast work. At one point, Stephen took his glasses off for a couple of minutes as he was talking to everyone around him. He kept pretending to hold something up with his hand and was making this pouty-lip, big eyed look, moving his head from side to side. Then he would stop, say something to them and then, do it again. Then he would laugh! Lots of laughing! This was after the Thought for Food segment and to me, it looked like he discussing when he was holding the carrot and saying to it, “What’s that carrot … ?” That whole scene. Am I positive? Nope! But that’s the only thing that resembled anything that happened that night. So, let’s go with that! HA! Another thing I can add is that he does take out his water bottle consistently to drink. During the breaks, when he was watching PETOP segment on the tv monitor, etc. It’s nothing of any real significance, but hey, if Stephen does it, it needs to be mentioned! The interview with Chris Hayes was great to watch live. They had a great time together and after it was over, Stephen leaned in and spoke with him for about a minute. For his closing, as they were counting him in, Stephen got the carrot out in advance, so you knew the carrot was making another appearance. And it was over. Stephen got up from his desk, took his Lime Beer, came around the desk and took a slug of the beer. He then stated, “I actually like this!” He said he would take one last question for the evening … beer in hand! “What are the books on the shelf?” Answer: He hadn’t looked at them in a long time and
actually wasn’t sure what was over there. So he went over to the books and started to read the “non-fiction” section and then, the “fiction” section, which included “The Origin of Species,” by Charles Darwin. Again, he thanked everyone for coming, said his goodbyes, and that was it! Once again, another magical experience, courtesy of Stephen Colbert. And it wasn’t over yet for me …
We all go outside and I had already forewarned my parents I wanted to wait after the show. Last time, we didn’t wait, but then I heard that he was great about giving autographs and pictures (if he wasn’t pressed for time), so I needed to at least attempt this. I had met Stephen back in May at the book signing. That was my first and only time. You may remember my recap. I was the one who asked my mother every 2 seconds if “the camera was ready,” got my 2 books signed, somehow got the words “Happy Birthday” coherently out of mouth and then continued to run down the staircase gigging uncontrollably and almost knock over a pen display with my elbow. Almost! Luckily, this was downstairs and Stephen wasn’t there to see that. Pheeew! So, as you can see, this was another reason why I ended up not asking a question. I become a nervous, starry-eyed mess. But I promised myself I would not allow this to happen if I was able to see him after the show. There was another young guy and girl waiting, as well (Were they a couple? Who knows? Where was the warm-up guy when you needed him)? We were not standing next to them, so we never even had a chance to converse. We planted ourselves right by the stairs to the offices and waited. About 10 minutes later, one of the security comes up to us and tells us that Stephen was going to be a while and that when he did finally come out, he was going to have to run because he needed to be somewhere. He also added that his aides were upstairs helping him. I asked approximately how long it would be, if he knew. He said he had no idea, for it changes every night. But he just wanted to warn us just in case Stephen didn’t have a chance to stop to say hello, since he was in a rush. As he put it, “he didn’t want us to feel hurt.” We totally understood and appreciated letting us know. My father and Bob were ready to go, but I wanted to wait a while longer. I told them they didn’t have to wait and they could go walk home. My mother, on the other hand, knew she was going to be the “picture-taker” so her leaving was out of the question! Ha! She, though, didn’t mind the wait. And the wait only turned out to be another 20 minutes or so. Next thing we see, the security guards poking their heads out of the door and flashing their flashlights to let the driver know Stephen was coming! The driver pulled out of the spot and double parked right in front of the building. And with that … here came Stephen, surrounded by 2 security guards! They came down the stairs and Stephen came right over to me and my mother. He said “Hi” to us and I replied with such a witty response … “Hi Stephen!” Oh yeah! He put out his hand to shake mine and once that occurred, I made a mental note to never wash or apply anti-bacterial gel to my right hand again! I told him it was a pleasure to meet him and he reciprocated the gesture. I also added that the show was great tonight and I really enjoyed it. He thanked me and said he really appreciated it. He then shook my mother’s hand and also said it was pleasure to meet him. The entire time, he was smiling, friendly and gave us his undivided attention. It was wonderful. He then went over to the other couple waiting for him. My mother was trying to get a picture of him, but was only able to get the back of him, surrounded by the 2 security guards, shaking the girl’s hand. She had this big smile on her face and I wish I knew who she was, for I would send her the picture. Also, there was a 3rd security guard on the landing next to the door, watching all of us like a hawk. I’ll tell you one thing, they really look after Stephen! When he was done, he said good-bye and thanked us all again for coming. He got in the back seat of the car and they drove off. Oh yes, he was wearing a striped blue and white button-down shirt and khakis.
And that was it. I have no idea where he was heading to, but the fact that I knew he was going somewhere, I was hesitant to ask for a picture. But the fact that he came right over to us and he initiated the hand shake and brief conversation, totally made my night! Plus, at the book signing, my mother got a great picture of him handing me my book, smiling right at me. And one of the professional photographers got a picture of him signing my book. In both pictures you can see the back of me, looking right at him. So technically, I did have my
picture taken with him and certainly cannot complain!
So, that’s my reporT. As expected, this turned into a novel, so I hope you enjoyed it. If not, you can just pretend you did. I won the Twitter contest to attend the concert on Friday, so I now have that to look forward to! It’s going to be great!
August 2nd, 2012: The Taping ReporT!
Hubster Victoria has sent us this wonderful “Taping ReporT” of her trip to the August 2nd, 2012 taping of “The Colbert Report”.
On Thursday, August 2, 2012, I had the pleasure of attending my 2nd Colbert Report live taping. My first one was 6 months ago back in January. Like last time, I went with my parents. However, this time, our friend Bob also attended with us. Last time, not knowing, we arrived around 5:20pm and made it in by the skin of our teeth. We were literally the last 3 tickets to be given out and about 10 people behind us got turned away. So this time, I made sure to arrive early. We got on the line around 3:30pm and there were 4 people ahead of us. Yes! We are definitely getting in! There was also already a large standby line and in the end, there were about 15 people on the list. But from what I can tell inside the studio, nobody from the list made it in. Bob had only seen a couple of clips of the show courtesy of me, so I had to give him a Readers Digest version of what to expect, what the show is about and to remember…he is playing a character! This, at least, made the time go by faster while waiting on-line. They let us in at 5:30pm and they had the typical video playing. But still, always fun to watch.
At 7:00pm, they let us into the studio and we ended up in the 4th row center. We had a perfect view of the desk and I was ready to go! Who am I kidding? I was ready at 6:00am that morning! I had every intention of asking him a question. I had a few in mind and I kept rehearsing how I was going to ask it. More on that later. Shortly after, our warm-up guy comes out and he was hysterical. He picked on a family I was talking to while we were waiting in the other room. He also went after a number of young couples…well, at least he thought they were couples. Turned out they were all friends. He had plenty to say about that. Then…he went after my father! He asked him if that was his wife sitting next to him, which it was. He wanted to know where they were from (NYC, born and raised), what he did for a living and how long they have been married. He picked on him for a while and then he hypothesized that he’s a “cool guy and must go home and smoke pot!” Cool guy, yes. Pot, no, sorry. But it was still funny! He said he assumed all the kids were grown and on their own, but my parents pointed down the aisle to me (Bob was sitting in between me and my parents). “Ok, here we go,” I thought! And I was right! He asked me my name, age and what I did for a living. I told him that I’m a Graduate student and immediately following that, he looked at Bob and started in on him. “You can’t be with her, right…because you’re too old! You are probably the creepy neighbor on the cul-de-sac named Jim!” Luckily, Bob has a great sense of humor and had fun with it. According to us, Bob’s new name is now Jim! He then asked the young guy behind me if he was single and proceeded to try to make a love connection. “You should meet up with her (me). She’s a Graduate student! When she’s done, you will never have to work again!” And with that last comment, it was time to start the show! He was great and we really enjoyed getting “picked on.”
As usual, the music starts to play and Stephen comes running out, around the table, high-fiving the production staff and everyone in the front row. And we begin the “Stephen chant.”(One of the things I taught Bob earlier). Stephen looks adorable as usual and it was so exciting being there in person again. He thanks everyone for coming, gives his “humanize me” mantra and the question and answer session begins.
1. What Olympic sport would you like to create?
Answer: Lounging.
2. What inspired you to become a comedic actor as a kid?
Answer: Stephen went on to explain how he had no aspirations to be an actor, but actually wanted to be a Marine Biologist. But due to his ear surgery, he couldn’t. He said, pointing to the ear, “this is just a prop. Water goes in and never comes out. It just stays in their swishing around so I wouldn’t be able to stay underneath water for too long.” Then he showed his ear trick!
3. What guest have you had on that didn’t understand you are playing a character and became very upset.
Answer: I’m so sorry, but I cannot remember his name. It was a man and it was early on in The Colbert Report. He said they were at the table doing the interview, Stephen said something and the man began to yell and scold him! He totally did not understand what was happening. If I ever do find out what guest it was, I will let you know .
4. Who was the baby that was underneath the desk the other night?
Answer: It was an actor baby. The mother was with the baby under the desk and the father was backstage. When Stephen handed the baby over to “The Norquist,” everyone in the audience was laughing and clapping. After it was over, he jokingly said to the audience that he loved how everyone was so happy he was handing over a baby to be eaten by The Norquist. It was very funny!
5. How did you meet Jon Stewart?
Answer: He said that Evie had known him first when she acted in NY. When Stephen and Evie saw that Jon was taking over The Daily Show, Evie stated, “But he’s not funny!” She remembered him back in NY, sitting in the corner at the bar, alone, quiet, nursing his beer. So she had no idea he could be funny. When the promotion began for The Daily Show, there was going to be a party, but none of the cast was going to be there. Stephen thought this was odd, so he essentially went anyway and crashed the party!
Then…the show began. Now, remember I said I wanted to ask a question? Every time he would say, “Anyone else?,” I would freeze! Even when he looked in my direction, I couldn’t do it! I didn’t want it to sound like, “RYKMALIQPOMDFUGD!!!!” So, I said to myself, “Next time!”
The ladies touched up his makeup and hair. He played with her hair, as usual. And as they were doing this, he sang along with “Fell in Love with a Girl.” He was mouthing some of the lyrics and bouncing up and down. Then he started to fling the WristStrong bracelets. He picked up the first one, looked directly in my direction with this huge smile on his face and flung it. It landed right behind me! Damn! Oh well! Next time! He flung a bunch of them and ended with the prospective knife flinging. He decided against it and put it away! HA!
He stated that there was going to be no Table of Contents tonight. Because there were too many jokes, they don’t want to cut out the jokes, so they cut out the Table of Contents. He didn’t do the Table of Contents last time and I was hoping I would get to see it this time. But, to no avail. Next time! The show begins, the cheering starts and the studio is filled with “Stephen Stephen Stephen” chants! Once again, I taught Bob well! I must say right up front … Stephen was absolutely perfect! No character breaks at all. They didn’t have to redo anything. Last time I attended, there were also no character breaks, but they had to redo a scene a few times because Mike D of the Beastie Boys kept flubbing his lines. But this time, there were no issues at all! When he did his beer endorsement and threw it over his shoulder, there was a large mattress on the floor behind him. Hence, why it didn’t shatter and splatter into a million pieces. When the whole scene was over and they went to commercial, someone came from backstage and dragged the mattress away. This is what they probably used last time when Stephen threw all of his Apple gadgets over his shoulder. It was a complete joy watching Stephen watch his Better Know a District segment. I decided to watch him the entire time since I knew I would be watching the show anyway later. Stephen was hilarious! He totally cracked himself up at times and as he would say certain lines in the video, Stephen would mouth them to himself as he was watching, such as, “Are you a Congressman or a Corngressman?” He did this a few times. Other times, he just sat there, watching intensely, but with a little smirk on his face! That alone was worth standing on-line for 3 and a half hours! During the first break, it only lasted a couple of minutes. They looked over their papers and it was over. However, for the second break, right before the interview, they were looking over everything for a while. Let’s put it this way, we got to hear 2 long songs played. But I enjoyed the wait, because it was fascinating seeing him and the cast work. At one point, Stephen took his glasses off for a couple of minutes as he was talking to everyone around him. He kept pretending to hold something up with his hand and was making this pouty-lip, big eyed look, moving his head from side to side. Then he would stop, say something to them and then, do it again. Then he would laugh! Lots of laughing! This was after the Thought for Food segment and to me, it looked like he discussing when he was holding the carrot and saying to it, “What’s that carrot … ?” That whole scene. Am I positive? Nope! But that’s the only thing that resembled anything that happened that night. So, let’s go with that! HA! Another thing I can add is that he does take out his water bottle consistently to drink. During the breaks, when he was watching PETOP segment on the tv monitor, etc. It’s nothing of any real significance, but hey, if Stephen does it, it needs to be mentioned! The interview with Chris Hayes was great to watch live. They had a great time together and after it was over, Stephen leaned in and spoke with him for about a minute. For his closing, as they were counting him in, Stephen got the carrot out in advance, so you knew the carrot was making another appearance. And it was over. Stephen got up from his desk, took his Lime Beer, came around the desk and took a slug of the beer. He then stated, “I actually like this!” He said he would take one last question for the evening … beer in hand! “What are the books on the shelf?” Answer: He hadn’t looked at them in a long time and
actually wasn’t sure what was over there. So he went over to the books and started to read the “non-fiction” section and then, the “fiction” section, which included “The Origin of Species,” by Charles Darwin. Again, he thanked everyone for coming, said his goodbyes, and that was it! Once again, another magical experience, courtesy of Stephen Colbert. And it wasn’t over yet for me …
We all go outside and I had already forewarned my parents I wanted to wait after the show. Last time, we didn’t wait, but then I heard that he was great about giving autographs and pictures (if he wasn’t pressed for time), so I needed to at least attempt this. I had met Stephen back in May at the book signing. That was my first and only time. You may remember my recap. I was the one who asked my mother every 2 seconds if “the camera was ready,” got my 2 books signed, somehow got the words “Happy Birthday” coherently out of mouth and then continued to run down the staircase gigging uncontrollably and almost knock over a pen display with my elbow. Almost! Luckily, this was downstairs and Stephen wasn’t there to see that. Pheeew! So, as you can see, this was another reason why I ended up not asking a question. I become a nervous, starry-eyed mess. But I promised myself I would not allow this to happen if I was able to see him after the show. There was another young guy and girl waiting, as well (Were they a couple? Who knows? Where was the warm-up guy when you needed him)? We were not standing next to them, so we never even had a chance to converse. We planted ourselves right by the stairs to the offices and waited. About 10 minutes later, one of the security comes up to us and tells us that Stephen was going to be a while and that when he did finally come out, he was going to have to run because he needed to be somewhere. He also added that his aides were upstairs helping him. I asked approximately how long it would be, if he knew. He said he had no idea, for it changes every night. But he just wanted to warn us just in case Stephen didn’t have a chance to stop to say hello, since he was in a rush. As he put it, “he didn’t want us to feel hurt.” We totally understood and appreciated letting us know. My father and Bob were ready to go, but I wanted to wait a while longer. I told them they didn’t have to wait and they could go walk home. My mother, on the other hand, knew she was going to be the “picture-taker” so her leaving was out of the question! Ha! She, though, didn’t mind the wait. And the wait only turned out to be another 20 minutes or so. Next thing we see, the security guards poking their heads out of the door and flashing their flashlights to let the driver know Stephen was coming! The driver pulled out of the spot and double parked right in front of the building. And with that … here came Stephen, surrounded by 2 security guards! They came down the stairs and Stephen came right over to me and my mother. He said “Hi” to us and I replied with such a witty response … “Hi Stephen!” Oh yeah! He put out his hand to shake mine and once that occurred, I made a mental note to never wash or apply anti-bacterial gel to my right hand again! I told him it was a pleasure to meet him and he reciprocated the gesture. I also added that the show was great tonight and I really enjoyed it. He thanked me and said he really appreciated it. He then shook my mother’s hand and also said it was pleasure to meet him. The entire time, he was smiling, friendly and gave us his undivided attention. It was wonderful. He then went over to the other couple waiting for him. My mother was trying to get a picture of him, but was only able to get the back of him, surrounded by the 2 security guards, shaking the girl’s hand. She had this big smile on her face and I wish I knew who she was, for I would send her the picture. Also, there was a 3rd security guard on the landing next to the door, watching all of us like a hawk. I’ll tell you one thing, they really look after Stephen! When he was done, he said good-bye and thanked us all again for coming. He got in the back seat of the car and they drove off. Oh yes, he was wearing a striped blue and white button-down shirt and khakis.
And that was it. I have no idea where he was heading to, but the fact that I knew he was going somewhere, I was hesitant to ask for a picture. But the fact that he came right over to us and he initiated the hand shake and brief conversation, totally made my night! Plus, at the book signing, my mother got a great picture of him handing me my book, smiling right at me. And one of the professional photographers got a picture of him signing my book. In both pictures you can see the back of me, looking right at him. So technically, I did have my
picture taken with him and certainly cannot complain!
So, that’s my reporT. As expected, this turned into a novel, so I hope you enjoyed it. If not, you can just pretend you did. I won the Twitter contest to attend the concert on Friday, so I now have that to look forward to! It’s going to be great!