Hubster Kevin has sent us this wonderful “Event ReporT” from his trip to “A Candid Conversation with the Real Stephen Colbert – A Benefit for Two River Theater Company at Count Basie Theatre” from way back on November 1st, 2009.
Greetings “HubsterT” nation! (See what I did there?)
This is my first of 5 reporTs for ColbertNewsHub. I apologize for how late these all are/will be.
This entry is about the Two Rivers Theater Benefit at the Count Basie theater, already more than 6 YEARS AGO! I wish I had reached out and submitted years ago but I guess I was lazy or uninterested in doing so. Though I really can’t imagine why!
First off, lemme just say that I regretfully hadn’t even known about The Colbert Report until February of 2008, when I caught the episode with Neil deGrasse Tyson at the Hayden Planetarium. It was so hilarious, that segment: Stephen Colbert’s Fallback Position. I was instantly hooked! And a few days later after buying both the print and audiobook of I Am America (And So Can You!), I could feel I was turning into a super-fan. NoFactZone.net was one of the sites I visited most frequently, as is Colbert News Hub.
So somehow I got tickets to this thing, can’t believe I don’t remember how, but it wasn’t too hard to get to since I live in NJ…just like my hero Stephen. For the record, we both go to the same Ski Barn and Apple Store! I haven’t seen him there myself, but have heard from my friends and employees of those stores that he’s been spotted there. The mall that the Apple Store is in, by the way, was the same one they shot in for the episode of Strangers With Candy where Jerri joins a cult (Season 2, episode 8: “The Blank Stare”). And there are so many other amazing coincidences, similarities, connections between Stephen and I that I won’t get into in this post. I am a comedian and I fell in love with the show partly because it was the only thing I’d ever seen that reminded me of my own personal sense of humor and style. In fact, I had tried to get hired as a writer a couple times. It’s unbelievable how many jokes I’ve come up with that the staff at Colbert had also thought of! So I figured I’d be a perfect fit. I have some photos from when I took a class at Chicago’s Second City. There’s a great photo of a young Stephen hung permanently on the second floor next to Chris Farley’s photo, among others. Pictures on glowing screens! Anyway, this is all getting too self indulgent. I’ll just stick to the point of this article.
Okay, so when I got there at the theater (with my mother, I was 15 at the time), we were a little late. I’m pretty sure people were having photos taken with Stephen and there was a book-signing. Unfortunately, it was too late for me to get my copy signed or picture taken because the actual onstage interview was about to start. Plus I didn’t bring my copy of the book with me, somehow I missed that there was gonna be a signing. Not to worry though, as I was able to get my copy of America Again signed at the 2012 92Y event with Ken Burns.
On stage, of course, there was a large screen so we could see live video of Stephen and the interviewer. I tried to give equal attention to “the real thing” here onstage in front of us, though.
I wish I could remember more about this particular event. I know the interviewer was someone Colbert was friends with and/or co-workers with in the past. I think there was a lot of talk about “going green” but for the life of me I can’t recall a single detail. There was also a mention of his early jobs as a young man, one of which included fiber glass installation one summer. And he said that debris from the fiber glass got lodged in his skin by the end of every workday and he’d wake up the next morning practically brushing glass out of bed. He said that it “made it hard to get a girlfriend”. Also he discussed how he used to get pieces of wood to hammer and nail together his own bed frames to sell to people. And they’d call up at odd hours in the night and he’d actually go to repair them.
He recounted some anecdotes of his early days at Second City about how when he first heard of long-form improv he was shocked people could perform a totally improvised 3 act play, he didn’t believe it essentially. Talked a little bit about how he’d say, “Let’s get into trouble”, meaning renting a theater space and having a very close deadline to try to write and put up a show. A discipline that no doubt carried over into his working under such a tight, rigid schedule at The Colbert Report and of course The Daily Show as well.
There was some discussion about Exit 57. All I can remember from that was how he was embarrassed that the joke ratio was so low. He said “You could drive a tractor through to the next joke” which was his way of saying it took too long to get from one laugh to the next in an average sketch. He said it goes back to what Rodney Dangerfield said about laughs per minute, “How fast can ya cook?” Also how it was a training ground for him in learning on the job of how to do TV and everything it entails.
They talked a little about the Hungarian Bridge campaign and how the Ben & Jerry’s flavor came about. I cannot recall the specifics. Also how the booker on Colbert worked in real news for years.
A little bit of talk about books he’s read that influenced him a lot.
I remember they opened it up to have questions from the audience at the end. One was an old lady who seemed to take it very seriously or something, praising Stephen about “fighting the good fight” and such, almost as if she were playing a character or was addressing his character. I couldn’t tell and I could feel in the room other people were palpably weirded out by this little old lady insisting he “keep up the magnificent work changing the world”. I paid close attention to his reaction to this and he was visibly uncomfortable. He was leaning over trying to hear her and had a look on his face of trying to decide how to answer. He decided on just thanking her blankly.
A woman from No Fact Zone got to ask a question and he said, “Oh, No Fact Zone, I love you guys!” I forget what was asked. Another woman prefaced her question with a compliment, “I love how graceful you are with your hand motions”. When he heard this, is majestically and flamboyantly waved them back and forth in some hard-to-describe, eccentric manner. We all laughed.
There were write-in questions that I was unaware we could submit on Facebook a few days before and there was a lightning round. The lightning round was directed at both the real Colbert and his character.
They asked him to bring his character out for questions and he leapt out of his chair and instantly transformed into the empty-headed egomaniac we all know and love. It was like magic, like watching Clark Kent duck into a phone booth and seconds later emerge as Superman. The crowd was going wild!
A great educational and entertaining magazine for Tweens and teens called Muse magazine was there. I had been reading it for years. They asked Stephen if he could sum up his life’s philosophy in 6 words and put it on a t-shirt, what would it be? He said, “Well, I thought it was funny.” Apparently they used his answer as an example in a co test in the back of one of their issues: [Link]
Then the interviewer asked his character for 6 word bio. Colbert very seriously and sternly shot back, “You should always wear a cup”. It was hilarious. Favorite ice cream? Chocolate.
Character’s favorite ice cream: AmeriCone Dream.
Event ReporT: A Candid Conversation with Stephen Colbert (2009)
Greetings “HubsterT” nation! (See what I did there?)
This is my first of 5 reporTs for ColbertNewsHub. I apologize for how late these all are/will be.
This entry is about the Two Rivers Theater Benefit at the Count Basie theater, already more than 6 YEARS AGO! I wish I had reached out and submitted years ago but I guess I was lazy or uninterested in doing so. Though I really can’t imagine why!
First off, lemme just say that I regretfully hadn’t even known about The Colbert Report until February of 2008, when I caught the episode with Neil deGrasse Tyson at the Hayden Planetarium. It was so hilarious, that segment: Stephen Colbert’s Fallback Position. I was instantly hooked! And a few days later after buying both the print and audiobook of I Am America (And So Can You!), I could feel I was turning into a super-fan. NoFactZone.net was one of the sites I visited most frequently, as is Colbert News Hub.
So somehow I got tickets to this thing, can’t believe I don’t remember how, but it wasn’t too hard to get to since I live in NJ…just like my hero Stephen. For the record, we both go to the same Ski Barn and Apple Store! I haven’t seen him there myself, but have heard from my friends and employees of those stores that he’s been spotted there. The mall that the Apple Store is in, by the way, was the same one they shot in for the episode of Strangers With Candy where Jerri joins a cult (Season 2, episode 8: “The Blank Stare”). And there are so many other amazing coincidences, similarities, connections between Stephen and I that I won’t get into in this post. I am a comedian and I fell in love with the show partly because it was the only thing I’d ever seen that reminded me of my own personal sense of humor and style. In fact, I had tried to get hired as a writer a couple times. It’s unbelievable how many jokes I’ve come up with that the staff at Colbert had also thought of! So I figured I’d be a perfect fit. I have some photos from when I took a class at Chicago’s Second City. There’s a great photo of a young Stephen hung permanently on the second floor next to Chris Farley’s photo, among others. Pictures on glowing screens! Anyway, this is all getting too self indulgent. I’ll just stick to the point of this article.
Okay, so when I got there at the theater (with my mother, I was 15 at the time), we were a little late. I’m pretty sure people were having photos taken with Stephen and there was a book-signing. Unfortunately, it was too late for me to get my copy signed or picture taken because the actual onstage interview was about to start. Plus I didn’t bring my copy of the book with me, somehow I missed that there was gonna be a signing. Not to worry though, as I was able to get my copy of America Again signed at the 2012 92Y event with Ken Burns.
On stage, of course, there was a large screen so we could see live video of Stephen and the interviewer. I tried to give equal attention to “the real thing” here onstage in front of us, though.
I wish I could remember more about this particular event. I know the interviewer was someone Colbert was friends with and/or co-workers with in the past. I think there was a lot of talk about “going green” but for the life of me I can’t recall a single detail. There was also a mention of his early jobs as a young man, one of which included fiber glass installation one summer. And he said that debris from the fiber glass got lodged in his skin by the end of every workday and he’d wake up the next morning practically brushing glass out of bed. He said that it “made it hard to get a girlfriend”. Also he discussed how he used to get pieces of wood to hammer and nail together his own bed frames to sell to people. And they’d call up at odd hours in the night and he’d actually go to repair them.
He recounted some anecdotes of his early days at Second City about how when he first heard of long-form improv he was shocked people could perform a totally improvised 3 act play, he didn’t believe it essentially. Talked a little bit about how he’d say, “Let’s get into trouble”, meaning renting a theater space and having a very close deadline to try to write and put up a show. A discipline that no doubt carried over into his working under such a tight, rigid schedule at The Colbert Report and of course The Daily Show as well.
There was some discussion about Exit 57. All I can remember from that was how he was embarrassed that the joke ratio was so low. He said “You could drive a tractor through to the next joke” which was his way of saying it took too long to get from one laugh to the next in an average sketch. He said it goes back to what Rodney Dangerfield said about laughs per minute, “How fast can ya cook?” Also how it was a training ground for him in learning on the job of how to do TV and everything it entails.
They talked a little about the Hungarian Bridge campaign and how the Ben & Jerry’s flavor came about. I cannot recall the specifics. Also how the booker on Colbert worked in real news for years.
A little bit of talk about books he’s read that influenced him a lot.
I remember they opened it up to have questions from the audience at the end. One was an old lady who seemed to take it very seriously or something, praising Stephen about “fighting the good fight” and such, almost as if she were playing a character or was addressing his character. I couldn’t tell and I could feel in the room other people were palpably weirded out by this little old lady insisting he “keep up the magnificent work changing the world”. I paid close attention to his reaction to this and he was visibly uncomfortable. He was leaning over trying to hear her and had a look on his face of trying to decide how to answer. He decided on just thanking her blankly.
A woman from No Fact Zone got to ask a question and he said, “Oh, No Fact Zone, I love you guys!” I forget what was asked. Another woman prefaced her question with a compliment, “I love how graceful you are with your hand motions”. When he heard this, is majestically and flamboyantly waved them back and forth in some hard-to-describe, eccentric manner. We all laughed.
There were write-in questions that I was unaware we could submit on Facebook a few days before and there was a lightning round. The lightning round was directed at both the real Colbert and his character.
They asked him to bring his character out for questions and he leapt out of his chair and instantly transformed into the empty-headed egomaniac we all know and love. It was like magic, like watching Clark Kent duck into a phone booth and seconds later emerge as Superman. The crowd was going wild!
A great educational and entertaining magazine for Tweens and teens called Muse magazine was there. I had been reading it for years. They asked Stephen if he could sum up his life’s philosophy in 6 words and put it on a t-shirt, what would it be? He said, “Well, I thought it was funny.” Apparently they used his answer as an example in a co test in the back of one of their issues: [Link]
Then the interviewer asked his character for 6 word bio. Colbert very seriously and sternly shot back, “You should always wear a cup”. It was hilarious. Favorite ice cream? Chocolate.
Character’s favorite ice cream: AmeriCone Dream.