I guess this is kind of like an “interview reporT”. Since this interview is not widely available, some of you may not be able to hear it, so since I am sort of the resident Stern fan, I get to listen to it over and over, but I swear it’s only to make sure you all can get more out of it. 😀
I have been listening to Howard on and off since 2000. I’ve been a Stephen fan since 2009 and I’ve been waiting that long, hoping to see, or rather hear Stephen as a guest on Howard’s show. Stephen has never been on the show before this week. Jon Stewart, Conan O’Brien, Steve Carell, even John Oliver have all appeared before. It’s been perplexing to me as to why Stephen had never been on before now. I’ve often wondered if Howard didn’t like him or if Stephen didn’t want to come on due to Howard’s nature. I still don’t know the answer, but that doesn’t matter so much now. Howard does like Stephen and if Stephen ever had reservations, I guess he got over them.
Stephen was interviewed for an hour and a half and that’s with no commercial breaks. That’s about the maximum time a guest has ever been interviewed. It’s usually about an hour, so I was happy to get the max.
For us hardcore fans, the topics were mostly things we had heard about before, like obviously the death of his father and brothers, his time at Second City and the Ambiguously Gay Duo.
For me, personally, I don’t think I knew that Stephen was in a Rolling Stones cover band.
Another thing I didn’t know was the Sterile Cockpit rule. This rule went into effect after and because of the crash. At this point in the interview, it seemed as if this might be the hardest thing for Stephen to talk about.
Howard: Did you listen to the tape of the (flight recorder).
Stephen: No, I read it, I read the transcript, I read it once.
Howard: Did it make you angry because (the pilots) were talking about nonsense?
Stephen: (after a pause) Sure. Sure, but it was only a few years ago, I didn’t read it when I was younger.
Howard has improved so much as an interviewer. He always tried to be provocative and would ask questions about sex lives and sex positions and sex this and that. Many of his guests were porn stars and strippers, unknown actors, weird celebrities that most people would never touch with a ten foot pole. He still will have the occasional offbeat guest, but I think because he has laid off the sex questions and has stopped worrying so much about being provocative, he’s become a much better interviewer. That reminds me of how Stephen used to say he stopped trying to be an assassin with his guests and he really wanted them to enjoy themselves. Perhaps Howard realized the same thing. He frequently gets big A-listers now.
Still, Howard’s on-air persona is very negative at times, and very cynical. I don’t know how much of that is a put-on. Much like “Stephen Colbert”, I think Howard plays a character too. People have said that in person, he is really nothing like he is on the air.
This on-air persona was evident when he kept insisting that Stephen would grow to resent “Jimmy 1 and Jimmy 2”. (This was what Stephen called them. Stephen: ‘They know who they are!’) and that he would only care about whether or not he was #1 in the ratings. I think Howard does this to try to stir things up. Stephen maintained his attitude throughout that he is not concerned about being #1 and will not resent Jimmy 1 and Jimmy 2 and only wants to do the best show he can.
Robin: You’re going to have to compete for guests …
Howard: Yes, it’s gonna be vicious, don’t kid yourself, it is.
Stephen: Why shouldn’t I kid myself? I’m a kidder.
Howard: Alright, kid yourself, if you want to, if you must.
Stephen: How do you think I got through my life? Kidding myself.
Howard: Well, in a way, yes, you’ve had a tough life.
Stephen: I’ve not had a tough life.
Howard: Of course you have.
Stephen: There was a tough event, how ‘bout that? My life has been beautiful.
He revealed that he has been in therapy, where he said he didn’t know if he worked out his issues, but he just talked about it.
Robin and Howard were insisting that once Stephen gets a guest stolen from them, that’s when Stephen will be resentful, but they probably don’t remember the whole Daft Punk thing. He didn’t turn vicious then. Howard is that way, and he thinks that if he is that way, then everyone is or will be that way eventually. I think Stephen was great at maintaining his positive attitude.
Howard was very complimentary though. Here is one very nice quote from early on in the interview:
Howard: Here’s why I predict you’re going to make a good late night host, A. you’ve got the energy…
Stephen: Thank You.
Howard: #2, you’ve got all the references, you can actually sing Stones songs and know the lyrics…
Stephen: Thank You.
Howard: You’ve got all the tools…
Stephen: You know, the kids love hits from 1971.
Howard’s research staff is really good. I know that they can bring up stuff that many guests have either forgotten about or would just never think anyone would know.
Howard commented that Stephen must have the urge to comfort a crying woman because of the years he spent comforting his mom. Stephen had a strong reaction to that, saying that Howard asked a really deep question. Howard’s mom lost her mother at a young age and he was always trying to cheer her up and Stephen did admit that he does have the urge to cheer up a sad woman.
Stephen talked about the 90 minute meeting he had with Dave, shortly before Dave’s last show. Howard asked Stephen if he asked Dave to be his first guest but Stephen didn’t want to reveal too much about what they talked about, but said it would’ve been lovely to have Dave as the first guest.
One other lovely thing Howard said was that he loved that Stephen would run over to meet the guests on the show, instead of having the guests walk out, thereby stealing their thunder. Howard does seem to know the show, or at the very least, boned up on it ahead of the interview.
Toward the end of the interview, Vinnie Favale came in. He is the Vice President of CBS late night programming, East Coast. Vinnie has been a regular caller/character on the Stern show for years. The joke on the show is that the only show on CBS late night on the east coast was Letterman, so he had a very important sounding job, but he really just had the Late Show to deal with.
They brought him in to answer questions about who’s funnier, Dave or Stephen, who’s more talented and stuff like that and he answered the right way by answering Stephen to all of them. Then Howard (jokingly) revealed that Vinnie was being punked, Letterman was not leaving and they did all that to test his loyalty.
Via @SternShow
After the interview was over, after the commercial break, Howard took a couple callers who complimented him on a great interview. Howard said he wanted to be able to sit down with Stephen for a whole day, just to talk about the Ambiguously Gay Duo. He said words to that effect in the interview, too. He said he had about 7 more hours of questions. Howard does say that to most of his guests, but I think he’s genuine about it. He does have a genuine interest in people, obviously, or else he wouldn’t want to spend an hour talking to them.
One other thing I did notice, was the Stern show twitter account had lots of nice stuff about Stephen. They posted the Good Morning America piece, they announced that he was coming in the week before, the day before and the hour before he came in. In the past, there have been times when I’ve learned that the guest is coming on, as they are walking into the studio. This twitter stuff could be a common thing they do with all the guests now, but it is still a nice improvement over the non-publicity days of the past.
Also, they continued to talk about Stephen on the Wrap-Up show, which comes on right after the show. Even further than that, they had Adam Resnick as a guest on the August 20th wrap-up show where they continued to talk about Stephen. Adam is a former Letterman writer, among other things. So this week is a huge amount of Colbert-y goodness over on Howard 100.
I was soooo happy to finally see this happen and was also excited to hear about other people’s reactions to it. The one thing I realized, though, is that even after an hour and a half, I wanted more. Over these years, I imagined the questions Howard would ask and he’s not afraid to ask anything. There were so many questions he didn’t ask, but hopefully, if he re-signs with Sirius, Stephen will be back on the show now that he is a “friend of the show”. I also hope Howard will be on the Late Show, but he always said he never wants to do any other show and the only reason he did Letterman was out of loyalty. We shall see.
Stephen Colbert on the 'Howard Stern Show'
I guess this is kind of like an “interview reporT”. Since this interview is not widely available, some of you may not be able to hear it, so since I am sort of the resident Stern fan, I get to listen to it over and over, but I swear it’s only to make sure you all can get more out of it. 😀
I have been listening to Howard on and off since 2000. I’ve been a Stephen fan since 2009 and I’ve been waiting that long, hoping to see, or rather hear Stephen as a guest on Howard’s show. Stephen has never been on the show before this week. Jon Stewart, Conan O’Brien, Steve Carell, even John Oliver have all appeared before. It’s been perplexing to me as to why Stephen had never been on before now. I’ve often wondered if Howard didn’t like him or if Stephen didn’t want to come on due to Howard’s nature. I still don’t know the answer, but that doesn’t matter so much now. Howard does like Stephen and if Stephen ever had reservations, I guess he got over them.
Stephen was interviewed for an hour and a half and that’s with no commercial breaks. That’s about the maximum time a guest has ever been interviewed. It’s usually about an hour, so I was happy to get the max.
For us hardcore fans, the topics were mostly things we had heard about before, like obviously the death of his father and brothers, his time at Second City and the Ambiguously Gay Duo.
For me, personally, I don’t think I knew that Stephen was in a Rolling Stones cover band.
Another thing I didn’t know was the Sterile Cockpit rule. This rule went into effect after and because of the crash. At this point in the interview, it seemed as if this might be the hardest thing for Stephen to talk about.
Howard: Did you listen to the tape of the (flight recorder).
Stephen: No, I read it, I read the transcript, I read it once.
Howard: Did it make you angry because (the pilots) were talking about nonsense?
Stephen: (after a pause) Sure. Sure, but it was only a few years ago, I didn’t read it when I was younger.
Howard has improved so much as an interviewer. He always tried to be provocative and would ask questions about sex lives and sex positions and sex this and that. Many of his guests were porn stars and strippers, unknown actors, weird celebrities that most people would never touch with a ten foot pole. He still will have the occasional offbeat guest, but I think because he has laid off the sex questions and has stopped worrying so much about being provocative, he’s become a much better interviewer. That reminds me of how Stephen used to say he stopped trying to be an assassin with his guests and he really wanted them to enjoy themselves. Perhaps Howard realized the same thing. He frequently gets big A-listers now.
Still, Howard’s on-air persona is very negative at times, and very cynical. I don’t know how much of that is a put-on. Much like “Stephen Colbert”, I think Howard plays a character too. People have said that in person, he is really nothing like he is on the air.
This on-air persona was evident when he kept insisting that Stephen would grow to resent “Jimmy 1 and Jimmy 2”. (This was what Stephen called them. Stephen: ‘They know who they are!’) and that he would only care about whether or not he was #1 in the ratings. I think Howard does this to try to stir things up. Stephen maintained his attitude throughout that he is not concerned about being #1 and will not resent Jimmy 1 and Jimmy 2 and only wants to do the best show he can.
Robin: You’re going to have to compete for guests …
Howard: Yes, it’s gonna be vicious, don’t kid yourself, it is.
Stephen: Why shouldn’t I kid myself? I’m a kidder.
Howard: Alright, kid yourself, if you want to, if you must.
Stephen: How do you think I got through my life? Kidding myself.
Howard: Well, in a way, yes, you’ve had a tough life.
Stephen: I’ve not had a tough life.
Howard: Of course you have.
Stephen: There was a tough event, how ‘bout that? My life has been beautiful.
He revealed that he has been in therapy, where he said he didn’t know if he worked out his issues, but he just talked about it.
Robin and Howard were insisting that once Stephen gets a guest stolen from them, that’s when Stephen will be resentful, but they probably don’t remember the whole Daft Punk thing. He didn’t turn vicious then. Howard is that way, and he thinks that if he is that way, then everyone is or will be that way eventually. I think Stephen was great at maintaining his positive attitude.
Howard was very complimentary though. Here is one very nice quote from early on in the interview:
Howard: Here’s why I predict you’re going to make a good late night host, A. you’ve got the energy…
Stephen: Thank You.
Howard: #2, you’ve got all the references, you can actually sing Stones songs and know the lyrics…
Stephen: Thank You.
Howard: You’ve got all the tools…
Stephen: You know, the kids love hits from 1971.
Howard’s research staff is really good. I know that they can bring up stuff that many guests have either forgotten about or would just never think anyone would know.
Howard commented that Stephen must have the urge to comfort a crying woman because of the years he spent comforting his mom. Stephen had a strong reaction to that, saying that Howard asked a really deep question. Howard’s mom lost her mother at a young age and he was always trying to cheer her up and Stephen did admit that he does have the urge to cheer up a sad woman.
Stephen talked about the 90 minute meeting he had with Dave, shortly before Dave’s last show. Howard asked Stephen if he asked Dave to be his first guest but Stephen didn’t want to reveal too much about what they talked about, but said it would’ve been lovely to have Dave as the first guest.
One other lovely thing Howard said was that he loved that Stephen would run over to meet the guests on the show, instead of having the guests walk out, thereby stealing their thunder. Howard does seem to know the show, or at the very least, boned up on it ahead of the interview.
Toward the end of the interview, Vinnie Favale came in. He is the Vice President of CBS late night programming, East Coast. Vinnie has been a regular caller/character on the Stern show for years. The joke on the show is that the only show on CBS late night on the east coast was Letterman, so he had a very important sounding job, but he really just had the Late Show to deal with.
They brought him in to answer questions about who’s funnier, Dave or Stephen, who’s more talented and stuff like that and he answered the right way by answering Stephen to all of them. Then Howard (jokingly) revealed that Vinnie was being punked, Letterman was not leaving and they did all that to test his loyalty.
Via @SternShow
After the interview was over, after the commercial break, Howard took a couple callers who complimented him on a great interview. Howard said he wanted to be able to sit down with Stephen for a whole day, just to talk about the Ambiguously Gay Duo. He said words to that effect in the interview, too. He said he had about 7 more hours of questions. Howard does say that to most of his guests, but I think he’s genuine about it. He does have a genuine interest in people, obviously, or else he wouldn’t want to spend an hour talking to them.
One other thing I did notice, was the Stern show twitter account had lots of nice stuff about Stephen. They posted the Good Morning America piece, they announced that he was coming in the week before, the day before and the hour before he came in. In the past, there have been times when I’ve learned that the guest is coming on, as they are walking into the studio. This twitter stuff could be a common thing they do with all the guests now, but it is still a nice improvement over the non-publicity days of the past.
Also, they continued to talk about Stephen on the Wrap-Up show, which comes on right after the show. Even further than that, they had Adam Resnick as a guest on the August 20th wrap-up show where they continued to talk about Stephen. Adam is a former Letterman writer, among other things. So this week is a huge amount of Colbert-y goodness over on Howard 100.
I was soooo happy to finally see this happen and was also excited to hear about other people’s reactions to it. The one thing I realized, though, is that even after an hour and a half, I wanted more. Over these years, I imagined the questions Howard would ask and he’s not afraid to ask anything. There were so many questions he didn’t ask, but hopefully, if he re-signs with Sirius, Stephen will be back on the show now that he is a “friend of the show”. I also hope Howard will be on the Late Show, but he always said he never wants to do any other show and the only reason he did Letterman was out of loyalty. We shall see.