June 1st- Colbert taping!!!!
So I went to a taping of the Colbert Report Monday. Yes, it was awesome. Let me describe it to you.
My sister and I got in line around 3 or so. There were already some people there, but most of them appeared to be standby. We waited in that line until they opened the gates around 3:30. We ended up being 5th and 6th in line. It all went fairly smoothly until they came around with the checklist of those who'd reserved tickets. For some reason, we weren't on the list. My assume-the-worst mind was in full paranoid force at that point. 'Was it the fact I used my sister's name but my email address? Did they know about those Daily Show tickets I was forced to cancel really near the cut-off point? What if we don't get in?' Luckily I had the confirmation email and everything was fine. Of course it was, I'm just panicky. Eventually they led us into the holding pen room around 5:30, which was an unbelievably tiny space to try and hold everyone. There were several rounds of them pumping us up and getting us to cheer loudly, and then we were led into the studio.
I know everyone says this, but it really is smaller than it appears on TV. But what struck me more than that was how close we were to everything. We sat front row, stage left, and we were literally 15 feet, at most, from his desk. It was right there, no barrier, no nothing. Of course we spent the next minutes pointing at things and going "Look, there's ___!" My sister didn't know what the tape outline was, and I noticed for the first time that the one wrist of the outline had a bit of red tape going across it- a wristSTRONG bracelet! At some point I could see a feed of what I assumed to be the current Daily Show taping on the monitors around the studio, but no sound or anything.
After a bit, the warm-up comedian came on. I thought he was funny, but I can't for the life of me remember his name, sadly. He was bald, a fact which he made much of during his routine, so if previous taping-goers know, please tell me. At some point, we noticed he'd been on for awhile, and had said "I'm getting the signal, it's just a few moments" twice now, and I think he noticed the audience's collective impatience, because he said, "I bet you're like, 'Where's Stephen?"' Normally I'm on for, like, 15, 20 minutes and then he's here. Let me just say, you'll be seeing a lot of Stephen and the Report tonight. They're back there working longer than usual for that." Needless to say, we were super excited at that news. Oh, and a Canadian guy and a bald guy got to touch Stephen's desk, the first for being so excited, the second for coming up and being the butt of a joke. I was jealous.
Eventually Stephen came out with much fanfare and whooping. He ran around the stage, just as you see in that clip of him falling and breaking his wrist. He leapt off the stage onto his tape outline and landed in a "tada!" pose just to my left. He then proceeded to go down the front row, hand-outstretched for high-five action. I missed him the first time, because I was still clapping, but luckily he came back the other way, and his fingerips lightly grazed my fingertips. Swoon.
He then took a few questions from the audience. There might be a couple I don't remember. One girl asked if there were any jokes he regretted not telling. He recounted meeting Joe Biden a little while ago, who greeted him with a very enthusiastic "HEEYYYY BUDDY! After I was out, I was for you in South Carolina!" Stephen said that he wish he'd responded, "Funny, you were for me in South Carolina; I was for Obama." The next question was a sort of response to the previous one. Some guy asked if there were any jokes he regretted telling. Stephen laughed and then said, "Oh! I just thought of a joke I regret not making! Well, it's both actually. I regret not making it, but had I made it, I would have regretted it." He told the story about the White House Correspondents Dinner (the mention of which got lots of cheers) and how he had printed up a gradeschool-esque Certificate of Presidency, "the highest honor a citizen can bestow on the President," to present to George W. Bush [it said that "Stephen Colbert recognizes that George W. Bush is President"], but when he looked at Bush's completely unamused face he thought, "I'm not making any more jokes about him. I'm not getting anywhere near him." I think I've heard/read him tell this story somewhere else, but it was still funny and great to hear in person. He's just so well-spoken and a great-story-teller. Then someone asked "Barry Manilow: Great singer-songwriter, or greatest singer-songwriter?" To which Stephen immediately replied "Oh, greatest, definitely. Who else could beat me?" We all laughed, and then HE BEGAN TO SING "MANDY". IT WAS AMAZING AND I COULDN'T BREATHE. Guys, he sounded so good, so much better in person than on TV, even though he sounds great there, too. The final question came from an Emory student, something about the speaker at their recent graduation, I couldn't really hear. She asked if Stephen would consider coming next year and topping it. It must have had something to do with Spanish/Mexico, because Stephen responded, "As Esteban Colberto?" and began speaking in Spanish as his character. So I got singing Stephen and foreign-language-speaking Stephen during the question segment. I was very happy, to say the least.
The show started then, and it was pretty much exactly as you saw it, no mistakes, mess-ups, anything. Oh, right before it started he flung out a bunch of wristSTRONG bracelets, but alas, I did not catch one. When he was pointing Sweetness at the camera, it was the camera next to me, so it was a bit unsettling as it seemed the gun was pointed at me. It was fun to see him discuss the script/show and get his makeup touched up during breaks; he kept making seductive faces at the make-up ladies. When one was smoothing his hair, he reached up to stroke her hair in a similar fashion. Sigh. They just shook their heads and smiled as they walked offstage. He also danced around in his chair to the "Where in the World and When in Time is Stephen Colbert Going to be in the Persian Gulf?" jingle, as you might expect. So adorable. He bopped along quite a bit to the music in the breaks, too.
The show itself went by really fast. Then, after the end segment (the 'dance for me' one), Stephen announced that sometimes, due to scheduling, they have to do extra bits for a future show, and this was one of those times. I was ecstatic for the extra show. There was a bit of confusion on Stephen's part over exactly how many extra segments they were doing, but it was quickly sorted out: [WARNING:SEMI-SPOILERS FOR AN UPCOMING SHOW] we'd be getting a WORD and a Craziest Fucking Thing I've Ever Heard. There was cheering at the mention of the WORD, of course. Make-up and wardrobe came in at this point. Tie-change! Stephen loosened and undid his tie, and then put on the new one, a plain purple one. I'm a sucker for plain purple ties. There was a good deal of woo-ing, in which I participated, as Stephen did this adjustment, especially at the loosening of the tie and collar. He took it in good humor and maybe played it up a bit. He definitely played it up when he started combing his hair. Someone rushed in and handed him a brush, and he began brushing it in quite an adorable, mock-vain way, staring at himself in the monitor as a mirror.
Before he shot the new stuff, he said, "Remember, you're a new audience, you're fresh." Then they shot the opening for the future show, and more adorableness ensued. Stephen looked at the wrong camera at the start, looked around bewildered for a few moments, trying to carry on, and then broke down, asking "What camera is it?" I got to see a mess-up/break! There was then a brief consultation about the camera order for the cold open. They kept repeating different orders of the numbers 1234 back and forth, Stephen saying at the end, "4321? That's novel," which cracked me up for some reason. They did the intro again, and Stephen had a MINI-CHARACTER BREAK on the last line, something along the line of "My nuts were in the soup" (I think it was a soup to nuts based joke). They left it in, so look for it- based on the intro, and the online guest list, it looks to be Thursday's show. Also, there was a "Spring is in the air and we're all fresh as a daisy" line after the intro which might have been a reference to how long we'd been there. At least, that's how I'm taking it. They did the WORD, for which I found it difficult to remember to look at the screens for the jokes. Still funny, even when I didn't. I got to hear Stephen unbleeped for the Craziest Fucking Thing bit, which was exciting- it sort of shocked me more than I thought it would. They shot the second closing, which was a simple good night. After that, Stephen ran offstage to cheers, and hugged the girl sitting in the first seat- I was so jealous, then came back and thanked us for being a good audience, and left for real. We filed out, and I saw Stephen taking pictures with a couple people. I turned back to grab my sister, but by the time I turned back, he had disappeared. The girl in front of me who'd seen it had turned back and filed out, so I gave it up. We had to get home, anyway, so we couldn't wait outside or anything, sadly. My sister and I took our pictures under the Colbert Report awning and it was over. We headed home to Pennsylvania. Altogether, it was an utterly amazing experience, and I was just left wanting to go back and see another taping.
They do show an overhead audience shot in the show (they taped a bunch), but you can't make my sister and me out. I was disappointed. Oh well, still amazing.
My sister and I got in line around 3 or so. There were already some people there, but most of them appeared to be standby. We waited in that line until they opened the gates around 3:30. We ended up being 5th and 6th in line. It all went fairly smoothly until they came around with the checklist of those who'd reserved tickets. For some reason, we weren't on the list. My assume-the-worst mind was in full paranoid force at that point. 'Was it the fact I used my sister's name but my email address? Did they know about those Daily Show tickets I was forced to cancel really near the cut-off point? What if we don't get in?' Luckily I had the confirmation email and everything was fine. Of course it was, I'm just panicky. Eventually they led us into the holding pen room around 5:30, which was an unbelievably tiny space to try and hold everyone. There were several rounds of them pumping us up and getting us to cheer loudly, and then we were led into the studio.
I know everyone says this, but it really is smaller than it appears on TV. But what struck me more than that was how close we were to everything. We sat front row, stage left, and we were literally 15 feet, at most, from his desk. It was right there, no barrier, no nothing. Of course we spent the next minutes pointing at things and going "Look, there's ___!" My sister didn't know what the tape outline was, and I noticed for the first time that the one wrist of the outline had a bit of red tape going across it- a wristSTRONG bracelet! At some point I could see a feed of what I assumed to be the current Daily Show taping on the monitors around the studio, but no sound or anything.
After a bit, the warm-up comedian came on. I thought he was funny, but I can't for the life of me remember his name, sadly. He was bald, a fact which he made much of during his routine, so if previous taping-goers know, please tell me. At some point, we noticed he'd been on for awhile, and had said "I'm getting the signal, it's just a few moments" twice now, and I think he noticed the audience's collective impatience, because he said, "I bet you're like, 'Where's Stephen?"' Normally I'm on for, like, 15, 20 minutes and then he's here. Let me just say, you'll be seeing a lot of Stephen and the Report tonight. They're back there working longer than usual for that." Needless to say, we were super excited at that news. Oh, and a Canadian guy and a bald guy got to touch Stephen's desk, the first for being so excited, the second for coming up and being the butt of a joke. I was jealous.
Eventually Stephen came out with much fanfare and whooping. He ran around the stage, just as you see in that clip of him falling and breaking his wrist. He leapt off the stage onto his tape outline and landed in a "tada!" pose just to my left. He then proceeded to go down the front row, hand-outstretched for high-five action. I missed him the first time, because I was still clapping, but luckily he came back the other way, and his fingerips lightly grazed my fingertips. Swoon.
He then took a few questions from the audience. There might be a couple I don't remember. One girl asked if there were any jokes he regretted not telling. He recounted meeting Joe Biden a little while ago, who greeted him with a very enthusiastic "HEEYYYY BUDDY! After I was out, I was for you in South Carolina!" Stephen said that he wish he'd responded, "Funny, you were for me in South Carolina; I was for Obama." The next question was a sort of response to the previous one. Some guy asked if there were any jokes he regretted telling. Stephen laughed and then said, "Oh! I just thought of a joke I regret not making! Well, it's both actually. I regret not making it, but had I made it, I would have regretted it." He told the story about the White House Correspondents Dinner (the mention of which got lots of cheers) and how he had printed up a gradeschool-esque Certificate of Presidency, "the highest honor a citizen can bestow on the President," to present to George W. Bush [it said that "Stephen Colbert recognizes that George W. Bush is President"], but when he looked at Bush's completely unamused face he thought, "I'm not making any more jokes about him. I'm not getting anywhere near him." I think I've heard/read him tell this story somewhere else, but it was still funny and great to hear in person. He's just so well-spoken and a great-story-teller. Then someone asked "Barry Manilow: Great singer-songwriter, or greatest singer-songwriter?" To which Stephen immediately replied "Oh, greatest, definitely. Who else could beat me?" We all laughed, and then HE BEGAN TO SING "MANDY". IT WAS AMAZING AND I COULDN'T BREATHE. Guys, he sounded so good, so much better in person than on TV, even though he sounds great there, too. The final question came from an Emory student, something about the speaker at their recent graduation, I couldn't really hear. She asked if Stephen would consider coming next year and topping it. It must have had something to do with Spanish/Mexico, because Stephen responded, "As Esteban Colberto?" and began speaking in Spanish as his character. So I got singing Stephen and foreign-language-speaking Stephen during the question segment. I was very happy, to say the least.
The show started then, and it was pretty much exactly as you saw it, no mistakes, mess-ups, anything. Oh, right before it started he flung out a bunch of wristSTRONG bracelets, but alas, I did not catch one. When he was pointing Sweetness at the camera, it was the camera next to me, so it was a bit unsettling as it seemed the gun was pointed at me. It was fun to see him discuss the script/show and get his makeup touched up during breaks; he kept making seductive faces at the make-up ladies. When one was smoothing his hair, he reached up to stroke her hair in a similar fashion. Sigh. They just shook their heads and smiled as they walked offstage. He also danced around in his chair to the "Where in the World and When in Time is Stephen Colbert Going to be in the Persian Gulf?" jingle, as you might expect. So adorable. He bopped along quite a bit to the music in the breaks, too.
The show itself went by really fast. Then, after the end segment (the 'dance for me' one), Stephen announced that sometimes, due to scheduling, they have to do extra bits for a future show, and this was one of those times. I was ecstatic for the extra show. There was a bit of confusion on Stephen's part over exactly how many extra segments they were doing, but it was quickly sorted out: [WARNING:SEMI-SPOILERS FOR AN UPCOMING SHOW] we'd be getting a WORD and a Craziest Fucking Thing I've Ever Heard. There was cheering at the mention of the WORD, of course. Make-up and wardrobe came in at this point. Tie-change! Stephen loosened and undid his tie, and then put on the new one, a plain purple one. I'm a sucker for plain purple ties. There was a good deal of woo-ing, in which I participated, as Stephen did this adjustment, especially at the loosening of the tie and collar. He took it in good humor and maybe played it up a bit. He definitely played it up when he started combing his hair. Someone rushed in and handed him a brush, and he began brushing it in quite an adorable, mock-vain way, staring at himself in the monitor as a mirror.
Before he shot the new stuff, he said, "Remember, you're a new audience, you're fresh." Then they shot the opening for the future show, and more adorableness ensued. Stephen looked at the wrong camera at the start, looked around bewildered for a few moments, trying to carry on, and then broke down, asking "What camera is it?" I got to see a mess-up/break! There was then a brief consultation about the camera order for the cold open. They kept repeating different orders of the numbers 1234 back and forth, Stephen saying at the end, "4321? That's novel," which cracked me up for some reason. They did the intro again, and Stephen had a MINI-CHARACTER BREAK on the last line, something along the line of "My nuts were in the soup" (I think it was a soup to nuts based joke). They left it in, so look for it- based on the intro, and the online guest list, it looks to be Thursday's show. Also, there was a "Spring is in the air and we're all fresh as a daisy" line after the intro which might have been a reference to how long we'd been there. At least, that's how I'm taking it. They did the WORD, for which I found it difficult to remember to look at the screens for the jokes. Still funny, even when I didn't. I got to hear Stephen unbleeped for the Craziest Fucking Thing bit, which was exciting- it sort of shocked me more than I thought it would. They shot the second closing, which was a simple good night. After that, Stephen ran offstage to cheers, and hugged the girl sitting in the first seat- I was so jealous, then came back and thanked us for being a good audience, and left for real. We filed out, and I saw Stephen taking pictures with a couple people. I turned back to grab my sister, but by the time I turned back, he had disappeared. The girl in front of me who'd seen it had turned back and filed out, so I gave it up. We had to get home, anyway, so we couldn't wait outside or anything, sadly. My sister and I took our pictures under the Colbert Report awning and it was over. We headed home to Pennsylvania. Altogether, it was an utterly amazing experience, and I was just left wanting to go back and see another taping.
They do show an overhead audience shot in the show (they taped a bunch), but you can't make my sister and me out. I was disappointed. Oh well, still amazing.