The Late show with Stephen Colbert - a taping report
I got new glasses (yay) - which means I can start to work on the pictures of my vacation. This will take some time, probably a lot of time but I can tell you about a part of it right now:
I always wanted to attend a taping of The Daily Show with Jon Steart and / or The Colbert Report. Unfortunately the Colbert Report doesn't exist anymore and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah started taping one week after I left New York. You can imagine how sad I was when I realized that.
Fortunately, Stephen Colbert had decided to start his new show with the official beginning of the election cycle - which is at the beginning of September and I was fast enough to get two tickets. YAY!
So, a couple of days before I attended the taping I arrived in New York - and from the start, everywhere I looked, I could see Stephens face.
They are absolutely EVERYWHERE. It is amazing XD
Anyway: I was on vacation with my friend N., who had no idea who Stephen is or what he does. But she was curious how it is behind the curtain of an american late night show so she was willing to accompany me to the taping. We did some sightseeing first, walking along the Highline and it took a bit longer than I thought to get back to Time Square, so we arrived at the beautiful sullivan theater later than I had hoped, at 14:15 (There are no real bad seats in the theater, but if you ever attend a taping and want to get in one of the first rows, try to get there between 12:20 and 13:00. You won't have to wait in line the whole time, don't worry).
There already was a line, but the staff is quite efficient: they quickly checked our reservation, we got a ticket and a stamp (N. is 248, I am 249) and we were sent away to return at 16:00.
(Sorry, I am too lazy to make a new photo of my ticket)
As we were a bit tired we went to the Starbucks that is located accross the street, where I talked a bit with a girl from Florida, that also waited to get to the taping and later N. and I went to a souvenir shop, because we got bored...
Aaaaaanyway: At 16:00 sharp we were back at the Sullivan theater - and had to wait in line a loooooooong time. Urgh, that's the worst part, because there were a LOT of peope cramped in a small entrance hall and it was quite warm. Finally inside we were ushered to our seats in the second to last row. Which sounds worse than it is because you still can see everthing (except the wonderful ceiling) but you don't get picked out by the warm-up comedian - which is definitely a plus! And the seats are very comfy.
That warm-up comedian has the task to teach the audience be be VERY LOUD, to laugh out loud and to applaud the right way. He did that by picking out people from the audience and making fun about them. It was not really mean, so that's allright, but I am not really a fan of that kind of comedy. N. was a bit bewildered about the whole thing, since she wasn't a fan of Colbert and she tried to do as little as possible without getting attention from the Comedian (or later at the taping). *lol*
After the comedian was satisfied with our laughing and applauding performance, the band came out to play for us: Jon Baptiste & Stay Human. I think they are kind of a jazz band and I like what they are doing on the Late Show.
Then Stephen came out - of course under a ton of applause - and started to answer a couple of questions "to humanize me before the show". Here are some of the questions and answers I still remember (before the musical guest he also answered a couple of questions because setting up everything took so long):
Then the taping started. Unfortunately, I couldn't see Stephen while he was standing during the monologue because the camera was in the way. Hmpf, unfair! But the rest of the episode I could see just fine.
Stephen just flubbed one line (which is on tape), the rest went all in all perfect. Except... it didn't. During the Hunger Games segment, around the time where Scott Walker encouraged the other Republican Candidates to drop out as well, the whole taping came to a halt. After a long discussion we were informed, that apparently the computer that put the pictures near Stephens face had crashed and had to be started again. While we waited, Stephen made a couple of jokes ("Catness is Coming!") and - when it was time to tape again, made some faces to get back into character. It was hillarious.
Before his first guest, Donald Trump, came out, he asked the audience to greet Trump as enthusiastic as we would greet him. Which we kind of did. Well. A bit. The interview was great, my favorite part was, when Trump mentioned that Stephen must have at least once said something nice about him - and then Stephen said "I don't remember". Awesome! The second best was the part about the beautiful wall with a big door (I think that was also N.s favorite part, because we joked about it after the show *g*). An other interesting fact was, that Trump must have brought AT LEAST 3 security people with him. They were visible the whole time Trump was on stage and watched the audience VERY carefully.
At the end of the taping two lines from the very beginning had to be repeated and Stephen asked us to "bring the energy from the beginning of the taping to the end of the taping". I don't really know which lines he had to repeat - because the audience was clapping too hard.
Everything else is as seen as in the episode.
A couple of other things I noticed during and between the tapings:
And that's it! A great experience and if I am ever in New York again, I'll certainly attend another taping of the show. It is a lot of fun.
I always wanted to attend a taping of The Daily Show with Jon Steart and / or The Colbert Report. Unfortunately the Colbert Report doesn't exist anymore and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah started taping one week after I left New York. You can imagine how sad I was when I realized that.
Fortunately, Stephen Colbert had decided to start his new show with the official beginning of the election cycle - which is at the beginning of September and I was fast enough to get two tickets. YAY!
So, a couple of days before I attended the taping I arrived in New York - and from the start, everywhere I looked, I could see Stephens face.
They are absolutely EVERYWHERE. It is amazing XD
Anyway: I was on vacation with my friend N., who had no idea who Stephen is or what he does. But she was curious how it is behind the curtain of an american late night show so she was willing to accompany me to the taping. We did some sightseeing first, walking along the Highline and it took a bit longer than I thought to get back to Time Square, so we arrived at the beautiful sullivan theater later than I had hoped, at 14:15 (There are no real bad seats in the theater, but if you ever attend a taping and want to get in one of the first rows, try to get there between 12:20 and 13:00. You won't have to wait in line the whole time, don't worry).
There already was a line, but the staff is quite efficient: they quickly checked our reservation, we got a ticket and a stamp (N. is 248, I am 249) and we were sent away to return at 16:00.
(Sorry, I am too lazy to make a new photo of my ticket)
As we were a bit tired we went to the Starbucks that is located accross the street, where I talked a bit with a girl from Florida, that also waited to get to the taping and later N. and I went to a souvenir shop, because we got bored...
Aaaaaanyway: At 16:00 sharp we were back at the Sullivan theater - and had to wait in line a loooooooong time. Urgh, that's the worst part, because there were a LOT of peope cramped in a small entrance hall and it was quite warm. Finally inside we were ushered to our seats in the second to last row. Which sounds worse than it is because you still can see everthing (except the wonderful ceiling) but you don't get picked out by the warm-up comedian - which is definitely a plus! And the seats are very comfy.
That warm-up comedian has the task to teach the audience be be VERY LOUD, to laugh out loud and to applaud the right way. He did that by picking out people from the audience and making fun about them. It was not really mean, so that's allright, but I am not really a fan of that kind of comedy. N. was a bit bewildered about the whole thing, since she wasn't a fan of Colbert and she tried to do as little as possible without getting attention from the Comedian (or later at the taping). *lol*
After the comedian was satisfied with our laughing and applauding performance, the band came out to play for us: Jon Baptiste & Stay Human. I think they are kind of a jazz band and I like what they are doing on the Late Show.
Then Stephen came out - of course under a ton of applause - and started to answer a couple of questions "to humanize me before the show". Here are some of the questions and answers I still remember (before the musical guest he also answered a couple of questions because setting up everything took so long):
- The first, very long question came from a Peruvian guy who wanted Stephen to ask his first guest, Donald Trump some sort of question (I didn't really understand, what it was about) and Stephen: "Get your own damn show!" - and then said, that he would ask the question. Perhaps.
- What is his ideal D&D group? Him, Vin Diesel (who really plays!), two of the creators of D&D and a fifth person I don't know. Then he told us, that he went to GenCon when he was 15 years old (and when it wasn't a cool thing to do, there were no cameras from ABC) and he was a hard core player.
- What music would he put on his ears? Stephen played a bit sulkily because he has only one ear to put music on because the other one is deaf, "thank you for reminding me".
- Someone asked if Stephen had an extra pack of oreos. He laughed and just said no. (Must have been an inside joke from the first shows).
- Don't remember the question, but he did a Trump impression and then said, that his old character had essentially been Donald Trump without the 10 billion dollars. Ouch.
Then the taping started. Unfortunately, I couldn't see Stephen while he was standing during the monologue because the camera was in the way. Hmpf, unfair! But the rest of the episode I could see just fine.
Stephen just flubbed one line (which is on tape), the rest went all in all perfect. Except... it didn't. During the Hunger Games segment, around the time where Scott Walker encouraged the other Republican Candidates to drop out as well, the whole taping came to a halt. After a long discussion we were informed, that apparently the computer that put the pictures near Stephens face had crashed and had to be started again. While we waited, Stephen made a couple of jokes ("Catness is Coming!") and - when it was time to tape again, made some faces to get back into character. It was hillarious.
Before his first guest, Donald Trump, came out, he asked the audience to greet Trump as enthusiastic as we would greet him. Which we kind of did. Well. A bit. The interview was great, my favorite part was, when Trump mentioned that Stephen must have at least once said something nice about him - and then Stephen said "I don't remember". Awesome! The second best was the part about the beautiful wall with a big door (I think that was also N.s favorite part, because we joked about it after the show *g*). An other interesting fact was, that Trump must have brought AT LEAST 3 security people with him. They were visible the whole time Trump was on stage and watched the audience VERY carefully.
At the end of the taping two lines from the very beginning had to be repeated and Stephen asked us to "bring the energy from the beginning of the taping to the end of the taping". I don't really know which lines he had to repeat - because the audience was clapping too hard.
Everything else is as seen as in the episode.
A couple of other things I noticed during and between the tapings:
- he chews on his pencil A LOT
- during the setting up of the stage for the musical guest he flung the vinyl of his musical guest through the air, he danced a bit and sung something I don't recognice. So cute.
- During every commercial - except between the interviews of Donald Trump, where they immediatly continued taping - there were very long discussions between Stephen Colbert, Paul Dinello, two or three other people I don't know and sometimes the stage manager. I really would LOVE to know what they talked about ^^
- When Stephen saw the BIG DRUM from Raury's band, he stood there with his legs appart, pretended to be drumming like an ape and said he seemed to have a craving for a loin cloth :D
- Stephen seemed to really like the green shirt that Raury made him a present (when he got back to the table with it, he kind of tripped over his chair that was in the way), he just said that with S = skinny it probably was a bit too small and he would have to loose his baby fat to wear it.
- The band played the whole time during commercial breaks, during the discussions etc. They were very good and versatile, I just didn't really pay attention because my attention always was on Stephen ;-). After the taping, Jon and two others of his band went to the foyer and played there, probably until everyone had left.
And that's it! A great experience and if I am ever in New York again, I'll certainly attend another taping of the show. It is a lot of fun.