The Daily Show

Back in early June I sent a ticket request to the Daily Show. Today, slightly over three months to the day later, Kim and I attended the taping at the Daily Show studio. We had been told to arrive an hour to an hour and a half before the doors were set to open (4:45) in order to ensure entry. They said that they send out more ticket letters than they actually have seats for in order to keep the studio filled. Just to be sure, we arrived at about 3:00pm. A rather lengthy line had already formed by the time we got there, but we were confident that we would make it inside.

Around 4:00, a security guard repositioned the line of people waiting so that a couple of interns could walk freely through the crowd and check names off of the list. They started at the front of the line and worked their way backwards. They would ask for your name, check you off the list, and then hand you a card with a number on it. When they checked the person nine spots ahead of us off their list, they handed that person the last numbered card and walked away. I was a little worried that we weren't going to get in at that point, but luckily they came back about ten minutes later with a new stack of cards. The original cards were yellow, but the ones they handed out to us were green. When they ran out of those, they started handing out red cards. The cards made me think of Mitch Hedberg. (On a traffic light yellow means yield, and green means go. On a banana, it's just the opposite, yellow means go ahead, green means stop, and red means, where'd you get that banana?) Kim suggested that maybe the green cards mean that we get sandwiches...

Anyway, we got our cards and then waited while everyone behind us in line got theirs as well. Once everyone finally got their cards, the interns told us some basic studio rules. (No cell phones, no cameras, no asking Jon for an autograph, no leaving once we sit down, etc.) They then asked for anyone who needed to use the restroom to line up near the front doors. At this point, I'd guess that a solid third of the people left the line to use the bathroom. This was all well and dandy, but it meant that we had to continue standing around outside until everyone came back from the restroom. They eventually did, and they opened the doors to the studio, but we continued to stand around for a while afterwards. We were finally allowed into the studio around 5:30 after two and a half hours of standing around outside.

We walked in and my first thought was just how small the studio looked. On TV it seems so big, but in person it seemed like a miniature set. The entire set consisted of one tiny desk and three screens behind it. Also on TV, those screens look awesome. They're so vivid and bright, they look like HD monitors. In person they reminded me more of a high school slide projector screen.

Anway, we were finally inside and finished waiting, so we took our seats and... continued to wait. For a solid twenty minutes we just sat in our seats and talked as loud music blared. Eventually, a guy came out with a mic and began to get the crowd pumped up. He introduced himself as Mike, the warmup comedian. That I didn't expect. He turned out to be really funny and his act consisted of pointing out people in the audience and making fun of them. He made fun of their facial hair, their clothing, their hometowns, and pretty much anything else he could find out about them.

After his act, he introduced Jon Stewart and walked "backstage." Jon came out and fielded a few questions from the audience. People asked some really stupid questions, but Jon managed to turn them into something funny. One woman announced that her son was in the crowd and said that it was her job as his mother to embarrass him. She then asked him if he embarrasses his son. He pointed out that his son is two years old, so it's pretty hard to embarrass him. Another person asked if Jon had seen Dick Cheney on Meet the Press. That was it. That was his whole question. Jon didn't really hide the fact that it was a stupid question and answered with a rather dry, "Um, yeah, I did..." He salvaged it with a pretty funny Dick Cheney impression though. The only other question came from a woman who spent the first forty-five seconds sucking up to Jon and telling him how wonderful he was. She then moved on to her question: "In the moment of Zen from the 9/20/2001 episode, was that your dog?" He answered at first by saying, "Yeah, that was my dog Monkey" and then went on to talk about a conversation that he had with his dog. It was funny, but I don't remember what he actually said. He then admitted that no, it wasn't his dog. He explained that it was the first show after 9/11 and he didn't know how to end the show. "So why not a puppy?" He explained that puppies are the antithesis of terrorism and made the comment that he thought the government should "send a battalion of puppies into Iraq to cuddle with the terrorists." He then he asked if we were ready to start the show. At this point, he took his seat and producers and stage hands appeared all over the place. It became a flurry of activity as camera operators started moving cameras around, the teleprompters were wheeled into position, and the lighting was adjusted. A few minutes later we heard the familiar intro music and announcement of today's date and the show began. (During the intro, the camera pans across a section of the audience. If you look closely, you can see Kim and I...for a tiny fraction of a second) What was most interesting about this part was that the prompter would have a few lines of dialogue and then it would say "adlib." Most of the show's beginning monologue is just Jon Stewart adlibbing. It was really funny.

The next part of the show was an interview with John Oliver who was "live in Washington." In reality, he was standing about three feet to the right of Jon Stewart. I had thought that they did these using green screens, but the ghetto, high school looking screen simply changed to look like Washington. It was a funny interview and then they cut to commercial. After the cameras stopped rolling, Jon said, "John Oliver everyone" and we all clapped. He walked off and the producers and interns materialized again and the cameras were shifted around.

They came back from commercial and Jon introduced a segment where Jason Jones interviewed some hunters. The two things I found interesting about this part was that it appeared as if Jon Stewart had never seen the segment before. During the whole thing, he watched closely on a small screen below his closest camera. He laughed at all the funny parts and, at one point, put his papers over his face as he laughed out loud. The other thing that I thought was interesting was Jason Jones watched from the doorway as his segment aired. He was just wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap and he left as soon as his segment was done. At the commercial break, Jon once again gave a "Jason Jones everyone" and Jason gave a little bow before disappearing out of the studio. Another commercial break...

The next part of the show was an interview with the guest of the day, Maggie Gyllenhaal. It was a bizarre interview and there really isn't much to say about it. At this point they went back to commercial.

A short time later Jon asked the crowd if we were ready for Steven Colbert. Everyone cheered and Steven came up on the screens. The cameras weren't rolling at this point and Jon and Steven just talked to each other about the emmys and what each had done over their two week vacation. It was a really funny exchange and it seemed like the two of them were competing to see who could make the other one laugh. Colbert definitely won. They finished talking, the screens shut off, they came back from commercial, the screens came back on, and they started talking again. The only difference was that this time I could follow their conversation by looking at the teleprompters. They had a brief exchange and then they cut to the moment of zen as Jon walked away.

The show ended and Jon came back out. He thanked the crowd, said some humble words, and walked off again. The lights came up and the interns ushered us all out. Overall it was a really fun way to spend a day in Manhattan.