Another Reason New York Rules

colbert
Originally uploaded by dangunderman.

One can see The Colbert Report. And for free!

Last October or so, I requested tickets for the show via their official Comedy Central website. A few weeks later, they informed me that I could come to the show (with three others) in a few months.

So it took a while, but the wait came to an end last night.

The audience-size is surprisingly small. Only 109 people each night. We were in the back row, and it felt like we were a part of the action. To get us to sound like a bigger crowd on TV, there was a great deal of crowd warm-up. The stand-up comedian who came out wasn't very funny. He seemed to go through his own personal table of contents (aloud) at the end of each bit. He even admitted toward the end that he was running out of clean material, that in another two minutes he would have to resort on pussy jokes. That was his biggest laugh of the evening. Who doesn't love a good pussy joke?

Stephen came out for a quick warm-up, and answered a couple of questions, in order to "humanize the host for the audience."

Because I don't have cable, I've only caught the show in its entirety once. I tend to watch clips online. And I found myself distracted by the myriad activities going on in the studio. So I can't honestly remember the bulk of the material he did. There were a few bloopers, one of which he worked into the show and then had a good laugh during the commercial break.

The crowd warm-up, the commercial break music, the staff coming up to talk to him... everything seemed to be geared toward keeping Stephen's energy up. Maybe it's that I don't work in television, but I found the process to be really interesting. There was a bit done in front of the green screen, and I barely heard a word he said, as I wondered what they did to make his tie different colors like that. Although it was clearly related to the background...

I love that these things are free in New York -- Letterman, Conan, the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, even SNL. All you have to do is ask for tickets, then wait. The Report is apparently booked through August already.