Colbert Report: Even Robots Are Against Wrist Violence.

I went to see a taping of The Colbert Report — mark another one off my East Coast Goals. It was pretttttty hilarious. Seeing him out of character is kind of strange and disconcerting, but trust me when I say that it really is just a character. The real Stephen Colbert is quick, witty, and significantly taller than Jon Stewart.(1)

The studio itself is pretty small. 107 seats.(2) The process is similar to when I went to see The Daily Show — you get tickets online, you line up outside for an hour or two, they check IDs and hand out cards with numbers on them, you go through an airport-like security check, they let you in to a holding room, and finally, they’ll let you into the main studio in the order that you lined up in.

Once they sit you down, they tell you the process and a standup comedian comes out and loosens the crowd up. Stephen comes out and answers any questions (out of character) in order to “humanize” himself before he gets into character and skewers our democratic leaders in front of the audience.

Getting tickets is a real pain so here are my tips:

  • Check the web site for tickets often. Very often. I checked twice a day, everyday, for 6 weeks before I got tickets.
  • I also used a web site change detector to email me whenever text on the web site changed so I would know if tickets were updated or if they had some sort of special screening going on.
  • This is how the process works (as far as I can tell), it looks like he is sold out until next year but in actuality, they only release a certain number of days in advance. So even though the calendar goes to 2009, they might only release two months in advance. I think they release them at certain intervals (once a week, possibly once a month) and they release them in bulk. So it’s not like everyday 1 ticket gets up, but every week, 3 new days are available on the calendar.
  • Don’t forget to confirm. They’ll send you an email. YOU HAVE TO CLICK THAT LINK. People in line with us forgot to confirm and had to come back the next day. Suckas.
  • Once you’re inside, it is cold. Like all studios, there’s about 200 lights overhead which tends to head up a room quickly. You don’t want the talent sweating so what they do is they make the room at about 2 degrees above freezing. Wear a coat.

If you’re interested, you can see us at the 1:08 mark of the 11/20/08 showing when they pan the audience. Check hulu.com.

The “WRISTSTRONG” bracelet was one of about 5 he gave out that night. I actually stole it from the person who actually got it, but that’s ok.(3) It was like a tax for giving her my ticket to see the show.

If you don’t get the whole wrist violence/bracelet thing, you probably don’t watch Colbert Report enough. Here’s the Wiki artcle.

The end.

NIKON D700 and 105.0 mm f/2.8 shooting f/8.0, 1/200 s, ISO 200 at 105 mm. Taken at 2008:11:22 17:53:42

PS — Despite how awesome my camera is, there’s hope for all you ghetto camera Canon Rebel and Nikon D40/x users out there… This guy made this photo with a Nikon D40 and Nikon 18-200 VR(4) and a whole lot of time and patience. Awesome shot.

I’ve seen(5) a lot of GGB shots, and this is by far one of the best.

Footnotes:
  1. Some would also say he’s a bit heavier in the middle than it shows on TV. [↩]
  2. Daily Show has 200+, Conan has 200+ [↩]
  3. Thanks, Olivia! [↩]
  4. Not, by any measures, a sharp lens. [↩]
  5. and taken [↩]