So this afternoon I headed over to the Drake to attend a taping of the Daily Show, visiting Columbus (and OSU campus specifically) for their Indecision 2006 "Midwest Midterm Midtacular" coverage. They're here all week (which means shows Monday - Thursday). I sent an e-mail back in August when I first heard about it, requesting tickets. Hadn't heard anything back since, so I assumed that it was a no-go. BUT... last week I got the e-mail saying I had two tickets for tonight! WOOT! Well, complicated WOOT, as Amy wasn't able to go (staying home with Evie for the neighborhood Trick-or-Treat action). Gary's sick (ubersick, I'm afraid). Jeff originally showed interest last Friday, but it's his anniversary. Randy had his own tickets (same day even!), so I went with Tyler from work. We waited in the rain outside Drake for around 1.5 hours, only to get inside and wait INSIDE (past the metal detectors!) for another hour or so before finally getting in. We were afraid Randy & Heather weren't going to make it in, and it looked like they were indeed the LAST folks in the door - but they actually got to be up behind the producer/sound table, so that was cool. (Or seemed to be anyway, I wasn't able to catch up with them after the show to see if they felt the same).
The taping itself was a BLAST. Beforehand they had a comedian come out and warm-up the crowd, getting everyone to scream & yell & shout & generally make noise, then cracking jokes with folks, calling out random people and poking fun here & there. A pretty good time. Unfortunately, I can't remember his name :( He played the Funny Bone last weekend... but that doesn't help. Anyway, he was decent, and got folks going pretty well, then Jon Stewart came out and chatted with folks for awhile, taking questions from the audience which ranged from what comedians made him laugh to what he would want to be reincarnated as (an otter, BTW). Pretty awesome to just take whatever questions from folks, and he handled them all well. The only one that was kind of stiff was someone asking him about running for president - he just said he wasn't and moved on immediately.
As for the actual SHOW portion, there weren't any retakes (or none needed that happened at the time I guess), so it went amazingly fast. It seemed kind of odd that there were pauses about the same length as commercial breaks in between segments. It's kind of funny how little actual CONTENT goes into a 30-minute show after commercials and such. The guest was an OSU professor (apparently they invited plenty of politicians, but no one was available/interested) - he was OK I guess, but it would've been nice to see LeBron yesterday or Borat on Thursday. No clue who's scheduled for tomorrow.
So yeah, watch the Daily Show tonight (or the replay tomorrow at 8)! There's an almost infantismal chance you'll see me in one of the crowd-panning shots! And if not, we'll it's still cool that they're IN TOWN. Despite the long wait in the rain, and inside, and the short actual TAPING, the overall experience was a blast, and I'd definitely do it again!
