Second City’s ‘Colbert Report’ panel featuring Stephen Colbert – A Review

Thanks so much to one of our longtime Zoners MaryLovesColbert (who also blogs over at LiveJournal as shoebox_addict if you’d like to friend her) for this lovely writeup on the event earlier today.

Tom Purcell and Stephen Colbert - Second City Colbert Report panel

Okay. Oh my. This is going to be as coherent as I possibly can be. I feel like I need decompression time or something after that. Wowza. Okay…here we go I guess! Let’s make sense of the notes that I scribbled in the car on the way home!

First off: the roster. Writers Peter Grosz and Peter Gwinn were there. So was the co-executive producer, Tom Purcell. Naturally, Stephen was there. And – as a total surprise to me and, I think everyone in the place – Allison Silverman was there! I swear she was not listed as a guest. So very awesome. Everyone was dressed very casually. Stephen had on jeans and a pullover thing – well, you can see in the picture above. His hair was all fluffy and normal, you know, and that smile…my God.

Anywho! The moderator was Peter Sagal, of “Wait, Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me” on NPR. Stephen got, like, all excited and jumped up when they announced he was the moderator. He already knew, of course, but he said that was his reaction when they told him on the phone. Awesome. Peter Sagal related a story that Stephen told him – that Stephen cuts up his vegetables for soup while listening to Sagal’s show. So sweet! But he said that’s caused a reaction so that whenever he hears NPR, he has to pick up a knife.” Have to keep it off in the car…”

They began the panel by having everyone tell their stories of their time at Second City. Stephen told us all what I’d already heard many times – that he used to take acting very seriously, he wore a beard, etcetera. He said that he bussed tables, answered phones, and sold t-shirts (held the record for selling the most, too!). Peter Grosz bragged about getting into the National Touring Company of Second City on his first try and Peter Gwinn “glared” at him – it was very funny! They all ribbed Allison a bit, because I think she wasn’t actually in Second City.

Stephen joked about the Google v. Viacom deposition that he was at – fairly recently, I think. He said that he couldn’t give much away, but he did say that, during the deposition, they had to differentiate between him and his character. So, the lawyers would ask him about a clip and he’d say, “Well…are you asking me or my character?” So, they devised a system whereby Stephen would move his coffee cup to the left or the right and that would signify whether he was himself or his character. So funny! He remarked that his character never got all the way through the documents – i.e. “Ah, well, ‘people’ is spelled wrong here…you’ve got a dangling modifier here. What is this? No, YOU’RE out of order!”

Sagal, the moderator, asked them all if they were worried about trying to get the show done for four nights a week. They said that they were at the very beginning, but it passed. But Stephen said he still gets it sometimes where he’ll think for three months, “Oh, this is do-able.” And then for a month he’ll just be thinking, “This cannot be done, I’m a fraud!” Stephen and Allison re-enacted a situation at the beginning of the show when David Cross came in (he was, apparently, going to play a ‘liberal nemesis’ type of character to Stephen) and simply couldn’t believe they were going to put on the show every night.

Peter Grosz made a really good analogy of the character being this finished portrait and they were always just pulling off things that were obscuring things about the character. So, it’s not like they’re creating him – it’s like he’s a finished product and they keep discovering new things about him. I thought that was really insightful.

They said that the whole “bear” thing evolved from a piece that was never aired about a snake eating an alligator. I don’t even know, it was hilarious to hear them tell the story though! And, I guess they said that the fear of bears came about because the character is afraid that *anything* could come through his porch door and kill him – bears, terrorists, et cetera.

They said that the show is pretty much an exercise in call-and-response because the character will do something and then the audience will respond in some way. Stephen said he never thought he’d actually have a Colbert Nation who goes out and does these stupid things, but he loves it. And he said that “stupid things” is a compliment.

They all talked about the idea of the show based on O’Reilly and Hannity and the like. Stephen said that that was just a jumping-off point, basically. He said that just before the whole Guitarmageddon thing, he looked at them all and said, “Now guys, this is just like O’Reilly!” I thought that pretty well illustrated the fact that his persona may be like O’Reilly but the show is not – the show has gone in its own direction. Allison also mentioned that “Stephen” is a much more interesting person than O’Reilly or Hannity. She said that “Stephen” is innocent and stupid, he’s not a malicious person, and they rattled off the old “well-intentioned, poorly informed idiot” characterization.

Stephen said that he doesn’t tell the guests too much, it’s better if they don’t know anything about *him* and just take him at face value, as the character, during the interview. Sagal remarked that interviews always seem better when the guests actually take Stephen’s character seriously and genuinely are, like, concerned about his views and try to set him straight.

Stephen mentioned that when the show first started, the woman who books his guests – Emily Bazaar, who had been booking for real news for years – told him that there was no way anyone was going to talk to him. They were already wary of coming on The Daily Show for interviews, so she said there was no way they were going to go on Stephen’s show. Stephen said, “No one?!” and she said, “Well…congressmen will come on,” so they created the frame of Better Know A District. Stephen also mentioned that his favorite BKAD was probably the one a few weeks ago where he ended up debating chicken marriage with the senator!

Allison mentioned that she was literally sad when the South Carolina State Board told them Stephen couldn’t run for president. She said, “I can’t believe that this stupid, stupid character whose politics I don’t agree with isn’t going to be president!”

Sagal asked them if they have trouble differentiating between Stephen, the man and Stephen, character. Tom Purcell mentioned that around the office they just refer to the character as “the character” or “that guy.”

Stephen also mentioned that he sees all the episodes as one, long continuous show and that he actually views the audience as a character in the show because of all the response things they do – like the Hungarian bridge and the WristSTRONG stuff, et cetera. He also mentioned that they do a pre-enactment of the interviews with some questions beforehand. He tries to get a few of those questions in and then the rest of the interview is improv!

Stephen also mentioned Jon a few times. He mentioned that there’s no way he can ever hope to read the guests’ books as much as Jon does. He says he knows he couldn’t catch up, so he doesn’t even bother trying. He also mentioned – and I thought this was interesting – that he’s jealous of Jon because Jon can actually show an interest in his guests’ subject matter. Stephen has to remain completely ignorant and stupid, so he doesn’t get to seriously discuss astronomy with Neil DeGrasse Tyson or comparative religion with some scholar, for instance.

Just as a general note – it was so nice to see Stephen out of character. I mean, he was laughing and really enjoying himself while telling these stories and it was nice to seem him out of his mask of gravitas.

Keyboard Cat music sounded over the speakers in the theatre when it was time for audience questions – I thought that was funny!

Someone asked how they decide a joke is funny enough to keep it going. Stephen began to answer by saying that they were an autonomous collective and all jokes needed a 2/3 vote to get through – I thought that was funny. He also said it was basically whatever they thought was funny that made it into the show.

Someone asked something about the White House Correspondent’s Dinner and if he enjoyed it. Stephen said that he genuinely did. I’d heard this before, but he said that a lot of the room really was laughing. And he also mentioned a part of the speech that he left out – he had a “certificate of presidency” to give to George Bush, but he looked over at him and then down at his page of jokes and decided to skip it. He said that Tony Snow told him he’d done a good job and then he saw a friend from Northwestern, an actor named Harry Jay Lennox (I think? Not entirely sure) and Lennox told him it was good. Stephen replied, “I don’t know…there were a lot of people out there who didn’t look happy.” And Lennox looked out at the crowd, who were just filing out still, and he said, “F**k those people!”

Another person asked if there was anyone Stephen really, really wanted to get on the show but they wouldn’t have anything to do with them. He mentioned J.D. Salinger, which I know he has before, but then he remarked that there are people who won’t come on *again*. Like Barney Frank and Bill Kristol, for example. He also mentioned he was interested in getting Joe Lieberman on the show and Lieberman had recently said he wanted to come on and Stephen said, “The chair is waiting for you!”

There was a question about “The WØRD” and whether there was an applause sign up when the segment began. Stephen said that no, there wasn’t. He said “The WØRD” was not as popular as it is now in the beginning of the show (and I’ve noticed that from watching old “WØRD”s from ’05 and ’06), but now it gets a huge reaction. He said “The WØRD” graphic is like Kramer coming in the door or Fonzie showing up and he sometimes gets annoyed when the graphic gets the biggest laugh of the segment, haha. He said they used to do a “WØRD” every single day for the first two years but that got to be, and I quote, “ridonkulous.”

One other guy asked if it’s gotten harder to differentiate between reality and satire when the pundits are genuinely so crazy these days. Stephen said, “I suppose this is a Glenn Beck question?” He said it has been tough. They felt they had to cover Beck, but Stephen didn’t want *another* conservative pundit model to follow. So they just did those segments praising Beck and showing his insanity – they said they were forced to cover him when he started weeping on screen (haha!). Stephen said that Glenn Beck has just raised the stupid bar to an almost unreachable area because they’re not sure that he means what he says and to make fun of that would be to be making fun of a joke and Stephen said that doesn’t work.

At the very end, Sagal asked whether they see an end to this show. Stephen said that the news is always changing and as long as he enjoys playing the character and the writers enjoy writing for the character, then he sees no reason to end.