A few weeks before the Rally we found out that our friend Monica won four tickets to the Colbert Report, and she was nice enough to invite us!
We showed up at the tapping right before 4:00 p.m. as suggested by the show and many blogs. We were very surprised to see nobody there yet!
Monica and I left the boys in line and went to get hot coffee and tea. We were only gone about 10 - 15 minutes, but when we got back the line was about 25 feet long.Around 4:15, the Colbert staff came out and gave us the run down. You know the expected, please have out your government issued ID to check-in and get your number (our group got numbers 7 - 10). They told us to get excited because we were attending the last show of 2010!! And, the guests are Amy Sedaris and Paul Simon!!
We were told that normally they don't let us in the door until 5:30 p.m., but since it was soo cold they would give us our numbers, and the choice, come into the audience holding area early or come back at 5:30 p.m.
We were pretty cold and tired at this point, so we decided to go into the audience holding area and watch the best of Colbert.The audience holding area was pretty cool. There was a goofy cut-out picture of Colbert on the wall that you could pose with.
They had the Chili Tube that Colbert came up in at the Rally.
And a little living room set-up.
The staff warned us ahead of time that they were a little off schedule, due to Paul Simon's rehearsal time. As a result, we were in the audience holding area until almost 6:45, but it was worth the wait.
We were finally shuffled into the studio. We were sitting on the left hand side of the stage, about 3 rows back. We were in the perfect location to see over all the camera equipment as well as right in front of Paul Simon.
After everyone is seated, a warm-up comic comes in to just get the laughter going and get us energized. He was pretty funny. He did a good job talking to us about what was going to happen, as well as asking us about ourselves and poking fun at us. Apparently a lot of Aussie's come to see the Colbert Report live, we never learned if the Chinese Santa says "Ho, Ho, Ho" or not, and there were a lot of Architects in the audience. I know that is probably really random to y'all, but it was pretty funny in the moment.Once the stand-up comic was finished, Colbert came out and answered our questions out of character. Yes, there were some really bad questions but there were also some good ones. One audience member asked how his kids friends act around him, thankfully he knew most of them before he became famous. Monica asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he wanted to be a Marine Biologist.
After he answered a few questions, the show started. Watching the show live was a lot of fun. It was almost a challenge to be as enthusiastic as possible. The staff told us ahead of time that Stephen will ad-lib if the audience is really enthusiastic. Well I believe we did it! There were a couple things he said that were definitely NOT scripted!!
The set-up was a little more elaborate and the breaks were slightly longer due to set-up. As a result the show was not over until 8:30 p.m.
I am so glad that Monica invited us (Thank you Monica)!! We had soo much fun! Regardless of your political beliefs, I highly recommend going to see the Colbert Show live!
Have you ever been to a show taping? What did you think of your experience?
