After my powerful experience with Holiday Express, I had the opportunity to go to a Daily Show taping (in fact, two tapings within one week.) I’ve been to TV show tapings before, including the second to last episode of Frasier, but this beat them all by a head. Tickets were obtained tor free online in June, when I found two and snapped them up. The first time I went with Raquel, and the second with Adam, Jordan, and Melissa. It was nerd paradise, and the only minor cost was a multi-hour wait while the lower half of my legs patiently assumed freezing temperature.
My feet a thawing block of ice, I waited impatiently as the warmup guy went through his routine (summary: omg, there are people here from Canada. What’s that aboot?) Jon jumped onstage to our delightful clapping and spoke directly to us, taking questions from the audience. We learned some fascinating tidbits; for example, he tends to stay seated after the show on Wednesdays because they tape the International Edition, and the caliber of women he gets now that he is famous is much higher. (“Listen, I don’t think you understand. I am a TV star; things are different when you’re a TV star.”) I asked him whether he thought Sarah Palin can win the Republican Nomination and he said yes, and that he would love to get her on his show but she constantly refuses.
The first day’s guest was Gwen Ifill (if you don’t know her from PBS’s The Newshour and Washington Week, you will remember her from the 2008 Presidential Debate she hosted amidst accusations that her upcoming book on Obama would bias her moderation. The book is out, and she was plugging it. The greater revelation, though, was her coy and uncomfortable reaction when asked if she would become the host of This Week with George Stephanopoulos (go to 5:16)
The guest the next time was Ray LaHood, the US Secretary of Transportation. It wasn’t quite as cool, but the geek in all of us wanted to hear what he had to say (sadly, pretty much nothing.) They didn’t talk about former idiot Secretary Mary Peters’ statement that bicycles and foot paths are not forms of transportation, nor did they really say anything interesting. Far better was a sequence with Jon Hodgman (yes we got to see HIM!) on how to deal with our nation’s debt.
It’s an awesome experience, and I recommend compulsively checking the ticket site to anyone who is interested. All the graphics are rendered and sequences already edited, so being in the audience is just like watching the real show. Except you can scream obsene things and Jon will hear you!