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So yesterday was a pretty good day all around, I'd say. Not only was it Star Wars Day (May 4th, as in "May the Fourth be with you"), which would have made it plenty awesome on its own, but Nicole and I had tickets to sit in the audience for a taping of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart".
I've always liked Jon Stewart, and not just because we agree on so many political issues. He seems to "get it" - funny, engaging, smart, and into a lot of indie/alternative music. A good guy all around. One of his favorite bands is one of mine, as well: Boston's own Buffalo Tom, the final band to perform on his pre-TDS talk show (a quick Google search returned no results for the video - anyone care to look more carefully to find it for me?).
A couple of months ago, I saw a Facebook message from the show saying that tickets were available for early May, so I headed over to the TDS website and furiously began filling out my ticket request so I wouldn't miss out. Then we waited, waited, and waited some more for the day to finally come - we did not go home disappointed. (Meaning, specifically, his guest for the show was not comedian Richard Lewis. When we got confirmation that we had tickets, I was afraid we wouldn't get a good guest. To that end, my definition of lousy, boring, uninteresting guests uses Richard Lewis as a measuring stick.)
An aside: getting into NYC is a total pain in the ass. It's a wonderful place ... you know, despite the Yankees and most of their fans. But anyway. I have a blast every time I go into the city (if you'll excuse the choice of words, given the recent attempted car bombing), but getting there shouldn't take nearly as long as it does. We drove to Newark, took the PATH to the WTC site, and then took the subway to 50th. Grand total, about two and a half hours. Granted, there was a fair amount of waiting for the PATH train to leave Newark station, but still. (In "Date Night" with Tina Fey and Steve Carrell, there's a joke about how Fey's character, a real-estate agent, knows full well she is lying to her clients about how long it takes to get from New Jersey to Manhattan.)
By the time we got to the studio, which is just far enough from the craziness of Times Square to make you almost forget you're in Manhattan, we found ourselves facing the perfect combination of problems: we were both hungry and early. We found a Thai place (Heng2 Thai Bistro) about a block away and took advantage of one of life's overlooked treats: the lunch menu. So much great food for a ridiculously low cost, plus a tall glass of "Thai Iced Coffee", which sounds like code-speak for an underaged college student who wants to order alcohol without a valid ID but is, in reality, roughly five tablespoons of coffee grounds in a single glass of water, mixed with another five tablespoons of sugar. It was thick. And the sticky rice? By the end of the meal, after it had been sitting on its plate for a while, I literally had to cut it with a knife to take a bite. Still, it was an unexpected treat and we highly recommend it if you ever find yourself in that neck of the (paved over, highly industrial) woods.
After lunch we had enough time to walk to FAO Schwartz, but not enough time to really explore it. Plus we didn't have our camera (more on that later). We have to go back, because we were not able to see the part of the store used for the piano scene in "Big", and because of the very important discovery that you can make your own muppets, which we are absolutely going to do sometime much sooner than later.
We headed back to the Daily Show studio and arrived at about 3 p.m., and there were a few dozen people already waiting in line. Within 15 minutes of our arrival, the line doubled in size. The picture I linked to is not my own, and I don't know when it was taken. There was a stanchion set up to guide the line, and when we arrived we were literally under the "733" on the left-hand side of the awning.
We waited in line for about two hours before being let into the studio, as they're very organized but pretty strict about how they go about filling the audience.
If you're in a group but waiting for people to show up, they have to be there and in line with you by 4:30, no exceptions. At 4:30, staff members take their attendance check-list (the list of names of those who registered for tickets on-line) and move down the line, handing out physical tickets (no more than little slips of paper with a number on them, really). If you're the fourth person in your group but don't have a ticket because you're weren't in line at 4:30, even though your three friends are there and have proof that 4 tickets were requested, too bad. Off to the stand-by line with you!
No outside food or drink is allowed, you can't chew gum in the studio, and all electronics must be turned off before entering the studio. We left our camera at home because the website and ticket-confirmation e-mail specifically said that all cameras were forbidden. Realistically, though, they tell you you can bring the camera into the studio but it must be off (cell phones, iPods, etc. too) before you walk through the door. While in line, staffers inform attendees (several times, to make sure the message is not missed) that anyone who even looks like they're using anything electronic in the studio to take pictures will have their gear confiscated and held until after the show, and they'll have to show staff members photos on the devices before they're allowed to take their gear back. If there are photos of the studio found, attendees are told, they will be made to erase them immediately.
They are not messing around!
I wish we'd taken our camera anyway for pictures during the rest of the trip, but we figured we'd go the "better safe but sorry" route.
Upon going through the front door, all attendees pass through a metal detector and into the studio, directly to the left. The studio itself was exactly as I'd envisioned it in my head. The entrance leads to a short set of stairs (maybe 4 or 5 steps) down to the floor. To the immediate right is a staging area used for bits such as Jon's hilarious impression of Glenn Beck (though the chalkboard was nowhere to be found during our visit). In front of that, to the right as you enter the studio, is what you see on TV: the desk, the glass globe where the TDS correspondents sit, the monitors. Seeing it in person was a bit of a "holy shit" moment, I have to admit.
Just beyond the desk as you enter the studio is the first section of audience seating, to the left of Jon's desk (or to his right, depending on your perspective). To the left is the main seating area, which is where Nicole and I were placed. That's another rule, actually: they ask you to please not ask for different seats, and to sit where you're directed. They acknowledge that at various times one's view may be blocked by cameras or props, but that it's the nature of the beast, and it can't be avoided. There are many TV screens hanging from the ceiling showing what's going on at the desk anyway (including the various video clips used during the show, etc. - what you see on the screen is what viewers will see at home when the show airs every night).
I've drawn a very crude sketch of the studio layout. The two red dots?
That's where Nicole and I sat. We could not have asked for better seats. We were slightly off center, four rows up. We could see around *and* over the cameraman who shoots the straight-on desk angle, which was fantastic, because when we have tickets for various events, we always seem to end up sitting behind Kevin McHale and Frankenstein. But not this time!
The show starts at about 5:45 or so. After the audience had been seated, the music in the studio (mostly classic rock - Led Zeppelin, the Stones, etc.) seemed to get louder and louder until the warm-up comedian came out to chat with the audience and go over some ground rules. He explained that the audience had to be very active during the show, because watching passively and laughing to yourself at home is a very different experience than being in the studio. When you listen to the audience when you're at home, it's an important part of the organic experience of hearing a joke. The reaction in the studio helps to get a reaction at home. He encouraged everyone to have a great time, and to laugh heartily without faking it. This is actually a very easy thing to do once you're there and "in the moment" with the 230-or-so other audience members.
There are microphones hanging over all sections of the audience to pick up the response to Stewart's "performance", but there is NO "applause" sign anywhere in the studio. I can assure you that the energy from the audience is not fake or forced, and that the reaction to the videos and jokes is very natural. It gets loud in there. The stagehands do a quick countdown to let everyone know when the commercial break will be ending, so everyone can make noise at the beginning of the next segment, but that's it.
After the warm-up comedian did his thing, Jon came out to answer a few audience questions (most of which, on this afternoon, were of the "I was wondering if you had any advice for someone who ..." variety). He tried to shrug these off a bit, in his typical self-deprecating "why would anyone thing I'm an expert" kind of style, but he was a good sport. He did warn everyone, though, that his guest (former first lady Rosalynn Carter) was violent and swearing a blue streak backstage (funny, because she's in her 80s and could not possibly have been more soft-spoken, kind, and warm).
Literally seconds after taking the last question from the audience, he went behind the desk and the show started almost immediately. No countdown, no anything, just time to go!
Watching the show on TV, you know that Stewart often swears during the taping, but it was a little weird to actually hear the words instead of just the bleeps.
I was a little disappointed that the second segment was a recorded one, as I was hoping we'd see John Oliver, Larry Wilmore, or better yet John Hodgman. Oh well. I don't know if Jon sees these segments prior to their becoming part of the show, because he sat at his desk watching it on his monitor along with the audience, and he was clearly enjoying himself and laughing as well as it aired. After leading into a commercial, he pointed to the top of the stairs where we had all entered and introduced Jason Jones, the correspondent who had produced the segment.
Between segments they played more music, to which Jon would frequently play pencil drums or mouth the words while preparing for the next bit. They played Foo Fighters and Bush when we were there, but not whole songs. Very little time is wasted, and the 30 minutes of TV that aired last night was actually taped in about 23, I'd guess. Intro, segment 1, outro, short break, intro, segment 2, outro, short break, intro, guest, outro, short break, intro, Moment of Zen, credits, go home. The show was over so quickly I could barely believe we were already done.
After the show, Jon thanked everyone for coming and headed backstage. As we got up to leave, I went over to one of his staff members and handed her two DVDs to give to Jon: I had burned him MP3s of 24 Buffalo Tom bootlegs that I'd acquired over the years on one DVD; on the other, 17 Tom Waits shows. I wrote a short note simply thanking him for the great work he did. I hope he got them. I didn't put my name on it or anything (I wasn't fishing for a handshake or autograph or anything), but if one of his staff members ever finds this blog entry someday, perhaps they can let him know it was me who was responsible for the discs, and that I hope he enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed being part of the Daily Show's audience.
Perhaps we'll get to attend another taping in a few months, when we're eligible again. Or perhaps we'll see the Colbert Report ... my fingers are crossed!
If you missed it, here's the episode directly from Comedy Central.
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