2/12/08

To begin, it was freezing cold outside; rather, the air was made of an icy chill that seeped its way deep into my bone marrow. Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating just a little bit; still, though, it was pretty darn cold. Nicole, my aunt, and I arrived at The Daily Show studio at about 3pm or so, but it was way too cold to wait in line (and it was snowing). So, the three of us walked to a little Italian restaurant about two or so blocks away, where we had a late lunch and allowed ourselves thaw. Around 3:45pm, we paid for our food and went back out into the snowy cold air. Nicole had to catch her bus, so after bidding her farewell and seeing that she got into a taxi, my aunt and I headed back to the TDS studio.

When we arrived, we found that the line had grown substantially in the time that we had been eating. My aunt and I joined the line (the one right near the double doors) and it wasn’t long after that when Shirley joined us. We waited there for what seemed like ages and my poor feet, more specifically my toes, became so cold (I was wearing three pairs of thick, warm socks, too) that I was reduced to hopping up and down like a complete idiot to keep them warm.

Eventually, though, the TDS people came out and began giving out tickets; I tried joking around with them, but received no response other than a “yeah” and a smile. After they were done giving out the tickets, the line slowly began to move forward as people one by one had their bags searched and went through security. It seemed to take forever for my turn to walk inside, through the double doors, under the sign that says “Abandon News, All Ye Who Enter Here.” Finally, though, our turn arrived and we walked inside the much warmer building.

Once Shirley, my aunt, and I were inside the building, waiting to go through the metal detector, I saw a sign to my right; it read “restrooms”, and there was an arrow pointing downstairs. I pointed this out to my aunt, and she and I raced down the stairs to use them; we didn’t want to have to suffer during the taping of that night’s show. We rejoined the line a few minutes later and I was surprised to see that the line had only moved a few inches forward.

After going through the metal detector and gathering up my things, I went over to another set of double doors; through these, I could see into the TDS studio. I knew it was about twice the size of the TCR studio, so I wasn’t as surprised as I normally would have been had I not known the size of TDS. So, I waited by the double doors for my aunt and Shirley to get through security. Once they had, the three of us were ushered into the studio.

We ended up being seated in the last row of the second section, on the side of the studio closest to the door. I remember looking behind my, down below into the backstage area. I was able to see a couple people or so working down there; during the commercial breaks, even I looked down there once or twice, and saw this one guy walk by.

At one point, before the warm-up guy came out, while I was still letting my eyes wander around the studio, Shirley got out her cell phone and began texting someone. I didn’t realize that she was doing this, though, until after a moment or two. When I did, I realized that my aunt was helping to hide Shirley’s activity, which I thought was really funny. The fact that she didn’t get caught is what made it seem even funnier to me.

Anyway, the warm-up comedian came out to get the audience pumped up for the show. While he did make me laugh, I also thought he was a bit of an ass; but that’s my personal opinion. I don’t remember much of what he said, but he corrected this one guy on the uses of the words “who” and “whom” which I thought was pretty funny. After the warm-up guy was done, he said something like “good-bye” to us, and left the set. Then, after only a couple or so minutes, to much clapping and cheering, Jon Stewart himself came out to greet the audience.

Like Stephen, Jon is better looking when you see him in person. He’s also much more adorable in person; I don’t quite know why, but he just is. He took a few questions from the audience; before going into the studio, I thought about offering up my wristSTRONG bracelet to him, but when the q&a started, I had completely forgot about it. I don’t remember anything that was asked, but after one question, Jon seemed to get into his stand-up comedy mode, which I thought was really cool.

After the q&a, Jon went over to his desk and sat down; the show began moments later. Those who saw the 2/12 episode of TDS know that, during the first act, Jon played a clip from the brawl; it was the clip of when he, Stephen, and Conan were dancing around like the awesome comedians they are. When the video clip ended, the audience was cheering and clapping so much that Jon said something like, “Oh, you want to see it again?”, and had the tech guys replay the clip for us. Yep. Jon is awesome.

You know how, after Jon’s mention of MTV during the first act, he started dancing while still sitting in his chair? Unfortunately, most of the dancing he did was cut out of the episode that aired on TV later that night. I was disappointed, I must say, because I LOVED it when Jon started dancing like that; it was really awesome. The particular dancing I’m talking about was during the time when he said, “I’m doing the safety dance!” And the stuff that got cut out was some of the best stuff, too; it was much more energetic and, shall we say, elaborate as well. After he was done, the audience started cheering for him to do it again and he told us, laughing, “No! It’s embarrassing!” I almost let out an “ow ow!!” at this point, but I didn’t; I almost wish I had though, just to see Jon’s reaction.

A couple of times during the taping, when the audience was just clapping, laughing, and otherwise being silent, I, just for fun, decided to let out a cheer. After I did so, everyone else started cheering as well, which made me laugh. One of these two times happened during the correspondent segment with Rob Riggle. So, you might say that I’m a bit of a trendsetter (haha… not).

I remember that Jon messed up once and had to start over, and I thought that was really adorable. I think it was either during one of the commercial breaks or when Jon messed up, but at one point Jon turned to the audience and said with a sort of grin and laugh that it was a little uncomfortable to have everyone staring at him like we were. Our response? Laughter.

Not much else happened except for the interview with Bill Kristol; it was during one part of the interview and the audience started booing him. When the interview was over and Bill Kristol had left, Jon got up from his desk, came around front, and said something to the audience. At first, I thought he was berating everyone for booing at the guest; later one, however, I found out that Jon had instead said something like, “it’s not often that the audience gets to “boo” a guest.”

Soon after Jon sat back down at his desk, the taping came to an end, and we all began filing out of the studio and into the cold and snowy weather. Shirley, my aunt, and I stopped for one last look at the studio while I took a picture. As it was dark, I didn’t get that good of a picture, unfortunately, but that doesn’t really matter. After the picture, the three of us parted ways: Shirley to her hotel, and my aunt and I to our hotel.

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