This is from a comment by a new user who does not have diary priveledges yet but wanted to share his/her Colbert Report audience experience from a show set to air shortly with both dem presidential candidates and John Edwards. okayokayokay asked that someone get the word out from this post.
Please excuse any typos as this was a rushed effort to get the word out. Please direct any mojo to okayokayokay. Welcome to the community!!!
Hey everyone, I'm a new user, and I don't have diary privileges yet, so I'm posting this as a comment ina few places in the hopes that someone will pick it up and post it as a diary themselves. Please copy and paste if you want folks to read this:
Hillary, Edward, Obama on Colbert Report TONIGHT!
I just got home from the taping of tonight’s episode of the Colbert Report in Philadelphia. Get ready for this: Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama ALL made appearances! (The first two in person, and the third by satellite.) We all knew Hillary would be there, but John and Barack were COMPLETE surprises to everyone in the audience. Here are some rough notes on my experience tonight. (Warning: a few joke spoilers ahead.)
The writers of the show were on fire tonight, taking ABC News to task for the ridiculous debate, and skewering George Stephanopoulos. And the special interview guest was Patrick Murphy, the only member of congress to serve in the Iraq War.
The warm-up comedian before the show specifically warned the audience against and negativity towards Hillary. He said that if anyone was even thinking of boo-ing her, they should go home right now. There was some distinct grumbling over this. The mostly college-age crowd was hugely in favor of Obama. While we were waiting to be let in, there were spontaneous chants in the lobby of Yes We Can Yes We Can!
Hillary came out and delivered a very brief tongue-in-cheek exchange with the producers to solve a fake technical glitch with the giant screen. The whole premise was that she was a problem solver, and she went through a tech support series of questions about what kind fo router they were using, which wires were connected, etc.
Later in the show, after a little setup bit about how the white male vote is finally getting the attention it has long deserved, John Edwards suddenly came out of nowhere and delivered the "Ed-Words" for the night, joking about how much both candidates wanted his endorsement. Main theme: all they really need to do is promise him a jet ski.
While folks did cheer when Hillary came on stage, they erupted when John suddenly appeared. He was interrupted by applause throughout the entire skit. I hope this indicates the end of his long media absence for him. People in the room seemed hungry for some John. I got a little misty-eyed at the prospect of him on the campaign trail for Obama. Think of the good he could do to help heal the divisive wounds that the recent weeks have inflicted upon the Democratic shot at the White House!
Obama had the last word, appearing via satellite (on the big screen Hillary helped troubleshoot!), and officially "put distractions on notice", a reference to the poor excuse for a debate last night. (The notice board apparently being a Colbert Report running theme. I don’t watch the show enough to know that.)
It felt like a truly historic occasion to be present for the taping of this show. We had to wait in line for four hours just to be let into the theater, due to extremely tight security, secret service checks, etc.
I suppose this will all be old news in a few hours, and I’m sure will be top videos on youtube, but I decided to write this to get the word out about it now, so Kos folks can spread the word and be sure to tune in for a great show.