Wednesday was spent doing extremely cultural things like… ummm… shopping. I had some last minute bits and pieces to pick up so it was great way to pass time… before heading to the taping of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart!
Making my way to the studio was fun right at the start of the Manhattan peak hour. I decided to take the crosstown bus to the studio. I hopped on the wrong one that turned off before getting to where I needed to go. So then I had to run through Times Square like a madwoman to get back onto the ‘other’ crosstown bus to get to the studio. When I did finally make it the line was around the corner and I was at the very end, but with a reserved seat, I was safe.
In the queue, I got talking to Christina and Jake – locals who were checking out the Daily Show and another ‘tourist’ from Canada, Roman. We swapped stories to pass the time and when we finally made it into the studio it was great. The set is simple but effective and I could not believe how big of an audience they film in front of. There were three audience ‘stands’ – all full. This especially surprised me since audience shots aren’t part of the show. We had a stand up comedian come out and do the warm up – which was needed as the studio is freezing. Even more bizarre – all our our coats had to be off and placed under the seat. We couldn’t even ‘sit’ on them – they actually would find people sitting on theirs and say ‘Under the chair!’ All this even though no-one sees us. Maybe Jon has a thing against coats?
The taping itself is very relaxed. When Jon came out to the audience, it was fantastic. He just casually answered questions and is great with the one-liners. He is one of those people that I don’t think could actually annoy anyone.
The show taping itself went really quickly – the guest on our show was PJ O’Rourke. Yay!
You can view all the clips from the show here.
The scene at the end of the Iceland segment nearly had me fall off my seat. That scene from Say Anything where Lloyd Dobbler holds his stereo up in the air is one of my favourite movie scenes ever. I also loved the Hot Woman/Bald Guy segment, the mention of Neil Cavuto’s font size on Fox Business News and also the whole ‘Blame the Democrats for the Economy’ clips.
By the time the show finished it was after 7 – and absolutely freezing outside! I ran back that same bus stop, then waited whilst basically jumping up and down on the spot to keep warm. On my way back to the Pod I dropped into Starbucks for a much needed hot chocolate to defrost. Even so, I took my hot chocolate up to the Pod rooftop and sat there in the quiet, taking in the sounds and views of New York. But this didn’t last for too long until I was running back to my room. With the cold it isn’t necessariy the temperatures – it is the darn wind chill! It is a cutting, freezing wind that almost burns.