For those who have witnessed a “Daily Show” taping in New York, the process is the same. There’s the long line, the long wait, (Yeas & Nays waited Tuesday for more than three hours), and the corny warm-up act.
“What’d you do today?” comedian Paul Mecurio says, picking on a sleepy audience member. “Waited for an hour.” Ouch.
Jon Stewart comes on stage to answer questions.
Should D.C. get a vote in Congress? “Yes?” Stewart says unconvincingly. What’s scariest about the toxic political climate? And how did he land that interview with President Obama? “By being his stooge for 12 years,” Stewart replies.
He answers New York inquiries as well. What’s the best deli? “I’m about to have the Jewiest Jew conversation,” Stewart responds. And would he be voting for the New York gubernatorial race’s breakout star Jimmy McMillan? “My rent is actually not that high, but I do belong to the interesting facial hair party, so I will be voting for Jimmy McMillan,” he says.
Soon the taping begins. Besides the set, all the production equipment traveled to D.C. from New York. “There’s been definite glitches, but no funny bloopers,” the show’s Executive Producer Josh Lieb tells Yeas & Nays.
Correspondents Samantha Bee, Jason Jones, John Oliver and Wyatt Cenac walk on stage in front of large green screens so their images can be inserted into Washington locales. Sadly, they won’t actually be filming segments on the streets of D.C. “We’ve kept them locked in the basement,” Lieb says.
When Bee brings up the subject of Metro, or rather, “the subway’s gay cousin,” the audience goes crazy.
“The Washington audiences like jokes about Washington, D.C., traffic problems a lot more than New York audiences do,” Lieb notes.
Do you do jokes about New York traffic problems?
“No, we don’t,” Lieb says.
Cenac then ad-libs a line about Harriet Tubman’s private parts. “That’s not the reference we rehearsed,” Stewart blurts out. That blooper gets left in, but most of the uproarious laughter gets edited out.
“The audience is really into it, it’s nice.” Lieb concluded.
