Valentine's Daily Show

I went to see the Daily Show taping last night... If you want a great way to impress a friend from out-of-town, get tickets to the show. Jon Stewart is seriously hilarious, and much funnier ad-libbing/off-camera, than when he's reading off the tele-prompter. Unfortunately, the studio is way out on the west side on 11th avenue in the middle of nowhere. So I had to leave work early to get out there in time, only to be forced to wait in line for over an hour. But as luck would have it, we got front-row seats (since they fill up the seats starting at the rear of the studio, and we were closer to the end of the line.)

During the introductions/instructions, the audience warm-up guy pointed to a dude in the audience and said "Michael Moore is here tonight." I thought this was just a joke, because the guy was a little heavyset and was wearing glasses, but then I realized it really was Michael Moore sans facial hair. He looked a bit like this picture. I would never have recognized him on the street, but he was the whole film crew from his current project. Unfortunately, the special guest was not nearly as interesting or funny as Michael Moore; it was some guy with a monotonous voice who wrote a book about oil depletion. Poor Jon had to pull the jokes out his ass to make the interview entertaining.

The studio and set a really quite small and unassuming, which I suppose suits Jon, who is only about 5'7". And the majority of the show was spent ripping on the Dick Cheney bird shooting mishap. Though it's certainly enjoyable to experience the energy of the audience, the show looks better on TV. There's nothing like seeing a taping to completely suck the glamour out of television. I'd certainly go again, but only with good reason.