I realize careful editing may play a part, but watching the confused looks on the Harvard students’ faces on tonight’s episode (about a campus maid service- freaking hilarious, especially Rob Corddry’s tearful lap dance) made me wonder if they’d ever heard of Jon Stewart or the show. It seems impossible, especially for that demographic (politically conscious young adults, so what gives? Are they told in advance what program they’re being interviewed for? Does the show specifically choose clueless subjects?
Back in the Craig Kilborn days, a UFO cult tried to sue the show because they didn’t realize it was satire and thought it presented a negative view of their organization. This was a piece in which the correspondent (who I think was A. Whitney Brown) made allusions to “Mork and Mindy” and other pop culture things dealing with aliens.
I think some people are just really culturally unaware.
Take a look at the editing. Notice how we never see the Daily Show reporter and the guest both at the same time from the front? The camera is always behind ones head, facing the other. I suspect that it’s faked. The person actually interviewing just looks the same from behind, likewise the person getting interviewed has a double found (well, back double.) Either that, or the questions they actually ask are just for the interviewee, and then they edit in the “fake” questions so the responses are funny. Also, plenty of them are naive, and some might not care if it’s the Daily Show, as long as they get to be on TV.
Here’s a link to an Onion interview with Stephen Colbert, Rob Corddry, Ed Helms, and Mo Rocca. The following is some of the relevant text:
I heard Stephen Colbert interviewed on NPR’s “Fresh Air with Terry Gross” and he said that while some politicians aren’t hip enough to be familiar with the show their aides all are. He told a story about being at the GOP convention and asking Senator So-and-So for an interview and the Senator said “Sure.” The aide, knowing that his boss was unwittingly about to be in deep do-do, immediately intervened and made up an “elsewhere to be” for the Senator while dragging the Senator away.
There are no “back doubles,” that’s for sure. That methodology is used frequently, even by non-fake news crews. It’s mostly a budget thing. You take once camera and one cameraman to the location. You shoot “listening” shots for the interviewee. The camera is kept on the interviewee during the actual interview, and then the camera is switched and the interviewer repeats his questions a few times, and also shoots what are called “noddies,” eg; reaction shots, appropriate to the context of the interview: “Okay, I’m gonna need a sympathetic look, and look of agreement. Concern, too. Oh, and I’ll need to register surprise for that bit about the monkey.”
The Daily Show is a bit meta, and just as much of the humour is related to the medium itself as relates to the subject of the “news.” Their interview bits really play up the artifice of the format. All the interviewer’s “noddies,” for example, are extremely hammy.
As for the interviews themselves, I don’t think that there is much in the way of substitution of actual content. The questions are edited in afterwards, but the interview subjects are responding to the same questions we hear.
If you watch a single-camera interview on a “real” news show, you’ll see the same thing, and when you’re aware of how it’s put together, it sometimes adds a sort of surreal flavour to the interview. When you know that the brief look of shock and horror that you’re shown as an interviewer “reacts” to some bit of intelligence that the interviewee has delivered, it draws your attention to the way that television journalism is often transparently emotionally manipulative. It becomes kind of funny. “Wait a minute – this person is acting. That’s not really appropriate, in this context, is it?”
The Daily Show constantly pokes fun at this, among other things. “The Emperor wears no clothes – and hey! the Herald’s ass is showing, too!”
For the DormAid piece, I think the student who wrote the article was familiar and went along with the interview, and I suspect the entrepreneurs also knew the deal but wanted to prove that they could ‘break’ Rob Cordry. Unfortunately, they also had to make sure their venture was not maligned in the process, hence the “Cleaning professionals, not maids.” (Too bad Rob didn’t point out the dorMaid name). The poor maid…er…cleaning professional had no idea what was going on, what a beautiful look of horror.
Sometimes I think they are using different footage and substituting questions that weren’t actually asked, but recently the interviewees have responded that they don’t understand why the interviewer is asking the question and repeating it. eg. (black) Florida mayor being prejudiced against coloured people (tattooed persons). If this is true, then it makes the stunned silences more understandable, but also a lot funnier!
Wasn’t this a big plot point in “Broadcast News”? William Hurt cried on camera during a news story and it turns out that he faked it with the one camera at the interview, and this rocked Holly Hunter’s confidence in him. The movie presented it like it was some huge breach of ethics.
BTW, that link to that Onion interview has one of Stephen Colbert’s best line ever
Those guys are so incredibly funny.
To the OP, there is a classic interview from last year some time that Ed Helms IIRC did about a Florida town’s “Cooter Festival.” The mayor, who was interview, was apparently a big fan and only too happy to play the straight man. Which he did very, very well. I remember at some point, somebody off camera started laughing, and he shot them a very dirty look. “Mrs. so-and-so from our parks and recreation department is outside to show you a cooter.”
“You get to be on the Daily Show, which is awesome! Who cares if they make a fool of you? It’s a comedy show, no one takes it seriously.”
That would be my position if I was asked.
…if only that were true… :smack:
My favorite footage was at the republican convention when Samantha B. recommended that some grey haired polititian go out and ask for a hot Karl and he said that he would. I don’t think he knew what that was, but he was polite and seemed unsuspecting. I don’t know if he knew what the Daily Show was, I somehow doubt it.
It didn’t make any sense then, either. I mean, did they expect us to believe there are supposed to be three separate video cameras with operators hiding in the background when they are filming in somebody’s office? It’s just TV, Holly!
never thought she was that cute, either, and any movie that casts Albert Brooks in a serious role…
Sometimes there is one cameraperson behind the reporter, focused on the interviewee, and a second one behind the interviewee, focused on the reporter. And as for the Daily Show, it is the primary news source for a lot of people, particularly those under the age of 25.
It’s been a while since I watched the movie, but I think the issue was that he faked a tear and this was overt manipulation of the story. IIRC he was considered a fluffy newsman before the picece and lauded after the piece for his sensitivity, and Holly fell like all in love with him and junk, then Albert dropped the big ol’ fake cry look at the master tape bomb which led Holly back to the path of righteousness.
Yeah, that was silly.
For an equally funny single camera interview from a “real” news program, take a look at the widely circulated appearance of Ann Coulter on the Fifth Estate.
It’s kind of funny to look at McKeown’s bits, knowing they were filmed after Ann started sucking her toes. Jon Lovitz: “Acting!”
True, (verbatim, no doubt,) but those incredulous looks are recreated after the fact. You have to wonder if he kept a poker face as Ann dug herself deeper… Heh heh.