Frankly, it’s getting hard to listen to his interviews. He frequently asks questions and then cuts people off before they get a chance to answer. They might say three or four words and then he’s immediately asking another question.
He seemed really bad tonight (Feb 7). If I was famous or did something worthy of getting on his show, I don’t know if I’d go. Or if I did I’d try to limit all of my answers to one word, or as few words as possible, because sometimes it seems almost impossible to just get a sentence in.
But that’s my opinion. Does anybody else share it? Or are you OK with the way he interviews people?
I get that. Really I do. But it’s still fucking annoying. I love the rest of the show, but the thing is, he gets people on there that I really do want to hear, and then he doesn’t let them talk. The interruptions *can *be a highlight, if they arise naturally from the conversation, but the O’Reilly-mocking pointless, obnoxious interruptions got old for me after the first season. If you’re gonna do that, you might as well stick to interviewing buffoons. Why waste Doris Kearns Goodwin’s or Atul Gawande’s time? (Yeah, I know, they’re there to sell books, I get that too. Still annoying.)
I’'m curious, who was he interviewing? It had to be a repeat, since he’s off this week, so I wonder what interview you saw that seemed especially egregious?
I have seen film of him prepping his guest so they know what’s coming and that they must be prepared for his interview style. I wonder if he spends as much time prepping those with whom he disagrees? I’m petty enough that I’d really want to “nail” a blowhard like O’Reilly if he were on my show…
He’s parodying other pundits (mostly Fox News guys) who do the same kind of thing - talk over their guests and try to badger them into saying what they want to hear.
The show is in repeats this week. The guest last Monday was Dr. Paul Offit, a physician and vaccination expert. He recently wrote a book called “Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All,” and that’s what they were talking about. It was not an easy subject to handle in a Colbert-style interview because the anti-vaccination points are simple and Offit’s pro-vaccination points were more complicated.
Its not really a format for any sort of meaningful interview even if Colbert wanted to. The whole interviews are like 5 minutes, and its a comedy show so Colbert has to make at least a few jokes during that time. That leaves a two or three minutes for the guest to talk, which is basically enough time to basically give a verbal version of the summary thats on the book jacket of whatever book they’re trying to sell. Which is more or less what they do now.
Stewart doesn’t really do better. Its just less noticable since he books more actors/comedians then academics, and because when he has someone on to discuss politics, he extends the interview to ~10 minutes. But when he has an academic discussing a book, his interviews suffer from the same problems as Colberts.
It’s a joke but it does get tiring. When he first came on I watched the show as often as I watched the Daily Show. now I only watch Colbert occasionally as his shtick has gotten old for me. He is still occasionally brilliant but too often he is not.
I love Colbert - his show has surpassed the Daily Show for me. I understand why his interviews are the way they are - I get it - I just don’t find it that entertaining (usually). I still much prefer watching Stewart’s interviews. Oh well.
I disagree. That may have been how he started out but now, a few years down the line, he interrupts continually just to get a joke in and it has got really, really irritating.
He also didn’t always do it either, he occasionally used to do decent interviews, so I can’t really see it as being part of the act. I think he’s just crossed the line getting carried away with himself. Pity really, as the first two sections of his show are generally excellent.
Colbert has his schtick, and people either find it funny or they don’t. I think he’s a smug jerk, you may think he’s a genius. To each, his own.
But what I DON’T get is why anyone (a conservative in particular) would bother to appear on his show. There’s absolutely no way to win. You CAN’T argue with a fictional character. If Colbert makes a stupid, dishonest joke (as I believe he regularly does), a guest CAN’T argue with him seriously. HE has a stack of jokes ready for the occasion. A guest is forced either to “be a good sport” by letting Colbert mock him, or risk looking like a sourpuss who’s taking a joke too seriously.
I think he is a genius and his interviews in character tell us more about the subject than the serious interviews you see elsewhere. Think about most interviews you see: often, you can pretty much script out the entire thing, from the questions asked to the talking points used in the answers. Then Colbert turns the whole thing upside down in a subversive interview that mocks not the interviewee, but the entire medium. It’s a parody.
So you don’t try to win. You play along, get to make your case after a fashion and perhaps raise your profile, and people appreciate you being a good sport. It worked pretty well for Mike Huckabee.
If that was the least annoying think about Colbert I might be able to stand him. Has anyone noticed the way he REALLY REALLY loudly sucks in air through his teeth when he talks? Annoys the hell out of me.
I usually skip the interviews on the Colbert Report (they’re usually too short to get both the schtick and intelligent discussion in), but I always skip the interviews on the Daily Show. I think Jon Stewart is a terrible interviewer.
The interviews are by far the weakest part of Colbert’s show. The problem is fundamental. His character has to act like a blowhard, but the real Colbert wants many of his guests to get the message out. A very few guests can play along. Some he steps out of character for in order to let speak. But for most a lot of time is taken by the character and the guest’s message is all chopped up.
The character has no particular position about musicians, so those interviews go a lot better.
The best interview was with Oliver Stone about his Bush movie. Stone came on, and said that after making the movie he thought Bush was a great guy and he really respected him - and Colbert’s whole script instantly became useless. Only time I remember seeing him more or less speechless.