After a bit of a mix-up with my ticket to the fourth and final Pennsylvania episode of “The Colbert Report,” I was offered the chance to watch the taping of the show from the side of the stage — an opportunity I was certainly not going to turn down.

I arrived outside Annenberg’s Zellerbach Theatre at 6:15p.m., where I discovered that people started lining up today around 3 p.m. I met up with Renata Luczak from Comedy Central and went into the back of Zellerbach, where I waited in a room with long tables for the press, drinks, and snacks — boxes of sugary (and some healthy) cereals, Oreos, Kudos bars, etc. We heard chants of “Yes We Can!” from the people waiting upstairs to get into the theater, and people started getting frustrated and booing when they were told they couldn’t come into the theater yet.

I sat down and ate some Oreos, and as soon as the rehearsal was over (and “Ben Franklin” –possibly my new hero — walked into the room I was in), Renata took me backstage, then we walked out onto the stage and into the theater. She found me a place to stand off to the side, and said I could stay there to watch the taping. I could see the whole audience as well as what was going on onstage — it was very cool.

The audience started filing into the theater and after a stand-up comic spoke, Colbert came onstage and answered a few questions from the audience.

And soon afterwards, the show began.

A few minutes into tonight’s episode, the giant video screen on set abruptly lost signal. Colbert, asked for someone to fix it, but his crew said there were no technicians on site who could rectify the problem.

“Are you telling me there’s no one in this theater who can fix the mess we’re in?” Colbert said.

…And then Hillary Clinton walked in.

She started talking to his crew, asking technical question about the screen. Finally, it turned back on, bringing cheers from the audience.

After a few more quips about Clinton’s experience (including a “3 a.m.” reference — big shocker there), she exited the stage. I asked Renata if that was it, and she confirmed that Clinton was actually gone. That was fast…

In addition to Clinton, Colbert’s lineup tonight included Congressman Patrick Murphy and Senator (and former Democratic presidential candidate) John Edwards, as well as a video appearance by Sen. Barack Obama.

Colbert then did a recap of last night’s Democratic debate at the National Constitution Center, focusing on the fact that the first hour of the debate was centered around non-policy-related issues like Obama’s frequent lack of a flag pin and his relationships to controversial people.

The next guest on the show was Congressman Patrick Murphy, who spoke about his reasons for supporting Obama as well as the Iraq war.

“I’m a fan of Senator Clinton, she’s very capable,” Murphy said. “But I believe Obama is a once-in-a-generation leader and we need to get behind him.”

After Murphy left, Colbert began a segment on white males being the major voting bloc that either candidate needs to win the primary — which led into a surprise appearance by John Edwards.

Edwards participated in Colbert’s recurring segment, “The Word” — except tonight, it became “EDWordS.” He spoke about how Clinton or Obama could win his vote — a discussion that included multiple references to jet skis as well as some other requests.

“I will only support the candidate that makes me a spy. That would be SO cool,” Edwards said.

After Edwards left, Colbert began what I thought was the final segment of the show. “Well, that’s it for the report,” he said. “I just wish Obama could have joined us…”

And with that, Obama appeared on the TV screen behind him. “Won’t Senator Clinton be happy she fixed our screen?” Colbert asked.

Obama responded in the affirmative. He then talked about how he wanted to put political distractions “on notice,” and Colbert brought out an “on notice” board. When asked which item to remove from the list to make room for “distractions,” Obama said it couldn’t be the “grizzly bears” sign.

“They are the number one threat to America,” he said.

Oh, and he threw Doritos and WristStrong bracelets into the crowd.

All in all, a satisfying — and hilarious — episode of “The Colbert Report.”

And I’m not going to lie — watching the entire taping from the side of the stage was pretty awesome…

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 10:00 pm and is filed under Pennsylvania Primary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.