Though The Late Show is an hour long and we’re on five nights a week, in some ways it’s easier, because we don’t have Stephen say the opposite of what he feels. Is it twice as hard to fill a show twice as long? He invited the whole staff to work there, and most of his employees came over. One day Stephen called the staff down to the studio and said, “I’m giving the show up.” He took a breath, then said that it was because he was going to take over David Letterman’s show. How did you learn about your boss' move to 'The Late Show?' They might not have followed along without jokes.
Stephen started a Super PAC for satirical purposes I was proud we educated the public on it. They’re non-profits that can’t interact with campaigns, yet secretly do. I spent a year writing about Super PACs, which is not a naturally funny topic. Those scripts were at times very complicated. Then we’d rewrite and tape around 5 or 6 p.m. The executive producers and Stephen would meet around 1 p.m., read aloud and rehearse around 3 p.m. The writers would meet in the morning and pitch stories. How do you put together a nightly show like 'The Colbert Report?' When the show premiered in October, 2005, a lot of reviewers were positive, though they said “How can he keep this up?” Everything Stephen does is amazing. Stephen had been doing that character on The Daily Show, which we called a “high status idiot.” It was originally modeled on Bill O’Reilly, though we moved away from that - he was a liberal playing a loud conservative. When they offered me a job, I was thrilled. They were looking for writers, and I had a meeting in a tiny little coffee shop that was across from the studio. I was out of work for two years after being steadily employed my whole life. Here’s a lesson for the writers out there. You've worked with Stephen Colbert since the beginning of his first show, 'The Colbert Report.' How did you connect with him? Daria was a spin-off of that and a cult favorite, which ended up being good things. After that, I wrote for Beavis and Butt-Head.