When Donald J. Trump arrived on an escalator and announced on Tuesday that he would seek the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, he set off a gold rush among late-night comedians who could not wait to satirize his bombastic, digressive declaration speech.
On Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart gave thanks to the heavens, while on NBC’s “Late Night,” Seth Meyers presented a point-by-point takedown of Mr. Trump’s immoderate campaign promises.
And, in an online video, Stephen Colbert performed his own version of the speech, offering his mock support. (Describing Mr. Trump as someone who looks like “they raked his body out of the surf down in Cape May,” Mr. Colbert said, in an unplaceable, Trump-like accent, “That sends a message of confidence to voters that if you vote for him, he’s not physically dead.”)
But there is a crucial difference between Mr. Colbert and his comedic peers: He is not appearing on television and won’t be until Sept. 8, when he will take over as host of CBS’s “Late Show,” succeeding David Letterman, who stepped down from that program in May.
In the meantime, Mr. Colbert, who ended his Comedy Central series, “The Colbert Report,” in December, has been offering audiences a steady flow of content as if he were already on the air at CBS.
With the help of the Internet, Mr. Colbert and his “Late Show” collaborators are hoping to preserve the host’s connection to his fans, develop the voice of their new program and keep pace with their late-night competitors.
As Mr. Colbert explained in an email, “We like our audience and want to give them gifts to let them know we miss them.”
Rob Dubbin, a writer for Mr. Colbert’s “Late Show” and its producer of digital entertainment, said in an interview: “The last I heard, we were still planning to do a show. We’re as anxious to get back to it as people seem to be to receive it.”
Mr. Dubbin added that the goal of any preproduction period was “figuring things out” and that these digital creations were “a cool way to share the results of that process as they occur.”
Following a hiatus of almost six months, Mr. Colbert re-emerged earlier this month by introducing several new online offerings created to support his “Late Show” debut, including an official website; Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts; and an iOS application called Colbr.
Since then, “The Late Show” has posted new videos every few days, offering behind-the-scenes updates that are both factual (the hiring of its bandleader, Jon Batiste) and farcical (Mr. Colbert shaving off the beard he grew during his downtime).
Opus Moreschi, a “Late Show” head writer and supervising producer, said that videos like the Trump parody allowed Mr. Colbert and his staff to continue their mission of “making light of things and enjoying the insanity of the world around us” in a spontaneous and real-time way.
Mr. Moreschi said that on Tuesday he and his colleagues had been watching Mr. Trump’s speech on TV at the temporary offices of “The Late Show,” above a BMW dealership on Manhattan’s West Side, while they wait for renovations to their permanent home at the Ed Sullivan Theater.
“We were enjoying the pace and the rhythm and his clear lack of preparation so much,” Mr. Moreschi said, “that before Trump was done talking, we were working on it.”
Flags and drapery were obtained, extras were hired, and the video was recorded in a conference room that afternoon and posted online that night. (It has already received more than one million views on YouTube.)
Mr. Colbert is hardly the first late-night host to appreciate that digital vitality is crucial to the overall success of his show. Online videos and other web content have become the lifeblood of programs like NBC’s “Tonight” show and ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” where entertainers like Jimmy Fallon and Mr. Kimmel have years of experience as hosts of network shows.
“We’re not trying to create memes or viral videos,” Mr. Moreschi added. “We’re not trying to hashtag-trend. We’re just doing our comedy, whether it’s on the Internet or a big old dumb box in the middle of the living room.”
But as Mr. Colbert prepares for “The Late Show,” he must determine how to broaden his appeal beyond the audience he reached on basic cable, and how he will present himself when he is no longer the fatuous pundit character he played for 10 seasons on “The Colbert Report.”
These online experiments give Mr. Colbert some breathing room to try out his new network persona – a cultured quipster not unlike his actual self – without having to do so in front of the wider and more critical audience he will face in September.
“If people watched the old show, they know Stephen’s sense of humor, and that’s who he is,” Mr. Moreschi said. “The character he’s playing now is a talk-show host whose job it is to entertain you. It’s freeing. We don’t have to think about why our character would want to go do something – he can just do it.”
Recalling his original job for Mr. Colbert, which required him to write in the voice of a fictional webmaster for the “Colbert Report” site, Mr. Dubbin said: “It was speculative fiction, imagining that the show had a following. Our expectations were pretty low.”
“That show felt experimental every day,” Mr. Dubbin said of “The Colbert Report.” “Two years in. Seven years in. On the last day. I hope it doesn’t ever stop feeling experimental.”
- http://bit.ly/1TBpDCZ
Niciun comentariu:
Trimiteți un comentariu