THE McLAUGHLIN
GROUP
Frank DeCaro: I was a journalist. I wrote
Beth Littleford: Some people had dabbled in
for The New York Times and some other
news, but I was a straight actress doing gender-
magazines. One of the [other] writers brought
bending roles and found my way at The Improv
me in. It helped that a lot of us came from a
via a one-woman show. I was brought in as the
journalism background, so we could subvert
pseudo–Barbara Walters. I later did two half-
from the inside.
hour “Beth Littleford Interview Special”s on Boy
George and Anthony Michael Hall.
Stacey Grenrock-Woods:
I
started
as
a
journalist, did a piece for an MTV pilot, and
Vance DeGeneres: I was not there in the
then The Daily Show tracked me down.
beginning years but was lucky enough to be
hired by Madeleine and Jon right before he
Winstead: I had known Stephen Colbert and
came aboard [in 1999]. I met Steve [Carell]
saw him on Good Morning America one day and
when he joined The Daily Show [the same year].
realized they didn’t know what they had on
I remember seeing his first piece and thinking,
their hands. [Colbert would join The Daily Show
“I wish I thought of that idea.” It was really
in 1997.] And we had Lewis Black [in 1996],
brilliant. We became best friends.
whose character fit perfectly into the model of a
modern-day Andy Rooney.
Littleford: We were a little community that
pulled together and put on a show with a little-
J. R. Havlan: I knew Lizz from standup, and
show vibe. There was a feeling in the office of
she asked me to submit to the show. In my
real camaraderie, and we’re all in the trenches
eighteen years there, I looked at the show as
together—but nobody got killed.
having four distinct phases: with Craig, with
Jon, after the 2000 election, and when The
Colbert Report launched.
“The show really,
at its spine, is
about journalists
abdicating their
responsibility as
journalists.”