THE SITUATION ROOM
Unger: We brought a woman [into Madeleine’s] office who
had finally nailed [creating] a diaper for her dog. She was this
eccentric French woman and we interviewed her [with] a
stuffed German Shepherd and quizzed her about how much
poop she could get into the diaper. People are locked into
a reality and, like horses with blinders on, they don’t see
anything else. That was my biggest revelation: you can come
at people with any question when they’re really narcissistic
or self-obsessed. But when people write about The Daily
Show and its arc, it’s a misnomer to think we picked stories
to make fun of people who weren’t “newsworthy.” We were
experimenting with the form of news. It really wasn’t about
those people; it was, “How do we make this about ourselves?”
Smithberg: We were always the idiot.
Havlan: There were only five writers at the beginning, and
Grenrock-Woods: But there was a doctor who was convinced
we were busy working on six stories a day. We were trying to
that, every night, he would be called up to a spaceship and
write punchlines to a crap-load of stories. Our main thing
[together with the aliens] would anally impregnate various
at the beginning was headline jokes, far more setup and
celebrities. I had come up with a dream list of celebrities,
punchline–oriented than in the later shows. The original
and when he started naming all the Golden Girls, I said, “I’m
format was “Headlines,” “Other News” (which was three
fucking in!” I felt like I had struck gold.
different stories), “This Just In,” and an interview.
DeGeneres: My first piece was in Saskatchewan, and it was
Winstead: Each writer and producer was assigned a major
about an old guy who didn’t follow The Farmer’s Almanac and
newspaper and a regional area, and we would come in at
instead forecasted the weather by licking fresh pig spleens. I
8 a.m. and they would pitch stories. We would pick the
had a great time shooting it.
stories we wanted to do, then talk with the graphics and
“We were
always the
idiot.”
design departments. We’d meet back at 1:30 for the joke
Littleford: We weren’t trying to pin anyone against a wall.
read, Madeleine and I would pick the jokes we liked, I
We could just go to uncomfortable places where the person
would form that into a working script for Craig, and he
was comfortable. I did two pieces in Vegas in one day, one
would look it over and do rehearsal. I worked fifteen
on midget cannonballs and one on a Miss America rodeo.
hours on a good day.
The camera has a lot of power. As long as we could pretend
we were some kind of authority, and ask our questions with
Smithberg: Our pitch meetings were so great.
authority, they would answer.
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