Unusual Things on Colbert

Mark Jeffries

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Sep 18, 2019, 1:30:19 AM9/18/19

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Last Tuesday night, when Stephen had as guests the authors of the new book about the Harvey Weinstein affair and #MeToo "She Said," there was a cable news-style lower third all throughout the interview--which was two acts! The first lower third at 1:48 in the segment read "JOURNALISTS JODI KANTOR & MEGAN TWOHEY ON BREAKING THE HARVEY WEINSTEIN STORY." It was replaced at 2:26 by "JOURNALISTS JODI KANTOR & MEGAN TWOHEY ON THEIR BOOK, [i]SHE SAID[/I]. They went back to the first graphic at 3:30. At 4:44 came "JOURNALISTS...TALK #METOO POST-WEINSTEIN." The graphics disappeared at 5:47. In the second segment appearing at around :43 was "[i]SHE SAID[I] AUTHORS...ON TRUMP AND #METOO." Jimmy took out the graphic at 2;27.

Now this is the first time I've seen any late-night talk show do a cable news-style you-don't-need-captioning-when-we've-got-it-on-the screen graphic for a segment. "The Late Show" hasn't done it since last Tuesday (and they've had politicians on since then) and they sure as hell didn't do it for the other guest last week, Ansel Egort. The lower thirds were in the same font they use the gag lower thirds they sometimes insert over actual news footage in the cold opening. But why? Were they thinking that the viewers would not know what the guests were talking about and was this network meddling with a threat to take it off if they said the words "Les Moonves?"

You can see the segments yourself at:

https://youtu.be/0wOP4NFGjDM

and

https://youtu.be/IOyfBD3qUuw

BTW, what the hell did what Jon Batiste was playing as walk-on music have anything to do with the guests? I'm surprised Paul Shaffer hasn't had a conversation with him about walk-on music.

And Monday night, the first commercial break had the spots squeezed back on the screen while we saw "behind-the-scenes" video footage squeezed back even farther and a lower third saying that the "Meanwhile..." segment was next. Now I've seen this done on reality comps that have live episodes to I guess prove that what they're doing is live, but outside of shows like last Thursday night, we know Colbert's recorded. Or was this just something to make the advertiser who paid for the billboard happy? (I haven't seen tonight's show yet, so I don't know if they're doing it again tonight--yet.)

Steve Timko

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Sep 18, 2019, 12:55:31 PM9/18/19

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The lower third for the reporters was an attempt to keep viewers from tuning out. To remind them of what they are discussing.

Bob Jersey

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Sep 18, 2019, 1:23:43 PM9/18/19

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Definitely sounds as though network lawyers needed to weigh in here. Chris L. and Stephen's policy for using the chyron is usually pretty clear.

Can't opine on any commercial-break stuff as it usually doesn't end up on the website afterwards. B

Diner

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Sep 18, 2019, 1:33:15 PM9/18/19

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They also used a lower-third chyron the previous night for the night's second guest, Bill Skarsgård.

The #2 guest on Wednesday was Stephen King, and the #2 guest this past Monday was Marie Osmond. I'm pretty sure they didn't do graphics explaining who they were - but then again, King and Osmond are a lot more famous than Skarsgård, so they probably didn't feel a need to identify them to viewers.

(There was also no chyron on Thursday for Jon Lovett, but that was a live show, and I'm guessing the chyrons were added in post-production.)

BTW, has Colbert cut out new Friday shows completely? I noticed in July or August that he was airing reruns on Fridays, but I thought that might be a summer vacation move. But it's September, and the practice has continued.

Also, kudos to Colbert for the nice tribute to Ric Ocasek at the end of Monday's show.

David Bruggeman

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Sep 18, 2019, 2:22:22 PM9/18/19

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I think it was mentioned here, but when Bill Skarsgard was on last Monday night, The Late Show did a similar thing with the lower third for most of Skarsgard's time on stage. Felt weird to me then, and felt weird to me watching Kantor and Twohey's interview.

As for the walk-on music, I didn't recognize it, so I could be missing any dissonance, intended or otherwise.

It's unclear to me if there's a pattern to when Batiste will make a point to link the bumper music to the guest or not. Sometimes the band will play around with one piece all night, varying it from break to break. Other nights you might here Batiste sing/vocalize the guest's name over whatever is being played when they walk out.

On rare occasion, they will go deep. When Mayor Pete was on earlier this month, his walk-on music was All Blues by Miles Davis. Back in June Mayor Pete played the tune at an Iowa campaign event, and Colbert made fun of it at length, asking Batiste to critique the Mayor's performance.

As the kids may say, receipts courtesy of YouTube.

June segment (H/T Crooks and Liars) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2K-wn4jThk (skip to 2:05 for the relevant section)

September interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EErXVmYPzX4 (jump to 0:22 for the intro music)

Jon Delfin

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Sep 18, 2019, 3:20:14 PM9/18/19

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On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 1:33 PM Diner <bway...@gmail.com> wrote, in part:

BTW, has Colbert cut out new Friday shows completely? I noticed in July or August that he was airing reruns on Fridays, but I thought that might be a summer vacation move. But it's September, and the practice has continued.

Maybe they finally started hearing the voices of those of us who feel that a show whose currency is currency shouldn't be airing non-topical, day-old (or more) shows. It hurts the brand.

Now, if they'd only stop lying about being "live on tape."

stannc

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Sep 19, 2019, 6:03:16 AM9/19/19

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Did the red haired girl in the band leave? Asking for a friend.

Doug Fields

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Sep 19, 2019, 7:15:09 AM9/19/19

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No. Maddie's still around...she appeared within the last week for sure, and probably was there and didn't make it on camera on other recent nights.

She does seem to take more than the occasional night off, though. She's a much-in-demand studio musician and also plays guitar in her own band, Rubblebucket, which is currently playing gigs out of town on weekends...probably taking an extra day off here and there for travel/prep time.

Doug Fields

Tampa, FL

From: tvor...@googlegroups.com <tvor...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of stannc <sta...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2019 6:03 AM
To: TVorNotTV <tvor...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [TV orNotTV] Re: Unusual Things on Colbert

Did the red haired girl in the band leave? Asking for a friend.

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Bob Jersey

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Sep 19, 2019, 9:01:00 AM9/19/19

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Doug Fields, to stannc, this morning (9/19):

No. Maddie's still around...she appeared within the last week for sure, and probably was there and didn't make it on camera on other recent nights.

She does seem to take more than the occasional night off, though. She's a much-in-demand studio musician and also plays guitar in her own band, Rubblebucket, which is currently playing gigs out of town on weekends...probably taking an extra day off here and there for travel/prep time.

The Wiki for that group doesn't mention her, but if you know better...

B

PGage

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Sep 19, 2019, 9:35:45 AM9/19/19

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She has not been with the band the first three nights this week. She was on last week (at least last Thursday, the only show I went back and double checked).

It is somewhat remarkable that, given the amount of interest in her, they have resisted the temptation to pander to it in their shots of the band. For the most part in the opening they shoot back at the band after Colbert does his still nauseating front row high fives, and we only see JB, the drummer and maybe one other (not the guitar players). Then they give a 1-shot of the drummer. Generally if we see Maddie it is a wide shot of the entire out of the second commercial break.

I guess they don’t want to fetishize a still young woman (wasn’t she just in her early 20s when they started?).

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