Field Notes: The Media School Travel Blog

“I am going to need you guys to be complete idiots for the next hour.”

Those were the words we heard moments before Stephen Colbert dashed out onto the stage, and they were the words that defined the remainder of the night. The words succinctly conveyed the main philosophy behind “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” a philosophy reiterated by the host himself before the taping began. Watching “The Late Show” is not about being an overly critical pedant. It is about losing yourself to the energy of the crowd and enjoying the ride.

And what glorious idiots we were. Every snappy punchline, every celebrity impersonation and every awkward silence was followed by uproarious laughter and applause from the eager audience. For someone who had stopped watching Colbert years earlier, it was a surreal experience exploding into howls of laughter and hanging onto his every word. In retrospect, it’s hard to determine how much of the show I would’ve found funny if I were a lone television viewer, but the collective amusement of being in the audience was inescapable.

From our perspective, the commodious set I was familiar with from watching his show seemed much smaller, much more intimate. The walls of the set were adorned with facsimiles of stone and ostentatious stained-glass windows depicting the illuminated faces of Colbert and his studio band, Stay Human. The message was clear: This was the church of Colbert, and we were its parishioners. And like a pagan deity, Colbert seemed to feed off our enthusiasm, responding to our intensity with increased vigor. This seemed to reinforce the words Colbert told us before taping began: The show was not about him, it was about us.

The most impressive thing about “The Late Show” was that it asked us to be idiots, and we delighted in the opportunity to let go of our worries and enjoy creating television.