Every so often on this blog, I astound myself with the utter triviality of something I post. I am about to do this again…
One of the amazing things about the finale on The Colbert Report was that they chose to do it live (that is, without tape stops or edits) and this presented a Herculean task for the camerafolks, the director and his crew — especially since the director ran out and joined the throng — and especially for the stage manager(s). The live audience obviously saw all those celebs before we home viewers did. The screaming they did was for who they could see on the stage and they probably weren't even looking at the monitors to see who was on camera at any given moment.
Getting all those bodies out there and (mostly) in the right places was impossible and I'd be fascinated to know how much rehearsal they had, if everyone had a mark on the floor, how they handled stars who arrived late, etc. And where the heck did Gloria Steinem think she was going?
But here's the real trivial thing I noticed. Cookie Monster was, of course, in the window over the fireplace. With eight thousand other things to think about, whoever was directing at that moment or whoever was operating the camera still had enough attention to detail to notice that the top of Muppeteer David Rudman's head was visible in the shot and they moved the shot slightly to the left to correct for that. (Later on, Mr. Rudman's scalp gets in again…and so, apparently unintended, does one of the stage managers.)
Here's the video with names attached. Notice how someone caught and fixed that little mistake that only someone like me would have noticed…
And here's some footage shot backstage by Katie Couric. Some of the talk would make you think Colbert was retiring from show business instead of moving over to the same start time on CBS. And I disagree with those who are suggesting that will turn out to be the same thing…