(The Maybe Not So) Fancy New Beesley
A season three Pam Beesley fanmix.
( throw away yesterday, today is a brand new day. )

Basically it's season three up through Phyliss' Wedding (and what happens there.) There is a good deal of Jim in there... to the point where I probably could have made it a Jam mix, but mostly the idea is Pam becoming "Fancy New Beesley" which I don't think has happened yet, but she's making progress.

“One of you wrecked the paintings at the student art show,” Parker, a petite brunette girl, states matter-of-factly standing in the doorway to a classroom, “And I know who it was and I plan on making you pay.” While she wasn’t physically imposing by any stretch of the imagination, hardly five foot three and skinnier than most, there was something ominous and a little disconcerting about her words that made everyone in the room sit up straighter.

“Was it Stephen,” she smiles sweetly at the attractive jock sitting across the room on a desk, “the sophomoric star athlete who lives by the creed that no prank should be harmless? Or was it Mary-Jane,” she gestures theatrically to the raven haired girl slouching against the chalkboard, “the artist whose disturbingly macabre depiction of high-schoolers as vampires and demons was excluded from the show, exacting retribution? Maybe it was Harry, the social pariah, finally making good on his anti-establishment threats?” She feigns an expression of shock and outrage before traipsing over to the last student in the room, an unassuming boy with blonde hair, “Or how about the one person who doesn’t appear to have any kind of motive at all, James? Good grades, a few pieces of work in the show, no criminal history to speak of, hardly the type to err, let alone intentionally and purposefully destroy an entire year’s worth of art. ”

“Alright Nancy Drew, enough dramatics, we’re all yours,” Harry mutters darkly, staring up at the diminutive brunette, “Whodunit?”

She smiles slightly and surveys the suspects before answering, “Without the what, and the when, and the where, and the why? What kind of fun would that be?”

I've never been one of the Daily Show/Colbert Report fans who has had an incredibly strong preference either way. I watch them like one show, and while I think Colbert has a better batting-average episode to episode, when the Daily Show is on, it's on so it makes nightly comparisons difficult. But when my parents decided that I had finally earned the right to be brought along on one of their many excursions to the city because they had gotten The Colbert Report tickets, I was excited. No more or less excited then I would be had they gotten tickets to the Daily Show. (That's not entirely true, Daily Show tickets are harder to get.) But my preference, or lack there of, changed yesterday.

Not because Stephen Colbert is incredibly entertaining in person, as well as being almost disturbingly polite, and personable. Not because the show was hysterical. Not because I was on camera a total of three times. Not because he did the King of Glory dance. No, I was swayed for one reason; It was cold and the Colbert Report's studio at least makes an attempt to shield its audience from the elements. The line had a tent-like “shield” which almost blocked out the wind and cold, which compared to the tent-less line for the Daily Show was enough to sway me, if only temporarily and not particularly resolutely, onto Team Colbert.

After two hours of standing in cold, only interrupted by brief but satisfying walks to the local Dunkin Doughnuts where I drank crappy hot chocolate, watched Reba on the CW, wondering if the guy in the eagle-costume was warmer than myself and pondering what exactly the nature of the show in the theater next to the studio is, (is it a strip show? burlesque? something less exciting? if that is the case why advertise it as something naughty? “a dirty little show” implies something scandalous, and of course, why neon pink paper? It’s hard to read.) we were let in. They let us in earlier than normal because they finally took pity on us after they sent some interns out to patrol the line, and they could barely stand the cold. We were let into what is the equivalent of a waiting room; Cramped, crowded, tidy but not clean, and painted an overwhelming shade of neutral. The only difference is I don’t think many doctor’s offices have a metal detector or a big flag that says “The United Colors of Stephen” with a shitty graphic made up of Colbert Screencaps and random pictures of seemingly nonsensical things. That, and the television was playing Comedy Central not Telenova.

Once inside my questions changed from, “Is eagle-costume guy warm?” to “Are they going to let eagle-costume guy in?” and “Boy, she looks like a conservative nutcase, I wonder if she is?” to “That woman is most certainly a conservative nutcase, I wonder what the hell she’s doing here?” I spent a good deal of my time being disappointed in Comedy Central’s mid-afternoon programming, but again, the kind staff at the show took pity on us and let us into the actual studio early. We were let in to see what they call the “throw” between Stewart and Colbert, which apparently, never happens. Stewart’s crowd gets to see it but not Colbert’s. So they let us in by ticket color and then number. Our waiting in the freezing cold paid off, we were seated to the far left of the front row. Which, as it turns out, are as good of seats we could have hoped to get.

So we are barely seated when Stephen Colbert comes out really quickly to do the “throw.” He comes bounding out, lots and lots of energy, incredibly charismatic, does a little chatting up of the audience then sits down to start. The two do a pre-banter before they do the scripted one, a sort of “Hey, hello” type of thing. Stewart is also funny unscripted opening up with an acknowledgement that, “Apparently you have an audience right now, hello audience” and it means “either you’re really early or we’re running late.” Which was much funnier when he said it then just now when I tried to paraphrase it. The two men did a little bit of back and forth which, surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, was as natural and entertaining as the scripted stuff comes off on television. Then they do a small camera-check type thing and do the actual “throw.” After that wrapped Colbert runs back to either his dressing room or the writers or wherever and the warm up guy comes out.

I don’t remember warm-up guy’s name but he was mildly entertaining. His stuff wasn't particularly original, or even that funny, but when he got dark, which occasionally he did, it was entertaining. He picked on a good number of people in audience which again was inconsistent in its entertainment value. He had a good crack or too at Conservative-Lady who was wearing a campaign shirt for a Republican Senator from ’92 and an ankle long fur coat, how she wandered into the Colbert Report is beyond me. He also made fun of the Colbert-Virgins behind me, a wealthy looking man from Connecticut, and a group of coast-guards. Overall he was competent in his role as a place-holder.

Eventually they bring Colbert out again, who, again, comes out with so much energy it’s hard to believe he’s in his forties. He bounced around the set for a good couple of minutes before settling into to ask the audience if they had anything to ask him that could, “humanize [him] before [he] started saying terrible things.” Which he hardly needed to do, Stephen Colbert the person is immediately recognizable as a different entity from his character, but resulted in what might have been the highlight of my night. Conservative-Lady asked some question that made me think she really didn’t understand the premise of the show, a girl who had early molested the desk asked a question with homo-erotic subtext about Dr. House and Stephen Colbert on a weekend getaway, which got two responses, Stephen the person confessing to having never seen the show, much to the disappointment of the annoying fangirl and Stephen the character saying they would surely take “no guff from authority figures.” But my hero was the lady who asked which of the Strangers with Candy dance numbers was his favorite. What was his favorite? The King of Glory Dance. Which. He. Then. Proceeded. To. Do. Part. Of. If you think it’s funny on YouTube, well then you’re right, but it’s just as funny if not more so in person.

The show started with a flub, apparently the stage manger’s fault, if you saw the episode it explains the sort of bemused laughter Colbert started the show with. But aside from that and Colbert’s desire to reread the quote about energy conservation the show was done in one take. Which, according to my parent’s who have seen the show before and Colbert who apologized for his “incompetence” at the end of the show, is more mistakes than normal.

During commercial segments writers, or assistants, or mangers, or interns, or something go and conference at his desk for a couple of minutes. In general nothing particularly worth of note happens during this time. With the exception of his reaction to Fall Out Boy. Now the whole time when they weren’t filming they were playing what was essentially a mixtape of mine from eighth grade; Green Day, NOFX, MXPX, The Offspring, The Romones, The Clash, you know, old-people friendly rebellion. With the exception of a Fall Out Boy song, I have no idea what the name of it was but it was on of those omnipresent songs of the last year and a half. Now, this song starts up, whiny and more than a little obnoxious and the previously intensely focused Colbert looks up and cocks one of those trademark eyebrows in skepticism. Which then becomes amused disbelief. Then a resigned headshake, and it’s back to work. Leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind that Stephen Colbert does not like Fall Out Boy.

It's shiny, and it's new. And it's MINE.


How crazy is that?