Katsir and a friend at the 2006 Emmys

We interviewed one of the writers for The Colbert Report, Jay Katsir. A Princeton graduate who’s worked on Nickelodeon, he talked about writing for Colbert’s angry, angry character, the creative process for writing comedy, and some of his favorite segments.

How did you get started?

When I graduated [from Princeton], Jon Stewart was our senior speaker. I told myself that if I was really interested in working in TV, I should audition for the student speaking slots, so I ended up auditioning and they chose my speech. I didn’t know whether [Jon Stewart] was going to be there or not but it turned out that he was. I gave my speech, and I think, probably because it was graduation and everyone was pretty drunk, it was pretty well received. Jon Stewart spoke probably 20 minutes after me.

Katsir on meeting Jon Stewart:

It was really one of the craziest, most exciting moments of my life because he referred to my speech in his and he called me mishpucha [Yiddish for family], which of course my mom flipped out. Afterward, I talked to him and I had some sketches and stuff with me that I gave to him and he said he would look at them – I don’t know if he ever did.

I ended up working at Nickelodeon which I got through an unconnected source.

I played a robot on a show for a while which was sort of a dream come true. It was called “U-Pick Live” it was an interspatial – new programming that they put around really old Rugrats and SpongeBob reruns to keep kids’ attention.

It was kind of like a TRL for kids where kids would theoretically be voting on which cartoons they wanted to watch. Although, there were some rumors that the Cartoon Network staff would be waiting until we opened the voting and called in for some really bad Nickelodeon cartoon. There was one time where my boss and I got an emergency call where we had to vote for SpongeBob for like 45 minutes until he became the winner. So I worked there for a while until the show got cancelled, possibly in part because my robot character was disturbing and scary for kids.

Then after that, I got back in though with the agent [from Jon Stewart] I think I could have happily had the credits roll on my life after that speech. I would do like a break-dancing werewolf to make my college-movie life complete.

They were hiring basically everyone from scratch [for the Colbert Report]. At that point it was writing which would eventually become The Word and a couple other segments.

What’s an average day at The Colbert Report like?

We have a meeting every morning which is informational for us [where] we find out what we’re going to be working on that day.

At that point you get your first assignment. It’s on a volunteer basis. If you pitch something they like they’ll assign it to you, or if there is something that they say that they want us to work on they’ll assign that. Usually you’ll work on the story with one other writer, sometimes two, for the morning.

After lunch, all the writers get together and we do what they call a “gang,” which is coming up with different options for jokes for the very top of the show which is called the table of contents.

We come up with five or six jokes per topic and then the text at the bottom of the screen. I don’t think any one reads the text or understands what he’s talking about at the top of the show, but basically it’s a one-liner fest where we all just sit around pitching one-liners. That’s a lot of fun because it’s the one prescribed part of the day when all the writers are hanging out together.

Some things are written by individuals and then complied – like if he’s doing a ThreatDown where he’s talking about the top five threats to American or himself or whatever he’s concerned with.

Then [at about 5:15 p.m., there is] rehersal.

After rehearsal, Stephen and the two head writers go to revise the script. Usually the writers don’t participate in that, sometimes they do. If they need anything from us then they ask us.

Katsir on the energy at the nightly taping of the show:

How do you come up with ideas?

A lot of the ideas are developed collaboratively when we have our meetings in the morning. It’s open for people to talk about and propose different angles on a topic. Sometimes you’re assigned to come up with an outline but often you’ll just get a general topic, and the specific ideas that turn into the jokes are a result of the collaborative process of bouncing jokes off each other and ideas off each other. It’s something your constantly aware of, needing to come up with jokes for things. The ideas are all filtered through Stephen’s character’s point of view. If something comes up, it becomes more natural after a while to know what Stephen’s character’s opinion would be.

So, what’s it like working for Stephen Colbert?

It’s great, I mean I really love the job and I really like working with everyone there. It’s like a regime of niceness from the top down. I think the stereotype for late night comedy shows is a competitive atmosphere, but I personally feel like it’s a very supportive, collaborative and positive atmosphere. That comes from Stephen all the way down. It’s pretty great. He’s a really nice guy. He’s nothing like his character.

How do you come up with The Word?

Since The Word is more or less an essay where the arguments are comprised of jokes, you have to see a story, and then normally you know what Stephen’s opinion would be, and then you want to develop an outline where he is sort of taking the idea and heightening it, maybe proposing some sort of absurd extension to it. Coming up with The Word is difficult and it’s a very deliberate process. You would find it very similar to writing an essay for school, except you can put in wacky jokes.

How do you pick The Word?

Sometimes you come up with an idea in the course of writing it, sometimes it’s clear from the very beginning, sometimes the actual word itself is integral to the argument, sometimes it’s just a way of getting into it. It depends on how you think it will best serve the overall piece. Sometimes the temptation is to come up with a neologism, like make up a crazy word, but I think that has to be done only when it really serves a piece.

So you wrote the Wikiality bit. What was the background?

We’ve done a bunch of things where we’ve asked viewers to respond to pieces on the show. I think this is one of the first ones where we realized that we could really engender a response, at least on the internet, when we ask for things on the show.

We did it as a joke—it wasn’t necessarily conceived as something that would have a major reaction on Wikipedia. But we figured we’d throw it in and see what happened and then I remember we checked Wikipedia the next day—we talked about at the morning meeting how surprisingly large the response was.

At the top of the show, the joke he made to introduce the topic that he later talked about in The Word was “I’ll do a report on Wikipedia which you’ll be able to read online on Wikipedia in about 10 minutes.” And then, when I check Wikipedia the next day, in reality it took about three minutes.

That was pretty exciting and cool and, in certain ways, scary. We had no idea so much vandalism would occur.

Are the interviews on the show scripted, or are they ad-libbed by Stephen?

The interviews themselves aren’t scripted. Because Stephen’s in character and it’s good for him to go in with a list of questions his character might ask, the writers always work on questions both for the in-studio guests and the congressional interviews. So he goes in there equipped with questions, sometimes he has props, but the strengths of those interviews are usually his ad-libs. He is extremely quick-witted. Those are the genuine reactions of the people he’s interviewing and genuine ad-libs. Often the funniest things are his responses to their responses. I think those are some of the funniest things we do and it’s because it’s almost impossible to make Stephen break character.

Although he gets prepped and gets plenty of questions and the jokes in the questions are pre-written, it’s a real interview. It’s the same way you would be prepped to interview anybody, except the questions are usually ridiculous.

What’s the breakdown of the writing staff?

[There are ] nine writers, two head writers. One man and one woman head writer, and one other woman on writing staff. Five-point-five Jews. You wouldn’t say we’re diverse.

Is his character fun to work with?

At first I felt like, “I can’t believe that I have this voice in my head constantly,” because his character really is the worst person imaginable. Beyond like really immoral things.

Katsir on writing for a cynical, manipulative demagogue:

But, it’s a really fun character to write for. Because, a character that’s that extreme will have extreme opinions, which hopefully are sometimes extremely funny. He’s a very fun character to write.

So you were nominated for an Emmy as one of the writers for the show. How were the Emmys?

The Emmys were pretty great—they were like the prom except all the nerds have fun. It was pretty great. I’m working with people who are really experienced and they’re all really talented and to be a part of that group and be acknowledged with them, it felt very surreal. I got to stand by the bathroom and watch all the celebrities go in. I think I used the same urinal as Tom Selleck. It was a fancy wine and dine event—we were in LA for the weekend. We had a party with whole staff.

Katsir on being at the Emmys:

Any final thoughts?

I really feel lucky to work on The Colbert Report and it’s been a great experience for me personally. I think the writing staff all really likes what we’re doing.

Katsir has written material for segments including Better Know Your District, why the NY Times wants your family dead and the series finale of The West Wing. He appeared in this video.

This story was produced by Tom Giratikanon.

Have questions for Jay Katsir? Leave a comment, and he’ll respond over the next week or so.