"The Big Man" approach to comedy

Stephen Colbert reminisces on his appearance at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner:

Colbert said he was genuinely surprised that he'd been invited to the affair and, with his colleagues, "worked very hard on it and the actual performance." It was an honor, a rare opportunity. "The actual performance was enjoyable for me. I really liked the jokes and was eager to do it."

Tom Purcell, a Second City alum and the television show's co-executive producer, explained the tactical rationale: Bush, he said, was the typical "Big Man" one might find in innumerable institutional settings. "We thought it was the Big Man. He hires somebody to make fun of him, and he chuckles. You see it at office Christmas parties. You say the boss is so cheap that....and he laughs and everybody laughs. That's what we thought we were doing. They wouldn't have brought us in if they didn't know what jokes we did."

Of course, in hindsight, that didn't seem exactly true, suggesting slightly insufficient due diligence by the association.

"We dipped a wick in a can of grape soda, threw it against a wall and little did we know the entire room was soaked in gasoline," said Purcell.

Added Colbert: "We felt like we were throwing joke Molotov cocktails, and then the room burst into flames." Throughout the panel discussion, gently moderated by NPR's Peter Sagal, one was reminded of one of the elements separating comic pros, like Colbert and colleagues, from your "hilarious friend" at the office and other funny amateurs, namely the Colbert crew's lightning speed. It's the difference between college football and the NFL.

Colbert disclosed that he did substantial self-editing upon looking at the president and discerning that he wasn't ecstatic. He had planned to play off Medal of Freedom awards Bush had given former CIA Director George ("It's a slam dunk") Tenet and former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer; joshing about how Bush was clearly giving awards to everybody in sight.

"'But nobody gives this man an award,'" Colbert recalled as the thrust of the riff he scrapped. "'That ends tonight. I'm going to give the highest honor I can give....a certificate of presidency.'"

It would be akin to "something you get from The Learning Annex for taking a course. 'I, Stephen Colbert, acknowledge...'" Colbert looked at Bush and said to himself, "I'm going nowhere near this."

When the dinner was over, "I don't think I'm dying. I go to sit down and nobody's meeting my eye. Only [the late journalist-turned-White House spokesman] Tony Snow comes over and says I'm doing a great job." Then Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia came his way and told him he was brilliant.

"I said, oh, s-, don't let me like Antonin Scalia!"