Rich Dahm – head writer for the Colbert Report
I met Rich nearly by accident on Friday May 23rd 2008. He’s a regular looking guy, very unassuming. Todd Hanson, editor of The Onion, after his Head Writer title, introduced him as the writer of one of the most important speeches in our history. I knew immediately that Rich Dahm helped write Stephen Colbert’s speech at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.
Were you at the dinner?
“Yeah, I was 10 feet from Stephen setting at a banquet table with his family. We were right in front.”
Really? What was that like?
“You might not remember, but right before us was this Bush impersonator and he just killed. Everyone loved it. And you never want to go after someone that kills. ‘Cause the impersonator’s stuff, it was all, you know–
Safe?
“–yeah. And we were writing just like we would for the show. Because we figured–”
You got asked to be there because they know what you do, so you should do that.
“–yeah exactly. So Stephen went up after the impersonator and, well, if you watch the CSPAN tapes of the speech, no one is laughing.”
Really, I thought that was just the mics. I thought a lot of people were laughing.
“There were some people laughing out at the edges, but I give a lot of credit to Stephen for just powering through it -– it did not affect his performance at all.”
So was it awkward in the room?
“Yeah I was really uncomfortable. That dinner is the press and… well, Republicans. And there’s a whole section of that speech where Stephen just goes after the press. I was just watching President Bush the whole time and he did not like it. He shook Stephen’s hand after, but Laura Bush, she was visibly angry.
So what was it like for you after? When did you realize there was the phenomena with millions of youtube views and everything?
“At first, I just wanted to get out of town. It was really uncomfortable. I had a moment where I felt really bad, like what did I do? We just insulted the president–because that’s not what we intended to do. We were just doing what we always do on the show. But we ended up going to a party after and the first positive reaction I saw was Valerie Plame walked right up to me and hugged me.”
“The next day I looked at the newspapers and there was nothing. All the coverage was about the impersonator. So I started to search for some reaction online and that’s when I first saw thankyoustephencolbert.org and the youtube videos and everything. It had been a few days and then I started to think, maybe we actually did do something here?
Rich Dahm on effect of Colbert’s Press Club speech
Rich Dahm – head writer for the Colbert Report I met Rich nearly by accident on Friday May 23rd 2008. He’s a regular looking guy, very unassuming. Todd Hanson, editor of The Onion, after his Head Writer title, introduced him as the writer of one of the most important speeches in our history. I knew immediately that Rich Dahm helped write Stephen Colbert’s speech at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.
Were you at the dinner?
“Yeah, I was 10 feet from Stephen setting at a banquet table with his family. We were right in front.”
Really? What was that like?
“You might not remember, but right before us was this Bush impersonator and he just killed. Everyone loved it. And you never want to go after someone that kills. ‘Cause the impersonator’s stuff, it was all, you know–
Safe?
“–yeah. And we were writing just like we would for the show. Because we figured–”
You got asked to be there because they know what you do, so you should do that.
“–yeah exactly. So Stephen went up after the impersonator and, well, if you watch the CSPAN tapes of the speech, no one is laughing.”
Really, I thought that was just the mics. I thought a lot of people were laughing.
“There were some people laughing out at the edges, but I give a lot of credit to Stephen for just powering through it -– it did not affect his performance at all.”
So was it awkward in the room?
“Yeah I was really uncomfortable. That dinner is the press and… well, Republicans. And there’s a whole section of that speech where Stephen just goes after the press. I was just watching President Bush the whole time and he did not like it. He shook Stephen’s hand after, but Laura Bush, she was visibly angry.
So what was it like for you after? When did you realize there was the phenomena with millions of youtube views and everything?
“At first, I just wanted to get out of town. It was really uncomfortable. I had a moment where I felt really bad, like what did I do? We just insulted the president–because that’s not what we intended to do. We were just doing what we always do on the show. But we ended up going to a party after and the first positive reaction I saw was Valerie Plame walked right up to me and hugged me.”
“The next day I looked at the newspapers and there was nothing. All the coverage was about the impersonator. So I started to search for some reaction online and that’s when I first saw thankyoustephencolbert.org and the youtube videos and everything. It had been a few days and then I started to think, maybe we actually did do something here?
Rich Dahm
Colbert’s Speech on wikipedia