Michael Shermer, publisher of SKEPTIC on The Colbert Report
"Being interviewed (if that’s what you can call it) by the inimitable Stephen Colbert was one of the wilder experiences of my career. I would imagine by now that most readers of eSKEPTIC know that Comedy Central’s hit series The Colbert Report features the comedian Stephen Colbert playing a role that is largely a parody of Bill O’Reilly and The O’Reilly Factor. Exaggerating the extremes of the conservative position on nearly everything, Colbert gets in his hilarious digs by arguing against liberals and liberalism. Well, words don’t do the show justice. You just have to see it. Anyway, I was on last Tuesday night. The show is taped in New York. Stephen was good enough to come by the green room (they’re never green, by the way) to introduce himself and explain, “You know, I play a complete idiot on the show, so just try to debunk me like you would any idiot.” (This introduction was very unusual. I’ve been on Larry King, Bill Maher, Oprah, and Dennis Miller, all several times each, and never once have any of them ever spoken to me before or after the show. The funniest was the first time I was on Dennis Miller’s show — I didn’t see him in person until they plopped me in the chair next to him during a commercial break, and when the cameras started rolling he turned to me and said “Sherms! How you doin’?”, like we were old pals going way back.) After Stephen left, the producer came in to review about a dozen questions that Stephen might ask, emphasizing that he might not ask any of them, or that he might start with the first one and then just wing it. That’s exactly what happened. The first question asked me to prove that I was the publisher of Skeptic magazine, and we were off and running from there, as you’ll see in this clip. It was also one of the more difficult interviews I’ve done as he is quite verbally facile, aggressive, and so damn funny that it was hard to stop laughing and try to get in just a couple of points. At least I didn’t throw water on him, which Richard Branson did the next night, another clip well worth watching (they are available on Comedy Central’s web page.)"
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