I met Aasif Mandvi today (also, follow-up to Issa stealing my hot dog this summer)

[Recursion]

Unsurprisingly, he's a really nice guy. He was producing a segment on hot dogs and was interviewing some people in my office (I work for a food/ag policy lobby). If anyone here remembers my run in with Darrell Issa which resulted in my having one less hot dog than I should have, you might be happy to know Mandvi really loved that story (but said that it wouldn't work for this piece).

Back in the stone age I was in TV production for a while so I talked to the segment's producer -- one thing I didn't realize is how much effort the Daily Show puts into those pre-produced pieces: they're interviewing basically everybody involved in hot dog production, and will ultimately produce a 5-minute segment from about 16 hours of interview footage (no idea if my coworkers will make it in; it all comes down to what is funniest). He said part of how they get the effect they do is by lulling the interviewee with some generic boring questions and then coming in with the crazy stuff out of the blue. He said they do obviously edit the interviews significantly, but they never fake the interviewee's reaction: they do a two- or three-camera set-up and refuse to do reaction shots out of context on principle (he said "we try not to do easy funny"). I also thought it was classy that after one of the people they interviewed said she was uncomfortable with the inevitable penis jokes they made (this is, after all, a Daily Show piece on hot dogs) they immediately stopped and said they wouldn't do those any more if it bothered her.

Anyways, Aasif seemed like a great guy and I was really impressed with the professionalism of his crew.

[Taverner]

1. He reminds me so much of a friend from HS

Looked just like him too - except imagine with heavy metal hair

[KamaAina]

2. Was your hot dog shaped like a car, by any chance?

:P

[elleng]

3. Good to hear; No surprise.