COLBERT TO NATION ''I want YOU to do my bidding.''

Are there other things out there that you're hoping for? Maybe a memorial interchange? An elementary school?
Oh, that would be nice. I like a memorial interchange. Maybe a cloverleaf. [Laughs] Um, what else would I like...I wouldn't mind an airplane named after me. A wine named after me, that'd be nice. Maybe ''Colbertnet Sauvignon''?

You've not thought about that at all.
No, not at all. Um, I've got the ice cream, I've got the bridge, I've got the eagle, I've got the turtle...

The turtle must have been especially flattering.
It really was. What I've enjoyed most about the response of the Colbert Nation is, at first, it was just a theory to us. Like, well, yeah, this guy would probably consider his audience like a private mercenary army, and they would do his bidding. And then they did it! And they keep responding to things that we're not prepared for, and then we have to sort of improvise, based on what the Nation starts doing. And it makes a nice relationship between the two of us.

We're not exactly sure what to ask them to do, because the Nation often thinks of better things than we would. Like when that green-screen challenge happened last year — we did this thing where I danced in front of a green screen with a lightsaber. And I said, Oh, you know, Lucas will put in all the digital stuff later. And the next day, we thought, maybe we should post that online to see if any of the members of Colbert Nation would actually digitize images in there. And one of our writers said, Maybe they've already done it. And so we said, Nah, let's not do it, let's just see if it happens organically. And by the next day, there were three of them online. Already. And we thought — that's crazy. We're so lucky. Essentially, we've got content provided by the fans.

Have you thought about asking them to write the last three chapters of your book?
Now, that's not a bad idea. I might just leave the last three chapters blank, and see what I get, and then for the second edition, just put the Nation's stuff back there.

Exactly!
We did think about leaving one chapter at the end blank. For the heroes. Just with lines for them to write on. 'Cause the book is really about you.

Well, everyone does love additional content.
Value-added. My book is interactive. I understand that's what the kids are into. YouTube? YouWrite!

You could just put a mirror back there.
Oh, I so much want to put a Mylar mirror in the book! I want my book to be like Pat the Bunny. I want to have a little soft part, and a scratchy part, and don't get me started about the mirror. Oh! Hours of fun!

In the catalog copy, it's very clear that one needs to have balls to read this book.
Yeah, and ladies can have balls, too. They're called ''Thatchers.''

Right. But I've always been told that's not appropriate, and my mother is very concerned with me being ladylike. So whose opinion should be more important to me? Yours, or my own mother's?
Um, well, moms have balls when they talk to certain people. Certainly when they talk to their daughters, they have Thatchers.

Right. But I just know family is important to you…
So important to me.

So I'm just wondering what to do. I'm torn over who to listen to.
[Sighs] Well, buy your mom a copy of the book. And then have her read that, and then she'll disagree with me when she talks to you.

Oh, okay.
What do you and your mom disagree over? My daughter is now about to enter her teens, and I'm curious what I can expect to disagree with her about.

Mostly things that she wears, and music she listens to, and where she wants to go, and how late she wants to be there.
Do you still have these arguments with your mother? Does she ask who you're going out with?

Now it's just about what I wear. I come home at Christmas every year and often times we have to go shopping because I've brought nothing appropriate. And I'm not even doing it on purpose to get the free clothes, because then she takes me to like Ann Taylor Loft or something, and tries to get me to buy twinsets.
[Laughs] ''I bought you a golf dress! It's a one-piece knit. It's like an Izod shirt, but it goes to your knees! And a belt!''

I am not sure I would let my parents watch your television program. I'm afraid my dad would actually think you were being serious.
I love when that happens. We actually just had a little bit of that problem when we were writing. Last night we were finishing up the chapter on race in America, and my character doesn't see race. He's evolved beyond that. We're like, how do we deal with this? So we're about seven pages in, and talking about affirmative action. And LBJ has this famous quote, the famous example that he gave about runners in a race, and one runner has been shackled for the first half of the race, and then they take his shackles off — is it fair to just continue the race? Or would you move the shackled runner forward?

And one of the writers came up with this wonderful metaphor, about like, ''Well, no! It's unfair to have a shackled runner run against an unshackled runner. They should have separate — but equal! — races. You should have a totally different stadium, and different events, and different endorsement deals, and that way you wouldn't even have to take the shackles off! You could keep them separate!'' And I really loved the metaphor, but on the page, like, this really is an endorsement of segregation. And you could read it and go, Jesus, the wrong person could read this and think it's real. So we took it out. It's just not stupid enough. It just felt a little too much like what you might hear, still, on certain radio stations. And we were like, you know what? I don't want that in the book. I don't want to put that in my character's mouth. So instead I endorse an all-shackle Olympics. Some people get shackled, some people get to wear sandwich boards. Some people have their pockets stuffed with sausages, and a pack of wild dogs are released.

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