A shot of the stage post-taping of the first Daily Show in Tampa for the RNC. Cameras weren't allowed during the taping . Credit: Daniel Veintimilla

A shot of the stage post-taping of the first Daily Show in Tampa for the RNC. Cameras weren’t allowed during the taping . Credit: Daniel Veintimilla
A shot of the stage post-taping of the first Daily Show in Tampa for the RNC. Cameras weren’t allowed during the taping . Credit: Daniel Veintimilla
  • Daniel Veintimilla
  • A shot of the stage post-taping of the first Daily Show in Tampa for the Republican National Convention. Cameras weren’t allowed during the taping .

Growing ever more jaded and RNC-fatigued, my spirits brightened under the lights of the Jaeb Ferguson Theater of the Straz at the first taping of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: The Road to Jeb Bush 2016.

I would finally hear Jon Stewart say fuck and shit without being bleeped!

My attendance to the taping of the show’s first episode, being broadcast tonight through Friday in Tampa, was unplanned. I happened to be next door at Carol Morsani Hall for another RNC event — a screening reception hosted by Students First of the parent-teacher empowerment film Won’t Back Down.

Still shaking off the shudder of after-film panelist Gov. Jeb Bush praising current Gov. Scott’s teacher accountability measures (story and review to come), I happened to pass the entrance to the Jaeb Ferguson and nabbed stand-by admission just moments before the Daily Show crew closed entry.

This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2012.