Better Know a District
Better Know a District was a recurring segment on The Colbert Report. It offered a humorous examination of a different United States Congressional district in each segment and generally included an interview with that district's member of Congress.
Structure
Each segment began with basic information about a specific district, such as history and geography, and sometimes a humorously bizarre event that happened there. The district is also almost invariably referred to as "fightin'," as in the "Fightin' 11th." All segments featured an interview with its Representative.One comedic maneuver that Colbert commonly employed in these interviews, particularly when he interviewed Democrats, was to ask the Representative a loaded question of either "George W. Bush: great President, or the greatest President?", or "the Iraq War: great war, or the greatest war?" When the interviewee tried to express his or her disapproval of Bush, Colbert usually stated that the only choice was between "Great or Greatest," and nearly always stated, "I'm gonna put you down for 'Great'."
After the interview, Colbert added the segment to "the big board", a map of the entire United States with district lines drawn; the new district, shown in sparkling gold on a blue background, was usually very difficult or impossible to see due to its small size. Though many districts were profiled, the map always looked largely vacant overall.
Reactions of interviewees
Although the interviews intentionally showed most of the Representatives in an unflattering light, the Representatives' post-interview reactions have varied. Colbert's interview with Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank resulted in Frank lambasting the program, while the interview with Virginia Representative Jim Moran pleased the Congressman — he told The New York Times that he thought Colbert "let off kind of light."California Representative Brad Sherman appeared to be in on the joke. He claimed not to know that his San Fernando Valley district was home to the pornography industry, gave an apparently long and dull explanation of a tax proposal, and participated in the making of a "pornographic video" with Colbert and impersonated a robot.
The Washington Times published a story on the show stating that "several lawmakers said doing the spoof spot on 'The Colbert Report' on TV's Comedy Central actually has raised their profiles back home"; however, the Los Angeles Times has reported that due to the fact that many House members have "stumbled badly" during this segment, others are not risking "the price for looking stupid" and were passing up the opportunity to be on Colbert's Better Know A District.
On his November 7, 2006 show, Colbert lauded the fact that every one of the 28 actual congressmen whom he had interviewed by that point won election or reelection, which he claims to have been because they were given the "Colbert Bump".
Because of the way Colbert intentionally tried to skewer congressmen in his interviews, former Democratic Caucus chairman Rahm Emanuel advised his fellow Democrats not to appear on the show, causing Colbert to make fun of Emanuel's advice on the show. Better Know a District segments subsequently began appearing much less frequently on the Report, suggesting many in Congress took Emanuel's advice. In January 2009, Colbert received what he jocularly claimed was a letter from U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and said he was cleared to begin interviewing congressmen once again. However he began the 2009 season of Better Know A District by interviewing Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz instead of a Democratic congressman.
Following the 2010 congressional election on November 2, 2010, for the first time since the show began, a congressman who appeared on the Colbert Reports Better Know a District segment was not reelected in a general election. On November 3, 2010, Colbert ran a segment showing clips of those fallen friends called "We Hardly Better Knew Ye".
District count
Better Know a District began as a "435-part series," 435 being the number of United States Congressional districts; however, on November 29, 2005, Colbert banned California's 50th District after his "friend" Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the 50th's Representative, pled guilty to receiving over $2 million in bribes and resigned his seat. California's 50th is now the lone member of the "Never Existed to Me" category, and the map showing the United States' Congressional districts now looks as if the district does not even exist. This brought the series to a "434-part series". After this, Texas's 22nd congressional district was retired on April 4, 2006 when Tom DeLay announced that he planned to leave Congress. Texas's 22nd was reinstated on June 8, 2006, with a fake interview in which video of DeLay in three previous interviews on other television networks was interspersed with questions from Colbert. The district was put back into retirement at the end of the segment.In the show's first year, 34 districts were profiled.
The original district map lacked Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. During a phone-in segment, a resident of Michigan’s 1st, which includes all of the Upper Peninsula as well as a sizable portion of the northern Lower Peninsula, reported this absence. Colbert informed the caller that he lived in Canada and if it was not on Colbert’s map, it was not a part of the United States. The Upper Peninsula was added to the map the next time it was shown.
During the interview with Eleanor Holmes Norton, Colbert established that the District of Columbia was not a state, and thus the District of Columbia was not a part of the United States. The Better Know a District map was updated with an asterisk notation to reflect this fact. Furthermore, the count of 435 districts does not include non-voting districts, such as the District of Columbia; however, this segment was included in the district count, filling in for California's 50th district's absence, restoring the total to 435.
After the 2006 midterm elections, Colbert was invited to a meeting of the incoming House freshmen at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. During this encounter, he brought his total of "better-known districts" from 36 up to 51 ; however, he did not count these as installments, and the count picked up at 37 with the next regular installment. The show aired on December 12, 2006.
After completing the fourth installment on November 9, 2005, he quipped “At the rate of one district a week, we should complete the series by February 2014.” However, in February 2014 he was only on the 87th of 434 districts, leaving him 20% complete after 8.5 years. That rate would place the series completion date in April 2048, had the show not ended.
List of districts "Better Known"
The districts covered in "Better Know a District" are shown below. Segment numbers are listed starting with the 37th installment as they no longer correspond to the actual number of districts profiled. The Washington Post has reprinted transcripts from segments of "Better Know a District".Season 1 (2005)
Season 2 (2006)
Season 3 (2007)
Season 4 (2008)
| # | District | Guest | Installment | Date aired | Notes |
| 61 | Bob Inglis | 50th | January 30 | ||
| 62 | Joe Sestak | 51st | April 22 | ||
| 63 | Carolyn B. Maloney | 52nd | July 29 |
Season 5 (2009)
| # | District | Guest | Installment | Date aired | Notes |
| 64 | Jason Chaffetz | 53rd | January 6 | Stephen shows his gun called Sweetness to Chaffetz. Ends interview with a leg wrestle that Stephen wins. | |
| 65 | Cynthia Lummis | 54th | March 9 | The Fightin' Larges! | |
| 66 | Dan Maffei | 55th | April 7 | Features "evil twins" of Colbert and Maffei wearing goatees in the style of "evil Spock" in the episode Mirror, Mirror. Colbert prompts Maffei's "evil twin" with statements about cocaine and prostitutes, similar to Robert Wexler's 2006 interview. Maffei, at Colbert's prompting to "look cool", attempts to shotgun a beer. At the end of the interview, Maffei and Colbert exchange the Vulcan salute. | |
| 67 | Aaron Schock | 56th | April 15 | - | |
| 68 | Chellie Pingree | 57th | August 10 | ||
| 69 | Jared Polis | 58th | August 17 | Called "Even Better-er Know a District," Colorado's 2nd district on Stephen's map is now green | |
| 70 | Mike Castle | 59th | November 9 | - | |
| 71 | Jackie Speier | 60th | November 17 | Stephen stages a YouTube video which involves him and various members of Congress skating through the halls in the US House of Representatives. |
Season 6 (2010)
| # | District | Guest | Installment | Date aired | Notes |
| 72 | Michael Quigley | 61st | February 10 | ||
| 73 | Vancouver South | Ujjal Dosanjh | 62nd | February 22 | "Better Know a Riding" - First Member of Canadian Parliament to be interviewed. |
Season 7 (2011)
| # | District | Guest | Installment | Date aired | Notes |
| 74 | Yvette Clarke | 63rd | March 9 | Stated that the Dutch held slaves in Brooklyn in 1898. | |
| 75 | John Garamendi | 64th | June 8 |
Season 8 (2012)
| # | District | Guest | Installment | Date aired | Notes |
| 76 | Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi | 65th | February 22 | Agreed to encourage other House Democrats to appear in future installments of BKAD in exchange for Colbert's support of the DISCLOSE Act. | |
| 77 | Russ Carnahan | 66th | August 2 | - | |
| 78 | Keith Ellison | 67th | August 9 | ||
| 79 | Yvette Clarke | 68th | September 4 |
Season 9 (2013)
| # | District | Guest | Installment | Date aired | Notes |
| 80 | Matt Cartwright | 69th | April 25 | Cartwright "taught" Colbert to ride a bike. | |
| 81 | Donna Edwards | 70th | May 7 | Colbert pretends to be an old lady constituent of Edwards who is upset at Obama for proposing cuts in Social Security. Maryland's 4th was featured twice, although with different representatives serving terms at the time of the features. | |
| 82 | Gwen Moore | 71st | May 15 | ||
| 83 | Mark Pocan | 72nd | June 4 | ||
| 84 | Rush D. Holt, Jr. | 73rd | August 12 | ||
| 85 | Dan Kildee | 74th | September 3 | ||
| 86 | Jim McDermott | 75th | September 12 |
Season 10 (2014)
| # | District | Guest | Installment | Date aired | Notes |
| 87 | G. K. Butterfield | 76th | March 24 | Colbert initially sees Butterfield, who self-identifies as Black, as Caucasian. Colbert challenges Butterfield to distinguish between North Carolina and South Carolina BBQ. | |
| 88 | Tony Cárdenas | 77th | April 22 | Colbert meets with Cárdenas, but mainly asks questions about the district's porn industry. | |
| 89 | Bobby Scott | 78th | May 5 | Colbert talks to Scott about government jobs, as the government is a major employer in Scott's district, and about rhymes in making crime fighting policy. | |
| 90 | Marcia Fudge | 79th | August 26 | Colbert talks with Fudge about the many things Cleveland has to offer, and sings her a rendition of his hit "Charlene ". He also challenges Fudge to a high-stakes fencing match. | |
| 91 | Jared Huffman | 80th | September 23 | ||
| 92 | Tammy Duckworth | 81st | October 8 | ||
| 93 | Barbara Lee | 82nd | November 5 | ||
| 94 | Jack Kingston | 83rd | December 9 | The final Better Know a District report, where Colbert re-interviews Jack Kingston, representative from the Georgia 1st District, as a tribute to his very first Better Know a District interview. Colbert and Representative Kingston participate in inane tasks around Washington DC, before being stopped and then joined by House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi. Colbert ends the segment with filling in all of the districts on the Better Know a District map, and is astonished when it turns out to be a map of the 48 Contiguous United States and Hawaii. Alaska is missing from the map. |
Spin-offs
Better Know a Challenger
In the months leading up to the 2006 congressional elections, Colbert interviewed the challengers in several House races. On several occasions he made clear that the challenger was interviewed because the incumbent declined to appear. However this was not always definitively the case. In these cases, the segment is known as "Better Know a Challenger," with different intro graphics.After the segment, the district was colored on the "Better Know a District" map in goldenrod instead of amber, which is said to be the color all other districts are filled in with. It was upgraded to amber if the challenger won the 2006 election, or downgraded to cadmium yellow if they lost. Of course, it is nearly impossible to see the distinction between these shades on the map. Of the five challengers interviewed, only John Hall defeated an incumbent.
In the instance of New Jersey's 3rd congressional district, Colbert frequently referred to challenger Rich Sexton as representative Jim Saxton, a joke on the similarity of their names.
On May 8, 2014 Colbert resurrected the segment, interviewing Jack Rush who ran in the Florida 3rd district against incumbent Ted Yoho. In the interview, Colbert pretended that guns are people. Colbert also treated characters that Rush played in the past as real people.
Better Know a Protectorate
On March 16, 2006, Colbert introduced a four-part series entitled "Better Know a Protectorate", focusing on the protectorates of the United States. The formula is relatively the same as with "Better Know a District." Distinctive elements include Colbert attacking the member for their voting record, and feigning cultural ignorance. For the first segment, the same "Big Board" as BKAD was used, but was discontinued with the airing of the second segment. The United States Virgin Islands was the protectorate that was covered and its delegate, Donna Christian-Christensen, was interviewed.On April 26, 2007, Guam was covered, including an interview with Madeleine Bordallo. A global map was used to produce the "Big Board", given Guam's distance from the continental United States. On August 7, 2007, American Samoa was featured and an interview with Eni Fa'aua'a Hunkin Faleomavaega, Jr. was shown.
The remaining protectorate is presumably Puerto Rico which has not been featured.
Better Know a Founder
On March 1, 2006, Colbert introduced the "56-part" Better Know a Founder, an in-depth look at the signers of the Declaration of Independence. For this series John Trumbull's painting of :Image:Declaration independence.jpg|The Declaration of Independence is used as the template for the "Big Board".Using the same formula as Better Know a District, Colbert's first subject in the series was a spotlight of an interview with "Battlin'" Ben Franklin; the actor Ralph Archbold portrayed Franklin for the interview, with both he and Colbert wearing period clothing. Most of the hallmarks of the original segment remained, either in an altered form or unchanged.
On November 15, 2006, the second installment of BKAF featured three actors portraying President Thomas Jefferson in an America's Next Top Model style segment, America's Top Jefferson, with Project Runway mentor and producer Tim Gunn making an appearance.