Structure
Each segment begins 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 feature an interview with its Representative.
One comedic maneuver that Colbert commonly employs in these interviews, particularly when he is interviewing Democrats, is 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, nearly always a Democrat, tries to express his or her disapproval of Bush, Colbert will usually state that the only choice is between "Great or Greatest," and nearly always states, "I'm gonna put you down for 'Great'." (He often refers to previous Democratic representatives who he put down as saying Bush was a 'great' president)
After the interview, Colbert adds 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, is usually very difficult or impossible to see due to its small size. Though many districts have been profiled, the map still looks largely vacant overall.
Read more about this topic: Better Know A District
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“A special feature of the structure of our book is the monstrous but perfectly organic part that eavesdropping plays in it.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“A committee is organic rather than mechanical in its nature: it is not a structure but a plant. It takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts, and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom in their turn.”
—C. Northcote Parkinson (1909–1993)
“The philosopher believes that the value of his philosophy lies in its totality, in its structure: posterity discovers it in the stones with which he built and with which other structures are subsequently built that are frequently better—and so, in the fact that that structure can be demolished and yet still possess value as material.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)