Better Know a District
Each segment began with basic information about a specific district, such as history and geography, and sometimes a humorously bizarre event that happened there.
Colbert's interview with Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank resulted in Frank lambasting the program (he was quoted on a later Report),[1][need quotation to verify] while the interview with Virginia Representative Jim Moran pleased the congressman – he told The New York Times that he thought Colbert "let [him] off kind of light.
[3] 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";[4] 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.
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.
On November 3, 2010, Colbert ran a segment showing clips of those fallen friends called "We Hardly Better Knew Ye".
After this, Texas's 22nd congressional district was retired on April 4, 2006 when Tom DeLay announced that he planned to leave Congress.
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.
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.
Distinctive elements include Colbert attacking the member for their (non-)voting record, and feigning cultural ignorance.
The remaining protectorate is presumably Puerto Rico which has not been featured (the Northern Mariana Islands did not have a non-voting member as of the start of the series, although they received a seat after the 2008 elections).
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.
On August 3, 2006 Stephen began the first segment in a series entitled "Meet an Ally" in which he examines nations part of the "Coalition of the Willing".
On November 8, 2006, some representatives who were profiled in Better Know a District and had since been re-elected in the previous day's election were reintroduced in a short segment that immediately preceded the commercial breaks.
A humorous clip from the BKAD interview would be shown and the words "RETURNED TO CONGRESS" would be rubber stamped onto the still image of the representative.
On December 16, 2009, Colbert began a new segment in which he interviews other prominent men named Stephen (specifically spelled with a "ph").
On February 22, 2010, Colbert began his one-part series, Better Know a Riding, during his coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics.
On December 8, 2014, while hosting the show in Washington DC, Colbert debuted another one-part series, Better Know a America [sic].
