RECAP: 'The Colbert Report' in Philadelphia, 4/16

We’re into the home stretch of ‘The Colbert Report’s coverage from Philadelphia and Wednesday’s show had a few surprises.

The show began with the Philadelphia Eagles cheerleaders having the audience spell out “T-R-U-T-H” and then dancing to the opening song. It’s really amazing what they have been able to pull off this week as far as guests and other local flavor considering that this is still just a comedy show.

More great stuff from Ben Franklin as the sidekick. Tonight’s proverb: “men and melons are hard to know”. A befuddled Colbert’s reply: “I guess melons were a bigger deal back in your day.”

After some Pope talk, onwards to talks of the Democratic debate held at the National Constitution Center Wednesday evening that was supposedly really freakin’ horrible and then Colbert addresses Bruce Springsteen’s endorsement of Obama. There were some boos from the crowd for this, is it because Springsteen is from Jersey? (An astute reader by the name of BEN observed that they were saying "BRUUUCE" and not booing. Duh. Our bad.) Colbert pointed out that while Springsteen has cred with blue-collar workers, “the bulk of his cred is now held in the cred vault of his twelve thousand square foot mansion. I believe he lives in Shadycred Acres. It’s a gated community.”

Then, more video Colbert out on the town. This time he’s at the National Constitution Center to take a tour. The guy giving the tour looked genuinely annoyed at Colbert pretending to be really dumb. Do these guys forget that it’s a comedy show when they go on? When they come across an exhibit of books stacked almost to the ceiling, Colbert remarks: “It looks like DNA made out of books. The building blocks of boring.”

The show ended with an interview with our great governor Ed Rendell. Rendell is supporting Clinton and is a “strategic expert behind the scenes” as well. He seemed to be a lot more relaxed and off-the-cuff than the other political guests during the week. When Colbert asked if he’ll have a Christmas wish list of Clinton is elected, Rendell simply replied “absolutely, I won’t lie to you.” Perfect place to finish the interview, no?

Thursday night: the last show of the week with very special guest Senator Hillary Clinton.