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Tomorrow's TBA has been filled in: 8/27: Hassan Abbas (author – promoting book “The Taliban Revival: Violence and Extremism on the Pakistan-Afghanistan Frontier”) Oh boy, that sounds like it'll be nonstop comedy fun.

Here's tonight's web exclusive! As I mentioned in last week's thread, I was there for the taping, so I saw this one being filmed. It was the second one they shot so I assumed it would be shown next week. The audience had to stay in our seats until all of the candy and pinata segments had been swept up. A couple of guys put it all in a plastic bin and carried it offstage before we got to leave. No, they didn't offer us any of the candy, sadly (it looks like it was wrapped, so it should have been fine).

Oops, ABay -- that's what happens when I'm on vacation, I lose track of time! You're right, that is unusual, though not unprecedented (they aired a show on Labor Day in 2012, though that coincided with the Democratic national convention). Maybe they figured they'd taken enough vacation days already so they needed to work on Labor Day. In any case, I should know for sure on Tues. or Wed. what the Labor Day week schedule is, so I'll post here as soon as I learn.

Riki & Kate will be appearing on Comedy Central's "@Midnight" (hosted by G&O guest star Chris Hardwick) on Tuesday, Aug. 26.

ABay, my DVR shows a Tosh.0 marathon on Monday night. In any case, the TDS crew will be in L.A. for the Emmys, so there's definitely not going to be a new show on Monday.

The new image is always the final one -- it's a bit of an Easter egg to viewers who either look quickly or pause their DVRs, sort of like the ever-changing word or phrase in Stephen Colbert's opening credits. The rest of them are usually the same. If you want to see it in a large format, go to this web site -- you can pause it to your heart's content, and the lettering is legible.

@fastiller, I found this article about the opening credits and the firm that designed them. I always enjoy seeing the new one that pops up each week.

Regrettably, we still have another week to go before TDS returns. It'll be back the day after the Emmys (Aug. 26). I watched the YouTube clip about Ferguson -- since I usually watch on HBO I hadn't seen it on YouTube before, and I noticed that the "f" words were bleeped (though "fuck" was still visible on the mailbox and I think they forgot to bleep one toward the end). Maybe the turd was blurred on YouTube but not on HBO? Also, there was a SWAT raid on an alleged pot dealer two doors down from my house last year, at around 5 AM one weekday morning. I live in an extremely quiet suburb so it was very odd to see all of those armored vehicles and cops in riot gear on my leafy little street. Apparently they were worried he would try to flee. He's still living there (in a garage apartment), so I guess it was all for naught. John's piece definitely brought back memories of that morning.

We only saw it on the (relatively small) monitor, and it looked like the typical cartoon representation of a turd -- my husband & I actually mentioned it later, and he said it looked like "soft serve chocolate ice cream" (sorry for that image!). And you're telling me THAT was pixellated and the full frontal nudity a few weeks ago was not? Hmm. I didn't think HBO ever pixellated anything! BTW, I think everyone will really enjoy the web extra videos, which will go up at 11 PM ET on the following two Sundays. The one for the 31st is bonkers. I'll tell you more about the filming of that after it's been released.

Agreed -- that's one of the reasons I started watching the Emmys in the first place, 'cause those videos were so awesome and hilarious. Do they even bother making them in "off" years (i.e. the years when the writers' award is given during the Schmemmys, as Kathy Griffin calls them)?

I attended a taping of tonight's episode. No spoilers, but I will say that I have attended tapings of MANY TV shows, including multiple Letterman, Conan, Colbert and "Daily Show" eps, and this was the worst-organized, most unpleasant experience I have ever had at a taping. You'd think after 15 weeks that they would have gotten it down by now. We were ushered into a TINY, poorly ventilated room where we had to wait for over an hour (we had been told to arrive no later than 5:15 and that the taping would begin at 5:45 -- it started at 6:45). It took FOREVER to get the audience seated. It's a large audience, probably over 200 people. Since some of the seats off to the side are, I guess, considered "bad seats," the audience person filled us in according to time of arrival, so people who got there earlier were seated more toward the middle. Which is nice, I suppose (I was pretty early), but it just took ages. The warm-up comedian was OK -- he mainly seemed interested to hear if there was anyone visiting from a foreign country. By the time I finally got out of the holding pen, I was feeling pretty faint. The studio was fairly warm by TV show standards. John Oliver took 4 questions -- someone asked the question I was hoping to hear, whether or not Andy Zaltzman would ever appear (answer: "maybe"). Somebody asked what the difference is between LWT and hosting TDS, and he said that Jon Stewart wasn't there to help him out if he "broke" the show. Another person asked what he misses most about TDS, and John pretended to be mock-upset that we were making him sad right before the show taped. Best parts: we got to see a tiny bit of the Carlos Danger dance, and he did a Fred Armisen-as-Joy Behar imitation that was pretty funny (leading into the taping of one of the YouTube extras that will go up during the 2 dark weeks). And the show itself was typically excellent. It went very smoothly with just one tiny retake at the end. I doubt I'll go back to be an audience member unless I've heard that they've worked out the kinks. If they were busy doing last minute rewrites, rehearsals, etc., it would have been nice to HEAR that, instead of just leaving us to sweat in that cramped room with no updates from the audience coordinators.

Does anyone know when/where the finale was shot?

Catching up with the renewal news -- I was surprised to see in the story linked to by @biakbiak that almost 70% of AM's viewership is male. I'm a female who never misses an episode, and I really like the fact that they have a lot of women panelists. I recognize the whole nerdy-Internet-guy stereotype AM sometimes plays to, but I think it's one of the funniest shows around. It never fails to cheer me up after the often serious news dealt with on "The Daily Show" (and, to a lesser extent, "Colbert").

Turns out Robin also guested on TDS back in 2002 (a two-parter, before they could throw things up on the webby-web!). If you go to this page you can watch all of his appearances.

And of course we'd get a Robin Williams Moment of Zen. His last appearance on TDS was last Sept. 26. He also appeared in 2010 and 2006.

NEW YORK, August 11, 2014 - For those who love "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" but hate visual stimuli, "The Daily Show" is proud to announce the "The Daily Show Podcast without Jon Stewart." Launching today, "The Daily Show Podcast without Jon Stewart" is available to stream online and to download via iTunes. "It's hands down the funniest, most behind-the-scenes podcast you'll ever listen to with half your attention while you do other stuff," says Jon Stewart. --- The first episode looks to be about 26 minutes long and features Jessica Williams (yay!) as well as head writer Elliott Kalan, producer Sara Taksler and writers Jo Miller and J.R. Havlan.

I don't always agree with the judges, especially their dumping of Joe Machi last week, but I suspect he wouldn't have gone as far as he would have if he'd been relying on audience votes. Overall, I think NOT having the public vote and dumping the "wacky auditions" format were the two smartest changes made this season. It's really kept the focus where it belongs, on the comedy. I hope all 3 return next summer.

The Virginia governor segment reminded me of "Cheating Death with Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, MFA." I kept waiting for one of the pill bottles to be "Vaxa"-something. Surprised Stephen hasn't covered this scandal!

Doug Benson did a very short-lived Comedy Central show called "The Benson Interruption" a couple years after he appeared on LCS. No one has ever gotten a network show, though. Watching last night, I remembered one of my problems with this series (and I've seen at least part of every season): by the bitter end, I'm pretty tired of all the finalists. I mean, I love Joe Machi, and am bummed he got eliminated (I think Keenen was dead-set against him -- he appeared to sit stone-faced through most of Joe's set), but I just sort of had this "These folks AGAIN?!" reaction as they came on to do their stand-up. Their mannerisms and schtick become more and more evident week after week in a way that I probably wouldn't pick up on otherwise.

Following the two-week break (and an extra day off, because of the Emmys): 8/25/14 Pre-empted 8/26/14 Riki Lindhome, Kate Micucci, Pete Holmes 8/27/14 Jimmy Pardo, April Richardson, Janet Varney 8/28/14 Drew Carey, Brendon Walsh, Blaine Capatch

@Shermie, this was the first appearance by Bruce's parents so we don't know why he's panicked. I did love the reveal of Patrick Duffy -- their scene was shot so that his head was obscured by Illeana's until the very end. "Dallas" was huger than huge in Sweden, so I'm sure they did that on purpose so everyone would be super excited when they found out that it was Duffy. Incidentally, next week there will be a two hour long episode of "Last Comic Standing" so "WtS" will return on the 21st with "Föräldrar"/"Parents!"

Aagh, how could they cast the fabulous Illeana Douglas, who is 49, to play 39-year-old Greg Poehler's mom? At least Lena Olin is 59 and could credibly be the mother to Josephine Bornebusch (who is in her early 30s).

8/25: DARK! (Emmy Awards) 8/26: David Rose (author – promoting book “Enchanted Objects: Design, Human Desire, and the Internet of Things”) 8/27: TBA 8/28: Todd Glass (comedian & author – promoting book “The Todd Glass Situation”)

The VMAs? Seriously? I would think the TV academy would not be the one to blink first in that conflict. What's next, the Oscars move to Monday to avoid being the same night as the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards? In any case, I will be interested to see if Colbert gets a "bump" from the announcement that the Report will end this year. Let's hope we get a "Who's Honoring Me Now" segment on Tuesday.

One nice bonus for the winner right off the bat: he or she will be a guest on "The Tonight Show" on Aug. 14, right after the finale.