�Foreign coverage on the fake news of "The Daily Show" normally amounts to someone standing in front of a video screen on the New York set, a few steps away from host Jon Stewart's desk.
But to cooccur with the Olympics, the show's Rob Riggle went to China. Really. His skewed travelogue unfolds this week on the Comedy Central hit that oftentimes pokes play at politicians and the news media.
That's when the show's producers and Riggle will ascertain out whether they've created any outside incidents.
"It was an chance to go over to China and do something that has probably not been through in the past - go to China and do some comedy," aforementioned Riggle, a former U.S. marine wHO served in Afghanistan and is soundless on reserve.
Riggle, who final year traveled to Iraq for "Operation Silent Thunder," started planning by applying in January for journalists' visa. With the intervention of MTV executives in China, they got the go-ahead less than 24 hours earlier their planing machine was due to leave July 29.
"There were days when we got promising news and days when we got not-so-encouraging tidings," said Glenn Clements, airfield producer and Riggles' travel companion.
"But we decided to stick it out until the end and it paid off."
Trying to explain what "The Daily Show" did would have been difficult. They essentially delivered a list of places where they planned to do filming.
They were able to cinema segments on the Great Wall of China and within Tiananmen Square, the latter historic site the focus of debates with Chinese authorities over access.
"Our motto was 'Let's scarcely go until they evidence us to stop,"' Riggle said.
Riggle and his crew were followed well-nigh everywhere by Chinese law, although only when once was a hand placed over a camera lens cap and they were told to go away. It was a moment the comedy writers probably couldn't have made up: they were motion-picture photography the outside of a 7-11 restroom store.
Other times when constabulary expressed concern about what the crew was doing Clements basically hid behind the speech communication barrier.
When they stopped on the street to do some filming, crowds would immediately phase around them, attracting more police.
But anytime Clements' crew tried turning the photographic camera around and speaking to Chinese citizens, the crowds would sprinkle. They would literally release and run away, Riggle said. As a resultant role, only a foreign journalist and Chinese newscaster were interviewed for the series.
Even for an ex-mrine, the atmosphere was intimidating.
"There were moments where you were just being watched identical closely," he said.
"We still did what we cherished to do but I was speeding it up, saying: 'Come on, come on, let's go.' It was a subconscious thing."
Riggle too had the somewhat unexpected experience of being recognized on the street. Twice. One youth Asian couple came up and aforesaid how lots they enjoyed watching him on Stewart's show, leading him to wonder where they had seen it.
His first segment, Monday, will be a mock "up-close and personal" look at Riggle and his travel to the Olympics. They also be after a banteringly look at the alien and occult places in China, hence the trips to 7-11 and western-style shopping malls.
The team will also aim some shots at the Chinese government and a critical count at history, much the same way as "The Daily Show" satirizes the U.S. government, Clements aforesaid. The tetrad segments, inclined over the weekend between bouts of jet lag, is called "Rob Riggle: Chasing the Dragon."
"Jon ever has a very proficient sense of what's in good taste sensation and sorry," he said.
"And we'll render to remain within the bounds of what we think is good taste. We didn't go in there to make play of the Chinese citizenry at all."
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