Eamon Stookesberry,  the Texas at-home dad featured (see video on right) on the Colbert Report last week agreed to clear up a few questions the readers had on the planning and filming of the SAHD piece.  Eamon says Colbert Report producer, Aaron Cohen originally thought of doing the piece at the At-Home Dad Convention last November but felt he needed something with a more personal feel. When he saw a local CBS affiliate story (left video) done on the Austin Stay At Home Dads  group they tracked Eamon down and asked if they could film "a day in the life"...

I'll let Eamon share with us the rest of the story......

That was a hard sell to the boss (also known as my lovely and gracious wife Tracie/Tasty!) but she agreed and the producer and asst. producer arrived at my door step at 6:30 in the morning to capture the morning routine. They followed me around all day with a camera crew in tow. They interviewed a bunch of the dads at the park and tried to get every one of us to say: "My name is ------ and I am SAHD  :-(        They had me do multiple takes folding laundry, vaccuummmiiinnnggg... and I think I cleaned the kitchen counter about 8 times and used a Wet Swiffer(c) (which does ROCK!!!) for about 6 passes. That floor was CLEAN!!!! 

They taped us waiting for Lord Tracie/Tasty to arrive home and then had her sit on the couch and drink a beer while they interviewed her. I was waiting for them to ask her to scratch her balls and burp, but they didn't. One of the funniest lines from her was when they asked her about how she felt about making me do all this house work and how I do not get paid. She said "he does get paid! He has a roof over his head, he is obviously well fed. He's my Bitch!!!!"  I was surprised that that did not get in there instead of saying" Sometimes I feel like I have a wife". " He's my Bitch!!" would have been way funnier.

They then went with me to one of our monthly DNO's (Dads Night Out) to film us there. They had the bar/restaurant put the home shopping network on the big screen TVs and had a bunch of Shirley temples dressed with the fruitiest frilliest crap possible delivered to our table and asked us to sip at them like women do. I revolted and got my team, when it was our turn to drink them on camera, to pound them in a race. I guess it was too manly, it did not make the cut. Hehehehehehe

They said that the original idea was to do a piece about how pissed off Colbert is to find out that there is a sub-class of workers in the US that are being exploited. Here is a copy of the original description from the producer about what angle they might possibly take:

Our angle is more or less the following:

Stephen is astonished to learn about the existence of stay-at-home-dads. He believes that they are  economically oppressed, exploited workers. They rise early, clean, cook, perform child-care and household-management duties -- all for no money!  He wonders whether they should be paid a decent wage.

(And by the way, for Stephen, women who stay at home don?t need to get paid because they innately know to do this work, and they enjoy it to boot.)

Here are some sample questions for Tracy :

what reactions do you get from people when you explain that your husband stays at home?

-did you ever have second thoughts about your decision?

-is it sometimes a relief to head out the door in the morning, off to a relaxing office?

-is there a working-wives-of-stay-at-home-dads group in your area?

-are you planning to give Eamon a Christmas bonus this year?

They had NO interest in the acronym that I came up with which is DADMAN (Dad All Day - Man All Night) or the shirts that I had made (see below). They very much wanted us to play up the fact that we were sad/SAHD.

Even though it was different than what had originally been planned, it was still funny as hell and we have had very positive feed back from just about everybody from members of the group, family and friends and even a teacher at my sons school approached me today and said she saw us on TV and thought it was great.

Well I have to go clean the kitchen with my Rockin' Wet Swiffer (c) and then get dinner started.

Thanks Eamon!!! 

The biggest question bought up was a near shocking, but hilarious scene where  Colbert appeared to be  hugging and groping  Eamon's wife Tracie in the mirror. Was he?  Eamon assured me it wasn't his wife.  Several people were shocked that  "Tasty" would let Stephen grope her ass, but it was not her. My guess is it was one of his interns or something.  (Stephen did not come out for the actual filming.) 

Personally I though the piece was hilarious, and a quick  look at the dad message boards show that most that viewed the piece agreed.  Had this been a "serious report" the outcry would have been deafening but only Stephen Colbert and writers could pull off a parody like this and get such a positive response.