I need questions to ask Stephen Colbert

I have tickets to Colbert's talk in NYC tomorrow promoting his new book. I know you all can come up with some good questions I can ask him while getting my book signed and/or a cool photo op!

I'm partial to Anderson's question. Forget terrorists, bears are our #1 enemy.

I went to a taping of The Colbert Report about a year ago and someone asked him this. His opinion may have changed since then as he's been in character longer, but he seemed not to have a problem with it. Something to do with growing up with 11 siblings and having to entertain them all the time.

Yeah, I bet. That and stuff about Tek Jansen Adventures.

I have no intention of trumping him. But people - famous or not - like being acknowledged for their work. And while saying something silly may make me look like an ass, it's still flattering to Colbert that people not only watch, but like his show. Also since the event is for his book, which is written by the character Colbert, it seems more apt to acknowledge his work on that than Strangers for Candy (which by the way I love - show and movie). But odds are, I won't be able to say anything at all as I'm going with my aunt, uncle, and cousin who most likely won't want to wait in line to meet the man.

Well you'll be happy to know I did not make an ass out of myself, but I did get a signed copy of the book and a photo of Colbert (no photos with Colbert were allowed).

As for the event itself, Stephen spoke as himself. He was interviewed by Frank Rich, a NYT's op-ed columnist, who asked him mostly softball questions. A lot of it we already knew (Colbert's the youngest of 11 kids; he was obsessed with Richard Nixon as a kid; he did improve with Second City, etc.).

But there were also some great anecdotes about backstage talk with Bill O'Reilly, Stephen meeting the President at the White House Correspondence Dinner, and hilarious footage that never made it to air of Stephen trying to get Henry Kissinger (who refereed a Guitarmageddon shred-off between Colbert and Chris Funk of the Decemberists) to say, "Where's my pancakes? You promised me pancakes?" Stephen reasoned that they had to give some excuse for Kissinger to be on the show since it was just too absurd for him to be there and apparently somewhere in the editing vaults is 5 minutes of Colbert trying to persuade him to say the pancake line. Kissinger never said it, but they did get him to say, "Stephen, it's time to rock!"

There was also a discussion about his presidential campaign and Colbert wanted to make it clear that he doesn't want to actually win the Presidency. He just wants to run for office - it's a platform for him to espouse his opinions.

Someone asked him about staying in character and he said that he had years of training in improve so he's used to going in and out of character at the drop of a hat. Also, he'll tone it down if he has a somewhat respectable guest on - the guy talking about the Human Genome Project - and turn it up if he's interviewing someone like Tom Delay. I also liked the question, "Barring anyone from the current administration, who would you like to have on the show that wouldn't actually come on the show?" The answer, J.D. Salinger.

Edit: There was not one question about bears, but the last question of the night was, "Since The Colbert Report was a spin-off of The Daily Show, what would be a great spin-off of TCR?" Stephen answered that you'd have to have other people on the show for a spin off and since it's just him unlikely, but he would love to have a Tek Jansen series. Man, someone make that happen!