‘Colbert Report’ tackles MDI missing scallop guts caper

SOUTHWEST HARBOR, Maine — Scallop gonads do not have a reputation as being intrinsically funny, the way banana peels or rubber chickens might.

But when two buckets full of the mollusk innards that are part of a scientific study go missing, and when the police get involved to find out where they may have been taken, there’s a chance somebody might try to make a wisecrack about it.

There’s also a chance, apparently, that a national cable comedy television show might take an interest.

That’s what happened last fall when an incident in which a local scallop fisherman misplaced two buckets of scallop guts made national headlines. “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central decided to spoof the incident and, with the help of those involved, came to Maine to film a segment on it last month. The segment aired on the cable program on Monday night.

Last Nov. 26, police on Mount Desert Island and in Ellsworth alerted the public that the buckets went missing after the fisherman, Andy Mays, mistakenly put them in the back of the wrong car and the person then drove off, not knowing the bivalve bits were coming along for the ride.

A producer at “The Colbert Report,” hosted by comedian Stephen Colbert, saw the headlines and decided the story was too weird to pass up.

“We spend a lot of time on the Internet,” show producer Nicole Savini said Monday.

“It seemed very ‘Maine.’ The unlocked car, the scallop guts.”

Mays had been collecting scallops for six months as part of a research project through Darling Marine Center, a University of Maine marine research facility in South Bristol. He had gutted the bivalves, isolated the gonads and stored them in formaldehyde, and made arrangements to deliver them to Skylar Bayer, a grad student at the Darling Center who had agreed to meet him at a Mount Desert Island convenience store.

Mays got to the Somesville One Stop, spotted a parked car with UMaine plates, put the scallops in the vehicle and then went inside the store to find Bayer. She was not there, however, and when he went back outside, the car with the scallop guts wasn’t either.

Mays had put the gonads in a blue Chevrolet Impala belonging to the UMaine Motor Pool that Abigail Garthwait, an associate professor at UMaine, had driven to MDI earlier that day. On her way back to the university she stopped at the One Stop to get a bite to eat and, when she left again, failed to notice the buckets in the backseat. It wasn’t until around 5 p.m., when she stopped in Orono to fill up with gas, that she saw the two buckets labeled “formaldehyde.”

In the “Colbert Report” segment, Bayer is portrayed as a “lonely lady scientist” with a nefarious plan to perfect a scallop-man hybrid and destroy the human race.

“I am not trying to destroy the human race,” Bayer tells the interviewer in the piece.

Mays tells the show producers that he gave the scallop gonads to Bayer and then traded the scallop meat with friends for liquor. At one point, he gulps down a large scallop gonad for the camera.

“If you crash your car drunk and need someone to help you hide it and everything, I can do that on a minute’s notice,” he tells the interviewer with a straight face.

Contacted about his appearance on the comedy show, Mays said he was happy to play along and poke fun at himself, even for the sake of a TV show he has never seen. He said he doesn’t have cable or even a television because he doesn’t have time for it.

“I was class clown in high school, in the yearbook,” Mays said. “I don’t have a problem with self-deprecating humor.”

Mays said part of the fun has been the reaction he’s gotten from friends and family telling them he’s going to be on the show.

“I’m more amused by my friends’ amusement and excitement about it,” he said. “It’s wintertime. It’ll be fun.”

Savini said she and another staffer with “The Colbert Report” came to Maine in early February and, with the help of a camera crew based in Portland, spent two and a half days interviewing people involved in the incident. Aside from Mays and Bayer, they also interviewed Garthwaite on camera for the piece.

“It was really, really cold,” Savini said. “I’d never seen the inside of a scallop before.”

Savini ate a lot of “the best scallops I’ve had” during her visit, she said. They interviewed Mays on his boat, Lost Airmen, but did not leave the dock.

“Andy made all of his resources available to us,” she said. “Everyone in Maine was fantastic.”

Kathy Stuart•a day ago

I almost peed myself while watching this bit.

As I watched though, and having a bit of understanding about production values and rules (what you can and cannot say), I had to wonder if in the first take Andy Mays said "My friends gave me the Allen's."

No matter though, the well done, hilarious piece caused me to miss the home of heart even more than I usually do. Finest kind Cappy

tedjohn•an hour ago

Arrrggghhh! Someone teach those flatlanders how to say the word SCALLOP!
Like wallop.
sarcasm

mrkleen09 wrote:Colbert is one of the most consistently funny guys on TV. Starting to surpass John Stewart in my nightly lineup.

On Tuesday, Stewart told reporters he'll be taking a twelve-week hiatus from his hit TV series "The Daily Show" this summer to work on "Rosewater," a fact based drama adapted from the book "Then They Came For Me: A Family's Story of Love, Captivity and Survival" by Maziar Bahari and Aimee Molloy. Shooting is scheduled to start in June.

Stewart was drawn to the story because he has a personal connection to the material. "Then They Came For Me" tells the true story of how Bahari, a Canadian-Iranian writer and filmmaker, found himself accused of attempting to overthrow the Iranian government, with Bahari's appearance in a satiric 2009 "Daily Show" sketch used as evidence against him.

"You can imagine how upset we were," Stewart said, "and I struck up a friendship with him afterwards."

After reading Bahari's book, Stewart felt it had possibilities as a film, and began writing a screenplay, later turning to producer Scott Rudin for advice. Rudin, whose credits include "The Social Network," "No Country For Old Men," and "There Will Be Blood," was impressed with Stewart's ideas for the film, and after coaching him through the writing process, agreed to produce the project in tandem with Gigi Pritzker of Odd Lot Entertainment.

Acknowledging the project will take him into unfamiliar waters, Stewart said, "I am a television person who is accustomed to having a thought at 10 a.m. and having it out there at 6:30 p.m. and moving on, so this is a little scary, yes. But one of the reasons we are in this business is to challenge ourselves, and I really connected to Maziar's story. It's a personal story but one with universal appeal about what it means to be free."

While Stewart said the film is not a comedy, he also stressed that it will not be as dark as a quick summary would suggest. "One of the things that appealed to me about the story is that it does have lighter moments." Stewart said. "One of the things that kept Maziar alive was his ability to keep his sense of humor - to remember about joy and laughter - and see the absurdity of his situation."

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart is taking a break from his news satire show to produce and direct his first feature film.

Comedy Central announced Tuesday that the 50-year-old host will begin his eight-week hiatus this summer and return to the show after Labor Day, September 2.

Taking over his anchor chair will be Daily Show correspondent/writer John Oliver, who has been a regular on the show since 2006.