John Oliver in the hallways of the SBUMC with Stony Brook Prof. Stephen Post. (Screen Capture of The Daily Show, 12/8/10)

Stony Brook’s community of Daily Show fanatics (myself among them) got a real treat on last night’s show. As part of a segment about the nation’s most prominent—and perhaps only—truly civil political campaign, The Daily Show’s John Oliver interviewed one Stephen G. Post, the Director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics at Stony Brook University.

Oliver and a crew from the Daily Show were on campus several weeks ago to shoot the interview, which took place largely in a ninth floor research lab.

“It was an amazing experience,” said Post on Thursday morning, the day after his segment aired.

The clip that viewers saw lasted perhaps 30 seconds, but Post says that Oliver and the crew spent a great deal more time with him.

“The whole thing took about five hours,” he said. “They only picked out a brief little bit but I loved the story line.”

The segment focused on a Connecticut state senate election that got some national publicity for the civility displayed by both candidates, Democrat Andrew Maynard and Republican Stuart Norman. Oliver, in typically hilarious fashion, questioned the legitimacy of a political campaign without attack ads, and for scientific evidence turned to Dr. Stephen Post.

The segment (watch it below), involved a sit down interview, b-roll of the university medical center, and one slapstick bit involving a trust fall gone wrong. Segment begins at about the 4:00 mark.