Image Credit: Comedy Central

Want to sum up the 2012 presidential election with a single handy turn of phrase? Try one that The Daily Show dreamed up in September, shortly after Mitt Romney’s infamous “47 percent” video hit the Internet: “Chaos on Bulls#%t Mountain.” The term itself and the segment it introduced perfectly encapsulated the frustration many voters felt while watching cable news – while also making them laugh hard enough to forget all about the election’s pettiest moments. Here, Daily Show executive producer Rory Albanese — who’s “gotten a lot of gray hairs” while skewering the past four presidential elections — explains how Bulls#%t Mountain came to be, and gives a few hints about what we can expect from Jon Stewart and Co. in 2013. (Just don’t hold your breath for official Bulls#%t Mountain T-shirts… although Albanese admits they might be a “pretty hot item.”)

For more stories behind this year’s top TV and movie moments, click here for EW.com’s Best of 2012 (Behind the Scenes) coverage.

As told by: Rory Albanese

During the election season, so much stuff’s flying in — everyone’s working at this crazy pace, and when something like [the 47 percent video] happens, you go, “Oh yeah, there’s going to be a lot of jokes about this.” You kind of know when you strike gold. Like when Clint Eastwood was yelling at a chair — I went home that night laughing. Sometimes, you’re just handed a gift. So that piece of footage garnered that same reaction, which was, “This is going to be a thing.” READ FULL STORY »