The Daily Show

"Meanwhile, in Korea, America's second front in its attempt to be Rome in the next Bible."

The writing on that show is really some of the best on TV.

The Russert interview was decent, even though Russert evaded Stewart's attempts to get him to criticize the Bush.

I just saw this. The clip of Jon Snow off Channel 4 News questioning Blair about the parallels of human rights abuses in China/Iraq was something I hadn't seen on our own news shows.

And Stewart's wide-eyed reaction to Bush's 'Rumsfeld is doing an excellent job' speech was priceless. He does that gag almost every time I see the show and it still cracks me up every time.

His outrage at the uselessness of the media is the best part.

Thank you Mr. President, I had forgotten how crushingly dull these ceremonies are. Thank you.

My best to the choir. I have to say, that song never grows old for me. Whenever I hear that song, it reminds me of nothing.

I am honored to be here, I do have a confession to make before we get going that I should explain very quickly. When I am not on television, this is actually how I dress. I apologize, but there’s something very freeing about it. I congratulate the students for being able to walk even a half a mile in this non-breathable fabric in the Williamsburg heat. I am sure the environment that now exists under your robes, are the same conditions that primordial life began on this earth.

I know there were some parents that were concerned about my speech here tonight, and I want to assure you that you will not hear any language that is not common at, say, a dock workers union meeting, or Tourrett’s convention, or profanity seminar. Rest assured.

I am honored to be here and to receive this honorary doctorate. When I think back to the people that have been in this position before me from Benjamin Franklin to Queen Noor of Jordan, I can’t help but wonder what has happened to this place. Seriously, it saddens me. As a person, I am honored to get it; as an alumnus, I have to say I believe we can do better. And I believe we should. But it has always been a dream of mine to receive a doctorate and to know that today, without putting in any effort, I will. It’s incredibly gratifying. Thank you. That’s very nice of you, I appreciate it.

I’m sure my fellow doctoral graduates—who have spent so long toiling in academia, sinking into debt, sacrificing God knows how many years of what, in truth, is a piece of parchment that in truth has been so devalued by our instant gratification culture as to have been rendered meaningless—will join in congratulating me. Thank you.

But today isn’t about how my presence here devalues this fine institution. It is about you, the graduates. I’m honored to be here to congratulate you today. Today is the day you enter into the real world, and I should give you a few pointers on what it is. It’s actually not that different from the environment here. The biggest difference is you will now be paying for things, and the real world is not surrounded by three-foot brick wall. And the real world is not a restoration. If you see people in the real world making bricks out of straw and water, those people are not colonial re-enactors—they are poor. Help them. And in the real world, there is not as much candle lighting. I don’t really know what it is about this campus and candle lighting, but I wish it would stop. We only have so much wax, people.

Lets talk about the real world for a moment. We had been discussing it earlier, and I…I wanted to bring this up to you earlier about the real world, and this is I guess as good a time as any. I don’t really know to put this, so I’ll be blunt. We broke it.

Please don’t be mad. I know we were supposed to bequeath to the next generation a world better than the one we were handed. So, sorry.

I don’t know if you’ve been following the news lately, but it just kinda got away from us. Somewhere between the gold rush of easy internet profits and an arrogant sense of endless empire, we heard kind of a pinging noise, and uh, then the damn thing just died on us. So I apologize.

But here’s the good news. You fix this thing, you’re the next greatest generation, people. You do this—and I believe you can—you win this war on terror, and Tom Brokaw’s kissing your ass from here to Tikrit, let me tell ya. And even if you don’t, you’re not gonna have much trouble surpassing my generation. If you end up getting your picture taken next to a naked guy pile of enemy prisoners and don’t give the thumbs up you’ve outdid us.

We declared war on terror. We declared war on terror—it’s not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I’m sure we’ll take on that bastard ennui.

But obviously that’s the world. What about your lives? What piece of wisdom can I impart to you about my journey that will somehow ease your transition from college back to your parents' basement?

I know some of you are nostalgic today and filled with excitement and perhaps uncertainty at what the future holds. I know six of you are trying to figure out how to make a bong out of your caps. I believe you are members of Psi U. Hey that did work, thank you for the reference.

So I thought I’d talk a little bit about my experience here at William and Mary. It was very long ago, and if you had been to William and Mary while I was here and found out that I would be the commencement speaker 20 years later, you would be somewhat surprised, and probably somewhat angry. I came to William and Mary because as a Jewish person I wanted to explore the rich tapestry of Judaica that is Southern Virginia. Imagine my surprise when I realized “The Tribe” was not what I thought it meant.

In 1980 I was 17 years old. When I moved to Williamsburg, my hall was in the basement of Yates, which combined the cheerfulness of a bomb shelter with the prison-like comfort of the group shower. As a freshman I was quite a catch. Less than five feet tall, yet my head is the same size it is now. Didn’t even really look like a head, it looked more like a container for a head. I looked like a Peanuts character. Peanuts characters had terrible acne. But what I lacked in looks I made up for with a repugnant personality.

In 1981 I lost my virginity, only to gain it back again on appeal in 1983. You could say that my one saving grace was academics where I excelled, but I did not.

And yet now I live in the rarified air of celebrity, of mega stardom. My life a series of Hollywood orgies and Kabala center brunches with the cast of Friends. At least that’s what my handlers tell me. I’m actually too valuable to live my own life and spend most of my days in a vegetable crisper to remain fake news anchor fresh.

So I know that the decisions that I made after college worked out. But at the time I didn’t know that they would. See college is not necessarily predictive of your future success. And it’s the kind of thing where the path that I chose obviously wouldn’t work for you. For one, you’re not very funny.

So how do you know what is the right path to choose to get the result that you desire? And the honest answer is this. You won’t. And accepting that greatly eases the anxiety of your life experience.

I was not exceptional here, and am not now. I was mediocre here. And I’m not saying aim low. Not everybody can wander around in an alcoholic haze and then at 40 just, you know, decide to be president. You’ve got to really work hard to try to…I was actually referring to my father.

When I left William and Mary I was shell-shocked. Because when you’re in college it’s very clear what you have to do to succeed. And I imagine here everybody knows exactly the number of credits they needed to graduate, where they had to buckle down, which introductory psychology class would pad out the schedule. You knew what you had to do to get to this college and to graduate from it. But the unfortunate, yet truly exciting thing about your life, is that there is no core curriculum. The entire place is an elective. The paths are infinite and the results uncertain. And it can be maddening to those that go here, especially here, because your strength has always been achievement. So if there’s any real advice I can give you it’s this.

College is something you complete. Life is something you experience. So don’t worry about your grade, or the results or success. Success is defined in myriad ways, and you will find it, and people will no longer be grading you, but it will come from your own internal sense of decency which I imagine, after going through the program here, is quite strong…although I’m sure downloading illegal files…but, nah, that’s a different story.

Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they may.

And the last thing I want to address is the idea that somehow this new generation is not as prepared for the sacrifice and the tenacity that will be needed in the difficult times ahead. I have not found this generation to be cynical or apathetic or selfish. They are as strong and as decent as any people that I have met. And I will say this, on my way down here I stopped at Bethesda Naval, and when you talk to the young kids that are there that have just been back from Iraq and Afghanistan, you don’t have the worry about the future that you hear from so many that are not a part of this generation but judging it from above.

And the other thing….that I will say is, when I spoke earlier about the world being broke, I was somewhat being facetious, because every generation has their challenge. And things change rapidly, and life gets better in an instant.

I was in New York on 9-11 when the towers came down. I lived 14 blocks from the twin towers. And when they came down, I thought that the world had ended. And I remember walking around in a daze for weeks. And Mayor Guiliani had said to the city, “You’ve got to get back to normal. We’ve got to show that things can change and get back to what they were.”

And one day I was coming out of my building, and on my stoop, was a man who was crouched over, and he appeared to be in deep thought. And as I got closer to him I realized, he was playing with himself. And that’s when I thought, “You know what, we’re gonna be OK.”

Thank you. Congratulations. I honor you. Good Night.

-- dave225 (adspac...) (webmail), May 20th, 2004 11:15 AM. (Dave225) (later) (link)

yes, my sentiments precisely!

Conrad Black?

Larry: Thousand Oaks, California!
Caller: Hi Jon, I just love you and your show
Stewart: Thank you, and congratulations on your thousandth oak.

Do they replay Larry Kings?

STEWART: It's great. I'm a big handover guy. I'm a big sovereignty guy. I love handing over sovereignty. I prefer to hand it over knowing who I'm giving it to, but I like the way this administration's doing it. They're just saying, we're just handing it over. Maybe it will be a raffle. Maybe it will be the eighth caller. We don't know yet. It's very exciting.

KING: Sort of like a lottery.

STEWART: That's exactly right because nation building, why not give yourself a challenge with this?

Anybody can build a nation.

KING: In other words, are you saying just walk away?

Just leave them or just...

i noticed that. maybe the alzheimer's is setting in...

Seems like Larry doesn't know when Jon's joking half the time.

oh come on, like Larry King ever has the faintest idea what's happening around him?

Will someone shut Michael Moore up and let the staff of the Daily Show do the next lefty-friendly documentary?

I miss Stacey Grenrock-Woods, Mo Rocca, and most of all, Nancy Walls. (Who I have seen eating with Steve Carrell at Banania in Brooklyn!)

I loved Nancy too. Mo Rocca has sold his soul for a couple of animal planet specials.

OMG samantha bee explaining the word 'taint' to the mormon lady...

I think she's kind of off her game lately.

Yeah, she's kind of lost all of her subtlety.

It is funny to hav a MORMONOLOGIST, and that was abt it.

FoxNews Daily Show bite has been canceled

This was the Joel Surnow-inspired "Half Hour News Hour", where he'd go on in interviews about how all them librul comedians were using the same talking points.

Again and again, is it a matter of projection, disingeniousness, or total fucking David Broder-level cluelessness?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjIfaMwIFxU

if you don't remember what it was like. Try and spot which on-set producer laughs first.

"barack vs. tiger: who's more diverse" was kinda funny

"Dr. Jazz Hands". I love Larry Wilmore.

This show is more like Mad TV sometimes than the Daily Show, and not in "the good way."

obamas on it next week

on the half hour news hour, or on the daily show?

either way it'd be excruciating to watch, i am SURE.

John Oliver's report on Karl Rove's resignation the other night was killing me (in "the good way").

That "Mandela's dead" clip a few nights ago was pretty misleading, apparently, cuz Shrub went on to say "because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas."

Stewart shouldn't cross that line in pandering to his College Democrat studio audience. I can't imagine how much bodily fluid had to be mopped off the seats after Bill Clinton's latest softball interview there last week.

I thought the same thing, too. "The Daily Show" has really turned into that Mad Magazine parody of itself.

I mean, you got George W. Bush as president. Is it completely necessary to Fox up your clips to get a laugh?

That's still not the best-worded metaphor in the world; in fact, that is a statement you want to present as a similie rather than a metaphor.

The more I read about Evo Morales, the more I realize that even though Jon softballed him and make him look great, it took balls to put the guy on the show at all.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Schafik_handal_con_fidel.jpg

There he is on the right, next to Chavez and Castro, grinning like a little kid. Jon also didn't mention that his main social cause was and is coca farming... a touch controversial 'round these parts.

But still, this is a fascinating guy. Is he too nationalistic? Could he in fact be racist against mestizos and biased against the wealthier classes? What do you make of someone who once said, "The worst enemy of humanity is U.S. capitalism"; forms what looks more and more like an authoritarian government; and still increases his country's GDP and its stability, and is wildly popular? The wiki entry alone is thick, not to mention the sources cited.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales

Hmmm, indeed.

No, I have not been reading the news about Bolivia lately. So sue me.

monday night's episode (the first one i had watched in a while) had a dynamite joke about ahmadinejad and a few really good ones about giuliani.

it'll never reach it's 2004 election/colbert/helms/corrdry-era peak, but show's still really really funny.

the addition of Buck Henry = thumbs up.

I haven't seen John Oliver in a while. Where he at? :(

"The worst enemy of humanity is U.S. capitalism"

I'd say he's mostly right. also yr characterization of his position re: coca growers is a bit simplistic and overstated, the guy is a not a drug lord.

it was weird having him on the show tho, dunno if it was really a good idea. Comedy obviously doesn't translate well and I dunno if Morales is helping himself by appearing on a comedy show (Musharraf seemed to handle it much better)

yr characterization of his position re: coca growers is a bit simplistic and overstated, the guy is a not a drug lord

No, I don't think he is, either. But the US wants to kill all their crops and deny them aid in the name of the War On something-or-other, and the popular opinion here is going to be very skewed in favor of thinking he IS a drug lord. It's unAmerican to think he's not.

But there's so many things about this guy that are unamerican, it's hard to know where to start.

popular opinion stupid and misinformed SHOCKAH

the addition of Buck Henry

WHEN, WHERE?

Loved the robotic Hillary laughter stuff; shd be Ludovico Treatment viewing for daria.

he's been on a couple episodes that I've seen - hasn't lost his touch

Stewart's Lynne Cheney embarrassment -- "just people" courtesy, followed by nervously challenging her "And we ain't been attacked since 9/11" shit -- points up why the NO POLS rule is best.

this episode was described to me and i'm so glad i didn't see him giving a free pass to that demon succubus

he sorta challenged her, timidly, at one point.

Yes, when she came out with her "safe since 9/11" line he was cowed by the booing of his College Democrat studio rabble, and reversed course.

I thought the Stewart/Snow exchange last night was plenty of fun, though. They need to bring back Tony Snow every 10 episodes or so for a spar like that.

^

it was kind of annoying how he didn't let snow finish a sentence

Stephen Colbert to Jon Stewart: "Save the passive aggression for your next Lynne Cheney interview, Jon". Oh snap.

It was said in good fun obviously, but still...

Did I miss that?

from the latest epsiode, when Colbert came to announce his plan to possibly thinking about running for president.

episode*

gah typos galore.

possibly think* about...

aha

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071018/tv_nm/dailyshow_dc

Full online archive going live this week. All Stewart-era clips available, apparently, with Craig clips available next year.

I want a full selection of Even Stev/phen bits.

The part of the Lynne Cheney interview where Stewart asked her if Dick ever admits he's wrong at home and she said "I don't know, what kind of question is that?" was reaaallly uncomfortabe.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/10/why-i-cant-watc.html#more

Makes enough sense. The show is a lot funnier IF you watch C-Span/news, tho. I don't know that blogging et. al. is any more politically influential than, uh, being smug?

wow that's some lazy shit. for a sec i thought AS wrote it, but posting it as 'food for thought' might be lazier still.

oh andrew's blog is the laziest shit ever. I think he writes about eleven paragraphs a month on it by himself and the rest is the kind of reposting/linking/e-mail copy+paste you'd expect from a nick denton intern

regardless I wanted to see if anybody else on ILX felt similarly. I haven't watched either show in like a year, because behind the jokes it's the same news that infuriated me that morning.

I get the argument. I don't necessarily agree with it but I also get my news from sources outside of TDS/TCR. (Like here!)

I think Stewart's fallen off way harder than Colbert - Morbz is right that all the softpedalled poli interviews on DS are just gross and pointless

The Daily Show interview's pretty much of a smoke/take dog to potty break for me.

yep

AS's argument is legit in some ways, but I'd be careful about making generalizations on the reading habits of the viewing audience

I sometimes think I might be able to enjoy all of it more if I
A) had never become a glenn greenwald reader
B) didn't live here

as it is I feel a greater need for escapist comfort than I do for ha-ha at the expense of our failed democracy

AS's argument is legit in some ways, but I'd be careful about making generalizations on the reading habits of the viewing audience

the whole argument is about making generalizations on what the audiences read and what they're gonna do with what little info they may be getting from DS/SC/wherever. sometimes cynicism=perspective. 99% of the citizenry doesn't get 'engaged' between election cycles, and it's not like DS is filling a vacuum left by tom brokaw's retirement or something. if i were to generalize, I'd see kids watching DS as a net gain in 'engagement' no matter how you slice it.

xp you don't enjoy Stephen Colbert? i can sympathize with not having use for the Daily Show, it's pretty bad most of the time now.

i guess colbert report is meant as a parody of that whole talk radio cult of personality egomanic bullshit, but to me it just seems like actual cult of personality egomanic bullshit no matter how tongue-in-cheek it is

like, whats the point of devoting half the show to news of dumb-ass college students flooding internet polls to get their school stadium or mascot or whatever named after colbert? this is satire?

I think if I had to pick I would actually take stewart's straight man expressing his frustrated, endless dismay over colbert's fascist fundie clown. to some degree the colbert character begins to frighten me, but like I said, I live here.

yeah basically - colbert stopped being a 'parody' of a demagogue about 6 weeks in

also daily show is more of a joint effort so theres less of a cult-leader aspect to stewart, even if its still there

also certainly not a new idea:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_show#Enabling_complacency

wow i couldnt disagree more xp

theres definitely an unearned, kneejerk distrust of the media today for all the wrong reasons

why are we biting the hand that feeds

"We'd make fun of something else," Stewart said, "if government suddenly became inspiring. -- this is kinda the key, right? (ie, the statement is total bullshit)

bill oreilly is never going to become inspiring, & i cant really get my head around this theory that 'colbert nation' is a actually a living breathing thing

I would have had a similar problem with that theory had I not recently met a BMW-driving condo-owning HDTV-watching former colleague of mine wearing a WRISTSTRONG bracelet

on the show the other night, he showed a picture of obama or some other candidate wearing one.

yeah basically - colbert stopped being a 'parody' of a demagogue about 6 weeks in

this is ridiculous, I mean what ostensible "cause" is colbert a demogogue for. guy should get the congressional medal of honor for talking shit to the Prez's face while the Dems all roll over like lapdogs.

ethan's right re: colbert probably being just as egotistical as everyone he's parodying.

somebody check colbert's bank account from when he was clocking lame sketches on the dana carvey show to after he decided to start 'mocking' the kind of guy who has thousands of loyal followers

like i said, if the object is satire why the endless self-congratulation way post the tolerance of anyone who isnt a total unironic groupie

shakey: he's a demagogue for ben & jerry's americone dream

uh cuz the source he's parodying is all about endless self-congratulation...? This seems abundantly obvious to me. Friends who have met Colbert say he is not an egotistical asshole fwiw.

ill admit i havent watched either in months, but i think thats practically the definition of satire xp

i dunno does no one else think its interesting that colbert has become basically the logical endpoint of vaguely fascist aggressive punditry, i.e. a dude who commands a huge & devoted following and doesn't even pretend to "stand" for anything but being as vapid as possible? i mean u can either admire him for that (and ill admit that i do) or hate him, but its still pretty fascinating

yes I am fascinated

well that at least explains why ethan and I feel so nonplussed

yes you don't like me, we know

the whole schtick is tiring as fuck to me.

i mean maybe im giving him too much credit but part of me wants to say that he needs to command that following to be truly "effective' satire; and more, that his devoted fans need to not really "get" it for the most part.

tom if he didn't take this all the way he'd just be another acerbic addendum to DS and might as well not have had his own show; i love the ambition involved, he loves logic, he makes his interviews matter(relatively speaking), he's sharp as hell across the board. i know you and ethan are a couple of cool customers and everything, can you give examples of someone who's doing it right(doesn't matter what medium, although i guess it does innit)? feel free to define 'it' also, don't want to peg you wrong.

all that means that would mean that he's 100% succeeded, but it's bound to repel the rest of us who actually do "get" it.

xpost max.

all that means that he's 100% succeeded*

max otm, i don't think he's settling for anything less than conquering media, and I happen to trust him to know what to do when he gets there but i don't think that's necessary to enjoy his stuff

im feeling terribly naive right now, if the apocryphal tales ive heard of people not 'getting' colbert are actually true

being a 'fan' /= not getting it

no jordan like everything else in life its about coming up with reasons why your taste shows that youre smarter than everyone else

im not saying colbert went into this biz with some machiavellian plan to become the smirky mussolini but seeing the endless magazine covers and myspace tributes and posters on the dorm room walls of 19 yr old girls makes the 'joke' kinda fall apart

i dunno man for me it just makes the joke even stronger!!

'ha ha, ive got a bunch of kids who dont know anything about politics who think im a genius and hang on my every word and will do anything i say! how delightfully satirical!'

'i cant wait to ring up max and shakey mo collier to tell them about this delicious outcome!'

and what hangs at 19 yo girls dorm rooms

haha wow i had no idea this underworld exists & still kind of doubt that it does, it all seems terribly cynical/superior to me (which is kinda ironic no?)

one thing i dont doubt - aw is bedding more 19 yr old girls than me

seriously, has anyone defending him actually tried to watch the show lately? if the point is that its dull & self-congratulatory, fuck him for having such contempt for his fans and fuck him for expecting me to care

ethan once again weirdly fixated on whether the audience of some particular act is necessarily "cool" enough for him

in case you didn't know ethen, majority of 19 yos = morons

i dont care if his audience is cool, i just dont expect to think its hilarious that this guy has a bunch of groupies but its ok because hes ironic about it

I don't give a shit if he has any groupies or not, what does that matter?

does no one else find the show egregiously predictable? the fact that's it's "satiring" the predictability of bill o reilly makes it no less boring to watch.

hes like the kill whitie party of punditry... 'i want a safe place to practice being a follower, without the ugly stuff that comes with listening to michael savage or glenn beck'

BECAUSE THEN COLBERT IS JUST LIKE SEAN HANNITY WHO HAS FANATICAL FOLLOWERS WHO ARE BLIND TO EVERYTHING ELSE AROUND THEM.

this shit isn't that hard to get shakey.

i'd estimate about 30% of the show now is just him smirking while the audience cheers

im not saying colbert went into this biz with some machiavellian plan to become the smirky mussolini but seeing the endless magazine covers and myspace tributes and posters on the dorm room walls of 19 yr old girls makes the 'joke' kinda fall apart

the 'joke' is 'the jokes' though dude. it's like you're giving him too much credit and not enough at the same time.

yr bringing way too much to the table xps

ethan it seems like you want him to be more "countercultural" or something, but thats not really the point! you cant really have a "countercultural bill o'reilly"! plus i dont know that i find him "funny," i just sort of am in awe of how seriously the dude is taken given that he has a 1/2-hour spin-off show on a basic cable channel where he basically steals another dudes schtick

im not the one saying him being as dull & big-headed as oreilly & co is 'the joke', just that some ppl (including this thread) are trying to play it off like it is, and it doesnt make a difference

plus i dont know that i find him "funny," i just sort of am in awe of how seriously the dude is taken given that he has a 1/2-hour spin-off show on a basic cable channel where he basically steals another dudes schtick

^^i agree w/ this but my awe isn't exactly admiration.

ok, fine, what is the actual evidence that he's taken 'seriously' outside of ppl editing wikipedia pages late at night & buying his fucking ice cream??

that IS the joke (see his interview w/O'Reilly)

what his audience does/is composed of is completely inconsequential

so many xposts

i know you guys dont actually listen to limbaugh but he plays the same game with his followers - theyre all 'dittoheads' who hang on his every word & dont think for themselves, a parody of how rush fans were characterized which has now become a model for them

aw how would you satire the bill oreilly/sean hannity schtick w/out exaggerating the bigheadedness, among other things??

heres a list from wikipedia of terms rush limbaugh uses to refer to himself

* America's Anchorman
* America's Truth-Detector
* A Real Man, A Living Legend, A Way of Life
* A Weapon of Mass Instruction
* Doctor of Democracy
* El Rusbo ("little Spanish lingo, there" in Rush's own words)
* Chief of the Patriotism Police
* The Mr. Big of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy
* The most dangerous man in America
* Harmless, lovable little fuzzball and all around good/nice guy
* Talent on loan from God
* The man who is running America (you know it and I know it
* The Mandarin of Talk Radio
* Über-sexual
* Poster Boy for the American Way of Life [citation needed]
* All-Knowing All-Feeling All-Sensing Maha-Rushie

how is colbert's 'joke' any different than this?

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its on comedy central

its almost as though he's parodying the idea of the all-powerful right-wing demagogue!!

thank you sargent

how is this different from archie bunker for president, which norman lear was horrified by?

A second spin-off Important things with Demitri Martin was announced in October 2007.

OOOHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I hate this silly boy!

Yeah Martin is real winky-winky cutesy-cutesy most of the time. I will not watch this show.

xxp ok you had me for awhile, good job. show's over folks

i'd estimate about 30% of the show now is just him smirking while the audience cheers

SAD BUT TRUE. *le sigh* Both shows would be a lot better without a live studio audience.

rush limbaugh has a sense of humor!!!! this means he cannot be parodied, made fun of, or villified!!!

rush limbaugh has a sense of humor - this means if you mean to vilify him, try a little harder than making a content-free ironic copy of his schtick & cutting straight to the t-shirts & magazine covers

hey geniuses have you noticed that conservatives aren't actually mad at the colbert report? like, at all? if colbert is sticking it to oreilly so hardcore how come its all jokes & backslaps with those two while bill spends about 4 days a week whining about keith olbermann?

who has many many flaws, but at least doesnt hide behind some jokey character to say what he wants to say

comedians hiding behind jokey characters c/d?

ko is a newscaster, not a comedian, for one thing. are those 19 yo girls mostly liberal or conservative, or are they so brainwashed by colbert that those terms cease to have any meaning at all?

fwiw i dont necessarily find colbert 100% funny all the time (especially not recently), and i dont want to argue for his politics or strategies, i just think its sort of interestingly typical of a kind of "pundit culture"

if you wanna play the 'just a comedian' card go for it, its dudes claiming colbert is a brilliant political satirist who i got beef with. judging from his show he's not much a comedian either though.

ps im sure as hell not arguing that colbert is "sticking it to bill o'reilly hardcore," altho ethan you have to admit that his speech @ the press dinner was great

You HAVE to. DO IT NOW. DO IT

the bravest joke at the press dinner was the mccain zing

he's a comedian who has brilliant political points to make and makes them on a regular enough basis for me to admire. i don't even think it's possible to be a brilliant political satirist 4 days a week on TV fwiw. alot of killing time, meta fluff, and silliness that doesn't put me off cos i think most of it is funny.

You HAVE to. DO IT NOW. DO IT

-- Abbott, Monday, October 22, 2007 7:46 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i think i just got a boner

/deeznuts

tru

stephen colbert shreds

Yeah, Stephen Colbert is really funny and his show is funny, it's a parody, everyone knows that, whatever, move on already.

i find myself looking more forward to colbert than stewart, and i never thought that'd happen.

also, plz keep a lid on abbott pervitude -- she's wonderful and cute and i bubble with enthusiasm myself sometimes, but the burgeoning consensus of OMG HOTT needs some tupperware and a space in the freezer.

yes, yes, capn save-a-what-have-you

I view it all with a detached amusement. It is hell of strange and...um...bemusing. *shrugs to the high high sky* Thz for the backup bday boy.

ok I actually am not in agreement with a lot of ethan's criticisms on this thread. Anything that becomes popular enough without being overly complex is going to have a large fanbase of "dittoheads" so I really don't see that as valid.

What I think is worth discussing is if anything colbert does is necessarily worthwhile commentary on politics or even media anymore; it seems like they nailed it on the first episode with "truthiness" and have basically been going over the same ground, over and over and over, ever since, with increasingly bigger tires. Colbert's joker is watered-down topical Dada, it's like Jackass News with a little less juvenile enthusiasm and a veneer of political gutsiness that it doesn't deserve.

I have to strongly disagree that his "points," such as they are, are brilliant. I think he is competent at satire, but really he's an excellent improv comic settled into a single character that's working very well because the country as a whole cannot get out of this rut.

I think that because people 17-30 can't see how to get out of said rut, they take some comfort in Stewart, Colbert and crew making laffs out of the situation, and the problem is that that comfort is just making it easier to not actually go out and "speak truth to power" as maybe we ought to be doing. Instead of, for example, lying down and just watching our parents go vote for Hillary and Fred Thompson and shit and being glad we don't have any friends who are in the fucking war.

These guys don't have a point except to belittle the government and the media, and fine, but to imagine that that serves any purpose beyond the ha-ha-fat-kid joke that it is seems to me to be kind of dangerously disingenuous and most certainly far, far too trusting of comedy central's real motives and interests.

(hence all the hem-and-haw re: daily show partisan bias and softball treatment of real fucking winners like john bolton or newt fucking gingrich)

but OTOH to blame two comedians on late night cable for my dim, bleak outlook on my own generation is even greater disingenuousness in itself. clearly it's time to go out and get angry at everybody over 40 again OH WAIT

What can I do "speak truth to power"? Because I truly do not know and this ineffectual state is extra depressing sometimes.

if you wanna play the 'just a comedian' card go for it, its dudes claiming colbert is a brilliant political satirist who i got beef with.

name ten brilliant political satirists from 0 B.C. to the present without google: GO

here I'll help
1)Petronius
2)Juvenal
3)Swift

all you gotta do is seven now

bierce

twain

shakespeare

biz markie

vonnegut
voltaire

Tombot 2/4, I don't know that Shakespeare did a lot of satire and I love Biz more than anybody I know but umm no

xpost voltaire yet
vonnegut no

yet=yes + beer

ray stevens

free vodka for anybody with the nuts to say "mort sahl"

Yes weren't v. big political satirists IIRC.

Bahaha I guess a guy reading a paper on stage is not too different than TDS (re: Mort Sahl).

yakov smirnoff

mencken

Franken

george lucas

http://www.speakersla.com/2006-07/images/capitol-steps-large.jpg

(The Capitol Steps)

so much fail

anyway you're right nobody but you is qualified to discuss the relative quality of satire

so perhaps the problem is not so much whether or not it's good satire to begin with, but that we've yet to become accustomed to satire with lots of heavy duty merchandising and promotion involved, and an ongoing drip, instead of a book or a pamphlet that can just drive a point home and leave it at that. I think perhaps satire-as-commercial-venture is more than part of the problem here, involving several peoples' livelihoods and multiple companies all jumping in to make a buck off of how easy it is to poke fun at our completely and utter inability to elect anyone worth a flying fuck or practice journalism with any respectability whatsoever

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/photopost/data/818/9421sctv_2.jpg

xp sorry tombot

Colbert's joker is watered-down topical Dada, it's like Jackass News with a little less juvenile enthusiasm and a veneer of political gutsiness that it doesn't deserve.

not fair, sez me. I mean, in one way it's true, and even more true of stewart, but the colbert character has exceeded its expected mileage on the strength of the comedian behind it. He's a funny guy. Characters are his thing, he does them well. Standup was stewart's thing, and he was never great at it, and it's seeming lately to me like he'd be more effective if he stayed in the writer's room.

LOOK GUYS AMERICA FUCKIN BLOWS HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

I mean unless you are actually shakey mo I don't see how that's watchable more than a couple nights a month while already inebriated, as a quite popular form of humor it's pretty fucking gallows

especially when people are apparently so willing to go out and spend money on it

I think perhaps satire-as-commercial-venture is more than part of the problem here

yeah it's not like this has been the exact state of the enterprise since its earliest surviving instances

IT USED TO BE PURE MAN

(qualification: I ain't got cable, I see this shit maybe five times a year, it always strikes me as funny when I do)

yeah thats what i dont get, tombot you essentially seem to be saying 'poking fun at our completely and utter inability to elect anyone worth a flying fuck or practice journalism with any respectability whatsoever' is worthless unless its er worthless

oh right the Candide "best of all possible ice creams" and accompanying comic book series and poster

voltaire fucking roomed with the king of prussia, i dont see colbert pullin that kinda shit

swift just kept pumping out sequels to gulliver, this is not well known because they were all overburdened with expensive special effects and on the whole rather embarrassing

no deeznuts I was arguing you're worthless for sitting there laughing the whole time instead of getting angry

oh right the Candide "best of all possible ice creams" and accompanying comic book series and poster

yeah that Voltaire was indie as fuck! he didn't publish his shit or accept money for it nor a rising position in society, none of that, he just told it like it was

same shit different epoch man, you know this, you're a good deal smarter than I am, don't get all old-guy on me

"if u aint swift, u aint shit"

so taking depressing situations & making light of them to illuminate them further is NOT a satirists purpose. interesting.

Daily show suxxxxxxxxxxxuxuxuxux

in fairness deeznuts the best satirists don't leave you laughing, they leave you with a truly horrible taste in your mouth (cf. Swift, Voltaire, Juvenal especially - this is why Horatian satire is generally regarded as lesser by everyone except the English: it doesn't burn like acid)

perhaps my real problem here is that I personally disagree that this moment in history is appropriate for "and then the prince didst make a poo in his gran's flange" lol satire and needs a bit more of the fucking heat

I was arguing you're worthless for sitting there laughing the whole time instead of getting angry

well, at least one person is angry. Very very angry. The nation breathes a sigh of relief.

Who watches late nite comedy to get angry? I have enough angry during the day.

yes thank you john for that

xxpost, you may have a point

how do you work a pun on "sedition" into an ice cream flavor though

Seditious Berrylicious?

anyway, does anyone remember kilborn era daily show? I seem to remember it being way more talk showy and seemed to satirize local news a lot more. was it around 2004 election when it became like 'culturally relevant'?

Tombot the thing you should remember: in Juvenal's time, in Swift's time, in Voltaire's time, shit was way worse than it is now, no matter how we may like to imagine that our era is totally the worst - if people start starving to death on the fucking streets to a point where you can't take a walk without seeing somebody who'll be dead by the time you're heading home, the fuckin' Daily Show, should there be one, will get a bit more caustic

wait wait a TV character has not one, but several facebook groups??? may god save us all from this horrendous cult of personality

I also disagree that the high-water mark of tolerable shit should be the same in 2007 as 1729 but point taken

I think that getting mad at "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" for (perhaps intentionally) highlighting mankind's innate ability to endure bullshit is a waste of energy.

I also disagree that the high-water mark of tolerable shit should be the same in 2007 as 1729 but point taken

feeling is mutual here man, I'm with you in principle, I mean I wish people wouldn't hear an imagined Swiftian/Juvenalian satire as "shrill" or "over-the-top," but I suspect that any such satire would appear quite unhinged to practically everybody

waiting for Ethan to point out to me that Juvenal devoted an entire satire to how much he hated fags

Daily show:

Bad impressions by Jon Stewart. Everyone he does sounds like the penguin. Bush, Cheney, everyone, all the same.

NOT FUNNY CORRESPONDENTS. Everyone that was remotely funny left.

Interviews can be decent. That's it.

I like Larry Whitmore (sp?) a lotty lot.

Samantha Bee is funny. Rob Riggle and Larry Wilmore can be funny. Jason Jones is sometimes funny.

I love half the time the Samantha Bee and the other half find her grating and not half funny.

I think perhaps satire-as-commercial-venture is more than part of the problem here

this is kind of what i was getting at when i said i don't think one can sustain 'brilliant satire', as such, on daily television; lots of hours to fill, the gig's too regular, no matter how gifted (or angry) given the circumstances he has to pace himself and the show as a showman first and worry about net political impact after(and i make no mistake those circumstances involve his naked ambition to conquer showbiz, not necessarily effect political change, although his current success make it more likely that his political bent will come along for the ride).

that said, the question tom poses about steady drip satire is an interesting one, i just bristle at the sourness and arbitrariness of some of the yardsticks for success posited on this thread(which remind me of a similar debate about michael moore which i don't want to dredge up really). i'll concede he's close to having explored every nook of the 'authoritarian mindset uberman' dig and there's only so many headlines and what-ifs you can run through that mill but i don't think it's close to being depleted as far as comedy is concerned, but then comedy isn't something you can debate(and insofar that it is, 'it's not funny' always beats 'it's funny' rhetorically so i hope you're not chasing that dead horse).

i guess im the only one who finds/found john oliver funny.

i think j0hn d has unintentionally introduced a giant strawman here, in that no one is claiming colbert is one of the most brilliant satirists of the past 10000 years.

xp

I want to see 19-yr-old college girls with Juvenal posters and bracelets.

19-year-old college girl new rhetorical 13-yr-old pop fan

wait wait a TV character has not one, but several facebook groups??? may god save us all from this horrendous cult of personality

-- Curt1s Stephens, Monday, October 22, 2007 8:43 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

lol zing. the point was deeznuts challenged the idea that colbert had a cult— saying it was only ppl who edited wikipedia— i c/p all those groups because they all have like 15,000+ members, and yes, it's a relevant point.

http://www.stereogum.com/img/mozstewart.jpg

i have never seen these shows, but the smugness & insularity of the the fans scare me

sorta like ilx?

perhaps

ilx fans are far worse.

xpost

far far worse.
the mail i get is just terrifying.

most fans of TDS/TCR aren't insular tho right? They're just passing fans who watch it occasionally, like me (and I presume many ILXors)

i dunno, occasional viewer not really a fan in the fanatical sense, just someone who likes it but doesn't make a point of seeing it every night. i was talking more hardcore types

but fanatics are insular by definition so your point taken

/sarcasm

sorechasm

i used to watch it practically every night, especially 1999-2001; in the past year though i've probably seen 10 episodes tops.

the format, which is the real hero of the show, has been around for so damn long; stewart now has cultural "power" but doesn't seem to know what to do with it; concomitant with that, almost all the interviews are with "important" people rather than supporting actresses on WB sitcoms, the latter of which usually provided more laughs; the correspondents are plowing an existing furrow now and therefore not as exciting as carrell, colbert, rocca, grenrock-woods, walls - none of whom you had any idea what the hell they were going to do.

ppl on this thread might be interesting in the interviews linked on this page - http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article2617512.ece

with some of the people who make "the thick of it" (basically, politics given the curb-your-enthusiasm treatment)

and this from armando ianucci, the guy who created the show (as well as alan partridge, brass eye, etc etc) - http://podcast.timesonline.co.uk/serve.php/292/iannucci1.mp3

in fairness deeznuts the best satirists don't leave you laughing, they leave you with a truly horrible taste in your mouth (cf. Swift, Voltaire, Juvenal especially - this is why Horatian satire is generally regarded as lesser by everyone except the English: it doesn't burn like acid)

-- J0hn D., Tuesday, October 23, 2007 2:24 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Link

this is truly weak sauce rank-pulling -- unless you actually get a horrible taste in the mouth from those dudes in which case kudos, but really, too much.

what the fuck are you talking about dude? there's no pulling of rank there, when you read "modest proposal" or book four of Gulliver or any Juvenalian satire it's like "Jesus Christ, yowch" - I guess it's "pulling rank" to have done the basic course reading for a B.A., didn't know that made me Mr. Ultra-Learned Showoff

if I know my ilx my man will now c&p something from one of the cited satirists and ask "I don't see how that's any kind of a big deal"

lol liberal arts bias @ "basic course reading for a B.A."

ok i guess my point is: who was reading swift at the time? is there any point in comparing satire in a largely pre-urban, pre-literate, and certainly pre-democratic society, with the kind of project stewart is engaged in?

who is doing the 'regarding' of horace, in england?

i don't know if it connects with tombot's point--which i basically agree with--but you seem to savour that acid. i don't know if good satire even needs to stand up for the very special posterity conferred by eng lit reading lists -- but that takes us back to peter cook & weimar germany i guess.

haha I actually came back to this thread because I had just run across Tom Lehrer quoting that Peter Cook line, which I hadn't heard before - for those who also didn't know it:

"I don't think this kind of thing has an impact on the unconverted, frankly. It's not even preaching to the converted; it's titillating the converted... I'm fond of quoting Peter Cook, who talked about the satirical Berlin cabarets of the '30s, which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the Second World War."

life is a cabaret, old chum

the colbert character has exceeded its expected mileage on the strength of the comedian behind it. He's a funny guy. Characters are his thing

HE DOES ONE CHARACTER. The proper reaction to the O'Reillys is not to parody them, but beat em into a coma with a giant sock o' manure.

more great (forgotten) poli-satirists:

Paul Krassner
Mort Sahl

really he's an excellent improv comic settled into a single character that's working very well because the country as a whole cannot get out of this rut.

tombot otm here and i can understand being too disgusted with the rut to feel like smirking about it.

on the other hand i think the whole "oh noes ppl watching daily show/colbert instead of GETTING ENGAGED AND GETTING ANGRY" thing (as represented by that andy sullivan post, and lots of other tut-tutting chin-strokers in the last few years) is strawman bullshit.

i could take ethan's points more seriously if he wasn't the guy who spent a few hundred posts the other year explaining how funny anne coulter is.

(oops no 'e' on ann)

(also i wasn't really sure what to think when nypd commish ray kelly said on the radio the other week that ds/colbert were his favorite tv shows)

that laughing at Colbert and Stewart helps *some* people to avoid thinking about contributing to OR EVEN HOPING FOR political change seems really obvious to me.

most countries probably have this kind of show, the weird thing is the UK is able to see them now -- a pretty recent development.

they are far, far stronger than our nearest equivalents. i can see that they are cynical, but for cynicism they have nothing on the nearest UK equivalents, one of which is an impressionist show with rory bremner, the other a fake panel game, 'have i got news for you'.

xpost: i dunno morbs. that doesn't track. how do you even get jokes about, like, alberto gonzales' congressional testimony if you don't know about alberto gonzales' congressional testimony to start with? i mean, maybe these people exist, but postulating their existence as "obvious," i don't get. there's 175 cable channels of shit you can watch if you want to avoid thinking about contributing to even hoping for political change, and you're telling me the people who tune into the one cable channel where you can get jokes about alberto gonzales and warrantless wiretapping are the ones looking for escapism? the daily show/colbert fans i know are the same ones who read the papers and read talkingpointsmemo and organize petitions to recall local corrupt politicians and run for school board and work the polls on election day and all that goody-two-shoes small-d democratic activism stuff -- and they like daily show/colbert because at least those shows sometimes acknowledge the importance -- or hell just the existence -- of that entire realm of politics and civic engagement that is elsewhere reduced to msnbc commentators sneering about hillary clinton's cleavage (when it's represented at all).

i can understand not thinking stewart or colbert are funny (because "funny" is a matter of taste), or thinking they've gotten stale or repetitive (because that's what happens to performers and shticks), or preferring to read theodor adorno at bedtime, or whatever. but i think the idea that they're somehow undermining the agenda they more or less stand for is just silly. i mean, that peter cook line... ok, brecht didn't stop hitler from coming to power -- but isn't that asking an awful lot of brecht? i mean, omg, two comedians on a comedy cable channel haven't brought the downfall of corporate neo-conservatism. clearly they're part of the problem!

sometimes i feel the same way tombot does except that i don't even live there.
when the punchline has something to do with guantamino and Stewart is essentially sitting there going "lololol, we torture people", I find it impossible to laugh.
The DS is way more guilty of this than the CR.

that laughing at Colbert and Stewart helps *some* people to avoid thinking about contributing to OR EVEN HOPING FOR political change seems really obvious to me.

oh plz, do not want equivocation for breakfast.

hey, have you seen the new TMZ tv show? Riveting.

also, xpost with tipsy, who said the same thing, i think

really, the whole frickin' game is rigged to get people to avoid thinking about contributing to OR EVEN HOPING FOR political change, top to bottom

Anyone who thinks that these shows are blasé about torture or shitty government dealings is either not really watching or has already made up his/her mind to shit all over them and is just coming here to register that shit. And Kenan if you really believe your last statement then...well, God love ya, Kenan.

capn save-a-colb

tipsy, those activist types you know may watch Stewart and Colbert, but they're maybe 1% of their audience. I think most of the audience knows about Alberto Gonzales' congressional testimony, and thinks "What can I do? NOTHING."

I'd never say Stewart 'liking' John McCain and softball-interviewing him repeatedly is any sort of factor in the grand scheme of things, but it defangs the claims of his satire.

if you really believe your last statement then

I do. I also don't believe in god's love. I'm not saying it's hopeless, just rigged.

tipsy, those activist types you know may watch Stewart and Colbert, but they're maybe 1% of their audience.

^^^ tru

I hear that 923% of northern Africa prefers salted butter.

I heard that 74% of people make up statistics to support their arguments.

Dan what's the margin for error on that one

tipsy, those activist types you know may watch Stewart and Colbert, but they're maybe 1% of their audience.

don't confuse correlation w/ causation

I think most of the audience knows about Alberto Gonzales' congressional testimony, and thinks "What can I do? NOTHING."

but what are you basing this on??? this is like some ilm threads where people are like "all those other people besides me who say they like hip-hop/m.i.a./radiohead like them for the wrong reasons!" i'll grant you that the only colbert/stewart fans i know are the only colbert/stewart fans i know, and maybe they're somehow an unrepresentative sample. but i don't have any reason to think that, and i'm not going to go speculating about some strawman audience of slackjawed dolts who somehow tune into political satire in lieu of political engagement. wtf else are politically engaged people supposed to be doing at 11 p.m.? holding candlelight vigils outside samuel alito's house?

Morbs did you see the last McCain interview? They might be friends but it wasn't exactly softball as I recall.

I don't know if I saw the last one, but I think the only defensible interview he could do with McCain is one where JMcC is so angry he never returns. "Hey, nice move giving legitimacy to Bush's fake-antitorture bill through! Did the VietCong remove your spine?"

xp

tips, I'm basing it (partly) upon what Generation iPod is like. It's not a strawman; Comedy Central has a large audience, hence there are a lot of slackjawed dolts watching.

now you're just doing your grumpy old man thing.

If the audience for "The Daily Show" is the same as the audience for "Mind of Mencia" I'm gonna cry.

I'm basing it (partly) upon what Generation iPod is like. It's not a strawman

you're forgetting one thing: THE JUDD APATOW FACTOR

YOU, have a superbad birthday.

xp

it's not a thing, it's me!

this is what the kids today all look like to morbs:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/thefed/v2/archives/19/19.3/images/hipster.jpg

I'm basing it (partly) upon what Generation iPod is like. It's not a strawman

I'm basing it (partly) upon what Generation iPod is like. It's not a strawman

tipsy, those activist types you know may watch CNN, but they're maybe 1% of their audience. I think most of the audience knows about Alberto Gonzales' congressional testimony, and thinks "What can I do? NOTHING."

morbs you were funnier the first season. you need a wisecracking sidekick to liven things up. or maybe an adopted war orphan!

remember friendster? Oh man, those were the good ol days. Life was so simple then.

put a Yankee cap on that illus and you have max.

Wait, I assumed Generation iPod was a concrete group or site or something. lololololol

those activist types you know may watch Stewart and Colbert, but they're maybe 1% of their audience. I think most of the audience knows about Alberto Gonzales' congressional testimony, and thinks "What can I do? NOTHING."

I don't think anyone's trying to argue that watching the Daily Show instantly confers upon the viewer automatic Uber Activist status. I think it's more like: okay, watching the Daily Show doesn't necessarily, automatically mean you're politically engaged. But it doesn't automatically mean you're not, either. If I could draw a Venn diagram, I would.

http://www.someecards.com/filestorage/spo_17.jpg

put a Mets cap on that illus and you have Morbs

that guy up there with the duct tape wallet seems pretty cool. wearing the iPod with no headphones and the broken watch is an effective statement. the camera should also have no battery, and he should also carry a prepaid cellphone that has no minutes on it.

I should start secretly working out myself

when is the ideal time for secret workouts

I wouldn't know. I prefer loud, flamboyant workouts. Out and proud, baby.

Friday late-night workouts, everybody's doin' it

calisthenics after happy hour is a threat to ligaments everywhere

i would imagine 3 am is the most secretive hour to have secret workouts.

yeah, but then you just feel dirty and ashamed

kenan you always feel like that

no, but i really ought to

wait... is "secret workout" a metaphor for something here?

why are we debating with morbius about political efficacy and civic engagement?

because it is the month of halloween, and we need to get back in shape

funny we haven't mentioned colbert's apparently real actual PRESIDENTIAL RUN. i give it a big thumbs down, seems really really lame and pointless to me. those movies where a regular dude/comedian runs for president are always bad, for a reason

Satire is always as sterile as it is shameful and is impotent as it is insolent. - Wilde

Satire is always virtue's friend. - Charles Churchill (neva hoid of him)

i'm wearing cords.

My family back home got cable recently and every time I talk to 14yr-old brother on the phone, we talk about Daily Show/Colbert. It's actually got him following/interested in politics, which is more than I can say of myself at that age...ie it requires a little more political savvy for a young person than the 'political hummor' I watched at that age, which requires understanding of things like "Janet Reno isn't pretty, and that's why she is played by Will Ferrell." Well, I think that's good for the little brother, esp. since he is in Hicksville, population: Mormon-thousand.

He will surely learn the art of rubbing his eyes in mock surprise.

I like the idea that TDS/TCR are turning all these potential political activists into defeatist couch potatoes but not the other way around.

I mean obv. it's not converting South Park fans to liberal activism by the thousands but I doubt it's making them LESS interested in politics

Good work, guys. For serious, this is thought-provoking.

ok just now when Colbert was corpsing and getting himself bleeped while trying to blend the berenstein bears book into a smoothie was genuinely enjoyable and funny. The filling out the applications to get on the primary ballots in SC, not really funny at all. The pure comedy is so much better.

gff i don't think those two quotes are contradictory

mentioned this on the Lost thread but the entertainment industry's been gearing up for a writer's guild strike for a while now. they're saying it could happen as early as the first of next month or as late as july next year.

personally, i don't think it's going to happen, i'm pretty sure they'll work out their contracts with AMPTP soon but if it does, a lot of tv programs are going to be affected. Dunno about you guys, but as bad as TDS/TCR have been lately, an election year without them would suck balls.

yeah the application filing was a nowhere bit. Eh, what ya gonna do.

And let's not forget: he's not running for president, he's running in the SC primaries, and BOTH of them. That's kinda funny. He told Terry Gross the other day, "South Carolina will allow you to run as both a Democrat and a Republican. Of course, they'll also let you marry a 13-year-old girl."

I feel the opposite way as Tombot! the bit where he's haphazardly filling out the presidential application had me cracking up; while alot of the straight comedy bits (and things like Tek Jansen) don't hit the mark for me.

I think the main reason Colbert has cooled off is that people know who he is now. His interviews and Better Know a district bits were awesome, when he'd sit with these people who clearly had no idea what they'd gotten themselves into.

The correspondents dinner seemed to have ruined that.

but it was worth it.

xpost :(

is he even still doing BKAD?

tracer i don't think their contradictory either

they're

OTTM, the way Letterman's lack of anonymity killed his super "Mr Curious" bit (and others)

is he even still doing BKAD?

He's planning to start it up again soon, but he was busy with writing a book for the last few months.

that's good to hear, BKAD was always one of my favorite bits and the lack of it lately has been more disappointing to me than all the ironic-or-not cult of personality stuff.

the fightin' (x)!!

The cult of personality stuff is clearly what makes SC's biggest fans cream themselves. Stewart, not so much.

ironic-or-not cult of personality stuff

how is it not ironic?

that WHOOOOOO his studio audience gives does not sound ironic.

Or else it does, and they're playing along like they're supposed to. I'm sure there's a few idiots and genuine fanboys/girls in the crowd, but I wouldn't assume that they all are, or even that they are as a collective.

i highly doubt there's much of an archie bunker response to colbert

i guarantee you that SC audience is cheering 100% ironically, i just dont know that theres a difference between irony and authenticity for most people under 30

ironic-or-not cult of personality stuff

how is it not ironic?

-- kenan, Wednesday, October 24, 2007 12:30 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

UGH i'm not getting roped into this idiotic debate. using the phrase "ironic-or-not" was my way of skirting the issue of who thinks it is and who thinks it isn't. forget i said it.

yeah, it's not going to take us anywhere... I was mostly reacting to Morb's "But you don't understand, everybody in the world is a complete idiot" thing. But that's pointless, too.

Colbert could be breaking FEC laws.

"We wanted "Update" to be good, but we didn't think that we had to pander. If the rest of the show was pandering, then we thought we wouldn't have to. So then i started getting the sense that they were unhappy. Ohlmeyer and his crew thought that every joke in "Update" should kill, and the audience should be clapping and cheering and stuff. They thought Jay Leno did that every night with his monologues, so why couldn't we do it one night a week for five minutes, where it should just be wall-to-wall laughter and applause? My response was, I hate applause. I don't like an audience applauding you because that's like a cheap kind of high. They kind of control you. They're like, "Yeah, we agree." That's all they're doing, saying they agree with your viewpoint. And while you can applaud voluntarily, you can't laugh voluntarily - you have to laugh involuntarily. I don't want to say things that an audience will agree with, I don't want to say anything that the audience already thinks." - Norm Macdonald

it's SNL, the audience wants to be pandered to.

musical guest, Feist!

SNL's problem was that beginning with (i think) Dennis Miller, Weekend Update changed from the audience laughing AT the hapless anchorpeople to laughing WITH them, from on high down AT the subjects of the jokes

which is a trap the Daily Show's correspondents, for all of Stewart's own pandering, have never succumbed to

somebody find the thread where dr morbz whines about norm macdonald being a homophobe

http://defamer.com/336518/stewart-colbert-going-back-to-work

SCABS!

There's no way I'd vote for him as President now.

Let's hope for some fuckery in the style of Kimmel hosting the AMAs.

how in hell can these shows work w/out a writing staff? Although JS interviewing atarlets for 20 mibnutes could be fun.

emperor without his clothes?

be like that scene in 'wayne's world' when garth is left on his own.

i'm hoping for lots of ad lib and bad jokes that can only be attributed to the hosts!

and a lot of jon stewart's guilty shrugs obv.

I'm sure Stewart can improvise decently -- his interviews with nonpols are frequently the best thing on the show -- but not 120 minutes a week.

he's a terrible interviewer!

Not for entertainment as opposed to informational value.

http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2007/12/will-scab-for-laffs.html

i like his random book tourist interviews much better than the pol interviews which i like much much better than the celeb ones xxxp

Opening remarks AND what the hell the show's going to be like should be strange tonight...

my guess - the majority of the show will be juggling and stupid human tricks.
jon sings a duet with dennis kucinich and luke perry will be shot from a cannon.

I'm more interested in seeing how far Colbert goes without a net. Stewart will be solid I suspect, but his counterpart could go nuts.

I'd put it the other way around. Colbert has such a history with improv that he'll likely be fine. His straight-laced irony, and the cushion of character he's created will carry the ep pretty far.

I'm afraid TDS is going to be like a very bad version of Charlie Rose.

yeah gimme a break Colbert's got a well-developed character and a history of improv to fall back on. Jon Stewart has jackshit (lolz "interview skills")

I am excited about the prospect of a Cobert Strike Beard.

Whoas so it's them back again tonight? Will they even have graphics team?

Colbert's got a well-developed really tiresome character

Must... control... zinging....

ho snap

sez the hitchens of ile

Morbs on a grumpy-rampage today

i call it a grumpage

^
title of the final Descendents album

I'm afraid TDS is going to be like a very bad version of Charlie Rose.

It's possible for something to be worse than Charlie Rose?

are you srsly taking a pot-shot at charlie rose?

I love how very uncomfortable Charlie Rose makes his celebrity guests.

Yes. For one, he was an absolute dickhead to Arundhati Roy, which I find it hard to forgive him for...plus he annoys me for more general reasons.

All the relative Stewart hate astounds me, give me a Jennifer Love Hewitt interview anyday over Colbert's fish-in-a-barrel act.

Anyway, SCAB.

JACK:
Pulitzer and Hearst
They think we're nothin'
Are we nothin'?

NEWSIES:
No!

JACK:
Pulitzer and Hearst
They think they got us
Do they got us?

NEWSIES:
No!

JACK:
Even though we ain't got hats or badges
We're a union just by saying so
And the world will know!

What's it gonna take to stop the wagons?
Are we ready?

NEWSIES:
Yeah!

JACK:
What's it gonna take to stop the scabbers?
Can we do it?

NEWSIES:
Yeah!

JACK:
We'll do what we gotta do
Until we break the will of mighty Bill and Joe

NEWSIES:
And the World will know
And the Journal too
Mister Hearst and Pulitzer
Have we got news for you
Now the world will hear
What we got to say
We been hawkin' headlines
But we're makin' 'em today
And our ranks will grow

CRUTCHY:
And we'll kick their rear

NEWSIES:
And the world will know
That we been here

JACK:
When the circulation bell starts ringin'
Will we hear it?

NEWSIES:
No!

JACK:
What if the Delanceys come out swingin'
Will we hear it?

NEWSIES:
No!
When you got a hundred voices singin'
Who can hear a lousy whistle blow?
And the world will know
That this ain't no game
That we got a ton of rotten fruit and perfect aim
So they gave their word
But it ain't worth beans
Now they're gonna see
What "stop the presses" really means
And the day has come
And the time is now
And the fear is gone

BOOTS:
And our name is mud

NEWSIES:
And the strike is on

BOOTS:
And I can't stand blood

NEWSIES:
And the world will –

JACK:
Pulitzer may own the World but he don't own us!

NEWSIES:
Pulitzer may own the World but he don't own us!

JACK:
Pulitzer may crack the whip but he won't whip us!

NEWSIES:
Pulitzer may crack the whip but he won't whip us!
And the world will know
And the world will learn
And the world will wonder how we made the tables turn
And the world will see
That we had to choose
That the things we do today will be tomorrow's news
And the old will fall
And the young stand tall
And the time is now
And the winds will blow
And our ranks will grow and grow and grow and so
The world will feel the fire
And finally know!

They just need to watch Newsies & will be like "OMG how could we have been SCABBERS like Christian Bale?" And LEARN.

i don't really think either of them have much of a choice?

sure they do. Stay off and don't roll over for the scumshit producers, as befits their alleged progressive heroism.

Bill Maher's back this week too. hopefully we don't have to sit through "New Rules".

They are actually rolling over for the rest of the staff beyond the writers, from what I've read.

yeah, same with late night shows, at least Conan -- there's a lot of crew out of work through no fault of their own

Conan struck some deal with the writer's union didn't he...? I was wondering if Colbert/Stewart were gonna do the same.

that was letterman/worldwide pants. he's the only one who owns his shows

Aren't the actors/performers in breach of contract though if they refuse to work? Their union is not on strike - they may not have much choice in supporting the writers.

Bill Maher's back this week too. hopefully we don't have to sit through "New Rules".

this could actually be a good thing - the written stuff is awful on his show.

daily show on fire tonight

jokes were good but he was funny even when he bombed. maybe i just like stewart a lot but he laughs at all his failed jokes so it's kinda of communally funny instead of uncomfortable.

it was a strange viewing experience.

What was this about Jon and Colbert are not writing for themselves??? They CLEARLY are.

"writing" is now an issue of semantics.

damn, this show's better than it's been in months. maybe they ought to fire the writers.

srsly that thing where stewart makes a bad joke then uncomfortably stares at the audience for three seconds was getting so unbearable it's a relief to see him winging it

damn, this show's better than it's been in months.

^^^ colbert was on some next

^^echo all this. maybe it's bcuz they are working after a long break, but damn.

Colbert was funniest w/ Andrew Sullivan on his Obama love. "Come back when everything's perfect."

Stewart can go on for awhile just with pundit clips like Chris Matthews' Clinton-as-Lawrence-of-Arabia metaphor. Holee monkeyfucking assery.

tonight they played hilarious clips of daily show form 10 years ago

seems as if they actually ambushed stewart with video of him with massive hair and wearing a stop making sense suit. everyone was laughing like a jimmy fallon skit

John Oliver kills me when he's on the verge of laughter.

so ALL the correspondents are back doing written pieces, right? Show full of SCABS?

i wondered about that and why it hasn't been called out; did i miss some sort of pass given for the cc shows or some arcane def. of 'not writing' that they were employing? i even saw colbert peeking down at something in the first week and it wasn't part of a bit.

no pass/waiver was given that I've heard. A guy I know who quit a WGA job recently says they're scabs.

Kilborn would never have stood for that

One way I know I'm old is that I make "I'll recognize Missouri when I'm in the cold ground" jokes about Kilborn / Stewart and earnest young people go "who's Craig Kilborn?"

scabby or not his mitt romney rant last night was pretty good.

so wait... like, you can't even write anything down? like, even if you come up with your own jokes? i don't think anyone could improv for 22 minutes a night four days a week and still be consistently funny.

scabby or not his mitt romney rant last night was pretty good.

I'll give him credit when he sez "fuck you" to his phony BFF of 'integrity' McCain, who's said basically the same shit about surrender to terror.

rob riggle can scab it up im still a fan. that guy rocks.

jon stewart on larry king. pretty funny. it's always weird to see him out of character. although he went into character more for larry than on crossfire. he has some fundamental showbiz respect for larry that he doesn't have for any of the pundits.

except for when he refused to do the throw to anderson cooper. ouch.

rob riggle is fucking hilarious

Samantha Bee > Jason Jones > Larry Wilmore > Aasif Mandvi > Rob Riggle > John Hodgman > John Oliver > Demetri Martin

How painfully awkward will Hillary's appearance on the show tonight be? I have come to dread all of Jon's interviews with politicians.

Considering how often JS likes to crack on Hillary's 'experience' angle ("those 8 years she was first lady -- does that count as presidential experience now?"), I'm at least interested to see whether he poses the same question to her or is less polite than he usually is with big name politicians.

no he'll suck up to her like does everyone else

Stewart sucks up to all the pols when they're guests. The only person he's slapped around in the last year (that I've seen) was Jonah Goldberg.

Nabisco, You just keep channeling Grampa S. and let the kids try to keep up. I'm with ya.
"who's Craig Kilborn?" indeed.

In Stewart's defense, I can understand why he'd go soft on interviewing people he routinely ridicules on the show. He's always emphasized that comedy is job one when people try to evaluate TDS as a news show, and it'd be pretty much impossible to cut through the bullshit and ask really tough questions, and still be able to turn it around a minute later and spin a joke out of an offhand comment. I think he's more afraid of a tense 5 minutes on camera without a single laugh than offending or making an enemy out of an elected official.

^^^on point; its not like he feared making enemies of crossfire dudes

it's totally true, it just feels like such a missed opportunity

and that -- as stewart is assiduous in pointing out -- is an indictment of the national news media, not the daily show

Yeah, but what purpose do the interviews serve on TDS? It was funny when Jon would interview people like the Spice Girls, but HRC or John McCain? Not so much.

I mean, other than "hey, look at what high profile public figures we can get to come on the show!" which seems pretty weak.

I think he's more afraid of a tense 5 minutes on camera without a single laugh

Sounds like that episode after the strike was over. Did they hire a bunch of Leno writers for that one? And then some morose interview with some dude shilling a Bhutto book. Has it picked up speed since?

did they ever post the full 20 minute version of the jonah goldberg interview?

Jon can be intimidated by his guests, which is merely human. It's interesting to see when he openly unleashes on his guests(i.e. Hitchens). That's the disappointing thing; his political instincts seem far stronger and better grounded that his self-deprecating ways will admit.

On the other hand, as I and others have mentioned, Stephen _isn't_ intimidated by his guests, and whose instincts and knowledge equals if not surpasses Jon's.

But both their schticks and comedic sensibilities are very different, so that's not surprising in the least.

I spent most of the HRC interview in the kitchen; sooooo pointless.

pretty good on Hil's Crown Royal shot and the desirabilty of "elitism" last night.

yes, I turned on a movie as soon as Apatow came on.

Knocked Up or Superbad?

was it knocked up?

lolololol xp

Although I have enjoyed his movies, JA himself is pretty insufferable.

he was on an HBO standup special in the early 90s that they still rerun now and again, definitely someone who was wise to stay behind the camera for most of his career.

wiseR, MAYbe

Stewart saying to Howard Dean last week "McCain is bathing his balls in bowls of your tears" was pretty nice.

Impressive interview with Douglas Feith on last night's show.

It's impressive to go 22 mins w/ Feith w/out saying "Go away"

OMFG Stewart nails McClellan:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=170969

(best part starts a little after 4 minutes)

gets REALLY good after 5 minutes

I can't watch that shit. The way to nail him is with the written material, same with fuckface McAuliffe last night.

is this on summer break or has More4 lost / given up UK broadcast rights? tivo is saying it's been replaced by 'First Cut' for at least the next two weeks.

got to be on break.

hmmm -- it was on a break very recently. i think fx snapped up the colbert report.

they're both on the internets though so it's not that much of a thing.

They're on 2-week break. I swear they break more than any other nightly show on tv, and they only have 4-day work weeks in the first place!

is it me or is this show just becoming more and more pointless? the other day I saw some anchorschmucks on CNN chuckling at a clip of Jon Stewart making fun of them... its like any capacity for biting satire has just been absorbed/coopted by the corporate press machine

This comedy show is pointless!

That Kristen Schaal bit on "cougars" was the best I've seen on TDS in awhile... "You're in your FORTIES? Yow..."

Redenbachers

Seth Rogen needs to be slapped hard for a long time.

yes, I turned on a movie as soon as Apatow came on.

-- Dr Morbius, Tuesday, April 15, 2008 9:43 AM (3 months ago) Bookmark Link

there was nothing else on, so go back to yr bong

I don't get high. I also don't revive threads just to whine every time a celeb I don't like is on a talk show.

to be honest, although it wasn't perfect by any stretch, that was more scrutiny than tony blairs has had over here... like ever.

go back to your bong

Seth Rogen needs to be slapped hard for a long time.

― Dr Morbius, Thursday, August 7, 2008 5:11 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^ the kind of moral direction the left needs at this critical hour.

AL JAFEEEEEARA

xp: how did you know I was its leader?

Is it Potshot Friday?

watching this now, man tony seems kind of unprepared almost

I turned that interview off. Sometimes Stewart gets on my nerves.

You know what I love? When they play something of Bush saying something, and then they play something from the archive of Bush saying the opposite and then Jon Stewart rubs his eyes and goes
http://www.gamepolitics.com/images/stewart-wha.jpg WHAAAAA?

Cracks me up EVERY time.

I turned that interview off. Sometimes Stewart gets on my nerves.

― polyphonic, Friday, September 19, 2008 3:54 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol dude cant win.

Cracks me up EVERY time.

― Pleasant Plains, Friday, September 19, 2008 4:08 PM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it would be a lot less funny if actual-media types did this sort of thing in the course of their general reporting

it would be a lot less funny if actual-media types did this sort of thing in the course of their general reporting

― Ronald Paul (deej), Friday, September 19, 2008 4:49 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://www.gamepolitics.com/images/stewart-wha.jpgWHAAAAA?

WOW. Blair looks so fucking uncomfortable. As if he was being asked under oath if he still finds his wife attractive.

it would be a lot less funny if actual-media types did this sort of thing in the course of their general reporting.
anderson cooper does this now, but it seems like a kind of deperate attempt to snag daily show viewers and is annoying.

anderson cooper suuuuux

sure looks good in a t-shirt though. which i guess is what matters.

"Are they booing reading?"

their funniest shit all year was this one

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086&title=sarah-palin-gender-card

I liked "they were raped, not robbed"

so, sort of declaring big fuck-you war on sarah palin's "real america" shtick tonight. i like how much that pisses off jon stewart, he takes it personally.

Jason Jones's visit to Wasilla was equal lulz.

tattooed dude especially.

I just watched the jason jones goes to wasilla bit. Wow. WOW.
The undecided voters panel was also A++

jason jones is the funniest correspondent post-colbert/corrdry/helms

rob riggle is close though

i also loved the guy who said the perfect illustration of small-town values was 9/11. says a lot about how a lot of the country thinks about that -- it was an excuse to fly the flag and feel aggrieved and congratulate themselves for being american.

man what the fuck

Tongue-tied politicians and would-be plumbers aren’t the only ones to have their visibility raised by “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart”: Rob Riggle, left, the burly on-air correspondent for the Comedy Central news satire, has signed a deal to develop his own sitcom for CBS, Variety reported. Mr. Riggle, 38, a member of the Marine Corps Reserve who was stationed in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa, joined “The Daily Show” in 2006 after a brief stint on “Saturday Night Live.” He becomes the latest member of the “Daily Show” ensemble to graduate to headliner status. Last week the correspondents Samantha Bee and Jason Jones (who are husband and wife) announced that they would be developing their own CBS sitcom about a celebrity chef, to be played by Mr. Jones.

oooh gypsy! That is my summation of 9/11!! just an excuse for being remiss,lethargic and detached; until something awful happens that we can blame on people other than fellow americans then we get out the american flag start waving it and pointing fingers at other countries. It's like a legal license to become a bigot.

It's like a legal license to become never stop being a bigot.

that was a really satisfying daily show.

i lived in dc when 9/11 happened and have this vivid memory of getting on whichever bus runs from mt. pleasant down to dupont circle a few days afterward. there was this visibly Muslim dude sitting in the front of the bus--he was wearing a kufi and a long white robe and i think even a keffiyah. he wasn't white--i would have guessed central asian. and he had an incredibly sullen expression on his face. i kind of tensed up when i saw him, because i worried some other passenger would be uncomfortable or even report him. but looking around the bus, people weren't even batting an eyelash. it's one of my warmest memories of that time, which was kind of insane and awful in a lot of ways.

I think the undecided voters sketch was a little more ironic than ppl took it -- "duh, why can't you decide" -- since the Bee and Jones personae are reliably assholish. "One's white, the other's black."

well, Stewart told Bill Kristol last week he would've voted for McCain v.2000 over Gore, which shows he can be as big a dick as Bill Maher.

how to watch Indecision 2000 outside the US plz plz

irrc PMRC was still a thorn in a lot of folks asses circa 2000. not saying that was Stewart's justification, just sayin

Gore was a pretty boring candidate in 2000

yes, and the artificial EXCITEMENT Obama creates is pretty much all that separates him from Gore.

tracer, I don't know how well it works for non-futbol broadcasting, but justin.tv has a lot lot lot of streaming video all the time

http://www.thedailyshow.com/tagSearchResults.jhtml?term=Indecision%202000

yes, and the artificial EXCITEMENT Obama creates is pretty much all that separates him from Gore.

― Dr Morbius, Monday, November 3, 2008 5:13 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"pretty much"

"artificial excitement" is the new "ironic enjoyment"

justin.tv I think is the best bet (they had the obama infomercial, don't see why they won't have this)

also:
CNN - http://www.cnn.com/pipeline/
FOX - http://tvpc.com/Channel.php?ChannelID=1520

yes, and the artificial EXCITEMENT Obama creates is pretty much all that separates him from Gore.

― Dr Morbius, Monday, November 3, 2008 12:13 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

how is this more artificial than your excitement at reposting another 8000 holier-than-thou dennis perrin blog posts or your excitement at wanting to buttfuck john cho?

*scratches balls*

i'm mortified that obama has had to resort to getting people enthusiastic about his candidacy

yeah, he's ... Reaganesque.

Oh so that mean we gon, you gon switch it on em'?
I said Yeah, Flipmode, Flipmode is the greatest

Stewart told Bill Kristol last week he would've voted for McCain v.2000 over Gore

I saw him say that to Bill Moyers.

Did you know Moyers' journal is, in fact, a television program? And not a piece of writing? Dude's fast & loose.

votes should be doled out like a miserly old lady in an old TV show doles out nickels to the children who help her carry her groceries -- slowly, bitterly, and with an air of barely concealed disgust

I GOT THIS

"karl rove can't hurt me anymore"

so this is what the daily show's like without political content

wait, you watched it?

I like Wyatt.

loved those Bam & Hil attack clips from the primaries the other night -- I swear you could hear the studio College Obamaniacs squirming.

ok "Paging Dr. Manvi" killed me tonight jeezus. it was totally in the vein of helms/corrdry/colbert era

tombot u see this shit?

jon stewart otmfm right now
"at what age did you choose to not be gay"
"being religious is more of a choice than being gay"

"It's the Mobius Strip of issues!"

Mix of 43 & 44 shoveling same "our way of life / freedom" droppings, to confusion of studio audience: beautiful, maybe better than the Gaza piece a couple weeks ago. Jason Jones and Wyatt Cenac with perfect ILXor parodies.

That was pretty hilarious, the funniest part being the Italian food vs Chinese food analogy.

yep

also Maya Angelou bow 'shop.

hahaha yes

Colbert was on fire too

lol Wilmore on "black is in" & Downey Oscar nomination: "Are we the new retards?"

the Pluto Book guy was great.

ha, google for daily show pluto book brings the goods

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=216998&title=neil-degrasse-tyson

If he actually is being considered for head of NASA, space is about to become more fun.

Bezos on TDS yesterday (uk time). JS cuttingly pointed out all the obvious flaws in kindle2 and he just laughed like a maniac.

I loved how Jon Stewart hit the nail on the head with the kindle ("That price has got to come down"). Hilarious clip, though.

If not for Stewart, Bezos was almost unwatchable. That laugh. Jesus...

that Usual Suspects bit killed me.

anticipating jindal lols tonight.

can u stream daily show so i dont have to watch next day on hulu

I can stream it but I dunno if that's gonna help u out at all dogg.

i lold

"Nancy Pelosi is 1/8 gopher."

also to prez's cancer cure line:
"Are you a fucking WIZARD?"

haha nobody in the audience got the "Felonious Monkeys" joke ...

Meanwhile, watching Demetri Martin's show, he now has on John Oliver and H. Jon Benjamin as ringers.

Jon Stewart's takedown of the whole CNBC network tonight was masterful.

yeah that was reeeeeeeally funny

The whole show tonight is some next level shit.

It had a welcome tone of fury, but did any senient being really ever think CNBC was a dispassionate critic of financial institutions?

Nah, we all know CNBC is just a mouthpiece/propaganda outlet for Wall Street anchored by zombies. It's just fun to see them given the lashing they deserve.

Colbert was in high form tonight, too

yeah both shows have been on fire lately, after a bit of a lull right after the inauguration.

well, they waited for the audience to come down from their sugar high.

here's the cnbc bit. and i love that colbert has picked up on the staggering weirdness of glen beck.

yeah, here's links to both shows either in bits or entirety

Wow, that CNBC bit was really excellent!

Colbert's smoke machine doomsday scenario shit was killin me

did anyone else think the cnbc bit was like...maybe not half-assed, but def not what it coulda been? 10 examples of cnbc being wrong is great...but I think some rapid 200 clip montage woulda been more striking. and would not be that hard to do, considering the 24/7 retardedness of that channel.

yeah that 'peter schiff got it right' thing on youtube months ago was a million times better.

they should keep it up though

I do enjoy when Jon goes after somebody

repeatedly

over several days, too

That Jim Cramer bit had me creeped out. The contrast between him on his show--hyper and shouting and pounding on shit--and in the somewhat older interview with that woman--head low and sulking, looking up at her through his eyebrows--it was just really o_O to me. Like some finger twittering villain. But speaking so feebly, like he's threatened by women. In my head maybe, but damn I'm put off by that dude.

Not that I didn't find the Cramer thing entertaining, but nailing him is a bit of a cheap shot. It's not like he's a respected establishment investment councilor, with all the associated responsibilities. He's an obnoxious dart-tossing chimp who likes to make big noises and who made stock speculators laugh when the market was in better shape. I'm sure there are a million other financial talking heads you could humiliate with footage from a year ago. Are these folks ultimately culpable? No, but there's probably no good footage of Phil Gramm yelling about how great Bear Stearns is a month before it collapsed.

On the other hand, all the footage of Cramer damning Stewart for being a comedian is true epic ironic lols.

I haven't been able to see it yet but apparently icky Joe Scarborough said Stewart should stop throwing raspberries from the sidelines, and Stewart served him a new one last night for this.

Jim Cramer To Answer Daily Show Thursday

By Ryan Tate, 7:19 PM on Tue Mar 10 2009, 5,417 views

Well, someone at CNBC finally had the nerve and basic PR savvy to answer Jon Stewart: Jim Cramer, the Daily Show host's recent favorite whipping boy, will appear on the fake news show Thursday.

Just to make sure there's no misunderstandings, though, the program made it known it plans to take another run at Cramer tonight. That follows a Daily Show segment dedicated to the Mad Money host's bad calls last night (see clip below) and the five prominently-placed swipes at his record in the show's seven-minute CNBC evisceration last week.

Cramer should probably also expect a biting video "introduction" Thursday; the Daily Show's CNBC rant last week was originally to precede an interview with the network's reporter Rick Santelli.

Or Cramer could, you know, cancel, as Santelli did, and give the Daily Show another week of absolutely golden ratings. (At least this downturn is minting money for someone.)

http://gawker.com/5167794/jim-cramer-to-answer-daily-show-thursday

In the original CNBC pisstake it wasn't just about Cramer though was it, he was just the only one stupid enough to take the bait - if he just went along with the joke it wouldn't have become such a big deal.

The original CNBC bit was to lol at their hypocrisy in criticizing people for showing "bad judgement" obtaining unwise mortgages, a point which seems to have been forgotten (by me, too).

xp Joe the talking head kind of missing the point there since the Daily Show doesn't follow people around with cameras 24/7 looking for mistakes

scarborough has such a punchable face

Just watched the first 1/2 of yesterday's TDS and apparently their folks saw the potential in this:

On the other hand, all the footage of Cramer damning Stewart for being a comedian is true epic ironic lols.

Joe also not realising that the show took a shot at Obama on Monday as well (granted, it wasn't all that hard-hitting, but it's not as if The Daily Show has decided Obama is off-limits in any way..)

its not that he's not realising it, its that he's pointedly ignoring it to make a bogus point

The CNBC "takedown" is not really the Daily Show's metier, i.e. there were no jokes. The framing device of a screen with sober statistics where a punch line would normally go is straight out of the kind of po-faced agit-prop of homemade Youtube clips - it's hard to imagine there wasn't at least the hope that the bit would become "viral" - that was possibly even the explict intent. But the Daily Show's strength is actual jokes written by its vast team of actual writers. In the context of Youtube it's a strong bit, but in the context of the Daily Show I thought it was surprisingly lightweight, TBH.

Are you suggesting that Scarborough should be nailing Stewart for being unfunny, not for being wrong?

I don't have any opinion about what Joe Scarborough ought to be doing, other than setting himself on fire for the good of humanity

Has anything uttered by a bald/ing man with a rather overcompensatory 'tache ever been anything other than worthless?

Morning Joe is something my mom watches and Joe 'What Intern?' Scarborough is just...shrill.

I honestly enjoy TDS's sprinklings of YouTube-strength semi-po-faced righteousness. It gives the show a center, yet there's not so much of it and it's lightweight enough to keep the end product well within the boundaries of "comedy".

Yeah, it just gave me the feeling that TDS had been taken out of its game a little, like CNBC had managed to get under its skin enough to make them respond in a way that wasn't their strength. Probably all in my mind of course.

Usually TDS stuff isn't posted on YouTube but it looks like Viacom is allowing it for the CNBC takedown. Blogs were going nuts yeaterday about Cramer on all the various strands of NBCness calling Stew a comedian. Please to find Cramer's appearance on Colbert w/the puppies and kitties in bkgrd.

We'll all be telling our kids about the CNBC takedown of 09.

The CNBC "takedown" is not really the Daily Show's metier, i.e. there were no jokes.

Didn't mind it. When you're doing 'topical' comedy at this time and place, err on the side of anger. (plus sorry, no relevant jokes can outfunny the serious MSM on the meltdown)

^ie, "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize." - Tom Lehrer

TDS is a satire of news and journalism, though, not politics. When they take themselves seriously as Purveyors of Truth they're off-mission. It's nothing serious or problematic, I just think the format of that bit wasn't well-suited to the show.

I always thought the bigger off-mission thing was interviewing The Enemy, be it Kissinger, Chris Matthews or Chuck Schumer.

I have to admit I like seeing Chris Matthews off his own turf, and Jay Leno doesn't count because he's just a fucking enabler. I appreciate that Jon Stewart will poke him right in the eye while Matthews is too stupid to realize what's happening.

Morbs if that were part of the mission Stewart wouldn't give people like Dole, Gingrich, Israel's UN ambassador etc a free fucking ride.

My least favorite part of the show.

I still don't even understand the point of having these losers on -- it's not educational or even entertaining, is it supposed to be prestigious to have the likes of Kissinger as a guest.

Well it would explain to people who saw Watchmen who the guy with the glasses was talking to the dude with the fake nose.

Guys I think I just out-bittered Morbius.

rarely educational, usually not that entertaining -- mostly it's just the Enemy (or whatever) coming to take their lumps and show the world that they're just regular dudes and daily show fans

It happens. xp