Posted Mar 28th 2007 12:20PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Late Night, OpEd, Watercooler Talk, The Colbert Report, Comedy Central
This is not a column that is going to say that
The Colbert Report has stopped being funny. The show is still strong in that regard, delivering at least one good laugh per episode. But what I'm concerned about that it seems as if the writers of the show are going through a creative drought right now, and I'm wondering if they're going to come back from that drought.
The big indicator to me that there's a bit of an ebb is that lately the producers have been booking two guests on a single show; one gets interviewed during the first segment and the other gets interviewed during the usual third segment. Last night, Colbert spoke to Madeleine Albright, and in previous weeks, first-segment guests have included Al Sharpton, Ben and Jerry, and District of Columbia's congressional delegate Elanor Holmes Norton. While I'd imagine these segments do entail some writing, as Stephen tries to figure out the direction of his questioning, much of the comedy in these interviews depends heavily on his impressive improvisation skills.
Continue reading Is The Colbert Report hitting a creative pothole?
Posted Mar 22nd 2007 4:44PM by Brad Linder
Filed under: PVR Wire, The Daily Show, Web, The Colbert Report
Remember how Viacom asked YouTube to remove 100,000 videos? Then after Google takes down as many videos as it can, Viacom sues the company for $1 billion, saying Google is profiting from Viacom content including clips from
The Daily Show and
The Colbert Report?
Right, so now, about a week later, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has turned around and
sued Viacom, claiming that one of the videos in question was actually a parody of
The Colbert Report, and protected under fair use. The video, produced by MoveOn parodies both Stephen Colbert's schtick, and MoveOn's strategy of using online petitions to effect social change.
I'd embed the video, but as I've pointed out, it's no longer up on YouTube. You can, however, still check it out at
Falsiness.org.
Posted Mar 15th 2007 11:22AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, The Colbert Report, Comedy Central
Ever since Ben & Jerry's came out with Stephen Colbert's
AmeriCone Dream flavor ice cream, I've been on a frantic search for a pint. Even with the aid of the
No Fact Zone blog's map, my quest has been fruitless... until today. Around noon, I got a panicked phone call from my friend, who told me that I needed to go to a nearby cafe as soon as possible because the dessert freezer was stocked with pints and pints of AmeriCone Dream. Of course, I picked one up as soon as possible and rushed it home. I had been waiting for this moment all my life (by "all my life", I mean "for the last few weeks") and I finally --
finally -- had a pint of the coveted ice cream. Waiting for my spoon. Waiting to turn into melty soup in my tummy.
Well, I've had a bit and, with great sadness, I am here to report that... I'm actually a little disappointed. Actually, I think this is the first time I haven't felt an overwhelming urge to polish off an entire pint of Ben & Jerry's in one sitting.
Continue reading The AmeriCone Dream is not Colbert-worthy
Posted Mar 11th 2007 10:01AM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, The Colbert Report, Comedy Central
Just reading the description of The Stephen Colbert, a pork chop from Trio's Restaurant in Little Rock, Arkansas has me salivating like Pavlov's dog:
If you love freedom, and we know you do, you'll love this porkchop: a porterhouse cut pork chop marinated in an apple marinade, grilled, and covered with a South Carolina peach & ginger barbeque sauce served with Sweet Home black-eyed peas, chipotle-white cheddar mashed potatoes and sautéed Swiss chard.
Continue reading First Colbert gets his own ice cream, and now a pork chop?
Posted Mar 1st 2007 4:41PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: TV Royalty, The Colbert Report, Celebrities
Ben & Jerry's has released the all-new
AmeriCone Dream flavor ice cream, a salute to everybody's favorite faux right-winger, Stephen Colbert. Right now, it's as hot as an ice cream can get without turning into soup. Unfortunately, some people are having trouble finding supermarkets and stores that sell the flavor. Well, fear not, Colbert Nation members who are not lactose intolerant! The
No Fact Zone blog has started a wonderful little project to help
Colbert Report fans all across the US.
Here, you can find a Google Map of various locations that carry the flavor. The map is always growing because it is based on user-submitted finds. Track down a pint, or help out the rest of us by putting your local AmeriCone Dream store on the map!
Posted Feb 7th 2007 8:36AM by Julia Ward
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, The Colbert Report, Celebrities, Comedy Central
The rumors have reached a fever pitch. Will Ben and Jerry's be producing a Stephen Colbert-inspired ice cream? Well, take a look at this. It's a packaging sample sent to Colbert fan site
No Fact Zone by a Whole Foods corporate employee.
Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream. Vanilla Ice Cream with Fudge Covered Vanilla Cone Pieces and a Caramel Swirl. Ben and Jerry's will neither confirm nor deny the partnership. However, they did tell
Salon that "...there's been a lot of experimentation with red, white and blue."
So truthy, it's giving me brain freeze just thinking about it.
Posted Feb 6th 2007 1:02PM by Julia Ward
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Celebrities, Comedy Central
Watch your backs, Harvard alum. Yale's looking to take on the Crimson mafia's domination of televised comedy. For the uninformed, this is the fast track to a job as a television comedy writer:
1. Be a man - preferably a Catholic or a Jew. (More guilt = More funny)
2. Go to Harvard. (Legacy, class privilege, whatever it takes to get you there.)
3. Write for the
Lampoon.
That's it. Within a year or two of graduation, you should be writing for
Conan,
The Daily Show,
SNL,
The Office or
The Simpsons. Guaranteed. Or, is it? Certain Yalies are looking to challenge Harvard's stranglehold on the writer's room. The
Yale Daily News paints a picture of Yale's growing influence on comedy or, at least, Comedy Central. The article name-checks Yalies Lewis Black, Demetri Martin, John Hodgman,
Daily Show writer Steve Bodow and
Colbert Report head writer Allison Silervman. Hodgman offered, "By accident, maybe there is the beginning of a similar - extremely feeble - Yale network of professionals that may give the aspiring comedy writer on
Cross Campus a glimmer of hope." And, so the elitist pissing contest commences.
For those of you who want to pursue a career in comedy and can't afford the Ivy route, you will be happy to know that Jon Stewart attended the College of William and Mary, Tina Fey is a woman and Bob Odenkirk is an atheist.
[Via
CCInsider]
Posted Jan 29th 2007 6:28PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, The Colbert Report, Celebrities, Comedy Central
Mark your calendars and book your air travel; in a couple of months, "Stephen Colbert Day" will be celebrated in Oshawa, Ontario.
Last week, you may have heard Stephen Colbert play a statement by John Gray, the mayor of Oshawa. Gray stated that if his city's Ontario League hockey team, the
Generals, lost to the Saginaw (Michigan)
Spirit -- home of team mascot Steagle Colbeagle the Eagle -- that he would declare a day in the near future "Stephen Colbert Day."
The reason for the challenge? Colbert's rips on various teams in the OHL, including saying that the Oshawa team's annual teddy bear toss was "an obvious attempt to taunt me." (He hates bears, you know.) The Spirit
came through, winning the game 5-4; Colbert is requesting that his day be celebrated on March 20, which is Gray's birthday. If the Generals won, by the way, Colbert would have had to wear the team's jersey throughout one an episode of
The Colbert Report.
Continue reading Stephen Colbert Day declared in Oshawa after Saginaw hockey victory
Posted Jan 19th 2007 10:30PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Cable, Late Night, News, TV Royalty, OpEd, The Colbert Report, Celebrities, Comedy Central
After all the excitement from Comedy Central and the
web, I must say I was expecting a little more from the O'Reilly/Colbert appearance swap. Don't get me wrong, though, because I was definitely entertained. It's just that I didn't think the whole thing lived up to the hype. When it ended and the dust quickly cleared, I confusedly blinked and looked around. No carnage... Only mild scrapes, light bruises and the sound of my annoyingly exaggerated sighs. I wanted to see blood on those crisp French cuffs, damn it. Oh, well. I guess we can't get everything we want.
Continue reading Stephen Colbert, Bill O'Reilly and my sighs of disappointment - VIDEOS
Posted Jan 18th 2007 11:05AM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, FOX, The Colbert Report, Celebrities, Comedy Central, Talk Show
Tonight is the night, people. Set the TiVos and send the kids to bed early... Bill O'Reilly and Stephen Colbert will be guests
on each other's shows.
It all starts at 8 pm when Colbert goes to the
mothership Fox Newschannel to be interrupted and talked over on
The O'Reilly Factor. How will O'Reilly handle it? Will he pretend he doesn't get Colbert? Or, will he be a jerk? Will Stephen be able to hold his own or get a word in edgewise? Oh, I think so. And I think he'll be stroking Mr. O'Reilly's ego the entire time.
Then, at
10:30 11:30 pm the fun moves over to Comedy Central where 'Papa Bear' will be a guest on
The Colbert Report. It'll be interesting--to say the least--to see how Colbert handles O'Reilly's attempts to hijack his show (because you know he will).
Posted Jan 9th 2007 2:45PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Cable, The Colbert Report, Celebrities, Comedy Central, Talk Show
Papa Bear is coming home! After
much speculation, it is true. Bill O'Reilly will appear on
The Colbert Report, and Stephen Colbert will appear on
The O'Reilly Factor. That's gonna be huge. And that's the only way I can think of to get liberals to actually watch O'Reilly (although, there still may be throwing of remotes and/or shoes at the television set).
Stephen Colbert often refers to Bill O'Reilly as 'papa bear' and obviously emulates him and other conservative talk show hosts for his show. O'Reilly will no doubt be able to hold his own with Colbert, but can Colbert handle O'Reilly? I say yes. If Colbert can do
20 minutes in front of a not-very-amused President Bush, I think he can handle O'Reilly. It'll be a hoot to see those two throwing fake facts back and forth.
The two fellas are on each other's shows on January 18th. Mark your calendars. Set your TiVos.
Posted Jan 7th 2007 5:35PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Programming, OpEd, American Idol, Scrubs, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Festivus, Doctor Who, Project Runway, The Venture Bros., 30 Rock, Ugly Betty
I'm going to start off with the negative stuff, because I'm well aware that these are the gems that people want to read so that they can tell me how I'm so horribly, horribly wrong.
I'm not angry, just disappointed: Project Runway, Scrubs. God,
Project Runway was just plain painful this season. Not only did we have to put up with Vincent and Angela for an ungodly long time, they were brought back for an additional challenge! Then, Jeffrey, the designer with the worst collection of all (well, in my personal opinion), won the whole competition. Livid, I was. I definitely expected better taste from what I've long considered the classiest reality program on television. And as for
Scrubs, I think it's lost its charm... JD does that stupid nasal voice all the time (it's at its worst when he does that damn "zoom zoom zoom"), his pregnant girlfriend is an awful character, and Dr. Cox's hair looks like something ripped off a 70s model home floor. I used to think
Scrubs was hysterical, but it's really missing something now and I've almost lost complete motivation to watch. If the upcoming musical episode doesn't restore my faith, I doubt anything will.
Continue reading Best and Worst of 2006: Annie's list
Posted Jan 4th 2007 4:07PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, ABC, NBC, CBS, News, OpEd, Gilmore Girls, Saturday Night Live, Scrubs, The Simpsons, Grey's Anatomy, The Colbert Report, How I Met Your Mother, The Office, South Park, Last Comic Standing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Class, 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights, Ugly Betty
I'm going to dispense with traditional "Best" and "Worst" lists and just use the tried-and-true journalistic method of "made-up categories." Why? Well, firstly, everyone's sick of seeing "Best" and "Worst" lists by this point, considering every newspaper and magazine did one over Christmas week. Secondly, to be honest, the list would end up looking like everyone else's. How much of a limb am I going out on, for instance, to say that
The Office was one of the best comedies this year? Exactly!
So, let's start with the Good Stuff, and then do the Bad Stuff:
Continue reading Best and Worst of 2006: Joel's list
Posted Jan 3rd 2007 7:28PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, The Colbert Report, Celebrities, Comedy Central
Say what you want about Bill O'Reilly (and I know you will), but the man has no qualms about stepping into the ring with those who disagree with him. He's appeared on both The Daily Show and Late Show with David Letterman, so why would he be shy about appearing on The Colbert Report, a show that, in many ways, owes its existence, or at the very least, its aesthetic, to The O'Reilly Factor? I've said here before I actually liked O'Reilly before his ego outgrew him, but I still love to watch his appearances on Letterman. As annoyed as Dave seems when O'Reilly is on, you know deep down he revels in those confrontational moments.
Continue reading Will O'Reilly appear on The Colbert Report?
Posted Dec 21st 2006 1:01PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Cable, OpEd, The Colbert Report, Celebrities, Comedy Central
Last night's episode of
The Colbert Report, the heavily promoted "shred-off" between Stephen Colbert and The Decemberists' guitarist Chris Funk, was an amazing way to wrap up the show's 2006 run. It was a star-studded affair and, although I was a little disappointed in Colbert (read on and you'll see why), I quite enjoyed it. By the way, did anyone else expect the actual "shred-off" to be a few rounds of Guitar Hero?
Continue reading The Colbert Report: Countdown to Guitarmageddon -- VIDEO
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