The Colbert Report: Tearing News a New One [R]

[Crimen y Castigo]

http://www.rightonnews.com/images/t.250.cobert.jpg

He's not afraid of anything. Except maybe bears.

http://www.nndb.com/people/509/000026431/colbert2-sized.jpg

Premiering Oct. 17.
Here's hoping.

[purojogo]

http://www.rightonnews.com/images/t.250.cobert.jpg

He's not afraid of anything. Except maybe bears.

http://www.nndb.com/people/509/000026431/colbert2-sized.jpg

Premiering Oct. 17.
Here's hoping.
This is all i'm saying: Colbert used to be a writer (besides a "correspondent") for TDS...Maybe just coincidence, but lately TDS has not been all that funny as it used to......At least hopefully this show is quite good on its own....

I guess he can draw inspiration from the worst (meaning the most) of what the "Scarboroguhs, Limbaughs, O'Reillys, Blitzers" of the world have to offer...

Only added Blitzer to mention someone from CNN, plus after listening to his interview or "reverend" PAt, i could not be any more convinced of what a tool he is....actually both are.....gotta love that art of never questioning....

[obie]

OK, I wasn't going to do this, but I'm procrastinating at work.

I went to a test taping last night with Mrs. obie, both of us huge TDS fans, and neither of us left that impressed. One truly funny segment, one mildly amusing, one that was really forced, and an interview that forced Colbert to totally switch gears from blowhard to nice guy. But as with all things Colbert-related (hell, I've had a Colbert quote as my .sig for nearly a year now), I still have hope because we could see some good ideas in several places. Spoilers hidden...

The Set
The best part of the night was finding stupid things on the set. It's a mix of TDS's old desk and a bookshelf / living room motif, with Colbert tchotchkes everywhere. They include an eagle's nest, an Emmy and a Peabody (both real), a picture of Colbert chiseled into Mount Rushmore, a painting of Colbert looking serious and standing in front of... another picture of Colbert, copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, a sword, a pelt of some small animal (squirrel?), and a bookshelf filled with Cliff's Notes. There was also a mini-segment where he placed a Chewbacca action figure on the shelf in tribute to Peter Mayhew, who just recently became an American citizen. This concluded getting all of the Star Wars cast members to be American, except Alec Guinness because he's dead, and David Prouse, and a couple of the droids are holdouts, but you get the point -- all the heros are American now, or dead.

The 1st Segment
The first segment was about "The Wørd", Colbert's word of the day. The word of the day was "sex-boat", about the Vikings / hookers story. His conclusion was that we have to stop arresting professional athletes, explained through the annoying live action on the left / text on the right format that O'Reilly uses. The text was a big group of non-sequiturs, like "ALL HAIL ODIN!" Very funny bit.

The 2nd Segment
What with cloning just around the corner, we will eventually be able to bring back legendary people from the dead. So he had a segment called "Bring 'Em Back Or Leave 'Em Dead" -- cute idea but it just didn't work. His first call to bring 'em back was Torquemada, so that he could torture Tom Delay into giving up his indictment fight. Funny, but then he wanted to bring back Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's. That failed. My guess is that they'll dump this.

I'll recap the interview and the last segment later today, including a surprise guest appearance that I think will be a recurring bit.

[sch2383]

I'm gonna give this show some time to find its stride. Its a win-win for viewers. Either its a great new show or Colbert just goes back to the Daily Show.

[Quango]

What will happen to "This Week in God?"

[obie]

What will happen to "This Week in God?"
It's going to continue but Rob Corddry will do it.

[Crimen y Castigo]

What will happen to "This Week in God?"

Now there's a crucial question.

Obie gives voice to my hidden fear: sucky things happen to funny people. But I'll definitely give this show a while before I throw in the towel.

By the way, here's pretty good Colbert interview on Fresh Air. (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4464017)


beep-bop-boop-bi-beep-bop-bip-boop-beep-beep-bop-boop-bi-beep-bop-bip-
boop-beep-beep-bop-boop-bi ... beep ... bop ... boooooooop

[obie]

Part 2 of the test show:

The Interview
The interview was real, with the guy who wrote Friday Night Lights and Three Days in August. This to me was the toughest segment b/c Colbert was so in character for the first half of the show and he became a bit of a softie. It started with Colbert mentioning that the author used to write for NYPD Blue, and did he ever win an Emmy for that work, because Colbert has an Emmy, and would he like to touch it if he never has touched one before? So far, this was keeping with the spirit of the show, but he then did the same thing with the Peabody – the author had won a Pulitzer, though, and they got into a little bit about how there should be a fight between their awards and Colbert broke character, and the two talked chummily for the next few minutes. My personal opinion is that they shouldn’t do interviews for this show, or if they do, Colbert has to ask questions that show he knows nothing about the subject – the problem is that the interviewee is already in on the joke. We’ll see what happens with this.

The Final Segment
After the interview he started insulting this left-leaning radio show host who said that it was offensive to think that that idiot Colbert deserved his own cable TV show. They played a clip of the radio host, and it was David Cross. Cute idea but it was not especially funny and only about two minutes – I think that they may play this up a bit, with Cross becoming Colbert’s nemesis. There’s potential there.

(Forgive all the letters in italics; just trying to circumvent that asinine link adbot.)

So that’s it. Shows starts Monday for real. If anyone wants to go to a taping (54th and 10th in Manhattan, Mon – Thurs 8 pm, be there by 6:30 – they didn't actually start taping until 8:30 and the wait was a pain) PM me.

[NotAbbott]

What will happen to "This Week in God?"

How cool would it be if they could bring back Joe Bob from the early "God Stuff" days?

Also, Bill O'Reilly is on the Daily Show on Tuesday. That could be interesting.

Later,
COZ

[bmurphyfl]

Also, Bill O'Reilly is on the Daily Show on Tuesday. That could be interesting.

The first line from Stewart should be: "I understand that you like falafels."

[quentinc]

It's the Colbert Réport, silly.

[BayernWake]

http://www.rightonnews.com/images/t.250.cobert.jpg

He's not afraid of anything. Except maybe bears.

http://www.nndb.com/people/509/000026431/colbert2-sized.jpg

Premiering Oct. 17.
Here's hoping.

Sweet moses, thanks for reminding me. I completely forgot.

By the way, does anyone know if it will re-air the following day (TDS re-airs at 10 AM and 8 PM)?

[YankHibee]

30 minutes and counting.

[BayernWake]

I don't like to be too liberal with the word "hilarious," but the Colbert Report was literally just that. I don't know how they'll keep this up four (five?) days a week. Great job by the writers/Colbert/Stone Phillps.

[emp2b3]

I thought that it kind of stuttered along, but that it was still worth watching and I'm hoping that it only gets better. He has O'Reilly down pretty well with the first segment with the talking points to the side, and he is continually messing with his glasses like Aaron Brown.

[YankHibee]

I thought it was pretty damn good. There was some room for improvement and a couple odd moments, but geez did you see how bad Adam Carolla was in his debut (not that he has improved much)? Anyway, it was solid.

[Chicago1871]

Overall I thought they were trying a bit too hard a couple of times to be inane. The subtle jokes (i.e. the opening montage, the O'Reilly screen setup, the glasses, the mannerisms and such) were pretty good, but as Obie said, it seemed forced. The interview with Stone Phillips seemed awkward, but had it's funny moments. The Gravitas segment was great though. For it's debut I want to give it a B-, but I'm going to give it a C+. Hopefully it will hit it's stride sooner rather than later.

[bmurphyfl]

I enjoyed it and will watch again. However, like someone else said, I don't know how they'll sustain it. There are only so many things you can parody about those talk/opinion shows before it'll just become repetitive. Hopefully, I'll be proven wrong.

[Brian T]

Its a shame to see him leave the Daily Show, he was far and away the best person, writer, correspondant and as somebody said, his absence is already missed. If Helms and Corddry leave, there's no point to have the Daily Show anymore.

Colbert is one of the funniest men on the face of the Earth!

[Crimen y Castigo]

As a lifelong skeptic and pessimist I thought it was damn funny, period, and extremely good for a debut show.

LOVE the set and the intro eagle flying, literally-flag-waving stuff. As well as "Colbert" everywhere, and the big C desk, the multiple portraits, the Emmy and Peabody.... Maybe I'm easy, but that sh!t cracks me up.

But yes, the format does seem to have a much more obvious "sell-by" date than The Daily Show--the format of which is somewhat timeless.

Fingers crossed ... .... ... ... bitch.