Stephen Colbert has a new show!

This guy made a salient point: "Even Bill O'Reilly knows that Bill O'Reilly is already a caricature, and even a fan of Colbert's preening idiot routine can start feeling claustrophobic after a whole 22 minutes of it." That simpering eunuch Aaron Brown seems more parodyable (tho I'd assume the SNL guy's version is toothless).

I think this is off. Jon is extremely quick and knows how to steer and recover from awkward interview quagmires much better, though I'll admit Colbert is already very good and getting better, especially as he's burdened with having to keep in character. A bigger hurdle is that the in-character interview conceit requires not only willing but most importantly able participants(who can get in a word edgewise - the interviews I've seen reveal Colbert to be a less than generous comedy partner). I think the way to go is to book either known "bright bulbs" and/or book complete stiffs and approximate an Ali-G dynamic, anything in between kinda sucks.

I suspect it will get better, and I suspect eventually the Daily Show will make up for its less than stellar correspondants.

I do wish the Colbert Report had less "skit" flavor. On the other hand, that Jeff Daniels interview was excellent, and very smoothly played by Colbert.

Ali G dynamic will not work with a studio audience, and since all the guests so far seem to know who/what Colbert is.

SC did manage to mock Nixon's Last Secretary without being crude; that was good.

And at least he hasn't stuck his nose up Mike Wallace's tabloid-geezer ass the way Stewart did the other night.

Does anybody know how its doing ratingswise? I'm wondering if it loses people due to the lack of liberal self-identifaction. People I know who claim to only get their news from the Daily Show (former employers even, yeesh) might not care for it.

x-post and yeah, that Wallace thing reaffirms the "but seriously..." shit is comedy death.

It's been been renewed for a whole year, so I guess it must be doing okay.

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Yeah, I noticed that when Bob Kerrey was on this week. Colbert deliberately set up recent talking points one-by-one for Bob to knock 'em all down.

Incredibly enough, I'm convinced a significant chunk of Colbert's viewers don't get the joke, if the studio audience is any indication. His apex was the "Rosa Parks: Overrated" bit -- TRUE satire -- and they started to hoot distressingly. Idiots.

this show is so much fun to watch!

the interviews still play out really freakin weird. but the WORD is generally awesome. threatdown is freakin great. etc. it's little things like the grizzly bear hate speech and stuff...

m.

-- Dr Morbius (wjwe...) (webmail), November 21st, 2005. (Dr Morbius)

OTM. I have a pretty moderate but right wing Republican friend who I watched the Colbert Report with. For whatever reason, I pointed out to him that it was an O'Reilly satire, and he'd never thought of that before. A couple days later he told me, "You know what, you were right! That's why there's the American flags everywhere and the eagles and stuff. It also explains why I like it."

Haha.

[I wonder if Al Sharpton was maybe a bit pissed since Stephen pretended to be him on the Daily Show when The Rev couldn't be bothered to show up.]

I can't help but be a little depressed, though, or maybe just angry, that it would appear that the only news you can get anymore that's actually honest, as opposed to "balanced," has to be couched in all this ridiculousness and irony to A) avoid being constantly attacked and protested B) get people to watch.

I mean I go see "Good Night, and Good Luck" only to come home and realize that the only people who are currently capable of taking our sitting administration to task for half the shit they pull are two comedians who air after 11pm. Every other tv journo has to censor themselves or pay lip service to shit like "intelligent design" while pulling a straight face. I suppose the question is: Is this perfectly appropriate for the sort of MSM culture we've made for ourselves, or is this really, really pathetic and a sign of America's downfall?

Tell that to the stand-in Rush LimbaughBot I heard spew a few days ago: he defended the helping friendly folks @ Wal-Mart against those nasty liberals because of this salient fact (and I sorta quote): "they sell quality goods at competitive prices." Nothing about the actual issues bandied about by anyone re: Wal-Mart shadiness; dude thinks that buying mondo-sized pickle jars for pennies a gherkin trumps any & all issues, and (of course) thinks you should believe the same thing. Unless you hate America.

But you're Canadian, aren't you, Thermo? YOU'RE ON NOTICE, FRENCHIE!