The Daily Show

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"