(Week of November 17, 2008)
Hey, kids! It’s time for a quick round-up of highlights from this week’s episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. This has been a pretty solid week, thanks to a handful of beautiful interviews. From people like Sir David Frost of the Frost/Nixon interviews to Paul Simon to Tom Brokaw, both Jon and Stephen have scored four days of guests that really should have nothing to do with Comedy Central. Come on. Honestly.
John Oliver lived one of my dreams by getting to go to town on CNN’s magic touch screen. Ever since I saw Jeff Han’s touch screen TED Talk (yes, I’m a geek, I watch those), I have been absolutely fascinated, so this was hilarious/amazing to me. Plus, the entire segment was wonderfully produced and probably one of Oliver’s best recent pieces. Well done, kids, well done. And bless John King for being such a sport (“The sprinkles make the cupcake, don’t you think?”)
Jon did several wonderful interviews this week. If you like watching two old friends goof around, the interview with Denis Leary was pretty good. My favorite was definitely the one with Sir David Frost, though, because not only was he surprisingly amusing, but he held his own against Jon without making things terribly awkward. What a legend, man.
Over on The Colbert Report, Stephen has been vying for a position in Barack Obama’s cabinet. His vetting process was highly amusing, if only because of the danger of “reemergence of the umbilical cord.” Now, if that isn’t terrifying, I don’t know what is.
He also had some really good in-studio guests, including Tom Brokaw, who did a marvelous interview about Obama’s cabinet.
And then some guy named Paul Simon stopped by. He’s a singer or something, I don’t know.
Don’t forget Stephen Colbert has his Christmas special airing Sunday night on Comedy Central! I mean, I don’t know how anyone could possibly not know about this because the man has been working non-stop to promote this everywhere, from NPR to Martha Stewart’s show to late night talk to my front yard. The DVD will be released on the 25th of November, so don’t miss that either. I’m especially looking forward to the book-burning Yule Log. Pitchfork has “Another Christmas Song” online, so you guys should check that out and imagine Stephen dancing around to it in a turtleneck and fuzzy boots.
Clacked by Annie Wu 
on Nov 23, 2008 @ 13:02 EST5EDT
