Posts tagged Episode Guides

EPISODE NUMBER: 7058 (May 3, 2011)
GUESTS: Rex Ryan
SEGMENTS: Osama Bin Laden is Still Dead, Obama Takes Credit for Bin Laden’s Assassination, Journalistic Grintegrity
VIDEOS: Tuesday, May 3, 2011

After Monday’s slam dunk of a show, this one was a little more subdued, but there’s still plenty to talk about where Bin Laden is concerned. Yes, he’s still dead, thank goodness, but accusing him of owning a Zune is a low blow. The shout-out to SEAL Team Six, a.k.a. the “Abottabadasses,” was excellent, even if the guess at their identities might have been a bit off. I’m thinking Kung Fu Panda might be a little too tubby to get through the training, but whatever. The idea of turning Bin Laden’s corpse into a piñata for Cinco de Mayo was so very wrong, but I couldn’t help laughing. The fact that Obama’s poll numbers went up shouldn’t be a surprise, but as Glenn Beck so helpfully pointed out, it would’ve happened to anyone. Could’ve happened to a shoe. Stephen’s “quick, find out if that shoe’s a Republican!!” made me laugh pretty hard. At this point, the shoe is a better candidate than anyone else out there.

Calling Donald Trump a “golden-helmeted noise warrior” was one of the best insults I’ve heard aimed at him so far. Newspeople baffle me sometimes. Why all the inappropriate glee over bad news that could make people’s lives difficult? Oh, wait, it’ll screw with Obama’s poll numbers, so it’s good. (*rolls eyes*) Anyway… I enjoyed watching Stephen lick some of the frosting from that cake.

I honestly wondered how the interview with Rex Ryan would go because Stephen isn’t really a sports guy. I’m not sure that Ryan really had much to say, which I understand is unusual for him. He laughed a bit too much at Stephen’s questions to make this an interesting conversation. I did like the analogy of football as a flapjack, even if I couldn’t quite follow the logic. “I think someone’s going to be eating breakfast soon!” And that “special kiss” during the sign-off? Adorable. Even if he was sending it out to himself.

What were your favorite moments from the show? Let us know in the comments!

Original Article

EPISODE NUMBER: 7057 (May 2, 2011)
GUESTS: Richard Haass, Francis Fukuyama
SEGMENTS: Long-Awaited “We Got Bin Laden” Party, Carefree Pre-9/11 World, Relations with Pakistan - Richard Haass
VIDEOS: Monday, May 2, 2011

Well hey there, Zoners! We’re all caught up on past episode guides, so now we’re hopefully back to getting these posted in a little more timely manner. And I have to say, this is one show I thought I’d never see — the “We Got Bin Laden!” episode. I enjoyed watching Stephen do a table of contents for the show-that-might’ve-been, but of course there was no way he was going to talk about anything other than Sunday’s big news. I think he did a fantastic job of balancing the “woo hoo, we got him!” celebration with the genuine questions that still remain even now that Bin Laden is gone. And he even gave President Obama the credit he deserved for overseeing the plan for the successful operation… for exactly thirty minutes. The long-delayed balloon drop with the celebratory broccoli-colored cake was a funny touch, but my favorite part was the “Bin Laden is dead” montage, complete with the fantastically appropriate Wizard of Oz clip. I don’t know about you guys, but I had “Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead” kind of stuck in my head for most of the day yesterday. And this is no lie, at some point yesterday morning, I wondered how much of last night’s show Stephen and the writers would have to rewrite because of Sunday’s events!

As Stephen discussed with both guests, the fact that we got Bin Laden doesn’t also mean the end of the story. While there’s a tremendous sense of relief that he’s finally, finally gone, there are still some important issues as a result, including what this means for our relationship with Pakistan. (Come on, how could they not know he was there?) And Bin Laden’s death is only the end of one chapter in the fight against terrorism. But for now, while I’m not exactly celebrating (I’m like Stephen, I want this to be the last time I feel happy about someone’s death), I do feel relieved, and I hope Sunday’s events bring some closure to the families of the 9/11 victims. I also feel a great sense of pride in our special ops troops — specifically, Navy SEAL Team Six — who were able to carry out Sunday’s operation successfully and without any U.S. casualties.

There’s a lot to talk about with this episode, and I’m sure you guys have some thoughts on Sunday’s events. Share with us in the comments!

Original Article

EPISODE NUMBER: 7056 (April 28, 2011)
GUESTS: Russ Feingold, Wade Graham
SEGMENTS: The ‘Report’ is in England!, the Loophole-ulator 6400, Progressives United, Terror Alert system eliminated.
VIDEOS: Thursday, April 28, 2011

Wow! Stephen’s in England! And the whole set is so Red-White-And-Blue! You know. Like British. Hip-Hip-Cheerio! And fog, too. It was all too smashing. I’m so glad he’ll get to use all his comportment training, even if he doesn’t get the official invite. Just watch that pinky, Stephen.

I think they managed to get all the possible stereotypes squeezed in there, And the bad disappearing acts throughout the show was just the right silly to add.
I’m guessing Long John Silver won’t be a sponsor of the program any time soon. That was definitely not how product placement is supposed to go. Aaaargh!

I had visions of a metaphor-off between Stephen and Russ Feingold when they started the Pac versus Superpac analogies and somehow Feingold managed to come up with the boomeranging blunderbuss. Shame on Russ for wanting to muzzle minorities (=corporations) in our political process. He won’t even let his daughter date a corporation. Be sure to go to CatsWearingThongs.org to check out Progressives United.

And it’s about time they eliminated the “Sherwin-Williams paint swatches of doom” - just last week I was trying to explain to someone visiting the United States what the levels were but had to add that they have never been anything but orange or red since inceptions. At least not that I can remember. The permanently clinched sphincter is just about the right analogy for this one. But now we have terror tweets!

Stephen unclinching his sphincter for the first time in 9 years had me giggling and, call me old school, the simple “technical difficulties” graphic just might be my favorite.

The Wade Graham interview was more interesting than I thought - even before Stephen steered the conversation to people having sex in gardens. And I’m interested in reading the writing of anyone who can describe a chia-pet as a ‘garden of modest ambition’ off the top of his head. I really like his sharp sense of humour and thought he played off of Stephen very well, responding to ridiculous statements with an apparently straight answers with a straight face.

And how classy was the Colbert Report theme song at the end? Be sure to discuss your favorite quotes or moments from the episode in the comments!

Original Article

EPISODE NUMBER: 7055 (April 27, 2011)
GUESTS: Ice-T
SEGMENTS: America Needs to See Obama’s Report Cards, Tip of the Hat/Wag of the Finger, Anderson Cooper Goes on the Absurd-U-Chart
VIDEOS: Wednesday, April 27, 2011

It was pretty much a given that Stephen would address the release of President Obama’s long-form birth certificate on this episode, and he echoed my own thoughts by saying it was a “crazy fringe idea” that the controversy would finally end. And that video of Donald Trump giving himself all the credit for forcing Obama to release the long-form certificate should wipe away any doubt that he is a complete jack@ss whose only goal is to promote himself. Stephen’s rant about how we now need to see Obama’s college records and report cards perfectly echoes so much of what some conservatives have been spouting since the day Obama took office.

I think Stephen has the right idea to keep the air traffic controllers awake by putting them in a coach seat, because I can’t imagine anything less conducive to sleep. I had no idea that wearing a certain type of Casio watch was a sure sign of a terrorist. I’ll be checking wrists a lot more often now so I can stay as far away as possible from anyone wearing a Casio watch. And that Lady Liberty stamp made me snicker because putting the Lady Liberty in Vegas on a stamp seems kind of appropriate. Nice going, Getty Images and the USPS. I’ll be asking for some of those the next time I need to buy stamps.

I love me a good Colbert feud, whether it’s Stephen feuding with Conan O’Brien, or his ongoing love/hate thing with Jon Stewart. So a totally manufactured feud with Anderson Cooper ought to be fun, assuming Anderson takes the bait. But now I have to wonder, which is worse: having Stephen add you to the On Notice board, or having him put you on the Absurd-U-Chart. I was pretty amused to see that he already had what looked like Obama’s short-form birth certificate on there.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect from the interview with Ice-T, but it turned out to be an interesting conversation. Karenatasha commented in the FCL for this week that some of you young ‘uns might only know Ice-T as an actor and not a musician; I’m old and out of touch, so I only remember him as a musician and didn’t realize he’s been an actor all these years. I love that Stephen asked for some street cred and Ice-T assured him that he was “good in the hood.”

What were your favorite moments in the episode? Add ‘em to the comments!

Original Article

EPISODE NUMBER: 7054 (April 26, 2011)
GUESTS: A.C. Grayling
SEGMENTS: Mitt Romney’s “peacetime” gaffe, Current Events, Charles Manson believes in global warming
VIDEOS: Tuesday, April 26, 2011

I mentioned in the episode guide for Monday’s show that I’m already suffering from a bit of 2012 election fatigue, and every once in a while I wish that Stephen would simply not discuss it during the course of a show. But when you take a look at the field of potential Republican candidates, how can anyone ignore the spontaneous stupidity coming from them? Mitt Romney’s gaffe being a case in point. If I was a Republican strategist, I think I’d be drinking heavily right about now, because none of the potential candidates look like contenders who can be taken seriously.

The Current Events segment started off well, with a prop failure and a little character break, and prop failures are never not funny. But I was shocked (pun totally intended) to see the footage of the security personnel at the Pittsburgh Pirates game use a taser on a drunk fan. I mean, who would think you’d encounter drunkenness and foul language at a baseball game? (*snerk*) But I laughed pretty hard at the idea of using some of those Taser Shockwave things to stun the entire crowd at a Washington Nationals-Pittsburgh Pirates game, because seriously, the crowds are sometimes really that small. The addition of pepper spray to this particular segment amused me, until I saw that it had been used on an eight-year-old — that’s just seriously wrong. I can’t decide if Gretchen Carlson was kidding or not when she said using pepper spray on kids was appropriate. Either way, I’d hate to be one of her kids.

Charles Manson creeps me out, because the guy is in a whole different class of crazy by himself. On the other hand, the idea of saying “…so you agree with Charles Manson?” to someone when talking about global warming is pretty amusing. Bringing in the “Schenectady Slasher” to get his opinion on Obamacare was a nice touch, and by nice I mean almost as creepy as Charles Manson. I liked the attention to detail: the Slasher’s name, Harvey Wayne Wilkes, borrowed the middle names of presidential assassins Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth, while “Wayne” is a freakishly common middle name for murderers (according to News of the Weird, which has even compiled a list demonstrating that fact).

I was looking forward to the interview with A.C. Grayling, expecting Stephen to give him a hard time over having the balls to write a humanist bible that leaves out God. Stephen brought it, but Dr. Grayling didn’t really engage him the way I hoped he would. He explained his objective in writing the book, but didn’t do go much beyond that so I was left a little disappointed. I’m not sure he really “got” Stephen.

What did you folks think about the episode? Let us know in the comments!

Original Article

EPISODE NUMBER: 7053 (April 25, 2011)
GUESTS: Ron Paul
SEGMENTS: Stephen Goes on a Catholic Bender, Obama’s Tax Return & Road to the Trump House, Cheating Death
VIDEOS: Monday, April 25, 2011

I’m always so happy when Stephen returns from a break, and this show was full of hilarity to get the week started right! First there was a new word in the opening: Word Hurdler. Just saying it makes me giggle. But what really got me laughing very hard at the top of the show was the image of Stephen going on a Catholic bender. No wonder he was hung over, the poor guy. This was one of the funniest segments of Catholic humor I’ve ever seen him do. But hey, after giving up Catholicism for Lent, he needed to indulge a little. And honestly, I wouldn’t object at all if he ever wanted to bless me without my consent.

I’m already suffering a little from 2012 election fatigue, and all this attention going to Donald Trump as a potential candidate isn’t helping. I can’t take him seriously, yet I’m horrified at the thought that so many people apparently do think he’s a suitable candidate for president. Best part of that segment for me was seeing Stephen’s gleeful smile when he got the audience to chant “rich people! rich people!”

Cheating Death is always one of my favorite segments, because you know that Stephen is going to crack himself up at some point. The character break while he was describing Vaxa Vacsa-Not-Masturbating was epic. I loved the fact that even while trying to hide behind the suit jacket you could tell he couldn’t control that case of the giggles. The entire segment was excellent, although as someone who probably qualifies as “cheerfully obese,” I found the Vacsa-Band External Diet Collar slightly horrifying, in a hilarious way. Because what could possibly go wrong with that? But the Vacsa-Not-Masturbating was a brilliant piece of silliness. I especially liked that the fake hands had both a watch and a WristStrong bracelet. And that guy pictured using the Vacsa-Not-Masturbating? Matt Lappin. Having Matt pose as whatever kind of perv they need for the graphics is becoming a running joke, and it gets funnier every time.

The interview with Ron Paul was entertaining, if a little surreal. He starts talking about the Fed, and my brain sort of fogs over, mostly because I don’t understand a word of it. But he and Stephen both seemed to enjoy the interview.

So what were your favorite moments from the show? Share them in the comments!

Original Article

EPISODE NUMBER: 7052 (April 14, 2011)
GUESTS: Trevor Potter, Caroline Kennedy
SEGMENTS: Obama Needs Charts and Graphs, Viacom Ruins Stephen’s PAC Dream, Colbert Super PAC, Easter Under Attack - Egg Edition
VIDEOS: Thursday, April 14, 2011

Some nights the writing crew at The Colbert Report find that perfect balance of absolutely silly and spot on commentary that makes me fall in love with the show all over again. Within the first two minutes I was already in giggles from pointy-ear surgery, to our Vulcan-in-Chief, to Ross Perot (“Can I finish here? Can I finish here?”). Yea, I remember his charts and graphs. And who gets the job making up a Venn Diagram for Martin Luther King Jr’s ‘I have a dream’ speech?

I’m so proud of the Colbert Nation for doing the right thing: “giving their e-mail address to a complete stranger on the internet” at www.ColbertPAC.com. Boo to Viacom lawyers for trying to shut it down! And before I sound bitter about lawyers, thank goodness Trever Potter was there with the cover letter to make the PAC a Super-PAC! Just to see the joy on Stephen’s face as he discusses that his Super-PAC would get to be legally required to produce adverts without the candidates participation or their permission! Ahh, the mob ready to take on 2012…

The Easter Under Attack graphic has long been one of my favorites - yes, Jesus is Packing! Thank you, Stephen, for reminding us all about Jesus, the original Easter Egg and St. Peter Rabbit.

How nice of Caroline Kennedy to show up and give Stephen the opportunity to recite Byron! For all those poetry fans, in lieu of a screen cap, I’ll leave you a clip of Stephen and Caroline reading

Original Article

EPISODE NUMBER: 7051 (April 13, 2011)
GUESTS: Morgan Spurlock
SEGMENTS: Tim Pawlenty Declares Candidacy Before He’s Ready, The Word - Buy and Cellulite, The Enemy Within - Unicyclists
VIDEOS: Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Stephen definitely started the show with a strong message for those young presidential candidate - wait for the right pundit to make your announcement to, and don’t waste it on someone like Piers Morgan. Maybe we should get them all engraved Announcement Purity Rings - “It can wait … for Anderson Cooper.”

So I’m still confused - what does that new deodorant do for women’s underarms exactly? Does it exfoliate? Or leave the armpits hair-free for longer? I laughed pretty hard at this, until it hit me that I’ve been going to laser hair removal for my pits for months now. So who am I to judge, really? Also, with my elbow waddle, I won’t be going sleeveless any time soon anyway.

The Unicyclist segment was pretty funny, but for me the highlight of the show was the Morgan Spurlock interview. Stephen Colbert made headlines during his 2008 presidential run for being sponsored by Doritos, and he has been on the cutting edge of ironic product placement for years (Nutz anyone?). To hear him talk about the issues of product placement in movies and media, and the fact that product placement has gone from being an afterthought to the creative process to the center of creative processes, was fascinating to me. I’ve been a fan of Spurlock since Super Size Me, and look forward to seeing his new movie.

What did all of you think of the episode? Leave it in the comments!

Original Article

EPISODE NUMBER: 7050 (April 12, 2011)
GUESTS: Rick Brookhiser, Ray Kurzweil
SEGMENTS: Jon Kyl Tweets Not Intended to Be Factual Statements, Mitt Happens - Rick Brookhiser, Threat Level: Rainbow
VIDEOS: Tuesday, April 12, 2011

I love it when something that Stephen does goes viral, and that includes the #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement meme on Twitter. That was a serious slice of awesome. I want to get jazzed about the 2012 Republican nominee, I really do, but on the other hand, I’m still burned out from the 2008 election. Is that wrong of me to have 2012 fatigue before anyone’s actually declared their candidacy for president?

I think “Onomatopoeic American Bob Vander Plaats” is about my favorite adjective/put-down Stephen’s used in a long time. And the comparison to starting smoking to starting a gay lifestyle had me in tears. (“Then your dad catches you smoking one, and to teach you a lesson, he makes you go through a whole pack.”) And the return of the Techno Colbert Report theme was the perfect cherry on top of this comedy sundae.

I shudder to think of a world with little teeny tiny bots surging through my body. But you’ll pry my iPhone out of my cold, dead, hands so I’ll just have to see what the future holds, I guess.

What did you think of this episode? Leave it in the comments!

Original Article

EPISODE NUMBER: 7049 (April 11, 2011)
GUESTS: Jamie Hyneman & Adam Savage
SEGMENTS: Countdown to Government Shutdown, Pap Smears at Walgreens, Thought For Food
VIDEOS: Monday, April 11, 2011

I don’t know which was cuter, Stephen in cowboy pajamas or Stephen amused at himself in cowboy pajamas. That colonoscopy character break was absolutely classic. It’s been a while since we had one that good. Stephen sure made those Choxogen bars look tasty - “I am just inhaling these things” (ha!). The “Just Add Bacon” mentality of Denny’s is wrong on so many levels, but a bacon sundae? Ew. I have to admit, I’m a bit burned out on bacon.

Stephen is so adorable when he’s got the spark of childish wonder in his eyes, which made the interview with the “Mythbuster” duo of Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage particularly wonderful. Stephen’s suggestion of testing evolution by throwing a mouse in a glass of water made me have quite the “I Am America” flashback. The amusement of Stephen as he pitched the Baby with the Bathwater test was just delightful.

What did all of you think of this show? Leave it in the comments!

Original Article