Stephen Colbert in the Zeitgeist 8/23/2006

Stephen’s been all over the frikkin’ place today. Since there’s so many actual articles in here, I’m going to reference them all here instead of making a plethora of different posts. Just go visit them. Dang, Stephen is totally getting the eLove today. I’ll share all I can find for today, Wednesday, August 23.

Also, if any of my faithful readers ever have a news tip, please feel free to put a comment somewhere and I’ll find it and blog about it. I’m all about the tips. Thanks!

ARTICLES FEATURING COLBERT

• Integrating TV And The Web: A Lesson From Stephen Colbert – Techdirt.com: This article is a response to an article from CNet.com which was a response about a different blog post from HuffingtonPost.com – “We’ve had some fun in the past pointing out some really bizarre statements from television execs who clearly don’t recognize the new media landscape they’re facing. However, we’re not quite sure what to make of this “former” TV exec who has jumped into the online news world of CNET’s News.com, but still seems somewhat confused about how the internet works. He’s talking about an amusing contest that Stephen Colbert launched this week on his TV show. Every week, Colbert profiles a Congressional district (in his 434-part series, “Better Know A District”).”
• Stephen Colbert trouncing Chuck Norris in Hungarian bridge contest – Monstersandcritics.com:”As of Wednesday afternoon, Colbert overwhelmingly led the second round with 6,976 (59%) votes. Jon Stewart stood at second place with 1,520 (13%) votes and Chuck Norris was third with 513 (4%) votes. Hungarians are said to be collectively confused about all of this.”
• Scott Thill: The Daily Show. The Colbert Report. Happy Birthday to Me. – HuffingtonPost.com (via Yahoo News) : Full-length article featuring Stephen Colbert. Excerpt: “Colbert’s roomful-of-mirrors satire, whether on parade at the White House Correspondents Dinner or Comedy Central itself, has taken the temperature of the real world that MTV is too busy narcotizing to notice and the prognosis is next-level narrative. With mad laughs. Even Neil Young said Colbert’s show is an American institution, and if you don’t know Young, you don’t know rock. “
• May the Colbert Be With You – TMZ.com: “First Colbert got his legion of Colbertocrats to alter Wikipedia entries after he did so on the air. The offending entries were false and got Colbert’s Wikipedia account locked. Then he threw his hat into ring of the naming of a Hungarian bridge via online poll easily overtaking early front runner Chuck Norris. Now he’s taking aim at the Star Wars kid.”
• Bring in Colb-bird! – The Saginaw News:”Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert is right. You can’t buy publicity like the plug the faux newsman dished up for the Saginaw Spirit last week. Colbert urged his legions of viewers to go to the Ontario Hockey League team’s Web site and vote for “Colb-eagle” (Colb-bird?) as the team’s new “mini-mascot.” The mention drew 10 times the normal volume of hits and more than 1,400 votes for Colbert to www.saginawspirit.com. The team Web site had more than 2 million hits in August, compared with roughly 600,000 for a similar 20-day period. “
• Comedian Colbert heads bridge naming poll second round – Caboodle.hu: “Colbert won the first round of voting with 17,231,725 (53%) votes. 17th century army general and poet Miklós Zrínyi was second with 2,062,649 (6%) votes, and revolutionary poet Sándor Petőfi’s lazy hero Pató Pál came in third with 1,805,118 (6%) votes. As of Wednesday afternoon, Colbert overwhelmingly led the second round with 6,976 (59%) votes. Jon Stewart stood at second place with 1,520 (13%) votes and Chuck Norris was third with 513 (4%) votes.”

BLOGS

• The Official Stephen Colbert Green Screen Challenge – UNSAFE SITE LINK REMOVED – THIS SITE HAS BEEN HACKED: You can see some of the nominees for the challenge at this page, from the guy who originally came up with the idea for the contest in the first place.
• CBS doesn’t recognize the power of viral advertising – TheDailyBackground.com: “The Colbert Report has recognized that the most effective and brilliant advertising strategy is simply to allow people to post clips of the show on the web, which turn into viral videos, getting seen by hundreds of thousands of people that haven’t heard of the show but will be inclined to watch it after they find it’s hilarious.” He talks about how CBS yanked Andy Rooney off of YouTube. FYI, they yanked Colbert’s 60 Minutes interview off of YouTube, too. And, may I just add, THANK YOU Comedy Central for allowing Colbert clips to stay on YouTube. Sincerely, I mean that.

OBSCURE POP CULTURE REFERENCES

• Commie Libs Finally Go Too Far – Wonkette.com: “A bigger question is What kind of crap zoo displays a common horse? Lemurs, elephants, giraffes and various comical monkeys are zoo animals. Horses are vehicles. (At least the San Francisco Zoo has Stephen Colbert’s loyal American bald eagle, Stephen Jr.)”
• Help Us, Heinrich! – Anglofritz.com: “Thus the [perceptive] invocation that Stephen Colbert made in his show, and a resultant Wired article, wherein we find these three directives first: “PICK A FIELD THAT CAN’T BE VERIFIED. CHOOSE A SUBJECT THAT’S ACTUALLY SECRET. GET YOUR OWN ENTRY IN AN ENCYCLOPEDIA.” Obviously Colbert is onto something, and it’s up to our more conscientious, less comfortable-with-unelicited-opinions brethren to try this thing out. After all, if it works in Germany, you may eventually be able to piddle your 15 seconds of fame out on the front page of Wikipedia! Can you imagine?”
• Cashing in on Tom Cruise Redherring.com- : This article addresses celebrity blogging, and says this about HuffingtonPost.com “This has attracted attention from investors seeking to cash in on the growing popularity of such hit-attracting sites as The Huffington Post, PopSugar, and Egotastic. Among the contenders, The Huffington Post (see “Softbank Backs HuffPost”) dishes up celebrity news along with political commentary—sometimes mixing the two, as evidenced by its obsession with Stephen Colbert.”
• TECH TALK ON THE WEB: Wikipedia Tests Quality Controls – Easybourse.com: More Wikipedia backlash – “Call it the backlash to Stephen Colbert’s “Wikiality.” Online encyclopedia Wikipedia is testing an experimental feature on its German site that could improve the quality of its entries and prevent vandalizing edits. The feature prevents users from making an article edit unless they have been around Wikipedia for some time and passed a threshold of trustworthiness, according to CNet’s Web site.”