May
06

Hey, did you know Rain was on ‘The Colbert Report’ last night?

By Ms Interpreted on May 6th, 2008 ·

‘Cause if you didn’t know it, you must be living under a rock or something. Seems like everywhere I look today, people are talking about that HILARIOUS dance-off. This is by no means comprehensive, but here’s a round-up of some of the reactions I’ve seen. Several people out there commented on Stephen’s dancing (and quite positively, which shouldn’t surprise anyone here):

  • Huffington PostDance-Off! Colbert, Rain Duel Over Time 100 Ranking: “Last night, Stephen Colbert complained that Korean pop star Rain bested him on the Time.com poll of the world’s most influential people (Rain was #2 while Colbert came in third). So at the end of the show, they did what most movers and shakers do to settle the score: they staged a dance-off.”
  • POPSEOUL!Rain’s Dance Showdown on Stephen Colbert: “Even though Rain won the dance-off and catapulted Colbert to the ground by breaking the DDR machine with his magic feet, in the end, it was Colbert who won this dance battle. Considering that he’s a mock political pundit by trade, Colbert’s dancing was, by far, more impressive and original as opposed to Rain’s recycled one.”
  • ShenYuePopRain-COL DANCE OFF IS HAPPENING!: One commenter said, “Man, just when I thought it was over, Rain shows up. He danced pretty well and Colbert was not bad either …”
  • Kotaku.comColbert V Rain: DDR: “Colbert is many things, but a graciously loser isn’t one of them. After going off on Miyamoto for swiping the top spot in Time’s 100 most influential people list (and calling Donkey Kong a game about hate crime), he settles on the person he’s rally mad at. No, not himself: RAIN!!!”

    [Editor's note: Most of the commenters were more forgiving; here's one example: "The most surprising thing is that Colbert (or, as distinguished Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton would say, kohl-BURT) can, y'know, REALLY dance. You wouldn't think that a forty-something married white man from South Carolina would have moves, but the man has moves."]

  • JavabeansRain and Colbert: The dance(Dance Revolution)-off: “Rain did show off some dance moves before the Dance Dance Revolution portion, and although I don’t think he showed himself to his best advantage (he dances more impressively in his music videos, imo), he acquitted himself reasonably well … Plus, the burden of the humor (and the brunt of the joke) was borne by Colbert himself, who countered Rain’s flashy moves with his own laughably dorky ones (but performed with complete gravitas, of course).” [Editor's note: There are some great comments on this one, I think.]

And if you want more than that, our loyal reader Daniel left this link to a Hong Kong “Cloud” forum earlier. I can’t read all of it, of course, but I got a huge kick out of all the emoticons. He and mrtigger001 kindly noted that there are at least a couple of compliments to Stephen, even on the Rain forum. Unfortunately, I can’t remember *where* I read it (and that’s driving me nuts), but my favorite comment on this whole episode so far extolled Stephen’s dancing … and simultaneously compared his moves to those of “Mr. Bean“! I’m not a huge Mr. Bean fan, but that totally cracked me, up for some reason.

All in all, great job, Stephen, Rain and everyone involved. And, just for old times’ sake, let’s have another look at the video that started it all: He’s Singin’ In Korean:


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44 Comments

1
One of the Heroes
May 6th, 2008 at 7:32 pm

Thank you for these great links! I enjoyed all of the blogs and comments.

I was surprised at how critical of Rain PopSeoul was. Actually, many of the commenters in these blogs said negative things about Rain. I truly didn’t expect that. I thought he was fantastic even though his moves did remind me of Michael Jackson.

It seemed like most of the clouds enjoyed the show and appreciated the way everything was handled on TCR. I especially liked it when commenters thanked Stephen. It was obvious that many of them understood Stephen’s humor when they watched last night’s episode.

I’m going to miss the clouds. I’ve enjoyed the fan “feud” as well as the mutual anticipation of this great segment.

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AmandaIvy
May 6th, 2008 at 7:50 pm

Leave it to Stephen to not only provide humor, but to bring two different “fandoms” together, at least for a little while.

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One of the Heroes
May 6th, 2008 at 7:57 pm

I know. The man is amazing isn’t he? :-)

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Lisa
May 6th, 2008 at 8:07 pm

I totally agree. I was really surprised at some of the Rain backlash (are anti-fans called “Storm Clouds”?), but if we’re thinking of Rain (however momentarily) as a Micheal Jackson-ish figure, then I guess I can understand why the media might be so critical. Probably explains why Micheal moved to Bahrain.

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rebnej
May 6th, 2008 at 8:12 pm

I heard some comments during the whole Time Poll about “the Wind” — apparently “the Wind” is opposed to Rain and/or Clouds. Not sure about this, though. Anyone know for sure?

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ColbertGirl27
May 7th, 2008 at 3:34 am

Haha. “Bahrain.” Bah to Rain.

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rebnej
May 6th, 2008 at 8:15 pm

“I thought he was fantastic even though his moves did remind me of Michael Jackson.”

Hey, Michael Jackson’s moves were hot stuff back in the day (around the time of the “Bad” album)!

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chr1s
May 7th, 2008 at 1:41 am

One of the Heroes, Popseoul is the real english “I hate Rain” club.
This site is full of hatred :(

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One of the Heroes
May 7th, 2008 at 8:07 am

Well that explains the negativity then. Thanks for the feedback chr1s.

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Dianne
May 8th, 2008 at 10:53 pm

Popseoul is an “anti-fan” who tries to discredit Rain at every opportunity. Those who join in at her blog seem to get a sense of power from tearing down other people. Rain has overcome alot of hardships to get where he is and his difficult beginnings make him quite humble and down to earth. He doesn’t deserve the abuse Popseoul dishes out. She is mean-spirited and I have no respect for her. I ran into a member of the Speed Racer production crew at LAX and the first thing he said about Rain is what a nice guy he is (Rain often ate with the crew). you can also see the obvious affection Susan Sarandon has for Rain in videos of their greeting at the LA Premiere. She really took him under her wing as a Hollywood newbie and I appreciate her kindness. It seems as if Rain and Stephen Colbert enjoyed working together, too. To judge how many other people feel about Rain check out his arrival at the Hong Kong airport http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o77oT5Gpbf8
And his sendoff from Hong Kong to LA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK2ll8U1YhI

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One of the Heroes
May 9th, 2008 at 8:42 am

It sounds like Rain and Stephen (the person not the character he plays) have a lot in common. They are both extremely talented, humble, and kind people who have worked hard to get where they are now.

PopSeoul is officially dead to me now. I have no use for meanspirited people.

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2
One of the Heroes
May 6th, 2008 at 7:38 pm

BTW, something weird has happened to the Time 100 online poll results. If you look at the actual rankings, it now looks like Stephen is #1 with Rain coming in as#2:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1725112_1726934_1726935,00.html

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jentaps
May 7th, 2008 at 1:12 am

That *is* weird! I just clicked on your link, and Stephen is #1. 75% approval rating (or whatever that is). Plus he has a lot more votes than he did when the thing closed. Puzzling, but cool.

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AmandaIvy
May 7th, 2008 at 1:50 am

… So… STEPHEN WINS!!!!! *balloon drop*

He should totally take advantage of that glitch or whatever it is.

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Lisa
May 7th, 2008 at 2:37 am

LOL! Maybe fans aren’t taking Stephen’s defeat lying down and are still voting, for S’s and G’s. Hehehe…

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laughing at nothing
May 7th, 2008 at 2:58 am

This new information from Time has the amusing download info, “transferring data from timecontent2result.secondthought.com”

Were there “second thoughts”? And why? Who did Stephen get to? ;p

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ColbertGirl27
May 7th, 2008 at 3:36 am

Yeah, I first noticed this Monday, but I figure it’s a glitch since they still say in the text that Stephen came in third. Nevertheless, Stephen should take advantage of this situation!

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One of the Heroes
May 7th, 2008 at 8:10 am

I was wondering of some members of the Nation figured out how to fiddle with the results a bit. :-)

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3
ColbertFaninChicago
May 6th, 2008 at 7:56 pm

“The most surprising thing is that Colbert (or, as distinguished Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton would say, kohl-BURT) can, y’know, REALLY dance. You wouldn’t think that a forty-something married white man from South Carolina would have moves, but the man has moves.”]”

Gah. This bugs me. The guy was a freakin’ theater major at Northwestern. It’s a school known for dance and musical theater! What do you think they take? Of course he can dance. Duh. Argh.

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rebnej
May 6th, 2008 at 8:20 pm

Not to mention he was the “second-best” dancer in his eighth-grade cotillion!

Hey, we can’t blame random posters on other boards from not fully realizing that the extent of the man’s talents. I’m still often shocked at what he can do.

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4

I just watched the Rain-Colbert Dance-Off about an hour ago, and I have to say it was such an amazing episode to use to introduce Stephen to my fellow Brits. He really was on top form!

I just hope we get another excuse to witness Stephen’s killer dance moves as soon as possible! The man really does have moves! ;)

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Ms Interpreted
May 6th, 2008 at 11:47 pm

What a great debut for you all!

I’m betting you speak for a whole lot of us when you ask for more dancing, ASAP. Let’s face it, Stephen dancing is always utterly priceless!

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Lisa
May 7th, 2008 at 2:41 am

Ahhh, the SexyBack dance! I never tire of watching this. I now feel the need to rewatch the Starbucks Threat Down…

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5

I appreciated this comment from the Kotaku.com post:

This segment was just hilarious and really showed off how unbelievably talented Colbert is. The man is an infinite comedy threat!

That’s right, baby!

I’m so curious to know how long it took Stephen to learn the choreography and if *snicker* there are any outtakes waiting to be discovered online somewhere…

Perchance to dream…

(funny Captcha: Drazul oploy — get on it, Hasbro! Not that anything will ever top the Colbertopoly board, but still…hehehee…)

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6

Bye bye clouds and Rain. I shall miss you! Sob :-(

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7

this was a success for everyone concerned. awesome stephen!

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8

I don’t know here. All I know is that Stephen is sexy and is extremely talented. And this bit rocked!!!! I love the DDR special effects and how Rain just kinda disappeared into the night at the end. And Juan (that was his name right?) pouring water onto Stephen. WOW!!!!!!!! Did the idea for the red pants and the white belt come from anywhere? Stephen is a Sexy beast!!! I wish Rain would have spoke a bit more, but it kinda helped set the mood though. How good is his English?

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9

Loved the show!
My captcha:

“Selection McGee”~~yes, yes he did make that choice. :)

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AmandaIvy
May 6th, 2008 at 10:19 pm

You got McGee in your captcha?!

I got “Evelyn” one time.

That’s too weird, especially considering that’s exactly how you spell Mrs. C’s name…

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10

Some day they will be studying this TCR episode in business marketing classes as a classic example of cross platform promotion, consumer generated media (CGM) expansion and international branding genius.
In other words, a giant WIN for Rain and Stephen!.

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11

Unrelated question: has “Stephen” actually endorsed McCain? I’ve missed the most of the shows the last few weeks what with finals and all, but I’m watching a rerun of of yesterday’s show, and there’s definitely a McCain ‘08 banner off to the left … just wondering.

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vigwig
May 6th, 2008 at 8:59 pm

The McCain banner reads “McCain ‘08: The Luck Stops Here” which (besides being hilarious) might explain his position.

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12

oh my god I just watched it. I’m wearing my red jeans tomorrow in solidarity; I swear to god I have the same exact pair.

RAAAAAAAAAIIIIINNN!!!!!!!!

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13
ColbertFaninChicago
May 6th, 2008 at 10:08 pm

Which writer(s) wrote Singing in Korean? Are there any behind the scenes reports on the filming?

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14

Popseoul’s just pissy about pop stars in general. It’s known for bashing pretty much everybody.

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15

The messages on the Hong Kong Rain fans BBS were 100% positive as far as i can see. Probably because they don’t see him as being responsible for representing their country. I guess because you don’t get that many Koreans on US tv it’s natural to feel that when one does pop up he is kinda representing Korea to the whole of the US – that’s why you get Koreans complaining about Rain’s English or super sensitve about how he is portrayed.

[LINK REMOVED - SEE SITE FAQ #3]

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Daniel
May 6th, 2008 at 11:48 pm

Yes, quite right. Rule 3 is a good one.

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16

I’m a Rain fan from Canada (oh yeah). I can confirm you that english-language fansites (soompi, sexybi, rain-usa, etc.) really liked the dance-off.

On the other hand, Popseoul is well known for bashing almost every korean star. Don’t understand why, coz they are of korean origin themselves … So, don’t bother about them.

Fans of Bi Rain all over the wolrd now know & appreciate one of the most influencial (after Rain): Colbert!

See you next year, maybe for another epic in red pants.

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One of the Heroes
May 7th, 2008 at 8:16 am

I think we need to put PopSeoul on notice! Or maybe it should be dead to us.

jobel, I look forward to another “feud” next year!

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Ms Interpreted
May 7th, 2008 at 11:06 am

I didn’t know that before about PopSeoul; I’ll keep it in mind if I ever link to them again. Thanks for letting me know.

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17
jennifer nguyen
May 7th, 2008 at 2:29 am

im a rain-usa fan. and i loved it. so funny. ^_^

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18

Okay, did Stephen look like Plastic man to anyone else?

That was brilliant, by the way, especially Stephen’s dance moves.

Oh, and “He’s dancin’ in Korean” is one of the most brilliant lines on the hsow since “I’d rove some tea!”

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19

I am a Rains fan and I enjoyed your dance and singin, I’m showing to all my family and freinds, it was grate I loved it.

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20

I don’t think some people realized that Colbert’s moves in the dance off were really a parody of Rain’s moves. I saw a segment where he was doing Rain’s “I’m coming” dance. XD Hilarious!

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