UK debut of ‘The Colbert Report’
By
Soooo … I happened to notice this clip of the FX promo video for the The Colbert Report’s UK premiere just now. Anyone want to guess why it made me **HEADDESK**?
Okay, now that that’s out of the way, have a look at this review of Stephen’s UK debut from TV Scoop (internal links omitted):
TV Review: The Colbert Report, FX, Tuesday 6 May, 11pm
. . .
Last night, the best feature by far was The Wørd, which, Wikipedia tells me, appears on the majority of episodes. In this segment, Colbert takes a word or phrase which refers to one of the biggest political issues of the day, and then expands on it – ie rants about it O’Reilly-style with plenty of pointing and posturing. Last night the theme was Free Gas, as Hillary Clinton has just announced that she would give Americans a summer without tax on petrol, to the derision of every economist in the land. Naturally, Colbert thinks that this idea doesn’t go far enough, and it would be much better just to give away gas for free. The genius element of this feature is that, while Colbert rants, bullet pointed comments come up on the screen which totally undermine what he’s saying. Take a couple of examples:
“One problem, is how will we know when summer is over? It’s always summer somewhere”
Soon, always summer everywhere“My Total Gas Holiday will provide relief from the gas crisis”
When we run out of gasThese asides had me laughing out loud pretty much every time they appeared on the screen – which was a relief, actually, because for the first few minutes I wasn’t terribly impressed. One of the problems is that with this, and indeed the Daily Show, you just have to accept that some of the jokes and references will go totally above the heads of us Britons – accept it, and you’ll have a much better time.
. . .
While this is not the unconditionally enthusiastic review I would have written, I accept that a lot of TCR’s references may well fall outside of the mainstream pop culture of the United Kingdom. And when I think back to TCR’s debut here in the States, there were a fair number of pretty tepid reactions to counterbalance the more glowing reviews at that point, too (happily, many reviewers have since seen the error of their ways and become full-fledged fans of The Colbert Report). Anyway, I particularly liked that the reviewer praised The WØRD; I know Stephen has said that writing that segment just leaches the calcium out of their bones, but it really is one of the best and most distinctive segments of the show, IMO.
All in all, I’d say that was a pretty darned good response to a debut episode (and the author called Stephen “one hell of a dancer” — hee).
Related posts
22 Comments
May 7th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Re the ad: Oh my gosh! How hilarious is it that the whole ad is about his last name, and they make an error like that? But as much as I’d like to be irritated, I’m so delighted that they used Eleanor Holmes Norton so much that I can’t be upset. Sorry. It’s totally dear.
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Ooh, ooh! Pick me! I know why it made you **HEADDESK** because it made me almost throw my laptop across the room! (ALMOST. I’d never actually do that *cough*Stephen*cough*.)
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
That ‘v’ makes me ashamed to be British.
I don’t know, I personally very rarely find things that are un-understandable in TDS and TCR, and even then it’s pretty easy to pick up the story. It’s probably harder for people who pay no attention to the news. But then why are they watching?
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I can’t stand real news, so I never watch it. I watch TDS and TCR because they’re hilarious!
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
I think Steven is Stephen’s evil twin. Who hangs out with Jon’s evil twin, John.
I hope The Word remains a staple of the show for its duration. Perhaps we should send calcium supplements.
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Steven and John! That’s brilliant!! Maybe they exist in an alternate Bizzaro world!!
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
*cringes*
One of my biggest pet peeves is the “v” versus the “ph”. I don’t know why, but it really makes my skin crawl.
I think what’s difficult, perhaps, for the UK viewing audience (unless they’ve been watching the show online) or any new viewers out there, is the fact that some of the jokes that pop up occasionally refer to things that happened looooong ago on the show (case and point: Stephen’s use of the word “Internets”. I had no idea until a few days ago that he uses it because Bush used it once. I assume that joke came about pretty early in the show’s history.) If you don’t have the background, sometimes you don’t get all the jokes, which could be part of the problem. To any UK It-Getters, definitely peruse the CU website for a wonderful guide to pretty much all the jokes used on the show. It’s a really big help when you’re new to the show.
But, then again, generally speaking, I think sometimes British and American humor is so different that one side doesn’t always “get” the other. Two cultures, two different senses of humor. But, that’s just me…
I did appreciate they used Eleanor Holmes Norton in the promo! Love her!!
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
I get irrationally annoyed over misspellings. They just seem so *lazy*. How hard is it to get the host’s name right, honestly?
Nice promo, though. It kind of threw me off how much Eleanor Holmes Norton they used. Not in a bad way, of course- but isn’t that episode from the very beginning of the show. I think including her, “Anyone who pronounces it “Coal-bear” cannot be from the US” was a bad choice, though- unless you watch the whole interview, it’s not really funny.
I’m so nitpicky! Really, the review was great. Not gushing love, but when you don’t get all of the political jokes it can make the show slightly less hilarious.
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
“I get irrationally annoyed over misspellings.” – Same here! Like, I honestly can’t believe how annoyed I just got when I saw that they spelled Stephen’s name wrong. I agree though, it just makes them seem so lazy, that they can’t even check the correct spelling of the man’s name.
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
It is definitely lazy. How much time would it have taken someone to double check the spelling?
My parents always told me that it was disrespectful to misspell someone else’s name. They said that it showed you didn’t care enough to get it right.
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
“FX proudly has no association with FOX News.” I’m glad they cleared that up! Oh, the irony.
I don’t understand what the big deal is with v/ph error. Perhaps Colbert will someday explain why I should BE SO ANGRY ABOUT IT ALL!!! Or maybe he would just make fun of you for being Elitist Speltsnaz Dictionazis.
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Well, “Stephen” still refuses to spell Jon without the ‘h’, so I assume it’ll be the former.
I have no idea why I care about the error. Although it’s annoying that they couldn’t be bothered to check, it really shouldn’t matter…and yet it does.
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
YAY!!! Congrats to Stephen and TCR for going UK. Next ought to be Italy!
Mostly after Berlusconi’s love declaration for Bush on Times Magazine… LOL
FOX News as FX News is very appropriate indeed… All the news that come out of FOX are a SPECIAL EFFECT!!! Except for The Colbert Report of course!
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
BTW: I think spelling is over rated… besides if we are TRULY COLOUR-SEX-RACE BLIND, can’t we also be SPELLING-BLIND TOO? Or is that not snobbish enough? LOL
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
you mean the stePH</fonten thing?
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
GAWD typos suck.
stePH
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
As someone with a name with two very common spellings and one slightly less common spelling (which, as luck would have it, is how I spell it), I’m glad to see that so many people here are upset when people spell Stephen’s name wrong, because I know how annoyed I get when people spell my name wrong. I don’t mind if the person doesn’t know me that well or has never seen it written out, but there’s no such excuse when it comes to someone as famous as Stephen.
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
I understand rebnej. My name is very common but it’s generally used as a nickname for something else. Because of this, people think it’s cute to call me by what they assume is my given name and then they question me when I tell them that it isn’t my name at all. People will actually ask me what’s on my birth certificate. I guess they think I’m too stupid to figure out what my real name is. :-)
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Oh man I could have made a better promo ad than that! I should make one and send it to FX. I was thinking about making a little guide for new UK fans actually.
I can’t believe its finally on UK TV! I never thought i’d see this day…shame its on a channel I don’t have though…kinda makes it less awesome.
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Watching tonight’s episode I think there are more moments here that people who haven’t seen the show or TDS before won’t get. The references to Karl Rove and “John McCain’s illegitimate black baby” for instance go way back. Still, I’m sure as with TDS the viewers will get there eventually, you just have to pick it up as you go along.
Reply
May 7th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
i cant believe they did that!
and i hate the way the guy pronounced the COLbert report
anyways
uk colbert = awsomeness (no fx = unawsomeness)
Reply
July 1st, 2008 at 5:45 pm
?FX proudly has no association with FOX News.?… funny writers! It’s funny becase FX Networks is owned by News Corp., the parent company of FOX News.
I very much doubt they understand that the name FX comes from, oh, you know… FOX, and that the FX Searchlight logo comes from, oh, you know, THE FOX SEARCHLIGHT LOGO.
No association whatsoever. Well, apart from using the same piss-poor researchers.
Reply