So, you may remember the post I did yesterday about the fantastic discovery of all of the videos for all of ‘The Colbert Report’ episodes ever ever ever. There was a bit more to the story, so I’ll go ahead and share the whole thing if it’s okay with all of you.
The video page that I linked to has actually been in existence for a long time, probably almost as long as this site. I’ve used it many times over the years to search for videos, even though the video list was incomplete. This weekend, in doing research for the site, I noticed that more videos were hosted there than ever before. I thought I’d reshare the link with everybody (we’ve blogged it before, a long, long time ago, and I know it’s shown up in the comments numerous times as well) and give everyone a heads up as to this wonderful Comedy Central easter egg. I confirmed with a couple of my contacts this morning that strange things are indeed afoot behind the scenes at Comedy Central’s Digital Media department.
Now, in the past on this site, videos had been posted of almost every show, but only in parts. The introductions were gone, as were the endings. No shows were being posted with all videos available until the change earlier this year when the new Comedy Central revamped site went up. Also, the videos started on this page, with few exceptions, around August 2006.
With all of this work that is going on in the background, there are two major changes to the videos currently on the ‘Colbert Report’ video site:
1) You can search every single date that the show has aired. Go ahead and try it – I would recommend “Feb 9 2006” and “Nov 30 2005” for good starting points. Always format the dates as Mon X 20XX.
2) When you click on any video, all the videos for the entire show are presented as a group. If you click on the first video, you can watch the whole episode from beginning to end. It’s glorious! You can tell which ones are the new, “added” videos because their VideoID numbers are much larger (read: newer) than the rest of the vids. Those are the ones that the Comedy Central team has been working very hard to restore and make available for the fans.
There was only one small problem with sharing this link with you that I had not anticipated. The site was, um, not actually for public consumption. And on top of the traffic we were sending that direction, the story was picked up by TV Squad and had all those hits on top of it. And, well, apparently we crashed the server.
So the wonderful, magical Thank You Baby Jesus site is officially no longer available. *sigh*
But … the videos are still there. And they’re all still searchable by date. So that’s a good thing. And a little birdie promised me that Comedy Central would make it up to us very soon. So we’ll keep watching and hoping. I’m sure that Comedy Central has much more planned for those videos than a backdoor link site, so we’ll keep watching and waiting. And we’ll report to you as soon as we hear, we promise! It was nice to get a sneak peek of what’s to come, and it’s great to know what all is available now.
Aha, well, that explains the “Page not found” message I got when I tried the site again over my late lunch hour. Oh well, looking forward to its return!
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Oh, and Dec 7 2005 is good too.
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Love those homemade graphics!
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I love that pic of Colbert crying.
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i can sense all the pain humanity has ever felt in that pic. its saying to me “Stephen needs his diaper changed” – that is dedication, having a diaper so that he doesnt even leave the chair
boy does that speak volumes…
(had to comment on the picture, now im gonna go back and actually read the full post, heh)
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awwwwwww!!! Poor Stephen! makes you want to cry with him! lol!
i was finding older videos working, and a better collection as well late last night as i should have been sleeping yet was only furthering my addiction… *cough*
good to know it wasnt just a dream! i have to laugh though about the site crashing. i still think its pretty awesome what kind of a stir we can cause and the results of. i was only on there briefly to drool. now i think i’ll be off scouring all the dates…though i have 2005 and 2006, and half of 2007 burned onto discs, my laptops drive is malfunctioning currently.
no rest for the wicked!
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Check out this clip…
http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?videoId=181543
Stephen congratulates Jon on the birth of his baby and references Patterson Springs!
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OMG! They’re even including the now defunct “Freedom Facts”! They really are making this complete…
For the longest time, the attitude of CC has been that much of the show’s material becomes dated – even look at what they put on the ‘best of’ dvd. All stuff with no current event related content. Whereas the most compelling parts of the show relate directly to the news of the day – and we can appreciate the take on the news, even several years later.
Thank goodness somebody has realized that this is not dated material – it’s priceless and timeless.
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Thanks for pointing this out Jennie. One can laugh at the past as much as the present!
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I think I accessed the videos from the regular Colbert Report site, because I encountered no problems with crashing, etc. (though that is amusing that simply mentioning it here crashed the site!)
I only started watching last summer … so I think I am going to make it a project to watch every episode, starting from the very beginning. I’ve seen lots of clips, but not many full episodes from back then. This will be an especially enjoyable project during weeks new episodes are not on!
Yesterday I watched week 1. Having seen Truthiness and the Gravitas-Off, I think I had an impression that the show sprung forth fully formed (a la Athena). Watching those old episodes, it’s interesting to see how the character hadn’t really been fully established yet, some parts of the set were different, some segments just didn’t work as well as the ones that have survived till now, etc. The whole thing in general seems much gentler — not as much yelling or vindictive certitude from Stephen. His character is much more like when Stephen hosted TDS when Jon was away, which I liked but not nearly as much as TCR Stephen. I’d been wondering how the character made the transition — now I get to watch it unfold!
Also, an epsisode in the first week had what is in retrospect a kindof bittersweet moment. Stephen is talking to Leslie Stahl in the interview, and she says “did you hear about Tim Russert?” Stephen leans in and hastily and with real concern says “What?! Is he ok?!” He was fine — she just had a story to relate about his reaction to Stephen’s first show … but it was weird to watch that reaction knowing that not that long ago, similar exchanges took place with a different outcome.
(sorry so long!)
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It is really interesting to watch Stephen’s character develop over time. Now that some of the older clips are now at least uploaded to the site, fans will be able to get a much better broader perspective on those changes and really see how his character was transformed from Daily Show correspondent, to Daily Show correspondent who has his own show, to the wonderful character that “Stephen” is today.
Hmm…another CU course maybe? Either that or just another one of my digressions…
I’m just glad to hear that they’re out there, somewhere in the vast universe that is the Comedy Central family of websites.
Could that photo of Stephen above BE any cuter?
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For those of us who can’t get the any of the CC vids to play, this news is even more frustrating. If anyone knows of a solution to the vid playing issues or has heard from CC about it we’d appreciate your posting it. Thanks in advance.
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That picture cracks me up. Whenever I see it here, I actually get excited about the sad news to come. If I die young and tragically, I want it displayed at my funeral to lighten the mood.
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