There has been much talk about how Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were going to carry on their laughter with Obama as president. Stephen saying that he would support Obama “as long as he was popular” seemed to be an excellent way to set up the direction of tonight’s show. I’m excited to see if this love/hate relationship (hating because he’s not Republican, loving because the market has spoken) is something that the writers will continue to build upon. I also liked Stephen’s Sound Advice, which again put him in conflict between loving and hating Obama.
Something that really struck me after the end of the ‘Colbert Report’, especially after the closing remarks, was the contrast between tonight’s ‘Daily Show’ and tonight’s ‘Colbert Report’. The two shows, while running in tandem for most of the election, seemed to skew two totally different directions tonight.
Jon’s approach was to both work that Bush impression one last time, as well as apply his typical level of snark and wit to the situation (I have to admit, I laughed way too hard at the “put away childish things” sketch). But Stephen took the direction of overemphasizing the happiness of the nation for comedic effect, and trying to come to grips with the fact that “Stephen” might in fact like Obama.
The two shows really contrasted the two styles of Jon and Stephen quite nicely this evening, and makes me wonder if these were shows that started the true divergence between the material of ‘The Daily Show’ and ‘The Colbert Report’.
What are some of your thoughts on the differences between our favorite faux late night hosts tonight?
Here’s some of the highlights of the show:
- If I am sad, it is only for the Nicaraguans. Lo siento, mi amigos, lo siento.
- Aretha Franklin even managed to steal a bow off a Lexus for the occasion.
- I’m sorry I’m not angry. I know we have a deal. You watch and I scream.
- I just feel like my heart is going to burst because it’s full of rainbows.
- The Chris Crocker mascara and snot was both hysterical and quite disgusting at the same time.
- “Yes I Thought I’d Live To See This Day” T-Shirts
- Barack Obama was sworn in on the same bible Lincoln used. As opposed to Joe Biden who was sworn in on the Hogwart’s spellbook.
- Just FYI, I love the ongoing gag of Stephen having Lincoln’s skull.
- Surgeon General’s warning – it’s going to be hot.
- Gaslight Michelle
- The rest of us are going to become vestigial, like those fish who get caught in caves and go blind.
- It shocked the hell out of John McCain.
- People tell me I’m white and I believe them because I dance with my thumbs out.
- But now I know I’m black, and that’s great because there really should be more of us in late night.
Being that I’ve been bawling off and on all day, the tears/snot bit had be laughing so hard my sides literally hurt. I love how TCR has set up this love/hate split in Stephen’s personality which can be mined throughout the Obama Administration. I also very much appreciate how much the humor tonight was spun into comic gold directly from the emotions of the day. Bravo.
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hmmmm. I cannot resist and opportunity to analyze TDS vs. TCR whether or not it is a prudent use of my time. (ironically, I will remove my wriststrong bracelet so I can type with more dexterity.)
Jon and TDS did exactly what I expected them to. if you had to predict at any time during Bush’s presidency what he would do with the inauguration of a Democratic President in 2009, I think you could have anticipated tonight’s show. Cheney jokes and Bush jokes abound. mocking of the pomp with Sam Bee. nothing remarkable in the interview; funny but not unexpected.
the only thing that made me take notice was the Obama/Bush juxtaposition treatment. for one thing, it was rather weak by TDS standards. the two of them were not saying the exact same things. then Jon “felt bad” about it. that was the night’s jab at people wondering whether the show will struggle without Bush.
I feel like TDS gave us no answers as to where it’s headed. people will keep doing stupid stuff but it took the really big stupid 2000 debacle to get the show off and running in its current format. there’s only so long they can be self-referential in being unsure what to make fun of. I am not going to stop watching, but I certainly can’t predict what’s coming next.
(I think the interviews will continue to be strong. Jon asks great questions at the best times.)
TCR seemed different and a little weird. it felt less cozy than usual although I have no idea why. the apology along the lines of “sorry for not holding up my end of the deal and yelling” was very appropriate.
I think a closet adoration for Obama would suit Colbert excellently. really really obvious, like “eyes to the back of room, there’s something I want to you see back there” obvious. one issue with it would be that he would not be directly mocking any pundits. then again, lots of stuff he has done is now the original Colbert character anyway. he is a lover power and not-so-inner weakling who needs someone to guide him! but a Democrat?! goodness, what a dilemma!
so I guess those two stories are very different. Colbert the character is changing in interesting ways so the obvious editorializing that came up on TCR more often in the past few months (that made it seem TDSish at times) will probably go away. it’s not really necessary. it used to be required, I think, so that people could stomach all of the crazy ideologies spewing from Colbert’s mouth. with the McCain Palin ticket in full force, those messages just had to be tempered. now he’s a bit more sympathetic and confused.
(I think that Colbert will continue to be outraged about lots of things during tip/wags, threatdowns, sport reports, etc.)
ANYWAY. please don’t anyone have read even half of that.
biological detail postscript: the fish are not vestigial, their eyes are!
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I believe, that in making the relatively (most likely knowingly) weak comparison between Obama and Bush, Jon and company were out to prove that they’re smarter than to go that direction and just wanted to illustrate how dumb it would be. Jon’s forced chuckles during the frat boy bit with Sam was indication of that and shows that laughing at people’s enthusiasm for Obama makes you appear pretty dumb.
I have no doubt that Jon and company have a plan, as obviously does Stephen. Jon’s overall theme is to knock down power where it’s most absurd and Stephen’s is to hold it up on a pedestal despite absurdity. They’ll both sniff out the absurdity as time goes on, no matter how elusive it may be in this new era of change.
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I agree about the purpose of the Obama/Bush comparisons, but I don’t think that was the purpose of the frat boy stuff. that wasn’t making fun of enthusiasm. I think it’s funny because there are so many huge expensive events AND the MSM thinks we care about what happens at all of them. it’s kind of a childish approach to the day.
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I guess I had a different take on it than did most of you; I thought last night’s Daily Show was a lot of fun and, due to its being a live show, rather more reliant on sophomoric humor than was the norm, but I didn’t see it as heading in a new direction or being in any way “less” than it usually is.
I think TDS has always felt free to poke fun at (a) whomever happened to be in power, (b) the toady-ish mainstream media and (c) hypocrisy, whereever it found a home. Over and above that, I thought it was looking for things to laugh at, and the show generally looked to politically-related footage as its source material. Given that, I thought last night’s show was no departure from the norm (whether people wanted it to be after the election and inauguration is, I think, a different question).
I really enjoyed the immaturity of Sam Bee’s piece; I thought Jon’s insistence on finding the tawdry in Obama’s language was both a means of smirking at the exceptional expectations that people have of him (based, in part, on his soaring rhetoric during the campaign) and a way for Jon to take a bit of a poke at the MSM, whose critical faculties have been dulled by eight years of Pres. Bush (and let’s face it, in the past eight years, the press has betrayed an immature tendency to hang on the President’s every word).
The Daily Show segment comparing lines from Obama’s speech to those of previous Bush speeches was great for me, because the similarity has struck me on several occasions. This is not to say I don’t recognize the huge, yawning chasm of difference between the two men and what I believe their intentions for the country are, but … Presidential speechwriters have a pretty thankless job unless and until someone creates a new thesaurus of terms for them to use. I think this actually would have been my favorite bit of the show, had Bishop Robinson not broken out that priceless “you forget that there’s also a queen on the board” line in response to Jon’s chess joke.
I think last night’s Colbert Report was also true to its general model: Stephen displaying his “devotion” to Obama was, in its own twisted way, perfectly in character. And because the show remains entirely, 100% about “Stephen”, I have no doubt that it will keep to this path.
I think the shows remain complementary, which is why they often shine on different days, even if they’re using the same material.
Regardless, I feel confident that I’ll continue to enjoy them both!
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I agree with your take on TDS. I have watched it since Craig Kilborne days and there was plenty of material to work with pre-2000 (the vacuous media, the Clinton administration, and “the Moral Majority” congressmen as examples). I imagine TDS will continue doing their good and important work for years to come. I just hope I won’t need to rely on TDS (and TCR!) as I did for these last 8 years.
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I loved the dramatic mascara and snot breakdown…even if it did mess with Stephen’s beautiful face. Also loved seeing him dance to the beat of Smashmouth with P.K. Winsome as they broke for commercials. I wanted more of that! I also enjoyed seeing Stephen sneak out Lincoln’s skull again as they went to commercials.
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Loved TCR tonight (haven’t seen TDS yet, so can’t comment). To me, it illustrates something I think TCR has done consistently well (and at times breathtakingly well): to identify the true, honest, and (dare I say?) moral center of a moment, and then funnel it through the character in such a way that you can see both the true and the farcical at the same time. Witness their takes on torture & unconstitutional abuses of power, for example.
Today, he acknowledges the genuinely unified and hopeful feeling of the inauguration, creates an internal conflict for the character (hope v. rage), and lets us laugh at the result, all without taking anything away from the happiness of the day.
Also, I love that all that stuff gets mixed in with lowbrow mascara & snot gags – the man will do anything for a laugh, and I love him for it :)
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And here’s another thing I’ve been musing on (farther afield from TCR/TDS, but related)… Having become increasingly bitter, cynical, and angry about the direction the country has taken in the past 8 years (this is me, but of course may not be you), I’m having a strange response to the change in administration. I desperately want to be hopeful, to be wide eyed with optimism, but frankly I’m out of practice. It’s almost like being gun shy about opening your heart up after a bad relationship. Weird analogy, I know, but it’s the closest I can get to the feeling.
So I know the whole “I’m sorry I’m not angry, I know we have a deal” is a comedic path for the character, but I guess I also see reflected in it the vertiginous nexus between anger and hope. “Stephen” wants to cling to his anger because it’s familiar, and I want to let it go because it’s exhausting. But the midpoint is still pretty confusing nonetheless.
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I agree, Stephen’s finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist is unerring and hilarious.
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Wren, I’m just happy to be on a blog where the commenters use a phrase like ‘vertiginous nexus’. ;P
I think your analogy was perfectly fine – I felt my heart break many times over the past 8 years and I can related to not being ready to trust again.
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“I’m just happy to be on a blog where the commenters use a phrase like ‘vertiginous nexus’.”
Ha, I aim to please :)
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That makes perfect sense and it’s pretty much how I feel right now too. Cautiously optimistic would be the best way to describe my feelings.
“a case of the shrinky-dinks” made me laugh more than it probably should have.
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I think the sketch in the First Act was important for Stephen’s character in dealing with his “transition” from Bush to Obama. The audience who’s been following his character since the beginning knows how he feels about Bush, but needs to understand how the character is going to feel about the regime change at hand. Had this sketch not been done, I really think the audience would be left wondering why this wasn’t directly dealt with, leaving them to infer Stephen’s thoughts and feelings about the new president, sort of like with TDS; however, with that individual inference comes a rainbow of opinions on how each person feels Stephen should’ve reacted to something in particular, leaving the direction of the character up for debate, rather than clearly presented to the audience.
The reason, I think, that this isn’t really addressed on TDS is because TDS isn’t character based — it’s mostly content or news based. On TCR the actions of the character are partly based on current events and his reaction to them, so understanding the underlying feeling of the character and a general supposition of how he’ll react to news is necessary for continuity’s sake. Though, I have to say, I was not expecting his character’s easy acceptance of Obama based on race in the Fourth Act — that was pretty tricky reasoning; but it worked, and it’ll keep the character from not hanging onto the past and continually referring to when Bush was president because it’s not really relevant anymore. Essentially, it’s giving the character a reason to transition quickly and easily from Bush to Obama without any open ends or loopholes — I guess it was sort of a way to close the door on one set of jokes and open the door on a whole new scope and breadth of them that have yet to be discovered. But, I’m sure everyone reading this knew that already. : )
Let’s be honest though…who doesn’t love Stephen fake crying? And when you add mascara and fake snot to that, it’s just that much better.
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All comments here are insightful and comprehensive, so I’ll just add this:
I feel like my heart’s about to burst, because it’s full of rainbows.
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“Barack Obama was sworn in on the same bible Lincoln used. As opposed to Joe Biden who was sworn in on the Hogwart’s spellbook.”
Hahahahaha!
On the other side of things, it will certainly be interesting to see how both Stephen and Jon deal with this new administration. Frankly, I think Stephen will have an easier time of it because he plays a character who is very disingenuous so he can change his opinion of Obama as the news occurs. I’m not sure how Jon’s gonna do with it…we’ll just have to wait and see.
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Interesting insights, everyone. :)
While I haven’t been watching the two shows for so long, I definitely appreciate their treatment and recognition on the reality that there is already a new administration after eight long years, a reality that profoundly affects the US and the rest of the world. It was acknowledged, I believe, through their hesitation, their apologies in the sense that they’re not yet ready, that they’re also in a kind of transition. Having found a strong, secure foothold in mocking the previous administration, they are still learning to let go.
Slowly but surely, they are going to be reshaping their shows, and I think the reshaphing was already apparent (even if it wasn’t yet clear, there is a hint that there is a change taking place, or will take place) in their first shows just hours after President Obama was sworn in.
I, for one, am very interested to sit and watch these transformations and transitions unfold and how they manifest themselves in the performances of the people that make up both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. :)
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