Welcome to No Fact Zone’s weekly roundup of cultural references on The Colbert Report. From Darcy to Danger Mouse, String Theory to Shakespeare, we’ve got the keys to this week’s obscure, oddball, and occasionally obscene cultural shout-outs (hey!).
Hey Zoners! Back from Iraq, and pop culture is on the menu. Because I can’t resist, I’ve included some fantastic related TDS & TCR links this week (marked with *), which you should all go watch immediately. Then you can come back here, kibbitz, and of course, post your favorite bits in the comments!
Monday: Intro & Stephen’s Sound Advice & Car Shout
“I have advice for the next leader of North Korea: Make sure Bond is dead before you leave the room.”
Where would summer blockbusters be without movie villains and their classic errors in judgment? Like ordering secret agent James Bond killed (2002′s Die Another Day) before fleeing on your hovercraft, only to find – surprise! – he’s escaped and blown up your base in the process. Foiled again! Let the branded car chases commence!
“Remember, you want to build up to albino sea cucumber. So start being hailed by something more believable, like Larry the Cucumber”
We’ve featured some pretty strange children’s programming on the Apopcalypse before (Yo Gabba Gabba, Pee Wee’s Playhouse, The Muppet Show). Now add Veggie Tales, a CG animated show where talking and singing vegetables convey religious lessons to kids. I don’t know if it’s the animation style, or the juxtaposition of Christianity and crudités, but this one freaks me out.
What do fans of both the Report and NPR’s Car Talk love even more than Car Shout? When Stephen tries to start a war between the neo-cons and the Car Talk crowd, *and manages to lose $50 and his composure, to boot.
Tuesday: Teh-Runoff
“The ballot counting was suspect, Mousavi failed to carry his home province, and the third place finisher was Pat Buchanan.”
Flashback to butterfly ballots and hanging chads! During the (seemingly) endless Florida ballot recount in the 2000 US Presidential election, numerous voting irregularities emerged – in particular an unexpectedly high proportion of votes for Pat Buchanan. The confusing “butterfly ballot” design may have led many supporters of Democrat Al Gore to mistakenly vote for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan (more mis-votes than Bush’s margin of victory). Stephen covered the recount at The Daily Show, *where he (hilariously!) interviewed Florida voters, and subsequently *designed a flamboyantly fool-proof ballot.
Wednesday: The Word – Bohemian Grove
“That is really saying something for a guy named Tricky Dick, who paid a man with this moustache to do secret ‘plumbing’ for him in the 70′s, and then paid him to keep it quiet.”
Pictured is G. Gordon Liddy, head of the so called “White House Plumbers”, a covert group established by President Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon to stop leaks of classified or potentially embarrassing information to the media. Among their activities was breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee (located at the Watergate hotel); the resulting Watergate scandal landed Liddy in prison, and led to Nixon’s resignation.
Thursday: Murder in the White House – Jeff Goldblum & Paul Muldoon
Jeff Goldblum, the eternal fast-talking imbalanced nerd king himself, speaks on behalf of the aggrieved fly family, with an empathy no doubt gained from his starring role in David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of The Fly. Coolness. But the hair? Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Enjoyed Stephen & Paul Muldoon’s reading of Tea? Muldoon has posted numerous recordings of his poems – they’re wonderful poems, and he’s got a lovely reading voice. Yay for poetry!
LOL. I agree about Jeff Goldblum’s hair. It was pretty scary.
Right now, I thanked my mom for telling me why Goldblum was there for The Fly Incident. She was laying down on the couch with me, for one of her rare moments to watch The Colbert Report.
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Nice job again, Wren.
Just an aside about the Wednesday show: my dad, in particular, was always very much into politics and political events, so Liddy and Hunt, for instance, are names I do remember, even though we are talking about ’72 – ’74. When G. Gordon Liddy’s picture came up as connected with Watergate, it rang a bell for me, as such, but the audience’s response, if I recall, was fairly weak- the picture and the person seemed unfamiliar to many or most.
That Forbes article Ms Interpreted posted about the aging ‘Daily Show’ and ‘Colbert Report’ demographic may apply to me but certainly didn’t seem to for that audience – just something I noticed, a sort of proof before our eyes, which might suggest that Nielson is not the end all as Ms Interpreted suggested.
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I recognized the Watergate references, but I didn’t recognize Liddy’s picture. Kind of funny, b/c I think I would recognize most of the other W-gate leaders. I remember watching the hearings on TV in 7th grade – in school (yes, I’m in that ‘geezer’ demographic).
Wren, thanks for the hysterical character breaks. I would love to know the backstory on the $50 Lutefisk bet!
Re Veggie Tales: Since his buzz cut, Stephen can now sing “The Hairbrush Song”!
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hehehe, no haaaair for my hairbrush!
I’ll have that in my head all night now, thanks…
How could I have forgot the lutefisk joke? I L’d my A O.
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My guess is that the bet was whether the audience would get the joke or not (and clearly they didn’t). In the next segment, he explains the joke and tells the audience to remember that next time. Very cute :)
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Thanks, wren.
My thought was that Stephen flubbed the line he was supposed to say (maybe he left out the part about Norway? idk) & that’s why he lost the bet.
It’s one of my favorite character breaks, no matter what.
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