Stephen Colbert in the Zeitgeist – July 27, 2009

Hey, Zoners! It’s Monday, and you know what that means — new show! While we’re all getting psyched up for that, we can take time for a mad dash through the Colbert newsosphere. Here’s your zeitgeist for July 27th.

Here’s a fun thing that I’ve already seen posted in a couple of places. It’s pretty cool if you’re both a Harry Potter fan and a news nerd:

• Echo Chamber of Secrets: 30 Media Muggles and their Harry Potter Counterparts – Mediaite: You’ll have to go look at the whole thing to see which Harry Potter character is the counterpart of different media personalities, but here are a few highlights:
  • Conan O’Brien is Ron Weasley
  • Bill O’Reilly is Draco Malfoy (heh)
  • Chris Matthews is Mad-Eye Moody
  • Anderson Cooper is Fleur Delacour
  • Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are Fred and George Weasley (“Extra nerdy parallel: both Stephen Colbert and George Weasley have damaged right ears.”)

A little more information on Stephen’s appearance for Two River Theater Company:

• Two River Theater Company offers a new report on Stephen Colbert – The Star-Ledger (Newark, N.J.): Who better to grill Stephen Colbert — out of character — then a friend from college?… TRTC’s Artistic Director Aaron Posner, who was a classmate of Colbert’s at Northwestern University, will interview the creator of Comedy Central’s faux-ultra-conservative voice at Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre November 1 at 7:30 pm.
• CCI: Oni Press Panelmonium – Comic Book Resources: A hardcover collection of the five issues of “Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen” is coming out July 29. [Oni Press's head of Sales and Marketing Cory] Casoni asked artist Robbi Rodriquez what it was like working on the title. “Challenging,” said Rodriguez to laughs. “Me and Colbert go underwear shopping together. That’s how close we are.”
• Gettin’ down with the lingo – The Guardian (UK): [An] account of slang as a social phenomenon of irreverent creativity – or as he [author Michael Adams] nicely puts it “poetry on the down low.” After a survey of definitions of slang and some accounts of restaurant and snowboarding jargon, we get many examples from Buffy… and the Simpsons (“saxamaphone”); a nice explanation of the H in “Jesus H. Christ”; an amusingly pedantic analysis of Stephen Colbert’s “metafreephorall” (“a contwisticated double infixed blend”); and an intriguing final argument about slang’s place in cognition.
• Jetpacks: Will We Ever Really Have Jetpacks – The Faster Times: I once attended a taping of the Colbert Report. Before the show started, Stephen Colbert fielded questions from the audience as himself, not his character. That is, as the real-life genius he appears to be. And when I stood up to ask my question — will we ever really have jetpacks? — Stephen didn’t hesitate at all in answering: yes. (Alrighty then, if Stephen says we’ll have ‘em someday, then we will!)
• Variety’s Comedy Impact Report: Erik Flannigan, Exec VP of digital media, MTV Networks Ent. Group – Variety: Comedy Central’s digital maven has been on a mission ever since he joined the MTV group a few years ago: Reclaim the channel’s popular programming online… Erik Flannigan pushed the Viacom company away from its clunky umbrella approach to broadband, building separate online entities for “The Daily Show,” “South Park,” and “The Colbert Report”… “Comedy and online were made for each other because comedy clips can be broken down into jokes,” Flannigan says. “If it isn’t funny in three minutes, it isn’t going to be funny in 20 minutes.”
• Some really gratuitous name dropping from IdahoStatesman.com, in an article recommending biotin, a B-complex vitamin, to improve the health of nails: What your nails don’t need: Extra protein or gelatin won’t do anything for your nails. But polish removers containing acetone will – they can leave nails drier than the best of Stephen Colbert’s humor.

Remember Stephen’s coverage of the 40th anniversary of the moon landing last week, and the footage of “Young Stephen” doing his original coverage back in 1969? Remember how we thought that “Young Stephen” was actually Stephen’s youngest son, John? Well, this made me grin a lot (emphasis added):

• Here’s footage of Stephen Colbert covering the moon landing – TV Squad: If you didn’t realize it, Stephen Colbert also covered the historic event on July 20, 1969… I’m assuming that this is probably a little more true-to-life than a lot people might realize, since Colbert was into this stuff when he was young and actually does have a soft spot for Nixon. The kid they have playing him is pretty funny.

Haha, a star is born! Here’s the video of that segment, complete with bonus prop failure and extra special bonus character break. Enjoy!

(h/t Ms I, Jennie, and Lauren)