EPISODE NUMBER: 5100 (July 27, 2009)
GUESTS: Movits!
SEGMENTS: Stephen Colbert’s Current Events, Nailed ‘Em
VIDEOS: Monday, July 27, 2009
Although Sarah Palin jokes pretty much write themselves, it was still laugh out loud funny to see Stephen “writing” his tribute with slips of paper from a hat. And the taser report was funny but at the same time, so very sad. I didn’t get the “‘Current’ Events” pun until the second viewing – HA! At the same time, the graphics were amazingly dark humor, to go with the rather bleak yet funny report. I was amazed that the sketch went so dark that the writers felt the need to bring in “Stephen’s Conscience”, breaking the character wall and destroying it. And then tasering it. What were all of your thoughts on this new character development?
I don’t think I’ve ever voted the musical guests as my favorite part of a show, but I absolutely loved Movits! I’m so going to get them on my iTunes this week. I bet their Friday show at Joe’s Pub is going to be wall-to-wall Colbert fans having a blast. Please enjoy the video below of last night’s show, courtesy of Hulu.
- And then I saw the bright side – Sarah Palin is free! She can finally spread her wings and fly in a helicopter to shoot wolfs.
- I believe on the tenth page, she decides since the book is going to end anyway, to leave the last 200 pages blank.
- Sarah, cherished freedoms … is that … some may say and to those some … gas pipe line … to those brave soldiers … snow machines … pals around with … Patrick the starfish.
- Truer words were never randomly generated.
- There’s even a new Emmy category – best involuntary spasms. Sorry, Glenn Beck, you have to be tased first.
- Now, it may look like that last guy was already on the ground, but tasers can always make you get more on the grounder.
- It’s me Stephen, your conscience. I don’t believe we’ve ever met.
- You stay down, motherf@#ker! I will make you ride the lightening!
- F@#k it, break it down Princess Leia.
- I would say throw the book at that kid, but he would just read it.
- Once again, it falls to Sweden.
- You guys are a couple of years behind there, that’s cool.
- How many of your songs are about lingonberry?
I voted for the taser segment (I didn’t get the Current Events pun until you just mentioned it and I stopped to think about it lol). It had me laughing extra hard because in work we often like to watch taser videos and then have debates on whether we thought it was right for that person to be tased. Haha. I will most definitely be showing my co-workers that Colbert Report video clip!
I really enjoyed the guest tonight! I love Sweden and Swedes. I studied abroad in Sweden in college and it was amazing. Two really good Swedish songs which I remember and I still listen to sometimes are:
Petter – Det går bra nu
Gyllene Tider – Sommartider
And I’ll be checking out more of Movits music too.
The segment Nailed ‘Em was pretty cute and funny also. That kid was adorable.
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Oddly enough I caught the “Current Events” pun right away, but missed the “shocking report” pun that immediately preceded it on first viewing. The only thing better than a good pun is a pun so subtle that you almost miss it.
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I liked the appearance of Stephen’s conscience who was just as quick to anger! The line about them never meeting was funny. To address DB’s observation above, I don’t think it truly broke down the character wall because “Stephen” was completely ignorant and misconstrued all his conscience was saying. To me, that was very much reinforcing his character’s unwillingness to see anything but (while justifying)his own point of view.
Did anyone notice at the very beginning during the opening shot, Stephen pointing to someone sitting in the audience [on the steps, not chairs] and saying “You’re not eighteen” just before starting the show? Don’t know why I noticed it..I am usually not that observant on Mondays! It just made me wonder if maybe he had more family in the audience.
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I loved the Current Events segment and the appearance of Stephen’s conscience for the same reasons you stated. :-) Very funny!
Did that library really make that kid give back his card?! Wow. Cute kid. My son just turned 6 and also really loves to read.
I really enjoyed Movitz! It’s too bad that I won’t be in NYC until Sunday so I will just miss the chance to see them live. I bet they’re a lot of fun!
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How did you know it was someone sitting on the steps? You have eagles eyes, my friend! AMERICAN eagle eyes.
I voted for Nailed ‘Em because I always love this segment, and because I live kind of close to where the injustice happened. I liked the interview with the boy’s sister where she said “He’s such a dork” or something along those lines.
As of now, at least, the votes are really everywhere! I guess that’s a sign of a good show, when everyone likes something different.
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DVR my friend! I walked in front of the tv right when the camera swept the audience and had my roommate rewind.
I don’t know for sure it was someone on the steps as opposed to the crowd, but I think those that don’t have seats are usually friends or family of people who may work on the show. (When I was at a taping, a guy from The Onion had such a seat near me-He knew someone who worked on the show)
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Oooooh coolio! Thanks for the info =]
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“You’re not eighteen!”
So that’s what he said! I played it back, but still couldn’t catch it. Thanks.
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I loved the “Current Events” segment — what I love the most about the graphics sequences that introduce segments like this are the fact that each and every one of them explode at the end. It never gets old and actually gets funnier every time they do it because we almost expect it every time.
Favorite line: “It’s me Stephen, your conscience. I don’t believe we’ve ever met.”
That sums up his character to a tea!
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Okay, hilarious as Stephen’s segment on Palin was last night (and believe you me, I loved it), I have to admit Conan gave him a run for his money by having William Shatner come out and read Palin’s farewell speech. HA!
Still, this all takes nothing away from the joy of the show last night. Movits! is an unalloyed delight, that poor kid in the “Nailed ‘Em” segment absolutely melted me, and I’ve finally had my eyes opened to the threat posed by great-grannies. A thoroughly charming show!
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my goodness, MsI. Shatner reading Palin was hysterical. The bongos and bass were too perfect.
Back to the show… I love anyone who recognizes the pure genius of Cab Calloway (possibly my favorite singer of all time) and Benny Goodman. Movitz really rocked. Here’s to them getting the Colbert bump.
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I finally had the chance to watch the Shatner link. Still laughing, not just at the clip, but remembering recordings one of my brothers had of Shatner and Nimoy “singing.”
Loved Stephen’s take on the speech, too. When I saw the slips of paper, my first thought was that he was going to read fortune cookie sayings, but the random speech generator was even better – and made just as much (non)sense any other SP speech.
reCaptcha: rambling pano
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Loved the Palin mocking but I voted for Movits just cause they rocked the house.
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That kid was so adorable! I would’ve been so angry if I got my library card taken away when I was little. :( How lame. Movitz was fun, though. I’ll have to look into more of their music. All around a good show.
(Also, to be a nitpicker, that should be “wolves,” not “wolfs” up there.)
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Here’s a link to the lyrics for last night’s performance: http://lyricwiki.org/Movits!:Fel_Del_Av_Gården
I think you’re going to have to copy and paste the link into your browser. Sorry.
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When Stephen asked Movits! if they had heard of him, I LOVED it when the one guy said they only knew him as “that guy from The Daily Show.” Haha! Loved seeing Stephen’s reaction as well. Don’t worry Stephen. I think the Swedes will know and love you now that you have given attention to one of their bands:)
Although I love the look of Movitz! and the idea of fusing two genres of music, I’m afraid the lyrics seemed too packed in and didn’t seem to have much rhythm. I really, really wanted to like them though.
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Movits was great! definitely got my vote. their music is really catchy, and I don’t have to feel silly for not understanding the lyrics because I don’t even understand the language!
that kid was also very cute and expressive. of course I’m biased because I like reading. I didn’t even realize that library stuff was a problem, because both at school and at home, there is a county-wide system and I can visit many different library locations. I really hope there is another library he can visit…I usually have about 10 things out of the library at a time, no exaggerating (music, books, DVDs, audiobooks) and if I didn’t have it I’d be bored a lot more!
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I couldn’t pick a favorite today. I appreciated how Stephen made his point about officers (I guess that could include library officials) overreacting without putting the spotlight directly on Dr. Gates. Tasering the older woman really made me angry, especially since my mom has a pacemaker; I took that incident personally. The graphics, as usual, were terrific.
The whole library thing just doesn’t make sense to me. I live in a town (near PA) that is not part of our county library system (our library is better, IMHO); however, anyone outside the county system can pay an annual fee to get a card with them. Actually, I get a free courtesy card because I teach in a district within the system. What I find nonsensical is that you have to provide your address and ID in order to get a card, so why wouldn’t the powers-that-be have figured it out then.
Poor, way-too-adorable Tony. I read like that at his age – and yes, I AM a dork, thank you very much! ;)
Loved Movits – the translated lyrics were kind of weird, although it sounded fun in Swedish. Must be the ABBA / Ikea / Swedish Chef effect.
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I suddenly miss Veronica Mars and her taser. That was a great show.
Movits! was awesome! And was Stephen using his Hungarian accent? Haha.
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My favorite two were Current Events and Movits!
Let me just say that normally, I don’t care much for the musical guests. Stephen just has vastly different musical taste from me. But when I hear that a band is combining Jazz and Hip Hop, which happen to be two of my favorite genres, suddenly my ears perk up.
I was not disappointed tonight.
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At the top of the show, Stephen said that after Movits! played, they could help him put together his IKEA futon. I immediately thought of the days when Stephen put together and sold his own futons. Anyone else?
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::raises hand::!
“I built and sold futon frames… to people who should have known better,” was, I believe, how he put it. ;)
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Awesome episode! I’ve just bought my tickets for the Movits performance at Joe’s Pub on Friday. Anyone else going to be there?
(By the way – my calander tells me it was Evelyn Colbert’s birthday today, but I can’t remember exactly where I learned it. Can anyone verify that?)
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Sarah Palin Will Be Missed
What a truly superb segment. “I’ve always been impressed by her eloquent speeches, but she saved the best for last. Listen to her describe what I think she’s describing,” says Stephen. What follows is Palin giving a portion of her “best” last speech, which is immediately followed by Stephen pensively and quizzically looking at the camera, holding a pen to his lips with mild puzzlement, reflective so amusingly of my response and that of the rest of his audience.
Stephen succeeds in a completely skillful way to enact this moment, less like a comedian making a funny face, distancing his viewers and making them just onlookers, inducing his audience to laugh AT him, and more like a trained actor, in Stephen’s case (Northwestern Department of Theatre [School of Communication], right? Good theatre program. Surely, DePaul Theatre School’s Gillian Anderson wouldn’t have been able to carry off this skit, although Palin might fit well into an X-Files episode), encouraging his audience to laugh WITH him, creating a bond with those watching, so they too feel they are pulling those slips of paper out of Stephen’s Palin hat in the last part of this segment.
The participatory feeling the audience is made to experience heightens the humor, creates bigger laughs, produces a sarcastic and satiric high, making the Palin hat antics the jewel in the crown of this very funny segment. As Stephen says at the segment’s end, “Truer words were never more randomly generated,” about his “goodbye to her [created] in the same way [he] imagines she writes her own speeches” as well as about her “best” last speech.
And possibly the only addition that might have made this segment even funnier was mentioned by Stephen a bit later as a tweet: “the last slip of paper in my Palin hat said the word ‘wasilla’ 50 times.” Simply a wonderful segment. It certainly gets my vote.
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This show was so awesome.
I loved everything about this episode.
From Stephen’s conscience tasering him to the little kid who got banned from the library (Well, I didn’t love the banning, the kid was cute and reminded of the kids I’ve met while working at my local library) to the Movits! interview and their performance.
It will get many rewatchings.
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