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! Hands down, my favorite freeze-frame moment of the week has got to be the Super Bowl Ad Office Pool. Wouldn’t you watch the Dr. Pepper Chickens doing the Superbowl Shuffle (Go Bears!), or the Snickers Beaver giving stock tips? Also, I don’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry for poor little David-after-the-dentist, achieving You Tube infamy at such a young age. What were your favorite bits this week, and are you just busting waiting for the Olympics segments to come out? (** = TCR/TDS link)
Monday: The Word – Faux ‘n’ Tell
“The FBI are terrible at finding out the truth. Even their most famous agents, Mulder and Scully, never found the truth out there.”
In the excellent sci-fi series The X-Files (aired 1993-2002), FBI Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigated cases of possible paranormal, alien, and supernatural origins. While Scully was the duo’s designated skeptic, Mulder was a believer in aliens and conspiracy theories – the show’s tagline “The Truth Is Out There” became iconic. Back in his TDS days, **Stephen did his own investigations into alien abductions.
“What about his turn-ons, his turn-offs? Boxers or briefs? Invisibility or flight? Ginger or Mary Ann?”
Gilligan’s Island was in production for only three seasons (1964-1967), but it became a (goofy) cultural touchstone during its decades in syndication. The show’s mismatched group of castaways (who went out for – sing it with me – a three hour tour) included the glamorous but high-maintenance Ginger, and the sensible girl-next-door Mary Ann. In a precursor to **Do, Dump, or Marry, the question quickly became Ginger or Mary Ann?
Stephen also gives a quick shout-out to Jules Verne (20,000 Leagues Under The Sea), Philip K. Dick (for his human-like replicants, as in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, later made into the film Bladerunner), and Tom Clancy (Debt of Honor).
Tuesday: Celebrate Black History Month With Heineken & George Stephanopoulos
“You can practically see Malcolm X with his finger in that dike.”
Prominent black civil rights leader Malcolm X as the little dutch boy? That has got to be one of the weirder images around. The story about a little Dutch boy who saves his town by plugging a hole in a dike with his finger originally appeared in American author Mary Mapes Dodge’s 1865 novel Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates.
“My guest tonight is, I believe, an imaginary pundit that only Big Bird can see.”
I admit, this little play on Stephanopoulos’s name just about made me snort cherry spice tea (in case you’re wondering, yuk) out my nose. Fans of Sesame Street will remember Big Bird’s best friend, the wooly mammoth-like muppet Snuffleupagus. But younger generations may not know that the character was originally only seen by Big Bird and the audience, while the other inhabitants of Sesame Street believed he was just an imaginary friend. In 1985, producers of the show revealed Snuffy to the rest of the characters, in part out of concerns that the old storyline would lead child victims of abuse to think that adults don’t believe children even when they’re telling the truth. **Stephen has visited Sesame Street before (as Jon happily points out), and **Sesame Street has come to The Report, too.
Wednesday: Better Know A District – Illinois’ 5th
“Before the break, we got to better know Illinois’ 5th congressional district, which has been represented by Dan Rostenkowski and Rod Blagojevich. So naturally I took a bribe from my sponsors and went to commercial.”
Oh, the long history of corruption and scandal in Chicago politics. Where to even begin? A don of Chicago’s old school machine politics, Rostenkowski served as U.S. Representative from 1959 to 1994, when he was brought down by charges of corruption and money laundering (he served 15 months in prison for mail fraud). Blagojevich earned his infamy during his six years as Illinois governor, which ended in his 2009 impeachment for (among other things) soliciting bribes in an attempt to sell the state’s vacant senate seat. **As good a candidate for Alpha Dog status as I’ve seen.
Thursday: Iran Begins Enriching Uranium & David Ross
“What the hell is uranian? I think it might be related to unobtanium, because why else would they be wearing 3D glasses?”
In the recent 3D sci-fi film Avatar, humans mine the valuable mineral unobtanium on the moon Pandora. However, the term has a much longer history, having been used since the 1950′s in science fiction and engineering to refer to any material which is so expensive, rare, or impossible that it is essentially unobtainable.
“The eagle is bringing the laurel crown to the Gorton’s fisherman.”
Thanks for another great pop culture breakdown, wren! I hadn’t known about the Philip K. Dick and Tom Clancy references in Monday’s show.
Shout Out (Hey!):
0