Stephen Colbert in the Zeitgeist – Radio City Dance-off Edition

Time to ‘fess up, you guys: how many times have you watched the video from Tuesday night’s Radio City shenanigans? I’ve lost count, myself, yet I’m still laughing at it every time. When I first bought my ticket to the show, I hoped that Stephen and/or Jon would drop by to add to the hilarity, but I still can’t believe I was lucky enough to witness it. And that was just one highlight of what turned out to be a fantastic evening of entertainment. I love Conan; he’s the awkward, silly, hilarious brother I never had. (Wait a sec… I do actually have one of those. But he’s never been on TV, and Conan has better material. And he’s way cooler.)

I’ve been home on a little “staycation” this week, so I took some time today to round up the best reviews of Tuesday’s show. Most of them mention the big dance-off as the obvious highlight. One thing that amused me as I was compiling this post was to see how many of the articles and reviews included the nose-to-nose picture of Stephen and Conan. And why not, since it was the best picture from the show.

• The New York Times’ Arts Beat blog gives a nod to the fact that we’re living in the Age of Twitter, and shares some of the best tweets from the show. This one was my favorite: “Jon Stewart has now crashed the party! Two Catholics and a Jew onstage. This show is full of guilt.” (from @zachlinder) If you want to get the full experience, you can look for tweets from Tuesday’s show with the hashtag #triumph, and the second Radio City show on Wednesday with the hashtag #oldyolsen. (Fair warning, many of the more recent #triumph tweets are about motorcycles. Just sayin’.)
• The official New York Times review was mostly positive, characterizing the show as “a more manic, energized version of his comedy show of old,” and the appearances by the special guests “looked less like goofy star turns than a show of support for a human-rights cause.” I don’t know about the other guests, but the presence of Stephen and Jon was certainly a show of support as much as it was a chance to goof around in front of a big audience.
• The New York Daily News has a very positive review of Tuesday’s show, and emphasized the dance-off as the obvious highlight.
• EW.com’s Popwatch gives a play-by-play summary of the dance-off along with two of the various audience videos that have shown up on You Tube.
• In addition to a thorough review of Conan’s show, Punchline Magazine also gives props to Reggie Watts, the opening act, who normally plays smaller venues but had no problem at all getting the crowd on his side. (Profanity is a great uniter, especially when it’s profanity used in a clever way.) I had never heard of Reggie before this, but I enjoyed his act and wouldn’t hesitate to see him again. (Another warning: the video posted on Reggie’s home page is very much NSFW, because of the aforementioned profanity. There’s a lot of it.)
• The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog reviewed the show in the context of Conan’s move from network television to basic cable. Also mentioned prominently was the fact that while Conan has now joined the fraternity of “basic cable boys,” he’ll be facing some serious competition from Jon and Stephen when his TBS show premieres in November. (The article mentions that Conan “kiss[ed] a band member” at one point in the show, which is not entirely accurate. He was supposed to kiss La Bamba, but what he actually did was lick his face. The verdict? “He tastes like Funyuns.”)

It’s a shame that Conan will likely never be able to do anything similar to this tour again, once his TBS show starts up in November. It was too much fun to capture in words, and the opportunity to see him together with Stephen and Jon again was priceless. But I do hope that the Conan-Colbert-Stewart feud will live on to be fought another day, with similar hilarious results!