Four Horsemen of the Apopcalypse – Pop culture references in The Colbert Report: June 21-24, 2010

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!  I’ve been waiting with such antici….pation (2 points if you get that one) for the Fallback Position: Astronaut segments to air, and they did not disappoint!   Fallback Positions are like rare, polished little gems.  Every one is among my favorite segments ever (Come on: **Astrophysicist? **Spy?  **Thunderbird?  **Tennis Pro?  Classic!)  Monday’s show was light on references, so we’ll jump straight in with Tuesday.  What were your favorite segments this week? Post them in the comments! (** = TCR/TDS link)

Tuesday: Stanley McChrystal Talks to Rolling Stone

“Led Zeppelin may have trashed hotel rooms, but have you seen Afghanistan?  I for one hate to think what McChrystal could do with a dead shark.”

I’ve promised the keys to the obscure, oddball, and obscene, and today’s the jackpot of that last one.  In the late 1960′s and throughout the 1970′s, the members of Led Zeppelin epitomized the sex, drugs, and rock & roll lifestyle.  Notorious for utterly trashing hotel rooms and “entertaining” hordes of female groupies, the band’s proclivities coincided in legendarily squicky fashion at Seattle’s Edgewater Inn in 1970.  Details of the incident vary, but it’s alleged that after a day of fishing from the hotel balcony, and storing the dead fish on hangers in the closet,  one (or more) band members (and/or their entourage), erm, sexually engaged one (or more) female groupies with a dead shark (or a red snapper).  Seems like their creativity wasn’t limited to their music.

“I’ve got all of his early stuff on bootleg.  Ooh, this is a great one, this is him publicly ridiculing Vice President Biden’s plan to reduce troop levels in Afghanistan as ‘short sighted’.  Oh man, this is a great cover album of his cover-up of the Pat Tillman tragedy… Ah, check it.  Leaking a classified report to force the President to make up his mind faster.”

Greatest hits, indeed.  McChrystal’s recent profile in Rolling Stone is far from his first instance of impolitic remarks “reflecting poor judgment”. See this (brief) Reuters summary of his previous missteps.  Most difficult to swallow for many was how McChrystal managed to evade responsibility for the appallingly cynical political cover-up in the friendly-fire death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman (see Jon Krakauer’s recent book Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, and his **Daily Show interview).

Wednesday: Intro & Yahweh or No Way

[Internet Killed The Radio Star]

Oh, bring me back to 80′s New Wave.  The Buggles’ 1979 single “Video Killed the Radio Star” laments the passing of an era, when television replaces radio as the dominant musical medium.  Famously, the song was the first music video played on MTV.  Not one of the handful of households in northern New Jersey who saw the network’s August 1, 1981 debut?  Watch it now. Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll!

“It’s no surprise the Vatican is a fan of The Blues Brothers.  Just like the Pope, this movie has a Nazi subplot.”

Well, honestly, who isn’t a fan of The Blues Brothers?  In the 1980 film, brothers Jake and Elwood Blues (played by John Belushi and Dan Akroyd) set out to save the orphanage in which they were raised (their “mission from God”) by setting up a concert to raise $5000 for back taxes.  Along the way, they encounter legendary blues and soul musicians (think Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and John Lee Hooker), and get on the wrong side of both the law and the local neo-Nazis. Pope Benedict XVI’s Nazi connections are distinctly less entertaining; as a teen in Germany in the 1940′s, he was conscripted into the Hitler Youth, though his family had always been strongly anti-Nazi. 

Thursday: Intro & The Wørd – Who War It Best?

[McChrystal Blew Persuasion]

Not a particularly weighty reference, but a great song.  Recorded in 1969 by Tommy James and the Shondells, “Crystal Blue Persuasion” has seen its share of covers over the years.  My favorite by far is John Wesley Harding’s cool grooving version.

“It was such a scoop, they had to bump their regular monthly column on John Fogerty’s comeback.”

After Creedence Clearwater Revival disbanded in 1972, singer/songwriter/guitarist John Fogerty’s play at a solo career soon fizzled.  He staged his first comeback in 1985 with the album Centerfold, but its follow-up was less successful, and by the early 1990′s he was off the scene again.  He launched a second comeback in 1997, and another in 2004.  Sounds like he’s due for a fourth any day now.