Archive for Blogosphere
Stephen Colbert in the Zeitgeist – March 13, 2010
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Happy weekend, Zoners! I’m hiding out here in the Zeitgeist Central office to avoid the monsoon that’s been raging outside all day, catching up on some YouTube videos, watching the Mets spring training game from Florida (they won, yay), and generally being useless to anyone but myself. It’s been a good day. So now, in the effort to accomplish at least one useful thing today, I give you the latest Colbert news floating around the tubes of the Interweb.
Last gasp from Vancouver
- In what I think might be the very last bit of news to come out of Stephen’s visit to Vancouver, True/Slant included this little tidbit in a round-up of celebrity sightings around the city: “Stephen Colbert enjoyed moule frites at Chambar Restaurant and also dinner at Yaletown’s Blue Water Cafe (where fellow diners sang along with the comedian to O Canada).”
TCR guests
- As I mentioned in the last zeitgeist, Colbert Report chaplain and three-time guest Father James Martin has a new book out, just released this past Tuesday. A couple of recent articles about Father Jim both mention his position as Colbert Report chaplain. From Time magazine: “Father Jim Martin did not seek the title of Stephen Colbert’s TV priest. All he was doing was waiting in the wings for his third appearance on the comedian’s show… Then the priest suddenly heard his host direct the audience to welcome “The Colbert Report chaplain.” “I remember being surprised and delighted,” says Martin.”
- And Irish American newspaper The Irish Echo has a nice profile of Father Jim that relates these thoughts on Stephen: “‘He’s a great guy,’ Martin said of host Stephen Colbert. ‘He’s Catholic, so that helps us get along. He’s extremely bright,’ he added. ‘So I know his character is going to ask me good questions.’”
- Last Wednesday’s TCR guest Sean Carroll has a blog post up at Discover describing his experience at the show. I love his comment that the questions were more subtle and sophisticated than he was anticipating. I guess you don’t expect that when you’ve been warned that you’ll be doing the interview with an “idiot.”
Hulu
- For those of you, like me, who are missing the Report on Hulu, the future is not entirely bleak. Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman, commenting at a media conference, stated that both TCR and TDS could return to Hulu if their business model changes. “On the current economic model for Hulu there’s just not much in it for us to continue at this time.” (via BusinessWeek)
Viacom vs. Google
- CNET has an update on the Viacom vs. Google copyright fight, with the judge in the case ordering the two companies to figure out which information is too sensitive to release to the public within ten days. The rest of the documents in the case will be available to the public. This could get very interesting as some of the information that might become public is whether or not YouTube employees or Viacom employees uploaded any videos themselves.
Hosting the Oscars
- I know Stephen often gets mentioned as someone who would be a good choice to host an awards show, and here Salon.com makes a case for him to host the Oscars: “Who else could fill [Hugh] Jackman’s shoes? Dare I suggest Stephen Colbert? Check out his Christmas special for some serious song-and-dance-man cred. Unlike Jon Stewart, Colbert has the ability to pull off postmodern humor in such a way that an older audience doesn’t notice he’s being postmodern.”
Picture of the day
- From Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic, a picture with a caption that’ll make you smile: an Army chaplain at a combat outpost in southern Afghanistan, surrounded by darkness, reading I Am America (And So Can You!) by the light of his red-filtered head lamp.
(h/t Ms I, Jennie, and Katt)
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Stephen Colbert in the Zeitgeist – March 3, 2010
Posted by: | CommentsHey, gang! I hope everyone is having a great week-after-the-Olympics. I’m feeling a little lost without the Olympics to watch, but with The Pluto Files and the final episode of Faces of America both airing this week, it’s not like there’s nothing good on TV. Just as there’s been a wealth of Colbert goodness on TV, we’ve got plenty happening in the news this week, too. Today’s zeitgeist includes a few last gasps from Vancouver and the Olympics, a look at the late night landscape now that The Guy Who Used to Host The Tonight Show is back at The Tonight Show, and a bridge I’d like to sell you. It’s in Hungary. Read on!
Vancouverage: the final word, maybe
- NBC’s Olympics website posted a poll to vote for the favorite personality of the Games. I call your attention to #10: Stephen Colbert, speed skating: “The ‘Assistant Sports Psychologist’ of the U.S. speed skating team, Colbert was everywhere during his run in Vancouver. He rode a moose. He climbed into a fire. He dressed up as a Canadian Mountie. And above all else, he introduced an unexpected and entertaining wild card onto the landscape of the Olympic Winter Games.” (I’d tell you all to go vote for him because he’s only at fourth place, but it looks like the voting might have closed. Boo.)
- Mediabistro’s TVNewser has posted their choices for the top 10 images from the Winter Olympics coverage. They’re not posted in any particular order, but halfway down in the right column, you’ll see a familiar Canadian Mountie sitting in front of a stuffed moose in NBC’s studios.
- NESN.com offers its list of Top 10 lessons to take away from the Vancouver Games. Lesson #10: Having fun has its rewards – “Heckling may not have been invented in the USA, but Americans perfected it. Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report, a right-wing parody of a TV show airing on Comedy Central, made waves for his lambasting of Canadians as ’syrup suckers’ and ‘ice holes.’ The attention he and his show brought to the Games, however, certainly assuaged any hurt feelings Canadians might have had.”
- In a more somber reflection on the Olympics, The Washington Post looks at the troubles confronting US Speedskating as they face a very uncertain financial future with the end of the Colbert Nation sponsorship. Sports Illustrated is featuring a similar story focusing on the long-track speedskaters.
Hungarian bridge
- Remember the bridge in Hungary that Stephen tried to have named after himself? The bridge shows up on Google Maps with the legend “Colbert híd,” which translates to “Colbert Bridge” according to a quick Hungarian-to-English online dictionary search. As the article explains, the name is from user-contributed information, and isn’t officially part of Google Maps. But if you want a giggle, go over to Google Maps and do a search on “Megyeri Bridge, Budapest, Hungary.”
St. Patrick’s Day is coming up
- …and you can tell because items like this are starting to show up. IrishCentral.com has published their list of the Top 10 funniest Irish celebrities for St. Patrick’s Day, and look who’s at number 1: Stephen Tyrone Colbert. “Subtle, understated, brilliant. Just came back from a gig at the Vancouver Olympics where he killed them with an Irish stand up routine at the Irish House. Despite the humor, takes his Irish heritage seriously.” Among the other Irish folks he beat out for the honor of being #1: Jimmy Fallon, Conan O’Brien, and Denis Leary.
Late night TV
- With Jay Leno returning to The Tonight Show this week, it raises the question of whether the late night talk show format is still relevant. Two TV media experts disagree on the answer, but both conclude that future success might depend on becoming more “edgy and controversial” like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. (Via the Lincoln (NE) Journal Star)
Random acts of news
- MTV’s Splash Page has an interview with Mad Men star Jon Hamm discussing the possibility of playing various superheroes in upcoming films. But Hamm has his own suggestion for casting the role of Captain America: “I think that Captain America should be played by Stephen Colbert,” he laughed. “I think that would be perfect.”
- Eric Zorn in the Chicago Tribune airs one of his pet TV peeves: the wild applause from studio audiences that suck up valuable air time. He accuses Jay Leno and Stephen Colbert specifically of allowing all that yelling and screaming to go on and on and on, to the detriment of the show. You’ll want to read the comments at the end of the column for a response from DB about the genuine enthusiasm of TCR audiences.
- I’m going to indulge myself for a minute here and point out a nice article in THE USA Today on Father James Martin, S.J., the official Colbert Report chaplain and one of my favorite TCR guests. He has a new book coming out next week, The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything: the Spirituality of Real Life. The article includes a sidebar on Father Jim’s three appearances on TCR, and quotes Stephen as saying, “Jim is a Jesuit priest and a funny guy. I’m grateful to know both of him.” (Pardon me for a sec while I go add this book to my reading list…)
Gratuitous name dropping
- Economic news out of South Carolina: a state politician recently introduced legislation that would put South Carolina back on the gold standard, replacing U.S. dollars with gold and silver coins. The reaction? “I’m thinking of a Stephen Colbert half dollar, aren’t you?” (Via Bankrate.com)
(h/t DB, Ms I, Jennie, and Katt)
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Please don’t sue us – An open letter to Tony Fox, PR rep for Viacom
Posted by: | CommentsDear Mr. Fox:
My name is DB Ferguson, and I run NoFactZone.net, a blog which many consider to be the best independent Stephen Colbert fan site on the web. We’ve been blogging about Stephen Colbert since July 17, 2006, so close to 4 years. We have an all-volunteer staff of 13 Completists, who blog 7 days a week to bring the Colbert Nation the most up to date news about Stephen Colbert and the ‘Colbert Report’. We receive on average over 60,000 unique visits a month and over 100,000 page views. We’ve had over 2.5 million unique hits over the course of our blog, and every one of those hits was free to readers and positively biased towards Stephen Colbert.
Before I go any further, I would like to praise the access to videos that you have given through ColbertNation.com. I’ve been a fan for a very long time, and I remember the horrid shape of the official ‘Colbert Nation’ site and the videos for the first couple of years of the show. I remember struggling to even watch a video, and there was no way that a video was getting embedded. We at No Fact Zone mostly linked to YouTube videos, until they were taken down, not because we wanted to make money off of the videos, but because we wanted to share the greatness that is Stephen Colbert with anyone who would listen. In the fall of 2008, ColbertNation.com made a game changing move. They started streaming both full videos as well as embeddable clips. And the way that the new media department tagged the videos and the way that the videos were searchable was so amazingly wonderful. I still visit the official ‘Colbert Nation’ site almost every day, and when I do, I almost always stop to watch a video or two. Sometimes it’s something recent, but often it’s something from the vaults, something I haven’t seen in years, but I just have a hankering to watch. I’m quite grateful for the fact that Viacom listened to their viewers and gave them access to videos. I will be the first to admit that there are processes in the video experience that should be upgraded, but all in all, it’s head and shoulders over what was being offered for a very long time.
That being said, I was a bit distressed when I read at the Hollywood Reporter that Viacom will start suing bloggers who use unauthorized clips of the ‘Daily Show’. From the tone of the interview, it sounds like this edict applies to all Comedy Central shows, including the main topic of our blog, the ‘Colbert Report’. Now, I use authorized clips of the ‘Colbert Report’ and the ‘Daily Show’, with the rare exception of fanvids (virtually all of which have been removed from the original servers and are no longer available). I do screencaps sometimes, I’ll admit to that. And we often post the videos of the shows without the embed frame, as I prefer to feature the video as large as it will go on my site. But I’m using video that streams directly from Viacom and ColbertNation.com, ads and all.
You said in your interview with the Hollywood Reporter that “My feeling is if (websites) are making money on our copyrighted content, then that is a problem.” When I tell people I am the webmaster of a very popular web site, the first thing people ask is “How much money do you make?” And I can say, in all honesty, not a dime. I take pride in the fact that I do this site not because I am making money, but I do it simply for the love and the passion of blogging about a man and a show that I have grown to respect and admire. We’re more than a news site, we’re a community.
To further alleviate any concern you may have about us profiting off of Viacom’s intellectual property, let me be perfectly transparent about our finances here at No Fact Zone. Our server costs run us $129 a month. Our host graciously manages our box for free. You see that ad in the far right corner? That’s our lone ad on the site. Wanna know how much I made in February 2010 from that ad? $1.62. No, seriously. $1.62. We’ve received donations for our server, which sit in a fund that our host keeps and uses to pay our server fees. But the blogging staff doesn’t see a dime; the donations go straight to the server fees. Our staff gets no pay, no perks, nothing except the satisfaction that what we are doing is producing something we as a fan community can be proud of.
Look, I understand that you don’t want blogs profiting from your content. I know of quite a few high profile blogs that take clips and post them under their own frame. Those sites have lots of ads, and paid staff, and make lots and lots of money. I can see how that would irk you. Our site is just a simple fan blog, with some of the hardest core ‘Colbert Report’ fans on the net, whose sole mission is to praise Stephen Colbert, all glory to his name, peace be upon him. We are one shiny, happy lovefest here, a 100% biased constantly updated ad for your show that we sustain at our own expense. If you have a problem with something we’ve posted, please, shoot me an e-mail. I’ll be more than happy to take it down if you feel that somehow, for example, a screencap of Stephen Colbert in a cute outfit is going to financially hurt Viacom in some way. We want to make this work. We want to praise, and we want to blog, and we want to be a community that does not live in fear of the people who also bring us what we so very much enjoy and love.
Thank you for listening to the fans.
Sincerely,
DB Ferguson
Webmaster and founder, NoFactZone.net
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Eye Candy: Stephen Colbert at Christ Child Society’s Great Gatsby Gala
Posted by: | CommentsSupport of worthy charities is a wonderful thing, and I couldn’t be happier about this man’s philanthropic efforts (see this Bisnow post for more).
But, if I’m being honest, I am posting this particular photo to acknowledge that Stephen Colbert is good at wearing clothes. Specifically, wearing the tuxedo. He’s quite good at that.
That is all.
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Olympic “Out”-take: Stephen Colbert at the Pride House
Posted by: | CommentsAs careful readers probably noticed, there were a number of things that were taped but ultimately cut from Stephen’s “Vancouverage” last week. It’s hard to complain, considering the great week of “Quadrennial Cold Weather Athletic Competition” shows, but it’s certainly true that a lot of fantastic footage went unused.
For example, friend of “the gays” Stephen Colbert stopped by the Pride House during his visits to various national houses and pavillions, but the footage wasn’t included in the final shows. We understand that at least some of this will show up on ColbertNation.com eventually but, until then, here are some highlights from that excellent visit (via OutQ):
(h/t Ann G!)
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Stephen Colbert in the Zeitgeist – Vancouverage Wrap-up
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It’s hard to believe, but the week of Stephen’s exclusive Vancouverage of the 2010 Quadrennial Winter Athletic Competition is over, and what a wild week it was. So many great moments to enjoy, some incredibly entertaining interviews, and most of all, proof that if you do good — like supporting a cash-strapped speedskating team by helping them to raise essential funds — the rewards will be amazing. I love it that Stephen and Team Colbert can create great memories at the same time they create great comedy, and we are the beneficiaries of their talents. I’m a little sad that the Vancouver games are almost over, but already I’m thinking ahead to what might be next. The regular zeitgeist of Colbert goodness will resume soon to help ease us back into the usual TCR routine, but for now, here’s a round-up of a few more Vancouver stories.
- We’ve got another excellent audience report from Stephen’s second taping at Creekside Park along with some great photos. Love the comment that Stephen should win his own medal for “bringing Canadian and U.S. psyches and spirits together through laughter.” (Thanks to Heather C. for sending us the link!)
- This great story from the North Shore News explains the story behind the Olympic torch Stephen borrowed from an audience member at the Creekside Park taping. Torchbearer Mary-Sue Atkinson got the idea to have 2,010 people touch the torch she used in the relay, and decided Stephen would be the perfect person for the final touch, which you can see in the photo at the beginning of this post.
- Thanks to both mrtigger001 and Ms I for pointing out this photo collection of the best signs in the crowd at the TCR tapings in Creekside Park. My favorite is the homemade banner of Stephen on the medal podium that wound up on the stage (#15 and #18), and #10 made me giggle: “Where’s Jon?”
- The Globe and Mail, via CTV, has a story about how the small city of Richmond, home to the Olympic Oval and the long-track speedskating events, became such an important focus for the games. Credit for the greatest amount of pre-Olympic publicity goes to Stephen Colbert and his smackdown of the “iceholes” and “syrup suckers” who restricted access to the Olympic Oval for speedskating training.
- This is pretty hilarious, and gives a whole new meaning to “syrup suckers.” From News1130.com in Vancouver: “Maybe Stephen Colbert is right — maybe we are all just a bunch of syrup suckers after all. Members of Canada’s ski-jumping team made a bet with their American counterparts based on whoever finished lower in the standings during yesterday’s competition. The wager is called the “Syrup Slam” because the losers have to chug a significant amount of mapley goodness. The U.S. ended up placing 11th out of 12 teams and Canada came in dead last. In other words… start sucking!”
- Ice dancing silver medalist Charlie White tweeted his reaction to his mention on Tuesday’s episode of TCR. Yes, you’ve made it when Stephen Colbert makes fun of you!
- From Yahoo! Sports: Visionary doctor helps athletes see Olympic dreams: In a true example of generosity and the Olympic spirit, Dr. Cary Silverman, a Lasik eye surgeon, offered to do the procedure for free to Team USA members. Katherine Reutter has been the biggest beneficiary of the offer, and believes her greatly improved eyesight gives her an edge in competition.
(h/t DB and Ms I)
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Stephen Colbert in the Zeitgeist – Vancouver Super Spoiler Edition
Posted by: | CommentsGreetings, Zoners! I hope you’ve all enjoyed the massive outpouring of awesomeness that was Stephen’s visit to Vancouver this week. As a fan, I was overwhelmed with glee at all the fun activities we’ve been able to glimpse the past few days. But I’ll admit, as an NFZ completist, I was overwhelmed, period. There was too much out there to keep track of it all, and by Thursday afternoon I had to admit defeat. So I just sat back and enjoyed the fun when I could (I hate it when work interferes with my fangirling), and spent my evenings going back and forth between watching the Olympics and dashing around the Interwebs to find the latest Colbert news/photos/video. I spent today going through everything I’d missed, and seriously, words cannot express how much I would’ve liked to be in Vancouver this week!
It’s been impossible to avoid spoilers, but in the interest of keeping at least a few surprises for next week, I’m going to put the majority of this zeitgeist behind the cut so that if you have the strength to resist temptation, you won’t have the whole week completely spoiled for you. With the overwhelming amount of info floating around the Interwebs from Stephen’s trip, it’s inevitable that we’re going to miss something. I think I’ve rounded up the best highlights here, but if you see anything good out there that we didn’t put up on the blog, pass it along to us!
The first item isn’t a spoiler at all, but I thought I’d throw in a link to Stephen’s completely delightful appearance on NBC last night, which happened during the late night telecast. He looks fantastic in the Mountie uniform, don’t you think? (Click on the picture to go to the video.) (h/t to justine marie for originally posting the link in a comment to Ms. I’s earlier post)
Stephen Colbert: The Full Mountie. And the Moose Formerly Known as Ebersol.
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Spoiler Alert: Stephen Colbert faces off against Russians at Sochi World
Posted by: | CommentsI’m glad I’m not even trying to avoid spoilers this week, because it would be futile. Every time I check, there’s something new online, and it’s just hilarious. I’ve put some very spoiler-filled photos and video after the fold for those of you who, like me, are tickled pink by the idea of Stephen seeking his own little “Miracle on Ice” against the Russians.
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