Caught some of the first five minutes. How is he doing his show without writing? Does it not matter?
Fairly good so far, for what it’s worth.
Stephen’s intro was priceless.
“Tonight…
Then…
Plus…
Hey…
This is the Colbert Report!”
Wow. I’ll watch TDS in a bit, but Stephen got a three-minute standing/sitting ovation. That has to really help pass the unscripted time!
Unions are nothing but trouble. Stephen doesn’t need writers. Which brings us to tonight’s word:
And that’s the word.
I think Jon Stewart’s been out of the stand-up game for too long. He seemed a little nervous and giddy. The continuity sucked and his jokes were kind of lame. I think he scared the professor he interviewed. I’m hoping he’ll get into his groove, though.
Colbert, on the other hand, is hysterical. You’re right, mobo, he doesn’t need no stinkin’ writers. I actually think tonight’s show was better than some of the writer-y ones.
Hey, I was quoting him, not agreeing with him. Although I would go to the ends of the earth for him, I don’t agree with everything he says. That said, writers are like bears.
TDS was kind of disappointing. All he did was shill for the strikers. Not very interesting and he wasn’t particularly witty about it either.
Colbert was better about it, more clever and more entertaining.
I hope they’re going to move on to some other subjects, though, and it shouldn’t be that hard to do. The thing about talk shows is that they can have guests. They can skip all the monologues and bits and just interview the guests for half an hour. No script required, and we might actually get some more in depth, less banal conversations.
They can have guests if anyone will agree to come on. I’m wondering how much trouble they’re having booking people.
Of course, the main difference between Stewart and Dr. Colbert is that Stewart is a real person and Dr. Colbert is an actor playing a character. Since Dr. Colbert has always been outspoken against labor, he was able to relay that into the show, whereas Stewart was on the writers side. (And although the toss-over to the Report was funny, if Dr. Colbert hates unions so much, why would he grow a WGA solidarity beard?)
But Jon had the best pro-WGA comment of the night: without writers, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is just a daily show with Jon Stewart. (And the joke about the WGA ad with the ticking sounding like an AIDS ad was very surprising, but funny.)
I thought they were both good. Yes Stephen was “funnier” because Jon is playing himself as he’s always done, and Stephen can have the supposed anti-union bias he always has and it’s funny because people know it’s not true.
C3, Jon still does standup. Not a huge schedule but he performs a few days every month.
Stephen’s opening with the pronounced Ts was genius. I wonder if he’s going to say it that way every night until the strike ends.
Why would they have any trouble booking guests? They don’t need actors (who are boring guests anyway), they can just book politicians, journalists, writers, pundits and so forth. Those kinds of guests are alawys more interesting to listen to than some bobblehead actress plugging her latest inane movie anyway. Unscripted interviews with non-actors would be a huge improvement over vacuous banter with vacuous actors.
One problem with booking politicians is that they not be willing to cross a picket line to attend the show. Writers and journalists might belong to a writing union, or at least have sympathy for the strikers.
I think Stephen has an edge. Stand up comics use scripts, to a large extent. Stephen had experience in Second City, and improv is exactly what he needs in a situation like this. Still, I’m looking forward to when they start on the political situation.
As usual I am in the minority, I thought Stephen did a good job, but the beard was obvious from the second you saw it and the paper shredder. The 3 minute ovation was silly. The rest was good and the interview was very good, better than Jon’s.
Jon had me breaking up laughing often in his opening. I thought he did a great job. He did seem a little off in the interview. Overall, I found “A Daily Show” better than the “Colbert Report” last night.
Jim
But I don’t think he *was *improvising, was he? Sure, he didn’t use a TelEPromphoweverthefuckyouspellit (at least for those 20 seconds we saw them blank), but those graphics and clips didn’t magically organize themselves. He knew what he was going to cover and how, and his staff had at least enough written down to know when their cues were.
I dunno. I have sympathy for the pair, but the whole crossing picket lines leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Colbert shouldn’t even have been using his character (a character created by writers in the WGA, including him), according to the information shared recently in other threads. I was so hoping that he’d do a Stephen ColberT character - the evil twin to Colberrrr - until the strike is over.
Or both shows could use non-union replacement hosts. I’m thinking Schmon Schmewart and Esteban Colberto.
And it’s spelled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I mean TelePrompTer.
They’re still Catholic?
Ah, but is it pronounced “NAMBLA” or “Throatwarbler Mangrove”?
Oh no, I just crossed the nerd streams, didn’t I? I broke the internets!
The One True Faith is filled with godless killing machines? Who are you, Jack Chick?
I like both Colbert and Stewart but have always favored Stewart a little more. Last night though, I had a few cringe moments while watching TDS, where I actually felt a bit sorry for Stewart. Quite a few of his jokes fell flat and I thought he focused too much on the strike and not on politics, which, face it, is why people are tuning in. It’s an election season and TDS is sorely missed.
I thought Colbert was downright hilarious at times and yeah, that improv experience is obviously paying off. I laughed much more at his show than at TDS.
Hopefully Stewart will relax more in the coming days. He just seemed to be trying way too hard. He is a talented interviewer and a very likable guy. If he will get back to where his strengths lie, he’ll do fine. Sure, there may not be as many funny gags but I would almost like to see him reinterpret his show a little in the meantime and focus more on providing commentary on the elections. I like the serious Jon Stewart just as much as the funny guy. When he ripped the CNN Crossfire guys a new one, that was sheer brilliance. Go ahead and let that side come out, Jon, and I’ll watch you each and every night.