Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,†has called upon fans to buy his Christmas album A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All! and knock Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak out of the No. 1 spot on iTunes.
Rush will be making their first U.S. television appearance in more than thirty years on Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report.”
The Canadian band Rush, which hasn’t performed on U.S. television in more than three decades, will play their classic “Tom Sawyer” on the Comedy Central show Wednesday (11:30 p.m. EST). The Geddy Lee-led trio, which is currently on tour, hasn’t played on U.S. television since 1975.
Rush is only the latest act to perform on “The Report,” which has steadily edged closer to “Ed Sullivan Show” territory. With increasingly frequent musical performances, “The Report” has grown a variety-show impulse, evident in other upcoming bookings. The rapper Nas will perform on July 23, Toby Keith will return for a second performance on July 28 and Crosby, Stills and Nash will play on July 30.
The Stephen Colbert-hosted comedy show was originally launched as a parody of conservative political punditry — and shows like “The O’Reilly Factor” do not make a habit of hosting music performances. But “The Report” circus has expanded into musical realms, often with its sonorous host joining in. John Legend, Neil Young, R.E.M., Tony Bennett, Peter Frampton, Willie Nelson, Barry Manilow, John Mellencamp, the Roots and Carole King have all performed on the show.
Cool. Here’s a video of Rush playing “Tom Sawyer,” albeit not on “The Colbert Report.”
Dismissing privacy concerns, a federal judge overseeing a $1 billion copyright-infringement lawsuit against YouTube has ordered the popular online video-sharing service to disclose who watches which video clips and when.
A judge ordered YouTube to produce data on which of its videos get viewed most often and by whom.
U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton authorized full access to the YouTube logs after Viacom Inc. and other copyright holders argued that they needed the data to show whether their copyright-protected videos are more heavily watched than amateur clips.
The data would not be publicly released but disclosed only to the plaintiffs, and it would include less specific identifiers than a user’s real name or e-mail address.
Lawyers for Google Inc., which owns YouTube, said producing 12 terabytes of data — equivalent to the text of roughly 12 million books — would be expensive, time-consuming and a threat to users’ privacy.
The database includes information on when each video gets played, which can be used to determine how often a clip is viewed. Attached to each entry is each viewer’s unique login ID and the Internet Protocol, or IP, address for that viewer’s computer.
Stanton ruled this week that the plaintiffs had a legitimate need for the information and that the privacy concerns are speculative.
Stanton rejected a request from the plaintiffs for Google to disclose the source code — the technical secret sauce — powering its market-leading search engine, saying there’s no evidence Google manipulated its search algorithms to treat copyright-infringing videos differently.
The court has yet to rule on Google’s requests to question comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert of Viacom’s Comedy Central.
source: YouTube ordered to reveal its viewers [cnn]
Presenting The 25 Funniest People in America. From Conan O’Brien to Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey to Craig Ferguson, let’s count down the names of the entertainers who make us laugh the hardest.
25. AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS
Burroughs’ best-selling memoir Running with Scissors — about being raised by a nutso shrink who studies his poo and rents the back shed to a pedophile — is unbelievably disturbing. And sidesplitting. At first we felt guilty giggling at his adventures with an electroshock therapy machine, but Burroughs knows that laughter is the best antidepressant. Much better than booze, which the author struggles to kick in his equally effervescent follow-up, Dry.
24. CATHERINE O’HARA
After her run on SCTV in the late ’70s, Hollywood didn’t know what to do with O’Hara. Fortunately, Christopher Guest did. In Waiting for Guffman, she and Fred Willard are tracksuit-wearing answers to Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire; in Best in Show, she’s a onetime floozy with a prize terrier and a torrid past; and in A Mighty Wind, O’Hara shows off a subtler comic touch, proving that humor doesn’t always mean a pie in the face.
23. SARAH SILVERMAN
The Lenny Bruce of the 21st century might be this hot, foul-mouthed, button-punching stand-up. Silverman is ruthlessly funny about topics like sex, the Holocaust, and 9/11, which may be why The Sarah Silverman Program has a permanent slot on our DVR. Oh, and if you hadn’t heard, she’s f—ing Matt Damon.
22. DAVE CHAPPELLE
The fact that Diamond Dave is all but absent from the comedic stage these days doesn’t invalidate his funny. After all, Chappelle’s revered Comedy Central show — on which the wiry comic gleefully engaged in crass T&A humor, swore like a sailor, and mocked everyone in the multiculti rainbow, confronting race in a way that is positively Pryor-esque — is still the best sketch comedy this country has seen in more than a decade. For that alone, he deserves a spot on any list like this.
21. DEMETRI MARTIN
You know what’s funny? Palindromes and anagrams. ”Shut up, Grandma,” you say, but we say shut up yourself and watch Demetri Martin work a stand-up mic. ”A drunk driver’s very dangerous. Everybody knows that. But so is a drunk backseat driver — if he’s persuasive.” The floppy-haired heir to Steven Wright won a prestigious award at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, taking him from the comedy underground to…the comedy slightly less underground.
20. DIABLO CODY
Not to be partial, but the newly minted Oscar winner showed off her comedic — and emotional — chops with her debut screenplay for Juno. Did we mention it won an Oscar?
19. CRAIG FERGUSON
Late night is the province of the mono-name. Jay! Dave! Conan! Then there’s that Scottish guy, two-name ID required: Craig Ferguson. You know, the one who can’t quite be pinned down. Since taking over CBS’ Late Late Show from Craig Kilborn in 2005, Ferguson has brought a fresh burst of energy to the format. He’s reinvented the opening monologue, doing away with most of the topical jokes and just ad-libbing about his life. Along with fresh energy, he’s brought something else — ratings. Ferguson, 45 and a brand-spanking-new U.S. Citizen, doesn’t get as much media attention as time-slot competitors Jimmy Kimmel or Conan, but with an audience of just under 2 million, the great Scot outperforms the former and has climbed within 500,000 viewers of the latter.
18. JACK BLACK
Black is an entirely new classification of human: the frenetic slacker. Before his turn as doofus band reject/inspirational teacher Dewey Finn in School of Rock, he was the Ritalin-deprived half of Tenacious D (along with his partner, Kyle Gass) and the list-obsessed record-shop shlub in High Fidelity. He is, inarguably, the coolest fusion of music and comedy since Spinal Tap. (And, if Tropic Thunder is as good as we’ve been led to believe, we’ll forgive him that whole Nacho Libre business.)
17. DAVID LETTERMAN
With a receding hairline and a jogger’s grim jowls, Dave is no one’s idea of a hip comic, and he likes it that way. New-school gone old-school, the upstart who first pumped irony into the talk show still rails against the stupidity of the powerful and yet has the charm to melt Julia Roberts.
16. AMY SEDARIS AND DAVID SEDARIS
Big brother is the best-selling author of the sublime autobiographical essay collections Me Talk Pretty One Day and Naked, full of terrific riffs about stuff like his cuckoo-clock North Carolina clan and his midget guitar teacher. Little sis was the rubber-faced star of Comedy Central’s truly strange Strangers With Candy, as well as coauthor of the book Wigfield.
15. WILL FERRELL
See, there’s this man-child who latches onto Will Ferrell in most every role he plays — and good luck getting the little guy to let go. As a result, we are treated to inspired displays of dolt-trapped-in-the-headlights hijinks, be it in the form of Old School’s keghead Frank the Tank (who goes from repressed to regressed to undressed) or Talladega Nights’ Ricky Bobby, the dumbest, most earnest NASCAR driver on the circuit — who’s also the most comfortable with his sexuality.
14. RICKY GERVAIS
Okay, so he doesn’t spend all that much of his time in America. We don’t care. Whether as the creator of The Office and Extras, a supporting actor in movies like For Your Consideration or Night at the Museum, or doing killer stand-up (as seen most recently in Grand Theft Auto IV), he’s still as funny as the dog’s bollocks.
13. ELLEN DEGENERES
DeGeneres, whose career seemed all but kaput a few years ago, has earned back adoration simply by being her affably dry self on the Emmy-winning The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Whether it’s her circuitous monologues, her deadpan celebrity interviews, or that vocal turn as Dory in Finding Nemo, she remains one of the cleanest, coolest funny ladies around.
12. DAVID CROSS
All conversations about his genius start here: Along with Bob Odenkirk, he created the cunning HBO sketch series Mr. Show, which routinely put SNL to silly shame. And not only does Cross work little miracles in supporting roles (remember his role as feckless freak-job Tobias on Fox’s Arrested Development?), he can drop some pretty fearsome stand-up (who else talks about being raped by the Virgin Mary?). Simply put, this dude never kowtows for his funny.
11. CONAN O’BRIEN
Smarty-pants isn’t usually a compliment, but O’Brien wears them so well. When this Harvard geek isn’t riffing on Muammar Gaddafi in his monologue, he’s making absurd innovations in low-brow comedy. Now, let’s see if those absurd innovations will play on The Tonight Show….
The Saturday Night Live scene-stealer has found her stride in her third season, thanks to breakout characters like the Target clerk and the obsessively competitive Penelope, as well as spot-on impressions of Jamie Lee Curtis and Suze Orman.
9. LARRY DAVID
Because he’s a balding, neurotic, self-consumed, multimillionaire malcontent who reacts to most social interactions as if he just took a whiff of some really bad cheese. Because the only thing he hates more than these situations is himself. Because he’s the most hilariously doomed white-guy antihero we’ve ever seen, and has no problems taking on every sacred cow. Because we have no idea how much of this Larry David — from the HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm — is swiped from the real Larry David. And because both Larry Davids co-created one of the best comedies ever, Seinfeld.
8. AMY POEHLER AND WILL ARNETT
The funniest married couple on the list. (Sorry, Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann.) When they’re apart (she, on Saturday Night Live and in Baby Mama; he, late of Arrested Development and currently guesting on 30 Rock), they’re great. But when they’re together, as when they played brother-and sister figure skaters in Blades of Glory, they’re resplendent. So let’s get those crazy kids together more often, shall we?
7. MATT STONE AND TREY PARKER
Now in their eleventh season of South Park, these potty mouths with a purpose continue to remind us what full creative control gets you: moments so wrong, they’re right (Ben Affleck falling in love with Cartman’s hand comes to mind). Added bonus: The ninth season episode, ”Trapped in the Closet” contains the most sober explanation of the background of Scientology you’ll ever hear.
6. CHRIS ROCK
Television failed him (Saturday Night Live didn’t know what to do with his bright-bulb humor, and his HBO talk show couldn’t contain him). The movies didn’t get him (though this is as much Rock’s fault as anyone’s, given he wrote and directed his most recent starring vehicles, the underperforming Head of State and I Think I Love My Wife). But on the stage, Rock is a man on a mission, mercilessly tackling race, religion, money, and relationships. And his missionaries are legion.
5. STEVE CARELL
Sometimes, it hurts so good. The pain, the discomfort, the agony of watching Carell’s Michael Scott work himself into another awkward scenario on NBC’s The Office…and almost work himself out. And the fact that we don’t hate Michael — on the contrary, we feel a warm, chocolatey pity for him — is a testament to Carell, who leavens the bald incompetence with wide-eyed awe.
4. JON STEWART AND THE ‘DAILY SHOW’ TEAM
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is the most consistent laugh machine on TV — and the only news source for scores of cynics and slackers. It’s not often that a comedy show can tackle politics, embrace a cogent point of view, and still maintain its anarchic spark. The scribes at The Daily Show pull it off four nights a week. As the heart and soul of the show, Stewart is evenhanded but never meek; as an interviewer, he can make his guests comfortable even as he’s taking them apart. Then there’s his gang of ”correspondents,” who soldier straight-facedly into the great American absurd and take no prisoners. Empirically speaking, there’s nothing funny about what’s going on in the world right now. Yet here we are each week, chortling.
3. TINA FEY
It takes a certain self-confidence to play a woman who accidentally dates her third cousin, erroneously assumes her neighbor is a terrorist, and gets called the C-word by a colleague (especially when said character is based on you). ”I love going to those uncomfortable places,” says Fey, who stars as 30 Rock’s workaholic TV maven and is also the NBC show’s creator and exec producer. ”I’ll go down any weird avenue.” Maybe this year’s surprise Emmy win for best comedy will empower Fey to pursue some dreams for her alter ego. ”Liz Lemon could do an international adoption for a Russian baby and get the paperwork wrong with the European dates and somehow end up with a huge, muscular 13-year-old. Yeah, I could see that.” Hopefully we will too.
2. STEPHEN COLBERT AND THE ‘COLBERT REPORT’ TEAM
The once (and, we’re sure, future) presidential nominee, author, and dedicated windbag also happens to be one of the smartest satirists working today. Heck, if all the dude had on his resume was the legendary 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, he’d go down in comedy history. But week-in and week-out, Colbert takes aim at the political-industrial complex — and I don’t care if there’s no such term — and spins the facts into truth. Or truthiness. Whichever’s easier.
1. THE JUDD APATOW POSSE
Can you even remember what movie comedy looked like before writer-director-producer Judd Apatow and his ever-expanding comedy clan (including Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Jonah Hill, and Paul Rudd) came along last summer with two stiff shots of cathartic humor — the oops-she’s-preggers romp Knocked Up and the high school raunchfest Superbad? Today, when studio execs have a comedy that feels flat or formulaic, the call goes out to ”Judd it up” — sweet irony for a man once best known for critically beloved flops like TV’s Freaks and Geeks. ”It was always my dream to become a verb,” Apatow deadpans. ”That’s what I wrote in my high school yearbook.”
Time Magazine 100 Most Influential People‘s current list of finalists (there is still voting to do), really is quite disturbing.
Looking at the “Top 10″, we have Nelson Mandela (who belongs there), two singers, a pagan witch, a young asexual actress, both Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, two Senators running for the Presidency, and…
1. Rain – Asian singer
2. Stephanie Meyer – Pagan author/witch
3. Stephen Colbert – actor
4. Perez Hilton – anomaly
5. Nelson Mandela – legitimate
6. Ellen Page – asexual actress and singer
7. Hillary Clinton – New York Senator
8. Barack Obama – Illinois Senator
9. Bruce Springsteen – Singer
10. Jon Stewart – actor
Discovery Communications and Oprah Winfrey announced a deal Tuesday where the Discovery Health network will be turned over to Winfrey next year, becoming OWN — the Oprah Winfrey Network.
The cash-free transaction involved Winfrey turning over her Web site to Discovery, while the communications company makes her chairman of the network, which is currently seen in 68 million homes, said David Zaslav, Discovery Communications chief.
“The focus of the channel will be the focus of Oprah’s brand, which is the educate and inspire people to live the best life they can,” Zaslav said.
Some of Winfrey’s stable of regular contributors could be expected to be part of the programming, he said. Winfrey’s current talk show, as well as rights to use of reruns, is spoken for until the end of the 2010-11 season.
Besides hosting syndications top-rated talk show, Winfrey puts out her own magazine.
However, maybe they should be giving the network to Ellen DeGeneres?
Ellen Degeneres managed to score the top spot as America’s favorite TV star. The annual poll was released yesterday and Ellen managed to push Oprah off her pedestal.
Oprah has been #1 on the Harris Poll for the past five years. They were ranked as follows:
1. Ellen Degeneres
2. Oprah
3. Jay Leno
4. Hugh Laurie from House
5. Jon Stewart
6. David Letterman
7. Stephen Colbert
8. Bill O’Reilly
9. Ray Romano
10. Homer Simpson
source: OPRAH WINFREY AND DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS TO FORM NEW JOINT VENTURE – OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network [oprah's official website]
The writers’ strike is on, and late night TV is the first to go. Fortunately for some writers, they have bosses like Jon Stewart, who is paying his writers’ salaries.
“In a show of solidarity with his fellow scribes, [Jon Stewart] has told his writing staff that he will cover all their salaries for the next two weeks, according to a well-placed source. He has also vowed to do the same for writers on The Colbert Report.”
Stephen Colbert’s presidential hopes have come to an end. Although he paid the $2,500 fee to put his name on the Democratic primary ballot, the party executives have voted not to include him in the race.
When he announced his candidacy, he said he would only run in his native South Carolina. Sunday he appeared at the University of South Carolina and vowed to “crush the state of Georgia” if elected.
That’s too bad – Colbert really could have brought some humor to the race but shed some light on the issues also. Guess I’ll just have to keep watching his show instead.
Source: “Stephen Colbert’s Presidential Bid Blocked By Party Officials” [People]
Stephen Colbert kicked off his presidential campaign in his home state of South Carolina on Sunday.
The Comedy Central comedian made an appearance at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. While there, Stephen got the key to the city and was proclaimed South Carolina’s favorite son by Mayor Bob Coble.
The host of The Colbert Report, recently announced that he would be running for President in 2008 but only in South Carolina. His plan is to run on both the Republican and Democratic ticket.
Colbert was honored to receive the key to the city and said he “loves South Carolina, almost as much as South Carolina loves†him.
Stephen also says that if he is elected as President, he promises not only to crush the state of Georgia, but also Tennessee.
However, ABC is reporting the Campaign Finance Law may spoil his fun:
With its snack-food sponsorship, Democratic and Republican affiliations, and Sen. Larry Craig as a possible running mate, Stephen Colbert’s run for the presidency is hardly serious business.
But the joke could be on Colbert if federal election officials decide his candidacy is for real.
If his campaign plays out the way he’s indicated that it will, Comedy Central and Colbert’s sponsor, Doritos, could be violating federal laws that bar corporations from backing political campaigns, election law experts say.
“How serious can you get about running as a joke?” said Massie Ritsch, communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan group that tracks campaign finances. “The Federal Election Commission doesn’t have a great sense of humor.”
Dr Pepper has jumped the political bandwagon, with Stephen Colbert’s faux (?) presidential election campaign, twisting it into a marketing opportunity. Cheesy, but I’ll still drink you.
Dear Future President of the United States,
If you’re going to take the highest office in the land, you need a running mate that understands how to satiate Americans’ thirst for freedom, democracy and carbonated beverages. I, Dr Pepper, the king of beverages and tamer of bears, am officially making myself available as your running mate.
We would make a powerful team, reminiscent of William Henry Harrison-John Tyler, Zacharay Taylor-Milliard Fillmore, and of course the dream team of Herbert Hoover-Charles Curtis. Plus we’re both doctors — I have a Ph.D in “sweet-ology”, and you have a Ph.D in “O’Reilly-ology”. There’s more to a Colbert/Pepper ticket than meets the eye. If you need more convincing, look no further:
* We’re Everywhere: You are on national TV and I am already in every state. In fact 35 million Americans drink me daily…this trumps the number of people that can swallow the rhetoric of the other 2008 presidential candidates…Did I just say that? Yup.
* Only 228 Electoral Votes to Go!: With you entering the race as South Carolina’s favorite son, those 8 votes are locked up tighter than my secret formula. Of course, my immaculate carbonation took place in Waco, Texas in 1885, which means we have Texas’ 34 votes and the 120+ year old demographic in the bag.
* I’ve even Trademarked Some Great Campaign Slogans:
Make Someone Happy. Vote Colbert/Pepper
Colbert/Pepper…drink in the freedom
Pop one at 10, 2 and 4. Colbert/Pepper
Vote Colbert/Pepper. Cheaper than a $400 haircut!
Come aboard the LeaderSHIP. Colbert/Pepper
Vote Colbert/Pepper for free copies of Halo 3
Four out of five doctors recommend Colbert/Pepper…the fifth one’s an idiot
If you don’t want B.O. Vote Colbert/Pepper
You see what I am talking about? This ticket would be greater than doing 120 MPH in a school zone. I want you to look in the mirror and ask yourself one question, “Are you with Pepper or against him?†And in case you’re having trouble picturing a Colbert/Pepper ticket, I’ve got five words for you…your face on my can. Pretty sweet team if you ask me!
The market is speaking Colbert. And it wants us to join forces. So what’s it gonna be?
Sincerely,
Dr Pepper
source: Jean Ziliani, Vice President & Senior Media Specialist
Tuesday night, at a taping of “The Colbert Report”, Richard Branson was a guest. And apparently he does not know that if you mess with Stephen Colbert, he will retaliate.
Branson was on the show to promote Air Colbert as part of Virgin’s new American service. However, Colbert spent a good chunk of the interview trying to get Branson to sign a $1 million IOU. Branson tried to get out of it for a while, and then he got mad when time was up because he felt he did not get to promote what he was on the show to promote. So, Richard Branson threw his mug of water on Stephen Colbert.
Apparently Colbert was pretty pissed, and called someone from offstage to bring him a bottle of water, which he then proceeded to dump on Branson. The entire scene had to be unplanned because Colbert still had “Better Know a Protectorate” and an interview to tape. Some crew members came over with hair dryers and tried to get him ready for the next scenes while stood there thinking WTF.
I would have paid to see this.
Source: “SPOILER: Surprise guest on “The Colbert Reportâ€, and interview shocker!” [No Fact Zone]; Photo: blavish