For those of you who have been following television without writers, it's been a lot of Howie Mandel and no The Office. But not all has been lost. Conan is at the top of his game with no writers behind him. Jon Stewart has improved in the last two weeks, and Colbert is claiming the title of most inventive talk show host since Carson (Johnny, not Daly).
From the very start, Conan's strategy was to waste as much air time as possible. He sang bluegrass. He climbed the studio catwalk. . He spun his wedding ring. He had German techno parties. He took over directing of the show, while hosting. He emptied vending machines. He installed a zip line.
And then Colbert and Stewart decided to join in on the fun, and create a fake rivalry that they could use to kill time on all three shows. It culminated last night when the three almost fought on The Daily Show, then almost fought on The Colbert Report, and then actually fought on Late Night:
Now to my point: That brawl was a blatent rip-off of the majority of the film classic, directed by boy wonder Devin DeFago and starring the likes of Brennan Basford, JP Sullivan, Steve Kowalenko, Greg Schwab, and yours truly. I mean come on! Colbert was obviously stealing the butt ninja's moves!
I would post some Freehold clips to compare, but Devin doesn't have it on youtube yet. I've got a copy of the film, but I'm an idiot and can't get it on the world wide interweb.
So what's your favorite Freehold scene? I like when EP rusn out of the classroom and looks into the camera.
3 comments:
These 3 are truly the holy trinity of late nite tv comedy. I've been coming into work later and later because I have to stay up and watch at least the first segment of Conan. I was watching last night as this was unfolding and I couldn't stop laughing. I agree with Costello, these guys have stepped it up during the writer's strike. Election year is always going to be good for the Daily Show, Colbert is a genius, and Conan is simply Conan. The fight scene had about the same production value as Freehold. Speaking of Freehold, I once saw a youtube clip of Springsteen performing this rare "song". It's not really a song... more like a rambling autobiography of the Boss' childhood. Here's a link to the lyrics.
http://www.greasylake.org/chords/ASSORTED/Freehold.txt
Bruce is obsessed with the name Mary and Maria in song.
Check the 2:00 mark of this clip...quintessential Butt Ninja maneuver from Conan. He may have better hair, but we all know, as the Highlander says, "There can only be one!"
Also, I've spent the first hour of my day at school ignoring my students, deep in thought over this question: Which Freehold character do you think each host was ripping off? It's a tough call; for example, at about the 3:50 mark, Colbert breaks into the traditional Cossack/Russian dance, which I swear I've seen both Ace and Schwab do a million times. Is Conan JP since he is the tallest and most Irish? Or is Stewart Ace since he is the shortest and most snarky?
Let the debate begin.
Stewart at times has the "mwahahahaha" that Barger was so great at overdubbing.
Conan has the slow search for something to say that Brennan displayed during his Hitler speech in the classroom.
Colbert has the dashing good looks of Freehold's narrator (damn, he was good).
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