I tuned in to watch Stephen Colbert provide the entertainment at the White House
Correspondents' Association dinner (Fun Fact:
Teenage fangirls will watch C-SPAN for hot fake-pundits). Colbert looked just as handsome as ever, and his wife looked
beautiful (there go my chances of stealing the man away). When President Bush and Laura Bush walked in, Colbert was
already situated at the head table (just five seats away from Bush and right next to Helen Thomas!) but stood up to
shake hands. I couldn't help but wonder if Bush had ever seen The Colbert Report before, but I guess he knows
about the jokes, because Bush gave Colbert a knowing look while greeting him.When Mark Smith was introducing everyone at the head table, Colbert received a glorious amount of applause (no doubt
about it: significantly more cheers than Mr. President). He stood up and pointed to the crowd, making it very clear
that he was in-character already. I immediately thought to myself, "Uh-oh, this could mean trouble."
After the introductions, everyone had dinner, so there was a gap of over an hour before Colbert did his speech. I
tuned in and out of the in-between material, which was okay, I guess. Polite, grown-up, "roasting the boss,
but not enough to get fired" jokes.
I was a little worn out from the speeches by the time Colbert took
the podium. His speech was very funny. I would have laughed out loud more if I wasn't so busy cringing. No lie. The
audience barely responded (unless you consider awkward silence a response) and I could feel Colbert fans everywhere
twitching with anxiety. While other speakers made silly jokes about Bush's mispronunciations and the cramped workspaces
of the press, Colbert took no prisoners and made jokes about everything from NSA wire-tapping to Bush's horrible
approval rating to Valerie Plame. If he had done this material on The Colbert
Report, everyone would have laughed like nothing was out of place... But at the dinner, Bush was right
there. Right there. Just a few feet away from Colbert. This made me (and many
fans) excruciatingly uncomfortable. I don't know if the lack of laughter (save for one or two jokes out of dozens) was
because people were afraid to laugh with Bush so near or if they genuinely thought Colbert was being unfunny.
Personally, I thought his performance was wickedly strong (albeit slightly recycled from his show), but the
circumstances made everything awkward.
He also presented an audition tape for the position of Press
Secretary. I was really surprised/happy to see Helen Thomas putting on a great show in a special appearance and I
laughed numerous times (some favorite parts: "NOOOOOOO! NOOOO!"; key-fumbling; Karl & Stephen). It looked
like something pulled right out of The Colbert Report. This was a lot more
light-hearted than the preceding speech, so I expected the audience to be hooting with laughter once it ended. How
wrong I was. Helen Thomas was in tears, but everyone else was just clapping politely. No cheers, no standing ovation.
Poor Stephen... I wanted to crawl into the TV and give him a hug.
But y'know what? Stephen Colbert -- not
character-Colbert, but the real guy -- has BALLS. Seriously. That took massive brass steel ADAMANTIUM balls to do. Part of me wished that he
didn't stay in character to save himself the pain, but another part of me is really glad he did that. He took his
truthiness to the belly of the beast and he should be commended for that.
To Mr. Colbert: I, and the rest of
the Colbert Nation, love you.
[EDIT] Crooks and Liars has video.
Seven greatest hand cannons in TV history
TV Squad previews NBC's new shows (part 1)
TV 101: How ESPN controls the world and what the other networks can learn from it
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
4-30-2006 @ 10:37AM
Jim said...
You're right --- the setting didn't lend itself to speaking truth. Did you notice how the attendees kept looking at Bush for a reaction? And that many of them tried to stifle laughs out of "respect"?
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4-30-2006 @ 10:38AM
Dr. Funbags said...
Colbert is gonna be a correspondant on tonights 60 minutes!
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4-30-2006 @ 10:45AM
newscoma said...
Colbert is a hero.
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4-30-2006 @ 12:16PM
elf said...
As with other performers at this event in the past, the rule usually seems to be that if the president is laughing, the crowd laughs, and if the president doesn't laugh, the crowd doesn't, no matter how funny they may find the performer. Colbert did seem harsher on Bush compared to performers of prior years, though as one of the 68% of the country who think he's doing a lousy job, I was laughing my ass off. Granted, I was watching form my living room and didn't have to worry about NSA agents monitoring my reactions to the jokes to gauge my "patriotism." Or do I???
Anyway, here's a good artcile that might explain the audience reaction a bit more: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002425363
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4-30-2006 @ 12:17PM
Leah said...
I thought Colbert was pure genius! I loved every minute of it.
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4-30-2006 @ 12:40PM
James said...
C-SPAN is not Comedy Central. They are not known for having great audio of the audience in their coverage. I wouldn't judge the crowd's reaction based on the footage you saw (or heard).
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4-30-2006 @ 1:31PM
Matthew L. Weiss said...
I agree, I think the broadcast was not set up to mike the audience's reactions, even on the biggest laughs you could barely hear the audience, so I think the TV version didn't quite give an accurate account of how they responded - and Colbert looked calm and comfortable, as much as he always does, so I think any feelings of non-response came from the C-Span set-up (though of course he did land a lot of haymakers throughout) On the cutaways you could see some people dying of laughter while some were bewildered - which was almost as fun as seeing an audience of like-minded people laughing their heads off. Definitely earned Colbert an even greater respect from me. That took serious balls, and to his credit the President did give a terse "good job" to Colbert as we returned to his seat. Anyway, I loved it.
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4-30-2006 @ 2:00PM
Ben Eggenberger said...
Colbert was a disgrace. No class at all.
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4-30-2006 @ 2:14PM
Brian said...
Does anyone know when C-Span will replay this? I'd love to watch it..
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4-30-2006 @ 2:26PM
Karen said...
Genius. Pure, unadulterated genius. Talk about speaking truth to power! Bet Bush won't step outside his bubble for a long time to come.
The C-Span website used to sell videos of the WHC Dinners (I have one for Jon Stewart's performance for Bill Clinton, which is just lovely). I'm running over there now to see if they they're still selling it. I can see how this could be a topseller!
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4-30-2006 @ 2:31PM
Tom said...
I love Colbert and love to watch his show, but his speech was just horrible. Not funny at all. Any of you that think it's funny are just so liberally biased that you think anything that disses the president is funny.
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4-30-2006 @ 2:33PM
David Fitz Simons said...
Brilliant, Courageous. Thank you Stephen Colbert for voicing what so many hearts are feeling. The lack of jocularity from the audience does not surprise me. For the truth does in fact hurt sometimes. Fitz
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4-30-2006 @ 2:35PM
Gary Grenfell said...
I think the reason the press corps (the bulk of the audience) had difficulty with Colbert was because early on, he struck to close to the truth about them when he talked about their unwillingness of late to be what they were meant to be; relentless watchdogs for democracy asking the difficult questions. Notice that his buddy, Helen, sitting right next to him, was laughing her ass off.
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4-30-2006 @ 2:38PM
Joe said...
Colbert was absolutely brilliant, to have the balls to do that is incredible. Thank God the TRUTH does prevail over "truthiness". BRAVO, Colbert you are my hero.
The emperor has no clothes, long live the next president. Lame Duck doesn't even begin to explain how much power these schmucks have lost.
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4-30-2006 @ 2:49PM
landon said...
I've been waiting for this conversation to start... espcially comments like James': "C-SPAN is not Comedy Central. They are not known for having great audio of the audience in their coverage. I wouldn't judge the crowd's reaction based on the footage you saw (or heard)."
I heard the laughs from the Bush/Impersonator speech.... and those people HATE Bush.
I just don't think that the Press Corps (like most Washington political/media folks) doens't watch much other than news... therefore they've never seen the Colbert Report so they didn't know how to react.
Let's not spin this in a "they laughed reeeeally loud at the President because he was the President, but the mics weren't set up correctly for Colbert."
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4-30-2006 @ 2:51PM
Malixe said...
Colbert is a comedy genius, and a courageous one... even though he's all clean-cut and shiny, I'm getting ready to put him up there with Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor for sheer comedic courage.
He knows who his audience is, and it's not the Preznit, and it's not the befuddled Washington Corporate Press, who laughed at Bush's jokes the same way they would laugh at their boss's jokes, whether they're funny or not, but only dared to laugh quietly behind their sleeves when Colbert was making jokes at their boss's expense.
Colbert was fabulous and incredible, and bold!
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4-30-2006 @ 3:51PM
janie said...
Completly hilarious...and uncomfortable. Gotta wonder who invited him and if they had ever seen...ot "got" the Colbert Report. Bravo...I want a copy!
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4-30-2006 @ 4:15PM
Aaron Barlow said...
It did seem to me that Colbert was not getting the laughs he expected--but he plowed on.
Personally, I think he was not only funny but was perhaps the first person (outside of that guy who asked Bush a question in North Carolina a couple of weeks ago) who has really "spoken truth to power" directly in this country for a long, long time.
We need more of this.
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4-30-2006 @ 4:35PM
Mark Auman said...
No one laughed at Colbert because he wasn't funny. It is as simple as that.
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4-30-2006 @ 4:53PM
Mike Suddarth said...
Colbert took it to W. His routine is a comic summation of the hypocrisy and complicity in news and Republican presidencies alike. The country needed this. They feel since no one has spoken to Bush, the bully, in this manner, they must be also be silent. This may have been the press and W's Joe McCarthy moment.
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