After seeing Comedy Central's as for this Daily Show/Colbert Report "Midterm Midtacular" mash-up , I expected a lot more integration. Aside from the obvious change in content, this special wasn't all that, um, special. It was just like the usual Stewart/Colbert block, but with one or two more check-ins. No breaking news. No balloon drops. No t-shirt giveaways. Ehh.I liked the way the correspondents harassed that lady during the entrance poll. I liked the graphics overkill (especially the opening one). I liked how the audiences for the two shows competed in volume during the check-ins ("Stephen, I can't believe our shows are turning into The Price Is Right"). I liked the LOSER stamp. I liked how Rick Santorum was raptured away and Katherine Harris completely deflated. I liked Special Correspondent Dan Rather's appearance. Obviously, Rather's not a comedy sort of guy, but I thought he did a really nice job. What a good sport ("She ran away with it like a hobo with a sweet potato pie!"). I loved the fact that Rather cracked up over Jon's Joe Lieberman/Droopy Dog impression.
The Colbert Report was about the same. Despite having a beautiful gilded frame, Stephen was amusing but also failed to deliver the awesomeness suggested by the flashy graphics. I liked his two cakes. I liked Stephen's character-breaking embarrassment over the slow graphics. I liked the totally random Warren Beatty/Annette Bening call. I liked that a few of the "Better Know A District" congresspeople were brave/funny enough to come back on the show. I liked Stephen's impression of Nancy Pelosi's annoying laugh. I loved the flirtatious banter during the Jon check-in. I'm serious, Jon and Stephen are so gay for each other.
And... that was about it. Funny, but not spectacular. I'm not sure what could have been changed to make it more exciting (it was the MIDTERM ELECTIONS, after all), but, honestly, I expected a bit more. Oh well.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-08-2006 @ 3:53PM
gwangi said...
This girl I work with was telling me this morning that her sister who lives in NY saw some guy get stopped at the polling place by some one asking how he was gonna vote. Then the guy pulled a baseball bat out of his trench coat when he refused to answer his question.
I laughed and said that was The Daily Show.
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11-08-2006 @ 4:22PM
ladi said...
Dan Rather has always seemed to be rather stiff, but he was downright silly and the fact that he couldn't stop himself from laughing with John's Lieberman impression was hilarious.
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11-08-2006 @ 4:28PM
Scott H said...
An alternate opinion. I posted it with the Election '06 item earlier. One addition: I agree that Rather's best moment was his uncontrolled laughter at Stewart's Lieberman/Droopy impression.
The Daily Show part of the Midtacular was fairly lame--lots of taped bits, bad information, weak interview with Rather (more of a "hi-how-are-you?" than an interview). Jon did use the s**t word, and it went out live--he's used to being bleeped in editing afterward. (It was after the graphic showing one guy winning and s**tting actual turds on his opponent's graphic.)
On the other hand, I thought Colbert was much better. He also had some lame prepared bits, but the 2 cakes at the beginning for the possible outcomes ("Congratulations, Republicans" or "Congratulations, Terrorists"), his growing despondency as the Democrats' win became clearer, and his mock quitting and returning at the end were very funny. His interactions with Jon, longer than we normally get in the handoffs, were also top-notch.
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11-09-2006 @ 2:39PM
JDub said...
But it wasn't supposed to be spectacular, only midtacular. It reached its goal.
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11-08-2006 @ 4:45PM
Violeta said...
Yeah, compared to other Indecision coverage it was kind of tame, but the Jon/Stephen flirtation toward the end was awesome. Is it just me or have Stephen's people been having trouble with graphics a lot lately?
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11-08-2006 @ 4:46PM
Violeta said...
Oh, and Meg showed up again on the Report...is she an intern or a cast member? She does the looking shocked thing very well, but it was kind of random.
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11-08-2006 @ 9:57PM
Bryce said...
I wish Colbert has talked to Wexler(SP) more than he did. He seems like a fairly cool guy(as far as most people in politics go).
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11-09-2006 @ 3:30AM
PS said...
I saw the special... live of course because I figured that with the special being live it would have been awesome! Essentially the whole live factor didn't really come much into play. Jon and Stephen did very little updates. I thought maybe they would join forces on the same desk. The check ins were hilarious especially the whole bit with the frame and the Bin Laden and Jesus meter. Stephen Colbert had some great one-liners throughout the special and that terrorist cake was perfect. But man the Warren Beatty phone call and the congressmen callins were really slow. The payoff wasn't much with them. Jon's Daily show had some good bits. I didn't find Samantha bee's report that funny, but the Bakkedahl, Oliver, Riggle and Jones men on the street bit was hilarious.
Overall... it did not compare to the previous Indecision coverage. It's only Midterm elections so maybe they just couldn't get everything off the ground. Solid overall but this was definitely a rebuilding period. Daily Show lost key players and Colbert is in his own show world now. The correspondents need to step up... I'm looking at Bakkedahl and Riggle. Riggle's material is really forced sometimes. Bakkedahl has no direction he's all over the place. Oliver and Jones bring the funny, and I see great things from Asaif Mandvi. Just some things to keep in mind.
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