David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. If he can’t be President, Stephen Colbert will settle for more of your money
The Stephen Colbert Money (and Attention-Grabbing) Train rolls on: Out tomorrow is a new DVD, “The Best of the Colbert Report.”
And of course, it’s not accurately named. A title exuding more truthiness would be, “An Assortment of Bits That Don’t Address Issues and Events You’ve Already Forgotten About.” Mainly, it’s a collection clocking in at about three hours containing some of the cute bits where celebrities played along – his mock-battles with Willie Nelson, Sean Penn, Stone Phillips, the Decemberists and Barry Manilow. There’s his Jane Fonda interview when she sat in his lap and got cozy (and busy) with him. There’s the Bill O’Reilly semi-trainwreck.
Also included are the famous stunts – the Green Screen Challenge, the attempt to name a Hungarian bridge after him, the d!cking around with Wikipedia, the minor-league hockey team naming its mascot after Colbert, etc. A couple of the “Better Know a District” installments are added, including the one with Washington, D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, who parried with Colbert better and more amusingly than anyone. (Unfortunately omitted is Colbert’s smackdown of the Georgia Congressman who had introduced legislation that would’ve installed a copy of the 10 Commandments in every government building – when Colbert asked the guy to name them, he stumbled and fumbled and could only name three.)
Most distressing about the collection is the paucity of “The Word,” Colbert’s hilariously unhinged commentaries/diatribes. There are only a couple of these, including his famous first essay on “Truthiness,” which serves as a reminder of just how rare it is for the very first piece on a brand new show to belt it out of the park as Colbert did here, to not only instantly and indelibly etch a character in an audience’s mind but also to create, first time out of the box, a catchphrase that permeates so far out into the rest of the world. Colbert declared, “Anyone can read the news to you, but I promise to feel the news at you.”
As with his current best-selling book, “I Am America (And So Can You!)”, “The Best of The Colbert Report” seems intent on extending the brand by diluting or glossing over the show’s edgier political satire. The DVD seems more intent on emphasizing Colbert’s far-reaching impact on popular and political culture, depicting him as a good sport among good sports.
- “The Best of the Colbert Report:” On sale Tuesday.