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. Stewart v. Colbert v. O’Brien: The battle royale of the century (the century’s young)
Even with a writer’s strike, Television is still capable of a gimmick or two. Witness Monday night’s special crossover episodes of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” “The Colbert Report” and “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” all working without their usual writing staffs.
It began last week when O’Brien refuted Colbert’s claim that he was responsible for the success of Mike Huckabee’s Presidential campaign, insisting that it was he, O’Brien, who gave Huckabee his momentum. Colbert went on Stewart’s show to grouse about O’Brien’s grandiose assertion. O’Brien then entered, and was ready to throw down, until Stewart said he had to finish his show.
On his show, Colbert continued the theme, showing a montage of pundits declaring, “A vote for Huckabee is a vote for (John) McCain.” Since Huckabee has offered Colbert the Vice Presidency if he’s elected, Colbert reasoned, a vote for Huckabee is a vote for Colbert, and therefore, due to the transformative powers of Huckabee, Colbert in fact is John McCain. Stewart entered and scolded Colbert for beating this dead horse, followed by O’Brien, and again the three were ready to rumble until Colbert remembered he had to finish his show.
So: Onto O’Brien’s show, where O’Brien referred to Colbert as “the temporary host of ‘The Colbert Report.’” On cue, Colbert and Stewart, looking as badass as two middle-aged white men in suits can look, entered, snapping their fingers, all “West Side Story” like.
What ensued was much violence (only some of which was blowtorch-induced) that proved that late-night comics don’t make for very good stunt men. It ended with Huckabee making a plea for sanity: “Let’s forget these three idiots.”
Basically, what it made you think was, “Just think how funny putting the three of these guys together would be if their writers were on the job.” The winner, of course, was Huckabee, the candidate with a sense of humor who's getting people he probably doesn't approve of (and wouldn't likely vote for him) to make him look like an attractive candidate.
Meanwhile, over on “Late Show with David Letterman,” which actually has its writers, Dave was giving Hillary Clinton an oil massage.