October 17, 2005

"Anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news at you."

Are you watching "The Colbert Report"? I'm liking it!

2 comments:

XWL said...

The first episode was well done. Colbert has this act down cold. This show probably should be done without an audience, though. The same hooting and jeering at every mention of a Bush administration figure damages The Daily Show, but for The Colbert Report I think it could become deadly.

Timing, and maintaining the seriousness through the silliness are Colbert's strongest attributes. The shows he parodies don't have live audiences so if his producers have a clue, they will shoo away the audience and treat this fake news show more like a real news show and trust that the TV audience will get the funny without prompting from howler monkeys.

Ann Althouse said...

XWL: I agree. He's basically doing O'Reilly, and O'Reilly has no audience. He'd be completely different if we heard his audience's reaction. But I think Comedy Central believes its own audience is not sharp enough to see where the jokes are. And they're afraid to change from what has worked for them on "The Daily Show."