FX

Introducing the TIME 100, TV Edition

This morning TIME publishes its annual TIME 100 issue, listing a hundred of the world’s most influential people in politics, science, public service, business, blah blah blah—and most important, of course, television. Some of those honorees (depending how you define “TV personality”) include Stephen Colbert, Claire Danes, Chelsea Handler, Matt Lauer and Louis CK. (In the “depending how you define ‘TV personality’” category, the list also includes, for instance, Kristen Wiig, though largely on the strength this year of a movie, Bridesmaids.)

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Colbert and Cain Do the Charleston: Which One’s the Comedian?

I’ve never been to Charleston, S.C., but I’m pretty sure that, for this afternoon at least, Randolph Hall at the College of Charleston was located at the intersection of Reality and Satire. There it was that Stephen Colbert and Herman Cain, unlikely ballotfellows, held a funny, serious and seriously funny rally to promote Colbert’s bid [...]

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Not Allowed to Vote for Stephen Colbert? Oh Yes You Cain!

Colbert is urging his supporters to show their support for him by voting for Herman Cain, the GOP now-non-candidate who is still on the ballot in the Palmetto State.

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PAC Man Colbert “Gives” the Money and Runs, for President

With the announcement of a second run, Colbert will hand over the money from his Super PAC to Jon Stewart and give up control of the war chest. Wink, wink.

Ex-FBI Agents Lash Out At Eastwood's J. Edgar—Hoover Not Gay!

Keith Bernstein / Warner Bros.

Clint Eastwood’s biopic of famed lawman J.Edgar Hoover is ruffling a few feathers among former FBI agents

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While I Was Out: A Little Luck, Colbert's PAC, The Final Chord

I’m back from vacation! Related: I was on vacation! Before we get back to business as usual (i.e., superficial blog posts, grudgingly written and read with a feeling of vague dissatisfaction) a quick rundown of a few things that happened in TV while I was away: * HBO released a new (albeit very short) trailer [...]

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Stephen Colbert Does Not Intend This to Be a Factual Statement

Stephen Colbert, as you probably know, is the guy who invented “truthiness.” So when Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl made the statement that “over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does” is abortions (it’s actually about 3%)—and then his office backtracked by saying that his statement “was not intended to be a factual statement”—well, it was pretty [...]

The Night Shift: Jon Stewart's Seamless, Searing Takedown of Congressional 9/11 Hypocrisy

It’s always been a touchy subject on The Daily Show – the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, which redefined the battlefield of American politics. Following his emotional return to the airwaves in 2001, Stewart seemed somewhat hesitant about discussing the attacks. In the nine years since, he’s unloaded freely on the Bush administration’s rush to [...]

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Stewart and Colbert's Rally: Irony and Sincerity, Merged

America is about putting together things that are not supposed to go together. Korean tacos, for instance. (Which, really, you should try.) Or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and R2D2. Or irony and sincerity. Which is to say, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert put together a very American show on the National Mall today with the Rally to [...]

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How Political Is the Rally for Sanity?

Before anyone opines on The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear this weekend, it’s worth noting that the thing hasn’t actually, um, happened; there have been an awful lot of judgments made on an event whose content we don’t even know yet. So I can only judge the event on the basis of what Jon [...]

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The Morning After: Me on CNN on Jon Stewart on CNN

As promised/threatened, I went on CNN’s Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz Sunday to discuss the impending Jon Stewart / Stephen Colbert rally in Washington. Among other things, I mentioned that you could see the rally as an outgrowth of Stewart’s appearance on CNN’s Crossfire in 2004, in which he said that show, and other cable [...]

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Dead Tree Alert: Sane Clown Posse

Is Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear a political event? NPR—which is currently having its own problems defining the limits of public commentary with its Juan Williams scandal—says so, having forbidden its reporters to attend the event. In an essay in this week’s print TIME (not yet available online), I [...]

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Sanity and Qualms: Stewart, Colbert Merging D.C. Rallies

It’s been heavily foreshadowed for a while to anyone watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but sure enough, on last night’s TDS we learned that Stephen Colbert didn’t get a permit (or “didn’t get a permit”) for his March to Keep Fear Alive counterpoint to Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity. So last [...]

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Stephen Colbert Brings the Wørd to the House

The conversion of Washington, D.C. to full-time performance-art venue is complete. My column in the print TIME today (not yet online) is an expansion of my earlier blog post on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s joint marches on the Mall Oct. 30, and it turned out to be fortuitously timed: Colbert today testified before a [...]

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Jon Stewart to Rally for Sanity. Good Luck With That!

If your Potentially Best Thing Ever alarm went off this morning and you’re not quite sure why, here’s the explanation. Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart went Glenn Beck on us and announced a rally in Washington, DC for Sat. Oct. 30. The purpose of the Rally to Restore Sanity: to take back [...]

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The Ice Mensch Cometh

Elsewhere on time.com Sean Gregory has a story about Stephen Colbert’s quest to get the Colbert Nation to fund U.S. Olympic speedskating. Turns out it’s not just a publicity ploy—well, maybe it is that too—but a serious shot in the arm that could save a prominent U.S. Olympic sport. Given the awesomeness of the sport [...]

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Colbert Suffers Setbacks in Space, on Earth

First he took on Wikipedia and South Carolina. Now Stephen Colbert’s campaign of self-aggrandizement is poised to go galactic; the space shuttle is scheduled to bring the International Space Station a new treadmill, named the COLBERT (Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill), after the Comedy Central host won an online naming contest. Colbert’s persona [...]

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The Morning After: Jon and Stephen 2.0

For obvious reasons I watched no late-night shows last night, but I’m curious what anyone out there thought of the second nights of the strike-era Daily Show and Colbert Report. The consensus yesterday seemed to be that Stephen won the first round; was Jon any sharper this time out?

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Strike Watch: The Fake Fake News

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report returned last night, and like any member of the media I’m biased toward finding myself to be right, so I have to say they were as I expected: different, funny, not nearly as hobbled as people had speculated these writing-intense shows would be. I’m on deadline, so I’ll [...]

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JPTV: What I'm Watching Tonight

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report come back tonight. Fans of irony may enjoy the fact that these two shows, the Bush-era rallying media rallying points for American liberals, have reportedly been having a hard time getting left-leaning guests, because they don’t want to cross WGA picket lines. Among the guest names that have [...]