Daily Show and Colbert

Usually, when I watch The Daily Show or Colbert Report, I look forward to the interviews. These guys have had some of the most powerful and/or influential people on their programs and I really enjoy seeing these guys. But a lot of times they'll have celebrities, and while sometimes I enjoy these (the Denis Leary one was great), I'm always kinda bummed.

Stewart has eluded to this himself,

"You've been rough on your own interviewing skills. Is it easier for you when George Clooney walks out on stage as opposed to, say, Richard Clarke?

No. Nothing against him, but it's a lot less interesting to talk to the guy in Ocean's Twelve than the guy at the helm of the war room on 9/11. But I understand that people have just sat through 15 minutes of world events, so how about letting them see a handsome and rakish man from ER?"

I was really looking forward to last night's guests; Norm MacDonald was on the Daily Show and Bill Simmons (the Sports Guy) was on Colbert. Basically, one of my favorite comedians and favorite sports writers on my favorite shows? Delightful.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Norm, sometimes his humor works, sometimes it doesn't. I love the dry humor, personally, I think he had maybe the greatest opening monologues (isn't the full video) ever SNL. But last night was awesome, he went off on some rifs that just killed. He's the first person I've seen touch the Steve Irwin situation:



And he was really funny during the new "Seat of Heat" feature. So far, I can only find the Irwin joke on YouTube, but Comedy Central has parts 1 and 2 (though I have a harder time with these videos).

With Simmons I kind of knew what to expect. He's name dropped the Report a few times in this columns, so I knew he was a fan. That means he knew what he was getting into, and since he's a sports writer, not a sports announcer, I knew he was going to be nervous.



I thought Bill did a good job, I just don't know if anyone who watches that is going to be compelled to go find his articles. Former Daily Quickie writer Dan Shanoff (who I don't always care for) live blogged the appearence and said if Bill could speak on TV like he writes, he'd be a god.