Giving Thanksiness

I find his dancing incongruous. His head does not seem to move in concert with his body. It was really jarring. I think it was the scarfs fault, but the effect was frightening.

Stephen Colbert -- a proud example of Northwestern University's excellent academics, theater, and music programs.
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GO CATS!

Just thinking of the line "Do I smell a piano?" still makes me laugh.

Watching it, I got the sense that I was missing half the jokes, because it was hard to concentrate on both the visual humor and the lyrics at the same time.

I thought that the only thing that didn't quite work was the willie nelson bit --

But the final song ("Worse things to believe in" -- and did anyone else get the sense that Elvis Costello had a hand in the lyrics to that one) deserves to be a classic, and that the best single moment was the unexpectedly beautiful harmony for the words "harmony, sweet harmony" in Whats So Funny Bout Peace Love and Understanding.

Happy Thanksgiving! I give thanks for Stephen Colbert!

Nothing says Christmas like watching Elvis Costello get mauled by a bear.

Hey, I saw Trip Shakespeare play in Madison WI, c.1989. So there's one reader who gets the reference.

We've watched the Colbert special twice now, and listened to the opening song (online) over and over. ("Make it a part of your holiday canon/Make it the heart of my retirement plannin'...") We keep thinking of relatives we'd like to watch it with, just to see their reactions. The Feist segment may have me giggling next time I have to wait for the next customer service representative, who will be with me shortly and appreciates my patience. And Elvis Costello--"An older, male Avril Lavigne, only instead of skateboarding he sings about people dying in shipyards"--love him even more now.

I liked the Willie Nelson bit--particularly Stephen singing, "Are you hi-igh?"

signed,
another 'Cat

Hooray! Thanks for revisiting the issue for me, James. Now my sick, twisted confession: I haven't "actually" seen it yet (I don't have cable, and neither Hulu nor the rest of the interwebs is floating a free, legal copy). I did, however, watch the 13+ clips at the Colbert Nation repeatedly, as well as some fan mash-ups on The YouTube, to the point that I could recreate the bare bones story in sequence (or so I believe). And I did "log on to iTunes and pay to download" the album. In addition to the songs from the show it includes a great 40s-ish style crooning number with just Colbert and a Guitar ("Thought that you'd love me forever/turns out you wanted to part/now I want a cold, cold Christmas/to go with your cold, cold heart") which may or may not be dedicated to longtime Colbert beau Charlene.
From what I can gather of the show, it was excellent in both comedy and musical quality, which is two more categories than 90+% of TV shows can claim excellence in. On top of being able to sing and move, Colbert also has a knack for getting great musicians to come on his show and have a little fun with themselves. John Legend's nutmeg number was flat out hilarious, and I'm still laughing at the visuals from Willie's song.