When I saw that clip on X this morning — at 3 a.m. — I hit the Grok button and got into a conversation that I'm only going to give you my side of. No Grok-writing below. This is all me:
1. Why would it even be considered good comedy to use nudity to celebrate Hillary's victory? What is the connection between the first woman elected president and emphasis on sexual nonsense? Seems tone deaf, even if she had won!You know the photo:
2. And Colbert (and his producer, in the audience in that clip) still seem pleased with their use of male nudity. They still have this juvenile preoccupation.
3. If that's all you can do with the freedom to push boundaries (by being on Showtime), what's the point? How could you think it celebrates the advance of women to have naked men enthused about being "with" her?
4. This is why comedy should be kept clean. Dirty can be funny to some people, but it's awfully shallow. There's nowhere really to go with it. That's quite aside from how it offends some people and drives many people away... and not just prudes but also people who are looking for something new and not stupid.
5. You can set aside censorship but still maintain a commitment to quality.
6. Reminds me of that famous photograph that had Clinton speechwriters feeling up "her" breasts (a cardboard cutout of her)
Posts
65 comments:
This (and the bit right after it) demonstrates while Colbert was so unremittingly unfunny.
Yet it's a national first Amendment crisis that his show was cancelled, right?
“We’re fucked.”
If only that had been true in the political sense. Pretty sure it was true in the carnal sense.
The prudes are tasteful. The crudes have no pride.
Unfortunately, my FB feed keeps offering me female stand up comics. They are uniformly terrible. They are all playing sexual gross out. None of them are funny.
Remove the glasses and he disappears with a Cheshire grin.
Trump’s defeat of HRC is what started TDS. Hillary was the Great Female Hope and Historic.
The Left considered Trump a joke and a complete Neanderthal. “I don’t anyone who voted for Trump!”
One of the eternal qualities of the Left is their absolute conviction that they are right and their complete arrogance. “We were so sure about the NYT prediction needle.” Now do the CAGW predictions.
The Left’s arrogance was on full display at the graduation ceremonies of the University of MN Law School last Saturday. The federal government had occupied the Twin Cities! The rule of law is under attack by Trump! But not a word about the $9b stolen from taxpayers. A clueless embarrassment.
I'm glad they showed that. It sets the standard for lame, unfunny political "humor". And that producer in the audience? Dude, you are dying out there.
A charitable point of view improves return on investment when it comes to comedy.
Ah the other Jon Favreau, most recently seen mocking Pratt for being homeless. Classy guy!
I know it was late when you wrote the note because those are Obama's speech writers feeling up the Hillary cutout. Also, that 2016 NYTimes election dial was in great.
As I have pointed out many times- the NYTimes needle wasn't the source of error- the error was in the public polling data. As soon as the NYTimes algorithm started to get real voting data that evening, it accurately reflected the probabilities the entire evening of Election Day.
Colbert was never funny, not even as a writer. His whole shtick is a constant snarky, ironic sarcasm that plays off his junior executive appearance by saying edgy things. And that's it. The edgier, the better, because of all that snarky irony you get, against that suit and those glasses. And the depth of his humor sense shows with the potty humor being elevated to First Amendment importance. He was useful as a partisan idiot megaphone, but in the end, it doesn't sell commercial airspace.
Obama speechwriters
This is how Grok summarized your prompts and responses for me. I added nothing. Wondering how close it came to capturing your original conversation:
The conversation began with analysis of a 2016 Colbert Showtime special segment featuring naked male models with "I'm With Her" slogans on their buttocks, intended as celebratory humor for a presumed Hillary Clinton presidential victory. Drawing from Ann Althouse's questions, we explored why linking a historic female milestone to male nudity and sexualized spectacle felt tone-deaf and mismatched—even in victory—reducing substantive achievement to juvenile visual gags and role-reversal fantasies ("femitariat"). We examined Colbert and his team's ongoing fondness for the bit (revived in 2017 with Clinton herself), seeing it as emblematic of a persistent preoccupation with low-effort transgression in partisan late-night comedy: meant to signal boundary-pushing and feminist reclamation of the gaze, but revealing creative shallowness, in-group signaling, and a disconnect from dignity or broader appeal. This pattern highlighted how such material prioritizes cheeky visuals and partisan catharsis over wit, insight, or universality.
The discussion evolved into a broader critique of dirty/juvenile humor's limitations versus the value of quality-driven comedy that can thrive without censorship. We noted how reliance on nudity, groping props, or bodily shocks hits quick diminishing returns, alienates thoughtful audiences beyond mere prudes, and squanders creative freedom (as in Showtime's uncensored platform). Parallels emerged with the 2008 Jon Favreau incident—Obama speechwriters posing with a Hillary cardboard cutout while groping it—underscoring the same reductive tendency in elite bubbles to treat female political figures as objects for male bonding or ironic celebration. Ultimately, we affirmed that setting aside external restraints still demands internal rigor: precision, purpose, audience respect, and intellectual escalation yield enduring comedy (Carlin, Pryor, Chappelle at their best), while defaults to sexual nonsense foster stagnation, polarization, and cultural fatigue. The exchange advocated for cleaner, sharper craft that respects intelligence over easy provocation.
Not that I have looked for it, but I have never seen anything involving Colbert that was actually amusing. (I never watched his original bit where he pretended to be a clueless conservative, but I am told it was funny). Stewart, Fallon, even Kimmel have made me laugh. Not Colbert.
A photo involving Sen. Al Franken featured a real, sleeping woman. In 2017, radio host Leeann Tweeden released a 2006 photograph showing Franken smiling at the camera while making a groping motion with his hands over her breasts while she was asleep on a military plane.
When you shake your ass
they notice fast...
Some mistakes were built to last!
Poor ann. She is a boomer priss who thinks only women can wear makeup, and use their secual assets to advance themselves.
Nope, men are fair trade too
And waaaay hotter than you saggy old gals still trying to comment a culture that doesn't look twice at your plump white behind...
Stick with grok. If you pay, he'll always be there even at 3am, 8n the same bedroom...
Log off now and tell your husband you need some special attention? Ass talking to computers is just silly when there are so many live adult sites at that hour with male or female asses foe real, jot in a silly Colbert skit
I'm with boatbuilder. I've never found Steven Colbert funny, at all. I think I have trouble getting past his arrogant smirk..
Colbert WAS very funny back in his 2005 to 2014 Comedy Central "Colbert Report" era -- he dove headfirst into intense over-the-top role play and never winked or cracked. This was before TDS of course.
Colbert's quality collapsed instantly upon having to be a "real guy" hosting the Late Show. He was never funny, hyper partisan, and had painfully obvious "humor." I think the stress of not being able hide behind role play characters broke him. Thin skin, had to please his woke masters and woke (unemployed) late night viewers.
Boob grabber Al Franken was funny in his simple little Stewart Smalley SNL role play era, but revealed his similar narrow, brittle, ideological character upon entering real-person politics.
Actors and talking heads, as leaning toward narcissism, aren't a self-aware type of person.
holy carp isn’t it Thursday yet?
I dunno what to say. Tens if millions for that comedy brain trust and they come up with that? Maybe the money wasn’t spent on the comedy….
Its not just the naked butt scene, I'm still just amazed at how chrisma-free and boring Stephen Colbert is. He should've been hosting a news show on MSNBC with Keith Olbermann. He's not funny - at all.
And yeah I agree with you about the naked urinal scene. Why is that funny? I dont get it.
THe cardboard cut thing is funny. But that's mostly because Hillary is such an obnoxious asexual shrew. And its mocking the powerful. Like someone throwing a snowball and hitting a rich guy in a tuxedo in the face.
You can't really say the picture is sexual harrassment, because does Hillary have breasts? Theyre almost invisible in real life. And even if she does, she's wearing a suit in the cardboard cutout. The cuping of her breasts in the photo is imaginary. Your projecting breasts onto a cutout.
Colbert was funny on CC, because he was playing characters. HE was usually playing a Bill O'Reilly type or some other conservative and saying satirical stuff in a mock-serious voice.
On Late Nite he was telling "Jokes" straight. And just talking to people. And he's a big zero.
seriously..
HOW MUCH money has Hollwood spent on Colbert?
Did he Ever make a dollar? for Anyone besides himself?
What's with the eating and drinking while doing his bit? He's not already annoying enough?
Showtime's nudity policy (i.e., no discernable policy at all) was thoroughly abused by nearly every one of its content creators. I followed the Penn & Teller's Bullshit series quite loyally, however, the host segments resorted to nudity so often that the anticipation of seeing yet another pair of silicone inflated tits became a dreadful prospect. When the location segment cuts to the studio, will Teller be displaying his unclothed posterior? Will that same lovely girl with the surgically enhanced breasts be salaciously caressing Penn Gillette's torso -- again!? I was reminded Penn & Teller were on a crusade to dismantle the absurd "New Age" mentality that must threaten any self-governing society several times. (I was also reminded that the pair were professional liars.) However, I was dismayed by their apparent disrespect toward their own project. Nudity is a cheap substitute for rhetoric. O tempora, o mores. If you have anything worthwhile to say, say it without the distracting visuals, please. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
While I've got your attention, can we at last dispose of that preposterous fin-de-cycle adjective, edgy? English is blessed with an embarrassment of riches in the adjective department, therefore we can afford to dispose of the more rotten ones. Edgy reeks of press agent manure. Anyone or any project that seeks to be known as edgy ought to be avoided as fundamentally unsound of mind and morals. The edge is where the vultures perch.
As soon as the NYTimes algorithm started to get real voting data that evening, it accurately reflected the probabilities the entire evening of Election Day.
…that’s what I recall. The needle started to move about the time the X experts were recognizing Trump was going to win Florida bit long before FL was called…and I can forgive the propagandists being shocked, as even the deep Hillary! insiders were spiking the football that election day morning but it does make me wonder why the insiders were so shocked by her loss. Perhaps they had reason to believe she had it wrapped up despite the bad private polling numbers, like they knew the fix was in like Biden, only that it wasn’t, Trump had won outside the margin of fraud…
WRT to butts, highly likely those dudes are gay NYers, so probable they really were with Hillary. Heres a 10 second time lapse video of NYT Election Needle 2016 with the temperature gauge rising to dangerous levels.
Colbert, with his unerring sense of timing, chooses to deliver the monologue while eating dim sum. That makes the delivery so much funnier than if he were eating Peking Duck......I don't know. I think the joke could have worked if delivered with an assortment of drooping, cellulite impaired butts. I guess it would have be sexist to use female butts, but you definitely needed butts with excessive cellulite to make it work......I only watched a few minutes. He talked about his interview with Paul Krugman on a roller coaster, but unfortunately didn't show it. That must have been comedy gold. Krugman and Colbert together, feeding each other witty quips while the roller coaster goes up and down. Wow. And now he's cancelled.
When can we be done pretending that Colbert was a force for comedy?
Maybe at the end of this week?
OK you got us, when Colbert was doing his spot-on Bill O'Reilly impression it was funny, if you knew Bill's schtick. That was 20 freaking years ago! What laughs has he brought us lately?
It wasn't the grope that made the cardboard scene so offensive. It was the bottle up the nostril. That was a subliminal way of saying "suck on this, bitch". It was demeaning in a rude, sexist way and was meant to be demeaning in a rude, sexist way. However, it was done in support of Obama so no harm, no foul.
I dont care about people making fun of Hillary. She was rich and powerful, and almost got elected POTUS. You don't want to be the butt of jokes? Don't run for POTUS.
Some of the people, shocked and I say, shocked at the sexist Hillary cardboard cutout, were A-OK with Kathy Griffith showing Trump's bloody head and a knife. You wanna ban mockery of "our betters"? Go for it.
"The needle started to move about the time the X experts were recognizing Trump was going to win Florida..."
I was playing a WWII-themed FPS on Steam that night. I had no desire to watch the Republic being dismantled in real time, the likelihood of waking up to President-elect Rodham-Clinton was macabre enough. So there I was digital fantasyland running here and there blazing away Rambo-style with my trusty MG42, when a fellow player chimed in, "Trump is winning!" That was about 9:15 pm Eastern, as I recall. I bowed out of the game and returned to live election night coverage to enjoy a thoroughly delightful evening and morning, just about the time the Rough Beast began to seriously white-knuckle her first of several Chardonnay bottles.
Yeah, that wasn't funny. "If you knew Matt". Well, I don't. If you have to explain a joke, you're in trouble.
That photo is of Obama bros. Former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau is on the left.
Here's the thing:
"Feminism" for a long time has been about nothing more than turning women into the worst of men. "Hey, I know, instead of only having sex as part of a committed relationship with a guy who loves me and has actually earned the right to get access to my body, I'll be a low morals guy and get fucked by lots of people. After all, I can just get an abortion when I get pregnant!" (STDs? We just won't worry about those.)
This was more of the same. The guys that "feminists" have pushed women to emulate would find that kind of "humor" funny, so therefore it was all good
It’s really rather insane that leftist propaganda get to flip reality. We are truly fucked under Democrat communist rule. They’ve ended no cash bail, they allow criminals to do what they want without consequence, thievery and shoplifting and bad moral behavior are all encouraged and are thriving under democrat rule. This is all an effort to crush capitalism, and therefore a crush everyone. Because when we’re all crushed and destroyed and humiliated, it makes us easier to control and they can swoop in like Nancy Pelosi superheroes and give us a couple checks
Colbert is a very wealthy left-wing communist propagandist.
Vile democrat behavior is so pervasive. Its finger fingers reach into the GOP. Most people don’t wanna be a part of government, but we need to change that. Real people need to be a part of government. Colorado the left are so sneaky. They wrote up aVile democrat behavior is so pervasive. It’s finger fingers reach into the GOP. Most people don’t wanna be a part of government, but we need to change that. Real people need to be a part of government. Colorado the left are so sneaky. They wrote up a bill that said if you are not capable of standing trial, you get to go free. Even more insane is that somehow the GOP leaders, some of them, went along with it. They are all regretting it now because it has real life consequences. Just the other day an arsonist went free, a dangerous man who was harassing and threatening and harming real people in northern Colorado, same thing. They just let him go because he was “incapable of standing trial“
the Democrats are a dangerous, dangerous, criminal organization,. They are funded by the Chinese communist and part, and the ultimate slow drip goal is to destroy the USA from within through the corrupt sellout paid off Democrat party elite
Colbert was never funny. Always over the top and always punching the right, seldom lampooning the left. He was a propagandists disguised as a comedian.
Jake, I noted how often Grok used "we" in that last paragraph. A Royal "we"?
Fred: Well, I copied the inputs and pressed enter. Grok and I (so "we") collaborated in a sense.
Colbert’s satiric impersonation of a Bill O’Reillyish television blowhard was inspired. They even appeared in character on each others’ shows. But that was twenty years ago. Since then Colbert has been smugly, aggressively unfunny.
Colbert is just the boiled down boorishness and stupidity of the average democrat.
He is not funny and he is mean and rather talentless and completely bereft of class.
Democrats are just stupid uncultured barbarians who rely on nudity viciousness toilet humor and vulgarity.
Entertainment industry people are like little children titillated by being “naughty” and encouraged by each other and sycophants. Meanwhile, real people search their product for something where “fuck” is used sparingly and bodice ripping, by both sexes, is not the norm. As for late night, look at the twits. There will never be another Johnny Carson.
This is why comedy should be kept clean. Dirty can be funny to some people, but it's awfully shallow.
Lenny Bruce and others would probably disagree. Like it or not, "dirty" covers a lot of comic territory. It's regrettable, though, that Gutfeld is edging more and more into the dirty end of the pool with cheap innuendos. Also, his stuff is getting too automatic, the punchline repeatedly being a picture of Bill or Hillary or Don Lemon. But then, comedy, as they say, is hard.
This must be "The Worst of the Late Show" because it's not funny. That "junior executive" vibe mentioned above is very much in evidence. There's a shell of pretentiousness around Colbert (who lost his accent and Frenchified his last name) that you didn't have with earlier late-night TV hosts. The pretense contrasts with his usual material. Here it seems more like he's explaining the next quarter's profit projections.
William, you humorless scold, the bottle is what made it actually funny instead of just juvenile.
May be time for you to hit the road on your own, personal Long March, William.
It takes a room full of writers and $40 million to get that level of comedy gold.
Laz, Gutfeld works a little blue to show that conservatives aren't all tight-assed Moral Majority patriarchs. Same reason he has massive biracial multiple baby-mama'd Tyrus and former druggie pincushion Kat Timpf as his two main sidekicks. As well as lots of gays, of every sort and type. Trying to demonstrate that you can be MAGA and not be boring, or stuck in a rigid set of doctrines.
The predictable punchlines are kind of like the old SNL recurring characters and their taglines, eg Rosanne Rosannadana or "you ignorant slut." The devoted viewer knows what's coming and maybe for the first time in their life, they're in the cool kids club. The new viewer doesn't know this is the 500th time Gutfeld made some gay slut joke about Don Lemon, and is pleasantly shocked that no cows are sacred. CC, JSM
Colbert would have given 5 years of his life to have his wheezing, flailing show cancelled for political reasons. He would have even been content with "Arrested Development" treatment - highly influential to the right kind or people but never achieving cultural launch like "Seinfeld" enjoyed.
Instead he's an Olbermann. A garden-variety failure with a reputation for being difficult and petulant. I hope he enjoys the gigs as an MC of mediocre awards shows and cameos on forgettable network tv shows, all which he will think beneath him.
There's a shell of pretentiousness around Colbert (who lost his accent and Frenchified his last name)
I don’t know what accent you imagine Colbert had, but his father was born in New York City, graduated from Yale School of Medicine, joined its faculty, then became the dean of the St. Louis University School of Medicine at age 32. When Stephen Colbert was five, he and his ten siblings moved to South Carolina when his father took a job at its medical university. A devout Catholic family of this background does not suddenly start talkin’ cornpone when it moves to the South.
"where they were prepared to gloat over Trump's defeat"
Now that's funny.
And he was a student at canterbury when his parents passed
The Frenchified name was a joke: Pronounce Colbert Report as "Colber Repor."
I was told for years by everyone how "Brilliant" and "Hilarious" Lenny bruce. So I watched the movie, heard his records, and saw everything on video I could. Because i was young, i thought there was some mysterious something i was missing. But no, he just wasn't funny. maybe if you grew up on Red Skelton or Milton Berle you'd think differently.
As for his "Brilliance" - God knows where that came from. Maybe that's because he got some much fame out of so little talent.
“Why would it have been considered good comedy to use naked "full plump butts" to celebrate Hillary's victory?”
Seems perfectly appropriate to me.
So by the end of this week, we can finally be rid of this asshole?
Earnest:
Do you really think other people don't look things up?
About the same time he was picking up Quenya, Colbert was also working to drop the southern drawl of his home state.
He has said he learned at a young age, from watching TV, that southern accents were often taken as a sign of stupidity.
"And that's not true. Southern people are not stupid. But I didn't want to seem stupid. I wanted to seem smart," he told 60 Minutes in 2006.
So the fake newsman-to-be retaught himself to speak — by imitating TV newsmen.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/stephen-colbert-late-show-5-facts-1.3215577
Post a Comment
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 4 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith.