It’s nice to take a break from the barrage of “Colbert Christmas” promotion to simply enjoy an episode of ‘The Colbert Report’. Here’s some of my favorite lines from tonight’s episode:
The reviews are in - and “A Colbert Christmas - The Greatest Gift of All!” looks well on its way to becoming a holiday classic. Please enjoy the reviews below, and remember, pretty much all of them are seriously laced with spoilers.
“John Legend is just ridiculous,” Mr. Javerbaum said. “One take: perfect.” Mr. Nelson added some of his own touches, Mr. Schlesinger said, adding, “Who am I to tell Willie Nelson how to sing a country song?” Mr. Colbert described Mr. Nelson’s effort as a cross “between Bing Crosby and David Bowie.”
“I had a clear, clear command to everyone involved: ‘No cynicism,’” said Colbert. “We’re not mocking Christmas specials. We’re doing MY Christmas special. And that was the aesthetic we tried to bring into it. Like, we’re really doing this. I want people to see this every year.”
If you’ve ever watched a self-indulgent, celeb-fronted Christmas special and rolled your eyes at the glops of Velveeta cheese that drip off the program, “A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!” will have you in stitches. It’s a surreal hour, a Colbert-centric skewering of holiday-season specials.
Colbert is in fine voice on the off-the-wall, original songs. The DVD contains alternate endings billed as shocking. (They are.) There’s never been a Christmas special like this. That’s a compliment — and a warning.
A Colbert Christmas is a knockout thanks to the strength of the holiday parodies by David Javerbaum (”The Daily Show” executive producer) and Adam Schlesinger (songwriter and Fountains of Wayne co-founder), providing some of the best goofs on Christmas since “South Park’s” Christmas specials.
More than a parody of every special made with a host in an Irish knit cardigan, it’s a happy hour of insanity, musical guests dressed as bears and goats dressed as reindeer - “they’re a lot cheaper and you can’t tell the difference on camera,” gloats Colbert - and also a happy reminder that you don’t have to be a non-believer to have fun with Christmas.
Give it a listen. It’s actually pretty decent — peppy, snappy and brimming with all the requisite sound effects, the carol is just begging for its own music video; we’re picturing Colbert marching down the street in a Santa hat, his Harry Rosen bags accidentally thwacking a Salvation Army bell-ringer.
Each guest is greeted by a torrent of fake applause and has the awkwardness of finding themselves under the mistletoe as Colbert leans in, while the host earnestly delivers lines like, “I’m so excited right now I’m sporting a Yule log!” Based on the highly irreverent tone, “The Colbert Report” audience should eat it up — and the satire-challenged folk at the Catholic League might be advised to seek their merriment elsewhere.
As the long-time Zoners know, I absolutely love contests. I love sharing the Colbert goodness when I can. Well, our friends at Comedy Central are beyond jazzed about the new Stephen Colbert Christmas special, “A Colbert Christmas - The Greatest Gift Of All!“ To get the fans even more excited about the special (is that even possible at this point?), the have generously given No Fact Zone some really fantastic prizes to give away for a contest. Like I need another excuse for talking about this magically wonderful Christmas special.
And don’t forget kids, this wonderful DVD will be available at fine retail establishments on Tuesday, November 25th. As Stephen so wonderfully sings in the special …
Public to whom I’m so proud to have pandered
Please save my family and make this a standard
We owe it to Stephen Colbert to send this DVD to the top of whatever charts DVDs aspire to top!
Read below for the details of the contest, and please click through the links if you’re planning on buying any official ‘Colbert Report’ merchandise this holiday season. I’m sure that the nice people who gave us a boxload of free stuff would greatly appreciate it if you would think of them first when purchasing your holiday gifts, fan memorabilia, and general humorously-themed hoodies and paperweights. Thank you so much.
CURRENT GIVEAWAY CONTEST:
“’A Colbert Christmas - The Greatest Contest of All!” Contest
TO ENTER:
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY - not that we really sell anything here. Send an e-mail with your mailing address included to:
christmascontest (at @) nofactzone.net
(Seriously, I’m not kidding, PUT YOUR MAILING ADDRESS IN THE E-MAIL. If I don’t have your address in your e-mail, I’m drawing a different name. How can I mail you your prize if you don’t give me a place to send it? In past contests, I’ve had to draw multiple times to find people who actually sent me their addresses. I want to give you cool, free stuff, I really really do. So make it easy for me. Thank you.)
One Entry Per E-mail Address - Jesus doesn’t like it when you cheat.
(Entries are accepted from Wednesday, November 19, 2008 to Tuesday, November 25, 2008, with the drawing held at the end of the day on Tuesday, November 25, 2008)
Six (6) winners will be selected, and each winner will receive one of the six prize packages below. The prizes were generously provided by Comedy Central.
Hot on the heels of that outstanding out-of-character Fresh Air interview with Stephen Colbert, we get another interesting Q&A session with Stephen here at Time Out New York. I kind of want to quote the whole thing, but that wouldn’t be fair to the good people over at TONY, so suffice it to say the excerpt below should absolutely be read as the merest teaser for the rest of the interview.
Ring of truthiness
Stephen Colbert spreads holid—ahem…Christmas cheer.
By Steve Heisler
. . .
In the special, you perform a duet with Jon Stewart. How has your relationship with him changed over the last three years, flying solo?
Well, he still remains a mentor for me. Friday I asked him over to talk about how I should fashion my objectives for the show. Little things like…How do I manage [an] organization like this? How do I express my vision to people? Or how do I deal with the constant needs of the schedule. He’s unbelievably generous. I can’t say enough good things about him. Well, I guess I can, because I’m done now.
What’s The Colbert Report Christmas party like?
Have you ever seen that movie, Caligula? Put a lot of mistletoe and holly in unlikely places and there you have it.
What do your kids want for Christmas this year?
Oh, the Nerf guns are very, very big. There are some amazing Nerf guns these days. Nerf’s really found its niche, and it’s violence. I was hoping the Christmas special was gonna be sponsored by something really inappropriate or violent, because I wanted to do really intrusive advertising, like [monster truck announcer voice] “Bloodsport 8: This year let the blood rain down on you—The Colbert Report Christmas special!” But I’m pretty happy it’s gonna be Axe body wash, which is pretty damn inappropriate. [Same voice] “Smell like an elf, rub it on your jingleballs.”
The homepage for the ‘Martha Stewart Show’ is featuring a preview video for Stephen’s appearance on the show on Friday, November 21. And that sweater is beyond adorable - this looks like SO much fun!
Yay! I’ve been waiting for this to get posted; Terry Gross is such a wonderful interviewer, and she’s definitely an it-getter. Who know she had been present at one of the Philly shows? That’s so cool!
Fresh Air from WHYY, November 19, 2008 · Self-proclaimed “broadcasting legend” Stephen Colbert discusses his upcoming Comedy Central special, A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All. A take-off on the old holiday specials of yore, it will feature guests Toby Keith, Jon Stewart and Willie Nelson.
Colbert was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2006. He has received three Emmy awards for his work as a writer and faux correspondent on The Daily Show.
Make sure you click on that “Listen Now” link above ASAP.
I thought I’d give everyone a reminder of one of the features of No Fact Zone that is exclusive to our site - the No Fact Zone calendar, maintained by Jenny with a Y. (Everybody give Jenny a huge round of applause - she’s worked like a dog this past couple of weeks to keep the calendar updated). On this calendar, we make sure to list all of Stephen Colbert’s upcoming shows, television appearances, publicity tour events, and other goodies. We also list all of the new ‘Colbert Report’ episodes and their guests.
Make sure to click the link in our top Navbar often to check out the many events where Stephen will be participating. That way, you’ll never miss a “Martha Stewart” appearance, or an “Early Show” taping. Also, we put in lots of “Six Degrees” information, like gigs for ‘Colbert Report’ and ‘Daily Show’ writers, ‘Daily Show’ correspondents, and events where Amy Sedaris will be there.
You can sign up to have daily events mailed to you each morning, which I find very handy. I have the events on the calendar e-mailed to me, so that when I wake up, I can check my e-mail and know what stories to look for during the day.
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In the calendar list on the left, click the down-arrow button next to the appropriate calendar, then select “Notifications.” (Alternatively, click on “Manage calendars” at the bottom of the calendar list, then click the appropriate “Notifications” link.)
Select the default method and reminder times for events scheduled on that particular calendar in the “Event reminders” section. On this page, you can also set the appropriate reminder in the “Choose how you would like to be notified” section.
For those of you lucky ducks who live in New York City, this looks like a really fun opportunity to see one of the ‘Daily Show’ correspondents, and one of my favorite correspondents I might add:
Writer and actor Aasif Mandvi of The Daily Show and director David Kaplan talk about their new film, an uproarious New York style Tandoor comedy about a talented young chef (Mandvi) forced to abandon his dream of cooking haute French cuisine to run his father’s Indian restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens.
A lively discussion accompanied by clips of work by the collaborators.
Date & Time: Wed, Nov 19, 2008, 8:00pm
Location: 92YTribeca, 200 Hudson Street
Venue: Screening Room
Code: T-MM5FN05-01
Price: $12.00
I hope we can put some people in those seats - this sounds seriously interesting!
I loved this episode! “Vetting Stephen” was very funny. I liked it when Stephen asked how he could balance his dark secret and his thirst for power. Did y’all notice all of the copies of “I Am America (And So Can You!)” on the bookshelves? I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of this segment tomorrow night.
The Paul Simon interview was definitely the highlight of the show for me. I’ve always been a fan of his, and I really liked the way he responded to Stephen. Stephen was very funny in this interview. It was hysterical when he mentioned freaky three-ways and Paul needing to wash his face. My favorite line of the night was, “You couldn’t come up with anything better than ‘Lyrics’?” Hehe.
What did you think of the show? Please feel free to leave a comment or add a write-in vote for something not included in the poll.
Looks like the breakneck promotional tour for “A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All” is far from over. Some late breaking news - we’re getting reports that Stephen Colbert will be on Terry Gross’s “Fresh Air” program on NPR on Wednesday, November 19th.
Nov. 19· Stephen Colbert dons a thirsty white sweater, a red turtleneck and the furriest boots he can find for his upcoming Christmas special on Comedy Central.
Hot on the heels of that outstanding out-of-character 
I thought I’d give everyone a reminder of one of the features of No Fact Zone that is exclusive to our site - the 
The best Christmas special in the known universe will premiere in:
