Article
A Colbert Christmas is a joyous thing
Much like the Bush administration they so gleefully mock, America's TV wiseacres have been meandering in post-election limbo. Ding-dong! The witch is dead ... and now what? The exception being Stephen Colbert, who has chosen to ding-dong merrily on high, in a quite brilliant seasonal special.
Colbert already has an advantage in his eponymous character – a "well intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot", spoofing the US broadcasting punditocracy, in particular Bill O'Reilly, the Fox News network's definitive blowhard. When politics fails to provide enough material, Colbert can rely on his persona to generate humour. As a result, The Colbert Report ranks among the most consistently funny things on the box.
But for all that, the show delivers better satire than it does parody. Colbert the performer's own knowing wit takes the edge off Colbert the character's fatuous bad faith – as does the former's endearing, Dudley Moore-ish habit of corpsing at the quality of his writing team's output. That will change with A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!, which American audiences saw in November. In the UK, fans have been tantalised by the relentless soundtrack plugs on the regular programme. At last, the special itself is airing on FX (Sunday 21 December, 11.05pm) – and it's Colbert's finest hour since his notorious White House Correspondents Dinner speech in 2006.
That soundtrack itself is a corker. Few aspects of comedy are harder to get right than comic songs, and none are more painful when they go wrong. John Legend, Feist and Willie Nelson all deliver first-rate turns, but pride of place goes to a sporting self-lampoon by gung-ho country star Toby Keith, declaring war on "the war on Christmas". These are not merely wonderful scenes, but components of a beautifully observed whole, with Colbert the performer liberated from his format, and his whooping audience (sententiously apostrophised as "Nation!" or "You, the heroes") replaced by applause that went rancid in the can.
We find Colbert the character trapped in his mountain cabin by the thing he fears most – a bear. This "godless killing machine", along with everything else that manifests itself, may well exist only in the character's scrambled psyche. A Colbert Christmas captures with the hallucinatory clarity of a bad acid trip the ghastly, synthetic cosiness, smarm and claustrophobia of a studio-bound holiday special. As a genre take-off, it ranks with the classic Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase.
Christmas telly doesn't come much better than this: a note-perfect burlesque of Christmas telly that couldn't be any worse.
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User Comments
piman
18 December 2008 1:18PM
@MistressG
Just go to the Comedy Central website. They put up the full episodes of The Daily Show and the Colbert Report by the next day, in decent quality streaming video.
RedOnFire
18 December 2008 6:18PM
When I first arrived in the US from the UK 12 years ago I was sure one thing. That British comedy was best. It was smart , it was alternative and it was way better than anything the Americans could offer. I want to say now how wrong I was . Shows like the above mentioned 'The Colbert Report' and 'The Daily Show' are not only very funny, they also give the average viewer exposure to heavyweight guests from Thomas Friedman to Tony Blair who are allowed to talk about real issues. Even South Park will make points about contemporary culture that are quite nuanced in comparison with say, Little Britain...
British 'comedy' seems to revolve around a series of hastily oft repeated catch phrases ('They don't like it up em!', 'Loadsamoney!' , 'I'm a lady!') designed so that morons can repeat them in pubs to each other...
Great shows like the office are not typical of British humor. They go very much against the norm, which is more like the show that Gervais parodies in Extras
Dano79
18 December 2008 8:38PM
RedOnFire: I think Americans are better at political satire right now. Have I Got News For You is probably our best effort to compete, but that's become a frivolous entertainment gameshow in the past 5 years -- with most of the runtime dedicated to poking fun at the week's guest-host and letting the bloopers through the edit for cheap laughs. Likewise, Mock The Week is a funny series -- but its targets are broad and more a way for the comedians to fine-tune a bit of stand-up.
Our attempts at a "UK Daily Show" always fail, weirdly: 11 O'Clock Show (the side-attractions of Ali G and Ricky Gervais were the only hits), and the recent Tonightly. I don't think the writers really CARE about politics. That's the problem. They don't have an axe to grind. Rory Bremner is still the only comedian with some valid political opinions and a way to communicate it through comedy. Shame a good 50% of his material is so smug and self-satisfied, then.
For what it's worth, I think we're better at chat shows (even with less access to A-listers). I find Graham Norton and Jonathan Ross far more preferable to Letterman, Leno, Conan, et al. Those formats haven't progressed in the US for about 15 years, and still resemble '70s shows at heart.
I've also never been able to stomach many US sitcoms -- which feel so lifeless and made my committee to me. And when they DO have a hit, it drags on for nearly a decade. Stuff like Friends makes my teeth itch. The Office USA gets a lot of great reviews, but the concessions made to stretch it on indefinitely have weakened the idea behind the format. I never get the impression these guys are being filmed for a reality show to be broadcast one day -- do you??
Anyway, the US vs. UK debate on comedy will rumble on for years. But it's true that there are more hits coming from the US right now. Quite why they want US versions of Little Britain is beyond me!
RedOnFire
18 December 2008 9:43PM
Dano79, I think you hit the nail right on the head when you say UK comedy writers don't really care about politics. I think this is because however 'unpleasant you think the 'nasty' party is in Britain it pails in comparison to the Republicans. You have to care about politics in the US because if you don't you get Prop 8 and Evangelical nutters saying abortion is Satan's work....
As for US sitcoms, I loathe Friends, although interestingly i heard Michael Moore of all people say how much he liked it.
'30 Rock' and 'Curb your enthusiasm' are pretty good though.....
LordTimothyDexter
22 December 2008 11:23PM
Both nations' forms of comedy have their faults. US comedy is often contrived; sit-coms are a telling example. On the other hand, it sometimes seems as if 90% of British comedy is men dressing as women.
MistressG
18 December 2008 11:37AM
GOD, I wish Colbert was on More4 like The Daily Show. I don't have satellite and it feels like I'm only getting half the joke when Colbert pops up at the end of TDS (on Freeview) to banter with Stewart about what's coming up later. Which moron at More4 didn't have the foresight to buy up this sister show as a double-bill of fab US comedy?
I've only really seen Colbert on the Daily Show's election special and he was very, very good.