Addison Road

Last Monday night, there was a fascinating little TV moment that I actually missed. My sister told me about it yesterday, and I found it on the intertubes and was moved to shrieks and giggles.Watch the video first, and then read on, I don’t want to spoil it for you with my little commentary.

It’s about a five minute clip, and the payoff is right at the end, with perhaps the most insta-tastic-ready-made Addison Road tagline of all time. You’ll know it when you hear it, I promise.

So, if you’re not hip to Colbert, then you’re not hip. For the unhip, Stephen Colbert has created a cult figure of steadily growing proportions. He is lampooning Bill O’Reilly and other pundits who take themselves uber seriously, which is what makes this clip so interesting to me.

See… when he begins, he’s doing his standard thing: taking conservatism to an often hilarious extreme.Most of his guests know what’s happening, and still manage to get off an interesting interview. They play the game because they understand the character.Heck, even Huckabee’s been on. In fact, Colbert, Stewart, and Conan O’Brien have been staging a mock fight for weeks over who is responsible for Huckabee’s unlikely success thus far, such as it is.

So… here’s Colbert doing his regular (albeit hilarious) schtick, and he’s got this guy who’s deconstructing one of the fundamental doctrines of scripture, and who takes himself quite seriously. Watch as Colbert slowly moves from playing along to getting more and more genuinely frustrated. I think that little 30-second speech he makes at the end is the real Stephen, who was raised Roman Catholic.

To me, the greatest thing about this is watching the guest (a professor at Stanford, none the less) get flustered as he encounters a court jester who’s intellect matches and (likely) surpasses his own. He thought he was gonna get a free ride to plug his book.

Poor bastard. As President George Bush can tell you… Colbert is a force to be reckoned with.