Stephen Colbert billed it as “The biggest crossover in television since The Flintstones met The Jetsons”. Tonight, Bill O’Reilly had Colbert on The Factor and O’Reilly filled the guest spot on The Colbert Report. As a fan of Colbert and while not a fan per-se, respecting O’Reilly’s impact on the cable news scene - I thought tonight’s shows would be historical.
And they were. They just weren’t that good. Colbert first did the interview on O’Reilly’s show which I think ended up being the better of the two. Colbert tried to stay on top of his character but O’Reilly wanted to focus on the French pronunciation of his last name and Jon Stewart. As such, he got nailed. Colbert did return the nail by pointing out the average age of The Factor which I believe is over 70.
O’Reilly’s segment on The Colbert Report might have been better if some asshole hadn’t boo’ed him during his entrance. Not only was it lacking in class, it gave O’Reilly an excuse to be…an asshole (himself?). And in typical O’Reilly form, he tries to be funny, fails miserably and creates uncomfortable tension. That tension was broken by two funny moments involving a 30% off sticker on his book and a photoshop’ed photo of O’Reilly as a gay male dancer.
I was confident that Colbert would nail O’Reilly in his expert use of irony - Stephen Colbert managed to nail George W. Bush in the same manner during the White House Correspondents dinner. And whatever the right-wing bloggers want to say about Colbert’s keynote, it was definitely a hilarious and ballsy nailing. Perhaps that’s why this year’s has-been ever-was keynote speaker has been asked to “take it easy” on The President.