Bill O'Reilly Visits Jon Stewart

Posted on October 19, 2005

Crooks and Liars has the video of Bill O'Reilly's very entertaining appearance on The Daily Show last night. Stewart asked O'Reilly was he was always so angry, and why he was still continuing to boycott France. The two of them have real chemistry.

O'Reilly said they told him backstage that there was a new show spoofing him. Of course, he was referring to the very funny new show, The Colbert Report, which airs after The Daily Show on Comedy Central. Colbert's character is a pompous, ego-centric, hardhitting newsman surrounded by a neon red, white and blue set, with Colbert's name in lights everywhere. There are intrusive graphics, wild camera angles and an on-set producer who Colbert asks about the time, as does CNN's Aaron Brown. But the show doesn't just spoof O'Reilly.

Colbert's character is a mixture of many news anchors, including Sean Hannity. He has polls like Lou Dobbs. The first night he had a "gravitas-off" competition with Stone Phillips, to see who could read absurd copy in a more serious, grave tone. Stone Phillips clearly won, which was even funnier. He gravely intoned something about "rat-a-tat-tat and a toot-de-toot-toot" yet is sounded like very serious, breaking news. As he told his viewers, what America really needs is an authoritative news voice to tell them what to think. And Colbert plans to do just that.