Nick Swardon's 9 Funniest Moments

The Konformist editorial staff has been a been a big fan of comedian Nick Swardson ever since his scene-stealing performance in the Will Ferrell ice-skating buddy comedy Blades of Glory. After getting his own Comedy Central TV show, he's starring in his first film, Bucky Larson. It looks like a really stupid movie, albeit a hillariously stupid movie. (Sadly, uptight critics have given it a zero rating on RottenTomatoes.com.) In honor on his rising stardom, TheSmokingJacket.com has this collection of Swardon's funniest bits...

http://www.thesmokingjacket.com/humor/nick-swardsons-best-moments

Geithner consulted with Jon Stewart on economy: US Treasury

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/geithner-consulted-stewart-economy/
Geithner consulted with Jon Stewart on economy: US Treasury
Daniel Tencer
Thursday, November 4th, 2010

If the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear didn't convince you that Comedy Central's Jon Stewart has made the leap from comedian to political force, perhaps this will.

According to Bloomberg news service, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner met with Stewart at the Daily Show host's New York offices in April. And according to a Treasury spokesperson, it wasn't a social visit.

“Jon Stewart is influential in America, so we took the opportunity for the two to meet and to discuss the economy,” Treasury spokesman Steve Adamske told Bloomberg's Ian Katz in an email.

The meeting was buried in Geithner's appointment calendar, which has been released by the US Treasury. It shows that Geithner met with Stewart on April 2. This despite the fact that "Stewart’s program has poked fun at Geithner, including a segment last year about the Treasury secretary’s trouble selling his New York home," Katz notes.

What is not clear is what, exactly, was the purpose of the meeting, and who said what to whom. Joe Wiesenthal at Business Insider speculates that maybe Geithner was trying to exert pressure on Stewart to be more positive on the administration's fiscal and economic policies.

"The more paranoid would note that Stewart has skewered big banks and bailouts, and that Geithner may have wanted the comedian to see the other side of the programs Geithner architected," he writes.

Teddy Partridge at FireDogLake suggests a more complex motive for the meeting. He notes that Stewart's older brother, Larry Leibowitz, is the chief operating officer of the New York Stock Exchange, and that the usually low-profile Leibowitz gained public attention at an economic conference held three days before Geithner visited Stewart.

"Had Geithner found himself a back-channel to the COO of the New York Stock Exchange that wouldn’t require disclosure by either party?" Partridge asks.

Unless Geithner or Stewart spill the beans, the speculation will abound. But, as financial bloggers noted today, the meeting itself shows that Stewart is being taken seriously as a political force in the US.

"Stewart long has declared that he isn’t a journalist and has he talked down his influence. Now, it is time to give up the pretense. Face it, Jon Stewart, you are a major cultural and political force in America, dude," writes Shira Ovide at the Wall Street Journal.

"This basically ends any debate about whether Stewart is a comedian or a newsman," Wiesenthal chimes in. "Presumably Geithner thought it important that Stewart be well-informed on aspects of policy, and Stewart felt the same way."

Nick Swardson's Pretend Time

Robalini's Note: For fans of Will Ferrell comedies out there, Nick Swardson may be best known for his scene-stealing performance as Hector the Stalker in Blades of Glory. He's also been a favorite regular on Reno 911! Now Swardon has his own show on Comedy Central, and it's definitely worth checking out to support a hilarious great talent...
http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/pretend_time

Nick Swardson's Pretend Time is an irreverent sketch show filtered through the twisted point-of-view of stand-up comedian Nick Swardson. Swardson played Terry on RENO 911! and has been featured in two Comedy Central Presents stand-up specials, as well as his own one-hour special Seriously, Who Farted?.

Colbert's through-the-looking-glass moment in Congress

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-na-immigrants-colbert-20100925,0,898110.story

Colbert's through-the-looking-glass moment in Congress
Taking political satire to a new dimension, the comedian testifies before a House subcommittee in character as a right-wing commentator. The topic: migrant farm workers' rights.
Matea Gold, Tribune Washington Bureau
September 25, 2010

Reporting from Washington —

At 9:37 a.m. Friday, a man in a navy suit bounded into a packed committee room in the Rayburn House office building wearing the wide grin of a politician. Surrounded by a scrum of clicking photographers, he marched over to the witness table, plunked himself down on a leather chair and smoothed back his hair.

Stephen Colbert, cable TV political satirist-cum-political activist, was ready to testify.

"I certainly hope that my star power can bump this hearing all the way up to C-SPAN 1," he said.

Not quite. Colbert's role as a witness on migrant farm labor before a House Judiciary subcommittee only rated C-SPAN 3. But his appearance in character as a bloviating right-wing talk show host quickly made the rounds on the internet, and marked a permutation of the brand of humor that he and fellow Comedy Central host Jon Stewart have honed. No longer content with parodying politicians, they are extending the joke into the very halls of government that they mock.

The two comedians have built large followings, especially among liberals. They will step further into the arena they satirize on Oct. 30, when they hold twin rallies on the National Mall. Stewart bills his as a "Rally to Restore Sanity" to political discourse, while Colbert counters with a "March to Keep Fear Alive." Both events are intended as send-ups of a rally led Fox News commentator by Glenn Beck last month. But for participants and viewers, the line between joke and advocacy appears to be getting thinner.

Friday's subcommittee meeting was a through-the-looking-glass moment for Colbert. The two-hour hearing resembled a surreal version of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," if Mr. Smith were a comedian playing a bombastic TV commentator fielding thorny questions about immigration reform from members of Congress.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), the subcommittee chairwoman, had asked Colbert to testify after they spent a day together picking beans and packing corn as part of the United Farm Workers' Take Our Jobs campaign, which invites Americans to try their hand at field work. The comedian turned it into a bit that aired on "The Colbert Report" earlier this week.

"His actions are a good example of how using both levity and fame, a media figure can bring attention to a critically important issue for the good of the nation," Lofgren said as she opened the hearing into a bill that would legalize undocumented field workers.

When it came time for his testimony, Colbert offered to submit a video of his colonoscopy into the congressional record as evidence that produce is "a necessary source of roughage."

As for the labor pool, "this is America," the comedian said. "I don't want a tomato picked by a Mexican. I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan and served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian. Because my great-grandfather did not travel across 4,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this country overrun by immigrants."

Still, "after working with these men and women picking beans, packing corn for hours on end, side by side in the unforgiving sun, I have to say — and I do mean this sincerely — please don't make me do this again," Colbert added. "It is really, really hard."

"Maybe this ag jobs bill would help," he concluded. "I don't know. Like most members of Congress, I haven't read it."

Irritated Republicans spent much of the hearing trying to disarm Colbert with a combination of jokes and pointed questions.

"Does one day working in the field make you an expert witness, do you think?" Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) asked scornfully.

"I believe one day of me studying anything makes me an expert on something," Colbert replied confidently.

"Is that to say it's more work than you've ever done before, right?" Smith followed.

"It's certainly harder work than this," the comedian deadpanned.

For all the jokes, however, it appeared Colbert was there for more than comedy. When asked by Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) why he was interested in farm workers, the comedian suddenly turned serious.

"I like talking about people who don't have any power," he said. "And it just seems like one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work but don't have any rights as a result. And yet we still invite them to come here, and at the same time ask them to leave."

Colbert, a practicing Catholic who occasionally teaches Sunday school, quoted the biblical passage about helping "the least of my brothers," adding: "Migrant workers suffer and have no rights."

matea.gold@latimes.com

Media promotes far-fetched ‘bin Laden in Iran’ report

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0506/documentary-claims-bin-laden-living-luxury-iranian-capital/

Media promotes far-fetched ‘bin Laden in Iran’ report
Muriel Kane
Thursday, May 6th, 2010

According to a new documentary, Osama bin Laden has been living in Iran's capital of Tehran with his family since 2003, enjoying the protection of the Revolutionary Guard and regularly taking part in the elite sport of falcon hunting.

This seemingly bizarre charge by by falconry expert Alan Parrot appears in the film Feathered Cocaine, which depicts "the secretive world of falconers where some birds can sell for over $1 million, and in which the elite of the Middle East conduct business and politics in remote desert camps."

Parrot, who claims to have traveled to Iran after he graduated from high school in the 1970's and become chief falconer to the Shah, says that a northern Iranian warlord, who reluctantly agreed to talk about bin Laden after one of Parrot's men saved his life, spoke of meeting the al Qaeda leader on six hunting trips between 2003 and 2008 and described him as calm and healthy.

As unlikely as Parrot's story might appear, ABC's George Stephanopoulos actually raised the question with Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad during an interview on Tuesday, inaccurately asserting that Parrot himself had met bin Laden on several occasions.

"There's a new documentary out that says that Osama Bin Laden is living in Tehran," Stephanopoulos began. "And the subject of the documentary, a man named Alan Parrot, one of the world's foremost falconers living in Iran, says he's spoken to Osama bin Laden several times since 2003. Is Osama bin Laden in Tehran?"

"Your question is laughable," Ahmadinejad replied. He went on to say mockingly, "I heard that Osama bin Laden is in the Washington, D.C. ... Because he was a previous partner of Mr. Bush. They were colleagues in fact in the old days. You know that. They were in the oil business together. They worked together. Mr. Bin Laden never cooperated with Iran but he cooperated with Mr. Bush--"

The film is being promoted heavily by Fox News, which places particular emphasis on the claim that "Parrot's story is supported in the documentary by former CIA agent Robert Baer, an outspoken critic of U.S. policy in the Middle East and of how the CIA is managed. Baer, the onetime Middle East operative on whom the movie Syriana is based, explains that while he was in the CIA, he used satellites to watch the camps and they proved to be one of the key ways Al Qaeda was funded."

It is not clear how far Baer's endorsement extends, especially since he recently suggested that bin Laden is most likely dead. It also appears that in the film he was speaking only of al Qaeda's use of falconry camps and may not even have been aware of Parrot's assertion that bin laden is in Iran.

A review of Feathered Cocaine at DVDTalk states, "The always-fascinating Robert Baer (the former CIA field officer who inspired the Clooney character in Syriana) pops up to explain that falcon hunting camps are where business is done in the Middle East; meetings and cash hand-offs are the norm, and presumably, that's where Osama bin Laden took care of at least some of his financial and logistical planning. ... But the film goes deeper into the weeds. Parrot says he has a source, a professional smuggler (though not of falcons, of course) who says that bin Laden is in Iran."

"Parrot then proclaims that bin Laden's falcons all have tracking devices on them," the reviewer continues, "so if we were to go to Iran during hunting season, the signals from those falcons could be used to triangulate his location. Uh huh. He claims to have given all of this information to the government, but he's been ignored by both the previous and the current administrations, so clearly, our government doesn't actually want to catch Osama bin Laden."

In 2006, when the Dubai Ports deal was in the headlines, Parrot -- who also claims to have been part of the inner circle of the late President Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan of the United Arab Emirates -- was promoting a very similar story, but with a focus on the UAE rather than Iran.

Parrot told FrontPageMagazine at that time, "The Sheiks fly into falcon hunting camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan on C-130 military cargo planes filled with SUV’s, supplies and even steamer trunks full of cash. ... They meet with al Qaeda leaders or bin Laden himself while in these camps and discuss their Muslim obligations and unity. When they leave, they leave all the vehicles, supplies and any other useful equipment behind as donations to al Qaeda for its efforts at jihad."

Around the same time, Parrot appeared on Fox News -- wearing a turban and with a falcon on his wrist -- and told host John Gibson that he had personally witnessed bin Laden dealing with government officials at camps in the United Arab Emirates. "They have failed to close down the falconry camps, which are the real venue for planning the terror events that we have seen around the world," Parrot charged.

This clip was then featured by Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, who commented plaintively, "How could we have failed to shut down the falconry camps? We know Al Qaeda is after our field mice."

South Park Drawing of Mohammad

"In the 14 years we've been doing South Park we have never done a show that we couldn't stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn't some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle's customary final speech was about intimidation and fear. It didn't mention Mohammad at all but it got bleeped too. We'll be back next week with a whole new show about something completely different and we'll see what happens to it."
Matt Stone & Trey Parker

Picture above includes a drawing of Mohammad which ironically has aired in South Park's opening credits...

And from the April 25th Episode of The Simpsons:

Stephen Colbert delivers laughs to American troops

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/2009-06-08-uso_N.htm

Stephen Colbert delivers laughs to American troops
Sunday, June 7, 2009
By Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq — Apparently, all it took for victory in Iraq was a visit by late-night funnyman Stephen Colbert.

"By the power vested in me by basic cable, I officially declare we have won the Iraq war!" the mock pundit joked before a cheering crowd of about 300 U.S. servicemembers who gathered here on Sunday for a taping of his TV show, The Colbert Report.

The show, which will air tonight on cable's Comedy Central, did have (slightly more modest) real-life historic implications: It was the first non-news television show to be produced, taped and transmitted to the U.S. from a combat zone, according to John Hanson, a senior vice president for the United Service Organizations (USO), which brings entertainment and other programs to troops in the field.

In the past, performers such as Bob Hope, who made several famed visits with troops in Vietnam, would film and a crew would bring footage to the U.S. to edit and repackage. The performance would not be shown on television until months later. Colbert and a crew of about 20 are shooting and beaming back by satellite four episodes that will air this week, Hanson said.

Colbert taped the first of four shows dubbed "Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando" in the gaudy rotunda of one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces on this sprawling base near Baghdad International Airport.

Colbert, who has been raising money for charitable organizations that support U.S. troops, had been trumpeting his plan to tape his show before U.S. servicemembers in an undisclosed location. Taking heed of Defense Department security precautions, Colbert would only say in recent shows that, where he was going, "there will be sand and people that wish we would leave."

Before the show, some soldiers wondered whether Colbert, whose TV persona pokes fun at conservative punditry, would dial it down for a military audience.

No way. "He went totally all out," said 1st Lt. Virginia Brickner, 29, of Van Wert, Ohio.

The man who invented the word "truthiness" joked that Iraq must be a pretty nice place, considering many of the servicemembers in the audience "keep coming again, again and again."

"The good news is you have enough frequent flier miles for a trip to Afghanistan," Colbert told the troops, who responded with hearty laughter.

Colbert might have gotten his biggest laughs during his interview with Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq. Before he brought Odierno on stage, Colbert showed a video sketch of his attempt at boot camp at Fort Jackson in South Carolina.

After a semiserious interlude in which Odierno told Colbert his declaration of victory might be a bit premature, Colbert asked the general how he thought Colbert would fare in his Army.

Odierno responded that Colbert had too much hair to be a soldier. At that point, President Obama was beamed in on a large projection screen and ordered Odierno to give Colbert a trim.

Colbert will be sporting a buzz cut for the rest of his stay in Iraq.

Stephen Colbert is a swinger for Marvel

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/09/stephen-colbert.html

Stephen Colbert is a swinger for Marvel
Sep 29 2008
Geoff Boucher

Plenty of television comedy stars have hung with Spider-Man, but Stephen Colbert may be the first to swing with him.

Colbert, the master parodist of Comedy Central, shares an eight-page adventure with the world-famous web-slinger in issue No. 573 of "The Amazing Spider-Man," on sale Oct. 15. The folks at Marvel sent over a page from the story and while I can't quite tell what's going on, it's pretty clear that Colbert actually takes to the rooftops of Manhattan with the arachnid hero.

Colbert and his name have been popping up a lot in Marvel pages lately (perhaps too much, actually), following the January announcement by the company's editor-in-chief Joe Quesada that Colbert's faux campaign for president in our world would be mirrored by a genuine bid for the White House within the Marvel universe. The references have been scattered in different issues (a cameo here, a campaign poster there, some T-shirts, etc.) but nothing quite as dramatic as this.

Marvel has always been open to daffy gimmicks like this -- hey this is the company built by Stan Lee, after all.

For instance, 30 years ago, "Saturday Night Live" was all the rage so, in the October 1978 issue of "Marvel Team-Up," Spider-Man met up with John Belushi and six other Not Ready for Prime-Time Players (Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Bill Murray, Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner) for a deliriously cheesy adventure. On the cover, Belushi is in samurai mode, but he looks vaguely like Anne Ramsey from "Throw Momma from the Train."

The "plot" has Peter Parker attending an "SNL" broadcast on the same night the evil Silver Samurai comes looking for a ring of great value that has accidentally ended up in the possession of Belushi (yes, that's right, he's basically Ringo Starr in "Help!").

The best moments in the story: Morris dressed up as Thor and the late Radner wondering to herself at one point, "Hm, what's that noise from Belushi's dressing room?" And I'm guessing that on most Saturday nights on the real set, that was a loaded question...

In 1984, it was David Letterman's turn to rub elbows with heroes in the pages of "The Avengers," and the results were even cheesier, with Al Milgrom's art rendering Letterman as an Alfred E. Neuman look-alike beneath a Gary Hart hair helmet. (I've never been a fan of Milgrom, sorry.) Paul Shaffer wore a Captain America T-shirt and Dave help beat the bad guys with the use of a giant door knob.

Has Letterman ever had a lamer career moment? I doubt it.

Oh wait, I forgot "Cabin Boy." Sorry.

It was much more subtle back in the Summer of Love, 1967, when Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon popped in a true classic, "The Amazing Spider-Man" issue No. 50.

That book had J. Jonah Jameson on the couch of "The Tonight Show" discussing the apparent disappearance of Spider-Man. It was a fleeting cameo with a totally different purpose; instead of trying to pull celebrities into a comics adventure, it felt like it was pulling the Marvel characters into a real world that added energy to the story arc.

So, of course, classy old Carson doesn't tussle with any villains (that issue, by the way, happened to have the first appearance of the Kingpin), he doesn't swing through the sky with Spidey or even try on the clothes of a Norse god for yucks.

And then there's that gorgeous John Romita Sr. cover, which must have jumped off the newsstand next to so many of the staid DC Comics issues of the day.

I'm just guessing that, no matter what Colbert pulls off next month with the modern web-head, Carson and the 1960s Spidey will still be the ones who age best.

'South Park' site offers every episode

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117982893.html

Tue., Mar. 25, 2008
'South Park' site offers every episode
Parker, Stone give fans a free look
By SAM THIELMAN

After years of encouraging their fans to share "South Park," creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have set up a viable alternative to the mass YouTube-based distribution of popular clips from the hit show: They're just going to give the whole thing away on SouthParkStudios.com.

"We got really sick of having to download our own show illegally all the time, so we gave ourselves a legal alternative," the duo quipped in a statement.

The site offers every "South Park" episode including the current one, which stays live for a week after its airdate and then goes dark for the rest of the month, at which point it is added to the site's back catalog.

The streaming episodes run without ad breaks, but a spokeswoman for Comedy Central said the full episodes would eventually include advertising. SouthParkStudios.com also hosts embeddable clips. Launch sponsors for the venture are Toyota and Virgin.

It's a good time for Parker and Stone to distance themselves from the YouTube community given Comedy Central parent Viacom's protracted lawsuit against the Web-based video distrib, which features clips from the show.

Comedy Central said the site has already generated more than 3 million page visitors and more than 1 million streams of full episodes since it debuted with no fanfare last week.

Links posted in this story: Comedy Central, Matt Stone, Trey Parker