Dave Vs. The White House Vs. CNN

Freshly uploaded and hot off the youtube presses: Dave vs. The White House vs CNN! This is a classic from 5 years ago.

First the Late Show aired the following segment entitled "George W. Bush: Invigorating America's Youth":

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Then comes the aftermath:

This video is one of the classics in my opinion. The constant unbelievable twists are great.

Blog Bonus #1: It was also shocking. CNN, a trusted news organization, didn't just get the story wrong, they made up the story. I mean, it's very easy to get a fact wrong or misquote someone but I don't have the faintest clue how anyone in the world could mess up by not getting any comment from the White House and then reporting "The White House says..." How does that happen? ... And they did it not just once, but TWICE. They actually correct an earlier made up story with a second made up story! It's the absolute height of ridiculousness. "Newsroom" was the best satire of media ever made but even the characters on that show never did anything this stupid. It makes for great unscripted comedy though.

Blog Bonus #2: Note that Paul and the band's theme for the Schick Quattro is "Take Five" by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Earlier I thought that he had gotten it wrong because Quattro is 4 and it's "Take 5" but now I think it could be referring to the fact that the artists are a quartet. Quattro... Quartet. Either way, it's very clever.

Blog Bonus #3: The video uses a star wipe! When it became apparent in watching the full-length clip that it required editing, I knew exactly what was called for. ["Star Wipe" Simpsons Clip Not Online]

Classic Roots Choice #14

On Monday Givoanni Ribisi was on Late Night. The Roots played a jazzy version of the "Leave It To Beaver" theme song. Who'd ever of thought anyone would say that.

Ribisi's first ever role was as a kid in "Still The Beaver", a revisiting of the original characters starring almost all of the original cast (Hugh Beaumont, the dad, died earlier). I remember watching the show. It was sooo 80's and I remember thinking it wasn't that great but I enjoyed it anyway because I was such a big fan of the original series.

The Final Countdown

RIGHT... eh.. errmm ... Right ... eh ... Right.

I could watch this all day. The rhythm of it, the silences... This game seems to take place in a joyless, silent, energyless void of a world. It's Simon Sad vs. Liz Tragic. It reminds me exactly of when I used to watch "Lingo" on a Saturday evening. Those days aren't coming back.

The parody is a send up of this game show.

Right... SO, ehhh ... right... right... so ... uh, right....

Classic Roots Choice #13

David Alan Grier was on Late Night yesterday. His intro music was a short bluesy tune sung by Questlove with somewhat muddled lyrics. It went, "Like to hear it? Here it goes! That David Alan Grier on broadway with the fine Eric Washington but won't hook a brother up with no down town ticketsss. AHHH-HAHH."

The Roots wrote their own Calhoun Tubbs song:

This blog post is short. In fact, I wrote a song about it. Like to hear it? Here it goes... Blog post isn't longgg, dunt got that many wordss. AHHHAAA-HAHH-AHH.

Tom Hanks Reaction Shots

First there was "Vlade Divac Reaction Shots" which, by all accounts, vastly enhanced the NBA on NBC broadcasts. Then there was "Abe Lincoln Money Shots" which was totally unrelated. Now, there's "Tom Hanks Reaction Shots" provided as a special bonus feature to the night's Top Ten List.

Let's watch...

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Dave Explains Twitter

If I had access to years of archival footage, one of the things I would do would be to create a series of "David Letterman Explains Stuff". It's a very difficult phenomenon to explain but he always gets certain specific details wrong while adding other fanciful details of his own in such a way that makes the story particularly hilarious.

This is a slight example but my intro aside, the point is that today, he was convinced to start tweeting on-air. It was history in the making:

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Later he got a toaster on the desk, plunged some bread and tweeted that he was making toast. Then to the audience, "I'm the only thing on CBS right now."