Lotta Colbert Traffic
July 30, 2006Whoa, Dadsy! I never expected so many Stephen Colbert Fans Who Think The Fake Website Sucks to come a-knockin’! And I am … thrilled, because I am only 5′5, and … I didn’t expect people of my stature to be able to derive enjoyment or attract an audience.
So, let us trace the origins of the best comedy show … and the worst fan site … and find that the web of laughter is small and compact.
First, The Onion. Ben Karlin and David Javerbaum wrote for The Onion. That is the start of a fantabulous pedigree. Then, David went on to work for the Letterman Show and Ben Karlin went on to produce the Daily Show, where they both worked on America the Book. Then, of course, The Daily show spawned The Colbert Report.
But…David Letterman produced Strangers with Candy. The Onion reviewed it in the AV club, as well as other Onion connected works, without referencing the connections, which annoys me, so I have to sort it out here for myself.
Other Onion writers work for Conan and American Dad.
I think it is great that The Onion humor gets spread around. I love The Onion. It fills me with joy. The thing is, that there is becoming a monopoly on comedy, specifically political satire. The Onion owns The Stranger in Seattle, I think.
That’s why David Reese and Little Britain and The Fact are all so important, they are little voices that can be heard complimenting but not connecting with The Onion and The Daily Show and Colbert.
I really love it all, actually.
Look how many search results you get for Stephen Colbert at the AV club. Over 10 pages. Look at the results for “Jon Stewart”. Again, 10 pages, and of course they are many in the forum, but still, none of those show the connection betwixt the media. Maybe it is just me that thinks their is something sticky there, like the fake Avery unfunny fan site.
Whatever, just don’t say they aren’t really needing to show their connections, that they are on comedy central and satires. The only thing that bothers me about Jon Stewart is that he hid behind that argument on his awesome — SO COOL — confrontation with Tucker Carlson.
I think I may hold different standards for disclosure than you do. I had known of the Onion/Colbert/Letterman connection through passive acquisition of the information- it didn’t seem like some conspiracy to me, but rather an organic growth, offshoot, and synthesis. I suppose seeing it all at once may come off differently.
That said, if you’d like to have a word about Colbert Nation, contact the fine folks at Canary Promotion + Design; Mason Wendell is presumably the real (fake) Avery Gordon. My Google search for “Mason Wendell” “The Onion” only returns hits for a song he and his wife did before going into the web design/promotion business so he seems independent of the satire monopoly at large.
Yeah, I have really high standards for transparency, actually. Why else would I insist that the 6′3 one share a blog with me, but differentiate our posts??
Cheers!