CBS went balls to the wall this post–Super Bowl week. Both The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and After Midnight had special post-game episodes, and Jon Stewart did his first emeritus-professor Monday the following night. Let’s first address the wackness in the room: It’s so weird that The Daily Show did months of stunt casting the desk (if you told me Ariana Madix was gonna do a week once she’s done with Chicago, I’d believe you), for what appears to be … nothing. Comedy Central fumbled Roy Wood Jr. and was rumored to be circling Hasan Minhaj before the fact-checking debacle. And now it’s whatever’s going on here. One day a week of Stewart, then the other correspondents kind of circling Jordan Klepper like remora around a great white? It’s weird. Not bad, necessarily, but weird. But hey, it was a weird/good week all around, as demonstrated by the clips below.
5. Wigs! (Featuring Jimmy Fallon)
It was an event-heavy week. Ash Wednesday happened, as evidenced by the cross on Mark Wahlberg’s forehead on Colbert. And there was that Super Bowl thing. But it was also Valentine’s Day, a holiday celebrated by The Tonight Show by bringing back a sketch premise from Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night days. The boys of The Tonight Show (plus Keegan-Michael Key, J.B. Smoove, and former Late Night writers Bashir Salahuddin and Diallo Riddle) got some wigs on wholesale and created whole personae. It’s fun to see everyone be so, so stupid.
4. Seth Meyers Breaks the Fourth Wall
Speaking of getting really dumb with the bit, Seth Meyers took the camera on a trip during this nth edition (they don’t care about the bit enough to count them) of “Back in My Day.†He walks all around that late-night stage like it’s a community theater performance of Our Town and the dentist who’s playing the stage manager wants to make a real meal of it. Plus, a dog does drugs! Shoutout to Anatomy of a Fall.
3. After Midnight Goes Full Whose Line
Look, you can’t invite pan icon Wayne fucking Brady onto an improvised game show where the points don’t really matter and not make him sing. That would be like interviewing Travis Kelce after he wins a game and not letting him shout Beastie Boys songs. That’s his thing! Brady did an Usher impression hours after his halftime show, and he got Kevin Smith — in Smith’s own words — moist. So, yeah. Improv is back.
2. Jon Stewart’s Return
Speaking of the boys, and their being back in town … Much has already been said about Jon Stewart’s first big “Headlines†segment, so I won’t go too long. What I will add to the convo is this: Stewart reads the teleprompter like he’s thinking about what he’s saying. He’s not rattling off the jokes, he’s processing the information contained therein. It’s the difference between a convincing fictional scientist and Christmas Jones in The World Is Not Enough.
1. John Oliver Makes Stephen Colbert an Accessory After the Fact
Sorry to Stewart, but this week he was surpassed in sheer funniness by two of his sons. But sorry to those sons, because the silent mascot stole the show. Daily Show alum John Oliver guested on Daily Show alum Stephen Colbert’s show, and he brought a very special and provocative guest: copyright-free Mickey Mouse. The guy in this mascot suit was a dancer. He embodied Mickey Mouse as seen in Steamboat Willie and only Steamboat Willie. Do you know how hard it is to perform rubber-hose animation and make it appear legally distinct from the later technique of squash and stretch? That’s clowning technique. Goading corporations is funny, but clown? Is more difficult.
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