The Daily Show: February 9, 2006

Welcome to The Daily Show with Rob Corddry. According to Rob, Jon Stewart was out because he had to get fixed up at the shop (but really, he was probably just starting his weekend early so he could spend time with his new baby girl). When I saw Rob pop up on-screen, I couldn't help but remember back to that time that Stephen Colbert filled in for Jon. It was more than a little awkward (it wasn't that he was a bad host... it was just... weird), so I crossed my fingers that Rob could do a better job.

"Mohammed, Mo' Problems": With the Middle East still in an uproar over the blasphemous cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed, it's interesting to see that one Islamic nation has decided to take these lemons and make some lemonade... sour, sour lemonade. What better way to soothe the anger of the people than with a Holocaust cartoon contest? Big laughs for Rob's joke about drawing Tippy the Turtle with the swastika and Hitler 'stache. Big groans (followed by an awkward silence) for Hitler in bed with Anne Frank. Ouch. I wonder if the audience would have taken that a little better if it was Jon... Kind of like, "Hey! He's Jewish and he's laughing at the horridity of the idea! I can now laugh guilt free... so, I shall."

Rob then talked a little about the new Ready Kids program from Homeland Security. It's a children's disaster pogram that has these weird mountain cats (not "mountain lion"? Really? Okay) as mascots. The dad looks a little... flamboyant, let's just say... and the mom looks super-fine ("I don't usually go mountain cat, but I would totally pet that," Rob said. He then did this really weird/cute cat impression).

"Amateur Hour": No news program (or fake news program) is complete without some sort of coverage on the Winter Olympics. What we learned from TDS's coverage: Michelle Kwan can easily be turned into a "Khaaaaan!" joke, Dan Bakkedahl (Senior Fall and Winter Olympics Correspondent) used to be an ice dancer (or claimed to be).

"Pill of Rights": Jason Jones filed a report about some pharmacists with moral/religious issues with filling perscriptions for morning-after pills. The Governor of Illinois later made the action to force pharmacies to fill the perscriptions regardless of the pharmacists' opinion. How dare the governor make a moral judgment for the pharmacist! That's a pharmacist's job to do that for a woman.

The night's guest was Will Arnett. After a loving embrace between Will and Rob, they got down to business... and by "business", I mean "chatter about how good Will smelled". They discussed the hazy fate of Arrested Development (last four episodes airing on FOX on Friday) and the possibility of the show ending up on Al-Jazeera. Rob then suggested that they run a clip from the show and it ended up being an Arnett-less clip of Rob's stint on AD. Nice. They also briefly mentioned Will's wife, Amy Poehler. I knew that her husband was on AD, but I didn't know it was this guy... Crazy.

Rob checked in with Bobby the stage manager from The Colbert Report, only to find out that Stephen Colbert refused to speak to him ("Tell him I don't work with fill-ins!" he loudly whispers from off-screen). Moment of Zen: The Pope and Laura Bush are chillin' out, relaxin', maxin', all cool. Anyway, this episode was actually pretty good because the audience showed a lot of support for Rob, cheering a little louder than usual for him. It was really sweet to see.