The Daily Show: April 18, 2006

This episode was taped before the birth of Suri, the baby of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, so no direct references were made. However, Jon Stewart remarked on the Tom Cruise quote that's been circulating absolutely everywhere: "I’m gonna eat the placenta. I thought that would be good. Very nutritious. I’m gonna eat the cord and the placenta right there". The audience immediately burst into horrified groans. Well, Cruise was only kidding. It's really unfortunate that people think he's so crazy that they can't even tell when he's joking anymore. Jon's Tom Cruise impression sounded exactly like his George W. Bush impression (sans accent -- or silly attempt at accent). Jon also suggested, when eating placenta, to pan-roast it with a bit of leek. Delish!

The folks on FOX News were laughing and joking around by the green screen for a while before immediately switching to a serious tone for news of the rape allegations from the Duke lacrosse team. The sudden shift was so damn funny. Anyway, all the different news personalities have been covering these allegations differently. As if I didn't despise Nancy Grace enough, that clip was enough to throw me over. "Bang bang! It's the old sports stat/rape stat switcheroony! It's funny because it's the worst possible thing you could have done!" Jon shouted.

"Queer as Yolk": Many gay couples came together to line up for first-come-first-serve tickets for the White House's annual egg roll. They weren't allowed in for the opening part, when President Bush attended, because that was supposedly only for special guests. I guess there was some sort of outrage against this because some people thought this was purposely done to keep the gay community out. White House Correspondent Samantha Bee (whoo!) reported from Washington on the situation, saying, "God doesn't want gays finding eggs." It's in the Bible!

People remembered the 1906 San Fransisco earthquake with depressing sepia tones and silly Richter jokes. Not much here.

The night's guest was Ryan Nerz, author of Eat This Book and a competitive eating competition emcee (HA!). Jon clearly could not take this guy seriously. He asked Nerz if competitive eating was just like saying, "In your face, Ethiopia!". With so many people starving in the world, it's so strange to have others stuffing their faces with hot dogs for the sake of entertainment. Nerz then brought up the point of no one complaining that NASCAR wastes gas. Ooh. Good one. Jon then suggested a gas-guzzling contest. There were points where Jon actually questioned Nerz about the different aspects of the "sport", but he spent most of the time trying to figure out just how hard Nerz has to work to make everything sound legit.

Jon/Stephen: Stephen Colbert will take any issue and verb the noun. Right on. Moment of Zen: Underwaaaater.