The Daily Show: April 24, 2006

Jon Stewart started off with some news from two of the last monarchies in the world: Nepal and England.

"The King and Them": Nepal has created a new daytime curfew to try and push back anti-royal protestors. Some German tourist was being a jerk about it and Jon spent a few minutes making fun of him. Apparently, the tourist had picked up the latest edition of Let's Go: Be A Dick In Nepal.

"Queen of the Stone Age": As for England, the Queen celebrated her 80th birthday (and semi-annual airing-out). That stupid "Helloooo!" voice that Jon does cracks me up every time. If I hear it enough, I start doing it in real life over the phone.

I made the funniest little squeal when British comedian Dave Gorman popped up, reporting "live" from London, England. "I know who that is!" A few years ago, I read a book called Join Me by Danny Wallace. Wallace has collaborated with Gorman a few times so the name was familiar to me. Join Me is one of the few books that's ever been able to make me laugh out loud, so I was expecting a similar effect from Gorman. Eh. Not so much. I'm sure Gorman is a really funny fellow, but this little bit did nothing for me. According to his site, this appearance was kind of a last minute decision, so I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and just assume that he wasn't quite prepared. It sounds like he might be showing up a few more times in the near future, so, Gorman, you've got another few chances to win me over.

Earth Day was a few days ago. As part of the festivities, the cartoon network Boomerang ran a Captain Planet marathon. I absolutely loved that show (and yes, the fact that they had an Asian character did affect my fandom). I still think about it moments before I decide the recycling bin is too far away. Anyway, many people celebrated by saying all sorts of nice things about our favorite rock. Earth thanked them with vicious cyclones, melting ice caps, and earthquakes. Jon confronted Earth about being a bitch, shouting, "You're a pussy!" and proclaiming April 25th as Fuck The Earth Day (drive a Humscalade and spray Aquanet at baby seals).

The night's guest was Efraim Halevy, former chief of Israel's Mossad and author of Man in the Shadows. Jon asked Halevy, "Shouldn't you be taller?" (I thought Halevy was going to leap across the table and start strangling Jon, but he smiled and chuckled). It was a bit of a surprise that such an innocent-looking man could head the Mossad. Halevy and Jon talked about the CIA (Halevy said that he thinks that there are some excellent people in the CIA, to Jon's surprise) and the situation in Israel.

Jon/Stephen: Stephen Colbert let his boyish fascination with secret intelligence agency activities take over. Moment of Zen: People ooh-and-ahh over falling ice in Argentina. Yay for global warming!