The Daily Show: July 31, 2006

"Capitol Records": Uggh. The Bush/American Idol photo-op. There's a throw-down in Lebanon, but Bush wanted to chill with Taylor Hicks. Well, the man gets what he wants. Elliott Yamin arrived a bit late for the event, but he had a good excuse (he was in a meeting with the president of Syria).

"Prime Ribbing": The only other guy that Bush has been spending quality time with is Prime Minister Tony Blair. That's been doing less than amazing things for Blair's standing in the UK. He's been getting teased in the House of Commons ever since Bush greeted him in public with "Yo, Blair!" Newbie European Correspondent John Oliver elaborated on the situation. Apparently, Bush didn't use "yo!" but "yeaux!", an old greeting dating back to the days of English knights. For example, one might have said, "Yeaux, Arthur! Nice joust!" John Oliver's timing was much better and smoother than that of the other recent English in-take, Dave Gorman (whom we haven't seen for a suspiciously long time). I guess the Daily Show folks are in a scramble to find some new folks now that Ed Helms is possibly on his way out.

"This Week In God": The segment began just as Rob Corddry was finishing up a phone conversation with Mel Gibson. "Alright... Talk to you later, sugartits." Heh, soon afterwards, a few viewers decided to have some fun on Wikipedia (look). With the first smack of the God Machine, the graphic/sound effect didn't cue up fast enough, so Rob just kind of grinned awkwardly. Oh, c'mon, Rob. What happened to all your Upright Citizens Brigade improv training? That's got to kick in quick, man. Anyway, the news about the militant Islamic summer camp for kids was crazy, only matched by the pictures of kids signing missiles ("Worst. Pen pal. Ever."). Just... wow. To put it lightly, it was totally fucked up.

The night's guest was Will Ferrell, star of the upcoming Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (aka the movie that everyone's going to be obnoxiously quoting for the rest of the year). Not much talk about the movie, of course, just a lot of friendly joking around and jabs about Mel Gibson (Will to Jon: "I'm so wasted right now... You got a lot of weird Pollacks working on this show, y'know..."). Fun Fact: If Will Ferrell was caught driving drunk and had to blame a group for many of the ails of the world, he'd lay it down on gay midgets. Hell yeah, man. They've had it easy for too long. Will made a few jokes about hash and the audience wouldn't shut the hell up. I hate it when the audience does that. We get it. You guys love weed. Gosh.

Jon/Stephen: Stephen Colbert was seemingly upset that "This Week In God" still used his bee-boo-boop noises for the God Machine. He and Rob Corddry then briefly had a bee-boo-boop battle. Stephen so totally won. Moment of Zen: Brayden Bozak is the cutest 2-year old golfer ever. Fact!