The Daily Show: September 13, 2006

I was out until the wee hours of the morning, committing various acts of mischief, so I didn't get to watch this episode during its first run. I'm not sure if it was because I was somewhat sleepy and exhausted from running around all night, but I felt that this episode continued to make this week the strongest week in a long time. I've been laughing out loud more, Jon seems to be getting gaining intensity (I can't really think of any other way to put it) and the segments have been really spot-on. Perhaps they're all riding on an Emmy high. Let's hope it continues!

Jon Stewart started off with a little bit of footage from Meredith Vieira's first day with Matt Lauer. I laughed the first time they rolled it because I caught Lauer's angry little hand flip... I laughed even louder the second time when Jon actually acknowledged it. Ahh, awkward first days are the best.

"Indecision 2006": So... yeah. Midterm elections. Nobody really cared. "C'mon. I didn't vote and there was a voting booth in my apartment." Jon's weird little Jerry Lewis and Droopy Dog voices were really funny this time (usually, they're just weird and out of place), soI laughed too loudly when I heard the Chafee, Laffey, taffy, and Raffi line. Jon also threw a few good jabs at Arnold Schwarzenegger but, hey, is it really that difficult?

That was followed by some top-notch material about the news networks' ridiculous use of questions marks in their headlines. For example, CNN likes to use them in phrases like "End Times?", "Apocolypse Now?", and "Ever Safe Again?" because if those were presented sans question marks, they'd just be absurd. As for FOX News, they like to apply their question marks to things more focused, like "Have the Democrats forgotten the lessons of 9/11?" Neil Cavuto is a big fan of this practice... Jon compared it to saying to someone, "Is your mother a whore?... What?! I'm not saying if she's a whore, I'm just wondering out loud if she's a whore." Best line of the night was... "'The Question Mark: A prophylactic protecting FOX News from anything it might contgract during its extensive GOP cocksucking'... But you can't just come out and say that! [question mark pops up] Ah!"

"Exper-teasers with John Hodgman": I guess Hodgman's going to continue this "Exper-teasers" thing instead of popping into the studio. Well, I suppose he is a busy man, especially with the release of the paperback version of his hilarious book, The Areas Of My Expertise (now with even more complete world knowledge!) and his accompanying reading series (which I am totally attending in October). Did I plug his material enough? Okay. In this edition of "Exper-teasers", John addressed the question "How do I protect my child from head lice?" I really liked the face-hugging thing and the tiny little scientists. Oh, how it made me laugh. Mr. Hodgman. Is. Amazing. That is all.

The night's guest was Ed Gillespie, author of Winning Right: Campaign Politics and Conservative Policies. Really good, solid interview. Jon even tested out a new Daily Show feature called the "Seat of Heat". The ligihts changed and the screens shifted to make the set look hot (but I thought it looked like the studio suddenly plummeted into the bowels of Hell). Jon posed one, hardcore question to put Gillespie on the "Seat of Heat": "What will the Republicans spend more time trying to capture this Fall? The soccer mom vote... or Osama bin Laden?" Gillespie said that he thought that if bin Laden was caught, the soccer moms would just flood in... so... answer: soccer mom votes. Nice.

Jon/Stephen: Stephen Colbert was feeling a little concerned about this Bush guy. Y'know, the one running the country. Moment of Zen: A direct quote from Debra LaFave, the schoolteacher that recently made the news for having sex with a 14-year old: "He wanted it. And... yeah. I gave it to him." I pretty much laughed for five straight minutes.

In the next episode, John Oliver will file his first field report. I'm really excited to see how he'll do (things looked good from the clip... Jon was laughing when the camera cut back to him). Oh, and I was re-watching the first episode of Green Wing today and I was pleasantly surprised to see Oliver as the car salesmen getting abused by Joanna. Adorable.