joe biden

No one's accused the cast of How I Met Your Mother of having a collectively crummy sense of humor. Quite the contrary; every time I've seen them either in person or in a behind-the-scenes video, they always seem to be goofing around and having fun. At the very least, I'd imagine that neither Jason Segel nor Neil Patrick Harris allows things to get too heavy on the set.

So when Entertainment Weekly asked the cast to pose as various celebrities in a "The Best of 2008" pictorial, I'm sure they didn't need much time to say yes. In the pictorial, the cast portray the Olympic 4x200m relay team, the Jonas Brothers, and the cast of the Indiana Jones and Sex and the City movies. Finally, Segel and Alyson Hannigan pose as Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, respectively, during the VP debate. It might have been more interesting if they reversed roles in that photo, but I guess Segel didn't have the legs for it.

[via Pop Candy]

As I think about the past year, in both my life and in the world of TV, there's plenty I have to be thankful for. The life stuff is obvious: health, family, my girlfriend, a roof over my head, food on my plate, and a job that I enjoy. But the TV stuff isn't quite as obvious. So, as the balloons float over midtown Manhattan and people get ready to gorge themselves, here are a few things that made me happy to be a television watcher this year:

The election - Yes, it was too long. And, yes, it was exasperating at times. But it was the source of a lot of entertaining television. Of course, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and SNL were in top form (Tina Fey became a huge star, thanks to Sarah Palin). But entertainment came in many forms this election season, from Katie Couric's skewering of Palin to David Letterman's spat with McCain to just about anything that came out of Joe Biden's mouth. Finally, I have three words of infinite entertainment for you: Chuck Todd's goatee.

Well, at 11:00p/10:00 Central, with the polls having just closed in California, Fox News Channel officially projected Barack Obama to win the presidency by taking California and jumping to 297 projected electoral votes. It was nice of them to make the projection exactly on the hour. Everyone likes a nice round number.

Then, the election panel said that no one could have predicted this even a year ago, but 24 predicted it seven years ago with President David Palmer. That's a sister station, Fox. Didn't you see it? This year they're saying they can see a woman president. Does that mean Clinton in four or eight years? Palin in four? Oprah?

Wow! Talk about a spooky Halloween memory. This sketch is from Saturday Night Live, just about a year ago. The date, in fact, was Saturday, November 3, 2007. How things have changed. It really proves the adage that a week in politics can seem like a year. Here's a case where a year seems like a decade.

Of course, the significance of the clip is that it's Senator Barack Obama's first appearance on Saturday Night Live. And it's not looking as though he's dropping by again before the election, although it's still possible.

If he does actually become president on November 4, 2008, this sketch will likely go into the National Archives or the Smithsonian or -- at the very least -- the Museum of Radio and Television.

So tonight is the big night when Senator John McCain visits The Late Show with David Letterman on CBS to make amends for bailing on the late night host to go to Washington to work on the Wall Street mess, only to stay in New York and do an interview with Katie Couric instead. As it turns out, Senator Joe Biden is going to be talking to Jay Leno on NBC around the same time. Could they each be bringing a guest with them to the late night talk shows?

Rumors are spreading that not only will Sarah Palin join McCain on Letterman's show, Senator Barack Obama could join Biden on Leno's show. While it would be hard for Obama to appear on Leno's show because it's taped in California, Leno hinted at the possibility earlier this week.

Conventional wisdom says that vice presidents don't matter much when it comes time to vote, that people ultimately make their choice based on who's running for president. However, when it comes to debates, VEEPs are the main event.

The Nielsen numbers are in for last night's debate between Vice Presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin and they're huge -- 69.9 million viewers watched the VEEP debate. That's a whopping 17.5 million more viewers than Barack Obama and John McCain drew for their first debate last Friday night.

Why were so many more people tuned in for Biden-Palin? There are a few reasons, starting with the curiosity about Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Like a large number of Americans, I watched last night's vice presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden with great interest. And, like most Americans, I was interested in the debate for reasons other than finding out about each ticket's policy views. I wanted to see Palin and Biden screw up. Big time.

Unfortunately (heh), both did fine. Palin spoke in complete sentences that more or less made sense, even if they didn't answer any of Gwen Ifill's questions; Biden didn't ramble on or say that FDR was the president during the stock market crash of 1929. But I don't know if you can attribute this debate's gaffelessness on the poise of the candidates alone. The format of the debate was so restrictive, it didn't give either of them time to go off on screwy tangents.

Wouldn't it have been better if both could just sit in a couple of chairs and speak freely? You know, like on a talk show?

That headline might be confusing to some. After all, doesn't David Letterman have an episode of his show every Friday night?

He does, but he always tapes it on Monday night after he tapes the regular Monday episode. But he wants to tape a show on Friday so he can comment on the Senator Joe Biden/Governor Sarah Palin VP debate which happens on Thursday night.

Barry Bonds finally hit that 756. The media has already milked that coverage cow dry. Even Daily Show couldn't do anything exciting with the news. Senior Correspondent Rob Riggle then talked about his random adventure, full of coyotes and stuff. I didn't really know what he was talking about, actually. Riggle, you're a crazy one.

"Mess O' Potamia": The US can't find nearly 200,000 weapons given to Iraqi security. Loads of oil, weapons, and money have simply "vanished" in the past few years. Well, this goodness just writes itself, doesn't it?

Bush said that Cheney is a "half-glass-full" kind of guy. First of all, "half-glass-full"? Second of all, Cheney's the optimist of the White House? We're doomed. We're so doomed. However, from what Jon shared with us, Cheney has quite a way with words.

Death
Death all around
Black
Black
(quack)
Despair my blanket
I pluck a pretty pink posey
It dies