October 4, 2007

Grassley now represents Nebraska and QCs escapes uncontrolled reproduction

Just like that, Iowa is rid of Sen. Charles Grassley, courtesy of a rather dim MSNBC graphics person. This appeared during Thursday's "Countdown with Keith Olberman".

No word on his replacement.

And I've been meaning to post something about yet another reference to our area on The Colbert Report since I saw it way back on August 14th. Might as well do it now.

First I should mention that among other real and spoof merchandise Colbert often plugs on his show (ala O'Reilly) is his "Formula 401", which he bills as his genuine "genetic material" along with "some zanthan gum and of course, high fructose corn syrup", for all the adoring females just aching to bear his offspring.


Colbert opened his show by saying,
"Tonight, the Report examines an issue which affects every single one of us, especially those of us who are female, ovulating, and live in the Iowa Quad Cities area."
(Why he specified Iowa, I haven't a clue.)


The news flash was that a tanker truck, "brimming with Formula 401", had "jack-knifed on an overpass on highway 74 right outside of Moline, Illinois." (big laughs)




Colbert continued,
"Let me reiterate a warning. Quad City women please, I recommend you stay indoors and seal your windows tight. It is believed that some of the Formula 401 may have become airborne, and I do not want to be responsible for fathering a 5th city."


For those of you who missed it, Colbert earlier had done an interview with Rep. Phil Hare and in the intro to that piece noted that Hare's district included the "Quad" cities and proceeded to name them while counting them off on his fingers. He then paused and looked at the five fingers, before moving on. Adding those to his frequent mentions of Knox College (which presented him with an honorary doctorate) and Colbert is really putting this area on the map. (as a subject for laughs)

12 Comments:

At 10/04/2007 12:39 PM, Blogger UMRBlog said...

It is amazing the ways in which the Eastern elite allow us see that they consider all of "flyover and flush" country fungible.

At least if they'd moved him North to Minnesota, we would have called him "UpChuck".

Continued success

 
At 10/04/2007 12:59 PM, Blogger The Inside Dope said...

Yeah, we're in that terra incognita wasteland west of the Hudson and east of the San Fernando Valley. Iowa? Nebraska? What's the diff?

 
At 10/04/2007 1:47 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's too bad that nobody watches Bob Colbert!

 
At 10/04/2007 2:39 PM, Blogger The Inside Dope said...

No, I think the shame is that you think you're cute.

"The series opened to strong ratings, averaging 1.2 million viewers nightly during its first week on the air. Comedy Central signed a long-term contract for The Colbert Report within its first month on the air, when it immediately established itself among the network's highest-rated shows."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert#The_Colbert_Report

Time magazine also named Colbert as one of the 100 most influential people in 2006, and Virgin America airlines named one of their inaugural flights of the enormous A320 airliners "Air Colbert"

What a shame no body watches his show.

 
At 10/05/2007 7:02 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wonder if Colbert picks on the QC because he has some personal connection, or maybe he stole the schtick from Dan Akroyd's "Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute, Certified in all four Quad Cities, Moline, Rock Island, Davenport, and Bettendorf."

 
At 10/06/2007 7:44 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anonymous is right - do a random poll and 1 out of 100 would have a clue who Colbert was. More people would likely think he is Jim Colbert, former PGA golfer (and that should tell you what a unknown the guy is).

A national TV audience of 1.2-million...not a big number.

 
At 10/06/2007 6:57 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nielsen Television Ratings are reported by ranking the percentage for each show of all viewers watching television at a given time.

As of August 27, 2007, there are an estimated 112.8 million television households in the USA. A single national ratings point represents 1%, or 1,128,000 households for the 2006-07 season. Share is the percentage of television sets in use tuned to a specific program. These numbers are usually reported as (ratings points/share). For example, Nielsen may report a show as receiving a 9.2/15 during its broadcast, meaning 9.2%, or 10,377,600 households on average were tuned in at any given moment. Additionally, 15% of all televisions in use at the time were tuned into this program. Nielsen re-estimates the number of households each August for the upcoming television season.

Colbert draws 1% of the available audience while Gilmore Girls draws 9.2% of the potential viewing audience. In simple terms, Gilmore draws 9 times more viewers than does Colbert. To put this in perspective, Gilmore Girls has been canceled due to lack of audience.

 
At 10/06/2007 11:39 PM, Blogger The Inside Dope said...

Hmmm.

I don't recall where in this story anyone said that Colbert was a household name.

So I'm curious why you're so interested in trying to suggest that he's not?

If you're over 60, then yeah, you've probably never heard of him. But if you're in college or high school, or otherwise "hip", then you'd know exactly who he is.

And besides, spouting opinions about how widely known Colbert is is just stupid and useless.

Again, I fail to understand why that's even an issue to you.

 
At 10/06/2007 11:43 PM, Blogger The Inside Dope said...

Anon 6:57

I think you're bullshitting, and would be curious what right wing clap-trap you've copied and pasted that from.

Dare you say?

I'll say this much, Colbert is in NO danger of being cancelled and his numbers are far higher than your little article would lead you to believe.

And again, I find it curious that right wingers feel so threatened that they are moved to do quite a bit of work in order to try to suggest that Colbert nobody knows who Colbert is, even though that's patently bullshit.

Why the need to try to put him down, huh?

 
At 10/06/2007 11:46 PM, Blogger The Inside Dope said...

By the way, HERE'S an entry on Colbert's version of Wikipedia, "Wikiality", about the Gilmore Girls I'm sure you'll enjoy.

Hint: It's SATIRE.

 
At 10/07/2007 12:46 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The point is the Gilmore Girls are nine times better know than Colbert. Question: Please name a single star on Gilrmore Girls? I don't think I can be anymore clear than that!!!

 
At 10/10/2007 10:51 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anonymous, you're flat-out crazy.

I know one person who ever watched Gilmore Girls. I know a dozen that talk about Colbert, much less watching them.

But I, too, wonder why your panties are such a twist to argue over semantics.

They made a giant deal when a LeBron James high school game televised by ESPN drew a whopping 2 million viewers. It's a little different on the cable side of things.

Oh well, at least you have that gem 1/2 Hour News Hour to watch on Fox News. No, wait, the show and its unfunny laugh machine track were yanked weeks ago. Is that why you're cranky?

Oh, did I mention his book is third on the Amazon.com's best-seller list? But no one ever goes there.

He's not a name in every household, but to say he's struggling in obscurity is misguided or misleading...which one were you hoping for?

 

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