December 15, 2014 — Seth Rogen

EPISODE NUMBER: 11037 (December 15, 2014)
GUESTS: Seth Rogen
SEGMENTS: Intro - 12/15/14 | Michele Bachmann’s Extreme Holiday Cheer | Formidable Opponent - Torture Report | Kim Jong-un’s Exclusive Name and Sony’s Hack Attack | Seth Rogen | Sign Off - Goodnight
SUIT REPORT: Dark Suit | White Shirt | Navy/Maroon/Gold Stripped Tie
VIDEOS: Monday, December 15, 2014

Tonight’s episode was the beginning of the final week of The Report. It was a phenomenal episode. It has been over two years since we’ve seen Formidable Opponent. We were lucky enough to see this outstanding segment one last time.

On a personal note, it is difficult to believe that this is the last Episode Guide of The Colbert Report that I will write for Colbert News Hub. It has been an honor to write these Guides and I truly hope that all of the fans out there have enjoyed reading them. I know I will miss writing them. So, I bid a fond farewell to my Episode Guides. It has been a privilege transcribing the brilliant words of Stephen and The Report writers. It was a pleasure taking screencaps and capturing the magnificent moments of joy that Stephen brings to all of us. For the final time, here is my Episode Guide. Enjoy, Hubsters!

Intro - 12/15/14

Tonight! Is America guilty of torture? No, we seem fine with it. Then hackers expose Hollywood secrets. It turns out ‘Apollo 13’ took place on a sound stage! And my guest, Seth Rogen, stars with James Franco in the new movie ‘The Interview.’ I’ll ask him all about it in tonight’s ‘Interview’ interview. A New York high schooler made $72 million trading stocks on his lunch hour. In a couple more years, he might have enough to pay for college.

Michele Bachmann’s Extreme Holiday Cheer

Folks, if you watch the news, you know that this is my last week here at The Report. [Audience: Awwww!] I’m sorry. Did no one tell you?

• But I’m not the only one stepping down from the national spotlight. So is Minnesota Congresswoman and wax figure of Michele Bachmann, Michele Bachmann.

Michele has decided not to seek a fifth term, opting instead to stay home and catch up on her blinking.

• But I’m glad to know that Bachmann’s not going quietly. Last week, as she and her family posed for a picture at the White House holiday party, Bachmann turned to President Obama and said,

“Mr. President, you need to bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities because, if you don’t, Iran will have a nuclear weapon on your watch…”

• And how did Obama respond to her sage foreign policy advice? According to Bachmann, the President…

“…laughed at me and said, ‘Well, Michele, it’s just not that easy.'”

I’m not surprised he laughed. Look at the President’s actual reaction two years ago when I told him he should listen to Michele Bachmann.

• Godspeed, Michele. I can’t believe you kept up that crazy conservative character for eight years.

Formidable Opponent - Torture Report

• Of course, the big story continues to be the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Torture Report.
• Folks, America is a beacon of freedom around the world. But thanks to this report, now brutal regimes are talking smack - like this crap from China.

“How long can the US pretend to be a human rights champion?”

• Oh, I don’t know. I’d say about as long as I can pretend I don’t know who made my iPhone.
• These are troubling questions and in troubled times, Bill O’Reilly reminds us to shut up and let him talk.

Bill O’Reilly: “There are some folks, like me, who believe we must use harsh measures to defeat the Jihadists who would slaughter us all if they could. There are others who say we must obey the Geneva Conventions, even though we are fighting an enemy that does not fall under that treaty. Then there is the definition of torture. Some believe that subjecting a captive to loud noise or verbal threats is torture.”

• Obviously, a debate that cannot be debated, because minds will not be changed can be debated only by the most unchangeable mind: Me, Stephen Colbert! This is Formidable Opponent!

Blue Stephen: Stephen, I looked it up, and you and I debated torturing detainees in the very first month of this show more than nine years ago.
Red Stephen: Nine years? Wow, you haven’t aged a bit.
Blue Stephen: Awww…You’re a liar.
Red Stephen: I am. You look terrible.

I know! ‘Cause I’ve been up for almost a week reading about how we kept prisoners up for almost a week. You look so well-rested. What’s your secret?

I’ll show you. Gimme that thing. Now you will sleep like a baby!

Blue Stephen: No, I won’t! Some parts of that report are really disturbing!
Red Stephen: Which parts?
Blue Stephen: The words. Chaining and beating, confinement in coffin-sized boxes, something called “rectal rehydration?”
Red Stephen: Well, c’mon, man, no one likes a thirsty rectum.
Blue Stephen: Granted. I just don’t like to think of America as a torture nation.
Red Stephen: We’re not. We’re the good guys. It’s just that, after 9/11, our fear and anger temporarily changed us into a different guy.

Oh! Like the Incredible Hulk?!

Exactly. Don’t make us angry. You wouldn’t like us when we’re angry.

Red Stephen: And as usual, Bill O’Reilly put it most -

Bill O’Reilly: “Look, we’re fighting a war. I have a book on World War II, ‘Killing Patton,’ so I know what I’m talking about. Bad things happen in war. The truth is, mistakes were made, but they were made in the fog of war to protect Americans.”

Blue Stephen: I’m going to miss that good man.
Red Stephen: He’s not going off the air. You are.
Blue Stephen: Yeah, but no one’s gonna pay me to watch him anymore. So, f*** that noise.
Red Stephen: You have to admit though, Bill is right. You can’t judge what happens in the “fog of war.”
Blue Stephen: What fog? This wasn’t low-level troops making split-second decisions in a free-fire zone. [Fog appears] It was over seven years of lawyers at the highest levels of government writing legal briefs about simulated drowning…
Red Stephen: Sorry, Stephen. I can’t hear what you’re saying. It’s too damn “fog of war” in here.
Blue Stephen: You can’t hear me because it’s foggy?
Red Stephen: Can’t hear you! Foggy!
Blue Stephen: You’re holding onto a goddamn fog machine!
Red Stephen: Oh, this thing? [Holds up fog machine] I didn’t see that because of the”fog of fog.”

Red Stephen: Point is - America does not torture. But we “had” to. And we’ll never do it again, unless it’s to protect America.
Blue Stephen: But the report says it didn’t protect America.
Red Stephen: Oh, I’m not talking about the actual country. I’m talking about the “idea” of America. The “idea” of America would never torture.
Blue Stephen: And the actual America?
Red Stephen: Have you read that report? We pumped hummus up people’s butts. I’m no Iman, but I’m pretty sure that’s not halal. That, my friend, is why I chose to live in the “idea” of America.
Blue Stephen: Ah-ha! But the “idea” of America is just an imaginary place. Which means you, sir, are just an imaginary Stephen Colbert.

And you, sir… [Red Stephen fades away] …Have been a Formidable Opponent.

Kim Jong-un’s Exclusive Name & Sony’s Hack Attack

• This won’t come as a surprise, but I so dislike North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that, let’s just say, I’m not going to name my next child after the guy. And, evidently, neither is anyone else.

“There is only one Kim Jong-un in North Korea. That’s a law. By directive of the North Korean regime, the name ‘Kim Jong-un’ is off limits to any other citizens of the secretive and repressive state. Birth certificates with the names ‘Kim Jong-un’ are rejected and anyone who happens to share the supreme leader’s name must change it.”

• Oh, you gotta do it, because when the average North Korean sees the headline “Kim Jong-un Inspects Local Lube Factory,” you don’t want them wondering, “Is that Kim Jong-un, the farmer from down the road, or Kim Jong-un, the dictator who killed that farmer for having the same name?”
• Point is, you do not want to cross this guy.
• Consider what’s happening to Sony over their upcoming movie ‘The Interview,’ starring James Franco and tonight’s guest Seth Rogen.
• They play TV journalists recruited by the CIA to assassinate Kim Jong-un, I assume by smoking pot at him.
• Apparently, ol’ sour puss here doesn’t have a great sense of humor when it comes to his own assassination.

“A huge hack attack rocking a major Hollywood studio. When the trailer for ‘The Interview’ came out, North Korea called the movie an act of war. Now Sony pictures, the studio behind the film, has been hacked.”
“Hackers have stolen five new movies and leaked them on to the internet.”
“Experts say Sony will likely lose millions of dollars this holiday season from people viewing illegal downloads of those movies online rather than going to theaters.”
“Hackers working for North Korea could be behind the attack.”

• Yes, someone hacked Sony and illegally distributed movies on the internet. It has to be North Korea. The only other person with that capability is a 12-year-old with Bit Torrent.
• The hackers also leaked unreleased scripts, including the script for ‘Mall Cop: Blart 2.’
• What?! That movie has a script?! Great. They just ruined the entire plot - large man falls down!

I’ll still see it.

• The hackers even left a calling card - “Hacked by GOP.”
• Which is also what Mitch McConnell yells every time he successfully works his microwave.
• In this case, the GOP actually stands for “Guardians of Peace,” and they’re demanding that Sony cancel release of ‘The Interview.’
• Or as they posted online -

“Do carry out our demand if you want to escape us. And, Stop immediately showing the movie of terrorism… You, SONY & FBI cannot find us. We are perfect as much.”

• Folks, this whole thing worries me because, over the last nine years, I’ve said some terrible things that could make this guy “un”-happy.

September 29, 2014: Nation, I’m no fan of Korean dictator and evil potato Kim Jong-un.
June 5, 2014: This photo of Kim Jong-un - it’s hard to say where the mushrooms end and his haircut begins.
November 10, 2014: Dear leader Kim Jong-un has finally re-emerged in public after a courageous battle with stage 5 cheese ankle.

• I stand by all of that. And I just want to say to the hackers targeting innocent Americans -

North Korea is the greatest country on the face of the earth. And Kim Jong-un - oh - he is perfect as much. Let shine his raidiant glow upon all his children, from the frozen steppes of the north to the frozen mudflats of the south. All of America bows before the glorious Kim Jong-un. Truly, he is as wise as he has chin.

Interview - Seth Rogen

My guest tonight made a movie that has upset a madman with nuclear weapons. And my network won’t let me say bad things about McDonald’s. Please welcome Seth Rogen!

Seth: We did not think they [the North Koreans] would love the concept of the movie, to be totally honest, but more than anything we wanted to make a movie that had one foot in reality that’s something we, as filmmakers, like and think is interesting as audience members as well.
Stephen: But is it appropriate to make jokes about real things in the world?
Seth: I personally think it is appropriate to make jokes about real things. We thought maybe we could inject some slight relevance, I guess.

Stephen: How much research did you do on this?
Seth: We read about it a lot, watched documentaries, researched online, read news articles. What’s interesting is you don’t know how much is based on fact because very little real information gets in and out of North Korea. But we did as much as we humanly could.
Stephen: Did you talk to Dennis Rodman?
Seth: We didn’t. We talked to the people who went to North Korea with Dennis Rodman. We talked to people who met Kim Jong-un themselves.
Stephen: Because in the movie, one of the things I like about it is he’s a fun guy to hang out with.
Seth: One of the interesting things they said is when you’re in the room with him, you’re not always aware of where he is. It’s like when you’re in the room with the President of the United States, you’re always aware where he is. And they said you’re having a drink, hear a laugh, and then Kim Jong-un would just be there - “What are you guys talking about?” Which is something we put in the movie is he was kind of unassuming. We tried to make him, for lack of a better word, adorable.

Sign Off - Goodnight

Goodnight, Mary!