EPISODE NUMBER: Season 1, Episode 36 (Tuesday, November 3, 2015)
GUESTS: Antonio Banderas | Reed Hastings | John Irving
SEGMENTS: Monologue | Hey, Russia, Keep Your Crab Claws Off Out Internet | Stephen Colbert Gazes into the InfiNet | Antonio Banderas | Reed Hastings | John Irving | John Irving’s Bedtime Story
SUIT REPORT: Grey Suit | White Shirt | Navy Tie

There was so much going on in this ep it’s hard to keep up. I think the take-home message is that Stephen & team are going to make satirizing the internet a big part of the show’s recurring segments, and why not? Many of the viewership are internet addicts, Redditors, Facebook fiends, and best of all, maybe even Hubsters. It made me feel a little better than Stephen gets sucked into the “internet vortex” on occasion too. I try to be disciplined, but I have days like that as well. Luckily, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen every conceivable video related to Stephen’s career so on that part I’m covered.

I really like the “Bedtime story” ritual forming up with the author guests. Stephen looks like he enjoys being “read” to, although I don’t understand the old timey pajamas on last night. Father Time, is that you?

Let us know what your favorite part of the ep was in the comments.

Monologue

• Beautiful fall weather here in New York. A perfect day to rake the sidewalk and let the kids jump into that pile of trash.

• I like fall because it’s a time of new beginnings. If fact yesterday, Paul Ryan started his first week as Speaker of the House. But, and this is true, he can’t use his new office yet because John Boehner was such a heavy smoker, that it smells like an off-track betting parlor in there. It’s got the same mixture of cigarettes and old man tears. They have to bring in the team from Serve Pro.

• I love autumn because it’s the most romantic time of the year, right? The most romantic place in autumn is New York City. You watch any movie, this time of year there is an epidemic of hunky guys walking multiple dogs into cute girls carrying an armful of vintage books. You can get trampled, be careful out there.

• I think the reason that fall is so romantic it goes back to when we were all in school. A new school year brings new hope: every fall you think maybe this is the year a new kid comes along who doesn’t know what my place in the social pecking order is. You know? Maybe they’ll think I’m so cool that I chose to sit alone at lunch. I didn’t want to be with the attractive people! I prefer to weep into my pizza square.

• One more thing: today Ohio voted on whether to legalize marijuana. So if you’re a marijuana supporter in Ohio, today was the day you were supposed to do that.

Hey, Russia, Keep Your Crab Claws Off Out Internet

• When I was growing up, we were in a Cold War with Russia. At any moment, any false move on either side could mean total thermonuclear armageddon. The surface of the earth would turn into a glowing ashtray, all life just snuffed out, is what I told the girls who wouldn’t date me. And yet, there was no warming of relations.

• [Vladmir] Putin is a ruthless dictator who wants to destroy America! (Please come on the show sir, Ok? It’s sweeps. Bring the kitty cat too.)

• Thanks to Vlad, tensions with Russia are on the rise again. First, he invaded Ukraine, then he sent war planes into Syria, and now Russia is attacking someplace Americans care about: the internet.

CNN: “Could Russia be planning an attack on undersea cables that connect global internet?“ […]
FOX: “The entire internet is carried along these cables.”

• First of all, what is the internet doing underwater? Last time I checked, I’m supposed to get my computer wet? Second, if you ask me how the internet travels from continent to continent, I would have said satellites, or lasers, or honesty I probably would’ve just said the internet! And what happened to the “Cloud”? I was told there was a “Cloud.” Remember, “hey, let’s put that int the cloud!” It was like the internet was a vapor of information that circles the earth, and your computer was like a ladle that scooped out what you needed.

• But it turns out the internet is actually underwater, because these cables carry more than 95% of daily internet communications. And US intelligence worries that in times of tension or conflict, Russia might resort to severing them.

• It would be the biggest disruption to your internet service since your upstairs neighbor put a password on his wifi.

• And if the Russians do cut the information pipeline, we’d be looking at a deep sea internet spill. Then we would have to scrub all that data off the pelicans.

• And repairing those cables would be a slow process, because can you imagine how long it would take Time Warner to show up at the bottom of the ocean? “Yeah, they’ll be there sometime between noon and low tide.”

• All Americans have to be prepared for a surprise web attack, so tonight, I’m going to show you how to pack an Internet Outtage “Go” Bag. [..] You want to fill it with everything you need from the internet in the event the internet no longer exists. For example, you lose access to Facebook, and the millions of baby photos your friends keep posting on Facebook. So to be prepared, make sure you pack 1 baby photo. Because let’s be honest, they all look the same. Lovely! But basically bald and confused. You can also pack a picture of Vin Diesel, in a pinch.

• If you can find any, you want to print out a stack of racist tweets. (lifts heavy stack of paper) Wow, they managed to misspell “KKK.”

• Of course, we’ll no longer have Wikipedia, but I recently discovered something called an encyclopedia, which is kind of cool. The nice thing about this, it’s even easier to edit. (tears a page out of the book)

• To replace Youtube, you of course are going to want to get a cat, preferably one dressed in a tuxedo. To get the full effect, before you look at him, watch a 30-second ad for All Spice.

Stephen Colbert Gazes into the InfiNet

Stephen introduces a new segment to discuss intriguing web-based exploits, in this case, a website dedicated to shilling currency with “interesting” serial numbers, coolserialnumbers.com.

I do love how he uses the graphics from Antiques Road Show in this piece. Expect to see more internet-o-ribbing in the future on The Late Show.

• Whenever I get on the internet it’s great, there’s a lot on there, it just turns into a time-sucking sinkhole. Here’s an example: this morning, I went online just to see if it’s going to rain tomorrow, so, I google weather, and one of the results is regional precipitation patterns. I clicked on the link and I read about how the rainiest place in the US is the Nampali coast of Hawaii, where I learn on the Nampali wikipedia page the strawberry guava is an invasive species, which, according to an external link is not a citrus plant but does have high levels of vitamin C, less than an orange but more than a grapefruit, which webMD informs me can be bad for people with kidney transplants because they counteract their immunosuppressive medication. It’s all true, I learned this on the internet. The point is, does anyone know if it’s going to rain tomorrow because I forgot to find out?!

• One dollar bill worth $2,500. It is possible that you have been much more generous at Flash Dancers [gentlemen’s club] than you thought.

• I have to say, I had no idea you could get rich collecting money, but I’m glad you can. As it turns out, I have some extremely rare currency that is sure to be worth a fortune.

• Here is a rare dollar bill where George Washington has an eye patch. (shows dollar bill with eye patch drawn over G.W’s face) I’m willing to part with it for a mere $1,000 dollars. If it sweetens the pot, he can also have a mustache. Here’s a rare dollar bill that was misprinted. See how everything was printed upside down? (holds dollar bill upside down) […] And this extremely unique $20 bill has 2 different Andrew Jacksons on it. (rotating the folded bill) Here, he’s happy! And now he’s sad. Happy, sad. Yours, for just one million dollars!!

• If you would like any of these bills, call me up and help me with my other hobby, collecting other people’s credit card numbers.

Antonio Banderas

The sexy, leather-jacketed actor appears to promote his new flick on the Chilean miners’ story, The 33. Antonio describes the heroism of the real-life version of his character, Chilean miner “Super Mario.” Banderas comments on the relative humility of the Chilean miners given the huge amount of media interest shown in their remarkable tale of survival. Stephen concludes the interview by proclaiming that he “can make anything sound sexy.” To a giggling Banderas, Stephen asks for him to read a list of a few conventionally unsexy phrases. Stephen requests, “just open the taps and just let the sexy out.” Antonio complies, but barely reads the lines without cracking up.

I am glad Mr. Banderas gets come on the show and be properly introduced to (and promptly roasted by) Stephen.

John Irving’s Bedtime Story

[a little more to come!]