January 4, 2016 – Samuel L. Jackson, Olivia Hallisey

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Episode GuideEPISODE NUMBER: Season 1, Episode 63 (Monday, January 4, 2016)
GUESTS: Samuel L. Jackson | Olivia Hallisey
SEGMENTS: Stephen’s New Year Resolutions | Is This the End of Jeb!? | Samuel L. Jackson | Stephen Joins the League of Kitchens Part 1 - Lisa Gross | Stephen Joins the League of Kitchens Part 2 | Olivia Hallisey
SUIT REPORT: Grey Suit | White Shirt | Grey Striped Tie

By Sahil Rizwan

Monologue

Welcome back to the first Late Show of the new year folks! Stephen comes out seemingly renewed and refreshed, donning a gorgeous grey suit. At the top of the show he welcomes us to the new year, as well as showing some love to another special beloved continent! ::wink, wink::

Welcome to 2016 … or, if you’re in Australia, welcome to 2017.

Stephen claimed he had a great NYE, though he celebrated it elsewhere this year - Prague. According to him, no one does NYE like the Czechs. With rules not being a matter of question, such as public drinking and large fireworks displays dangerously close amongst a huge crowd of onlookers. Based on the video footage, Stephen was able to provide via cell phone, he clearly seemed enamored and not so much concerned for his personal safety.

With the new year officially being upon us, Stephen has come up with some wholesome resolutions to ring it in appropriately, telling them aloud in an attempt to better stick with them …

  • This year, I’m going to lose ten pounds. Or, buy a scale that is off, by ten pounds.
  • This year, I’m going to travel more - it expands your horizons and makes it much harder for the IRS to find you.
  • This year, I resolve I’m going to spend less time looking at my iPhone because that is time I can be spending with my iPad.
  • This year, I resolve not to eat dinner in front of the television… this year, I’m going to eat dinner only in front of live theatre.
  • and this year… I resolve not to worry about not making a clever segway between things I’m talking about … (goes into opening segment about who’s on tonight’s show)

Is This the End of “Jeb!”?

It turns out, while we were sleeping, with visions of sugar Trumps dancing in our heads, Republican candidate Jeb Bush snuck down our chimneys and left a present by finally releasing his famously secret guacamole recipe. Turns out the secret ingredient - Avocados.

While the classic trademark Jeb Bush has been using (aka Jeb!) is known to ‘connote excitement’, he has sadly let the trademark application lapse. His logo now has the opportunity to explore other avenues, or as Stephen refers to as ‘other punctuation based forms of emotions’.

Maybe a question mark. Jeb? Would that be good?

Or, maybe “Jeb,” - denoting a series or long list of awesome stuff.

Or maybe even, “Jeb;” - it’s perfect for Jeb because you know it’s smart but you’re not sure what it does or where it belongs.

Or perhaps “Jeb*” - with an asterisk. It denotes he’s still running for President.

Interview — Samuel L. Jackson

Stephen welcomes out accomplished actor, Samuel L. Jackson, who bows before the crowd. He graciously admits to being where he is because of the audience.

They speak about the new year and Stephen asks Samuel what the ‘fun, movie star thing to do on New Years’, to which he admits to attempting to watch a Netflix movie and it wouldn’t even load. Stephen then comes back with the funny remark: “You tried to Netflix and chill and just chilled.”

There were mentions on the prior show, The Colbert Report, in jest, that they may be related, and Stephen did his own research and concluded that it was a possibility, considering they both had ‘afro-esque’ hairstyles in grade school, and proved this with photographic evidence, hilariously.

In closing, they discuss his upcoming film, The Hateful Eight, directed by Quentin Tarantino, who he has worked with several times in the past and loves working with. He’s been in six of his films to date. He is fond of him because he always writes strong, diverse characters for him to play.

Stephen Joins the League of Kitchens (Part 1) — Lisa Gross

Stephen sits down with Lisa Gross, founder of the League of Kitchens. This group helps bridge together cultures by offering culinary workshops with immigrants from all parts of the world.

Lisa was inspired to create this platform by her own experience, coming from a mother who was Korean, and her father who was American, along with her Korean grandmother that lived with her while growing up. She created amazing cuisine for their family to enjoy, who wouldn’t allow her to help cook while growing up. She later taught herself how to cook these authentic dishes through other outlets, but nothing was ever completely the same, then realized these things have to be taught from others, and created the idea behind League of Kitchens. Workshops consist of a 5.5 hour session, along with meals and other instruction available.

Stephen Joins the League of Kitchens (Part 2)

Holy Shaantih, is that good.

In the epic conclusion of Stephen’s crash course in cooking with Mrs. Joshi, we get to see so many funny points, including Stephen feeding her Redi-Whip, followed by him surprisingly doing his own ‘whip-it’ on national television.

Interview — Olivia Hallisey

Stephen welcomes out 2015 Google Science Fair winner Olivia Hallisey. This particular type of science fair is different because it consist of online-based submissions, where the top twenty contestants are flown out to Google headquarters in California. The fair is accessible to worldwide participants of various backgrounds and cultures.

Olivia’s winning submission was a ‘pregnancy test for Ebola’, which consisted of a visual testing strip device created specifically to track the Ebola virus strain. This was a possible outlet for more affordable methods of testing as opposed to current testing methods that are much more expensive and less accessible.

Stephen: Was it hard? Did it require a great deal of work to make?
Olivia: Yeah, there was a lot of time put into it and a lot of help from a lot of people. I had two mentors at school, I had my science research team teacher, I had to contact different companies to get the chemicals I needed, so it was a lot of work, but it was worth it.
Stephen: I don’t know whether to be inspired or intimidated by you right now.

  • Gina

    I removed Foals from the episode itinerary because they are going to be on tomorrow night, apparently. It was good to have only two guests, as we were saying in my previous post. It allowed for that great Kitchen segment! Thanks to David Plotz for inspiring that. I loved Stephen with the Indian lady, he was so adorable. The dancing was great, I know he is always looking for an excuse to show off his Indian lady dance moves. On a more serious note, it highlights regular people the way that Stephen and team said they would when they started the show. And yay, field piece! And yay, getting out of the studio! May I also say that Stephen seems to enjoy Redi Whip a little too much 😉

    Grace Kelly is still in the band! I was so happy to see that. I guess all that stuff about her traveling and leaving as guest bandmate was balderdash. (Yes, I used that word in a sentence.) Does that mean she is staying? I may have to find out about that.

    It was great to see Stephen’s footage from NYE. It is true that it is way more fun in Europe. I have a picture of me having a glass of champagne while side-hugging a police officer in downtown Berlin. It’s just way more chill over there.

    • Rita

      balderdash… Hmmm, I like it!! :) And yes, I also am very pleased that Grace Kelly (hopefully) is staying with the band.

  • Rita

    It’s sooo good to have him back! I loved the interview with the Google science fair winner. THIS is my favorite kind of interview. OK, so I’m a bit bias since I work within science but this is the kind of interview that made me fall in love with Stephen in the first place. He has interesting people on and you can actually learn something while being entertained :) Also, I loved the cooking segment. It is lovely that they bring attention to such great initiative, plus it was hilarious! Stephen can be so ridiculously cute some times!

  • Roseha

    What a fun show to start the year! I agree, Gina, the extra time for the cooking segment was certainly a win. The great thing about it was that not only was it a taped, field piece, but it tied in so neatly with Stephen’s wickedly sardonic introduction about fears over immigrants (showing the early Europeans with the American Indians). On a larger note it’s so nice that he made a funny segment taking off from a program that embraces all cultures through cooking. Great also that the Indian grandmother was brought out on the show to be introduced afterward. (I loved her doubtful comment about the Redi-whip: “My son-in-law eats that….”) The dancing was great also, it’s certainly true that you can go to Indian fast food places in New York and watch Bollywood dancing as you eat. Great point Gina, about highlighting Stephen with regular people.

    I was happy to see Grace Kelly as well, I hope she stays as long as she can. She seems to be having such a fabulous time playing with the band and enjoying the show. You can see her reactions even at a distance.

    I didn’t realize that Samuel Jackson had visited TCR and he and Stephen seemed to be having a great time talking. I enjoyed the 17 (!) year old Science winner interview as well. Great to have a relaxed and yet enthusiastic show to begin the new year.

  • llama

    I loved the Indian cooking segment. Yamini (hope that’s spelled correctly) is my new favorite person ever…for this week.
    Also, I noticed something during the interview with the science fair winner. She seemed to be sitting in so close to Stephen, for awhile I thought she was trying to get closer to Stephen, I mean who wouldn’t eh? But then I realized they changed his desk. They have made the piece of the desk that’s in between the guest and Stephen much narrower. I wonder if Stephen felt like the guests were too far away? I just thought it was interesting because it’s such a small change yet it made a big difference.

    • Gina

      Yes! It’s so much better!

  • K.V. Lady

    If you look at the gif while listening to “Roll To Me” by Del Amitri, it looks like they are dancing to the music! Their moves match up exactly-it’s hilarious!!!!!!!!!