The Social

Stephen Colbert really wants to be among the stars.

(Credit: Comedy Central)

If the results of an online poll are any indication, NASA may soon be naming a new wing of the International Space Station, Node 3, after late-night comedian Stephen Colbert.

According to the Associated Press, write-ins for "Colbert" crushed all of NASA's four poll options, pulling in 230,539 votes; the second-place choice, NASA suggestion "Serenity" (a nod to sci-fi hero Joss Whedon) was more than 40,000 votes behind. Writer Dave Barry also threw his hat in the ring, suggesting "Buddy" as the perfect name for Node 3. But he didn't amass nearly enough support.

Colbert has made a habit of encouraging his loyal fans, whom he calls "The Colbert Nation," to game all kinds of online naming polls so that some incarnation of his name will emerge the winner. But he suffered an embarrassing defeat when the government of Hungary refused to name a new bridge after him, despite an extensive naming campaign on his Comedy Central pundit show, "The Colbert Report," to vote for him in the official online bridge-naming poll. (The government's excuse? The bridge could only be named after someone who speaks Hungarian.)

Colbert also couldn't get the right kind of support from either fans or state government authorities to put himself on the South Carolina presidential primary ballot in 2007. But with no poll involved, upstart airline Virgin American named one of its planes "Air Colbert."

As for the new "node" in the International Space Station, NASA spokesman John Yembrick told the AP that the government agency will make its final name choice next month. Don't give up hope, Nation!

So either Jon Stewart is really on to something with his mad-as-hell crusade against financial hypocrisy and stupidity, or there are a lot of unemployed people watching Comedy Central clips to pass the time.

Either way, an on-air freakout by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli may have been one of the best things to happen to Comedy Central in months: Fake-news pundits Stewart (of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart") and Stephen Colbert (of "The Colbert Report") have seen traffic to their Web sites and online video clips soar after the two went on mocking vendettas against Santelli, fellow CNBC personality Jim Cramer, and the NBC Universal-owned business network in general.

Traffic to the shows' Web sites has been at its highest of the year so far in the past week, at over 60 percent their weekly average for 2009. ComedyCentral.com, which hosts video clips of both programs, also had its best traffic of the year, and the digital version of a viciously funny clip called "CNBC Gives Financial Advice" logged over 1.3 million views in a week, the sort of numbers usually reserved for grainy videos of cats behaving unnaturally.

Here's the back story: Santelli was supposed to appear on "The Daily Show" after his tirade about the federal government's economic bailout, but backed out abruptly. That's when Stewart and Colbert--but especially Stewart--turned up the heat. Stewart went on the aforementioned anti-CNBC rant on March 5, putting "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer squarely in his crosshairs. Cramer appeared on "The Colbert Report" the following night.

Now, Cramer is scheduled to make a "Daily Show" appearance on Thursday night.

Stewart and Colbert have been two of the most visible figures in cable television's slow crawl onto the Web. Not only are they wildly popular with young and tech-savvy audiences, but the segmented format of their talk shows lends itself well to being split into short clips and swapped via video-sharing sites, which meant that unauthorized clips of the two were some of YouTube's earliest hits. That's what indirectly led to Comedy Central parent company Viacom's massive copyright lawsuit against YouTube owner Google.

Later on, the full archives of both shows were made available on Comedy Central's Web site, and recent episodes are available in full on Hulu (as well as iTunes and Xbox Live).

Colbert, who started out as a commentator on "The Daily Show" before spinning off his blowhard persona into his own talk show, also owes a big chunk of his notoriety to the Web. Video of C-SPAN's coverage of the White House Press Correspondents' dinner three years ago, in which Colbert performed a shockingly blunt comedy routine that skewered then-President George W. Bush, was a huge hit on the Web among those who wouldn't have considered actually watching C-SPAN in the first place.

Last year, Colbert was honored by the annual Webby Awards as "Person of the Year." Take that, nonbelievers!

These days, everyone can use a few good laughs. Guess that means Comedy Central's latest launch is well-timed.

The Viacom-owned cable network took Jokes.com, a property it acquired in 2002, and relaunched it Wednesday as a hub for its stand-up comedy archives. Sort of like a Hulu for stand-up comedy, it's debuting with over 5,000 video clips (embeddable and shareable, naturally) and 12,000 text-based jokes that are searchable by topic ("George W. Bush" or "holidays") and by comedian. A "Comedians A-Z" database provides information on different stand-up comics and who's on tour--the site sells tickets and merchandise, too.

"Stand-up comedy and comedians have always been the backbone of the network," said Erik Flannigan, executive vice president of digital media at MTV Networks Entertainment Group, the Viacom division that encompasses Comedy Central.

As with other Comedy Central video sites, like The Daily Show and Colbert Nation, the content is ad-supported. This summer, Comedy Central took another acquired property, Atom.com, and turned it into a site for short-form Web comedy.

Since the clips in the video archive are sourced from Comedy Central programming going back to 1997's The A-List, none of them go beyond a late-night-cable level of tawdriness. The text jokes, Flannigan said, can be dirtier.

"We're not trying to make it as dirty as humanly possible, but we're not adhering to the same standards as broadcast," he explained.

But Jokes.com, which was put together over the course of about a year by a team of about 20 people, will likely expand beyond television content soon. Flannigan said the company has "explored the notion" of adding stand-up comedy from other Viacom properties like MTV and BET. Comedy Central representatives continue to plan to grow the site, introducing the ability for users to upload their own stand-up videos and add more social-networking features for comedians to network with fans. Members of the team hinted that they speak on a frequent basis with News Corp.'s MySpace to discuss possible cross-promotion and campaigns for discovering young comedians.

There's also a "joke-a-day" iPhone app coming in 2009. Better warn your boss about the impending plunge in productivity.

NEW YORK--Two years after acquiring it, MTV Networks has shaped Atom Films into Atom.com, a sister site to its Comedy Central network dedicated to short-form, Web-based comedy.

Executives from the Viacom-owned MTV Networks held a press conference here on Thursday to kick off the new site, which Executive Vice President of Digital Media Erik Flannigan described as "our punk-rock label...where you're purposely encouraging development that's supposed to (expletive) with the system and break down boundaries."

Along with four new original Web series commissioned by Comedy Central, which range from an animated show about conjoined twins connected at the naughty bits to a live-action series about three clueless slackers who attempt to be militia guards at the U.S.-Mexican border, Atom.com welcomes user-generated submissions. Select videos will be featured in a weekly "Upload Showdown," and winners will become "pro" content creators on Atom.com and have access to additional Comedy Central resources like a spot on a new late-night televised program, Atom TV, a sort of week-in-review special about the site.

Atom TV, which premiered Tuesday morning at 2 a.m., is "jukebox-style, proudly low-budget, (and) super-late-night," according to Scott Roesch, general manager of Atom.com. Eventually, Atom.com will percolate into video-on-demand cable television, where Atom Films had a presence in its early days. Ideally that'll happen later this summer.

More Web shows are on the way, too, including an "advertorial" series called Agency, in which terrible advertisements for real brands are created by an incompetent, fictitious ad agency.

Online comedy video sites are a dime a dozen, but Roesch said that because of the ties to Comedy Central, Atom.com has an immediate lift above the fray. The new site has more than 20,000 videos in its library already, and predecessor AtomFilms.com pulled in more than 1.9 million unique visitors monthly, which execs say is more than online comedy brethren FunnyOrDie, SuperDeluxe, and The Onion combined. Built on Viacom's Flux social platform, Atom.com also aims to be a community site of sorts.

There's a history to it. In 2006, MTV Networks acquired Atom Films, home to online indie hits like Gerbil in a Microwave, along with Shockwave and AddictingGames, and Atom Films founder Mika Salmi became head of MTV's overall digital operations. While the short-form films site had some science fiction and horror hits, too, it was comedy that turned into the real successes, and that's why the company has decided to rebrand it as a comedy-only site. "In the online viewing experience, you've got to grab the viewer immediately," Roesch said, explaining that online video as a whole is best suited to comedic styles.

"There's not a lot of viral tearjerkers," Flannigan added, saying that Web comedy is now an essential part of American youth culture. "There is a social currency in your knowledge of and your passing along of short-form comedy."

Yaaaay! Stephen Colbert on Hulu!

(Credit: Comedy Central)

This post was updated at 11:01 AM PT on Tuesday to clarify wording: television content from Viacom is almost exclusively handled by MTV Networks.

In an unexpected move, video site Hulu will be getting some political loudmouths just in time for the 2008 presidential election: Comedy Central's late-night personalities Jon Stewart of The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report.

We had to check and make sure the press release wasn't a joke, but there are indeed full episodes from both programs available. It comes as somewhat of a surprise, considering Comedy Central parent company Viacom has not officially signed on to Hulu, which launched as a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp. and does not yet have any other major networks on board.

But on the other hand, MTV Networks, the Viacom division that encompasses Comedy Central, has made some distribution deals, and both Stewart and Colbert were already available on the Web in one form or another. And Viacom had already made select content available to Hulu rival Joost, but now that the Joost hype has faded completely, experimenting with Hulu's ad-supported distribution seems logical. Making the popular Comedy Central talk shows available could be the media conglomerate's way of dipping a toe in the water.

Additionally, later in June Hulu will start to add select programs from PBS: Nova, Carrier, Scientific American Frontiers, Wired Science, and potentially others.

This bring's Hulu's count of programming content partners up to more than 70.

Stephen Colbert

(Credit: Comedy Central)

Update at 7:19 a.m. PDT: Facebook comment added.

Stephen Colbert should consider naming Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as his running mate* in his quasi-legitimate presidential campaign; the social-networking site has been the political satirist's prime rallying grounds.

Sometime on Thursday night, a Facebook fan group for Colbert's campaign met its membership goal of 1 million Facebook members--and the group was founded just over a week ago.

The group, "1,000,000 Strong for Stephen T Colbert" (the "T" stands for Tyrone, for the record) was started by a Facebook user shortly after The Colbert Report host announced that he was going to enter the presidential primary in his home state of South Carolina as a "favorite son." It's a take-off on the "1,000,000 Strong for Barack Obama" Facebook group, which has yet to crack 400,000 members after nine months. The equivalent Colbert group took just over a week to hit a million.

"Colbert-Zuckerberg '08" does have a nice ring to it.

Several blogs have asserted that this is the fastest-growing group in Facebook's history. I find that very easy to believe, but there is no official confirmation: Facebook says it neither tabulates how fast groups grow nor offers a central list of the biggest groups on the site. (Facebook execs presumably have other things on their mind, like this whole "Microsoft thing.")

On the more serious side of things, the light-hearted enthusiasm over Colbert's "presidential campaign" could be a sign that young American voters are getting sick of Election 2008's career politicians have already been plastered all over the media. The really scary part: there's still over a year to go in this race.

Meanwhile, Editor and Publisher reports that not only will the mayor of Columbia, S.C., declare this coming Sunday "Stephen Colbert Day" when the "favorite son" comes for a visit, but that polling firm Rasmussen has actually bothered to include Colbert in a telephone survey that pitted him against Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican hopeful Rudy Giuliani.

Nation, these are frightening times we live in.

*Yes, yes, I know that it probably breaks election law for the 23-year-old Zuckerberg to appear on a campaign ticket, and I also know that he's probably too busy taking over the world to bother with politics.

'The Daily Show' host Jon Stewart

(Credit: Comedy Central)

About 13,000 video clips comprising the entirety of Comedy Central's fake-news program, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart will be hitting the its official Web site later in the day, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday morning.

They won't be full episodes, but rather short clips of segments from the program; the more individual files there are, after all, means that there are more opportunities for Comedy Central to insert advertisements. "Designers have been experimenting with ads that appear for two or three seconds at the start of a clip, recede, then emerge briefly from a corner of the picture like a network-TV promo while the video continues playing," the LA Times article noted.

If the thought of 13,000 clips seems overwhelming, the database will reportedly be searchable by both date and topic--so you can see, for example, everything Stewart ever said on your birthday, or everything he ever said about Capitol Hill punchline Larry Craig.

The clips will go back to Jon Stewart's debut in 1999, according to the Times; it does not appear that the Daily Show's earlier incarnation with Craig Kilborn as host, which ran from 1996 to 1998, will be available. Nor will there be such a database for clips from the popular Daily Show spinoff, The Colbert Report starring semi-rumored presidential candidate Stephen Colbert--at least not yet.

Representatives from Comedy Central have not yet returned calls for comment, but the Daily Show site features a blurb that says, "Get ready for something big--check back later today!"

Comedy Central is owned by Viacom, which has famously sued video-sharing site YouTube over copyright infringement . Earlier this month, YouTube parent company Google announced that it would debut an antipiracy tool for the service, but it's raised some eyebrows because it requires media companies to provide YouTube with their content in advance.

The dashingly handsome Stephen Colbert, self-proclaimed 'favorite son' of South Carolina

(Credit: Comedy Central)

The thought of a comedian running for president might have been the plot of a tepid Robin Williams movie until recently, but now there are signs that faux pundit Stephen Colbert may actually want to dip his patriotic toes in the (shark-infested) campaign pool.

Colbert formally announced on Tuesday's episode of his spoof talk show, The Colbert Report, that he intends to run for president. More specifically, he aims to get his name on the ballot for both the Democratic and Republican primaries in his home state of South Carolina as a "favorite son."

"And not my mother's favorite son," Colbert explained. "She is much too fair-minded to ever show a preference between the eight of us. Right, Mom?"

It's no surprise that Colbert, with his over-the-top blowhard-egotist act, would make jokes about wanting to end up in the Oval Office. He's been talking about it for weeks on shows like Larry King Live and even in a New York Times op-ed column. But here's the shocker: After Tuesday night's show, people are starting to get the idea that he might not be kidding.

Earlier that evening on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, on which Colbert used to play a (fake) reporter, he formally announced that he would, well, be making a formal announcement. "I, Stephen Colbert, am officially announcing that I will officially consider whether or not I will announce that I am running for president of the United States."

But on Tuesday's Colbert Report, which occupies the time slot after The Daily Show on the Viacom-owned Comedy Central, Colbert made it less fuzzy. "I have heard the call," he declared. "Nation, I shall seek the office of the president of the United States!" He then erupted into a sort of reverie as red, white, and blue balloons cascaded from the ceiling.

Neither Comedy Central nor Colbert's personal publicist have issued statements on whether the comedian will actually attempt to get on the ballot, which has left many--including South Carolina's major political parties--on the edge as to whether the announcement should be taken seriously.

"If Stephen fulfills the requirements met in our delegates' election plan and he actively campaigns in South Carolina, we welcome him to compete," said Joe Werner, executive director of the South Carolina Democratic Party, in an interview with CNET News.com. Werner added that representatives from The Colbert Report had placed calls to the state party's headquarters several weeks ago but that the party thought it was all a joke at the time.

Fulfilling the requirements, however, will be the tough part. Party regulations, Werner said, prevent Colbert from attempting to run on both the Democratic and Republican tickets. "It's in our rules somewhere that you can't be on two ballots," he explained. "He'd have to pick one party."

Representatives from the South Carolina Republican Party were not readily available for comment.

At 43, Stephen Tyrone Colbert would be the youngest contender in the major parties' candidate roster. (Barack Obama is 46.) Colbert would additionally be the first presidential candidate to be banned from Wikipedia (which, ironically, has named his buzzword "truthiness" as its article of the day for October 17), have a mass-market ice cream flavor named after him, and have an extensive repertoire of YouTube videos in which he prances around with a Star Wars lightsaber. Currently, he's riding high on the bestseller lists with his book I Am America, And So Can You!

It could still be a huge joke on all of us. The late comedian Pat Paulsen, after all, was using "I'm running for president" as a stand-up routine in the mid-20th century, over the course of multiple election cycles.

But considering Colbert's prominence as a geek hero, there's no question that fast-spreading buzz on the Web would only add to the anticipation over whether he'll run. Rumors floated in 2005, stemming from the appearance of an "official" Web site that turned out to be a hoax, that oddball actor Christopher Walken would be running for president. (In the words of one CNET News.com commenter, "Too bad. America's got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!")

Colbert, like Walken, would likely be an instant Internet favorite.

Stephen Colbert

(Credit: Comedy Central)

I don't think I've been this psyched for a Colbert Report episode since Stephen Colbert took on the Decemberists. On Wednesday, August 22, an unscripted tiff between the Comedy Central comedian and billionaire Sir Richard Branson, which swirled up quite a bit of chatter in the blog rumor mill, will be shown in that night's episode of the faux-pundit talk show.

The segment, originally cut from the program, depicts Virgin Group mogul Branson dumping a cup of water on Colbert in a manner that was rumored to be less-than-friendly. It was considered particularly out-of-line, considering the close ties between the two geek heroes--one of the planes in the new tech-friendly Virgin America fleet, after all, is called the "Air Colbert."

Sir Richard Branson

(Credit: Virgin Group)

A statement from Virgin USA, obtained by FishbowlNY, suggests that there was no delay in airing the segment, contrary to popular belief. The company insisted that "Richard enjoyed his time with Stephen, and the splash was part of the fun."

So, Colbert might no longer be "on notice" with Sir Richard, but YouTube still apparently wants his head on a platter (but a well-designed platter from the Googleplex's all-you-can-eat cafeteria, of course).