Ricky Gervais Vs. President Barack Obama
On late night television last night there was an historic competition for Best Guest held between Conan O'Brien at the Tonight Show and David Letterman at the Late Show. Conan featured a candid conversation with Ricky Gervais, creator of The Office and Extras and the director of the upcoming The Invention of Lying. Meanwhile, David Letterman's show hosted the leader of the Western world, President Barack Obama. It is one of the classic narrative conflicts:
- Man vs. Nature
- Man vs. Man
- Man vs. Himself
- Teenage Man vs. Evil Hamburger Conglomerate
- Robot vs. Vampire
- Ricky Gervais vs. President Barack Obama
Classic! The stuff of myth and song. It's like Robert Frost always said, "Ricky Gervais vs. President Barack Obama is at the heart of every poem that I write."
So, who won?
Ricky Gervais, Part 1
Ricky Gervais , Part 2
Barack Obama Highlight Reel
Hmm. On the one hand, Ricky Gervais tells a story about visiting Barack Obama's house in pajamas, but Barack Obama doesn't visit Ricky Gervais's house at all. Rude! And Ricky Gervais took funny iPhone pictures of Conan O'Brien for his blog. I didn't see Barack Obama taking funny Blackberry pictures of David Letterman! On the other hand, Barack Obama seemed charming and open, he humanized his case for an overhaul of American health care policy, and also he is the President of the United States. IT'S A TIE! PROBABLY!
Oh, but allso, get it together, CBS New Media Strategies Department. Are you seriously going to tell me that the President of the United States was on David Letterman and all you'll let America's bored office workers see is a poorly edited four minute compilation of highlights? e-Shame on iYou.
Posted by Gabe at 9:30 AM in Late Night
Tags: Barack Obama | Conan O'Brien | David Letterman | Ricky Gervais | The Late Show | The Tonight Show
Last night's Conan was the hardest I've laughed in a while. I wasn't planing on seeing The Invention of Lying but now I ABSOLUTELY am, especially since I know PSH has a cameo (pronounced exactly "Psh" btw).
Score = 4
screw that nbc player straight to hell! I swear I'm going to drive to nbc headquarters at 4 in the morning and burn it down!
Score = 11
Seriously, has anyone ever been able to get the NBC player to work, or is it just me (and I assume summerherekid!)?
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it never works for me either :(
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That NBC player is a moody little Cranky Sue
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Ricky Gervais won in a walk. Doesn't the president have shit to do? All Gervais needs to do is roll around in a bed of Office money, but he continues to donate his time to making my guffaw. I'd vote for Gervais for president if he weren't from Kenya.
Score = 16
WHEN DID politics become SUCH A FUCKIN media CIRCUS? I mean, DON'T ANYONE try to TELL me this shit is like THE FIRESIDE chats. I'm not RANTING AGAINST OBAMA, but more so THE MEDIA. I mean, are YOU GOING to fucking tell ME, US News Media, that IN THIS magical AGE OF the internet, SATELLITE television AND BETA max that THE ONLY way I can GET THE straight-fuckin-FACTS about something is BY WATCHING a late NIGHT talk-show (NO SPIN ZONE, Letterman)?? Seriously, WHAT THE fuck American politics/media. STOP ACTING like an ATTENTION starved ASSHOLE AND report real NEWS so this ISN'T A thing THAT happens!
Score = 15
Since forever. Politics is basically ))>)) all over the place.
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I guess YOU WOULD know.
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yikes on that little mess up of direction, its like the weird spooning version of ))>((, GROSS!
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True, Barack Obama is like the Paris Hilton of politics, he's lining up a show to find his new BFF, and he wants to make you feel like you could be his BFF. We don't want to be friends with you Mr President, accept that most of the decisions you are going to make during your tenure are going to make you very unpopular, but are probably beneficial in the long run, not everyone is going to agree with universal healthcare, stop trying to convince every single person in your country and just get on with it already. I live in Britain and I get seen to straight away at the doctors/hospital, it's great, and FREE! Stop trying to be my BFF! MICHELLE! FETCH ME MY PUBLICITY PANTS!
Score = -11
you silly foreigners.
i am from Canada where health care is free. When i cut myself on my ice pick building a new house, or when i get a nasty beaver bite i am able to go to the hospital and have it looked after, FOR FREE (plus taxes)!.
However the major problem, and I'm not sure whether you "Brits" have this problem, vacuum cleaner, is that the wait times are just silly. 10 hours? now, obviously this is not the case if my head has just been trampled in a polar bear stampede ('02 Stampede Tragedy; never forget) i will obviously be seen much faster.
but what i'm saying is that i think that somewhat delayed health care is superior to no health care in most cases.
am i right?
Score = 17
Well, thunderbird (which is a British programme). The longest waiting time I've had here is 3 hours, that isn't that bad as my condition wasn't very serious. When you take into consideration how much money is being made by insurance companies off of sick people in the U.S, I think it is obvious which moral dilemma wins out. Perhaps the Canadian health service is terrible, I don't know, 10 hours seems bad and I sympathize. But surely health care should be free to everyone and surely it is fundamentally wrong to refuse people treatment due to their socio-economic background? All I'm saying is that I think the NHS is a really great institution and one which makes me proud to be British, it has it's critics but they are mainly Tories continuing their childish one-upsmanship on Labour. I also could never imagine having to pay for treatment (the most we pay is £6 for prescriptions), and If you don't like the NHS and have the money, you can go to BUPA the private health service. But I respect your opinion.
Score = 3
actually i totally agree with you. health care should be 100% universal, without a doubt. i attempted to critically address a system which i am proud of but which is often referred to as "broken."
but ill take broken over nonexistent.
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Aw, we're not here to make friends. But, hug?!
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fist fight.
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I live in New Orleans and I've visited the Emergency Room once for myself and once with my sister this year. I waited 10 hours and my sister waited 6. Both were real emergencies, not "I think I have a fever" emergencies. So, there (anti healthcare idiots.)
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(in the U.S.) I should have said. Also, our total bill for treatment was over 20 grand, not including Rx.
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I'm not sure I understand your healtcare system, I don't even really understand the one we have in my country (the Netherlands). But is it really free? Don't you have to pay someone money every month (or year, or whatever)? Because I think that is what's going on over here. I know I pay money to be insured, and so does everybody else in this country... Or maybe I'm just not getting it all.... (which wouldn't be the first time..)
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Well, it's paid by taxes, and it is in debt. But like Michael Moore I choose to leave important points out to prove my point.....
Also, I love Amsterdam and the other places I've been to in the Netherlands, I passed out in barge there!
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right, my point. i can see why he chooses to do PR things like this. with bush, he was far too stoooopid in his braaaaainnnns to do anything of this nature. needs them cue cards fer speaking.
so if the guy can get on tv and break a few hearts maybe he can garner some more support for something helping everyone live longer and healthier lives.
because apparently some individuals do not want that??
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I DON'T think it's A CASE of people NOT WANTING that. I mean, you HAVE THE DUMBASS extremes who ARE ALL "aaah" AND FUCKIN whatever. I think THE MAJOR CONCERN at LEAST IN my neck of the woods, IS WHERE DOES the funding for THIS HEALTH care overhaul come FROM? I get that it's TAXES and what not, but A PROGRAM such as THIS should have BEEN put INTO place back in 02 or 03, WHEN WE WERE RIDING high on the housing bubble. Let's BE HONEST FOR a second. Our ECONOMY is shit. Public OPTION ISN'T an experiment, but OVERHAULING OUR healthcare during an ECONOMIC crisis SURE as hell is. Yeah, it MAY GO over well, but WHAT IF it doesn't and everything GOES TO even more shit.
This is THE CONCERN I'd like to talk ABOUT AND I wish people would STOP SPINNING it as "Well I guess you just want poor people and everyone to die! Jerk!" NO. This is not some anti-abortion RALLY. You don't need TO MAKE ME THE bad guy. I'm JUST ASKING. The man SAID HE was going to be taking a scalpel TO THE BUDGET, not adding to it. I suppose I JUST WISH some time had BEEN given between THIS PUSH AND his election, to ALLOW FOR the economy TO COOL ITS SHIT. I understand, THOUGH THAT this push is WHILE THE dem's hold the ENTIRE GOVERNMENT.
This isn't A SIMPLE "oh well if you don't WANT IT, you're EVIL" issue, so EVERYONE NEEDS to stop TREATING it like that (INCLUDING BOTH FUCKIN political parties and OUR politicians) and FIGURE OUT how we can ACTUALLY MAKE this work--not MORALLY, but economically.
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NOT TO mention THAT THE program IN FRANCE (I think, might BE ANOTHER country over THERE), has spiraled OUT OF control IN TERMS of its budget. It's great, BUT IT IS now costing WELL over what they INTENDED IT to cost. I DON'T THINK that's the KINDA shit our sickly, RED-HEADED STEP child of an ECONOMY CAN handle right NOW.
Score = -3
it's definitely not the optimum time to implement something like this however i would argue it is absolutely ridiculous to not be looked after by your country. when i shop in the states i am blown away by how little i am charged in taxes. canada is currently at 13% on all purchases, down from 15% because of the conservatives and "more money in your pocket" blah blah blah. The point is the more tax you pay and more services you SHOULD receive. I could pull up that one country with very high taxes but highly government subsidized post-secondary education whose name i am too ignorant to know, but that would be a cliche.
but then of course is this a time to be dramatically raising taxes? obvs not.
I agree, it's very frustrating that such steps were not taken when more ppl were on top of the hill rather than drowning in the fucking sewer but i guess we'll continue to feel the frustrating results of the past administration's neglect for many years.
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HEY I'M just glad WE CAN talk about this LIKE NORMAL, CIVILIZED human beings, BRAAAAAAAINSSss.
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its been a slice.
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I think that's what rational debate is supposed to be about. We can all agree that there are some things that we should have. No one's saying dismantle the armed forces or public universities. If the economics were the only relevant touchpoint, we'd simply choose not to do anything.
Once we agree that we can't just shut it all down, we need to decide what things are important enough to fund. That's where the question of how to (if to) provide healthcare for the poor comes into play.
Once we can agree that providing such care is essential, it makes sense to debate the details of how to provide this care. Obviously, this is the toughest question and the one that requires both reasonable dialogue and difficult decision-making. The discussion is made even more difficult in the midst of a troubled economy, but that doesn't make the central premise that we should provide healthcare for all of our citizens any less valid.
If the contention is that until the economy recovers we should table this problem, I think we have to directly engage the question of why the country chooses not to fund care for the poor (the so-called "evil" question.) Basically, we need to either agree to figure out how to fund this thing or defend the "evil" point of view.
Score = 1
truth, buddy.
i love be some barry obama but i haven't been impressed with his team's ability to articulate the real nuts and bolts of the plan. i recognize that he can't get too specific until he knows what kinds of bills the house and the senate will put together, but i think he's focusing way too much on overarching principles (HEALTH CARE IS GOOD! NO HEALTH CARE IS BAD!) as opposed to stuff that would make a lot of people feel more secure with the plan, like where the funding will come from, roughly how much it'll cost, and how a program like that will really impact the average citizen's life.
i'm a total liberal, and i'm all for paying for shit for the poor with the money from the rich, but they're not giving us much to really rally behind. how can you loudly support a plan whose details you're not clear on?
Score = 2
unfortunately, GWB and sarah palin's popularity are totally based on their faux folksy, aw shucks images. neither of them would get the attention they do if they weren't charismatic and likeable and seemingly approachable for the walmart and nascar crowds.
i agree that obama needs to abandon his dream of making this a bipartisan effortl and just get that shit done, but i can see how he'd feel like he needs to dumb himself down a little bit to make it all seem less scary to the nervous, resentful potato heads.
(i would personally vote for a disembodied brain floating in a tank of viscious goo to run the country, if that brain was the smartest being available for the job. )
Score = 2
Yeah, you are totally right. I doubt you are familiar with Scottish politics (I know you are not familiar with Scottish politics) but here we are ran by the SNP (Scottish National Party) who want to be it's own country, they got into power purely because their leader Alex 'Soundbyte' Salmond is all over dumbing down and being literally EVERYWHERE talking about how great Scotland is (it is not great) and how if you don't vote SNP you are not proud of your nation etc etc etc kill me. So people here voted for them and they got in and now I cry myself to sleep every night hoping to live in New York or Paris or anywhere one day. It's kinda similar expect Obama is actually good for your country, independence would kill ours.
Score = 1
god I hate you. when will you fucking stop?
Score = -14
WHEN you stop mispelling YOUR OWN goddamned LOGIN name, DIAPERFACE.
Score = 31
ULTIMATE ZING!!!!!!
Score = 12
Jung got the idea for archetypes from watching Good Burger. FACT
Score = 4
Ricky Gervais + Louis CK = my favorite fat man tandem EVER
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Where is the most classic of all narrative conflicts: Jacob vs. Boblo???
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Awful jimjam > Healthcare.
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*offal
Score = 2
So, my favorite part of the Dove commercial is when the woman throws the cactus over her shoulder in such a way as to show her armpit.
It's just so unnatural and forced that I find myself waiting for it to happen, and then I'm like "oh, that was it!"
Score = 18
Ricky Gervais > everyone (for the most part)
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Middle school children of America play a game that resembles offal jimjam. In my youth it is a game in which I was fortunate enough to take part. We don't have as slick a name for it (or any name for it) or a celebrity spokesperson but it accomplishes the same general thing. We just replace the question "cock or balls?" with "want a piece of chewed gum?"
I'd say Gervais' version is more funny and less gross.
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I love that Gervais isn't afraid of posting horrible pics of himself. Even as he's transitioning from ugly TV star to handsome movie star.
Score = 4