‘Best of the Colbert Report’ on DVD

The DVD is a collection of the best sketches and
routines from the show.

By BRUCE DANCIS

SACRAMENTO BEE

Stephen Colbert isn’t an obtuse, condescending, egocentric Bill O’Reilly-type conservative political pundit. He just plays one on TV.

And he does it very well. That’s apparent from “The Best of the Colbert Report” (Comedy Central/Paramount Home Entertainment, $19.99, not rated), a just-released collection of the best sketches, routines and stunts from 2005-07 on Colbert’s evening show on Comedy Central.

A spinoff from “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” where Colbert developed his opinionated persona, “The Colbert Report” delivers its political and social satire through a mass of thick irony.

Whether supporting President Bush’s war in Iraq or his conservative cultural policies, or praising the president’s lack of intellectual curiosity, Colbert is almost always the dumbest guy on the show. His idiotic viewpoints are countered by “The Word,” a nightly segment in which the host’s stupidity is corrected by on-screen words and phrases, and by his guests.

The DVD includes many of Colbert’s best confrontations with guests:

U Sparring with Eleanor Holmes Norton, the feisty (nonvoting) congressional representative of the District of Columbia.

UEngaging in a “Meta-Free-Phor-All” duel with activist-actor Sean Penn (moderated by former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky).

UMaking an apple pie in a “Cooking With Feminists” skit along with the very game Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem.

UEntering a “Gravitas-Off” with NBC’s Stone Phillips — a battle over who can sound more serious when delivering sound bites — in which Colbert almost forces his opponent to smile when he intones gravely, “Thankfully, alert gauchos were able to save the llama before it was swept into the blades of the turbine.”

Also on “The Best of the Colbert Report” are the star’s skirmishes with various entertainers who have either wronged him or challenged him.

In the former category are Barry Manilow, who won an Emmy Award in the same category Colbert was entered in, and Willie Nelson, who, like Colbert, had a Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream flavor named after him. Among the challengers, Colbert engages in a light-saber duel with George Lucas and a guitar shred-off with the Decemberists’ Chris Funk, joined by Peter Frampton.

Fortunately, all disputes are patched up in the end, with Colbert sharing the stage with Manilow for a rendition of “I Write the Songs,” with Nelson (and former U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke) for “On the Road Again,” and all those guitarists, including Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen, in a performance of the show’s rocking theme song.

Colbert is remarkably good at maintaining his TV persona no matter what’s going on around him. About the only time in “The Best of the Colbert Report” when he reveals who the “real” Stephen Colbert is occurs during his hosting of O’Reilly himself.

When O’Reilly says, disingenuously, that he’s really a sensitive man whose tough-guy demeanor is an act, Colbert responds, “If you’re an act, then what am I?”