Don't Open Until Halloween

Now that I have seen Stephen Colbert's Christmas special, I am compelled to whisper (so as not to disturb anybody's silent night, or various people's codes of silence, or contribute to noise pollution, or the ruckus of the malcontented, etc.) how it seems quite likely that my material played no small role.

I begin with my knowledge that my material shows up on The Colbert Report and The Daily Show now and then, sometimes in a big way, for the most part as the consequence of my sending my material to Stuart Cornfeld and Sean Daniel. I refer to two of Hollywood's biggest producers, who I met in 1975 and 1971, respectively, before they were producers.

On August 16, 2006 I emailed to both an idea for SNL, "Bullish", which can be found on a page of my website (as the second comedy sketch idea on that page). Both the Colbert special and "Bullish" give prominence to the idea of people surviving being eaten by a bear thru a hero cutting open the bear that swallowed them, followed by the expression of thanks in a manner that falls short of an awareness of how ludicrous it all is. I first give you several lines from "Bullish", should clicking the above "Bullish" link be too noisy:

STEVE

Thanks for slicing open those bears and getting us out, Ranger Dan.

WAYNE

Yeah!

RANGER DAN

Don’t mention it, fellows.


I now give you a clip showing the dramatic resolution of the central dilemma of the story from Colbert's Christmas special:



As a final cherry on top of the Christmas tree (don't bother clicking on cherry, it won't open a link to anything - I'm just trying to make this all feel more festive), tomorrow night will be the premier of Elvis Costello's new talk show on the Sundance channel. It could just be TV history - why not? And as one more cherry for the road, yesterday Jimmy Kimmel and I looked at each other in traffic. Jimmy Kimmel, as everyone knows, is the ex-boyfriend of Sarah Silverman - in fact, last night his show was a repeat of Sarah Silverman's appearance, the only one taped after their breakup. Sarah Silverman, as everyone knows, is one of a handful of stars with their own Comedy Central TV show, Stephen Colbert being another member of that small group of people.

Disclaimer:
No part of Jimmy Kimmel has ever been pulled out of any part of a bear (in fact, Kimmel and Silverman were never actually married).