Meow House Theatre

Last night’s episode of The Colbert Report proved that even Stephen Colbert, the master of keeping a straight face, has his breaking point when he not only cannot hold it together, he can’t get it back together no matter how desperately he wants to.

As everyone who is any kind of Colbert fan knows by now, Jane Fonda was the guest last night. Last time she was on (Oct. 10, 2006), she, Stephen, and Gloria Steinem baked a pie together for the “Cooking With Feminists” segment and Jane demonstrated his irresistibility by several times kissing him during the show and getting Ms. Steinem to kiss him also. (Aside: Why do I call her “Jane” and Steinem “Ms. Steinem”? Well because I feel that now that I’ve seen Jane halfway to second base, we have a familiar relationship. Ms. Steinem only enjoyed a small peck on the cheeck. It didn’t really count. So I don’t know her as well. But I digress.)

Anyhoo, in introducing Jane, Stephen brought out his “Kiss The Host” apron to follow his “Kiss The Cook” apron that he wore back in October. He’s probably regretting getting that thing printed because Jane took him up on it x 10. Upon his sitting down at the interview table, she immediately got up and walked behind him, spun his chair around, and planted herself in his lap. You could see him blushing through the makeup. It was postively wonderful to watch. He tried and tried to turn the conversation around to her new movie (”Georgia Rule”) and even tried to change the tone of the interview by broaching the subject of her anti-war protests during Vietnam, and she also got that steered back to sex with “”We cannot elect men to office that are afraid of premature evacuation.” So out of character for Stephen to have no witty comback to that one, but I think he knew it was all over for him at that pont and he just better endure the next 6 minutes as well as he could.

I’m not normally one to revel in schadenfreude, but oh my this was glorious to catch Stephen completely flustered and tongue-tied. He so often gets his guests all flummoxed themselves, with his double-plus-good faux-neocon rhetoric, and this time he could barely keep the conversation on track. He’s often a giant flirt anyway with female guests but usually he’s the one flirting and they are just following his lead. Last night Jane just bowled him over. In a way, this is really his own fault, having had an entire segment in January of this year devoted to having to put his fantasies of Jane Fonda “On Notice”; Jane mentioned this disapprovingly last night and told him firmly, “You don’t do that, Stephen … you embrace your fantasies.” The poor man was half-terrified to move, I think; his hand never budged from the armrest the whole time, probably for fear that it would encourage her to do god-knows-what on national TV. Either he was totally unhinged or he’s the greatest and most under-rated dramatic actor working today.

I think it would be hi-fucking-larious to have Evelyn (the lovely Mrs. Colbert) in the studio tonight, glaring from the runway entrance, and even more funny to have tonight’s guest (Jann Wenner, founder of Rolling Stone) try to sit in his lap too. What I wouldn’t give to see what the conversation was at the Colbert house last night. Not that she has anything to worry about from Jane Fonda or anyone else. I hope she thought the whole thing was as hilarious as I did and they got a huge laugh out of it. After she got something good, like he has to be the one to clean the litter box for the next year. I think that’s only fair.

Once again, I cannot embed a clip. You can watch it here.