So says Comedy Central in a press release: “The Daily Show” Earns Its First Adult 18-49 Crown For A Full Quarter Breaking “The Tonight Show’s” 40+ Quarter Victory Streak Dating Back To At Least 1Q 2000 “The Daily Show” And “The Colbert Report” End The Quarter As The Most-Watched Late Night Talk Shows In All Of Television Among Adults 18-34, Adults 18-24,...

So beautifully shot and edited it’s hard to believe this short film was shot entirely on a cell phone. The video won the Nokia Shorts 2011 mini-movie contest, and earned director JW Griffiths a $10,000 prize. See also, The Making Of…

Waterloo Sunset by David Goodloe I love music, all kinds of music. I guess that is to be expected. I was raised with the sounds of music filling the house. My mother loved folk music. My father loved Middle Eastern music. They both loved classical music and bluegrass. In that environment, as I say, I developed a fondness for all kinds of music. I liked the music my parents liked — still do — but I also...

Narrowly. The vote was 5 to 1 in favor, but the ads can run only during his show. Colbert’s is the nation’s 114th SuperPAC. So what’s a SuperPAC? It’s a consequence of the “Citizens United” Supreme Court decision which gave corporations, unions and individuals the right to give unlimited cash to outside groups to campaign for or against candidates. With it Colbert can: Take...

Ballet comes to mind for what GOP divas as doing in the Hawkeye State, a new variation on the graceful duet in which dancers usually make their moves in harmony but in this case as if the other were invisible. La Palin comes into the state on tiptoe for the premiere of an adoring movie about her, cloaked in classic subtlety that sets off equal and opposite images in the eyes of two leading political blogs: “Sarah...

Now That Would Have Been Some Marketing Meeting! WOW! If this marketing meeting had taken place, about the only thing that could rival it would be Lenny Bruce’s “Religion Inc.” Seems the former Big Cheese of Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, was fretting that his creation of terrorism and murder was losing its’ marketing punch. Osama wanted new name for al-Qaida to repair image As Osama bin...

The tweet read “Susan Boyle moment.” I trusted the sender, so I clicked … and was treated to the spectacle of American talent judges being as dismissive (nonverbally) as those British ones had been. This singer, however, is male, black and from America’s backwater to top all backwaters: West (by-god) Virginia. And for 10 years, the 36-year-old has made his living washing cars. Give him...

Burning up the internets this morning, Chris Wallace asking Michele Bachmann, “Are you a flake?” Bachmann calls the question “insulting,” she’s “a serious person.” Wallace apologized but Bachmann’s apparently not accepting. This following on the heels of the week-long aftermath of Wallace’s Jon Stewart interview. In that interview Stewart said that Wallace stands...

Cartoon fans — particularly younger TMV readers – -get ready for a treat. One of the funniest classic routines was done waaaaaaaay before my time by radio-TV comedy star Jack Benny (who was one of the comedians credited with inventing the situation comedy on radio) and Mel Blanc. It is as funny today as when it was first done. This should be of special interest to cartoon fans. Blanc was the voice...

It seems everyone I meet has a story of a challenge or a downright woe. And, because of this, this showstopper from the classic baseball musical Damn Yankees seems a song for our times. Watch and listen to the words — since they are worth remembering:

Everything is a Remix. Don’t try telling that to famed photographer Jay Maisel. When Andy Baio released a chiptunes tribute to Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, Kind of Bloop, he used a pixellated re-creation of the original’s Maisel cover photo. Maisel, who lives in a six-story, 72-room, 35,000-square-foot lower Manhattan Beaux Arts Gilded Age mansion (for $5,000 you can go inside for a Jay Maisel...

Martin Sutovec, Slovakia This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

When I was a child, slip-n-slides were fastened to lawns with large boulders. Consequently, the definition of summer fun was sliding headfirst between 10 pound rocks, at breakneck speeds, on a moistened strip of plastic runway. Currently, this activity is more commonly categorized as child endangerment. The use of boulders built a natural time limit into our wet and wild fun. After about an hour of head first...

Perhaps no one knows when O.J. Simpson hit bottom — probably not even The Juice himself — but it probably occurred sometime in the run-up to the 1995 slaying deaths of his wife and Ron Goldman, which I concluded as a journalist who covered the story nonstop from murders to acquittal were a consequence of a cocaine-fueled binge, a fit of jealousy, or most likely both. In any event, it is sadly obvious...

Three years ago on June 22nd, American comedian, social critic, actor and author George Carlin died at the age of 71 from heart failure at a Santa Monica, CA hospital. He had a wickedly twisted yet objective take on life, politics, religion, and the English language. He understood the darker side of human nature and was always ready to explain life to his audiences from his uniquely critical perspective. Carlin’s...

Another star is born on You Tube. This time a break dancing Gorilla. The You Tube description from the Calgary Zoo: Zola, nine-years old, is one of eight Western lowland gorillas currently living at the Calgary Zoo as part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Gorilla Species Survival Plan. He loves to play in water and keepers regularly give him the opportunity to do so as part of the enrichment activities...

Preserving the arts is so many areas is an ongoing struggle as America wades deeper into a 21st century featuring new generations with fresh outlooks and new financial challenges. But it is being done, and vital artistic traditions are being kept alive so that they are enjoyed — and carried on — by future generations. One of these is the art of handblown glass — once of a kind pieces that...

When the change was made uptown / And the big man joined the band / From the coastline to the city / All the little pretties raise their hands. — “10th AVENUE FREEZE OUT” I am old enough and fortunate enough to have seen Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band early on, including two shows at a small club in 1973. While Bruce was the main attraction, Clarence Clemons dominated the tiny...

As anyone who has every done comedy can tell you, customized comedy can be tricky — particularly if a client asks for edgy comedy. Because sometimes edgy can go over the edge. And so it was for Obama impersonator Reggie Brown, whose set at the Republican Leadership Conference was cut short as he was all but given the famous vaudeville hook as his jokes veered into what some consider racism and —...

Rick Salutin – who fortunately has landed at the Toronto Star, after being dumped by the Globe and Mail — has an interesting take on the Vancouver riot: Humans are emotional beings, but you can also think of us as symbolic. We invest our lives with meanings beyond the immediate. Sports is part of that. Feelings about teams often reflect stuff like the state of the economy. In hard times, people...

Fighting Against Those Who Rape by Michael Winship Devoted fans of the popular cop show can probably recite it in their sleep: “In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.” Those...

Cardow, The Ottawa Citizen This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

If you missed it (Sunday night, CBS) you missed an amazing show. Thankfully, this year CBS allowed lots of clips on the web. 1 million views and counting for the opening number, Broadway isn’t just for gays anymore! A Hugh Jackman & Neil Patrick Harris dance-off – Dueling Hosts. A mere 427,000 views: Neil Patrick Harris gives a closing rap. Only 9,000 views? No doubt because the making of...

In the wake of Weiner and on the tide of Palin e-mails and Facebook posts, we swim in a world where fame is so uncoupled from achievement that a Republican presidential debate could well be titled “Sarah and the Seven Dwarves,” with a non-candidate’s image hovering over the politicians vying for attention. Seventy years ago, Americans were riveted by a book ironically titled “Let Us Now Praise Famous...

JULIA ORMOND AS SMILLA My appetite for great murder mysteries is never sated. For me they are like eating popcorn and a welcome escape from the heavier foods that make up my literary diet such as historical tracts, biographies and scientific tomes. Over the years, I’ve read my way through the great murder mystery writers — Dashielle Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ellery Queen, Arthur Conan Doyle,...