Daft Punk bailed on The Colbert Report last night, but Stephen Colbert emerged victorious
Stephen Colbert got Daft Punk’d last night. Though the group had agreed to appear on The Colbert Report over a month ago, it bailed on the show last minute after MTV threatened to pull them off the Video Music Awards broadcast it had also apparently agreed to. The whole thing is a little convoluted—especially since both Comedy Central and MTV are owned by Viacom. But no matter the actual behind-the-scenes circumstances, after he seemingly got the short end of the stick, Colbert definitely got the best of the whole situation.
Colbert railed on both Daft Punk and MTV head Van Toffler for most of his show, tearing apart the fact that this news was dropped on him so late in the game, as well as the supposition that the band couldn’t appear on his show, then appear on another show a month later. “That’s how music works—you love a band, you see them once, then never want to see them again,” Colbert joked. He also read an e-mail from Toffler in which the network head says he’s “not sure [he] can help [Colbert] with that one,” and that he’s “checked with [his] peeps and will check again, but they’re feelin funky on this one.”
Since the episode Daft Punk was supposed to appear on was paid for by Hyundai, Colbert also spent much of the episode pondering his own mortality, after he admitted cashing the car company’s check without being able to deliver the “song of the summer of the century” he’d promised. Fortunately, Robin Thicke just happened to be in town, and he saved the show with his other song of the summer of the century, “Blurred Lines.”
Colbert also aired a piece of tape he’d apparently been working on for some time that featured him dancing to “Get Lucky” with a number of guests and friends of the show, a cavalcade that included Matt Damon, Hugh Laurie, Jeff Bridges, Jimmy Fallon, Henry Kissinger, Jon Stewart via satellite, and a roller-skating Bryan Cranston.