A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All is a suitably bewildering, self-referential holiday special from the prince of fake news television. Clad in an extra wholesome Christmas outfit, the titular Stephen Colbert spouts Christmas cheer with appearances by his good friend and former Daily Show associate, Jon Stewart, and musicians Toby Keith, Willie Nelson, John Legend, Feist, and Elvis Costello.
Obviously not your average entry-level holiday special, A Colbert Christmas is specifically, and fortunately, made for fans of the show. The actual show clocks in at about 42 minutes, and while it's a worthwhile purchase for diehard fanatics, I'm not sure its charms would be so arresting to someone with no previous contact with The Colbert Report.
The special is, of course, filled with the type of cutting wit that Colbert is famous for, from moments where he explains that Elvis Costello is like Avril Lavigne only “instead of skateboarding he sings about people dying in shipyards” through his attempted exit of his Christmas cabin halted by — what else? — a giant grizzly bear! The musical guests are planted throughout the show almost haphazardly, with John Legend showing up as a forest ranger and, in one of the special's most inspired bits, Feist acting as an angelic operator for the prayer line to heaven, singing a darling jingle called “Please Be Patient”. An exciting addition to these stars singing musically appropriate but lyrically bizarre (or sexual, or violent, or stoned...) Christmas songs (e.g. John Legend's R&B love song to nutmeg) is the heavenly voice and floating head of Stephen Colbert himself, joining in the revelatory caroling and 'jamming' if you will.
The special features are paramount to this DVD working as well as it does. The option of turning off the audience laugh track is a nice touch, as are the alternate endings, three in total that are worth a viewing for a couple chuckles apiece. Also included is a Colbert video advent calendar, which provides one short comedic video for each day in December leading up to Christmas. I cheated and watched them all, and I gotta say, I'd look forward to December 2 if I were you.
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