go down moses

Possibly one of the funniest clips I have seen on television ever. It happened over a week ago, but hey, it takes me a while sometimes.

Before I get to the funniest clip, I need to show you the clip that preceded it, where Stephen Colbert interviewing Andrew Young, obviously a childhood hero of his. Colbert's father worked with Young to end a strike as Young was just beginning to rise to prominence, and it was rather amusing watching Colbert being joked on almost more than him joking on someone else.



Adding to my enjoyment of his interview were the stories my mom told about when she was teaching high school algebra in Atlanta during the early 70s, when Andrew Young was mayor and she, the young Miss Betty Young, would tell her primarily African-American students that Andrew Young was her cousin. "Naw, Miss Young, you crazy."

Having that as my primary association with Andrew Young, and seeing the preceding interview, when Young ragged on Colbert, saying "I am your destiny," "it's your destiny to end the writer's strike," and "I've heard you practice, you really need your writers back," I spent most of the episode laughing.

But then came this grand finale, which had me rolling. I had just finished Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, and in the epilogue he talks about how he had grown his hair out and part of the inspiration for the book was how he had started getting pulled over by cops who apparently thought he was some kind of a thug based on his hair, only to find a nerdy white boy when they came up to the car. So taking that, with Andrew Young singing, and Colbert giving 110% to the singing, it was one of the funnier things I've seen in a long time. I might just throw the earphones on and watch it again (it keeps getting stuck in Amanda's head, so there's a moratorium on viewings at the moment).