A new interview with Stephen Colbert sheds some much-needed light on what happened with Daft Punk and The Colbert Report last week. The comedian and talk show host talked to his friend and fellow former Daily Show writer Paul Mecurio for The Paul Mecurio Show last week about their lives and careers and spent a good 20-plus minutes talking about the whole Daft situation. As it turns out, while Colbert certainly got the short end of the Viacom stick, a lot of the now-legendary show’s elements were, in fact, filmed in advance. For instance, Robin Thicke was always going to appear and "save the day" because—and this is shitty—Daft Punk said they would appear, but refused to talk, perform, or do much beyond just standing on camera in their outfits. Colbert also suggests that that’s pretty much what the duo will be doing on the VMAs in September, so get those DVRs ready if you’re into immobile Frenchmen.
Colbert also talks about his relationship with MTV Networks head Van Toffler, who he says he doesn’t know, but has heard is a good guy, and says that it wasn’t Stephen Colbert the person who was making fun of Toffler, but Stephen Colbert, character and host of The Colbert Report, who throws a tantrum every time he doesn’t get his way.
Other tidbits from the interview include Colbert revealing that Robin Thicke will also perform on the VMAs and that people at his network, Comedy Central, read his scripts in advance and had no objection to what he was going to say on the Daft Punk episode. They also gave him little to no feedback after the show aired, other than to say, “hey, that was good.” Colbert also gets in a few more jabs at Pitchfork while talking about Daft Punk, so that’s always fun, too.
The whole episode of The Paul Mecurio Show is below, but Colbert really gets talking about Daft Punk at around 24:15.
