On Wednesday, we covered the situation (or what we thought was the situation) with Daft Punk and Stephen Colbert. On Tuesday night’s Colbert Report, Stephen told his audience that Daft Punk had canceled their appearance on the Report after MTV claimed they had some kind of “exclusive” on the French artists for a “surprise appearance” at the VMAs later this month. Colbert went hard after MTV and Daft Punk, he put together a hilarious, celebrity-filled dance video and then he got Robin Thicke to perform “Blurred Lines”. But what if we just got (Daft) Punk’d?
Daft Punk cancelled their appearance on Tuesday night’s episode of “The Colbert Report” due to contractual obligations to the MTV Video Music Awards… or so the story goes. However, new information suggests that the notoriously press-shy French electronic duo was never supposed to actually show up on “Colbert,” and that Robin Thicke’s “replacement” performance was a pre-planned event instead of a last-minute save.
Sources tell Billboard that Thicke’s “Colbert” performance of his No. 1 hit “Blurred Lines” was actually taped last Tuesday (July 31), when the singer was in New York promoting his new album “Blurred Lines” (Thicke also stopped by “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” last week to perform his single with Fallon and the Roots). On last night’s telecast, Colbert positioned Thicke’s appearance as a replacement for Daft Punk’s no-show, which he claimed to not know about until “two hours” before Tuesday’s taping. Instead of Daft Punk stopping by to perform “Get Lucky,” Colbert ran a pre-taped segment of various celebrities, including Jeff Bridges and Hugh Laurie, dancing to the hit single.
The host also eviscerated Van Toffler, the President of MTV Networks Music & Logo Group, on-air for allegedly stealing Daft Punk away from the Comedy Central program so that they could exclusively appear at the VMAs (both Comedy Central and MTV are owned by Viacom). Colbert even shared an e-mail from Toffler in which the MTV head oddly commented, “Checked with my peeps and will check again but they’re feelin funky on this one.” Was it all part of a larger ruse? Was Daft Punk snatched away from Comedy Central by MTV, or was the group, in fact, never planning to grace the “Colbert” stage?
Reps for MTV and Daft Punk did not immediately respond for comment. Thicke’s appearance on “The Colbert Report” preceded news that the singer’s “Blurred Lines” album and song ruled this week’s Billboard 200 chart and Hot 100 chart, respectively.
Well, I had a feeling that the pre-taped, celebrity-filled dance-athon probably took a week to execute, so it’s perfectly possible that Colbert knew more than a week ago that Daft Punk were likely to be no-shows. But I seriously doubt that Colbert would stunt-queen THAT HARD on the MTV president unless there was some kind of genuine beef. I think it’s probably that Colbert was told a while ago that Daft Punk wouldn’t show up and Viacom was throwing their weight around, so Colbert decided to have some fun with a bad situation. Or maybe I’m wrong and Stephen Colbert is a huge stunt queen.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
I still love him, even if he is a stunt queen. I do think they cancelled, probably last week because those were last weeks guests (Hugh Laurie, Brian Cranston) but I loved the dance montage, especially Henry Kissinger and Jeff Bridges!
Couldn’t agree more.
I think MTV/Viacom deserve to be called out. Besides, that dance montage was so much fun to watch I could care less when it was done. Colbert is the shizz & I hope he gets an Emmy this year. When he came out of the closet in Kissinger’ s office I just lost it. Brian “Breaking mothef*cking Bad” Cranston, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon Booth?! Brilliance plain & simple.
Same here. It was awesome. Of course some of it was contrived but that doesn’t make it any less awesome.
I was at the taping July 31st (photos from my IG in the hyperlink). Robin Thicke performed that day before the taping for that night.
Before and after the show, Colbert takes questions from the audience (amazing) and that day, before he took questions, he (hilariously) explained the situation. Daft Punk agreed to do the show, but then had their managment inform him that they would not be interviewed. Then, they later told him they would not perform. On top of that, MTV screwed him from them even appearing on the show.
As an audience member, we had no clue who was coming to perform. So that last segment where Thicke performed was pre-taped with us (a different, previous audience) and he really did sneak into his seat and had everyone surprised lol. It was awesome being there- we got one and a half shows out of it!- but he made it pretty clear that DP and MTV ruined months of planning and sponsorship.
Oh and Colbert dances off camera, while the crew sets up finishing touches. Seeing his moves in person was the highlight of the week!
Thanks for sharing (and making me jealous;) Would love to see him or Stewart live. Watching them at the end of a bad day is necessary for my sanity. BTW, who knew Kissinger had a sense of humor? Colbert got H.K. to let him dance around his office. I have no words.
Very interesting perspective, thanks for sharing!
I loved the clip, it was hysterical. You can tell Colbert has rhythm (so does Cranston), even if his moves were a bit wacky! I am so jealous you got to see him shake it off camera.
that is awesome! thanks for sharing!
He can be a stunt queen at times, though it’s usually done in a very tongue in cheek way. I’m pretty sure he knew at least a week ahead of time, but what’s wrong with that? Getting that many celebs together just doesn’t happen in 2 hours.
That said, I love me some Ste-Col, lol. I’d watch him pop out of Kissinger’s closet all day long.
Yeah your theory sounds about right. No way was that done in two hours, but no way would he burn that dude so hard if it was not legit a situation
Argh. SO many places are repeating this “two hours” misquote that it has become “fact”. What he said on TV (watch the clip online if you don’t believe me) was “two o’clock yesterday” (Aug 5). Now I realise July 31 was earlier than that, but despite how many places in the media repeat the “two hours” quote, it’s not what he said. I never trust the media to get things right, but it’s pretty clear that they have to be lazily copying each other’s articles rather than reporting it themselves.
THANK YOU. I felt like I was the only one who actually watched the video. I have no idea where this “two hours” stuff came from.
Also, just because Thicke performed earlier didn’t mean the tape was scheduled to air that day; they might have had to move things around.
I think the episode with DP was going to be shot in advance, so it was all recorded last week either way. So eventhough it was shown on Tuesday the 6th, DP probably did now show on the 30th-ish. You’ll notice there was no news on the episode, so they didn’t have to tape it that day. They just lucked out that they had a week to make that video
Yea I agree. I think it was still thrown together the last minute but it was just pre-recorded. Good catch on there not being any current events in that episode!
even if it was, it was still entertaining as hell.. I ain’t mad at him.
Well, he’s a host of a satire news show on a comedy channel.
Yes, thank you! It doesn’t matter one iota whether it’s true or not because it’s a comedy show about a fictional conservative talk show. And Colbert *should* be a stunt queen because that’s his job….
That is what someone said yesterday. And people seems to forget that the same company own the Colbert show AND MTV. So that was a big stunt. I just hope Daft Punk knew that because they really DON’T like the press which means if they didn’t, there is a big chance they will never go to the Colbert show.
Even though Viacom owns Comedy Central and MTV (as well as as pup-be-gone euthanasia centers), why would he need to promote something on a different channel, and something that is a month away. Also, it really put MTV in a bad light, so as promotional tool, it really didn’t work.
This isn’t exactly Colbert’s style, though. And all this means is that the episode was pre-taped, but by all accounts it was indeed supposed to be Daft Punk there.
Re: MTV and CC being owned by the same Corp. Of course they are. There wasn’t a contractual exclusion re: one month of exclusivity, so the only reason why MTV was able to pressure Daft Punk into cancelling was because they could get the network to side with them vs. Comedy Central. The VMAs are probably a more valuable property to Viacom than a single episode of the Colbert Report, so it would actually make MORE sense this way. Otherwise Comedy Central would most likely tell MTV where their ‘exclusivity’ could go.
I don’t know why they keep reporting it
as 2 hours before, cause on his show, he said he found out at 2 pm the day before the taping, not 2 hours.
Well it had to be a setup. How could they produce that skit in such a short of time?
Well….maybe the pre recorded dance number was intended to play while Daft Punk was on the show? And they just decided to play it anyway even though Daft Punk cancelled.
This is what I had heard. That the video was to be played and that Daft Punk was only going to show up to Colbert Report, not perform. I think the thing was they were going to make it a controversy for them not “performing”, so that was planned. Except then MTV decided they didn’t even want them to show up, even if they weren’t going to perform. THAT part wasn’t planned. Hence the wrath of Colbert. I read this on the internet though, so as usual take it with a grain of salt.
Yes, THIS.
http://nyti.ms/15NaUhA
“According to three people who were briefed on the talks or directly involved in them, Daft Punk’s planned appearance had already been a source of stress for “Colbert” since the group was only willing to appear in costume, and not perform or sit for an interview.”
So I would bet all my money that Colbert was taping all those segments to play while Daft Punk was there, and their non-performance was going to be the joke. Not showing up? Definitely NOT the plan.
IMO, it made the show all the better that daft punk didn’t show up.
Who cares? Colbert isn’t an actual “news” show, although sometimes, both he and John shed more light on current events and pop culture than real “news” programming.
Exactly: CNN, MSNBC make me want to put a gun to my head for all the mindless reporting they do. It’s exhausting watching the same thing over and over. And some really important stories they just shoot off to the interwebs.
NPR seems to be one of the few news entities with any sort of integrity in their reporting.
Also check out ProPublica online: http://www.propublica.org/. Basically they operate independently through donations.
So many news organizations are now owned by corporations. “Free Press”, not so free anymore.
Here’s my own theory. He said he found out about it at 2 o’clock the previous day giving him over 24 hours to get the replacement skit done.
He asked his guest for that night Hugh Laurie to film his bit.
He asked Brian Cranston (who he interviewed the night before)to do something and probably went to him to film it.
He had Matt Damon film the Matt Damon Booth and the mini interview that aired last night. Win win.
Jeff Bridges could have just swung by, the Rockettes/Jon Stewart are easy to sort out from New York.
The Fallon bit and Robin Thick might have been for something else, but there’s no way he’d risk adverse publicity by faking it, he’s much too smart for that, and he’d get called out by Daft Punk or one of his other guests.
The fact that Billboard misreported the ‘two hours notice’ part says a lot.
Yep. I’m totally with you. He used the guests he had on hand and called in a few favors.
Not to mention that he addressed this rumor directly the next night.
THIS. Stephen clearly says in his monologue that he had 2 hours notification on TUESDAY that DP would be no shows. That gave him over 24 hours to pull this together~and who, honestly, WOULDN’T wamt to play along with Stephen? The man is diabolically clever, funny, and sexy as all get out.
Exactly. I think he has a batch of recordings that are either ‘rainy day’ stuff for when, you know, a guest doesn’t show at the last minute leaving him to scurry around trying to pull something together, or deleted materials from previous hostings with those people (probably where the Kissenger bit came from. He interviewed Kissenger once; it’s not a huge stretch to imagine that he shot footage with Kissenger that he didn’t use in the final show).
Laurie & Cranston & Damon were all on hand, at some level, when the sh*t hit the fan and probably just agreed to help a buddy out.
And any other celebs who appeared could have just gotten a frantic talk-show host equivalent to a ‘booty call’ and jumped at a last-minute opportunity to be part of a Colbert stunt.
It’s not really hard to imagine, at all, that all of it could have been done at the last minute.
Colbert is no moron–why would he make a claim like that if the people he eviscerated (along with their lawyers, because they have no sense of humor)could just turn around and say ‘uh, that’s not true. Look at the time stamp on this email’?
Who even cares? The skit is hilarious! I’m laughing right now just thinking about it.
Colbert is a bit of a stunt queen, but he isn’t a liar. He was left in the lurch & it is a testament to his friendships that so many people jumped up to help him.
Lol why does 2 hours keep coming up when he clearly says 2 o clock yesterday. And all those guests were on the week before, even Jeff bridges so they definitely knew way ahead of time and just filmed when the guests were there and a dance team too. He can’t do that in 24 hours. Not a big deal. Hyundai did pay him a lot of money so he had to being awesome to the table…and he did. Now it sounds like its going to be a running joke on the show. Stephen was cool about it. Besides he is a stunt queen, always has been. It’s not his first bit like this. All in good fun. He makes people laugh and he hasn’t hurt anyone in the process.
I don’t care either way, he is my dream fantasy husband and I love him madly.
What controversy is there? They were the assholes who were booked with him a month, and then cancelled on him the afternoon of the day they were supposed to appear, leaving him in a lurch.
It was their fault, that theirs alone, that he was suddenly left with a ton of time in his show to fill. It’s only fair that he got to spend that time ripping them all new buttholes and proving that the public & media will happily poop on MTV for him. As for all the celebrities being part of a ‘stunt’–I sort of pictured him running around frantically, calling in favors, to have material for his show.
As for the celebrity performers–he is in NYC, and he is well connected. Hugh Laurie–as someone pointed out–was his guest that night. I’m sure plenty of it could have been pre-recorded vid…maybe even pre-recorded for an ‘oh, sh*t, my guest just cancelled on me the day before I’m set to film’ rainy day.