UPDATE, 12:10 PM: “First of all, he’s not as funny as Jon Stewart. Stephen Colbert will have the lowest-rated late night show,” when he moves to CBS, Sean Hannity said today in response to Colbert’s bit last night on his Comedy Central show about “Apparently” Kid being Hannity’s successor.
The Fox News Channel star reacted to Colbert’s bit when asked by TV Newser during a pre-arranged phoner to promote Hannity taking his show to Jerusalem and interview with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Colbert’s gag had made liberal use of footage from Hannity’s show in Jerusalem in which he used the word “literally” as often as 5-year-old Noah Ritter uttered “apparently” during his star-making local news interview about a local fair.
“Maybe Stephen Colbert needs to come over here and get a dose of reality. He sits in the comfort of his studio, reading jokes written for him by 30 writers,” Hannity said. ” So, I have a challenge for Stephen Colbert: I’ll pay for your flight. I’ll pay for your hotel, your meals. Then you sit on the border. You talk to the people. You sit across from the mother of an Israeli solider who was killed, and then make a joke about it.”
PREVIOUS, 7 AM: Stephen Colbert explained last night that one of the reasons he is ending his “news” show on Comedy Central is because “news anchor babies … are breathing down my neck.”
He’s talking about 5-year-old Pennsylvanian Noah Ritter, who hijacked a local news report about a county fair when he took the microphone to demonstrate the use of his favorite new word, “apparently,” and to announce he’s never been on live TV before and does not watch the news because he’s a kid — except the Powerball part. The video has gone viral, and Noah has been featured on NBC’s Today.
“He’s already established the word ‘apparently’ as his catchphrase — that’s the sort of senseless repetition that marks a real news legend, like Sean Hannity,” Colbert said. Watch:
Must Read Stories
Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy.