Kilborn's back on TV... sorta

I think the show, overall, was better during those Kilborn years.
Who was the head writer then, Liz Winstead?

 

I think it was Winstead who Kilborn got in trouble for making fun of in an interview in either Rolling Stone or Esquire.

 

I think I remember reading that there was some tension between them, but I honestly don't recall much of the details.
Kilborn's on-screen persona aside, the show was different and fresh then. It was hip without the self-conscious hipness and smugness from which it suffers now.

 

Kilborn crossed the line with what he said in Esquire.

He deserved to be called on it.

 

I think they asked him how his relationship was with his lead female writer and he said something like, "Well, she's under the desk right now." and got a paid vacation.

 

She was co-creator of the show. he said:

Ms. Winstead, who said she "is in her 30's," is as famous for leaving The Daily Show as she is for creating it. In January 1998, she walked away from the show after the host Craig Kilborn told Esquire , "To be honest, Lizz does find me very attractive. If I wanted her to blow me, she would."

http://www.observer.com/1999/lizz-winstead-returns-and-so-does-marv

In a quote that was labeled a joke in the article, but which had none of the female members of the show's staff laughing, Mr. Kilborn called Ms. Winstead and other women on the show a derogatory name and then suggested that she liked him and would perform a sex act on him if he wanted her to.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/17/arts/tv-notes-comedy-host-in-hot-water.html


They did not get along at all, so any idea that he was just joking didn't ring true.

They're both from Minnesota. I remember see Winstead working the door at one of Scott Hansen's comedy clubs in Minneapolis in the 80s and then seeing her set.

 

Seriously, though. Craig and Dan were damn good at what they did.

 

"They've cut this kind of loose, no?"

Fucking classic.

 

Kilborn dropped my all-time SC one-liner about a Turkish weightlifting during the Atlanta Olympics, shortly before he left:
"Olympic weightlifting is a PG-rated sports, even though it sometimes involves using the phrases "snatch," "clean and jerk," and "Pocket Hercules" in the same sentence."
Only a guy with his exit already planned could pull that off.

 

I loved The Daily Show with Kilborn, mostly because it came on while I was in college. Hell, I remember it before they had a studio audience, for the first season. Thought it was great then, and still do - wish they would show those clips on Comedy Central's Web site. Trivial Compromise, God Stuff ... that and Win Ben Stein's Money made for a great hour of television around 1996-98.

Anyway, my favorite Kilborn SC moment was this: They broadcast a clip of someone holding up a sign that said "Marry Me, Suzzy Kolber." Kilborn says (paraphrasing): "First of all, there's one Z. Secondly, get in line."

 

Can you still be a smarmy frat boy at 48? That's the question.

 

Sheeeeeeit . . . W could.

(now, back to your regularly-scheduled program . . .)