Stephen Colbert skates onto a Sports Illustrated cover

Apparently not satisfied with that NASA treadmill, the devoted fans in Colbert Nation set their sights on something larger (albeit not higher) than exercise equipment in space: complete and total ownership of the wonderfully fit human beings who make up the U.S. speedskating team.

Their gift with purchase? The cover of Sports Illustrated for Stephen Colbert -- in a skating uniform and tie.

Ah, yes, we jest. It's sponsorship, not ownership. Silly us. But the other was so much more dramatic, no?

It started back in November, when mock-pundit Colbert announced that Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" would sponsor the team, which was left in a $300,000 hole when its financial-industry partner declared bankruptcy and waved goodbye.

"We must ensure that it is America's 38-inch thighs on that medal platform!" he said at the time.

So far, according to USA Speedskating, about 8,500 people have responded to raise about $250,000.

The comedian most recently featured on the SI cover? It was Chris Rock, supporting any number of teams back in December 2000.

And who graced the cover the week before Rock did?

That'd be "sportsman of the year" and "one cool cat" Tiger Woods.

No lie.

-- Christie D'Zurilla

Photo: That ain't no bikini model -- it's Stephen Colbert, on the cover of the Dec. 21 edition of Sports Illustrated. Credit: Michael O'Neill / Sports Illustrated / Associated Press.

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Comments

[markiejoe]

c'mon folks, we need more people from Colbert Nation to contribute. i'd like to see them waaay past the $300,000 mark. $10, $25, whatever -- every little bit helps.

[huh]

Christie, I'm puzzled by your choice to end this article by mentioning Tiger Woods. Okay, I get that Chris Rock is also a comedian, and it's unusual for a comedian to have been on the cover of SI. But why does it matter that Woods was on the cover a week before Rock? Tiger Woods is an athlete, so of course he would be on the cover of SI at some point. But Woods has NOTHING to do with the Olympics, the U.S. speed skating team, or Stephen Colbert. It's like saying, "Colbert is a human being who wears a lot of suits. Guess who else was a human being who wears a lot of suits? Adolf Hitler. No lie!"

[CDZ from the Ministry]

@huh ... it's me, Christie D'Zurilla from the Ministry.

Here's how I found the Tiger Woods reference and why I included it:

I was hunting down the link to the Chris Rock cover, because he was the comic to be featured most recently, in 2000, on the front of SI (Bob Hope, the third SI cover comic, was featured in 1963). That image is on SI's site as part of a photo gallery, and if you've ever tried to link to one of those, you know they can be tricky.

Because I wanted to make sure that my link went directly to that cover, I clicked forward and back in the gallery to see if the URL changed with each image. Sure enough, it did.

And coincidentally, the cover from the week before Rock's featured Tiger Woods as sportsman of the year.

This struck me as an interesting bit of synchronicity, given the fact that Tiger's been, well, in the news lately -- and I thought it also placed Chris Rock's cover in context re the passage of time, and emphasized how much has changed for Tiger since the last time a comic (comparing Rock and Colbert) was featured on the cover.

I found the coincidence interesting and slightly amusing. Your mileage may vary. //cdz

[Adrian]

@huh -- don't be puzzled, man. It's called funny, as in laugh, comedy, sarcasm, irony. Tune into the Report and bone up.

[CDZ from the Ministry]

@Adrian -- oh sure, use the old "funny" explanation. Niiiiiiiiiiice.

I tried to explain my dark humor on another post recently -- it was a follow-up to the report of Alexa Ray Joel's OD attempt.

Let's just say, ahem, it did *not* go well for me.

Oh well. You win some, and then other times the audience hurls whole pieces of frozen fruit at you and you just have to keep ducking.

:))

/cdz

[MikeK]

Without Steven Corbert's help the U.S. Speedskating team would be up the ice without any skates, they would be having to do bake sales. So what does Shani Davis do to show his appreciation? He calls Steven a jerk, such a class act.

[Peggy]

MikeK who are you to make that kind of judgment? The three top skaters are not supported by U.S. Speedskating and Colbert really has nothing to do with getting them or any of the other skaters to the Olympics. The USOC does that. Guess you really don't understand that this is merely a marketing/publicity scheme and the joke is on all those naive people who donated the money.