Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart pay tribute to the late great Harold Ramis

Stephen Colbert must keep up appearances as blowhard mouthpiece “Stephen Colbert” on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, but at the tail end of Monday night’s episode, “Stephen Colbert” offered that if he, in fact, were a comedian…”as a young, bookish man with glasses looking for a role model, I might have picked Harold Ramis. Thank you, Harold.”

The real Colbert started at The Second City a generation after Ramis had taken the Chicago improv/sketch mainstage there.

Colbert told the audience of Ramis: “You may not know that through the movies he wrote or directed, he made your life better. And you’ve been quoting his films and the things he wrote for years.”

A half-hour earlier, Jon Stewart dedicated his Moment of Zen on Monday night’s The Daily Show to Ramis with this clip from Stripes, in which his character Russell Zisky is teaching English as a Second Language, and leading his students in song.

Now back to Colbert.

In this web exclusive bit of synergy and harmonic convergence, Colbert presents Darlene Love and her band singing “Da Doo Ron Ron.”

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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