Grammys: Was Stephen Colbert out of his element?

Well, yes, Walter. Of course he was. You need only watch Jay-Z’s Bish Please face at 0:38 during Colbert’s “Welcome, folks!” speech (embedded below) to figure that out. Colbert’s good-natured quips like “The Pink-Eyed Green Peas” fell flat with the cool kids, even though that one would have gone over great as a word puzzle with special musical guests on Sesame Street. Tough crowd for Colbert. It’s okay, though. No one really needs to “fit in” at the Grammys. And Colbert certainly doesn’t care. He is a GRAMMY WINNER; plus, his adorable teenage daughter finally thinks he’s cool. And anyone who’s prepared Lady Gaga zingers to fire off backstage is a Grammys winner in my children’s picture book. (For the alien visitor’s next outfit, Colbert predicted, “They’re just going to spray her down with glue and run her through a Build-a-Bear workshop.”)

A bit more jarring for me was the trotting out of random CBS TV stars to present awards to people in the music industry. I have nothing against Kaley Cuoco or Chris O’Donnell in theory, and Simon Baker’s glasses deserved Accessory of the Year, but I couldn’t help but roll my eyes when they came out. Like, ugh, I get it, CBS, TV on the Grammys, lame! Still, I’d rather hear Chris O’Donnell present an award 30 times than Quentin Tarantino pretend he’s a rapper and plug his own movie once. What about you?