On Wisconsin: Colbert joins Conan in the battle of the fat jokes

I know Stephen Colbert was in Iraq for a week, so it's possible he didn't realize that Conan O'Brien had already used the Wisconsin-is-fat zinger in a mistimed joke last week. But, admittedly, Colbert's late-night dig at Wisconsin's healthy waistlines on last night's episode of "The Colbert Report" was funnier (and didn't include incorrect facts). Plus, he didn't actually pick on Green Bay. Phew.

In his opening monologue, the faux right-wing pundit called attention to the world's largest pair of jeans that was stitched in Croatia. Feigning outrage that the world record belonged to these "Eastern Bloc-heads," he said, "surely there's someone in Wisconsin with bigger jeans than this." He added: "Stand up! Make yourself known! Or if you can't stand up, use your reaching stick to dial the phone." After that, he ordered his audience to take off their pants and pass it forward to reclaim the world record (not shown on TV, of course).

Lucky for Colbert, we've spent up all our anger defending Wisconsin's image last week after Conan's slip-up, so we'll just let this one go and maybe decline that second bratwurst. In the end, we can all be thankful that Wisconsin was used in a sentence that didn't include Brett Favre.

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Croatia's Biggest Jeans World Record
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"The Colbert Report" airs Monday through Thursday at 10:30 p.m. on Comedy Central.

--Malavika Jagannathan, mjaganna@greenbaypressgazette.com