Origins and Parodies
Before Olbermann started designating his commentaries "special comments," he delivered a commentary on what he characterized as the Bush administration's incompetence in handling the Hurricane Katrina relief effort on September 5, 2005. The commentary was widely shared on the Internet and prompted Rolling Stone to name Olbermann a "truth teller" in its 2005 Men of the Year issue.
On December 18, 2006, MSNBC first aired a show dedicated entirely to Olbermann's special comments. The show, which aired during Countdown's normal time slot during Countdown's holiday hiatus featured four Special Comments: "This hole in the ground", "Feeling morally, intellectually confused?", "A special comment about lying", and "Where are the checks, balances?" Olbermann revealed during this show that his first special comment, "Feeling morally, intellectually confused?" was written on the back of a travel itinerary while waiting for a flight in Los Angeles. Later, on August 31, 2007, Olbermann spoofed himself and the special comments with a guest appearance on The Soup. In it, he and host Joel McHale berated Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan for their misbehavior, going so far as to put up a photo of Anna Nicole Smith as an example of what could happen to them if they don't change their ways. Olbermann similarly parodied the concept (and his own delivery) during the Keeping Tabs segment of the December 7, 2007 edition of Countdown with a "Special Come On." It was directed at FOX Network executives about the possibility of an Arrested Development movie, and extolled the virtues of the show both in terms of quality and marketability.
In 2008, Saturday Night Live guest host Ben Affleck portrayed Olbermann in a parody of Countdown, which featured a mock special comment against the co-op board that would not allow Olbermann to keep his cat, satirically named "Miss Precious Perfect", in an apartment he shares with his mother. Ironically, Olbermann is allergic to cats.
In January 2010, The Daily Show also parodied the special comment format, with host Jon Stewart criticising Olbermann for 'name-calling' in his attacks on Scott Brown.
Read more about this topic: List Of Keith Olbermann's Special Comments
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“The parody is the last refuge of the frustrated writer. Parodies are what you write when you are associate editor of the Harvard Lampoon. The greater the work of literature, the easier the parody. The step up from writing parodies is writing on the wall above the urinal.”
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