Robots, Dragons and Sandworms, or: Stephen Colbert in The Hobbit

Yeah, I’m not gonna lie to you: not only is there still a baffling lack of comics news today with it being two days before New Year’s, but today I had to bring the Crisis On Infinite Midlives mascot, Parker The Kitten, to the vet, and not only that, but I took delivery on, installed and configured a top-of-the-line robotic vacuum to clean up after Crisis On Infinite Midlives mascot, Parker The Kitten. And those activities in and of themselves would have led to a busy day even if making the robot chase Parker around the house while I shrieked, “Exterminate! Exterminate!” didn’t lead to hours of hilarity.

But they did lead to hours of hilarity, and I am still working on my Best of 2013 piece, which means that there is fuck-all of genre news to report today. But there is one nifty little thing that I found today: anyone who watches The Colbert Report on Comedy Central knows that Stephen Colbert is a world class J.R.R. Tolkien fan. The man can argue the vital nature of Tom Bombadil the same way I can argue what a shame it is that Frank Herbert dropped dead halfway through writing Children of Dune, making that half-book the final word written about the Atreides family.

However, it is unlikely, despite my fandom, that I will be cast in the Dune movie, since it was released when I was 13 years old and, in the way I can argue that Children of Dune was the final book, I can argue that there was actually no Dune movie.

Colbert, however, was cast in a Tolkien movie, specifically the most recent Hobbit movie, The Desolation of Smaug. He wasn’t cast as one of the major players (not even one of the major players that director Peter Jackson and his writers made up – hi, Kate from Lost!), but as some dude in the background, easily missed. But we have found some screen grabs of Colbert’s appearance, which you can see in more detail after the jump.

There. Exciting, wasn’t it?

Yeah, I agree. Not so much. At least not as exciting as trying to train a vacuum robot to bring me beer. Or barring that, to smuggle melee weapons for me while I’m being threatened by morbidly obese crime lords. Jesus, it won’t even tell me recorded messages by Carrie Fisher. This fucker’s getting a restraining bolt first thing in the morning, or after Parker stops trying to make it his woman, whichever comes first.

(via The Mary Sue)