Stephen Colbert Kicks Canada When It's Down

Tonight marked the end of Stephen Colbert's epic coverage of the Vancouver Olympics, and he went out with a Canada-bashing bang. What do you do when the host country disappoints? You mock the HELL out of it, naturally. Video inside.

In Since U Been Gone, Kelly Clarkson sang, "Here's the thing, we started out friends," and that's how tonight's segment began, as Colbert expressed his love for the Olympics and Canadian people alike. In the same song, though, Clarkson continues with, "It was cool, but it was all pretend," which perfectly echoes the fact that Colbert's show has been filmed in a New York studio for the past week, but passed off as "LIVE FROM VANCOUVER!" (Colbert actually was in Vancouver for the first few days of the Games.)

Colbert's shameless feigning was not only hilarious, but seemed well received from those actually in Canada, as seen by a satellite feed in the above clip of a cheering, Colbert-loving mass of people. But I digress.

After Colbert's love fest—and after the satellite feed to Vancouver was gone—things got good.

Colbert continued:

You see, Canadians are really nice. This is a country that went into the Olympics with the motto, "Own The Podium." But once the Games began, they graciously fell behind in the medal count. In fact, over the weekend, the CEO of Canada's Olympic Committee said, "We'd be living in a fool's paradise if we said we were going to catch the Americans and win." Well, I hate to break this to you, Canada, but Fool's Paradise is also beating you in the medal count.

Now, if that's not a burn, I don't know what is.

Colbert then played a "Cheer Up, Canada" video montage in an attempt to lift the spirits of the host country—but included footage of the hockey game it lost to the United States. Ruthless!

It wasn't all bad news for Canada, though! After realizing that he may have been a little harsh, Colbert decided to make right with the Canucks by removing them—"Canadian Iceholes," as the card read—from his official "On Notice" list.

All's well that ends well, right?

[The Colbert Report]

Send an email to Matt Cherette, the author of this post, at matt@gawker.tv.

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