Whether it was planned or not, both "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" offered their take on viral craze the Harlem Shake Thursday night (Feb. 14). So naturally, we have to decide which one is better.
The Harlem Shake meme has taken off within the last week or so, with hundreds of people posting their version to YouTube. It started with a YouTube user who calls himself Filthy Frank, and his original video has 5.7 million-plus views as of this post.
A version set in an office and posted on Feb. 6 (10 million-plus views) seems to have established the template of most of what's come since: Dance music artist Baauer's track "Harlem Shake" (which has little to do with the actual Harlem Shake dance moves for the late '80s and '90s) plays while someone wearing a motorcycle helmet grooves along while the people around him go about their business. At the line "Do the Harlem Shake," there's a quick cut, and suddenly everyone is going nuts.
"The Colbert Report's" version pretty much follows that form, although Stephen Colbert doesn't don a helmet. Jon Stewart does put on some headgear in "The Daily Show's" video, but the rest of it plays out a little differently.
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Bonus embarrassed Anderson Cooper version!