The Trolls Laugh Last; A Moment for Bill O'Reilly and Ellen DeGeneres

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We realize there's only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Ambushing Internet trolls is not popular with trolls, Ellen DeGeneres appreciated Bill O'Reilly sticking up for her last night, and there's a revised version of Pete Hoekstra's Super Bowl campaign spot.

Bill O'Reilly put on his reasonable guy hat last night to defend Ellen DeGeneres from One Million Moms, the group that's boycotting J.C. Penney because DeGeneres is their spokesperson. As defenses go, it was notably full-throated: O'Reilly (correctly) called the boycott a witch hunt and said it was the kind that wouldn't have seemed out of place during the Red Scare. DeGeneres, for her part, thanked O'Reilly on her show today. Both did something decent and noble, which doesn't happen on television every day. [Mediaite]

Michelle Obama's talk show blitz reached maximum levels of silliness last night when Jimmy Fallon wore a silly vintage track suit and challenged the First Lady to a sack race. It was fun, if you like Fallon and people falling during sack races, but we yearned for the understated charm of the vaguely European chef's voice she trotted out when Jay Leno refused to eat his vegetables last week. [NBC]

Former Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra's Super Bowl spot was excruciatingly offensive, but it has led to one good thing: a terrific Funny or Die parody video demonstrating the various ways he could have gone about stereotyping "Asia." (Bonus points for the line about fake Hoekstra having seen Rush Hour and Rush Hour 3. Le mot juste.) [Funny or Die]

It was only a matter of time before Internet trolls got their own To Catch a Predator-style gotcha! reality show. The trolls, as usual, are getting the last laugh. Check out the comments section on the YouTube video. [BBC]

We try not to double-down on clips from the same program, especially when the second is two days old, but the discomfort Martin Scorsese showed on Ellen while trying to get through a bit about the dogs from The Artist felt eerily like the most wrenching scene from his own film Taxi Driver, minus the handgun and utter sense of hopelessness, of course. He's supposed to be doing the thing Martin Scorsese does when he's being Martin Scorsese -- talking quickly and enthusiastically about pictures -- but he never quite gets going. Maybe it's because he's talking about dogs, or because Ellen doesn't give him much to work with, but there's a moment where he tries to pull back and survey the entire situation that reminded us of Travis Bickle watching American Bandstand and just trying to understand. [Ellen]

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.